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AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL 


ROUBLISHED WEREKLY 


VOLUME IV 


-JULY—DECEMBER 1884 


SMITHSON AR, 


JUL 23 1986 
NA LeRARIES 


CAMBRIDGE MASS. 
Tame owe LEN CRY COM PANY 
1884 | 


CoOPYRIGH?, 1884, 


By THE SCIENCE COMPANY. 


Franklin Yress: 


CONTENTS 


OF VOmU ME Ty 


SewWwiC bat (ARTICLES. 


PAGE 
Abbott, C. C. The color-sense in fishes. Jil. . 336 
Hibernation of the lower vertebrates. Jll.. . OO, 
Agassiz association . 0 - » 487 
American association for the advancement ‘of : science. Pro- 
ceedings of the section of mathematics and astronomy, 

291; of physics, 296; of chemistry, 320; of mechanical 

science, 322; of geology and geography, 825; of biology, 

339; of histology and microscopy, 342; of anthr opology, 

348; of economic science and statistics 346 
American association meeting in Sei eats 189 
American historical association . 312 
American oriental society . 443 
American ornithologists’ union . 374 
American public health association 440 
Armsby, H.P. Special manures for particular. crops 5 OI 
Association of aificial: agricultural chemists of the United 

States .. 312 

Babbitt, Franc E. Some implements ‘of the Minnesota 

Ojibwas Is 6 3 627 
Blake, W.P. The Carson- City ichnolites. ll. . -- 278 
Blanford, W.T. The correlation of geological forma- 

tions. Address to the British association . 208 
Botanical club of the American association 358 
Bramwell, Sir F.J. The relation of mechanical science 

to other sciences. Address to the British association . 215 
Branner, J.C. The porordca, or bore, of the Amazon. : 

Ill. ~/s -48 
British association for the advancement of science. " Pro. 

ceedings of the section of mathematical and physical 

science, 248; of chemical science, 254; of geology, 257; 

of biology, 260; of geography, 279; of economic science 

and statistics, 283; of mechanical science, 287; of an- 

thropology . : 316 
British association, some distinctive featur es of the 203 
Brooks, W.K._ A new law of organic evolution. . 582 
Carpenter, W.L. Education at the international health 

exhibition 353 
Cholera bacillus. Koch’s reply ‘to his critics . 554 
Christmas greeting 563 
Civil engineers, meeting of, at Buffalo 11 
Committee reports of the American association . 357 
Comparative study of the two associations . : 271 
Cope, E. D. Catagenesis, or creation by retrograde 

metamorphosis of energy. Address to the American 
- association . 0 tae ce Roe hes 240 
Dall, W.H. A Mussulman propaganda : 457 
Dana, C.L. <A scientific study of lawn-tennis 473 
Danish international polar station. Jé/.. . 476 
Davis, W.M. Drumlins. Jil. . ; 418 

Temperature and its changes in the United States. Z2/. 569 
Tornadoes, and how to escape them. Jil. . 572 
Eaton, John. Scientific methods and scientific knowl- 

edge in common affairs : oe . 246 
Eclipses, 1885. Jil. . . 578 
Eddy, H. T. College ‘mathematics. "Address to the 

American association . 0 Alon setevel tem tatl LOO 
Electrical conference, notes on the 313 
Electrical testing establishments .. . 224 
Epidemic cholera and infectious diseases 144 
Excursion map of the vicinity of Baltimore 518 
Exploration of the Kowak River. Jil... . Pee OO 
Exploration of Putnam [Kowak] River, Alaska . . 496 
Filhol, H. The echinoderms dredged by the Talisman. Tl’. 102 

The lower forms of life aretees by the Talisman. Ji/. . 171 
Flora of the high Alps . 475 
Fol, H. The changes which ‘fermentation produces’ in 

milk - 5 : 405 
G., A. George Bentham. Portrait 352 
Greene, C.E. Shaft-sinking by freezing . 443 
Greenwich observatory. . 61 
Hagen, H.A. Lawsuits against grubs and graeshoppers, 168 
Harvard physiological laboratory. Jii.. . 128 
Higher education and the masses 53 
History of almanacs. Jil. .. . cs 492 
Hochstetter, Ferdinand von. Portrait aye 470 
ale W.H. Burial-masks of the ancient Peruvians. 

10 
HO6tel des Neuchitelois, ‘and what became of it. ae 360 


PAGE 
How far a light may be seen under water . 421 
Hubbard, G.G. Canal routes between the Atlantic and 
the Pacific. Map A 3 . 434 
Importance of chemistry in biology and ‘medicine - oe #454 
Indian languages of South America - 138 
International polar stations. Map . Se - 370 
Johnson, A.B. North-Atlantic currents. Il... 415 
Kafiristan : 404 
Koch’s work upon tuberculosis, and the present condition 
of the question a9 
Kunz, G. F. Korean curios. Ill... Si eh) 3 53, wee eg os 
Langley, J. W. Chemical affinity. "Address to the 
American association. . a By As! 
Late news from the north-west. . st 2 ASE 
Lefroy, Sir J. H. Recent geogr aphical discovery. Ad- 
dress to the British association - Sen 74D 
Lesley, J. Peter. Portrait 5 190 
Limitations of submarine telegraphy. Ill. 438 
Lyon, D.G. Semiticnotes . . 378 
Macfarlane, James. The formation of caiions and 
precipices . . Gal Seow Oo! ae 3 - 2 99 
Madison educational convention . 112 
Map of the solar system. UJ. 583 
Meridian conference . ae | 376, "406, 421 
Merriam, C. H. The coming of the robin and other 
early birds. . d71 
The ‘hood’ of the hooded seal, Cystophora_ cristata. Tl. 514 
Minot, C.S. Death and individuality sae 398 
The organization of an international scientific association, 80 
Morning and evening stars, 1885 d77 
Morse, E. 8. Man in the tertiaries. Address to the 
American association. . : 244 
Moseley, H.N. The physiolog y ‘of. deep- sea life. Ad- 
' dress to the British association . 209 
Munroe, C. HK. Recent observations on explosive a agents, 13 
National conference of electricians : 127 
New Bogosloff voleano . ics 138 
New maps of the heavens. Maps. eget tite Mau "ye 580 
New voleano of the Bering Sea. J//. . . . - 432 
Newcomb, Simon. Can ghosts be inv estigated : > 525 
Psychic force . : SONIC NE SA Oe < 372 
North-A frican archeology . 438 
Notices of ethnologic publications . é 15 
October meeting of the National academy of sciences’ 396 
Over-pressure in schools 497 
Overwork in German schools 136 
Feu H.M. LEdison’s three-wire system of distribution. 
ois : > 8 477 
The ‘equatorial coudé. Til. 101 
Krakatoa . : 135 
Measuring earthquakes. SUTIN He = 516 
A pr oposed new departure in hyg potty - 137 
Radiant matter in an Edison lamp . Rare 374 
Peirce, C.S. The ‘old stone mill’ at N Newport. Ili. 512 
Philadelphia meeting of the American association. . 229 
Powell, J. W. Certain peneipley of -pHnuteve) law 436 
Marriage law in savagery : ot es, AG 
Psychical research in America . . . 509, 369 
Railway-signals at the electrical exhibition 506 
Rathbun, R. American appliances for deep- sea inves- 
tigation. — The dredges. Ul. : HS te . 146 
The same. —'Trawls and tangles. Tl. 225 
The same.— Miscellaneous. Jil. . . : 400 
The American initiative in deep-sea dredging : wi te Oe 
Rayleigh, Lord. Recent progress in physies. “Address 
to the British association . ee 
Rayleigh, Lord, Dees of the British association. _ Por. 
trait ¢ 161 
Ridgway, ‘Robert. The bird-collection in the U. 
national museum. 496 
Riley, C. V. The insects of the y ear 565 
Roberts, I. P. Important agricultural statistics 575 
A few pertinent hints to farmers. Jl. . o76 
Rockwood, G., jun. Ear ‘iuaker in the United 
States and Canada : 569 
Roscoe, H. E. Progress of chemistry | since 1848. Ad. 
dress to the British association : - 206 


Ruby-hill mines, Eureka, Ney. 


Iv SCIENCEH. — CONTENTS 


PAGE 
S., C. ‘S. Alphonse Lavallée . . Shishi 10 
Schwatka, F. The paplemente' ol of the igloo. Lil. 81 
The Netschilluk Innuit. Zi. . AiO 543 
Science calendar, 1885 RT SERO RNC KL eas Say LE ay ea Rowmbel it 584. 
Sella, Quintino. Portrait. . . . . 2 6 ee ee 541 
Specialization in scientific study 35 
Standard time-table : ate 581 
Stokes, A.C. A burrowing ‘spider. es tae 114 
Stone, C.P. Navigation of the Nile. Map.. 456 
Sudan, the. oe 530 
Sun and the planets, their comparative dimensions. Lil. 582 
Sun-time and clock-time. ///. . See isos 
Temple, Sir Richard. The ‘general statistics of the 
British empire. Address to the British association . 214 
Thomson, Sir William. Steps toward a kinetic theory 
of matter. Address to the British association. 0. 204 
Thomson, Sir William. Portrait... . RMS de. etalk 430 
Thomson’s, Sir William, Baltimore lectures A Geta) oes ne he NOM 
Thurston, R. H. The mission of science. Address to 
ihevAmerican association. . . . «4 « « =» » » « 200 
The work of Octave Hallauer. sae 306 
Tide-table 577 
Tissandier, G. Navigation of theair. Jil... 531 
Trelease, William. Blooming-times for flowers 573 
Trowbridge, noun: eremOepienle clecmaeey: 164 
Thunder-storms. 97 


OF VOLUME IV. 


PAGE 

Trowbridge, John. What is clecineliaig Adare to 
the American association . . »+ Zaz 
Two large sun-spots. Jil. . . 460 


Tylor, EH. B. How the problems ‘of American anthro- 
pology present themselves to the English mind . . 545 
Some American aspects of anthropology. Address to the 


British association . . > eee 
University, an ideal, from an English ‘point of view... 95 
Upton, Winslow. Weather forecasts. . 568 
Verrill, A. EH. Evidences of the existence of light at 

great depthsinthesea .. . ah eee 8 
Visit of the British association . . 160 
Ward, L. F. Irrigation in the upper Missouri and Yel. 

lowstone valleys... 2) oe GO 
Wider use for the libraries of scientific societies nae 330 


Winchell, N. H. The crystalline rocks of the north- 


west. ‘Address to the American association . .. . 238 
Work of the meridian conference. . ere we os CilA 
Wormley, T. G. Microscopic science. Addneee to bes 

American association . . 5 5 veers 244. 
Wurtz, Charles Adolph. Portrait . . 6 
Young, C. A. Pending problems in astronomy. Ad- 

dress to the American association . . 192 

Sun-spots and the earth. Ji/. . . sy ice OL 


Ziwet, A. Euclid as a text-book of geometry ot Wel Pray tee BAS 
Zodlogical researches of the Scottish fishery board . . . 478 


BOOK REVIEWS. 


PAGE 
Aborigines of Chile . . : 423 
Alglave and Boulard’s Electric light < 463 
American coaster’s nautical almanac . 20 
Bergen’s Development theory 311 
Burton’s A B C of pha pperanny - 464 
Caste in Indiain1881 . . 557 
Census report of 1880 - 119 
Clarke’s Elements of chemistry . oh ihe san Yoewon ve 500 
©ontemmporary.socialism . . . » « © © « « » » 53 
Cotterill’s Applied mechanics 406 
Coues’s Key to North-American bir ds 86 
Wissler’s Modern high explosives . .... . ... - 278 
Exploring movaee of the Challenger. J//. By G. Brown 
Goode . Piten ics teas tetas cue te ver eee Wat ta) Be LOGO 
Face of the ear th. Jil. SS Bose kas: SG Motiass aby so weapt) 
Fiske’s Electricity 19 
Geological and natural- history sur vey of Canada 362 
Geology of south-eastern Pennsylvania . : 447 
Geology of the Susquehanna-river region . 120 
Greene’s Lessons in chemistry . 500 
Heap’s Report on the Paris electrical exhibition of 1881 . 464 
History of American institutions a Js aiiskitoh i 178 
Home rambles of an American naturalist . 380 
Indian folk-lore and grey : : 499 
Indian sign-language . E 556 
Inhabitants of the Punjab . 360 
Jagnaux’s Chemical analysis. . 500 
Kennedy’s Wonders of the railway 520 
Kolbe’s Inorganic chemistry . 500 
Languages of Africa. By Z. H. 310 
Life of Ellen Watson 380 
MacLeod’s Elementary zodlogy - 311 


PAGE 
Mammals of the Adirondacks Pee tn) 445 
Man’sfuture. .. Premenmir ty 6 oo | LUE 
Mental evolution in animals . . . PTEry Gl clo 5) (LG 
Merriman’s Method of least squares . . . ... =... 39 
Metallurgy of primitive nations. : 


3 2 
Minor book notices i 311, "463, 520 


Mosses of North America. By s wv. 446 
New-England orchids . . MP a a. ) CSCS 
New volume of the tenth census Pe od os 5. 6) AGL 
New-York agricultural station <  .— 0.) <2) cuaineteemeeD LG! 


Ohio agricultural experiment-station. . ... .. -. = 249 
Origin of the Ohio mounds... .-. .°*.. = = os seein 


Palmistry . c Pema. th iG. Ove, 
Popular work on American natural | history MCMC | 0) Gow 
Pseudo-science. . 0 Se DL | AES 


Recent chemical text-books ae wo te, eS eee) LC 
Resources of the United States . < . °. .) 5) sje eeneee le 


Science in Manchester . .« «© «). «© 9s 6) = SO MOn ED 
Scientific butter-making . . 40) % = (se Nene neon 
Sidgwick on fallacies . Perret 6. (GR 


Society for psychical research. “Tl. mere riicurs «5 4h) 
Synoptical flora of North America . =< . 2 3) 2) aaneeoUe 


Tait’s Heat . 9. MP 5 
Tait's Light . . Merrie le, | lk; 
Thompson’ 8 Dynamo- electric machines Meee cw OU 
Turner’s Samoa .. Peo co. 5 
U.S. geological survey. “WM. . +). 1. | 
Value of sorghum . Preece iyo. 6 AEE 
Vidal’s Photometric tables acetals mer bo ell 
Virulence of cultivated anthrax virus... .. .. . 276 
Wiedemann’s Electricity. By 7. 8S. C.. . = %. \:(e) saeeeeen 
Wright’s Adjustment of observations ..... .. . 9820 


INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 


Johns Hopkins university, 72. 


U.S. bureau of ethnology, 22. 


U.S. geological survey, 22, 43, 71, 184. 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC 


Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, 23, 154, 185. 
Brooklyn entomological society, 44, 

Cincinnati society of natural history, 44, 263. 

Engineers’ club, Philadelphia, 24. 

Minnesota academy of natural sciences, 73. 


SOCIETIES. 


New-York academy of sciences, 105. 
New-York microscopical club, 25. 
Philosophical society, Washington, 154, 186. 
Torrey botanical club, New York, 45. 
Trenton natural- history society, 72, 262. 


[Subsequent proceedings of some of the above societies are given in the advertising pages, Oct. 31 and later.] 


SCIENCE. — CONTENTS 


CoMMENT AND CRITICISM, 1, 31, 47, 77, 93, 109, 125, 141, 157, 221, 269, 301, 333, 349, 367, 395, 411, 427, 451, 467, 483, ; 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, 3, 32, 49, 78, 94, 111, 126, 143, 159, 222, 270, 302, 334, 351, 368, 396, 412, 429, 452, 469, 484, ¢ 
NOTES AND NEWS, 25, 45, 78, 88, 106, 121, 139, 155, 186, 219, 263, 297, 329, 363, 381, 408, 423, 448, 464, 480, 502, 520, 5 


ScIENCE SUPPLEMENT, 383. 


tiet On EaLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 


Adelaide peninsula, map showing position of, relative to 


Hudson Bay . - opposite 545 
Aeroplane, experiment with, at Chalais- Meudon, 481; invent- 

ed by Victor Tatin . : . 482 
Africa, map of Joseph Thomson’s explorations ineastern . 46 
Air, simple experiment for showing pressure of . 265 
‘Almanack, Bickerstaff’s Boston, titlepage of . . . 495 
Amazon River, map of mouth of, 489; sketch on ‘the Tha 

dos Porquinhos in, showing the uprooted trees, 490; 

section of a ene P bank ie 490; shore of, waned by 

the pororédca . . so Sil 
Aurora, artificial : 466 
Balloon, map of voyage, “Aug. T,, 1884, in, 299 ; Renard and 

Krebs, 330; map of voyage in, Aug. 9, 1884, 331; panap 

of Tissandier’s voyage, Nov. 9, 1884, in a 532 
Barrande tablet Sore 189 
Bentham, George, portrait and signature eee 303 
Blake, deck of the, ready for dredging 6 402 
Bogosloff Island and Hague voleano . . 433 
Buoy, iron nun, 415; Courtenay’s whistling, 416;  Pintsch 

gas, 416; chart of stray, in the North Atlantic . c 417 
Calendar, church, of the fourteenth Coney 493 ; stone, 

Mexican. . 494 
Challenger, the dredging and ‘sounding appar atus on board 

the, 117; the relative positions of the ship, the messen- 

ger-weights, the toggle, and the ate at different Bases 

of paying-out from . 177 
Chelydra serpentina . : Be oe 
Circumpolar stations, chart of international . opposite 370 
Cream-tester ae hoses 576 
Crystallization sediments (2 figs. a “484, 485 
Cystophora cristata (5 figs.) . . 514, 515 
Diamond, the largest known. . 6 AY) 
Dredge, Otho Frederick Miiller, 146; ‘the naturalist’s “deep- 

sea, 146; the Challenger, 149; first form of the Blake, 

149; Verrill rake, 150; Chester rake, 150; Benedict rake, 

151; ropes, comparative SiZenOt = 4). a 6 - 401 
Dredging, Sigsbee’s accumulator for ae sea - . 408 
Drumilins (10 figs.) . . . , 418, 419, 420 
Earthquake measurements (4 figs. ) . » 916, 517, 518 
ae map of solar, of March 16, "1885, 579; of Sept. 8, 

85 . 579 
Electric- light, circuits 2 figs. ye 128, "424; showing use of 
storage-batteries in, 388 ; multiple- wire eyeiowe - ATT 
Equatorial coudé at the Paris obser vatory . 102 
Fish-Hawk, hoisting and reeling engine of. the U. 8. fish- 
commission steamer, 147; forward deck of the Pate WG 
Fly’s foot (3 figs.) . . ah 219 
Gem-engraving, the White dental- -engine applicable to 106 
Globigerina and Orbulina . 171 
Grand Canon, diagram showing erosion of, 64; ‘at “the foot 

of the Toroweap 5 - Opposite 68 
Greely’s party, map showing points visited by . Biba becaye soe) 
Hallauer, Octave, portrait and signature of Biles 307 
Heavens, map of the : opposite 580 
Hochstetter, Ferdinand von, portrait and signature of 471 
H6tel des Neuchatelois . 360 
Hudson Strait, map of the north- western shores of 220 
Hyla versicolor. 6 oo | ahs 
Igloo, implements of the (12 figs. ). : 82, 83, 84, 85 
Indian chopping-stone Ses, ay O29 
Insects, swarming. 79 
Jouffroy, Marquis Claude de, ‘statue of . 300 
Kasa-an Bay, Cape Grindall, E. Ma N. 12 miles 561 
Korean curios (4 figs.) . . 6 173 
Kowak River, ice-cliffs on . 551 
Laboratory, Harvard physiological, ‘general “plan of, 128; 

half-story of, 129; interior of, 130; interrupter-case m, 

131; respiration apparatusin . . : : 132 
Lahontan lake-beds in Humboldt valley Pe) 
Lesley, J. P., portrait and signature of aah 191 
Mamrang Pass, overturned foldinthe . . 535 


OF VOLUME IV. v 
507, 523 
509, 524. 
37. 
PAGE 
Mask, Peruvian burial 11 
Mesogonistius chaetodon ah 338 
Microscope for class-room demonstration 541 
Mill, old stone, at Newport 7 513 
Moraine of the second Blsere period, general map of the 

terminal. .. Sik ot ee 68 
Muscles, apparatus for measuring strength of . 521 
Netschilluk Innuit (5 figs.) 543, 544; map showing distribu- 

tion of, about Adelaide peninsula opposite 545 
Nicaragua canal, mapsof. . - opposite 434 
Ocean, bottom of, at a depth of if 500 metres, 104; bottom 

of, at a depth ‘of 1,200 metres, 170; thermometric curves 

and corresponding depths of the, 172; bed, Ero of 

the, traversed by the Talisman 172 
Ojibwa net-float, 528; rat-arrow, 529; weights : 528 
Paleozoic rocks in Belgium, restoration of a distorted re gion 

of n - Pape Fist 
Petals, the evolution of . 52 
Phonograph, novel form of . 124 
Photographic drop-shutter, speed of. . - 454 
Plants, rotation experiments on germinating (7 figs. We 51, 52 
Polar station, Danish international, at Godthaab, Green- 

land . 476 
Porcupine, dredging arrangements at the stern of the British 

ship. =) 5 ~ oat Foe Later S 
Pot-hole found in a Pennsylvania ec coal-mine 560 
Rana sylvatica . . : aac de 38 
Rayleigh, Lord, portr rait of 163 
Reservoir Butte, showing terraces of the Bonneville shore- 

MES 5 6 opposite 47 
Seal, hooded (5 figs. ) - . O14, 515 
Selawik Lake, entranceto . Sooo 
Selected illustrations from contemporary foreign journals: 

diving-chamber for submarine exploration ; Pic du Midi, 

meteorological and chemical laboratory. on (2 views) : 

halo seen at Paris, March 25, 1884; vertical solar ray seen 

at Paris, March 20, 1884; leaf. butterfly, —In No. 80. 

Sella, Quintino, portrait of = - 542 

Sieve, Verrill’s cradle 404 

Solar system, chart of 583 

Spider towers, burrowing (3 figs. ). 115 

Sudan and the Nile, map ot 5 opposite 456 

Sun, view of, prepared by the Harvard college observatory, 
opposite 563; spot as seen June 30, 1883, 564; spot as 
seen July 25, 1883, 565; and planets, relative size of, 

582; dial, novel form of, 51; EpOls two large © figs. = 460, 461 
Tangles, Verrill’s formof . . : - 228 
Telegraph cables, raising of (4 figs. Yee 459 
Temperature curves, showing the daily and annual ranges 

for various places i in the United States . - a7 
Thermodynamics, eee illustrating ae ease exception 

to second law of . 5 < 3 - 
Thomson, Sir William, por tr ait of. ss - ash 
Thomson’s kinetic theory of matter (2 figs.) . . 205 
Thought-transferrence, diagrams (5 figs. ye : 41, 42 
Time, diagram showing comparison of mean with solar, at 

the several seasons of the year, 580; outline-map, with 

dials showing standard railway : as 576 
Tornado, June 17, 1882, effect of, at Gr innell, Is. 5738 
Tornadoes of Feb. 1g) 1883, guap of the tracks of aa a72 
Tracks of fossil elephant, 274; resembling the imprint of 

human feet, 274; cross- section of impression of, 275; 

binds. eet eS : : 275 
Trap, Sigsbee’s gravitating é 228 
Trawl, the beam, 225 ; the Blake, 296; wings, 227: ; safety- 

hooks for attaching beam, to the drag- -rope . 403 
Umbra limi : S37 
United States, map showing the divisions of the signal- ser- 

vice, of standard time, and the mean annual isotherms 

inthe. . +45 Gog CeO GL Sette oes. eee ee! 
Well, spouting oil. 64 


Wurtz, Charles Adolph, por trait and ‘signature of . 


SCIENCE. 


AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. 


CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: THE SCIENCE COMPANY. 


FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue ‘ sundry civil bill,’ which is still under 
discussion by congress, provides $501,470 
for the coast-survey ; $244,500 for the fish- 
commission ; $500,000 for the participation by 
the government departments in the industrial 
exposition at New Orleans, of which sum one- 
fifth is given to the Smithsonian institution, 
including the national museum and the fish- 
commission ; $40,000 for the protection and 
improvement of the Yellowstone national park ; 
$467,700 for the geological survey ; $10,000 for 
the census of 1880, providing for its close in 
November next ; $149,500 for the national mu- 
seum; $55,000 forthe Smithsonian institution 
(construction); and $868,038.60 for the signal- 
service. 


It also disposes, for the time, of the ques- 
tion raised concerning the coast-survey, by 
providing for a joint commission of three sen- 
ators and three representatives, to ‘‘ consider 
the present organizations of the signal-service, 
geological survey, coast and geodetic survey, 
and the hydrographic office of the navy depart- 
ment, with the view to secure greater efficiency 
-and economy of administration of the public 
service in said bureaus,’’ and to report next 
December. It further appropriates seven hun- 
dred dollars for a commission of scientific men, 
to be appointed by the president, ‘‘ to inquire 
into the organization, work, expenses, and 
reconstruction of the naval observatory, and 
to report to congress the best system for its 
future management.”’ 


We shall look with deep interest and concern 
No. 74.— 1884. 


Vérité sans peur. 


for the reports of these commissions. On the 
one hand, we are to have a commission of 
men of affairs, called to consider the mutual 
standing of several different government bu- 
reaus, whose work is more or less inter-related ; 
on the other, a scientific commission, dealing 
with a purely scientific bureau under naval 
control, but the vitality and usefulness of 
which has come, with rare exceptions, from 
men drawn from the ranks of civil life. Let 
us hope for good appointments, that these 
often-recurring and unseemly antagonisms be- 
tween different departments may be put to rest 
by excellent reports and wise adjustments. To 
the question of the relations of the army and 
navy to science, we may again recur. We may 
here only regret that it was not arranged that 
the scientific commission should be taken from 
names recommended to the president by the 
National academy. 


With this exception, we have no fault to find 
with another provision of the bill, by which, 
as we hoped last week would be the case, the 
appointment of two additional members to the 
meridian conference is provided for, and an 
appropriation of two thousand dollars made for 
the expenses of the commission; nor with a 
similar provision for a national conference of 


electricians, in connection with the interna- 


tional electrical exhibition at Philadelphia, for 
which a meagre five thousand dollars is appro- 
priated, and a scientific commission authorized. 
The more closely the government can identify 
the National academy with its scientific under- 
takings and appointments, the more confident 
we shall feel that neither science nor our coun- 
try will be belittled. 


THE use of the comma as an instrument for 
assisting or impeding a reader’s comprehen- 


2 | SCIENCE. 


sion of an author’s meaning is neither a very 
important nor a very scientific subject of dis- 
cussion. But many English writers of scien- 
tific text-books try one’s patience so sorely 
and so wantonly on this point, that it seems 
proper something should be said about it. The 
evil to which we refer usually takes the shape 
of the insertion of superfluous commas, which 
in the least obnoxious cases are annoying, and 
in many cases seriously interfere with the 
sense. These violations of the literary code 
of minor morals are so abundant in any work 
which is seriously subject to them at all, that 
itis not necessary to go outside the book which 
happens to be before us at the moment for as 
long a list of examples as might be desired. 
The following sentence contains three un- 
pardonable commas, the fourth alone being 
rightly used: ‘‘Thus we shall suppose that 
the external cause of the cooling determines 
always the state of the very thin envelope, in 


such a manner that the value of - which re- 
x 


sults from this state, is proportional to the 
value of v, corresponding to « = X, and that 
the constant ratio of the two quantities is 


9) 


I 
= ae And before we have finished a page, 


we come upon this: ‘‘It consists in finding 
the value of v, by means of the general con- 
dition, and the two special conditions to which 
it is subject.’’ Here the insertion of the first 
comma seems to us bad enough, but this may 
possibly be regarded as a matter of taste ; 
that of the second is an inexcusable error. 


THE September meeting of the mechanical 
section (D) of the American association for 
the advancement of science, at Philadelphia, 
promises well. It is under the leadership of 
a chairman whose name will go far to insure 
success; and Professor Thurston’s opening 
address is confidently expected to be a paper 
of much interest. The circular of invitation, 
issued by the committee, has been sent to a 
large number of engineers, representing the 


most of the American societies; and it has 


also been laid before them officially through 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


their secretaries, besides being published in a 
number of prominent technical journals. The 
work is now going forward of interesting the 
foreign engineering public directly, and through 
their societles and journals; and it is believed 
that a large foreign attendance may be ex- 
pected. The programme is also being made 
up, and contains the announcement of several 
important papers. 


AFTER an existence of eight years, the New- 
York state survey is brought to a close by the 
will of one man. Like nearly all scientific 
work done in this country under state patron- 
age, the life of the survey hung by the thread 
of an annual appropriation. The usual appro- 
priation of $15,800 was made by the legisla- 
ture ; but the item was vetoed by the governor, 
who thinks, that, ‘‘ after an expenditure of a 
sum considerably in excess of a hundred thou- ? 
sand dollars, very little seems to have been 
done of practical benefit to the people,’’ and 
who says that he is ‘‘ not able to appreciate 
the importance of the elaborate, slow, and ex- 
pensive survey of the state which this appro- 
priation is intended to continue.’’ 


As Gov. Cleveland is commonly reported to 
give his reasons for official action with perfect 
frankness, it is evident that this unfortunate 
close of the survey is due to his ignorance of 
the value and of the cost of geodetic work. 
Had he urged that the work was one which 
should be undertaken by the general govern- 
ment rather than by the state, he would have 
found many to agree with him, and, at most, the 
question would have been one of policy; but, 
when he declares that he is ‘‘ of the opinion 
that a sufficiently correct and exact location of 
boundary-lines and monuments to answer every 
useful purpose could be conducted ... ata 
comparatively small expense,’’ it is plain that 
his ‘ opinion ’ on such a topic is not of weight. 
Even on economic grounds, it would not be 
difficult to show that the exact location of bases 
for local surveys would, in time, save its cost 
in diminished boundary litigation. 


a A it 


Juy 4¥ 1884] 


CoMMENCEMENT at Harvard last year was 
enlivened by the vigorous speech of Charles 
Francis Adams, initiating what may almost 
be called a national discussion of the Greek 
question. ‘This year the subject of* ‘ academic 
degrees ’ is brought into prominence by a paper, 
published in the July Century, from the pen 
of Dr. Woolsey. It will not surprise us if a 
discussion of this subject, begun by one who 
has held with honor the post of president of 
Yale college, and is still a member of the 
degree-giving board, should run for the next 
twelve months, and draw out opinions as 
diverse as those lately printed on the compar- 
ative value of classical and scientific studies. 
Most of Dr. Woolsey’s article is historical, 
with incidental references to his own opinions. 
Toward the close, however, he makes some 
suggestions with respect to the bestowal of 
honorary degrees which are worth considera- 
tion. He is heartily opposed to the random 
methods now in vogue of complimenting men 
who are accidentally brought forward. He 
does not object to the guarded admission of 
meritorious students to the lower academic 
degrees causd honoris, when they have been 
prevented by illness or poverty from attaining 
their diplomas in a regular way; and in cases 
of rare and distinguished merit he would admit 
to the same honors ‘‘ discoverers of important 
principles in science, who had had, perhaps, no 
public education whatever.”’ 


But in respect to what are now bestowed as 
honorary titles (the degrees of LL.D. and 


D.D.), he would allow any graduate to prepare, | 


by the study of years, for the highest degree 
within his reach, whether he resides within the 
college or not. The proficiency of each can- 
didate should be tested by rigid examinations. 
Thus a student of law or theology might first 
take a baccalaureate degree in either of these 
faculties, —say, four years after taking his 
B.A. degree, — and eight years still later he 
might offer himself as a candidate for the degree 
of doctor of laws or theology. As a protec- 
tion against the confounding of titles honorably 
won with those bestowed by careless or feeble 


SCIENCE. 3 


institutions, Dr. Woolsey suggests that the in- 
dication of a degree shall be followed by the 
name of the place where it was won. We 
imagine that it will amuse some readers, and 
amaze some others, when they read the melan- 
choly statement, made by one who for nearly 
forty years has been annually creating honor- 
ary doctors, that ‘‘ these honorary degrees are 
bestowed on no evidence of thorough learning in 
theology or in law, and thus are in no way cer- 
tificates of deserving the honors, saving, that, for 
some reason or other, the corporation of a col- 
lege regards the person thus honored as a man 
worthy of notice beyond most of his fellows.”’ 


Axsout two months ago we urged the Mas- 
sachusetts legislature to be slow in rejecting 
the offer of the U.S. geological survey to 
prepare at divided cost a topographical map of 
the state. We are glad to state that the com- 
mittee on expenditures, in whose hands the 
matter was placed, reported favorably; both 
houses passed the resolve submitted ; and the 
governor has now made the excellent choice, 
as commissioners, of Pres. Francis A. Walker 
of the Massachusetts institute of technology, 
Mr. Henry L. Whiting of Tisbury, and Prof. 
N.S. Shaler of Harvard college. The resolve 
appropriates forty thousand dollars, to be ex- 
tended over at least three years. The names 
of the commissioners are a guaranty that the 
interests of the state will be well administered, 
and that the suggestions made in our columns 
will not be lost sight of. 


EETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


Radiant heat. 


Ir is much to be regretted that a mathematical 
physicist of the standing of Mr. Fitzgerald should, 
in his letter published in your issue of May 16, confine 
himself to ex cathedra deliverances upon the question 
at issue between us, instead of attempting some direct 
demonstration upon the points involved, as I had 
suggested would be desirable. Had he done so, he 
would not, I am sure, have fallen into the curious 
mistakes which he emphasizes so strongly. In 
default of the desired investigation of the question by 
Mr. Fitzgerald, I hope that the following reasoning 


4 | SCIENCE. 


may be of use in arriving at correct conclusions re- 
garding this matter. 

Let z and 2’ be taken as the foci of a semi-ellipse, 
nyy n’, whose major axis is nn’; and let the eccen- 
tricity be so small that zy is greater than inn’. Make 
z= nn’ =2rm. Let a concave reflecting surface 
be supposed to be generated by revolving the semi- 
ellipse through angles of +472 and —4z about nr’ ; 
and let nn’ represent a screen in which there are equal 
small circular apertures at z and 2’; let there be also 
equal apertures at cand a ; and, in addition, let there 
be apertures at y and 7 no larger than will permit the 
passage of cylindrical beams from the apertures at z 
and z’ respectively. 

At first let the apertures « and z alone be open, and 
remain so until the spherical front of the wave-sur- 
face radiating from a has reached m, and a second 
wave-front of equal radius, z’r, has issued fromz’. A 
part of this latter wave has, at the conclusion of this 
interval, been reflected from the concave mirror to- 
wards the focus z. Let the apertures at x and z’ be 
then closed. 


[7 ENN ge ae 


Next let the aperture at y be opened at the instant 
when the beams along zy and zy reach y, and be 
closed as soon as they have passed through y. They 
will pass through simultaneously, since zy = 2’y. 

Further, let the apertures z and 2 be opened when 
the beam along «zy reaches z, and let them be closed 
as soon as it has passed through z. The rays radiated 
from 2’, which were reflected from the concave mirror, 
will be brought to a focus at z, and pass through that 
aperture simultaneously with the beam in the direc- 
tion zy; for, by the properties of the ellipse, the total 
distance traversed by any such ray is equal to nn’ 
= 2rz: hence the wave-fronts, starting from z and 2’ 
at the same instant, will reach z simultaneously. 

We have now to consider what occurs at each of 
the apertures y and z during the interval while they 
are open. 

While y is open, a beam from 2, of Jength am, passes 
through it toward 6, and a beam from 2’, of equal 
cross-section and length, passes through it away from 
B. These beams are of equal cross-section, because 
the tangent at y makes equal angles with the focal 
radii zy and z’y. But these beams are not of equal 
intensity in case A and B are of equal temperature, 
because any plane aperture, such as that at 2’, does 
not radiate equally in alldirections. The intensity of 
the radiation diminishes, according to the well-known 
law, as the cosine of the angle between the direction 
of the ray and the normal; i.e., the intensity is less 
in the ratio of cos yz’y’ to unity: hence less heat has 
escaped at y than has passed through y toward B in 
the ratio just mentioned. 

Now as to the quantities of heat passing through 


[Vor IV., No. 74. 


the aperture z. Let us for definiteness take the body 
B to be common air, enclosed in a capacious vessel 
whose interior walls are perfectly black. Such being 
the case, whatever be the intensity of the ray re- 
ceived through z in any given direction, the intensity 
of the ray simultaneously emitted through z will 
depend only upon the previous temperature of B, or, 
at most, only infinitesimally upon the intensity of the 
ray received. Such being the fact, the beam emitted 
from z in the direction of y’ has the same intensity 
as that previously emitted from z’ towards y. But 
the beam which is received at z by reflection from 
y has a very different intensity from this, for it is 
the beam which was originally radiated from 2’ to- 
wards y’. © 

When, therefore, Mr. Fitzgerald says, that, ‘‘ if heat 
can go into B in the direction y’z, there would be an 
escape of heat from B in the direction zy’ as well as 
in the direction zy, and so, to the two quantities of 
heat coming into B, there would escape two equal 
quantities,’’ I feel that either he has madea mistake, 
or he presumes upon the ignorance of the reader; 
and, to use his own inimitable emphasis, I may say 
that I am sure no American or other scientific man 
agrees with him; and I think I am justified in adding 
that no Irishman will agree with him either, includ- 
ing his own better self. To make this point still 
more evident, we have only to consider what occurs 
when the concave semi-ellipsoidal reflector without 
apertures at y andy’ is used to transmit radiations 
alternately between zand z’. First let z be opened 
during an interval such that rays of a length 4 nn’ are 
emitted; then let both z and 2’ be closed for an equal 
interval; next let 2’ be opened for an equal interval. 
During this third interval, equal quantities of heat 
pass through 2’, towards and away from B ; but is Mr. 
Fitzgerald now ready to re-affirm his untenable propo- 
sition that the quantities of heat received and lost in 
any arbitrary direction are equal? Whether he is 
willing to do so or not, these quantities are not in 
general equal, his hasty affirmation of their equality 
to the contrary notwithstanding. 

In close connection with this, it is pertinent to in- 
quire once more what difference there is between the 
equal quantities of energy which B has simultane- 
ously emitted from and received through 2. The 
kind of energy we call heat exists in two forms, — 
radiant and non-radiant; the latter is often regarded 
as identical with molecular agitation. Radiant heat 
may be totally reflected regularly, as light is by a per- 
fect reflector; it may be totally reflected irregularly, 
as light is at a white surface; it may be wholly ab- 
sorbed, and the energy conducted or radiated away 
with a different wave-length, as light is at a black 
surface; it may be wholly transmitted, as light is by 
a transparent substance; or there may be any com- 
bination of these. It is sufficient for our purpose to 
suppose that the constitution of the body B is such 
that regular reflection does not occur at its surface, 
and that the absorption of the rays entering it takes 
place in its interior, as in a partially or completely 
transparent substance enclosed in a black vessel. 
Now, when the rays have been absorbed, as they 
must be under such circumstances before they can 
be radiated away from B, their energy exists in the 
non-radiant form. I have stated in my previous let- 
ter, that, ‘‘ after the energy reaches B, the path by 
which it has arrived is of no consequence,” and that 
the direction which the rays may have had in coming 
to B is immaterial to the question under discussion. 
I stand ready to re-affirm this proposition, and now 
do so. Mr. Fitzgerald evidently regards this state- 
ment as so unscientific as to merit no reply what- 


JULY 4, 1884.] 


ever, and as such a self-evident piece of stupidity as 
to render further discussion useless. 

Mr. Fitzgerald further says that Professor Wood 
has pointed out my mistakes. Is he willing to say 
what mistakes? JI am convinced that Mr. Fitzgerald 
has never read any criticism by Professor Wood which 
he is willing to indorse; but, since he has himself 
made reference to these criticisms, I now ask Mr. 
Fitzgerald to state which of Professor Wood’s posi- 
tions against me he regards assound. Ido not believe 
he can find one. 

Mr. Fitzgerald is unable to find any excuse for me 
when I introduce the idea of a pencil of rays of in- 
finitesimal angle, unless it be that I have overlooked 
the fact that the energy of such a pencil is infinitesi- 
mal. I beg leave to say that the excuse and the 
assumption are both entirely gratuitous on his part, 
and not in accordance with the facts. Inthe algebraic 
investigation made in the original paper, as well as in 
that given above, the angle is not assumed to be in- 
finitesimal, or even small. The sole excuse, and the 
real one, was that it was a form of argument which 
it seemed to me would put in a clear light the truth 
which I had otherwise established, that such a process 
as had been proposed would heat B at the expense 
of A. 

In conclusion I may be permitted to say, that when 
Mr. Fitzgerald attempts to treat the controversy 
which he has himself inaugurated as not worth his 
consideration, and gives notice that he therefore 
thinks it not worth while to continue it, he must 
know that he lays himself open to the suspicion that 
poverty of arguments, and not disinclination to con- 
troversy, leads him to this decision. If Mr. Fitz- 
gerald regards it as compatible with his dignity to 
beat a retreat on any such pretext, I, for one, cannot 
agree with him. H. T. Eppy. 


Cincinnati, June 10. 


Temperature of the spheroidal state. 


In some experiments made to determine this point, 
to avoid radiation, the temperature was measured by 
a thermo-electric couple, as in Mr. Hesehus’s studies. 
The element used was composed of german-silver and 
iron, No. 22 wire. The wires were hard soldered 
together, and then bent into a loop, and inserted in 
a glass tube filled with plaster-of-Paris. The tube 
was about twelve centimetres long and five millimetres 
bore; and the polished loop projected about eight 
millimetres, with a width of four millimetres. This 
element was connected directly with a reflecting gal- 
vanometer with twenty-five ohms in circuit. The 
spheroids were formed in a spoon heated over a spirit- 
lamp, and no special precautions were taken to secure 
equal temperatures. The loop was plunged in the 
spheroid, and deflection noted. Ten readings were 
thus taken with very small variations, and then the 
loop was placed in a beaker of water almost in con- 
tact with the bulbs of two thermometers. The water 
was then heated till the deflection was the same as 
that given by the spheroid, and the thermometers 
were read at this point both while heating and cool- 
ing. The variations of temperature were less than 
1°; and this part of the experiment was repeated 
several times. The whole experiment was repeated a 
number of times on different days, with results all 
within 19. 

The temperature thus found was, for water, 90°, 
and for alcohol, 69°. 

The size of the spheroid had no effect on the tem- 
perature, as the deflection remained constant as long 
as there was enough liquid to protect the loop from 


SCIENCE. 5 


& 


radiation. In the case of alcohol, the globule could 
be surrounded with vapor-flames until greatly reduced 
in size, without visibly increasing the deflection. 
Ether was experimented on; but the temperature 
proved to be so low, barely above that of the room, 
that no satisfactory results could be obtained. 

The series of experiments hints at a lower and less 
variable temperature than has usually been assigned 
to the spheroidal state. Louis BELL. 


Dartmouth college, June 9. 


The inventor of the vertical camera in 
photography. 


In Science, No. 70, Mr. G. Brown Goode says, con- 
cerning the invention of the vertical camera, ‘* As 
a matter of fact, the vertical camera now used for 
photographing natural-history specimens, etc., is the 
outcome of a suggestion made in December, 1869, by 
Professor Baird.’ 

As this letter is written to put on record the history 
of the invention of the vertical camera, it is neces- 
sary, in justice to myself and other inventors of a 
vertical camera, to state that the notes concerning 
the history of the invention were omitted from my 
original article (Science, No. 62) at the suggestion of 
the editor. The facts concerning the invention and 
use of the vertical camera known to me at present 
are as follows: — 

In 1863 J. Gerlach published ‘ Die photographie 
als hilfsmittel zu mikroskopischer forschung,’ in 
which was figured and described a vertical camera. 
In 1866 Montessier, in ‘ La photographie appliquée 
aux recherches micrographique,’ described and_fig- 
ured a very much improved vertical camera. Both 
of these are figured and described in Frey, ‘ The mi- 
croscope and microscopical technology ’ (New York, 
1872). In 1872 John C. Moss invented a swinging 
vertical camera, which was described and figured in 
the U.S. patent-office report, October, 1877, p. 961, 
plate page 279. This camera was also figured in 
the Scientific American (1877) and in Leisure hours 
(1879). In 1877 also appeared a description and figure 
of a vertical camera by Schaefer, in ‘ The microscope 
and histology,’ p. 295. The above, together with the 
letter of Mr. Goode, the note concerning Dr. Danna- 
dieu’s camera, and the papers by myself, constitute, 
so far as I know, all the published notices of a verti- 
cal camera. 

By the courtesy of the gentlemen named below, I 
am enabled to make important additions to the his- 
tory of this subject. John C. Moss, president of the 
Moss engraving company, in a private letter, says, 
‘‘T remember having used a camera in a vertical 
position in 1858 to copy daguerrotypes and tintypes. 
. . - Talso used the same arrangement to photo- 
graph some shells and other small objects.’’ Dr. 
Deecke says, ‘“‘I have used the camera in a vertical 
position since 1878. The simple alterations on the 
camera were devised by myself, and executed in the 
shops of the asylum.”? Prof. E. Ramsey Wright, of 
Toronto university, also uses a vertical camera; but 
the date of its invention by him is not Known to me, 
To briefly summarize: the first figure and description 
of a vertical camera known to me were those of Ger- 
lach, in 1863; while the first to use the vertical camera 
was John C. Moss, in 1858. Every person using this 
instrument, so far as appears at present, was an origi- 
nator, but John C. Moss, seems to have been the 
originator, of the idea of a vertical camera. 

Smon H. GAGE. 
Ithaca, June 21. 


— 


6 SCIENCE. 


CHARLES ADOLPH WURTZ. 


_ Tue subject of this sketch, Charles Adolph 
Wurtz, who died on the 12th of May at Paris, 


-was the chief representative in France of what 


is generally known as modern chemistry. He 
was born November 26, 1817, at Strassburg. 
Here he began his studies, and received the 
degree of doctor of medicine. Before his 
graduation in medicine, he was made assist- 
ant in the chemical department in the medi- 
cal faculty; in 1845 he became assistant in 
Paris; 1n 1846 he was made chemical direct- 
or of the School of art and manufactures; in 
1851 he became professor in the Agronomic in- 
stitution of Versailles; and in 1854, after the 
death of Orfila, he was elected professor of 
medical chemistry, taking upon himself the 
duties connected with the chair of pure chem- 
istry, up to that time held by Dumas, and that 
of toxicology. In 1866 he was made dean of 
the medical faculty, —a position which he held 
until 1875, when he became professor of or- 
ganic chemistry in the faculty of sciences. 
Wurtz’s contributions to chemistry are numer- 
ous and important. He is fairly entitled to be 
counted among those who have originated and 
developed the views which are now held by 
the majority of chemists. The two hypotheses 
which at the present day form the basis of 
speculation concerning chemical phenomena, 
are, 1°, the hypothesis of Avogadro, according 
to which equal volumes of all gases contain the 
same number of molecules ; and, 2°, the valence 
hypothesis, according to which the elementary 
atoms differ among each other as regards the 
number of atoms of other elements which they 
can hold in combination. Thus we have the 
compounds represented by the formulas, HCl, 
H,O, and H,N, in which the atoms of chlorine, 
oxygen, and nitrogen are represented in com- 
bination with one, two, and three atoms of hy- 
drogen respectively. Before these differences 
among the elements were recognized, the ex- 
istence of various types of compounds was 
observed. In a vague sort of way, compounds 
were referred to this or that type: gradually, 
however, the idea of types became more defi- 
nite, and then, undoubtedly, exerted a great 
influence on the development of chemistry ; 
leading directly, as it did, to the conception 
of valence. The first important investigation 
of Wurtz had much to do with giving definite- 
ness to the conception of types. In the paper 
containing the results of the investigation, he 
described certain compounds, which he regard- 
ed as ammonia, in which one of the parts of 
hydrogen was replaced by complex groups con- 


[Vou. IV., No. 74, 


taining carbon and hydrogen ; as, CH, (methyl) 
and C,H; (ethyl). Representing ammonia as 
Hi 


N + H, the new substances can be represented 


H | 
CH; Ci ile 
thus, N«< H.., N+ , ete. 
eS 


It became 


aa 


clear that substances can be made which bear 


avery simple relation to ammonia; and a good 
experimental basis was furnished for referring 
these compounds to the ammonia type. In 
regard to this discovery, Kekulé, the distin- 
guished German chemist, says, ‘‘ The discoy- 
ery of the bases corresponding to ammonia is 
indisputably the corner-stone of our present 
views.”’ | | 

It is an extremely interesting fact, that Lie- 
big predicted the discovery ten years before it 
was made, in developing his views regarding 
the nature of the nitrogenous bases, the alka- 
loids ; but the view that these bodies can be 
referred directly to ammonia in the sense in 
which Wurtz regarded them was not gener- 
ally accepted by chemists until shortly after 
his discovery. 

Another important investigation of Wurtz 
is that which led to the discovery of the so- 
called diatomic alcohols, the chief of which is 
glycol. Ordinary alcohol may be referred to 
the water type in the same way that Wurtz’s 
bases are referred to the ammonia type; i.e., it 


may be regarded as water, O in which one 


of the hydrogen atoms is replaced by the com- 
plex group, ethyl, C,H;. According to this 
view, which is founded upon experimental evi- 
dence, alcohol is represented by the formula, 


O bog In 1854 Berthelot’s memoir on 


the fats and glycerine appeared. In this it 
was shown that glycerine acts in general like 
an alcohol, but that acids unite with it in three 
proportions. Wurtz suggested that just as or- 
dinary alcohol may be regarded as derived from 
water as above indicated, glycerine may be re- 
garded as derived from water as represented 


C3H; 


in the formula Os; 4 yy In other words, 


3 
ordinary alcohol is derived from water by the 
substitution of one group, C,H,, for one hydro- 


gen atom in one molecule of water, of = 


whereas glycerine is derived from water by 
the substitution of one group, C,H;, for three 
atoms of hydrogen in three molecules of water, 


Or | ny This led Wurtz to inquire whether, 
3 


JuLY 4, 1884. ] 


in a similar way, there might not be alcohols 
derived from two molecules of water, O, ' 2 ? 
by substituting some group for two hydrogen 
atoms. He soon discovered the first mem- 
ben, -of this 
group of bod- 
ies, viz., gly- 
col, which he 
showed to bea 
compound in- 
termediate be- 
tween ordinary 
alcohol and gly- 
cerine. He rep- 
resented it by 
the formula, 


Ch s ar 
©, ET, : 
Probably the 


most important 
result of this 
discovery was 
the fact that the 
attention of 
chemists was 
directed to the 
differences be- 
tween the radi- 
eais/C4H. in 
ordinary alco- 
hol; -€,H, in 
alyeol, and 
C,H; in glycer- 
ine. In the 
first the radical 
takes the place 
of one atom of 
hydrogen, in 
the second one 
radical replaces 
two atoms of 
hydrogen, and 
in the third the 
radical replaces 
three atoms 
of hydrogen. 
Here, then, in 
the polyatomic 
radicals, we 


+.) 


have the beginning of the conception of va- 


lence. Just as radicals exist which can re- 
place one, two, or three hydrogen atoms, so 
similar differences exist between the elements. 
Regarding the discovery of glycol, Ladenburg, 
in his ‘ Entwickelungsgeschichte der chemie,’ 
says, ‘* Seldom has the discovery of a single 
body exerted such an influence on the devel- 


SCIENCE. 7 


opment of chemistry, seldom has a single com- 
pound given rise to such a series of beautiful 
and useful investigations, as glycol.”’ 
The ideas suggested by the investigations on | 
the substituted ammonias and the polyatomic 
radicals were 
followed up by 
Wurtz and oth- 
ers, and the re- 
sult is the chem- 
istry of to-day. 
Wurtz has been 
an active par- 
ticipator in all 
important dis- 
cussions re- 
garding funda- 
mental matters, 
and has ably 
and vigorously 
defended _ the 
modern views 
against the at- 
tacks of Ber- 
thelot, St. 
Claire Deville, 
and others in 
France. One 
of the last of 
these __ discus- 
sions was car- 
ried on only a 
few years ago. 
It pertained to 
the question 
whether Avoga- 
_ dro’s hypothe- 
sis is valid or 
not. Many of 
the most promi- 
nent French 
chemists refuse 
to accept it, 
and, in defence 
of their posi- 
tion, tauntingly 
refer to two or 
three apparent 
exceptions. 
The particular 
case which gave rise to the discussion referred 
to is that of chloral hydrate. Wurtz claimed 
that the reason why this compound does not 
conform to the hypothesis is, that, when heated, 
it breaks up into water and chloral. This his 
opponents strenuously denied. Both sides in- 
troduced very delicate and skilful experiments ; 
but, as is usually the case, no final conclusion 


8 | SCIENCE. 


was reached. Nevertheless, a large audience 
of chemists was interested and instructed by 
the discussion, and chemistry was benefited. 

It would lead too far to attempt to give an 
account of all that Wurtz has done for chem- 
istry. In addition to the epoch-making con- 
tributions mentioned, his synthesis of neurine, 
his methods for the synthesis of hydrocarbons 
and of the acids of carbon, his method for the 
transformation of sulphuric acids into phenols, 
and investigations on the condensation of alde- 
hydes, are all worthy of much more than ordi- 
nary mention. He has also been a prolific 
writer of excellent books on chemistry, some 
of which are recognized as standards ; and he 
has been an editor of journals of chemistry, 
his name being found at present on the title- 
pages of the Annales de chimie et de physique 
and the Bulletin de la Société chimique. ‘The 
titles of his principal books are included in the 
following list: Sur l’insalubrité des résidues 
provenant des distilleries, 1859; Lecgons de 
philosophie chimique, 1864; Traité élémen- 
taire de chimie médicale, 1864-65; Lecons 
élémentaires de chimie moderne, 1866-68 ; the 
Dictionnaire de chimie pure et appliquée, which 
appeared in parts, beginning in 1868; Traité 
de chimie biologique, vol. i., 1880; and The 
atomic theory, one of the volumes of the In- 
ternational scientific series. His Elements of 
chemistry has been translated into English, 
and has reached a second edition in this coun- 
try. His writings are clear, vigorous, and in- 
teresting. His fairness as a historian has been 
questioned ; and it must be conceded that his 
enthusiasm occasionally led him to what calmer 
men are inclined to regard as incorrect judg- 
ment, expressed in strong language. One of 
his remarks, which naturally aroused the ire of 
the Germans, is the much-quoted phrase with 
which he introduced his dictionary: ‘‘ La 
chimie est une science francaise: elle fut con- 
stituée par Lavoisier, d’immortelle mémoire.’’ 

In 1865, on the recommendation of the 
Academy of sciences, Wurtz was awarded the 
imperial biennial prize of twenty thousand 
francs. In 1867 he succeeded Pélouze as a 
member of the chemical section of the Acad- 
emy of sciences. In 1878 he received the Far- 
aday medal from the Royal society of England, 
on the occasion of his being invited to deliver 
the Faraday lecture before the English chemi- 
eal society. In 1881 he was honored with an 
appointment as senator for life in the French 
senate. 

Imperfect as this sketch is, it will at least 
serve to show that Wurtz occupied a command- 
ing position among chemists of the present. 


[Vor. IV., No. 74. 


His loss is a serious blow to science, and espe- 
cially to the progress of chemistry in France. 
It will be hard to find a successor possessing 
his energy and ability. Dumas died a month 
ago, after having reached a good old age, 
and after he had ceased to work actively ; and 
while, now that he is gone, we more clearly 
recognize his greatness, we can nevertheless 
more readily reconcile ourselves to his loss 
than to that of Wurtz, who seemed still to 
belong to the younger generation, capable of 
guiding others for years to come, and of add- 
ing to his former brilliant discoveries. 


RESULTS OF DREDGINGS IN THE GULF- 
STREAM REGION BY THE U.S. FISH- 
COMMISSION.} 


6. Evidences of the existence of light at great 
depths in the sea. 

THE evidences of the presence of light and 
its quality and source at great depths are of 
much interest. At present very little experi- 
mental knowledge in regard to these questions 
is available. That light of some kind, and in 
considerable amount, actually exists at depths 
below two thousand fathoms, may be regarded 
as certain. This is shown by the presence of 
well-developed eyes in most of the fishes, all 
of the cephalopods, most of the decapod Crus- 
tacea, and in some species of other groups. 
In many of these animals, living in two thou- 
sand to three thousand fathoms, and even 
deeper than that, the eyes are relatively larger 
than in the allied shallow-water species; in 
others the eyes differ little, if any, in size and 
appearance, from the eyes of corresponding 
shallow-water forms; in certain other cases, 
especially among the lower tribes, the eyes are 
either rudimentary or wanting in groups of 
which the shallow-water representatives have 
eyes of some sort. This last condition is not- 
able among the deep-water gastropods, which 
are mostly blind: but many of these are prob- 
ably burrowing species ; and it may be that the 
prevalent extreme softness of the ooze of the 
bottom, and the general burrowing habits, are 
connected directly with the absence or rudi- 
mentary condition of the eyes in many species 
belonging to different classes, including Crus- 
tacea and fishes. Such blind species usually 
have highly developed tactile organs to com- 
pensate for lack of vision. 

Other important facts bearing directly, not 
only on the ewistence, but on the quality, of the 
light, are those connected with the coloration 

1 See Science, Nos. 16, 19, 27. 


JuLY 4, 1884.] 


of the deep-sea species. In general, it may 
be said that a large proportion of the deep-sea 
animals are highly colored, and that their colors 
are certainly protective. Certain species, be- 
longing to different groups, have pale colors, 
or are translucent, while many agree in color 
with the mud and ooze of the bottom; but 
some, especially among the fishes, are very 
dark, or even almost black ; most of these are 
probably instances of adaptations for protection 
from enemies, or concealment from prey. But 
more striking instances are to be found among 
the numerous brightly colored species belong- 
ing to the echinoderms, decapod Crustacea, 
cephalopods, annelids, and Anthozoa. In all 
these groups, species occur which are as highly 
colored as their shallow-water allies, or even 
more so. But it is remarkable that in the 
deep-sea animals the bright colors are almost 
always shades of orange and orange-red, oc- 
easionally brownish red, purple, and purplish 
red. Clear yellow, and all shades of green 
and blue colors, are rarely, if ever, met with. 
These facts indicate that the deep sea is illu- 
minated only by the sea-green sunlight that 
has passed through a vast stratum of water, 
and therefore lost all the red and orange rays 
by absorption. The transmitted rays of light 
could not be reflected by the animals referred 
to, and therefore they would be rendered in- 
visible. Their bright colors can only become 


visible when they are brought up into the white 


sunlight. These bright colors are therefore 
just as much protective as the dull and black 
colors of other species. 

' The deep-sea star-fishes are nearly all orange, 
orange-red, or scarlet, even down to three thou- 
sand fathoms. ‘The larger ophiurans are gener- 
ally orange, orange-yellow, or yellowish white ; 
the burrowing forms being usually whitish or 
mud-colored, while the numerous species that 
live clinging to the branches of gorgonians, 
and to the stems of Pennatulacea, are generally 
orange, scarlet, or red, like the corals to which 
they cling. Among such species are Astrochele 
Lymani, abundant on the bushy orange gor- 
gonian coral, Acanella Normani, often in com- 
pany with several other orange ophiurans 
belonging to Ophiacantha, etc. Astronyx Love- 
ni and other species are common on Pennatu- 
lacea, and agree very perfectly in color with 
them. These, and numerous others that might 
be named, are instances of the special adapta- 
tions of colors and habits of commensals for 
the benefit of one or both. Many of the large 
and very abundant Actiniae, or sea-anemones, 
are bright orange, red, scarlet, or rosy in their 
colors, and are often elegantly varied and striped, 


SCIENCE. | 9 


quite as brilliantly as the shallow-water forms ; 
and the same is true of the large and elegant 
cup-corals, Flabellum Goodei, F. angulare, 
and Caryophyllia communis,—all of which 
are strictly deep-sea species, and have bright 
orange and red animals when living. ‘The 
gorgonian corals of many species, and the 
numerous sea-pens and sea-feathers (Pennatu- 
lacea), which are large and abundant in the 
deep sea, are nearly all bright colored when 
living, and either orange or red. All these 
Anthozoa are furnished with powerful stinging- 
organs for offence and defence; so that their 
colors cannot well.be for mere protection 
against enemies, for even the most ravenous 
fishes seldom disturb them. It is probable, 
therefore, that their invisible colors may be of 
use by concealing them from their prey, which 
must actually come in contact with these nearly 
stationary animals, in order to be caught. 
But there is a large species of scale-covered 
annelid (Polynoe aurantiaca Verr.) which lives 
habitually as a commensal on Bolocera Tue- 
diae, a very large orange or red actinian, with 
unusually powerful stinging-organs. Doubt- 
less the worm finds, on this account, perfect 
protection against fishes and other enemies. 
This annelid is of the same intense orange color 
as its actinian host. Such a color is very un- 
usual among annelids of this group, and in 
this case we must regard it as evidently pro- 
tective and adaptive in a very complex man- 
ner. 

It has been urged by several writers, that 
the light in the deep sea is derived from the 
phosphorescence of the animals themselves. It 
is true that many of the deep-sea Anthozoa, 
hydroids, ophiurans, and fishes are phosphores- 
cent ; and very likely this property is possessed 
by members of other groups in which it has 
not been observed. But, so far as known, 
phosphorescence is chiefly developed in conse- 
quence of nervous excitement or irritation, and 
is evidently chiefly of use as a means of defence 
against enemies. It is possessed by so many 
Anthozoa and acalephs which have, at the same 
time, stinging-organs, that it would seem as 
if fishes had learned to instinctively avoid all 
phosphorescent animals. Consequently it has 
become possible for animals otherwise de- 
fenceless to obtain protection by acquiring 
this property. It is well known to fishermen 
that fishes avoid nets, and cannot be caught in 
them if phosphorescent jelly-fishes become en- 
tangled in the meshes: therefore it can hardly 
be possible that there can be an amount of 
phosphorescent light, regularly and constantly 
evolved by the few deep-sea animals having 


10 SS ORENOE. 


this power, sufficient to cause any general illu- 
mination, or powerful enough to have influ- 
enced, over the whole ocean, the evolution 
of complex eyes, brilliant and complex pro- 
tective colors, and complex commensal adapta- 
tions. 

It seems to me probable that more or less 
sunlight does actually penetrate to the greatest 
depths of the ocean in the form of a soft sea- 
green light, perhaps at two thousand to three 
thousand fathoms equal in intensity to our 
partially moonlight nights, and possibly at the 
greatest depths equal only to starlight. It 
must be remembered that in the deep sea, far 
from land, the water is far more transparent 
than near the coast. A. E. VERRILL. 


ALPHONSE LAVALLEE. 


DENDROLOGICAL science has met with a great, 
an almost irreparable loss, in the death of 
Alphonse Lavallée, the best-known and most 
successful student and collector of trees of this 
generation. ‘Twenty-five years ago, under the 
advice and inspiration of Decaisne, he com- 
menced to gather upon his estate at Segrez, 
near Paris, the collection of trees and shrubs 
which has since developed into the richest and 
most complete arboretum ever established. 

Mr. Lavallée did not confine himself merely 
to the collection and cultivation of trees: he 
studied them thoroughly and critically, pub- 
lishing from time to time the results of his 
investigations. 

The nomenclature and synonymy of the 
forms and varieties of many genera of trees 
cultivated in the different countries of Europe, 
long ago fell into an almost hopeless con- 
fusion; and, to bring some order out of this 
confusion, Mr. Lavallée set himself resolutely 
to work. The results of these investigations 
were published, ten years ago, in the catalogue 
of his collections. A second and greatly 
enlarged edition of this useful work, written 
with a riper judgment and fuller knowledge, 
in many critical questions of synonymy, was 
nearly ready for the printer at the time of Mr. 
Lavallée’s death. He had commenced, too, the 
publication of the Arboretum Segrezianum, of 
which, however, only five parts had appeared. 
This sumptuous work, superbly illustrated 
with figures engraved from steel, contained the 
descriptions and history of some of the rarest 
or least-known plants of Mr. Lavallée’s col- 
lections. His latest published work, a magnifi- 
cently illustrated folio in which are described 
Les clématites a grandes fleurs, has only just 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


reached the author’s correspondents in this 
country. This was to be followed, in the 
course of the year, by an illustrated monograph 
of the genus Crataegus, which has long occu- 
pied Mr. Lavallée’s attention. His collection 
of different forms of the species of this most 
difficult and perplexing genus was unsurpassed, 
and his opportunities for observing them in a 
living state unequalled; so that a valuable 
revision of this genus might have been — 
for from his pen. 

Mr. Lavallée, at the time of his death, was 
president of the Central horticultural society 
of France, and perpetual treasurer of the 
National agricultural society, and had’ just 
declined the professorship in the Museum 
d’histoire naturelle, lately made vacant by the 
death of hisold master, Decaisne. Hehad been 
in ill health for several months, but his death 
was entirely unexpected. It was caused by 
aneurism, and occurred at Segrez upon the 3d 
of May, only a few hours after his return from 
a long residence in the south of France. Mr. 
Lavallée was only forty-nine years old at the 
time of his death. C. Sass 


BURIAL-MASKS OF THE ANCIENT 
PERUVIANS. 


A RECENT contribution to the Bureau of eth- 
nology illustrates one of the most curious of 
ancient burial customs. It is almost a univer- 
sal practice with primitive peoples to deposit 
articles of value with the dead. The ancient 
Peruvians were most lavish in this respect. 
Food, raiment, implements, utensils, rich tap- 
estries, and precious articles of silver and gold, 
as well as objects of superstitious regard, were 
freely sacrificed. 

Most interesting of all these offerings were 
the mask-like heads generally placed within 
the outer wrappings upon the top of the mummy 
pack. At Ancon these objects were usually 
made of cotton cloth. A small square sack or 
pillow was made, and stuffed with leaves or sea- 
weed. One side was painted to represent the 
human face, and to this a wooden nose was 
stitched. Hair was attached to the back of the © 
head, and a more or less elaborate head-dress 
was placed upon the crown. | 

The specimen referred to is of this class. 
It was obtained from a grave in the vicinity of — 
Lima, and purchased by G. H. Hurlbut of Chi- 
cago. It differs greatly from Ancon specimens, 
but is somewhat similar to an example illus- 
trated by Squier, also from the vicinity of Lima. 
It is interesting chiefly on account of the heter- 


‘ ‘ mt 
vie rs Clee, 


JuLY 4, 1884.] 


ogeneous collection of ornaments and trophies 
with which it is bedecked. 

The head is of heroic size, the face only 
being made of wood. ‘This is strongly carved, 
having a promi- 
nent nose, and 
wide, firm mouth. 
The eyes are 
formed by exca- 
vating oval de- 
pressions, and 
setting in pieces 
of shell. First, 
oval pieces of 
white clam-shell 
are inserted, 
which represent 
the whites of the 
eyes : upon these, 
small circular 
bits of dark shell 
are cemented, forming 
the pupils. Locks of 
hair have been set in 
beneath the shell, the 
ends of which project, 
representing the lashes 
of the eye. The wood- 
en part of the mask is 
flat behind; but the 
head has been neatly 
rounded out by a hemi- 
spherical bundle of 
dried leaves, which is 
held in- place by an 
open net of twisted 
cords. 

Besides this, a great 
variety of articles have 
been attached to the 
margin of the mask by 
means of five pairs of 
perforations. Upon the 
crown a large bunch of brilliantly colored 
feathers had been fixed : behind this, extending 
across the top of the head, is a long pouch of 
coarse white cloth, in which a great number 
of articles had been placed, — little packages 
of beans and seeds, rolls of cloth of different 
colors and textures, minute bundles of wool 
and flax, bits of copper and earth carefully 
wrapped in husks, bundles .of feathers, etc. 
Encircling the forehead are long, narrow bands 
or sashes, one of which is white, the others 
having figures woven in brilliant colors. The 
ends of these hang down at the sides of the 
face. 

Attached to the left side of the mask by long 


SCIENCE. 11 


stout cords is a pouch resembling a tobacco- 
bag, about six inches square, the fabric of 
which resembles a coarse sail-cloth: attached 
to the lower part of this is a fringe of long, 
heavy cords. From 
the opposite side 
of the head, a net 
was suspended in 
which had _ been 
placed a variety of 
objects, — a_ sling 
made of cords very 
skilfully construct- 
ed; bundles of 
flax and cords; 
small nets contain- 
ing beans, gourd- 
seeds, and other 
articles; copper 
fish-hooks still at- 
tached to the lines, 
which are wound 
about a bit of corn- 
stalk or cane; neat- 
ly made sinkers of 
dark slate wrapped 
in corn-husks; to- 
gether with many 
other curious rel- 
ics. 

These articles 
were doubtless the 
property of the de- 
parted, so placed in 
accordance with the 
established customs 
of the race to which 
he belonged. The 
mask-head was 
probably in itself 
an object of much 
consideration;  al- 
though we are at a 
loss to determine 
its exact use by 
the living, or its 
significance as a 
companion of the 
dead. 

W. H. Howtmes. 


MEETING OF THE CIVIL ENGINEERS 
AT BUFFALO. 


THE annual convention of the American society of 
civil engineers was held in Buffalo, June 10-13, and 
will be remembered by all who attended as one of the 
most successful in the history of the society. A spe- 


i 


12 SCIENCE. 


cial train, courteously tendered by the management 
of the New York, West-Shore, and Buffalo railroad, 
left New York on the morning of June 9, carrying 
a large number of members from the eastern states, 
while many more came from other directions ; the 
total number present, including guests, being be- 
tween three and four hundred. At the opening 
meeting, on Tuesday, June 10, the reading of papers 
was begun; and many of great interest were pre- 
sented at this and the following sessions. Mr. 
James B. Francis of Lowell, past president of the 
society, presented one describing some tests, made 
under his direction, to determine the efficiency of a 
Humphrey turbine water-wheel of large power (about 
275-horse power), lately put into one of the mills of the 
Tremont and Suffolk manufacturing company at Low- 
ell. The test showed an efficiency of about eighty- 
two per cent, which was considered satisfactory. Mr. 
Francis also presented a paper giving the results 
of a large number of experiments, which he had 
made in connection with this turbine test, to deter- 
mine the coefficients of the formula for the flow of 
water over a submerged weir, or one in which the 
level of the water on the down-stream side is above 
the crest of the weir. Experiments on weirs of this 
kind have not been very numerous, especially with 
large quantities of water. The maximum quantity 
in Mr. Francis’s experiments had been somewhat over 
two hundred cubic feet per second, and his paper 
gave the proper constants to be used in the ordinary 
formula for cases of this kind. His results must be 
considered as of great value, and as forming a wor- 
thy supplement to his former extended experiments 
on ordinary weirs. 

Mr. A. M. Wellington read a paper on a line of 
railroad which he had located from Vera Cruz to the 
City of Mexico, comparing it with an existing line 
built some time ago. Although the elevation sur- 
mounted was the same in both cases (about 8,050 
feet), the old line had a grade of 216 feet per mile 
for most of the distance, and had cost over three 
times the estimated cost of the new line, which had 
a continuous grade of 106 feet to the mile for a dis- 
tance of about eighty miles, broken in but one place 
by a level stretch of half a mile, at an important 
station. This is probably the longest unbroken grade 
in the world. The maximum curvature was about 
the same in both lines, though rather sharper in the 
case of the new line, where the smallest radius was 
about 300 feet. 

Mr. P. C. Asserson of Norfolk gave the results of 
his experiments in endeavoring to protect wood from 
the ravages of the Teredo navalis. He had tried 
some twenty different preservatives, both paints and 
substances to be injected into the wood, and had 
found nothing effective except creosote. Leaving 
the bark on piles, or incasing them in a sheathing of 
plank, was also stated to be effectual, as the Teredo 
could not cross a seam, and therefore could not pene- 
trate the pile under these circumstances. In the dis- 
cussion on this paper it was stated that covering piles 
with yellow metal had proved effectual, as the ani- 
mal would not pursue its ravages within the distance 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


so covered, even" though it might be able to gain ac- 
cess to the wood on either side of the metal. It was 
therefore only necessary to cover piles with the metal 


down to the mud bottom, or a little farther. Driving 


small-headed nails thickly all over the surface of the 
pile was also said to have preserved piles for over 
seventy years, by preventing the entrance and growth 
of the animal. 

Mr. Robert Moore of St. Louis described the land- 
ing arrangements for a car-ferry across the Mississippi 
River at St. Louis. The ordinary range of the water 
being about thirty-one feet, and the current very 
swift, the problem had presented some difficulty; 
and it had been necessary to protect the bank of the 
river, for some distance above and below, by willow 
mattresses sunk with stone in the ordinary way. 
The details of the arrangement adopted were shown 
by drawings. 

Mr. D. Fitzgerald of Boston read a paper on the 
rainfall at Lake Cochituate, discussing the results of 
observations extending from 1852 to the present time. 
His results differ somewhat from those obtained by 
Mr. Schott, in his work on rainfall, published among 
the Smithsonian contributions, on account of the 
longer period at the command of Mr. Fitzgerald. 

The application of the water-power of Niagara to 
the generation of electricity was the subject of an in- 
teresting paper by Mr. Benjamin Rhodes of Niagara 
Falls. He estimated the average power as seven 
million ‘hhorse-power, on the total fall, including the 
rapids above, of two hundred and thirty feet; and the 
cost of the plant necessary to utilize this power, 
transform it into electricity, and transmit it any- 
where within a radius of five hundred miles, was 
placed at five thousand million dollars. About six 
thousand horse-power is now in use at the falls, the 
greater part on the hydraulic canal, which takes 
the water from the extreme head of the rapids, and 
discharges it below the falls, using it on the wheels 
under heads of from fifty to a hundred feet. Water- 
power has been used to run a Brush dynamo since 
1879, for lighting the grounds of Prospect Park. 
The speaker calculated that there would be a saving 
per light, at the city of Buffalo, by using the Niagara 
water-power instead of steam-power, of forty dollars 
per annum. The well-known advantages of the 
water-power at Niagara, as regards steadiness, etc., 
were dwelt upon. 

Capt. O. E. Micharles, U.S.A., discussed the heavy- 
gun question, taking the ground that it would be 
better for the government to make large contracts 
with private establishments for the manufacture of 
heavy cannon, than to establish a government foun- 
dry for their manufacture, and advocating the em- 
ployment of a Rodman gun, cast from open-hearth 
steel, annealed from the interior. 

The most important business action taken by the — 
society was a vote to memorialize the president of the 
United States, asking that the president of the society 
be appointed a member of the international confer- 
ence to meet at Washington in October next, to fix 
and determine a prime meridian from which time 
should be reckoned. The committee on standard 


JULY 4, 1884.] 


time reported that a great majority of those whose 
opinions had been sought had expressed themselves 
in favor of a consecutive numbering of the hours of 
the day from 1 to 24. 

At the evening session on Tuesday, June 10, the 
society were welcomed to Buffalo by the city officers; 
and the president of the society, Mr. D. J. Whitte- 
more, delivered the annual address. On Wednesday 
an excursion was made to the so-called Tifft farm, 
where improvements are being made, designed to 
facilitate the transfer of coal from the railroads to the 
lake vessels. They will consist in an extensive system 
of docks, excavated on the mainland, together with 
coal-pockets and other structures for loading into the 
boats. Near by, an extensive storage-place for coal 
is provided; the loaded cars being drawn up a long 
incline of trestle-work, from which they descend by 
gravity after unloading their coal beneath. The 
mountain of coal thus formed is penetrated by a 
wooden tunnel eight feet square, into which cars are 
run and loaded through sliding doors, when the coal 
is to be transported to the pockets at the docks. At 
this place a hundred and twenty thousand tons of 
coal may be stored during the season, when naviga- 
tion is closed, or from Dec. 1 to May 1. Although 
the dock frontage of Buffalo already measures five 
miles, the Tifft farm improvements will add eight 
miles more, at an estimated cost of eighty dollars per 
foot front. The unloading and loading facilities are 


already so complete at Buffalo, that a two-thousand | 


ton vessel may arrive loaded with grain, and depart 
loaded with coal, within eighteen hours. There isa 
growing demand, however, for greater capacity as the 
lake traffic increases. 

Thursday was devoted to an excursion to Niagara 
Falls and the new cantilever bridge, and on Friday 
the reading of papers was resumed. Mr. E. L. Cor- 
thell, chief engineer of the West-Shore railroad, and 
formerly in charge of the works at the mouth of the 
Mississippi, read a paper on the South-Pass jetties, 
dwelling chiefly upon the lessons which had been 
taught by their construction. The channel is now 
nearly straight for two and a quarter miles, and the 
depth is continually increasing. A survey made last 
May showed the least depth through the channel to be 
forty feet except in a few places, and everywhere 
much in excess of that guaranteed by the contract. 
Moreover, the jetties had now become thoroughly em- 
bedded in the sand, which had become firmly packed 
into all their interstices, so that their permanence 
was assured. There was, further, no advance of the 
bar toward the gulf, although a rapid advance had been 
predicted by many engineers. The effect on com- 
merce had been very great, and there was now no de- 
lay whatever at the mouth of the river; so that New 
Orleans might be said to have a better channel from 
the ocean than any other city in America. The 
results of the work had clearly proved the advantage 
of a concentration of the force of the current, and had 
shown that the river could obtain what it could main- 
tain, and that it could not maintain what it could not 
obtain. Altogether, the result of the works had been 
in every way satisfactory. 


SCIENCE. 13 


A paper by Mr. Benjamin Reese, on the manage- 
ment of forces engaged in railroad-track repairs, was 
listened to with evident appreciation by the railroad 
engineers present. 

Mr. E. Sweet, state engineer of New York, contrib- 
uted a paper on the enlargement of the Erie Canal, 
arguing, that, in order to be a proper highway, the 
canal should be large enough to carry the largest lake 
vessels, or eighteen feet deep and a hundred feet 
wide on the bottom, with locks four hundred and fifty 
feet long and sixty feet wide. The cost of the im- 
provements proposed, which would involve a reloca- 
tion of part of the canal, and the canalization by locks 
and dams of the Mohawk River, as well as some works 
on the Hudson, was estimated at from a hundred 
and twenty-five to a hundred and fifty million dol- 
lars; while the probable tonnage was placed at twenty 
to twenty-five million tons perannum. Thirty years 
ago the Erie Canal carried nine-tenths of all the traffic 
between Buffalo and New York, while now it carries 
less than one-fifth of the total. The paper was fol- 
lowed by one prepared by Capt. Drake of Buffalo, 
urging the importance and the cheapness of water- 
carriage. 

Mr. J. J. R. Croes of New York read a paper, com- 
paring the water-rates in a large number of cities and 
towns. Assuming the conditions of a dwelling for 
seven persons, he found that the rates would vary in 
different towns from five dollars to seventy-two dol- 
lars per annum, and that they were by no means in 
proportion to the cost of the works. The average 
rates in different parts of the country were compared, 
and the advantages of measuring the water delivered 
to consumers were discussed. 

The remainder of the session was devoted to a dis- 
cussion on the subject of steel, and a comparison be- 
tween steel and iron for structural purposes; but, on 
account of the want of time, a number of papers were 
read by title only. 


RECENT OBSERVATIONS ON EXPLO- 
SIVE AGENTS. 


JUDGING from the many attempts made to vary 
the form and composition of ‘ explosive gelatine,’ this 
method of using nitroglycerine is meeting with favor. 
As invented by Nobel, it is made by dissolving seven 
parts of soluble gun-cotton in ninety-three parts of 
nitroglycerine at a temperature of 85° C. Under the 
circumstances, the whole mass gelatinizes, and, when 
cool, is quite a stiff and translucent jelly, insoluble 
in water, quite insensible to shocks, and holding its 
nitroglycerine firmly. Unfortunately its stability has 
become a matter of doubt. Hill, Gen. Abbot, and 
others have cited instances of spontaneous decom- 
position during storage; and the writer has recently 
described the circumstances attending a similar case 
occurring under his own observation. The cause is 
believed to exist in the lack of uniformity of com- 
position of the gun-cotton, and the failure to remove 
from it the last traces of free acid. Itis hoped that 
these difficulties may be overcome. 


14 


The variations from the above composition have 
consisted in varying the proportions given, in the ad- 
dition of camphor, benzene, and the like substances 
to increase the insensibility, and of oxidizing and 
combustible agents to cheapen the cost and modify 
the force of the explosive. The widest departure 
from the original explosive gelatine is probably found 
in the substance styled ‘forcite,’ invented by J. M. 
Lewin. This is made by subjecting finely powdered 
paper stock, or other form of cellulose, to the action 


of high-pressure steam until the cellulose is converted - 


into a gelatinous mass. This is then cooled and im- 
mersed in water, where it preserves its gelatinous 
form indefinitely. Seven parts of this gelatinized 
cellulose, seventy-five parts of nitroglycerine, and 
eighteen parts of nitre are incorporated together over 
a water-bath at a temperature of 40°C. The result is 
a whitish, opaque, gelatinous mass. The ingredients 
are varied by substituting dextrine and ordinary 
cellulose for a part of the gelatinized cellulose. 
Judging from some of the descriptions of this powder, 
various coloring-matters are also used. It is claimed 
for this explosive, that while it is stable, and holds its 
nitroglycerine so firmly that it is not separated by 
sulphuric ether, alcohol, or water, and while it burns 
in the open air without explosion, yet it may be ex- 
ploded in a drill-hole by ordinary fuses. Three fac- 
tories are now producing this explosive in Europe, 
and one has recently been started on a very extensive 
scale in New Jersey. These last works are stated to 
have a capacity of five tons of powder per day. A 
novelty in these works is the use of India-rubber 
pipes laid underground for conveying the nitroglycer- 
ine from the converting-house to the incorporating- 
houses. 

Among the processes invented for making nitro- 
glycerine, the one devised by Boutmy and Faucher 
seemed to offer the best assurance of safety, owing 
to the absence of all energetic action during the 
operation of conversion. In this process nitric and 
sulphuric acids were mixed together in equal propor- 
tions. A second mixture was then made, with one 
part of glycerine to three and two-tenths parts of 
sulphuric acid. When quite cooled, fifty-six parts 
of the first mixture were mixed in an earthenware 
vessel with forty-two parts of the second mixture, 
and allowed to remain from ten to twenty-four hours, 
when the nitroglycerine was found to have formed 
quietly, and collected more or less completely on the 
top of the acids. The failure of the nitroglycerine 
to separate completely and at once from the acids 
has been pointed out as a source of danger in the 
process, since nitroglycerine is decomposed through 
prolonged contact with strong acids. In spite of this, 
the process has been in use at the French govern- 
ment factory at Vonges since 1872, and but one 
accident is recorded. They dealt, however, with com- 
paratively limited quantities, and used pure materials. 

Probably the first attempt to apply the process on 
a commercial scale was made at Pembrey, in Wales, 
in 1882, where an iron converter was constructed for 
nitrating fifteen hundred pounds of glycerine in each 
charge. The process of mixing differed from that 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


used at Vonges, in that, while the final mixing was 
done there by hand with a wooden paddle, at Pem- 
brey the sulphoglycerine mixture was blown into 
the acid mixture in the form of a spray, while the 
acid mixture was being agitated by a blast of air. The 
process, as thus modified, had been in operation but 
a few months, when the converter, while containing 
from five hundred to six hundred pounds of nitro- 
glycerine, was blown up. Col. Majendie has given — 
an extended account of the circumstances in his re- 
port, No. 48, to the home secretary; and he considers 
the explosion due to violent chemical action, estab- 
lished in acid nitroglycerine present in the converter. 
Dr. Dupré, however, found the glycerine used to be 
contaminated with fatty acids, while no effort had 
been made to free the nitric acid from nitrous acid. 
This lack of care would have led to danger in any 
process. 

Some years since, Dr. Sprengel proposed a conven- 
ient and safe way of forming explosives by using 
oxidizing and combustible agents of such a nature 
that they could be readily mixed at the place where 
wanted for use. Several such mixtures have been 
devised; among others, ‘ rackarock,’ which consists of 
potassium chlorate and nitro-benzene, and which has 
given good results. For this explosive the chlorate is 
furnished in bags of suitable size ; and, when wanted 
for use, these bags are immersed in the liquid nitro- 
benzene for a determined length of time, when they 
are ready to be exploded. The most recent explosive 
of this class, ‘panclastite,’ is composed of liquid 
nitrogen tetroxide and a combustible agent, prefera- 
bly carbon disulphide, in the proportion of three vol- 
umes of the first liquid to two of the second. The 
heat developed by the combustion of this mixture is 
estimated at about 3000° C.; and, when burning freely, 
the light is so bright as to equal that of the calcium 
light. The inventor claims that its explosive power, 
when confined, surpasses that of dynamite ; but the 
French explosive commission, when using Abel’s lead 
cylinder test, obtained a slightly less value. With* 
a mixture of equal volumes of nitrogen tetroxide and 
of nitrotoluene, however, they obtained the same 
value as for dynamite No. 1. Notwithstanding the 
power of the panclastite mixtures, it is questionable 
whether such a substance as nitrogen tetroxide can 
be brought into any general use. 

While much attention has been given to the high 
explosives, the claims of gunpowder have not been 
overlooked; and many changes have been proposed 
in the form, size, shape, and density of the grain, 
and in the mode of manufacture and composition of 
the mixture. The most novel among these is the 
hydrocarbon-powder, made from a mixture of nitre 
or potassium chlorate with a solid hydrocarbon, such 
as paraffine, asphaltum, India-rubber, and the like, 
The incorporation is effected by the aid of a volatile — 
liquid solvent, which dissolves the hydrocarbon, and 
furnishes a plastic mass, which may be moulded into 
any desired form, and then hardened by allowing the 
solvent to evaporate. A peculiar advantage claimed 
for the powder is its imperviousness to water. 

A variety of gunpowder made by the Rottweil- 


JULY 4, 1884.] 


Hamburg powder company at Duneberg, is, however, 
attracting the most attention on account of the high 
initial velocities and low pressures which it has actu- 
ally given in practice. The grains weigh about forty- 
two grams, have a specific gravity of 1.86, and have 
the hexagonal prismatic form so generally adopted 
in Europe, with one canal. They have the color of 
cocoa; and from this characteristic the powder has 
become known as ‘cocoa’ powder. The reddish hue 
seems to be due to red-burned charcoal.. Powders 
_ heretofore made with red coal have been found to be 
readily inflammable, and to explode with dangerous 
brusqueness, producing high local pressures; and 
hence care has been taken to select only well-burned 
black coal for the manufacture of military gunpow- 
ders. In spite of the fact that ‘cocoa’ powder con- 
tains red coal, it has been found by experiment, that 
a grain of it burns slowly and with very slight defla- 
gration, when ignited in the open air; and that a mass 
as great as fifty-five kilograms, when enclosed in a 
wooden box and ignited, burned slowly, without ex- 
ploding, and simply raised the cover of the box with- 
out displacing it. This may be owing to the large 
percentage of charcoal, the low percentage of sulphur, 
and the high specific gravity ; but the slowness of 
combustion is equally marked when a grain is crushed 
to meal-powder ; and it is probable that there is a dif- 
ference in the kind of charcoal, as well as in the quan- 
tity. In addition, it is claimed that this powder is 
but slightly hygroscopic, and yields very little smoke. 
The advantage of this last-mentioned property is 
shown by the recent experience at Alexandria, where 
the English were compelled from time to time to 
cease firing, to allow the smoke from their guns to 
clear away ; and in the Sudan, where the English 
were blinded by the smoke, under which the enemy 
crept upon them. On the other hand, it is stated that 
‘cocoa’ powder fouls badly. 

With gunpowder, as with all mechanical mixtures, 
the uniformity of the product depends largely upon 
the thoroughness of the incorporation. To test gun- 
powder for this most important condition, it is cus- 
tomary to flash a quantity upon a plate of glass, and 
to examine the residue; but the deliquescent and per- 
ishable character of the deposit necessitates immedi- 
ate examination, while long and frequent experience 
with the test is required in order to enable one to 
draw a proper conclusion from the observation. Col. 
Chabrier has proposed the use of paper, colored blue 
by starch and potassium iodide, upon which to make 
the flash, the color being discharged by the combus- 
tion of the powder. The test-papers of this process, 
however, are also evanescent, and the trained mem- 
ory must be relied upon in reaching a decision. The 
writer has recently proposed the use of a paper col- 
ored with Turnbull’s blue, such as is produced in the 
‘plue-print’ process of photography; since the color 
of this paper is discharged by the action of such al- 
kaline salts as are formed in the combustion of gun- 
powder. For use, the paper is dampened; the powder 
is placed upon it in a uniform heap, and then flashed. 
The paper is exposed to the action of the residue for 
half a minute, and then washed in running water, 


SCIENCE. 15 


and dried. The result is, that, wherever a globule 
has rested, the color is bleached. It is believed that 
these spots will be smaller and more uniformly dis- 
tributed as the incorporation approaches complete- 
ness, provided the state of the different samples tested 
is otherwise the same. These test-papers can be pre- 
served without change, and may be filed as standards 
for comparison, or forwarded to experts for examina- 
tion. CuHas. E. MUNROE. 


NOTICES OF ETHNOLOGIC PUBLICA- 
TIONS. 


THE ethnology of the Eskimo, better called Innuit 
people, is to us of an ever-renewed interest, not only 
on account of the researches around the arctic pole, 
in the furtherance of which this race has been emi- 
nently helpful, but also for the peculiar ethnographic 
position of the people among the other American 
nations. Dr. Franz Boas has discussed the present 
seats of the Neitchillik-Eskimo, first seen by Sir John 
Ross (1829-83), and recently visited by Lieut. Schwat- 
ka, and illustrates his article by a topographic map.+ 
Another article of singular interest, by Edward B. 
Tyler, deals with ‘‘Old Scandinavian civilization 
among the modern Eskimos,” with two plates,? and 
contains a large amount of facts new to science. 
Bering’s Straits, considered as the ‘ bridge’ between 
the two continents and hemispheres, necessarily 
calls the attention of all ethnologists to the tribes 
inhabiting both sides of it. The ethnographic rela- 
tions of these are expounded with minute care by 
Prof. G. Gerland of the Strasburg university, in a 
paper inscribed ‘‘ Zur ethnographie des aussersten 
nordostens von Asien.’?2 The tribes on the Asiatic 
side are described from the accounts given by the 
latest travellers, and old errors concerning them are 
refuted. 

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, formerly missionary among 
the Ponka Indians, and a specialist in the study of all 
tribes and languages of the Dakotan family, has given 
a lucid ‘account of the war customs of the Osages’ # 
as the result of a visit to that tribe, made in 1883. 
These interesting war and hunting customs are chiefly 
based upon the gentile or totem-clan system. The 
rules observed in encamping and other military acts 
were most rigidly and unalterably enforced, per- 
haps more so than our own military regulations, and 
through their archaic forms testify to a high antiquity. 
Customs like these may be traced among all the war- 
like tribes of the Mississippi plains, even at the present 
time, when they are hedged in within the narrow 
limits of Indian reservations. Numerous illustra- 
tions facilitate a clearer understanding of the practices 
described. 

Dr. W. J. Hoffman presents us a ‘Comparison of 
Eskimo pictographs with those of other American 
aborigines,’’ > interspersing his article with numerous 

1 Zeitschr. gesellsch. erdk. Berlin, xviii. 222. 
2 Journ. anthrop. inst., 1884, 348. 

3 Zeitschr. gesellsch. erdk. Berlin, xviii. 194. 
4 Amer. nat., 1884, 118. 

5 Trans. anthrop. soc. Wash., ii. 128. 


16 SCIENCE. 


illustrations and linguistic scraps. Another paper,! 
by A. S. Gatschet, discusses his ethnologic and lin- 
guistic observations made among the Shetimasha 
Indians of St. Mary’s parish, La. 

Ethnologic results of a visit, made in 1883, to two 
Iroquois reservations in New-York state,are published 
in French and in Dutch by Dr. H. ten Kate, who in 
the same year made somatological and other re- 
searches among the Indians of the south-west of the 
United States and the north-west of Mexico, includ- 
ing the peninsula of California. 

Wood-carvings of the Haida and other tribes of the 
north-west coast of North America are figured upon 
thirteen splendidly colored plates, with descriptive 
letter-press, in a folio volume entitled ‘ Amerikas nord- 
westkuste; neueste ergebnisse ethnologischer reisen.’ 
The objects represented consist of masks of human 


and animal shape; of implements, such as spoons,. 


vases, rattles; of troughs, posts, idols, and other 
wood-carvings, — all of which are now exhibited in the 
collection of the Berlin royal museum. ‘This folio 
was published by Asher & Co., in Berlin, under the 
auspices of the direction of the ethnologic depart- 
ment in the museum in 1883 (Dr. Adolf Bastian); and 
an English edition was issued in the same year. 

The political and social condition of the Liberian 
negroes, an immigration from North America into 
western Africa, is discussed in a long and very elabo- 
rate article read to the Geographical society of Berne, 
Switzerland.2 The capital of this Ethiopian republic 
is Monrovia: the population consists of two elements 
quite distinct from each other,—the aboriginal 
negroes and the immigrated settlers. Slavery is 
nominally abolished by the constitution of the re- 
public; but a substitute has been found in the so- 
called ‘ bushniggers,’ whose only toilet consists in a 
handkerchief worn about their loins. The Liberia 
constitution proclaims full liberty of religion, con- 
science, of speech and press, and gratuitous education 
of children; and one of the more noticeable para- 
graphs precludes white people from acquiring any 
real estate, and from being intrusted with any public 
office. J. Biitikofer, the author of the article, gives 
many observations and personal experiences from his 
travels in the interior and on the coast of Liberia. 

An excellent ethno-archeological publication on 
Bavaria, which deserves more than a passing notice, 
is published under the title, ‘ Beitriige zur anthropol- 
ogie und urgeschichte Bayerns.’ These contributions 
are the organ of the Munich society of anthropology, 
ethnology, and prehistorics, being issued in four num- 
bers to a volume of lexicon-octavo size, and profusely 
illustrated. Under the editorship of Joh. Ranke and 
Nic. Riidinger, five volumes have been issued up to the 
present year. The most extensive and difficult topic 
now engrossing the attention of that scientific body is 
the publication of the archeologic map of Bavaria, — 
a land which covers an area of 75,000 0 kilometres, 
and has been in its more level parts thoroughly 
explored by archeologists for remains of antiquity. 
Of the fifteen sheets of the map, five have been 


1 Trans. anthrop. soc. Wash., ii. p. 148. 
2 Jahresb. geogr. gesellsch. Bern, v. 75. 


[Vou. IV., No. 74, 


issued by the editor in charge, Prof. F. Ohlschlager, 
who uses over twenty colored sign-marks for the 
objects discovered, and adds a Statistical and topo- 
graphic register of the finds. The occurrence of all 
the ‘hochacker,’ a relic analogous to the ‘ garden- 
beds’ of the American north-west, has been repre- 
sented on a separate map in the fifth volume: they 
are almost entirely limited to the southern parts of 
Bavaria, extending between Augsburg and Salzburg. 


MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 


Animal intelligence. By Grorce J. ROMANEsS. 
New York, Appleton, 1883. (International sci- 
entific series.) 498 p. 8°. 


Mental evolution in animals. By the same. 
York, Appleton, 1884. 3884p. 8°. 


In the wide range of interesting facts col- 
lected and published a year ago in ‘Animal 
intelligence,’ Mr. Romanes laid a broad founda- 
tion for his present work, ‘ Mental evolution in 
animals ;’ and these volumes, we find, are pre- 
liminary to a forthcoming work upon ‘ Mental 
evolution in man,’ which will complete the most 
extensive study of comparative psychology ever 
attempted. This subject has not hitherto re- 
ceived the comprehensive treatment which its 
importance deserves. One of the most vital 
questions of our times is the genetic continuity 
of the mind as well as the physical structure of 
man with that of the lower animals: it marks 
the point where the views of Darwin and 
Wallace, and of many of their followers, di- 
verge ; and, whatever our own opinions may be, 
we must regard this as the crowning problem 
of animal evolution in its broadest sense. In 
the first few pages of these two works, it is 
easy to discern the author’s personal stand- 
point, and to foresee that the third volume will 
contain an elaboration of the psychology of the 
‘Descent of man.’ Reserving, however, a com- 
plete discussion of the final question for the 
later work, he carries us here to the summit of 
the lower animal scale, ably following every 
line of inquiry. Although not a profound 
thinker, Mr. Romanes is a thorough and or igi- 
nal investigator ; and his previous labors, both 
in biology ‘and psychology, qualify him pecul- 
iarly for this line of research. While as a phi- 
losopher he generally follows Hume, Mill, Bain, 
and Spencer, his position as a psy chologist is 
often very independent. As a follower of Dar- 
win, he naturally inclines strongly to his views — 
on many questions; attributing to natural se- 
lection almost unlimited influence in the devel- 
opment of instinct and intelligence. 

Based upon the generally accepted truth of 
the evolution theory, below the human scale, 


New 


JULY 4, 1884.] 


the plan of the work is, first, the collection of 
a vast number of authentic observations upon 
the lower animals (this, with general com- 
ments, occupies the whole of the volume upon 
‘ Animal intelligence’); second, a close analysis 
of the tests of mind, its physical basis, and the 
means we have of determining its presence ; 
third, an examination of the mental faculties, 
such as consciousness, sensation and percep- 
tion, instinct and reason, in their higher and 
lower manifestations; fourth, the application 
of actual observations to the determination of 
the various levels in the animal scale at which 
these phenomena of consciousness, sensation, 
and so on, appear; finally, a full discussion of 
the problem of instinct, as arising parallel with 
intelligence. The chief merits, as well as the 
special and almost insurmountable difficulties 
of Mr. Romanes’ work, are met with in these 
last two sections. In the accumulation of well- 
ascertained facts, he has started in a sound 
scientific method: the interpretation of these 
facts is a most delicate task. 

Is a certain act prompted by instinct, or in- 
telligence? Does it indicate conscious choice, 


or merely the response of reflex action to a | 


certain stimulus? Does it indicate a knowl- 
edge of the relation of means to end? These 
are subtle problems all along the line from the 
anthropoid ape to the Amoeba: their inter- 
pretation by the two schools of psychologists 
is often directly contradictory, yet upon this 
the whole argument must rest. The difficul- 
ties increase as we descend the scale. The 
minds of others can only be known as ideal 
projections of our own mental states. Here 
arises the doubt, in applying our criteria of 
mind to particular cases, which increases as 
we recede from minds like our own to those 
less so, passing into a gradual series to not- 
minds. 

The observations in the first volume under 
consideration relate to members of all the 
larger divisions of the animal kingdom. Their 
number and variety are surprising; and, al- 
though the author has carefully endeavored to 
exclude all those in the least degree doubtful, 
many of them will appear incredible to persons 
unfamiliar with this class of literature. These 
anecdotes form a superb field for induction ; 
yet many of them are marred for scientific 
purposes by the hasty conclusions of the ob- 
servers, which are appended. In the closing 
chapter upon monkeys, there is a novel diary 
of the habits of a brown capuchin, which was 
written for two months by Miss Romanes. 

In the second volume, before seeking to 
determine the levels at which we meet the lower 


SCIENCE. 


UE 


and higher mental phenomena, the author tries 
to show very clearly his own conception of 
mind, and by what means we can legitimately 
infer its presence in an animal. ‘* The dis- 
tinctive element of mind,’’ he says, ‘‘ is con- 
sciousness, and the test of consciousness is the 
power of choice.’’ The function of selective 
discrimination with the complementary power 
of adaptive response is regarded as the root- 
principle of mind; and it is found only in 
agents which are capable of feeling. These 
root-principles of feeling and choice may be 
traced down into the vegetable kingdom, where, 
for example, we find an insectivorous plant 
rejecting a bit of glass, but feeling and closing 
upon a fly. To the objection that plants are 
not in any proper sense capable of feeling, the 
author allows that at the bottom of the scale 
the terms have lost all their original meaning ; 
yet the apparent abuse of terms serves well to 
emphasize the fact of the gradual dawn of these 
powers. The great stress of Mr. Romanes’ 
argument, as a consistent evolutionist, is the 
universal gradation which we find throughout 
the scale, which he strictly maintains is one of 
degree only, although it may appear to be one 
of kind. With this principle of gradation 
constantly in mind, the reader will be less sur- 
prised at some of the author’s conclusions. 

We see feeling and choice acquiring the 
semblance of their higher meaning among the 
coelenterates, in the Medusae for example, 
where we first find definite sense-organs. In 
this group, accordingly, following Spencer, the 
author discovers ‘the raw material of con- 
sciousness.’ Here arises another difficulty 
in distinguishing between the mental choice of 
consciousness, and the apparent, but not real 
mental choice of reflex action; and the only 
distinction that can be drawn consists in the 
latter ‘‘ depending on inherited mechanisms 
within the nervous system, being so constructed 
as to effect particular adaptive movements in 
response to particular stimulations, while the 
former are independent of any such inherited 
adjustments.’’ Reflex choice is habitual and 
invariable : mental choice decides between one 
of two alternatives, in case of new experience. 
Sensation is feeling aroused by a stimulus, and 
always attended by consciousness; and, to- 
gether with the rise of conscious choice, we 
meet the dawn of intelligence, or mind as we 
generally understand it. Does the organism 
learn by its own individual as distinguished 
from its race experience? If it does so, its 
mind is placed beyond the area of merely 
reflex action. 

Having advanced thus far, the author first 


18 SCIENCE. 


discovers memory of a low order among the 
gastropods; experiments with the echino- 
derms and higher crustaceans having, up to this 
time, given rather negative results. The latter 
fact is the more surprising; because among 
some of the terrestrial arthropods — the ants, 
bees, and wasps — this faculty is so wonderfully 
developed. Memory of the higher kind, which 
depends upon the association of ideas by 
similarity, is met with among the fish and 
batrachians. This involves another faculty ; 
namely, perception. Differing from Spencer 
in many particulars, and showing less con- 
fidence in himself as to the rise of perception 
than at other points, the author in general 
regards it as the faculty of cognition, and finds 
clear evidence of it among the insects, reach- 
ing the general conclusion that reflex action 
and perception advancetogether. Imagination 
is stated to rise step by step with memory 
and perception among the mollusks, insects, 
spiders, crustaceans ; and the doubting reader 
is referred to the actual observations in ‘ Animal 
intelligence ’ which sustain these conclusions. 
As to the more complex mental powers, pro- 
ceeding in the same line of argument, the 
author discovers reason, with a knowledge of 
the relation between means and end, among 
the bees and wasps; in this order he also 
observes communication of ideas ; understand- 
ing of words, and dreaming, are found among 
the birds; tools are intelligently used by 
monkeys and elephants; an indefinite sense 
of morality is seen among dogs and anthro- 
poid apes. The discussion of conscience, voli- 
tion, and abstraction, is reserved for the last 
volume. The various approximate levels at 
which the signs of the emotions, the will, and 
the intellect appear, are presented in a large 
diagram, in which the faculties branching out 
from a single stem, neurility, are seen in a 
condensed view of the entire system. 

Fully one-half of ‘ Mental evolution in ani- 
mals ’ is devoted to the subject of instinct ; and 
as it is treated with the utmost fulness and clear- 
ness, with a critical discussion of the theories 
of different writers, it forms an invaluable and 
standard contribution to this much mooted 
subject. In general, supporting the theory of 
Darwin in opposition to the contradictory 
views of Lewes and Spencer, it is shown that 
the origin of instincts may be either primary 
or secondary ; that is to say, — 


“Instincts may arise either by natural selection 
fixing on purposeless habits which chance to be 


1 In his Principles of psychology. This work was written 
before the publication of the Origin of species. Mr. Spencer 
now admits the wide influence of natural selection. 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


profitable, so converting these habits into instincts 
(primary), without intelligence ever being concerned 
in the process; or by habits originally intelligent be- 
coming by repetition automatic (secondary ).”’ 


While either of these causes may work alone, 
yet frequently in co-operation they evolve in- 
stinct more rapidly by blended origin. In- 
stinct is accordingly defined as ‘‘ reflex action 
into which there is imported the element of con- 
sciousness ;’’ and the point is ably sustained, 
that Spencer’s derivation of instinctive from 
reflex actions merely, is inadequate for the 
higher animals, while Lewes’s theory of the 
‘intelligence ’ origin is inadequate to explain 
the instincts of the lower animals. Darwin’s 
essay on instinct, part of which only appeared 
in the ‘Origin of species,’ is published as an 
appendix to this volume. The author ac- 
knowledges his indebtedness to this, as well as 
to many manuscript notes left him by the great 
naturalist. 

An outline has been given of these unusually 
interesting works ; and there is little space left 
for extended criticism, although at many points 
it is richly deserved. We find, among other 
defects, that the candor of the author’s preface 
is not sustained throughout. He disclaims the 
discussion of all philosophical questions, such 
as the causal relations between mind and 
matter, as apart from the objects of the book ; 
yet, at several rough places where he feels called 
upon to explain the origin of faculties, he does 
it in terms of nerve fibres and cells. For ex- 
ample: in the origin of consciousness we find 
him groping after Spencer, and, with some 
hesitation, deriving this faculty from ‘ gan- 
elionic friction;’ while at another turn he 
reverses the causal relation, since it is con- 


’ venient to do so, and suggests a psychical cause 


for some material change. Discussing the 
origin of nerve-fibres, he again quotes Spencer ; 
although Balfour, in his address before the 
British association in 1880, gave the whole 
weight of his authority against Spencer’s theo- 
retical views. The accounts given of the evo- 
lution of the first germs of mind and nerves 
are necessarily obscure and assailable. It is 
true that pure speculation is unavoidable in 
such an intangible sphere of inquiry; but the 
intrinsic merits of the argument are dimmed, 
and we believe the truth is delayed, when the 
reader is so often left in doubt as to where the 
author’s observation ceases and his imagination 
begins. As before stated, it is not the facts 
of actual observation brought forward, but the 
character of the inferences which are drawn 
from these facts, which will arouse controversy. 

The American edition of ‘ Mental evolution ” 


a 


JuLY 4, 1884. ] 


is a careless publication. Besides numerous 
typographical errors, those who were unfortu- 
nate enough to purchase an early copy found 
two important diagrams omitted, one of which 
is absolutely essential to the understanding of 
the context. 


FISKE’S ELECTRICITY. 


Electricity in theory and practice; or, the elements of 
electrical engineering. By B. A. Fiske. New 
York, Van Nostrand, 1883. 270 p. 8°. 


Tuat the work of Lieut. Fiske meets in 
some degree a want felt by a considerable num- 
ber of persons, is sufficiently shown by the fact 
that it has already reached a third edition ; 
but we must nevertheless confess to a feeling 
of serious disappointment on reading it. The 
expectations raised by the title are hardly jus- 
tified by the contents ; since the discussions of 
theoretical points are very brief and unsatis- 
factory, while the portion treating of electrical 
engineering proper is somewhat ill-digested. 
In fact, there is a certain ‘ scrappiness’ about 
the work as a whole, which is apparently due 
to over-haste in preparation. 

The first five chapters, occupying about one- 
fourth of the book, are extremely elementary, 
and contain little that will not be found more 
fully stated in almost any work on electricity, 
while occasional loose statements also occur. 
Thus, in the chapter devoted to work and 
potential, the writer seems to overlook the 
exactness introduced into scientific measure- 
ments when Gauss first proposed an absolute 
system of mass and force measurement. Im- 
mediately after the definition of the foot-pound, 
we find the following statement: ‘‘ This unit 
is, however, too large for measuring with con- 
venience in many cases; and for this reason 
a much smaller one has been invented, called 
the ‘erg.’’’ The only definition given of the 
dyne is ‘‘an extremely minute weight, being 
about 54, of a gramme.’’ Other examples are 
to be seen in the table on p. 214. 

Such laxity of expression, although it may 
seem to simplify the subject, cannot fail to prove 
confusing as soon as the reader really begins 
to study the matter. Similar want of care in 
expression will trouble the student while read- 
ing certain parts of the chapter on the laws of 
currents. From the statements on p. 60, re- 
garding the arrangement of battery-cells, the 
reader might erroneously infer that high internal 
resistance in a cell is in itself advantageous in 
increasing the strength of the current given by 
a battery. 


SCIENCE. 


19 


Considering the portion of the work devoted 
to the applications of electricity, we find a 
great inequality in the space devoted to im- 
portant matters. The subject of electro-metal- 
lurgy is allowed but a single page, and the 
extensive use of dynamo-machines in the elec- 
trical deposition of metals is not discussed at 
all. Of the ten pages given to storage-bat- 
teries, five are filled with a mere statement of 
the claims of certain recent patents, without 
any information regarding their value. On 
the other hand, neither the chemistry of the 
lead-battery nor the special advantages and 
disadvantages of the storage-battery are con- 
sidered. The chapter on thermo-electric bat- 
teries contains no allusion to any form of 
thermo-battery whose use in the arts has been 
attempted ; and there is not even a mention of 
the names of Farmer, Noe, or Clamond. In- 
stead of this, five pages of patent claims are 
given, several of which are not, in fact, for 
thermo-electric batteries proper. 

The remainder of the work deserves some- 
what more praise. ‘The chapter on electyical 
measurement contains a description of the 
earlier forms of ampére-meter and volt-meter 
of Deprez and Ayrton and Perry. There is no 
reference to Sir William Thomson’s current 
and potential galvanometers. Under teleg- 
raphy we find the bridge duplex method 
described, but the differential method is not 
alluded to. The principles of the quadruplex, 
as well as those of the harmonic telegraph, 
are, however, explained. The chapter on the 
telephone is interesting. It is unfortunate 
that not even a passing mention is made of the 
Blake transmitter ; while the rarely used trans- 
mitter of Edison, and his ingenious but unprac- 
tical electro-motograph receiver, are described 
at some length. ‘The following chapters on 
electric lighting, dynamo-machines, etc., are, 
on the whole, the best in the book. ‘The prin- 
ciple of the differential arc-lamp is explained, 
and brief descriptions are given of most of 
the leading types of dynamo-machines. ‘The 
closing chapter on electric railways contains, 
among other matters, an account of the system 
of Field and Edison. 

In justice to the work under review, we ought 
to say that many of the faults which we have 
criticised have their origin in the fact that our 
author has attempted the impossible feat of 
discussing the theory and practice of electrical 
engineering in a work of only two hundred and 
sixty-five pages. As a consequence, neither 
theory nor practice is described at sufficient 
length to meet the wants of the reader. More- 
over, we are firmly of the opinion that any one 


20 


wishing to understand the applications of elec- 
tricity must first acquire a thorough knowledge 
of the theory. Having secured this, he will find 
no trouble in reading any works devoted to the 
practice of electrical engineering. 


AMERICAN COASTER’S NAUTICAL 
ALMANAC. 


The American coaster’s nautical almanac for the year 
1884. Published by authority of the secretary 
of the navy. Washington, Bureau of navigation, 
1884. 158 p. 8°. 


Ir has long been customary for the principal 
dealers in chronometers, hydrographic charts, 
and navigation supplies generally throughout 
the country, to publish annually, in cheap 
pamphlet form, certain of the fundamental 
data required in the navigation of ships, and 
compiled largely from the ‘publications of the 
‘ Nautical almanac’ office. Such small prints 
have commonly been disposed of for a few 
cents per copy, or given away to masters of 
vessels, as the tabular data were so scattered 
among advertisements of the wares of these 
dealers as to render their distribution a matter 
of interest to the publishers. 

The recent action of the superintendent of 
the ‘ Nautical almanac’ office, in beginning the 
regular issue of the ‘ American coaster’s nau- 
tical almanac,’ will, it is to be hoped, put an 
end to this unauthorized extraction from the 
publications of the scientific offices of the gov- 
ernment; for the new annual will contain, in 
a compact and convenient form, the ephemeral 
data of every sort required by navigators 
along the American Atlantic coast, and is 
issued under the official sanction of the sec- 
retary of the navy. The ‘ Coaster’s almanac’ 
is made up from data already in good part 
accessible to navigators in one form or an- 
other, but which are now, for the first time, 
brought together into a single small vol- 
ume, obtainable with little trouble and ex- 
pense. 

We have first the elements pertaining to the 
position, motion, and apparent magnitude of 
the sun, together with the equation of time, — 
all given for Greenwich noon, as in the lar- 
ger annuals of the same office. Following are 
the times of the moon’s phases, — where, by 
the way, the meridian is omitted, and a doubt 
is likely to arise whether they may not be ap- 
plicable to some meridian other than Green- 
wich, — underneath which we find the sidereal 
time of mean noon, and blank columns left for 
the navigator to enter with every day the 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


necessary data regarding his chronometer, and 
the latitude and longitude of his vessel at 
noon. The next succeeding pages contain the 
positions of a hundred and fifty fixed stars for 
the beginning of the year, followed by a table 
for finding the latitude by an observed altitude 
of Polaris, and a table for converting solar into 
sidereal time. A matter of some account is 
the omission from this portion of the ‘ Coaster’s 
almanac’ of all data regarding the planets. 
A half-dozen additional pages would have suf- 
ficed to give the positions of the four bright 
planets ordinarily employed by navigators, 
with precision enough to make them ae as 
useful as the list of star-positions. 

The astronomico-nautical data occupy near- 
ly forty pages, or about one-fourth of the en- 
tire book. Following are twenty pages of tidal 
data, compiled from the complete tide-tables 
published by the office of the coast and geodet- 
ic survey. The approximate predicted times 
of high water at the principal ports on the 
Atlantic coast of the United States are given 
for every day of the year; while, for inter- 
mediate ports, tables of tidal constants are 
added. The times of high water are reduced 
to the standards of the eastern and central 
meridians, respectively five hours and six 
hours slow of Greenwich time. 

We have next a very comprehensive list of 
more than five hundred lighthouses, lighted 
beacons, and floating lights, on the Atlantic 
and Gulf coasts of the United States, occu- 
pying thirty-five double pages, and giving 
the name, location, characteristic, and order 
of each light; also the geographical posi- 
tion, height above the sea-level, maximum 
distance at which visible, the color and pecul- 
iarity of the lighthouse or vessel, and the char- 
acter of the accompanying fog-signal. ‘This 
is followed by a ten-page list of lights in 
the West-India Islands, and on the adjacent 
coasts, the coast of Brazil, etc., to the Ma- 
gellan Straits, similar data being likewise 
given for these lights. The ‘ Coaster’s alma- 
nac’ concludes with nautical directions for 
manoeuvring in, and avoiding the centre of, 
cyclones in the North Atlantic; the twenty- 
six articles of the revised international regula- 
tions for preventing collisions at sea; general 
information regarding life-saving stations, with 
instructions to facilitate the shipwrecked mar- 
iner in receiving the assistance of these sta- 
tions; and, finally, descriptions and explana- 
tions of the signals displayed by the army 
signal-service as cautionary against approach- 
ing storm, severe winds, and on weather 
generally. 


Rey ee 


JuLY 4, 1884.] 


The new almanac bears in every part the 
marks of preparation with a considerate regard 
for the wants of that class of men likely to use 
it; and the make-up of its contents has evi- 
dently been in large part suggested by, or 
under the direction of, some officer fully ac- 
-quainted with the routine and necessities of 
practical navigation; and subsequent issues 
may be expected to contain many additional 
improvements. The‘ Coaster’s almanac’ is not 
intended to replace the ‘ American nautical 
almanac,’ or navigator’s edition of the large 
‘ Ephemeris,’ which has been issued by this 
office for each year since 1855, and will be con- 
tinued as heretofore. 


METALLURGY OF PRIMITIVE NATIONS. 


Die metalle bei den naturvilkern, mit beriicksichtugung 
prihistorischer verhdltnisse. Von R. ANDREE. 
Leipzig, Veit & Co., 1884. 10+166 p., 57 
illustr. 8°. 


In our epoch the primitive status of savage 
nations rapidly disappears, and the manufac- 
ture of the last tools recalling the stone age 
will soon be abandoned. The factories of 
New England already furnish cast-steel toma- 
hawks to our western Indians, and the Cen- 
tral-African negro shoots the hippopotamus 
and elephant with a breech-loader of the most 
recent pattern. Facts like these are a suffi- 
cient warning to the ethnologist for collecting 


now whatever can be brought to posterity from . 


the implements and rude machinery of the 
lower races of mankind. To aid this purpose, 
Andree has undertaken to illustrate one branch 
of ethnologic research, metallurgy, and to show 
the extent of our present knowledge concern- 
ing its practice among the above races. 

His learned treatise excludes the European 
and Semitic nations, of which the metallurgy 
is sufficiently known, and had, except within 
the most recent times, but little direct influ- 
ence upon that of primitive nations. The 
most important metals to be considered were 
iron, copper, tin, and bronze. The Egyptians 
of the earliest period were acquainted with 
bronze and iron; but the manufacture of iron 
tools by the Central-Africans was an invention 
of their own, and not borrowed from Egypt. 
It first developed in north-eastern or in Cen- 
tral Africa, and from there must have reached 
southern Africa, as Andree believes. Iron 
tools followed immediately upon. stone tools, 
since copper is limited to a few portions of 
that continent only. The East Indies had 
a stone period for themselves; and metals, 


SCIENCE. 21 


except tin, do not seem to have been im- 
ported there. Copper is obtained by very 
archaic methods. It cannot be decided which 
metal, copper or iron, is of older use in that 
country. 

The Malayan nations form another inde- 
pendent area or domain of metallurgy, their 
peculiar practical methods reaching from Mad- 
agascar to New Guinea. Iron was their oldest 
metal, and it probably was so among the 
Indo-Chinese as well. In its cultural devel- 
opment, China stands wholly for itself, and 
thirty-five hundred years ago it produced the 
finest bronzes; but Chinese prehistorics have 
not as yet been sufficiently studied to decide 
which metal was the first to be wrought in 
that distant realm. When Russia invaded 
Siberia, some of its tribes were reducing and 
working iron ores, having been probably taught 
by Turkish nomads. Meteoric iron was put 
to use by several American tribes, especially 
by the Eskimo. The reduction of ores by 
charcoal, and their smelting by fire, were dis- 
covered at three different spots in this western 
hemisphere, wholly independent of each other, 
—in Mexico, in Cundinamarca, and in Peru. 
The chief metal of Mexico was copper; of 
Peru, bronze ; though both were used simulta- 
neously with stone implements. Analyses 
made of American bronzes have proved them 
to be alloys of metals joined in very different 
proportions. 

The ‘Scandinavian’ theory, that in every 
part of the world the metals should appear in 
the same historic order — copper, tin, bronze, 
iron — among all, even the most heterogene- 
ous nations, has held supreme sway in science 
for almost half a century, but is now en- 
tirely upset by the investigations of R. Andree 
and others. A fact which alone would suftice 
to disprove it is this, that the production of 
bronze is a more difficult process than the 
production of iron. Many nations have bor- 
rowed metallurgic processes and methods from 
other nations, as proved in many instances ; 
but these methods and practices have also 
been the result of inventions independent of 
each other; and, to explain the similarity of 
processes in countries widely separated from 
each other, the assumption of separate inven- 
tion is the most probable and natural of all. 

Although the above results gleaned from 
Andree’s publication give only a superficial 
idéa of its contents, we deem them sufficient 
for attracting the notice of ethnologists and 
archeologists, and add the statement that every 
page of it teems with important or unexpected 
disclosures. 


22 SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


INTELLIGENCH FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 


GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 


U. 8. geological survey. 

Yellowstone national-park survey. — Preparations 
for field-work by the Yellowstone park division, under 
Mr. Arnold Hague, are now nearly complete. The 
experience of last season enables the members of the 
party to take the field with a fair idea of the nature 
of the volcanic rocks of the park, and of the thermal 
problems with which they will have to deal. Last 
summer’s notes have been condensed and arranged 
for the purpose of comparing the conditions of the 
springs and geysers observed with their conditions 
during the corresponding months of this year. A 
comparison of the thermal activity observed in 1883 
with the intensity displayed in 1878 shows, that in the 
greater number of instances the changes have been 
unimportant, and that, contrary to the opinion fre- 
quently stated, there has been no diminution in the 
intensity of thermal action in the park during the 
last six years. 

Mr. Hague reports that two additions should be 
made to the list of active geysers, — one in the Fire- 
hole basins, in the lower geyser basin, and one 
in the upper basin. ‘The former is situated on the 
broad sinter terrace or flat, that lies north-west of 
the mounds of the ‘Fountain Geyser.’ Dr. Peale, in 
his report of 1878, suggests the possibility of its being 
a geyser. It has a large, gray pool (ninety to a hun- 
dred feet in diameter), without any particular beauty 
of form or color. Near the west border of the pool 
is a fissure-like vent, over which the water, owing to 
its greater depth there, has a dull-green color. The 
following description of an eruption is from the note- 
book of Mr. Walter H. Weed: — 

“At 5 p.m. (Sept. 25, 1883) the water was perfectly 
quiet, no ebullition whatever being noticed. At 5.02 
a large volume of steam was thrown out, accompa- 
nied by a vigorous bulging of the water, which in- 
creased in violence until at 5.05 a mass of water, six 
to eight feet in diameter at the base, was thrown up 
in a tapering column from twenty-five to thirty feet 
high. For twenty seconds these spurts continued, 
after which the column fell, and the water boiled 
quietly for ten seconds. Bulging again commenced, 
and continued, with occasional subsidence, until 5.13, 
the jets varying in height from three to twenty feet. 
The total duration of the eruption was eleven min- 
utes. From 5.13 to 5.48 the water boiled quietly; at 
the end of this time bulging again commenced, and 
another eruption similar to the first occurred. There 
are apparently two vents; the jets acting together, 
yet not perfectly synchronous. A low, heavy mass is 
shot up from the lesser vent.”’ 

This geyser has been named the ‘ Surprise.” From 
the height of the column and force displayed, it will 
rank as the third geyser in the Lower Basin. 

The new geyser of the Upper Basin is in the Emer- 
ald group, and is the spring No. 9 of that group, de- 
scribed in Dr. Peale’s report. Mr. Hague has named 
it the ‘ Cliff Geyser,’ as it lies so close under the wall 


which skirts the west bank of Iron Creek. Mr. Weed 
was fortunate to witness this geyser in action, and 
describes an eruption, under date of Aug. 27, 1883, 
as follows: ‘‘ This geyser presents a shallow basin, 
with rather ill-defined margin, formed of thin plates 
of honeycombed geyserite. ‘The water near the edge 
is turbid, and from two to eight feet deep, and, when 
first observed in action, was boiling vigorously at a 
number of points. A few minutes later the water 
bulged violently to a height of six feet in the centre 
of the basin, sending out waves in all directions, 
which broke upon and ran over the low margin. 
This was soon followed by another bulge eight feet 
high, succeeded by a series of spurts and bulges lift- 
ing the central mass of water to a height of thirty to 
fifty feet. This continued for two minutes and a 
half, when the violence of the eruption became less 
and less, until the jet was but three to eight feet high, 
continuing for two minutes, when the water receded, 
still boiling vigorously. The inner basin was now 
seen to be approximately thirty feet in diameter, with 
a somewhat muddy bottom, blotched with black and 
orange, surrounded by a shallow, gray-white and 
black-lined outer basin, fifty by sixty feet. Half an 
hour later a second eruption occurred, quite similar 


-to the first. These eruptions resemble those of the 


Giantess in appearance.”’ 


U. 8. bureau of ethnology. 


Annual reports. — The third annual report is all in 
type, and will soon be issued. The second report 
is now being issued: it is a volume of five hundred 
and fourteen pages (i.-xxxvii., 1-477), illustrated with 
seventy-seven plates, seven hundred and fourteen 
figures, and two maps. Thirteen of the plates are 
chromolithographs. The report of the director de- 
tails the office and field work of the bureau for the 
fiscal year 1880-81, and presents some remarks intro- 
ductory to the accompanying papers, which immedi- 
ately follow. These are seven innumber: viz., ‘ Zufii 
fetiches,’ by Frank Hamilton Cushing; ‘ Myths of the 
Iroquois,’ by Erminnie A. Smith; ‘ Animal carvings. 
from the mounds of the Mississippi valley,’ by Henry 
W. Henshaw; ‘ Navajo silversmiths,’ by Dr. Wash-- 
ington Matthews, U.S.A.; ‘ Art in shell of the ancient. 
Americans,’ by William H. Holmes; ‘Illustrated cat- 
alogue of the collections obtained from the Indians. 
of New Mexico and Arizona in 1879,’ by James Ste- 
venson; and ‘Illustrated catalogue of the collections. 
obtained from the Indians of New Mexico in 1880,” 
by James Stevenson. 

Mr. Cushing’s paper occupies thirty-seven pages. 
The fetiches most valued by the Zufiis are natural; 
concretions or eroded rock forms, having an obvious 
or fancied resemblance to certain animals, or objects 
of that nature, in which the evident original resem-- 
blance has been heightened by artificial means.. 
Eleven plates and three figures show a number of 
these fetiches, three of the plates being colored. 

It is the plan of the bureau to preserve and record. 


——— 


JuLY 4, 1884.] 


the myths and folk-lore of the several tribes in their 
own languages, with interlinear translations. The 
paper of Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, although it does 
not in this volume present the original language, is 
written after the reduction of the original to writing 
in the course of her linguistic work, after a prolonged 
residence among the Iroquois tribes, into one of which, 
the Tuscarora, she was adopted. It is therefore an 
authoritative rendering of some of the Iroquois myths, 
some of which have appeared in other forms, and 
others of which have been for the first time collected 
. by herself. Mr. Henshaw, in forty-four pages, dis- 
cusses the animal carvings from the mounds of the 
Mississippi valley, and reaches the following general 
conclusions : — 

1°. That, of the carvings from the mounds which 
can be identified, there are no representations of birds 
or animals not indigenous to the Mississippi valley, 
and consequently that the theories of origin for the 
mound-builders suggested by the presence in the 
mounds of carvings of supposed foreign animals are 
without basis; 


SCIENCE. 23 


2°. That a large majority of the carvings, instead of 
being, as assumed, exact likenesses from nature, pos- 
sess in reality only the most general resemblance to 
the birds and animals of the region which they were 
doubtless intended to represent; 

3°. That there is no reason for believing that the 
masks and sculptures of human faces are more cor- 
rect likenesses than are the animal carvings; 

4°, That the state of art-culture reached by the 
mound-builders, as illustrated by their carvings, has 
been greatly overestimated. 
_ Dr. Matthews’ paper is of eight pages, and is illus- 
trated with five plates. Mr. Holmes’s paper, one of 
the most important in the volume, is noticed on 
another page. Mr. Stevenson’s papers are also fully 
illustrated, a number of the plates being colored; 
and his catalogues are not merely enumerations, but 
are accompanied by a judicious amount of discussion 
and comparison, which render them of substantial 
value. The volume has not only a complete table of 
contents and a full index, but each paper has a sepa- 
rate table of contents, and list of illustrations. 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. 


June 10. — The Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook stated that 
in November, 1883, he received from Mr. Webster of 
Illinois two globular nodules of earth, each about 
the size of a grape, which were thought to be the 
cocoons of a spider. Similar balls had often been 
found attached by a slender thread or cord of silk to 
the under side of fallen boards. Dr. McCook was 
much puzzled to decide upon the nature of these 
objects, but, on the whole, believed them to be the 
work of some hymenopterous insect, and not of 
a spider. Two ichneumons which emerged from 
similar cells were determined by Mr. E. T. Cresson 
to be Pezomachus meabilis Cress. Subsequently Mr. 
Webster sent other specimens, some of which were 
opened. They contained silken sacs embedded in 
the centre of the mud-ball, apparently of spider spin- 
ning-work; and within these were fifteen or twenty 
yellowish eggs, evidently those of a spider. The 
disjecta membra of two adult spiders taken near the 
balls, although much broken, enabled him to deter- 
miine them as drassids (a family of the tube-weavers), 
and probably of the genus Micaria. These had been 
found simply near the mud-balls, but the connection 
between them had not been established. Dr. McCook 
moistened the cocoons in order to give a natural con- 
dition more favorable for the escape of the spider- 
lings, should they hatch; and on May 30, on opening 
the box, he found about thirty lively young spiders 
therein. On the bottom of the box was a dead 
ichneumon, which had cut its way out of the side of 
one of the balls by a round hole. The spiderlings 
seemed to have escaped from their ball along the slight 
duct left at the point where the bit of silken cord was 


embedded in hard earth, and thence protruded, form- 
ing the cocoon-stalk by which the ball was attached to 
an under surface. The appearance of the spiderlings 
indicated that they had been hatched two or three 
days when first seen. They were evidently drassids 
of the same species as the broken specimens above 
alluded to. Thus the interesting habit of concealing 
her future progeny within a globular cradle of mud 
was demonstrated to belong to a spider as well as to 
a wasp. That this particular species is much subject 
to the attacks of hymenopterous parasites is already 
proved; but that it is more exposed than many other 
species which spin silken cocoons, otherwise unpro- 
tected in very many localities, does not appear. 
There is no evidence that so strange a habit has devel- 
oped from necessity, and none that it proves more 
protective than the ordinary araneal cocoonery. Dr. 
McCook had named the species, provisionally, Mica- 
ria limnicunae (limnus, mud, and cunae, a cradle), 
although it is possible that Hentz may have described 
the species as one of his genus Herpyllus. The only 
spider-cocoons known to the speaker, at all resem- 
bling those of M. limnicunae, he had collected at 
Alexandria Bay, N.Y., on the St. Lawrence River, in 
1882. They were attached by very close spinning- 
work to the under side of stones. But the external 
case, instead of being of mud, was a mass of agglom- 
erated particles of old wood, bark, leaves, blossoms, 
the shells and wings of insects, etc. These were held 
together by delicate and sparsely spun filaments of 
silk. Two of these chip-balls were opened, and 
found to contain whitish cocoons similar to those in 
the mud-balls of M. limnicunae. Another had with- 
in it the characteristic cell of some hymenopterous 
parasite containing a dried-up pupa. A very thin 


24 SCIENCE. 


veneering of yellow soil enclosed the silken case, but 
otherwise no mud was used. On comparing these 
specimens with those from Illinois, it was believed 
that they were the work of closely related or perhaps 
the same species. It is very common for spiders 
of various and widely separated families to give their 
cocoons a protective upholstering of scraped bark, 
old wood, etc., and not unusual to find species that 
cover their egg-nests wholly or in part with mud; 
but the speaker was not aware that any species 
had yet been published as making cocoons like 
either of the above described forms. He believed, 
therefore, that the facts were wholly new to science: 
certainly they were new to the field of American 
araneology. 

June 17. — Referring to the Lycosa, whose weaving 
of around cocoon had been the subject of study in 
-the early part of May (see Science, iii. 685), Rev. H. 
C. McCook stated that on June 4 the spider was 
found with the young hatched, and covering the upper 
surface of her body. The empty egg-sac still clung 
to the spinnerets, and the young were grouped over 
the upper part of the same. The entire brood was 
tightly packed upon and around each other, the lower 
layers apparently holding on to the mother’s body, 
and the upper to those beneath. Twenty-four 
hours afterward the cocoon-case was dropped, and 
the spiderlings clung to the mother alone. An ex- 
amination of the cocoon showed that the young had 
escaped through the thin seam or joint formed by the 
union of the egg-cover with the circular cushion when 
the latter was pulled up at the circumference into 
globular shape. There was no fiossy wadding within, 
as iS common with orb-weaving spiders —nothing 
but the pinkish shells of the escaped young. One 
week later about one hundred of the spiderlings had 
abandoned the maternal perch, and were dispersed 
over the inner surface of the jar, and upon a series 
of lines stretched from side to side. About half as 
many more remained upon the mother’s back, but by 
the 13th all had dismounted. Meantime they had 
increased in size at least one-half, apparently with- 
out food. Professor Angelo Heilprin exhibited 
a number of microscopic slides, received from Mr. 
K. M. Cunningham of Mobile, containing foraminifer- 
ous dredging from the Red Snapper Bank, off Mobile 
harbor, Gulf of Mexico, and preparations of organ- 
isms from the rotten limestone of the north-eastern 
portion of Mississippi, —a rock which represents the 
inner border of the Gulf during the cretaceous period. 
The recent forms of foraminifera are interesting as 
affording material for comparison with those of the 
ancient sea. There is a remarkable difference in the 
forms. From the present waters, about eight genera 
are indicated by the slides in question; Discorbina, 
Rotalia, Textularia, Cristellaria, and Nodosaria being 
included among the Perforata. Although Globige- 
rina forms such an important feature of the ooze of 
the open seas, not a single specimen which could 
with certainty be referred to this genus was found 
in the material from the Gulf of Mexico.  Tex- 
tularia was the most abundant form. Among the 
Imperforata, we have, of the family Miliolidae, a 


[Vov. IV., No. 74. 


very considerable abundance of Quinqueloculina and 
Biloculina. In the foraminifera of the limestone 
the family represented by these genera seems to be 
entirely absent, and but few of the others are left. 
Discorbina and Textularia almost make up the entire 
fauna represented by the specimens received. Even 
these are of much smaller size than corresponding 
forms from the Gulf ooze. It is not a little surpris- 
ing that there should be such a distinction between 
the organisms of the two periods, in view of the con- 
tinuous existence of the body of water in which they 
lived, and of the persistent types which they repre- 
sent. About twenty-five distinct forms of forami- 
nifera had been determined from the greensand of 
New Jersey, which is the approximate geological 
equivalent of the rotten limestone of Mississippi. —— 
Professor Heilprin also exhibited a specimen of a 
beautiful little trilobite, Calymene Niagarensis, from 
the bank of the Yazoo River, above Vicksburg. The 
formation at the locality indicated is eocene; but, as 
Silurian beds exist farther up the stream, the presence 
of the specimens at the point from which they were 
collected undoubtedly represents a downwash from 
above. 

Botanical section, June 5.—Mr. Thomas Meehan 
remarked that few botanists would expect to find op- 
posite leaves in Salix; but in S. nigra Marshall they 
appear at a certain stage of growth, —a fact which 
has much significance. This species is of that section 
which has the flowers co-aetaneous with the leaves; 
that is to say, instead of the aments being sessile, 
they terminate short branches. ‘They are, however, 
not absolutely terminal, but appear so by the sup- 
pression for a time of the terminal bud. In the case 
of the female ament, this terminal bud usually starts 
to grow very soon after the flowers mature, and forms 
a second growth, when the fertile catkin or raceme of 
fruit becomes lateral. It is the first pair of leaves on 
this second growth that is opposite: all the rest are 
alternate, as in the normal character of the genus. 
The leaves are so uniformly opposite, under these 
circumstances, that there must be some general law 
determining the condition, which has not yet been 
developed. 


Engineers’ club, Philadelphia. 


June 7.—Mr. William H. Ridgway described a 
simple crane, consisting of a cylinder hung from the 
jibs of an ordinary foundry crane, and using the steam 
directly to hoist the load. Mr. C. Henry Roney 
exhibited specimens of American sectional electric 
underground conduits as Jaid in Philadelphia. —— 
Prof. L. M. Haupt supplemented his paper of May 
17, upon rapid transit, by an interesting collection 
of statistics of the growth of the city from the time 
of the ‘ pack-horse’ to the present, and showed by 
maps that his previous statements were verified by 
these statistics. —— Mr. A. E. Lehman exhibited to 
the club a model of a new protractor, and described 
the invention and the improvements he has made in it. 
It consists of a combination of protractor, T-square, 
scales, etc., which may be worked separately or to- 
gether. As a protractor only, it is complete, being 


aa : 


JuLY 4, 1884.] 


graduated to degrees and fractions thereof, and pro- 
vided with a vernier reading to three minutes. It 
can be used, like an ordinary paper or ivory protractor, 
for hasty plotting, and combines triangles and scales 
in one instrument. For careful and precise work, it 
is said to be equal to the best special instrument, and 
to be no higher in price. —— Mr. E. V. d’Invilliers 
read a paper on some characteristics and the mode of 
occurrence of the brown hematite (limonite) ores in 
central Pennsylvania, taking for his field of illus- 
tration the lower Silurian limestone valleys of Centre 
county. He described the anticlinal structure of 
these valleys, and the great erosion, aerial and sub- 
aerial, which these rocks (six thousand feet thick) 
have undergone, influencing the position and char- 
acter of many of the present ore-deposits. He noted 
three varieties of ore: 1°. The wash and lump hema- 
tite of the Barrens; 2°. The true limestone ‘ pipe 
ore.’; 3°. An intermediate transition variety. The 
first is always associated with the sandy magnesian 
beds low down in the series of No. 2, or below five 
thousand feet beneath the overlying Hudson-River 
_ Slates of No. 3. This class shows rounded ore and 
flint balls, and tough, barren clay, and are secondary 
or derived deposits of irregular shape. They have 
been tested a hundred feet deep, and contain from 
45% to 53% iron, and .051% to .113% phosphorus. 
The almost total absence of bisulphide of iron is no- 
ticeable. The cost of mining is about a dollar and a 
half per ton. The transition variety was assigned a 
position in the formation from thirty-five hundred to 
five thousand feet below the slates. They are char- 
acterized by a more calcareous clay, are compact, 
amorphous, liver-colored ores, containing from 40% 
to 49% iron, and from .115% to .365% phosphorus. 
The pipe ores occur usually higher in the limestones 
than either of the other two, but in this county 
below the four hundred feet of upper Trenton layers. 
These ores occur in situ between parallel walls of 
limestone, in plate-like masses, scales, or as cylin- 
drical pipes in bunches eight or ten feet long, while 
feathering out both in line of strike and dip. The 
deeper banks show the repeated occurrence of crystals 
of iron pyrites in all stages of metamorphism. They 
occur at great depths, and show from 45% to 53% 
iron, and from .100% to .185% phosphorus. The 
flint or quartz grains accompanying them are rarely 
water-worn; and this clay is very calcareous and 
easily washed, not requiring the jigging necessary for 
cleansing the lower ores. Cost of mining these ores 
varies from ninety cents to a dollar and a quarter per 
ton. 


New-York microscopical club. 


June 6. — Rev. J. L. Zabriskie read a notice of Ap- 
pendicularia entomophila Peck, a new fungus para- 
sitic on the fly Drosophila nigricornis Loew. The 
fly, determined by Dr. H. A. Hagen of Cambridge, 
was noticed at Nyack, N.Y., between the 13th and 
31st of March last, infested with the fungus. But in- 
fested specimens have not since been found. In the 
spring of 1880, three specimens of the same fly, simi- 
larly infested, were captured at New Baltimore, N.Y. 


SCIENCE. 25 


These latter specimens were preserved and mounted; 
but, from lack of time and opportunity, the true 
nature of the parasite was not then recognized. The 
fungus has been submitted to Prof. C. H. Peck, New- 
York state botanist, who has kindly examined it, and 
named it Appendicularia entomophila. It is closely 
related to the Sphaeronemei of the family Coniomy- 
cetes. Like Sphaeronema, the fruit has a bulbous 
conceptacle, surmounted by a long beak perforated 
at the apex, where the spores ooze out in a globule; 
but, unlike any described Sphaeronema, this has the 
conceptacle seated upon the broad summit of a pedi- 
cle as long as the conceptacle itself; and also on one 
side of the summit of the pedicle and at the base of 
the conceptacle, it has an erect, leaf-like appendage, 
with strongly serrate margins, like a white-elm leaf 
folded along its midrib. The spores are slender, 
pointed at each end, and divided by a septum into 
two unequal cells, one cell being twice as long as the 
other. The total length of the fruit is from .02 to .03 
of an inch, and that of the spores from .001 to .002 of 
an‘inch. The conceptacles of the fungus project di- 
rectly from different points of the surface of the fly; 
so that they are found in all positions, — erect, hori- 
zontal, and dependent. They grow sometimes singly, 
but oftener in clusters of two, three, or more, and are 
found most frequently on the tibiae of the hind-legs, 
but also springing from the inner posterior surfaces 
of the abdominal rings, from the costal vein of the 
wing, from the head, and from the thorax. One of 
the New-Baltimore flies had about fifty of these con- 
ceptacles on various parts of the body and limbs. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


Dr. GILL has recently paid a visit to the work- 
shop of the Messrs. Repsold, and gives an account of 
the great Russian telescope, with several particulars 
not contained in Professor Newcomb’s report (Science, 
No. 60). The tube, instead of being cigar-shaped, as 
in the Washington and Vienna telescopes, is cylindri- 
cal, and therefore no larger at the centre than at each 
end. The object of choosing this form is in order 
that the centre of gravity of the tube may be as near 
as possible to the polar axis of the instrument. The 
central part is of cast-iron. The steel plates dimin- 
ish in thickness from the centre towards the object- 
glass, so that the whole structure is extremely rigid. 
In order to get a sufficient field of view, the microm- 
eter has been made about a foot long. The microm- 
eter contains a small spectroscope, so arranged that 
the spectrum of any celestial object can be observed 
without any change of the instrument. It is expect- 
ed that the telescope will be mounted at Pulkowa 
during the coming autumn. Some delay, however, 
has been experienced in getting the dome into work- 
ing order, and this may still farther delay the mount- 
ing of the instrument. 


— A memorial tablet, in honor of the late Professor 
Charles F. Hartt of the geological survey of Brazil, 
has been placed in the library of Acadia college, 
Wolfville, N.S. It was here that Professor Hartt 


26 SCIENCE. 


received his collegiate training, and first manifested 
that interest in the study of nature which became so 
fully developed, and yielded such good fruit, in after 
years. The sisters of Professor Hartt were present 
on the occasion of the unveiling of the tablet, and 
have presented to the college a fine crayon portrait 
of their brother, by Black & Co. of Boston. 


— It has long been the custom of certain entomol- 
ogists to form albums of butterflies’ wings by press- 
ing the wings on gummed paper. The scales adhere to 
the paper; but, after they are stripped off, the scales 
lie with the under side exposed. Milani and Garbini, 
in the current volume of the Zoologischer anzeiger 
(p. 276), describe the following method of transferring 
the scales to a second piece of paper, so that they may 
lie right side up. After the first paper is dry, the 
second piece is painted with a solution of gutta-percha; 
the two pieces are then pressed together, and allowed 
to dry; they are next soaked in water until the 
gummed paper can be pulled off, and left or washed 
until all the mucilage is dissolved ; the paper with the 
scales is then dried in the sun. The gutta-percha 
solution is prepared by soaking five parts gutta- 
percha, cut very thin, in fifty parts sulphuric ether 
for twenty-four hours, then adding two hundred 
parts benzine in which five parts of elemi have been 
previously dissolved. 

— Holmes’s ‘ Art in shell’ isan extract from the sec- 
ond annual report of the Bureau of ethnology, shortly 
to appear. It contains a hundred and twenty-six 
pages, and fifty-six plates. A small portion of the 
matter has appeared previously in the second volume 
of the Washington anthropological society’s transac- 
tions. Even the present paper is not final, but is to 
be regarded simply as an outline of the subject, to be 
followed by a more exhaustive monograph of the ‘ art 
in shell’ of all the ancient American peoples. The 
first few pages treat of shells used as implements and 
utensils, either unchanged by art, or converted into 
vessels, spoons, knives, scrapers, agricultural imple- 
ments, fishing appliances, weapons, and tweezers. 
Much of this matter is familiar; but it is admirably 
grouped together and illustrated, and new facts are 
brought to light. Shells were for ornamental pur- 
poses converted into pins, beads, pendants, perforated 
plates, and engraved gorgets. Mr. Holmes studies the 
beads as to their form in perforated shells, discoidal 
beads, massive beads, tubular beads, and runtees; 
and as to their uses for ornament, for currency, and 
for mnemonic purposes. The chapter on wampum 
will give great pleasure to many readers, but that 
portion of the paper which treats of engraved gorgets 
possesses the most absorbing interest. ‘‘ Many of the 
gorgets obtained from the mounds and graves of a 
large district have designs of the most interesting 
nature engraved upon them.’’ For the purposes of 
description and illustration, they are presented in 
the following order: the cross, the scalloped disk, 
the bird, the spider, the serpent, the human face, the 
human figure. In addition to the many theories of 
the origin of the cross symbol, Mr. Holmes suggests 
the following: ‘‘ The ancient Mexican pictographic 
manuscripts abound in representations of trees, con- 


> J. . oe? oe 


[Vou. IV., No, 74, 


ventionalized in such a manner as to represent 
crosses. By a comparison of these curious trees with 
the remarkable cross in the Palenque tablet, I have 
been led to the belief that they must have a common 
significance and origin.”? Those familiar with the 
paper of Dr. Joseph Jones on the antiquities of 
Tennessee will remember a rosette-like, carved shell, 
in rough outline resembling a Mexican calendar. 
Mr. Holmes describes and figures a number of these, 
believing them to be calendar disks. The bird disks 
are not very interesting, either in form or variety, 
although the occurrence of odd forms in widely sepa- 
rated areas will occasion some astonishment. On the 
contrary, the spider gorgets are both novel and beau- 
tiful. If we are not mistaken, it was Col. Hilder of 
St. Louis who first drew attention to these wonderful 
objects. Major Powell tells us that the Shoshones 
regard the spiders as the first weavers, who taught 
their fathers the art. The wild tribes call the Nava- 
jos, spiders. And down in the bottom of a mound, 
on the breast of a skeleton, lay the disks of the Busy- 
con, on whose concave surfaces were carved the 
image of this ancestral spinner, bearing the cross 
symbol on his back. The serpent symbol is a famil- 
iar object in aboriginal art, and we are not surprised 
to find it on shell disks. The remarkable similarity 
of some of these serpent forms, on disks found in 
mounds, to the representations of the same animal 
in Mexican and Central-American antiquities, is 
barely hinted at by the writer, and dismissed for 
want of space. The mask gorgets are very rude and 
uninteresting, but the fmost astonishing of all are 
those depicting the human figure. In looking at the 
drawings, one does not know which to admire more, 
—the cleverness of the artist in masking his design, 
or the shrewdness of Mr. Holmes in the interpretation 
of it. You are asked to look at the image of a man 
in plate Ixxi. You surrender the task as hopeless. 
The author guides your eye here and there, and you 
are convinced and delighted. The close examination 
of the subsequent figures assures you that he is right. 
We cannot close this brief notice without calling 
attention to the wonderful unfolding of new problems 
by the solution of older ones. In the same volume 
that will contain this paper, by Mr. Holmes, the 
mound-builders will be severed from Mexico and 
Central America; but here are new facts to explain, 
even more perplexing than the old. 


—A laboratory for bacterial research has been 
founded in the Pathological institute of Munich, and 
the first course of lectures, founded on Dr. Koch’s 
latest methods, has begun. 


— Dr. Emmerich, an assistant in the Hygienic in- 
stitute of Munich, professes to have discovered the | 
cause of an epidemic of inflammation of the lungs, 
by which a hundred and sixty-one persons were at- 
tacked, through discovering the peculiar bacteria of 
the disease in the plaster of the infected house. 


— Mr. Huxley’s report of last year’s salmon-fishing 
confirms his own assertion that very little is known 
about the influences which regulate salmon-supply. 
The take of salmon and sea-trout has increased and 


JULY 4, 1884.] 


diminished in defiance of all theories; and Mr. Huxley 
is equally unable to establish any consistent relation 
between the take of salmon, and the proportion of 
erilse present in succeeding years; a large take be- 
ing sometimes followed by scarcity, and sometimes 
by abundance of grilse. Mr. Huxley’s sympathy with 
manufacturers has grown with his experience; and, 
while he acknowledges the importance of the rivers, 
his confidence in the power of legislation has dimin- 
ished with experience, but he still insists on the ne- 
cessity of it. The two points brought out by the 
continued experiments of Mr. George Murray of the 
British museum, are, that the fungus may attack fish 
with whole skins, and otherwise perfectly healthy, 
and that an excess of lime in the water is not a pre- 
disposing cause of the disease. 


— The Popular science monthly states that Pro- 
fessor John Trowbridge of Harvard university has 
written a text-book for schools, which D. Appleton 
& Co. have in preparation. It is entitled ‘The new 
physics,’ and admirably carries out the principles of 
the new education, in requiring the pupil to become 
familiar with the properties of matter and the phe- 
nomena of force by performing experiments for him- 
self. 


— A new series of science text-books, each of which 
is the work of an able sp-cialist, is being brought out 
by D. Appleton & Co. The ‘ Physiology,’ by Roger 
S. Tracy, M.D., sanitary inspector of the New-York 
city health department, and the ‘Chemistry,’ by 
Prof. F. W. Clark, chemist of the U.S. geological 
survey, are now ready. Before Sept. 1, will be 
issued the ‘Zoology,’ by C. F. Holder, and J. B. 
Holder, M.D., curator of zoology of the American 
museum of natural history of New York; and the 
‘Geology,’ a new elementary book, by Professor Jo- 
seph LeConte of the University of California. Other 
volumes are to follow soon. 


—In his ‘ Historical account of the Taconic ques- 
tion in geology,’ which Dr.T. Sterry Hunt contributes 
to the recent Transactions of the Royal society of 
Canada, we find the most complete and systematic 
of Dr. Hunt’s many contributions to this much 
controverted section of geological history; and even 
those who do not accept his conclusions must feel 
grateful for this clear and concise statement of the 
_ grounds upon which they rest. The introductory 
chapter is devoted to an explanation of the classifi- 
cation of the older rocks of eastern North America, 
proposed by Eaton in 1832, the abandonment of 
which is regarded as having materially retarded the 
progress of American geology. The second chapter 
is a brief history of the geological survey of eastern 
New York by Emmons and Mather, and an explana- 
tion of their divergent opinions concerning the age 
of the rocks east of the Hudson River and Lake 
Champlain. Dr. Hunt accepts the name of Ordovi- 
cian, proposed by Lapworth in 1879, for the rocks 
called Cambro-Silurian of late years, and includ- 
ing the Chazy, Trenton, Utica, and Hudson-River 
groups of this country. The older rocks of eastern 
Pennsylvania are discussed in the third chapter; and 


SCIENCE. 27 


the argument for the Taconian or pre-paleozoic age, 
of the major part at least of the primal, auroral, and 
matinal of Rogers in the great Appalachian valley, 
seems to be greatly strengthened by the comparison 
of the stratigraphy of this valley with that of the 
Kishacoquillas, Nippenose, and other anticlinal val- 
leys of central Pennsylvania. Typical Potsdam and 
calciferous are said to be wanting in this state. The 
gneisses and schists south-east of the great valley are 
referred to the Laurentian and Montalban systems; 
and the rocks of South Mountain, to the Arvonian 
and Huronian. In the fourth chapter, Dr. Hunt 
traces the distribution of the Taconian system be- 
yond the original areas in Massachusetts, New York, 
and Pennsylvania, and cites many new facts sustain- 
ing his view of its distinctness from the paleozoic 
above, and the eozoic below. The occurrence of 
Scolithus and other fossils in the Taconian is as- 
serted ; and of especial interest, in this connection, 
is the discovery by Powell and Walcott in the Grand 
Cafion of the Colorado, below the base of the Cam- 
brian, of over ten thousand feet of uncrystalline 
rocks holding Stromatopora-like forms. The next 
two chapters are devoted to the upper Taconic of 
Emmons, the Quebec group of Logan, including the 
Potsdam and calciferous; and the memoir concludes 
with a general sketch of the paleozoic history of 
North America. 


— Mr. E. J. Maumené has published the result of 
his investigations into the existence of manganese in 
wine. In Cosmos les mondes for May 17 he gives 
thirty-one instances in which he detects manganese 
in the state of a double tartrate of the protoxide of 
manganese and potash. 


— ‘The records of the geological survey of India,’ 
part ii., for 1884, contains a note on the earthquake 
of the 31st of December, 1881, by Mr. R. D. Oldham. 
This earthquake was felt over a large portion of the 
Indian peninsula and Bengal, occasioning consider- 
able damage in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 
Mr. Oldham has been enabled to trace the earth-wave 
with much certainty over a large area, to add con- 
siderably to our knowledge of seismic phenomena, 
and to construct a good map showing the area of 
disturbance. 


— The renewal of the Damoiseau prize by the 
French academy, for the revision of the theory of 
the satellites of Jupiter, is announced for the year 
1885. 


— Dr. Hyades, a member of the French meteoro- 
logical mission to Cape Horn, attached to it for the 
purpose of observations on natural history, has pub- 
lished a contribution to Fuegian ethnography, which 
is interesting as supplementary to the observations of 
Mr. Bridges, the missionary of the South-American 
missionary society. Dr. Hyades refers in terms of 
high appreciation to Mr. Bridges’ study of the Galgan 
language, of which he has compiled a manuscript 
dictionary, which he has had completely to recast 
twenty times before bringing it to perfection, and 
which certainly ought to be published. Some speci- 
mens of the vocabulary and of the grammatical struc- 


28 


ture of the language are given. ‘The missionaries 
have succeeded in improving the material condition 
of the Fuegians, and have induced some of them 
to adopt agricultural, pastoral, and other industrial 
pursuits. 

—In the current volume of the Proceedings of the 
American academy, Mr. Arthur Searle publishes an 
elaborate and exhaustive reduction of all the acces- 
sible observations of the zodiacal light. The paper 
gives the position of the axis of the cone, and the 
apparent boundaries of the light, as determined by 
nearly six hundred and fifty different observations by 
Jones, Heis, Lewis, and others; and tables appended 
give monthly means and other data which summarize 
the results in a very complete manner. 

Mr. Searle does not indulge in much theoretical dis- 
cussion as to the nature of the zodiacal light, but he 
points out that the apparent slight deviation of the 
axis of the cone from the ecliptic is most probably 
due to the effect of atmospheric absorption, and calls 
attention to the necessity of more refined methods of 
observation. He says, — 

‘‘ Tf atmospheric absorption has the importance here assigned 
to it in the study of the zodiacal light, we cannot expect to de- 
termine the true position of the light on any occasion by the 
simple methods heretofore in use. We must either discover 
exactly what an observer means by the boundary, and to what 
extent this boundary will be displaced by given changes of 
brightness, or we must resort to direct photometric observa- 
tions. The last course will probably be preferable.” 

He suggests a modification of the method employed 
by Wolf in tracing out the nebulosity about the 
Pleiades, —a method which consisted essentially in 
watching the visibility of the threads of a reticle, 
which disappeared whenever the telescope was di- 
rected against unilluminated sky. 

In this connection he mentions the interesting fact 
that the Milky Way appears to be about two magni- 
tudes brighter than the mean brightness of the sky; 
which would mean, of course, that a square degree 
of the Milky Way gives between five and six times as 
much light as an average square degree of the rest of 
the sky. 

His only remark as to the theoretical explana- 
tion of the zodiacal light is the following : — 

‘“‘T have merely to remark, with regard to the ordinary mete- 
oric theory, that it gains greatly in simplicity if we dispense 
with all the imaginary meteoric bodies, or rings, with which it 
has usually been connected, and retain merely the conception of 
meteoric dust diffused throughout the solar system. It may be 
shown mathematically, if we regard the meteoric particles as 
solids reflecting light irregularly, that an appearance like the 
zodiacal cone, with an indefinite vertex, would result. On this 
subject the work of Geelmuyden may be consulted.” 

We suppose that by ‘ diffused throughout the solar 
system,’ he means diffused mainly in the plane of the 
ecliptic. Indeed, it could be shown, that, if we started 
with an indiscriminate spherical distribution of mete- 
oric dust around the sun, the disturbing action of the 
planets would ultimately convert it into an approxi- 
mately discoidal distribution in a plane coincident 
with the mean plane of their orbits. At any rate, it 
is not easy to see how an indiscriminate distribution 
should lead to any thing but a glow-cone with a verti- 
cal axis. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. LV., No. 74, 


There can be no question that Mr. Searle,has done 
an important service to science in collecting and edit- 
ing in so excellent a manner the hitherto scattered 
observations relating to his subject. 


— Dr. Ernst Haeckel of Jena has been elected a 
member of the Linnean society for his studies of 
sponges, Medusae, etc. ; also Dr. Alexander Kowaley- 
sky of Odessa, for his zodlogical researches, and Dr. 
S. Schwendener of Berlin, for his studies in crypto- 
gamic botany. 


— The twelfth part of Edwards’s ‘ Butterflies of 
North America’ is almost entirely devoted to the 
polymorphic and wide-spread Lycaena pseudargiolus, 
two plates with over sixty figures being devoted to it. 
Such wealth of illustration is exceedingly rare and 
correspondingly valuable, particularly with the more 
fleeting and less known early stages. Nineteen col- 
ored drawings of the larva alone are given; and in 
execution the illustrations have never been surpassed 
in the most expensive and careful iconographs. The 
next number will complete the second series, and we 
are glad the author shows no sign of discontinuing 
his costly undertaking. 


— The slight tendency to lateral cutting possessed 
by rivers, on account of the earth’s rotation, and 
known sometimes as ‘von Baer’s law,’ has had its 
efficiency denied about as often as it has been granted, 
by those who have written on the matter; and, when 
granted, it has been too often admitted only for 
streams following meridional directions. 

Mr. G. K. Gilbert contributes a new element to the 
discussion of ‘the sufficiency of terrestrial rotation 
for the deflection of streams,’ in a paper read to the 
National academy of sciences in April, and recently 
published in the American journal of science. Tak- 
ing Ferrel’s measure of the deflective force that comes 
from the earth’s rotation, Mr. Gilbert shows, by a 
remarkably simple consideration, that its value is 
not so much in throwing the whole stream against 
its right bank, as in selecting the swifter threads of 
the current, and carrying them against the bank ; 
and, further, that this action will have especially well 
marked development in meandering streams, where 
it will aid the cutting on the meanders of right-hand 
convexity, and diminish it on those of left-hand con- 
vexity. For the Mississippi, the selective tendency 
thus determined toward the right bank is nearly 
nine per cent greater than toward the left ; but it is 
not stated that the valley form has been noticeably 
affected by this preference. On Long Island, how- 
ever, the form of the valleys is clearly controlled by 
the earth’s turning, as was first suggested by Mr. Elias 
Lewis some years ago, and recently confirmed by 
Mr, 1..C. Bissell: 

The article by Mr. Gilbert advances the question 
not only by properly applying the law to rivers flow- 
ing in any direction, but further by giving it a more 
delicate analysis than it has yet received, with the 
conclusion that in certain favorable cases the form 
of a valley may be decidedly influenced by this hidden 
control. While the result is of interest to physical- 
geographers, the method of analysis has a wider 


JuLy 4, 1884.] 


importance. The application of mathematics to ter- 
restrial physics has too often been fruitless from 
dealing with problems in a simplified or idealized 
form that departs too widely from the complications 
of natural conditions. This was notably the case 
with the supposed demonstrations obtained by Hop- 
kins in his geological speculations. It is therefore 
gratifying to find that the increased value of von 
Baer’s law, now found by Gilbert, comes essentially 
from a close consideration of the actual rather than 
of the ideal conditions of river-flow. It is an ad- 
vance in the application of mathematics as well as 
in the explanation of facts. 

The lateral tendency of rivers was first noticed in 
the case of the Volga, which undercuts its right 
bank, as it should in this hemisphere. Other exam- 
ples are found in North Carolina, in the channels of 
the streams flowing eastward to the coast, where the 
southern banks are the steeper ; again on Long Is- 
land, and on the plains of New Zealand. But the 
radial valleys of south-western France afford better 
illustrations than any of these, inasmuch as their 
forms are accurately shown on the great map of the 
army engineers. North of the Pyrenees, about the 
towns of Tarbes and Auch, there is an old sandy 
delta deposit spread out by the rivers from the moun- 
tains while this region was still under water ; and 
since its elevation, the streams formed upon it all 
follow its gentle slopes, diverging like the ribs of a 
fan from thé higher centre toward the lower margin, 
and cutting down their channels into the old delta 
plain. There is nothing here in the flat layers of 
unconsolidated sands to determine an unsymmetri- 
cal form in the valleys : and yet they all show most 
distinctly a gentle slope on the left, and a steeper slope 
on the right ; longer lateral branches on the left, and 
shorter ones on the right ; and many of the highways, 
constructed parallel to the streams on the as yet un- 
broken uplands, are clearly closer to the streams on 
their left than on their right. All this is a direct 
effect of the earth’s rotation. 

It is customary, in speaking of the deflective force 
that arises from the earth’s rotation, to say that it 
acts to the right in the northern hemisphere, but to 
the left in the southern. The reason for this is not 
found in a change in the direction of the force, but 
only in a change in our way of looking at it. It is 
as if one should look at the face of a watch in the 
northern hemisphere, and say that the hands turn to 
the right, and then, on going to the southern hemi- 
sphere, look at the back of the watch, and say that the 
hands turn to the left. Let us therefore suggest that 
the geographers of the southern hemisphere look at 
their winds and storms and streams from the proper 
side, just as they look at their watches ; and, although 
this would involve them in the slight inconvenience 
of standing on their heads, it would give them the 
moral satisfaction of seeing that the deflective forces 
of the earth’s rotation, as well as the hands of their 
watches, always ‘ make for the right.’ 

— Mr. Lockyer has given an account of a recent 
visit to the observatory at Nice, the building of which 
is due to the munificence of Mr. Bischoffsheim, the 


SCIENCE. 29 


well-known French banker. In connection with this, 
Mr. Lockyer presents some striking ideas respecting 
the future of physical observations of the heavenly 
bodies. He suggests that it is now time to abolish the 
observer entirely, and that any astronomer would be 
losing his time by attempting to draw either the 
nebula of Orion or the spectra of stars. Photography 
should take the place of hand-drawing for both of these 
purposes. He pictures an astronomer, one thousand 
years hence, in a room filled with photographs giy- 
ing a picture of every part of the heavens, from pole 
to pole, as it appears to us in the nineteenth century. 
By using a different form of telescope, the expense of 
a dome could be avoided. Altogether, Mr. Lockyer’s 
suggestions are well worthy the attention of all en- 
gaged in planning observatories. 


— In 1885 an exhibition of inventions is to be held 
at South Kensington under the patronage of the 
Prince of Wales. The first part of the exhibition is 
to be of all inventions made or brought into use since 
1882; the second part is to be of all musical instru- 
ments invented since 1800. The committee of the 
first exhibition includes many of the most eminent 
scientific men in England. 


— The Illustrirte zeitung reports an interesting dis- 
covery in the department of photography. Eleven 
years ago Professor V ogel of Berlin explained a method 
by which the effects of colors, such as blue and yellow, 
might remain unchanged as to light and shade, and 
which would overcome this difficulty of photography. 
He has now worked out a process on this principle 
with practical success: it is published in the Photo- 
graphischen mittheilungen, and the German photo- 
graphic society has awarded him a prize for it. 


— Professor Carnoy, of the Catholic university of 
Bouvain, announces a work on ‘ Biologie cellulaire,’ 
which will treat of the general characters of cells, both 
animal and vegetable. He proposes to deal with the 
general organization, chemistry, and physiology of 
cells, basing his work upon original observations, 
either new, or confirmatory of previous researches. 
He promises over four hundred new illustrations, en- 
graved with great care and accuracy. The scheme 
is ambitious; but, if well carried out, it will secure us 
a valuable book on an aspect of biology too little 
heeded at present. Professor Carnoy is a botanist, 
whose reputation will rise high if his volume fulfils 
the promises of the prospectus. It is to be published 
at Lierre, Belgium, by Joseph Van In & Cie. The 
price to subscribers is twenty-five francs. 


—If an observatory is to be judged by the number 
of its astronomers and the variety of its work, that 
of Paris must rank as the first in the world. The 
most important work now in progress is the construe- 
tion of the great catalogue of stars observed during 
the past thirty years, the printing of which has been 
commenced. The Bischoffsheim circle, known as 
the ‘cercle du jardin,’ has thus far been used only 
for day observations. One of the most important 
improvements has been the introduction of the shal- 
low amalgamated basin for holding the quicksilver 
used in the artificial horizon. Very careful experi- 


30 | SCIENCE. 


ments have been made to ascertain whether the level 
of the quicksilver in this basin remains unchanged 
after any slight motion. To test this, alternate ob- 
servations were made with the amalgamated and 
with the ordinary basin. The results show conclu- 
sively that the amalgamated basin preserves its level 
perfectly. Moreover, the disturbance produced by 
the passage of carriages in the neighboring street is 
scarcely perceptible, so that it is now possible to 
observe the nadir at any hour of the day with per- 
fect ease. The result is, that one of the great objec- 
tions to building an observatory in the neighborhood 
of arailway is done away with. 


— A new observatory has been recently established 
on a mountain in the south of France, known as Pic 
de Midi. Here Mr. Thollon has erected his most 
powerful spectroscope, and reports that he can see 
daily forty rays of the chromosphere in a region 
where ordinarily only eight are visible. He also 
makes the new and interesting observation that the 
granulations of the photosphere are visible in his spec- 
troscope as fine striae extending through the whole 
length of the spectrum. What is yet more curious, 
similar granulations seem to show themselves in the 
chromosphere, being indicated by the character of 
the hydrogen lines, which are broken up into small 
pieces instead of being continuous. It may be re- 
marked, in this connection, that this observatory is 
not a purely governmental one, but has been con- 
structed with the funds donated by various private 
individuals and scientific bodies of France. 


— The University of the state of Missouri has 
commenced the issue of a Bulletin of its museum by 
the publication of a paper on Niagara fossils by Prof. 
J. W. Spencer, its director. It is mostly devoted to 
graptolites and Stromatoporidae of this formation, 
and is illustrated by eight plates, rather rudely exe- 
cuted, but apparently tolerably well drawn. 


— The Academy announces that Professor Mayor 
of St. John’s college, Cambridge, will be obliged by 
the communication of any reminiscences of the late 
Dr. Isaac Todhunter, or of any letters written by him. 


— Engineers, manufacturers, and others interested 
in the progress of mechanical science, and wishing 
to attend the meetings of the mechanical section of 
the American association at Philadelphia next Sep- 
tember, should send to the secretary (J. B. Webb), 
at Ithaca, N.Y., for membership blanks, or abstract 
blanks in case it is their intention to prepare a paper 
for the meeting. 


—It is reported that Prof. C. E. Bessey, of the 
State agricultural college of Iowa, has been offered 
a professorship of botany and horticulture af the 
University of Nebraska. 


— We learn from Engineering, that Hirn, the French 
astronomer and physicist, has devised an apparatus 
‘for determining the actual calorific power of the solar 
rays. An alembic of copper containing sulphuric 
ether is exposed to the sunshine. ‘The heat absorbed 
volatilizes the liquid, which is condensed in the 


[Vou. IV., No. 74. 


alembic. Regnault’s formula is employed to calculate 
the solar heat absorbed from the quantity of liquid 
condensed. 


— According to the tables recently published by 
the Direction générale des contributions indirectes, 
the total production of alcohols in 1883 amounted to 
2,011,016 hectolitres. This is an increase of 244,450 
hectolitres over the year 1882, and 508,489 hectolitres 
more than the mean of the last ten years. This in- 
crease is due in great part to the advance made in the 
manufacture of spirituous liquors by the distillation 
of farinaceous substances. 


— The fifth annual report of the museum of the 
Ohio Wesleyan university states that the additions 
during the year amounted to seventeen hundred and 
ninety. The need of more shelf-room is much felt. 


— Dr. H. Ploss, whose well-known work, ‘ Das kind 
in brauch und sitte der vélker,’ appeared last year in 
its second edition, announces for immediate publi- 
cation, in parts, ‘Das weib in der na ur- und volker- 
kunde.’ The prospectus states that it will treat of 
the natural history of woman, principally from an 
anthropological stand-point, and as it appears to the 
naturalist and sociologist. ‘The work is to be pub- 
lished at Leipzig, by Grieben, in eight lieferungen: 
price two marks each. When complete, they will 
form two volumes, 8vo. 


— There are now twenty-three countries with a 
total population of 241,973,011, in which the metric 
system of weights and measures is the legal standard; 
four (Canada, Great Britain, United States, and 
Persia) with a population of 97,639,825, in which the 
system may be used; and six, including Russia and 
British India, with a population of 333,266,386, in 
which the system has no legal standing. 


— The report of the North Carolina agricultural 
experiment-station for 1883 is almost wholly devoted 
to commercial fertilizers; although a few analyses of 
fodders are reported, and more or less work is men- 
tioned as having been done for the state geologist 
and the state board of health which is not reported 
here. The most generally interesting portion of the 
report is that concerning the recently explored 
deposits of phosphatic nodules and rock in the state, 
some account of which has already been given by 
Dr. Dabney in Science, iii. 31. 


—A convention of agricultural chemists, which 
met in Atlanta, Ga., May 15 and 16, appointed Prof. 
S. W. Johnson of Connecticut, Prof. H. C. White of 
Georgia, and Prof. W. C. Stubbs of Alabama, a com- 
mittee to propose a method for the determination of 
phosphoric acid in fertilizers. Their report, which 
is too long for reproduction here, recommends a. 
method for general use for the twelve months follow- 
ing its date, and promises further investigation and. 
a report at a future time. It was resolved by the 
convention, ‘‘ that this method be not considered as. 
binding upon any one, but that the convention rec- 
ommends it to the profession, and hopes that all not. 
bound by conflicting obligations will follow it.”’ 


‘ 


wei ei NCE. 


FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue increasing number of international sci- 
entific congresses whose function is the estab- 
lishment of common points of departure, and 
the unification of standards of measure both as 
to dimensions and nomenclature, is a hopeful 
sign of progress towards the ‘ millennium’ to 
which men of science are unquestionably near- 
er than their political brethren. It is delight- 
ful to find that there are so many important 
matters concerning which scientific men repre- 
senting many nations and many languages find 
themselves in perfect agreement. Although in 
many instances a surrender of some personal 
or patriotic claims has been demanded, this 
has been generally acceded to with little pro- 
test, to the end that universal advantage may 
be the outcome. When work of this kind is 
done, it should be done for all time to come; 
at least, what is definitely fixed upon should be 
of such a nature that it will not need undoing 
in the near future. 


In this respect the report of the electrical 
congress is something of a disappointment. 
The congress seems to have reached its con- 
clusions in undue haste. Indeed, the electrical 
units as now defined are less precise and sci- 
entific than before. The reference of the prac- 
tical units to those of the c. G. s. system was 
in itself admirable and satisfactory. With 
the new definitions, one only, that of current 
strength, has a precise relation to the fun- 
damental units: the others have become ar- 
bitrary. Would it not have been better to 
adhere to the original ohm, and to define the 
mercury unit as provisional? The new mer- 
cury unit is obtained from measurements that 
differ among themselves by more than two per 
cent. Besides, the verdict was made up before 
the results of Professor Rowland’s exhaustive 

No, 75e— 1884. 


investigation, now in process, were in the pos- 
session of the congress, although this investi- 
gation was admitted to be one of the most 
important. A provisional mercury unit of a 
hundred and six centimetres would have satis- 
fied all practical demands, and would have been 
subject to such correction as future research 
indicated to be necessary. As the matter now 
stands, the elegance and simplicity of the sys- 
tem is destroyed by the introduction of arbi- 
trary units, the value of which may some time 
be found to be considerably different from that 
now assumed. 


While the congress might have acted more 
wisely in the opinion of many, in the matter 
of the ohm, in its definition of the standard 
of light it would certainly have done well to 
postpone action for the present. It appears, 
that, because nothing better was offered, the 
square centimetre of fused platinum was adopt- 
ed. Although this is a matter which is great- 
ly in need of adjustment, there can be little 
satisfaction in the adoption of what is, as near- 
ly as may be, an impossible standard. ‘There 
must have been a paucity of suggestions as to 
a suitable standard ; which is singular, consid- 
ering the prominence of the problem of meas- 
uring intense lights. And in recommending 
that all records of observations of atmospheric 
electricity and earth-currents should be sent 
to the international bureau at Berne, the con- 
gress simply acknowledged our present igno- 
rance. 


BisLioGRAPHIES Of special authors have but 
an ephemeral value, if made during the life, or 
at least during the activity, of a writer. It 
would therefore, in our judgment, have been 
better to restrict the one just issued by the 
National museum, and fully described in our 
notes, to Professor Baird’s direct contributions 
to science, which have avowedly ceased, and 


32 SCIENCE. 


to postpone mention of those undertaken with 
the assistance of many collaborators (which 
record the advance of science through the re- 
searches of others), or dealing primarily with 
applied science. However important this latter 
work may have been, — and we should be far 
from underrating its importance, especially in 
the development of science in America, — it not 
only hinders a proper retrospect, an independ- 
ent coup d’oeil, of his remarkably extensive 
and valuable contributions to the vertebrate 
zoology of North America, but it seems to 
demand, at some future time, a repetition of 
this work, with its almost painful detail and 
voluminous indexes. The first was the only 
pressing need: for the other, we could have 
contented ourselves for the present with the 
indexes of the everywhere procurable annual 
records, Smithsonian reports, and fish-commis- 
sion publications. 


A scientific friend, himself a bibliographer, 
does not look with complacency upon the an- 
nouncement that similar bibliographies will be 
given of other still living naturalists. He asks 
whether those directing or engaged upon this 
work could not turn their bibliographic energies 
to better account in another direction. Fathers 
of a broad science, or pioneers in a vast field, 
who cover that field, are few indeed ; and only 
their bibliographies, when carried out with the 
fulness of that which furnishes us our text, can 
have any possible permanent, or even great 
temporary, value. What are really wanted are 
topical and geographical bibliographies, which 
shall lighten the labor of the expert, and lessen 
the chances of incorrect statement, and, above 
all, of unnecessary re-statement. These are 
the true aids to progress for a generation 
burdened with a literature vast, ill-assorted, 
inchoate. Individual bibliographies do not 
penetrate its depths. Let our zealous bibli- 
ographers devote to such work the same 
time and pains they would give to that pro- 
posed, and the result will be of tenfold im- 
mediate value, and it will have at least some 
lasting worth. 


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 JSaith. 


The zero meridian of longitude. 


IN arranging meridians for perpetual usefulness 
and the best practical results, the location of the 
180th degree is of far more importance than that of 
zero or any other. 

When we meet a ship of another nation at sea, we 
determine upon speaking, one of the most important 
objects of which is to compare longitudes. We do ex- 
change longitudes, but on comparison we find a large 
difference between them. Then the question arises, 
Is one of our chronometers wrong, or are we mistaken 
as to the meridian from which the other ship reckons 
her longitude? This ship, by this time, is beyond the 
reach of our further inquiry, and hence the question 
cannot be satisfactorily answered. We are in more 
doubt than before speaking, confusion has been worse 
confounded, and only because we do not know posi- 
tively the other’s zero meridian. Among merchant 
shipping, on long voyages, just, this sort of trouble 
occurs constantly, perhaps daily, to the great enhance- 
ment of risk to the safety of ships, cargoes, and 
crews. 

Again: an English or an American ship is in mid- 
Pacific, steering east; crosses the 180th degree of her 
reckoning, from Greenwich; and then meets a French 
ship standing west, which has crossed the 180th degree 
from Paris. They speak, and each asks the other 
to report him at Lloyds. They arrive in their respec- 
tive ports, and each reports the other, as requested: 
but one report states that the speaking occurred on 
one day, say Monday, the 1st of a month; and the 
other on another day, say Tuesday, the 2d of the same 
month. But I will not multiply instances. These 
two will give some idea, though faintly, of the risk 
to property and life, as well as the confusion of 
dates, caused by the ’ present unsettled a of 
meridians. 

If the 180th meridian were universally coteenieee 
as passing through Bering Strait, it could be so pro- 
jected as to pass clear, or nearly so, of all land through- 
out its entire length; and, this being true, it could 
be made the dividing-line of days, naturally and 
properly, with the greatest possible advantage to 
everbody everywhere. 

If a meridian passing through Bering Strait were 
adopted as the 180th, then the zero meridian would 
pass through central Europe, and enter Africa near 
Tunis, and the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of 
Guinea, thereby giving Norway, Denmark, Germany, 
Austria, Switzerland, and Italy the opportunity of 
having their national observatories upon it, on their 
own soil. C. BoruM. 


Norfolk, Va., June 5. 


Crystallization of glucose in honey. 


A gentleman of our city who is engaged extensively 
in bee-culture has furnished me with the following 
rather remarkable incident : — 

On opening a cap of honey that had been made 
subsequent to July 1 of last year, it was discovered 
that the entire bottom was covered with a layer of 
some peculiar white powdery substance never before 
observed. Such an occurrence being new to him, he 
conferred with some of his acquaintances, also en- 
gaged in bee-raising, but with the uniform result of 
furnishing each with a bit of news. A sample of the 
white substance was submitted to me, and on exami- 


* 


[Vou. IV., No. 75. 


ne ee 


Juny 11, 1884.] 


nation was proved to be, with the exception of slight 
extraneous matter, almost perfectly pure glucose. 
The presence of glucose in honey is well known; 
but a erystallization or separation such as here de- 
scribed appears unknown, in this district at least, 
and possibly in others as well. Therefore it is that 
I deem this of sufficient moment to lay before your 
readers. A few other facts are pertinent. ‘The bees 
in whose hive the glucose. was found have never been 
artificially fed, nor has any special attention been 
paid to promote an increase in the yield of honey. 
Nevertheless, the yield from the hive containing the 
powder has exceeded, by almost three times, that of 
any previous year. A sample of the honey will be 
furnished me, when I propose determining the relative 
quantity of glucose contained in it, thinking that by 
that means some light may be thrown on this appar- 
ently unique occurrence. SIMON FLEXNER. 
Louisville, June 18. 


[All honey contains glucose and cellulose in about 
equal proportions. It is not uncommon for honey to 
granulate or crystallize in the comb. This crystal- 
lization often occurs when the cells are but partly 
full of honey, so that the granulated sugar only occu- 
pies a part of the cell. If such combs are placed in 
a hive, the bees will add honey, and produce the 
phenomenon noticed, and described above. ‘There is 
nothing remarkable or very exceptional in this occur- 
rence, though it occurs so rarely that it is not strange 
that most apiarists have failed to observe it. — Ep.] 


Worth-eastern and north-western Indian 
implements. 


In reply to a note contained in Science, iii. 701, I 
beg leave to explain that Dr. Abbott misapprehends 
the object of the paper there discussed, my point of 
view therein having been that of an observer simply, 
not that of a critic. The particular puk-gah-mah- 
gun in question received description and illustration 
in virtue of the definite facts, that it represents the 
stone age of the north-west, that it is a well finished 
and mounted typical weapon, that it is of known tribal 
origin and of ascertained uses, and that, finally, it has 
an interesting and assured history. If my brief no- 
tice of this weapon ignored the diversity of figure 
found among objects of the war-club pattern, it was 
partly because I had undertaken to present my notes 
in a condensed form, and partly, also, because I be- 
. lieved such modification of common type generally 
understood by those who would be likely to honor me 
with a reading. I venture in this place to append 
one or two statements which may, perhaps, have the 
effect to place matters in a clear light. 

The Ojibwas of Red Lake originally descended 
thither from Rainy Lake, their primary point of 
departure having been the ‘ Great Ojibwa,’ or Lake 
Superior, where their tribe claims to have been cen- 
tralized for ages. The Red-Lakers agree that they 
effected settlement here about a century ago, after a 
desperate struggle of long duration with the Sioux, 
who then inhabited the region; and they impute 
their eventual success, not so much to superior prow- 
ess, as to the fact that the Ojibwas fought with weap- 
ons procured from French traders at the north, while 
the more isolated Sioux were restricted to war imple- 
ments of their own manufacture. The Red Lake 
band continued in the stone age, so far as their do- 
mestic furnishings were concerned, long after they 
had discarded their tribal weapons of stone and bone. 
As they are by no means addicted to nice culinary dis- 
tinctions, it occurred to me, in the course of investi- 


SCIENCE. 33 


gation, that the bone-breakers, being adapted to deal 
an effective blow, might, at the early day preceding 
contact with white traders, have served their owners 
the double purpose of utensil and weapon; that, in 
short, the objects used only within historic times for 
breaking up the bones of game might likewise have 
been employed prior to such time in dealings with 
their foe. This conjecture determined the particu- 
lar line of inquiry which I followed in questioning 
the natives, and which was without positive results 
always. ‘The matter would be unworthy of mention 
here, except for the purpose of correcting a miscon- 
struction. FRANC E. BABBITT. 


What's in a name? 


It is a pleasant diversion to note the correspondences 
between people’s names and occupations. Here, for 
instance, are the Meisels, German lithographers; and 
meissel is the German word for chisel, a cutting in- 
strument. Wagner, the inventor of the palace-car, 
learned the wagon-maker’s trade, and subsequently 
built his railroad-wagon; while his rival, George Pull- 
man, justifies his name by pulling his fellow-men 
about the world in very sumptuous railroad-coaches. 

Turning to the New-York directory, you see, that, 
out of the 204 Wagners there set down, 10 are in some 
way concerned with the making or sale of wagons. 
Out of 132 Carpenters, 17 are either carpenters or 
builders, or dealers in wagon-materials. Of 1,174 
Schmids, Smidts, Schmiedes, Schmidts, Schmitts, 
and Smiths in New York, 202 are men who use edged 
tools for the cutting of wood or iron, including black- 
smiths, goldsmiths, cabinet-makers, carpenters, etc.: 
a large number, not included in the 202, are shoe- 
makers and tailors; but these can hardly be called 
smiths or artificers. 

In the Boston directory, out of 336 Clarks (only a 
small fraction of the whole), 63 are either store-clerks 
or religious clerics, or engaged in pen-work of some 
kind. There are 420 Schneiders (or cutters) in New 
York, and 29 of them are tailors; but of the 91 
Sneiders, Sniders, and Snyders, there is not one tailor, 
and only two cutters of any sort; namely, a cap-maker 
and a dressmaker. It would seem that the Sniders, 
in mixing English blood with their own, and trying 
new fortunes in foreign lands, had got farther away 
from the instincts of the original trade that gave 
their German ancestors their name. It certainly 
seems that it is safe, looking at the data given, to 
assume that the hereditary tendencies denoted by 
the name are in many cases marvellously persistent. 
I have no doubt, that, notwithstanding the continual 
mingling of new blood (by marriage) with that of 
each class of tradesmen, we should yet find, if we 
could know the bent of mind of all members of the 
class, that the ancestral preferences and aptitudes 
exist in some degree in each and all. It is to be re- 
membered, that, in the case of such names as Car- 
penter and Schneider, there would be a more or less 
strong disinclination for the owners to engage respec- 
tively in carpentry and tailoring, owing to the dislike 
of having to endure the lifelong punning on their 
names. 

All that can be shown is, that, in the case of a 
certain number (say, one-sixth) of the members of 
a family or clan, the ancestral occupation reveals its 
pristine attraction. But the exceptions are notable. 
Thackeray’s ancestors, according to Bardsley, were 
thatchers (thack, thatch, hence the thacker, and the 
last modified into the thackery, the thackeray, i.e., 
the thatcher). Shakeshaft, Shakspeare, Breakspear, 
from their prowess in battle; Spencer, he who has 
charge of the spence, or buttery; Whittier, from 


34 SCIENCE. 


white-tawier (the verb ‘to taw’ meaning to dress 
the lighter skins of goats and kids, and then whiten 
them for the glover’s use); Stoddard, the stot-herd, 
or bullock-herd, or herdsman; Palfrey, the farmer 
who rides his palfrey to market, — here, in the case 
of well-known persons, we have instances of wide 
departure of descendants from the trade of their 
ancestors. W. S. KENNEDY. 


A muskrat with a round tail. 


It has generally been considered that the com- 
pressed, rudder-like tail, and large webbed hind-feet 
and bent toes, of the muskrat, form its essential dis- 
tinguishing peculiarities: my surprise was therefore 
great to find among some specimens recently received 
from Mr. William Wittfeld of Georgiana, Fla., an 
animal, which, though resembling an ordinary musk- 
rat in general appearance, possessed neither of these 
characteristics. It looked, indeed, like an overgrown 
and dropsical house-rat, and was at first entered in 
the catalogue by my assistant as a doubtful species 
of that genus. Its form also jsuggested that of a 
pouched rat (Thomomys), but unfortunately there 
were no pouches. An examination of the skull at 
once dismissed these erroneous notions, and revealed 
the true character of the animal. It is, without doubt, 
a living link binding the muskrat we know so well 
with the field-mouse. In size it stands between the 
two. Itseyes, ears, and fore-feet are those of a musk- 
rat; but its tail and hind-feet are those of a field- 
mouse. I have not yet received any particulars 
regarding the habits of this Floridan muskrat; but 
the slight webbing of its toes, and their unbent con- 
dition, taken together with the rounded tail, would 
lead one to prophesy that it is not so thoroughly 
aquatic as the ordinary muskrat, probably not more 
so than many of the field-mice. 

The ordinary muskrat has never been found in 
southern Florida, and it is now apparent that its place 
is supplied by this little relative. I may go aside to 
say that Florida probably still holds in its southern 
interior a number of creatures which the eye of 
science hath not seen, and which will modify the 
notions we have regarding those already known. As 
this is the scientific birth of this interesting little 
mammal, it is necessary that it should be given a 
name: I therefore christen it with the name of my 
friend, Mr. J. A. Allen, whose monographs of the 
North-American mammals are so well known and so 
highly esteemed; and it shall hereafter be known as 
Neofiber Alleni. I may, perhaps, be permitted to con- 
clude by summing up briefly the characters of the 
species, in order that there may be no mistake regard- 
ing the appearance of the animal. 

Neofiber Alleni.—General form and color, head, 
eyes, ears, and fore-legs as in F. zibethicus. Hind- 
feet not exceeding twice the fore-feet in length, with 
straight, slightly webbed toes, and naked soles. Tail 
round, scaled, and sparsely covered with dull-brown 
hairs. Length of head and body, 20.2 centimetres; 
tail, 12.7 centimetres; hind-foot (without claws), 3.9 


centimetres. FREDERICK W. TRUE. 
U.S. national museum, Washington, 
June 380. 


Fish-remains in the North-American Silurian 
rocks. 


The English Ludlow Rocks have long been known 
as the lowest horizon from which undoubted remains 
of fish have been obtained. The ‘ bone-bed’ of this 
group has yielded several species. The earliest 


[Vou. IV., No. 75. 


known American fossil fish occur in the lower Devo- 
nian beds of Ohio (corniferous) and in the Gaspé 
sandstones of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

But some fossils have, during the past year, come 
into my possession, a glance at which is suggestive of 
near relationship to the peculiar forms of the English 
Ludlow Rocks. Close examination has confirmed this 
opinion, and abundantly proved that fish existed on 
this continent as early asin England. Indeed, should 
the whole evidence I have obtained be equally valid, 
it will sustain the conclusion that we have here more 
ancient ichthyic forms than any yet known elsewhere. 

I have entered a paper on the subject for the ap- 
proaching meeting of the British association at Mon- 
treal, when the facts on which these conclusions rest 
will be given in detail. EK. W. CLAYPOLE. 

Buchtel college, Akron, O., July 2. 


Babirussa tusks from an Indian grave in Brit- 
ish Columbia. 


Many curious and unlooked-for objects are fre- 
quently found in Indian graves, and not least among 
these is a pair of the tusks of the Babirussa. They 
were extracted in August of last year by Mr. James 
S. Swan from the grave of an old Indian doctor at 
Kah-te-lay-juk-te-wos Point, near the north-western 
end of Graham Island, one of the Queen Charlotte 
Islands, off the coast of British Columbia. The Babi- 
russa, aS every one knows, is an animal of the hog 
tribe, inhabiting only Celebes and the adjacent 
islands. The question then arises, How did these 
teeth come into the possession of the Indian doctor, 
who died some fifty years since at an advanced age? 

Mr. Swan suggests an ingenious and plausible solu- 
tion of the problem. In his letter of the 4th of Janu- 
ary to Professor Baird, he writes as follows: ‘‘ Lieut. 
Bolles, of the U.S. surveying schooner Ernest, tells 
me that the Siamese junks make regular trading- 
voyages to the coast of Africa, even as far as the Cape 
of Good Hope, running down with the north-east 
monsoons, and returning when the favorable mon- 
soon blows. They bring products of eyery kind, and 
trade with Japan and China. He thinks that some 
of these junks may have been wrecked, and carried by 
the Japanese current to the American side, and per- 
haps cast ashore on the west coast of the Queen 
Charlotte Islands, where quantities of drift-stuff of 
every kind is to be found. 

‘Charles Wolcott Brooks, in his able report on 
Japanese vessels wrecked in the North Pacific Ocean, 
read before the Californian academy of sciences, 
March 1, 1876, says, ‘Every junk found adrift or 
stranded on the coast of North America, or on the 
Hawaiian or adjacent islands, has, on examination, 
proved to be Japanese, and no single instance of any 
Chinese vessel has ever been reported.’ 

‘One of these junks was wrecked on the Queen 
Charlotte Islands in 1831, and numerous others have 
been wrecked on other parts of the north-west coast. 
The tusks of the Babirussa were undoubtedly an 
article of commerce among a people who would be 
likely to use them for carving or for manufacturing 
into fancy articles, and it is not improbable that the 
tusks in question were procured from some one of 
these old Japanese wrecks.”’ 

It is difficult to conceive of another origin for these 
tusks. The commerce of California fifty years ago 
was of a very limited character, and Babirussa tusks 
are among the objects least likely to have been sent 
there through any regular channel. F. W. TRUE. 


U.S. national museum, Washington, D.C., 
July 3. 


JULY 11, 1884.] 


SPECIALIZATION IN SCIENTIFIC 
SLUDY. 

THERE once was a science called ‘ natural 
philosophy,’ which, like some old synthetic 
types of animals, held in itself all the learning 
that applied to physical facts. By the beginning 
of this century this science of natural things 
had become divided into physics and natural 
history. These divisions have since spread, 
like the divisions of a polyp community, until 
now natural history has more than a dozen 
named branches; and in physics the divisions 
are almost as numerous. There are now at 
least thirty named and bounded sciences ; each 
name designating a particularly limited field, 
in which there are able men who work their 
days out in labor that does not consider the 
rest of nature as having any relation to their 
work. 

This progressive division of labor follows a 
natural law: and it is perhaps fit that science 
should itself give a capital illustration of the 
application of this law to forms of thought, as 
well as to the more concrete things of the 
world ; but it is an open question whether or 
no it is advantageous to the best interests of 
learning. There can be no question that the 
search for truth of a certain quality is very 
greatly helped by this principle of divided labor. 
If a man wish to get the most measurable yield 
out of the earth in any way, the best thing for 
him is to stake off a very small claim, tie himself 
down to it, fertilize it highly, till it incessantly, 
and forget that there are blossoms or fruit be- 
yond his particular patch; for any moment of 
consciousness of such impracticable things as 
grow beyond his field is sure to find its expres- 
sion when he comes to dig his crop, whether his 
crop in the intellectual field be elements or 
animals, stars or animalculae. The harvest of 
things unknown is most easily won in this 
kitchen-gardening way of work. 

The world needs, or fancies that it needs, this 
kind of work; and it is now of a mind to pay 
more of its various rewards for the least bit of 
special and peculiar knowledge than for the 
widest command of varied learning. In a 
thousand ways it says to its students, not only 


SCIENCE. 


35 


as of old, ‘‘ Study what you most affect,’’ but, 
‘‘ Bffect that study altogether, know the least 
thing that can be known as no one else knows 
it, and leave the universe to look after itself.”’ 

This is the prescription of our time. We 
are now proceeding on the unexpressed theory, 
that, because no man can command the details 
of all science, therefore he shall know only 
that which he can know in the utmost detail. 
We seem to be assuming, that, if many sepa- 
rate men each know some bit of the knowable, 
man in general will in a way know it all; 
that when, in another hundred years of this 
specialization, we have science divided into a 
thousand little hermit-cells, each tenanted by 
an intellectual recluse, we shall have completed 
our system of scientific culture. No one can 
be so blind to the true purposes of learning as 
to accept this condition of things as the ideal 
of scientific labor. It may be the order of 
conquest, the shape in which the battle against 
the unknown has to be fought; but beyond it 
must lie some broader disposition of scientific 
life, —- some order in which the treasures of 
science, won by grim struggle in the wilder- 
ness of things unknown, may yield their profit 
to man. 

The questions may fairly be asked, whether 
we have not already won enough knowledge 
from nature for us to return, in part, to the older 
and broader ideal of learning ; whether we may 
not profitably turn away a part of the talent 
and genius which go to the work of discovery 
to the wider task of comprehension ; whether 
we may not again set the life of a Humboldt 
along with the life of a Pasteur, as equally fit 
goals for the student of nature. 

Until we set about the system of general 
culture in science, it will be nearly impossible 
to have any proper use of its resources in edu- 
cation. A sound theory of general culture in 
science must be preceded by a careful discus- 
sion of the mind-widening power of its several 
lines of thought. This determination cannot 
be made by men versed only in their own spe- 
cialties: it must be made by many efforts to 
determine by comparison what part of the sci- 
ences have the most important power of mind- 


36 


developing. At present there are few men 
whose opinion on such a subject is worth any 
thing, and the number constantly grows less. 

The greatest difficulty partly expresses itself 
in, and partly arises from, the multiplication of 
societies which include specialists as members, 
and specialties as the subjects of their discus- 
sions. We no longer have much life in the old 
academies, where men of diverse learning once 
sought to give and receive the most varied teach- 
ing. The geologists herd apart from the zodlo- 
gists: and in zodlogy the entomologists have a 
kingdom to themselves; so have the ornithol- 
ogists, the ichthyologists, and other students. 
‘That is not my department,’ is an excuse for 
almost entire ignorance of any but one nar- 
row field. If naturalists would recognize this 
‘ pigeon-holing,’ not only of their work, but of 
their interests, as an evil, we might hope to see 
abetterment. Until they come to see how much 
is denied them in this shutting-out of the broad 
view of nature, there is no hope of any change. 
Special societies will multiply; men of this sort 
of learning will understand their problems less 
and less well; until all science will be ‘ caviare 
to the general,’ even when the general includes 
nearly all others beyond the dozen experts in 
the particular line of research. 

The best remedy for this narrowing of the 
scientific motive would be for each man of sci- 
ence deliberately to devote himself, not to one, 
but to two ideals ; i.e., thorough individual work 
in some one field, and sound comprehension of 
the work of his fellows in the wide domain of 
learning, — not all learning, of course, for life 
and labor have limits, but of selected fields. 
In such a system there will be one society-life 
meant for the promotion of special research, 
and another meant for the broader and equally 
commendable work of general comprehension. 

It is in acertain way unfortunate that inves- 
tigation is to a great extent passing out of the 
hands of teachers. This, too, is a part of the 
subdivision work ; but it is in its general effects 
the most unhappy part of it. As long as the 
investigator is a teacher, heis sure to be kept 
on a wider field than when he becomes a solitary 
special worker in one department. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 75. 


The efforts now being made for the endow- 
ment of research will, if successful, lead to a 
still further tendency to limit the fields of sci- 
entific labor. A better project would be to 
keep that connection between inquiry and ex- 
position from which science has had so much 
profit in by-gone times. 


HIBERNATION OF THE LOWER VER- 
TEBRATES. 


In a recent article in Science, I gave the 
details of a series of observations of the habit 
of hibernation as it occurs among our mam- 
mals, and endeavored to show that this habit 
was not so fixed and regular as is commonly 
supposed. 

When we come to study, in their native 
haunts, our reptiles and other lower verte- 
brates, it will be found that the same is true 
of them also. For instance: the turtles, as a 
class, are supposed to hibernate; but this is 
not strictly true of all of them. There are 
nine species of these animals, more or less 
abundant, in my neighborhood. One, the 
common box-tortoise, is strictly terrene ; while 
the others are either aquatic or semi-aquatic. 
The box-tortoise more regularly and system-_ 
atically hibernates than do any of the aquatic 
species. After two or three hard frosts, it 
burrows quite deeply into the earth, and seldom 
quits its hiding-place until every vestige of 
winter has disappeared. The appearance of 
the box-tortoise is the best ‘sign’ of settled 
spring weather that I know, though it some- 
times fails; but to assert that ‘‘ tortoises 
creep deep into the ground, so as to com- 
pletely conceal themselves from view when a 
severe winter is to follow,’’ and that ‘* they go 
down just far enough to protect the opening of 
their shells’’+ when it is to be mild, is non- 
sense. The water and mud turtles, of which 
I have carefully studied eight species, appear, 
on the approach of cold weather, to bury them- 
selves deeply in the mud at the bottoms of 
ponds and streams, and to remain there until 
spring. This is the common impression; and 
a superficial glance at their haunts during the 
winter seems confirmatory of it. Is it, how- 
ever, strictly true of these turtles? The habit 
of hibernating is at least affected very mate- 
rially by the severity of the winter. Further- 
more, in most ponds of any considerable 
extent, frequented by turtles, there are sure to 
be one or more deep holes wherein many of the 


1 Signal-service notes, No. ix.: Weather-proverbs. 1883. 


Juy 11, 1884.] 


turtles take refuge after the first hard or plant- 
killing frost. There they remain in the deeper 
and warmer water, when the shallower portions 
of the pond are coated with ice. Do they lie 
in the mud, in these holes, in a torpid con- 
dition ? 
- Throughout the winter I have found that 
many of our fish also congregate in these same 
deep holes, and the turtles prey to a certain 
extent upon them; the snapping-turtles (Che- 
lydra serpentina) occasionally catching one, 
and the other turtles feeding upon the remains 
of the snapper’s feast. What first gave me 
this impression was the fact, that even in mid- 
winter, in nets set under the ice, I frequently 
found fishes that had been partially eaten ; and, 
as this also occurs in summer, I took it 
for granted that the offender was the same 
in each case. Led by this inference, I baited 
hooks, and placed them in the deep holes 
of a large pond, and in several in- 
stances succeeded in catching 
specimens of the stinking or 
musk turtle (Ozotheca 
_ odorata) and of the 
mud-turtle (Ci- 


SCIENCE. 


37 


some six months of each year; and, again, 
it is certain that the species mentioned as 
active during the winter, do also, under certain 
conditions, regularly hibernate. The most, 
therefore, that can be claimed from my ob- 
servations, is, that the habit, in some spe- 
cies, if not all, is under the control of the 
animal, and that its exercise is optional. 

Snakes, I find, are by far the most sensitive 
to cold of all our animals, and avoid exposure 
to it by every available means. Certain of 
them, when hibernating, are stiff, cold, and 
unyielding, their condition more nearly resem- 
bling death than that of other animals under 
like conditions. Still we see a difference in 
the conditions when we compare the habit as 
exercised by different species. The water- 
snakes hibernate quite differ- 


CHELYDRA SERPENTINA (ONE-HALF NATURAL SIZE). 


nosternum pennsylvanicum). In the same 
way snapping-turtles have been caught, during 
the severest cold weather, in deep holes, and 
about large springs that discharge their waters 
on level ground. It would seem, therefore, 
that, if the water remains above the freezing- 
point, these turtles can remain in a fairly 
active state, even though they do not find any 
large amount of food. In such spring-holes 
the grass remains green throughout winter; a 
few frogs linger in the waters; an occasional 
bittern haunts the spot; pike. too, are not un- 
usual; and the snapper, therefore, has com- 
pany at least, and occasionally he makes a 
meal of some one of the hardy visitors, which, 
like himself, brave the winter, and do not seek 
to avoid its rigors by a protracted torpid sleep. 
As I have not found specimens of each of 
the aquatic and mud turtles under such cir- 
cumstances, it may be that some of them are 
less hardy, and do regularly hibernate for 


ently from upland snakes. ‘The former seek 
refuge from the cold in mud beneath water : the 
latter burrow into dry earth. The former, when 
disturbed, or on exposure to the atmosphere, 
‘come to’ almost immediately: the latter may 
be literally broken into pieces without giving 
evidence of life. By ‘ water-snakes’ I mean, 
not one or two species of Tropidonotus, that are 
strictly aquatic, but the several garter-snakes 
(Eutaenia), and all those that readily take to 
the water when pursued, as distinguished from 
the terrestrial species proper, such as the black 
snake, adder, calico-snake, and others. In- 
deed, I have sometimes wondered if the true 
water-snake (Tropidonotus sipedon) really 
hibernates at all. By dipping a foot or two 
beneath the sand of any spring-hole, we can 
usually find one or more of these snakes; and, 
though. somewhat sluggish in their movements, 
they are not slow to swim off when released, 
however cold the water may be. I have 


38 


noticed, further, that this species and the 
common garter-snake (Eutaenia sirtalis) are 


HYLA VERSICOLOR (NATURAL SIZE). 


the first to re-appear in the spring; and, of all 
our serpents, these sleep least profoundly. 
Passing now to the batrachians, my obser- 
vations upon the hibernation of the turtles 
applies equally to the frogs and salamanders. 
The toads and tree-toads, terrestrial and ar- 
boreal animals, are more sensitive to a low 
temperature than the frogs and salamanders, 
and therefore disappear quite promptly after 
a few frosts in autumn, and are seldom seen 
again until the weather is uniformly mild. 
the other hand, this does not hold with the 
aquatic batrachians. When the ice begins to 
form along the edges of the ponds, and hoar- 
frost has wilted the grass, frogs and salaman- 
ders withdraw to the deeper and warmer 
waters, — the former to the bottoms of ponds 
and deep ditches; the latter to the uniform 
temperature of the springs, and, its adjacent 
mud. ‘They do not, at this time, enter direct- 
ly into a torpid condition. They appear, rather, 
to be sleeping lightly, and, when disturbed, 
respond by hopping or running off, as the case 
may be. Of course, the warm spots about 
bubbling springs soon become crowded, and 
hibernation proper is the only alternative ; but 
those that can retain their positions in such 
springs quietly remain from autumn until 


SCIENCE. 


On 


[Vou. IV., No. 75. 


spring, sleeping, it may be, but never becoming 
torpid. During the winter I have found all of 
our frogs, and three species of salamanders, 
congregated in a hogshead sunk in the ground 
to collect the waters of a spring. Here I 


~~, 


have watched them closely during the winter 


months ; and the only variation from their ordi- 
nary habits of the rest of the year was, that 
they kept close to the bottom of the hogshead, 
and seldom voluntarily moved about. All their 
functions were, of course, very sluggish; and 
life was sustained by skin respiration, as with 
the turtles under like circumstances. 

It is scarcely necessary to pursue this sub- 
ject further. What has already been said of 
the aquatic reptiles and batrachians is appli- 
cable to fishes. To a certain extent, these hi- 
bernate in the true sense of the term; but it 
is the exception rather than the rule. The 
first evidence of a change is seen in the with- 
drawal from their usual haunts as the water 
becomes chilled; but, if we follow this move- 
ment, it will be found to be a change from 
shallow to deep waters ; and, unless the cold is 
very intense, a further change from deep water 
to mud is not adopted. A remarkable feature 
of the hibernation of fishes consists in the fact, 
that, while many individuals of a given species 


a a 
RANA SYLVATICA (NATURAL SIZE). 


may sometimes be found lying in the mud in a 
torpid condition, others of the same species, 


JULY 11, 1884.] 


frequenting the same stream, may simply con- 
gregate about some bubbling spring, that, issu- 
ing from the bed of the pond or creek, tempers 
the surrounding waters, and renders it hab- 
itable during the severest weather. This, it 
seems to me, is a marked instance of the ex- 
ercise of choice on the part of fishes, and has 
an important bearing on the question of their 
intelligence ; and it is, furthermore, corrobora- 
tive of the statement, made at the commence- 
ment of our former article, that hibernation is a 
faculty which many animals possess, the exer- 
cise of which is largely, if not wholly, optional. 
Cuaries C. Apsporrt, M.D. 


TAIT’S HEAT. 


Heat. By P. G. Tart. London, Macmillan, 1884. 

368 p. 8°. : 

Tue author says in his preface, ‘‘ Clerk Max- 
well’s work is on the theory of heat, and is 
specially fitted for the study; that of Stewart 
is rather for the physical laboratory: so that 
there still remains an opening for a work 
suited to the lecture-room.’’ 

The book before us is the best text-book 
for a student who is beginning the study of 
heat that we have seen. The author begins 
by giving the reader a good idea of force and 
energy, of the nature of heat, and of the dif- 
ference between heat and temperature. Heat 
is a form of energy: temperature must at first 
be looked on ‘‘ as a mere condition which de- 
termines which of two bodies, put in contact, 
shall part with heat to the other.’’ | 

We do not, however, think that a student can 
get a clear idea of the second law of thermo- 
dynamics, and of absolute temperature, from 
the brief sketch given in chap. iv. In order to 
have confidence in the deductions from Carnot’s 
cycle, a much more thorough study of thermo- 
dynamics is necessary. Chap. xi., on thermo- 
electricity, contains a very good account of the 
theory and of the experimental part of the sub- 
ject. -The results of Tait’s experiments upon 
the form of the thermo-electric lines at high 
temperatures are given, and also a table of the 
calculated specific heats of electricity for many 
metals. 

The chapter upon combination and dissocia- 
tion, showing the application of the two laws 
of thermo-dynamics to chemical combination, 
is valuable, as such a discussion is not often 
to be found in text-books. 

This book is not everywhere easy reading. 
Though by far the greater part can be under- 
stood by a student who has no knowledge of 


SCIENCE. 39 


differential calculus, yet there are certain parts 
—as in the application of Fourier’s method to 
determine the temperature of the earth’s crust, 
and in chap. xxi., on the elements of thermo- 
dynamics — where a knowledge of calculus is 
necessary. 


MERRIMAN’S METHOD OF LEAST 
SQUARES. 


A text-book on the method of least squares. By Mans- 
FIELD Merriman. New York, Wiley, 1884. 
8+194 p. 8°. 

Tuis author published his Elements of the 
method of least squares in 1877. It was favor- 
ably received; and, the edition having been 
exhausted, the work has been now recast, and 
republished under the above title. In the ori- 
ginal work the author attempted, in the first 
part, to explain the method, and its application 
to the combination of observations, and, in 
the second part, to establish analytically the 
mathematical principles of the subject. In the 
present work the principles are first developed, 
and the applications follow: this order of ar- 
rangement must, on the whole, be better than 
the other. The endeavor to have the reader 
become practically acquainted with the subject 
before he makes any extended analytical study 
of it, may possibly enable the student who is 
somewhat deficient in his mathematical train- 
ing to obtain a command of the method when 
otherwise it would be beyond his reach ; but it 
does not seem worth while to assume that those 
who are to use this method are such poor 
mathematicians that the work should be modi- 
fied in this way for their benefit. The author 
has done well in this new work in making a 
straightforward, logical development of the 
method and its applications. In a cursory 
examination of the work, it does not appear 
that the author has, in general, enlarged the 
book by materially adding to the theoretical 
part, which was already sufficient for the pur- 
poses in view.. The additions are found in the 
practical portion of the work, and are of a 
nature to considerably enhance its value to the 
civil engineer, for whom the book is primarily 
intended. | 

It has seemed to the writer that the introduc- 
tory chapter, which treats of the general prin- 
ciples of probability, might have been enlarged 
to advantage, or at least that the reader should 
have been referred to some good source of in- 
formation, such as the excellent little book of 
Whitworth on choice and chance; as this is a 
subject respecting which he probably has little 
or no previous knowledge. ‘Taken as a whole, 


40 


this is a very useful and much-needed text- 
book, and will exert a strong influence to ex- 
tend the knowledge of the correct method of 
the comparison and combination of observa- 
tions, which is so essential, not only to the 
progress of astronomy and geodesy, but to 
physics and chemistry as well, and to every 
branch of science which deals with refined 
measurements of quantity of any kind by the 
help of instruments of precision. 


THE SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RE- 
SEARCH. 


Proceedings of the Society for psychical research. 
Vol. i. (containing parts i.-iv.). London, 
Triibner & Co., 1883. 3837 p. 8°. 


Tue four reports of the Society for psychical 
research which have been issued at intervals 
during 1882 and 1883 have now appeared in 
the form of a handsome volume, and it cannot 
be denied that they constitute a formidable 
body of evidence in favor of certain beliefs 
which have hitherto been looked upon with 
peculiar suspicion and distrust. <A brief ré- 
sumé of the testimony does not do it justice, 
for it derives its weight from the cumulative 
effect of its large amount. No one who is in- 
terested in bringing fresh regions of ignorance 
under the domain of scientific investigation 
should fail to read the proceedings for him- 
self. 

The society was organized on Feb. 20, 1882 ; 
but séveral of its members had been engaged 
in private research in the same direction for 
some years before. Its object was stated to 
be the investigation of an important body of 
remarkable phenomena, resting upon the testi- 
mony of many competent witnesses, including 
observations recently made by scientific men of 
eminence in various countries, and prima facie 
inexplicable on any generally recognized hy- 
pothesis. The distinction of its founders. is 
such as to completely dissociate it from the 
race of the long-haired, and to insure at once 
respectful consideration for whatever facts it 
vouches for. They include such names as 
Balfour Stewart, Arthur Balfour, Professor Bar- 
rett, Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, Arch- 
bishop French, and Professor Henry Sidgwick 
(the president). The members are not com- 
mitted to any theory, and are not advocates 
of any cause. It is their intention to remove, 
if possible, what they justly say is a great 
scandal, — the existing state of absolute doubt 
as to whether phenomena testified to by a large 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 75, 


number of generally credible witnesses, and of 
great scientific importance if true, can be prop- 
erly authenticated or not. Their experiments 
are conducted with the most rigid precautions 
against deception and mistake, and, what is 
equally important, recorded with scientific pre- 
cision. Six committees were formed for the 
consideration respectively of thought-reading, 
mesmerism, Reichenbach’s experiments in re- 
gard to a peculiar sensitiveness to electric cur- 
rents, apparitions and haunted houses, physical 
phenomena, and the collection and collation 
of existing materials bearing on the history 
of these subjects. Of their several reports, 
those of the committee on thought-reading, or 
thought-transferrence, as they call it later, are 
the most striking. The signification of the 
term ‘ thought-transferrence’ is limited to the 
communication of a vivid impression or a dis- 


tinct idea from one mind to another, without the 


intervening help of the recognized organs of 
sensation. No account is taken, very naturally, 
of experiments in which there is physical con- 
tact between the persons concerned, or in which 
there is the slightest possibility of conveying 
information by sight or hearing. The extreme 
perfection to which a code of signals may be 
brought leads the committee to distrust all 
observations where two particular persons are 
necessary for the results obtained. Their most 
remarkable subjects for thought-transferrence 
have been found in a family in Derbyshire, that 
of Mr. Creery, a clergyman of high character, 
whose integrity has, as it happens, been excep- 
tionally tested. He has five daughters, of ages 
between eleven and eighteen, all thoroughly 
healthy, and as free as possible from morbid or 
hysterical symptoms. All of these children 
except the youngest are able to designate cor- 
rectly, without contact or sign, an object fixed 
on in the child’s absence, — not, indeed, every 
time, but far more frequently than probability 
would allow as the result of chance. The child, 
on returning to the room, stands close to the 
door, amid absolute silence, with her eyes on 
the ground: often she does not return, but 
guesses from the adjoining room, with the door 
closed. The children have been experimented 
upon at their home by the committee, by Pro- 
fessor Barrett, by Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, and 
by Professor Balfour Stewart, as well as at 
the houses of different members of the com- 
mittee at Cambridge and at Dublin. The ob- 
jects guessed have been chiefly cards from a— 
full pack, and numbers between ten and one 
hundred; but remarkable success has been | 
obtained, also, in guessing names chosen at 
random, as in the following list : — 


JULY 11, 1884.] 


‘William Stubbs.’ 

‘Sophia Shaw.’ 

‘Tom Taylor — 
Timothy Taylor.’ 

‘Isaac Harding.’ 

‘ Albert Singrore — 
Albert Grover.’ 


William Stubbs. 
Sophia Shaw. 
Timothy Taylor. 


Isaac Harding. 
Albert Snelgrove. 


Tom Thumb. ‘Tom Thumb.’ 

Cinderella. . * Cinderella.’ 

Chester. ‘Manchester — 
Chester.’ 

Pipe. ‘Plate — paper — pipe.’ 

Fork. ‘Fork.’ 

Corkscrew. ‘Corkscrew.’ 

Tongs. ‘ Fire-irons — poker.’ 


From the summary of results, it ap- 
pears, that, out of every 610 trials with 
playing-cards, there were 118 correct 
guesses on the first trial, and 76 on the 
second; or that, counting the first trial 
only, there was 1 correct guess out of every 
5.17, instead of 1 out of every 52, as would 
be given by chance alone. Of 260 numbers, 
68 were guessed correctly the first time, and 
30 the second time, or, on the first trial, 1 
out of every 3.82 ; whereas from chance would 
have given only 1 out of every 90. Where 
the trial is counted as a failure, it frequently 
happened that the suit, or the number of pips 
of the card, or one figure of the number, was 
guessed correctly. The partial successes, as 


in the guesses for ‘ pipe’ and ‘ tongs,’ given - 


above, strike us as even more remarkable, 
and more likely to throw light upon the sub- 
ject, than the complete ones. The children, 
when questioned, agree in saying that two or 
three ideas of similar objects come before their 
minds, and that, after a moment’s reflection, 
they select that which stands out with the 
greatest vividness. Their power, instead of 
improving with use, has been gradually dimin- 
ishing. At first, especially 
when they were in good humor, 
and excited by the wonderful 
nature of their guessing, they 
seldom made a mistake. They 
have been known to name sey- 
enteen cards right in succes- 
sion.’ Their gradual decline 
of power somewhat suggests 
the disappearance of a transi- 
tory pathological condition. On 
the other hand, a larger num- 
ber of good subjects has been 
found than there was reason at first to look for. 
Much more remarkable than experiments 
with cards or numbers, where there is at least 
an appreciable chance of getting right by ac- 
cident, are those in which an impression of a 
1 The chance of doing, which, by accident, is as 1 to 5217. 


ORIGINAL. 


SCIENCE. 41 


drawing is conveyed from one mind to another, 
without contact, or any conceivable use of the 
ordinary means of communication. 


In these 


ORIGINAL. REPRODUCTION. 


Inner circle begun at point marked +, and then carried round in one con- 


tinuous line from left to right. 


experiments, Mr. Blackburn, an associate of 
the society, who is described as a very pains- 
taking and accurate observer, is the operator ; 
and Mr. Smith, a young mesmerist of Brighton, 


2D, 


2% 
yp 


REPRODUCTION (THREE ATTEMPTS). 


ORIGINAL. 


is the subject. Mr. Smith is seated, blind- 
folded, at a table in one of the rooms of the 
society ; paper and pencil are within his reach, 
and a member of the committee is seated by 
his side. Another member of the committee 
leaves the room, and outside the 
closed door draws some figure at 
random. Mr. Blackburn is now 
called out, the door is closed, and 


Q 


ORIGINAL AS MR. BLACK- 
BURN REMEMBERED IT. 


REPRODUCTION. 


the drawing is held before his eyes for a few 
seconds. Closing his eyes, Mr. Blackburn is 
led back into the room, and placed, standing or 
sitting, behind Mr. Smith, at a distance of 
some two feet from him. After a brief period 
of intense mental concentration on Mr. Black- 


42 


burn’s part, Mr. Smith takes up the pencil, 
and, amidst the absolute silence of all present, 
reproduces as nearly as he can the impression 
he has received. Mr. Blackburn keeps his 
eyes closed (sometimes they are bandaged 
as an aid to concentration) ; and he has not 
touched Mr. Smith, and has not gone in front 
of him, or in any way within his possible range 


ee 
| | 
ORIGINAL. REPRODUCTION. 


Mr. Smith had no idea that the original was not a geometrical 
diagram. He added line } some time after he had drawn line 
a, ‘seeing a line parallel to another somewhere.’ 


of vision, since he re-entered the room. Sixty 
pages of the drawings and reproductions are 
given, — facsimiles of the originals from which 
they have been photographed on the wood 
blocks. The reproductions are rude copies of 
the drawings, such as a child might make, 
blindfold, of a picture he had just seen; but 
in every case the resemblance is recognizable, 
and sometimes it is very exact. <A particularly 
good one was made, when, with a view of re- 
moving all doubt as to possible auditory com- 
munication, Mr. Smith’s ears were stopped 


We, 


ORIGINAL. REPRODUCTION. 

with putty, a bandage was tied round his eyes 
and ears, a bolster-case was fastened over his 
head, and over all was thrown a blanket which 
enveloped his entire head and trunk; and Mr. 
Blackburn sat behind him as still as it is pos- 
sible for a human being to sit who is not con- 
centrating his attention on keeping motionless 
to the exclusion of every thing else. To 
profit by a code of signals in this case, Mr. 


SCIENCE. 


‘[Vou. IV., No. 75. 


Smith would have had to extract the putty 
from his ears, and, still smothered in bolster- 
case and blanket, to detect periodic variations 
in Mr. Blackburn’s breathing imperceptible to 
the committee, and to interpret them into a 
description of a very irregular figure. This 
hypothesis seems to the committee an extreme 
one, but they intend to meet it by still further 
varying the conditions of future experiments. 

The record is given of another set of ex- 
periments made upon two young ladies at 
Liverpool, under the strictest conditions, by 
Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Birchall. The following 
were among the guesses : — 


A gold cross. ‘It is yellow—it is a 
cross.’ 

An egg. ‘Looks remarkably like 
an egg.’ 


A penholder, with thim- 
ble inverted on the end. 


Letter Q. 
A dark-crimson apple. 


‘A column, with some- 
thing bell-shaped 
turned down on it.’ 

4 ? 


‘Is it round —a dark-red 
shade — like a knob of 
a door?—It is an 
apple.’ 

‘A little tiny thing, with 
a ring at one end, and a 
little flag at the other, 
like a toy-flag.’ Urged 
to name it, replied, ‘ It 
is very like a key.’ 

‘Is it silver? —No: it is 
steel—it is a pair of 
scissors standing up- 
right.’ 


A key. 


A pair of scissors standing 
open and upright. 


The usual phenomena were obtained by the 
committee on mesmerism, but with the utmost 
precaution against collusion and fraud. The 

cases which do most to stagger a cultivated 

scepticism are those in which the subject re- 
mains in a perfectly normal condition, with 
the exception of local effects produced on 
him without contact, and without any possi- 
bility of expectation on his part. The fol- 
lowing experiment was repeated thirty or 
forty times without a single failure. The 
subject was blindfolded and seated at a ta- 
ble, on which his ten fingers were spread out 
before him. A screen formed of thick brown 
paper quadruply folded was placed in front 
of him, extending far beyond him in all 
directions. Two of his fingers were then se- 
lected by one of the committee, and silently 
pointed out to the mesmerizer, who proceeded 
to make very gentle passes over them; and 
to prevent the communication to the subject 
of a sensation of change of temperature, or a 
current of air, a member of the committee 
made, as nearly as possible, similar passes 
over two others of his fingers. After a min- 


JULY 11, 1884.] 


ute or less, the two fingers mesmerized proved 
to be perfectly stiff and insensible: the points 
of sharp instruments might be plunged deep 
into them, or a lighted match might be ap- 
plied to the sensitive region around the nail, 
without producing a sign or a murmur. It is 
difficult to suppose that an ordinary youth, 
sitting with relaxed limbs in quiet unconcern, 
would be able to control, by the exercise of his 
will, every sort of reflex start or twitch when a 
naked flame is applied to one of the most sen- 
sitive parts of his person. To meet such an 
objection, however, the experiments were re- 
peated with other subjects with equal success, 
— one of them a delicate woman, whose shrink- 
ing from pain was such that the prick of a fork 
on one of her unmesmerized fingers would 
cause a half-hysterical cry. The hands of the 
subject may even be mesmerized when he is in 
the mesmeric sleep; and then the usual clap 
and call restore him to consciousness, but do 
not permit him to remove his hands from the 
sofa, to which they seem to be glued, until 
after they have been separately released. 

We pass over the report of the Reichenbach 
committee, of the literary committee, and of 
the committee on haunted houses, but not be- 
cause they do not contain a great deal of very 
interesting and striking matter. The addresses 
of the president, too, are models of clear, care- 
ful, and forcible writing ; and the proceedings as 
a whole cannot fail to produce a strong effect 
upon a reasonably unprejudiced reader, espe- 
cially when it is considered that all this is in 
addition to the varying amount of testimony 
and experience that has been for years in the 
possession of nearly all of us. In no other 
subject has there been such a long dispute 
over the reality of the phenomena: even the 
witnesses to globular lightning have gained 
credence for themselves at last. No other sub- 
ject, as is perfectly natural, has been so inex- 


SCIENCE. 43 


tricably mixed up with fraud and chicane, and 
has fallen, in consequence, under such a weight 
of obloquy. ‘There has usually been, besides, 
a peculiarly ‘ unwashed ’ flavor about the pos- 
sessors of these mysterious powers which are 
denied to people in general. The travelling 
mesmerizer has not been an attractive speci- 
men of humanity, and to that fact has been 
allowed more than its due effect. In other un- 
decided scientific questions, weight of authority 
has counted for something, but not the weight 
of a man’s family connections. Even when it 
was said that such unexceptionable witnesses 
as De Morgan and Wallace and Crookes had 
become convinced that certain facts not gener- 
ally admitted were really facts, one could not 
help believing that they differed in some way 
from the ordinary sane scientific man, and that 
some peculiar crookedness of mental vision was 
the source of their strange belief. Another 
refuge of incredulity has been national and sec- 
tional distrust: it was chiefly outside of the 
centres of learning that such things went on. 
Mr. Sidgwick was once told by a German, that 
they happened only in England or America, 
or France or Italy, or Russia, or some half- 
educated country, but not in the land of geist. 
If this society does not at once convince all the 
world of the truth of its phenomena, it has at 
least accomplished the feat of suddenly elevat- 
ing them into the region of respectability ; and 
hereafter any one can admit his belief in them 
without shamefacedness. Now that mesmer- 
ism and mind-reading have ceased to be ex- 
clusively the property of travelling-shows and 
after-dinner entertainments, and have become a 
subject of experiment in laboratories, it is to 
be hoped that their extent and limitations will 
be speedily defined, and that the vagueness and 
haze in which they have hitherto been envel- 
oped will soon be replaced by definite knowl- 
edge. 


INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 


GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 


U.S. geological survey. 

Study of metamorphic rocks. — Prof. R. D. Irving, 
after consultation with the other lithologists of the 
survey, and with Dr. Williams of Baltimore, is con- 
firmed in his view of the occurrence of a secondary 
brown hornblende (as announced by him in 1880 and 
in 1883) produced by the alteration of augitic min- 
erals. This occurrence is one hitherto denied by the 
best German authorities; and the cases described by 


Mr. Irving have been supposed to be probably cases 
of envelopment such as are well known to occur. 
This, of course, has no reference to the occurrence 
of a green hornblende as an alteration product of 
augite. Most of the sections made by Mr. Irving 
and his assistants, showing secondary hornblende, 
show this variety, only a few localities yielding rocks 
in sections of which the brown variety occurs as a 
secondary product. 

Mr. Merriam, of Professor Irving’s division, has 
been experimenting on the photographing of thin 


a+ SCIENCE. 


rock-sections directly with the microscope, with very 
satisfactory results. It is hoped to use this method 
of preparing plates for publication, to be reproduced 
by some heliotype or autotype method. Mr. Merriam 
took the field the latter part of May in south-eastern 
Dakota, where he proposes to study the quartzites ex- 
posed at a number of places between the James River 
and the Minnesota state line. 

Mr. Vanhise, during May, continued his micro- 
scopic work, having prepared some forty new written, 
descriptions of greenstones, chiefly from the original 
Huronian of the north shore of Lake Huron. The 
microscopic as well as field study of this formation 
has been found necessary, as it forms the type with 
which the rocks of all the other so-called Huronian 
areas must be compared. 

Mr, Vanhise has also prepared a number of new 
sections, including some additional ones of the sand- 
stones which he has described in his paper on secon- 
dary enlargements of felspar fragments published 
in the American journal of science for May. The 
new sections show the enlargements even more dis- 
tinctly than the ones previously described by him, 


and leave no room for doubt as to the correctness of 
this very important observation. Mr. Vanhise will 
probably take the field in north-western Michigan in 
the agogebic belt of Huronian schists. 

Unalashka sands. —Mr. J.S. Diller’s report on the 
Unalashka sands will be published by the U.S. signal- 
office, and the geological survey has promised to ex- 
amine and report upon any other volcanic sands or 
atmospheric dusts that may be collected by that 
bureau. Their observers, especially on Mount Wash- 
ington and Pike’s Peak and in Alaska, have been in- 
structed to collect and preserve any sands or dusts 
that may fall, or be brought down from the air by 
rainfall. 

Artesian wells. — Prof. T. C. Chamberlin has pre- 
pared a paper on artesian wells for the fifth annual 
report of the survey. 

Dr. Peale has reports from Montana that work has 
been resumed on the artesian wells at Helena and at 
Billings, and that the second boring at Miles City, on 
the Yellowstone, reached flowing water at a depth of 
four hundred and fifty feet, which is a hundred feet 
deeper than in the first well. 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


Cincinnati society of natural history. 


July 1.— Dr. Walter A. Dun read a paper on the 
recent floods in the Ohio valley. He tabulated the 
measurements of all the floods since 1832 of which 
we have trustworthy records. The river has reached 
the height of fifty feet and over, fourteen times since 
1832. All of these floods except one (that of August, 
1875), have occurred in the winter months, and seven 
in the month of February. The extremely high water 
is the result of a long-continued and widely extended 
rainfall upon an accumulation of ice and snow, or 
upon the frozen ground. These conditions are suffi- 
cient to account for floods, not considering the ques- 
tion of the reduction of timber areas. Mr. Charles 
Dury, in a brief paper, described the finding, for the 
first time in our locality, of Adranes LeContei, a beetle 
inhabiting ants’ nests. ‘This beetle is kept by the ants 
for the honey-like secretion which it exudes. —— Mr. 
Joseph F. James stated that a recent discovery in 
the lower Silurian rocks of Clark county, O., makes 
it clear that some of the so-called ‘fucoids’ are un- 
doubtedly caused by the oscillation of crinoid stems 
over the soft mud. 


Brooklyn entomological society. 


June 29. —Mr. J. B. Smith read a paper on some 
structural modifications of the Noctuidae with refer- 
ence to their geographical distribution. Three typi- 
eal faunae inhabit America north of Mexico; the 
northern of which, the Labrador fauna, is typical; the 
eastern agreeing in all essential characteristics with 
that of central Europe; and the western, peculiar to 
this country, reaching to the Pacific, thrusting long 


extensions into the southern states, and small spurs 
into the middle states. The northern fauna is typi- 
cally represented by Anarta and the Pachnobia group 
of Agrotis, and is characterized by small head, smooth 
clypeus, often narrow ovate eyes, plump figure, and 
long, hairy vestiture. The northern species of Plusia, 
of which P. Hochenwarthi may be considered typical, 
share this tendency to ovate eyes, and, having also the 
tibiae spinose, must receive separate generic designa- 
tion. Caloplusia is proposed to designate thése forms, 
which usually also have the secondaries yellow. This 
northern fauna is indicated again in the high north- 
west, and is traceable in the mountainous regions of 
northern New York and the New-England states. 
The eastern fauna is characterized by more propor- 
tionate head, the front usually smooth, the body ves- 
titure scaly, usually overlaid or intermixed with hair. 
The tibiae, when armed, are usually all of normal 
length; and the armature consists of spines. The 
maculation is normally noctuidous, and the wings are 
ample. The western fauna is most peculiar. The 
front is strongly modified, tuberculate, rugose, or exca- 
vate: the tibiae are heavily spinose, the anterior pair 
often shortened, and the armature consisting of long, 
corneous, claw-like processes. The ? oviduct is also 
more or less prominently extruded. As a whole, the 
heliothid type prevails; and even Agrotis takes a dis- 
tinct heliothid tendency in the tuberculate front and 
heavily armed fore-tibia of the western species. Be- 
longing to no special locality, but perhaps more dis- 
tinctly south-western, is that group of which Phurys 
and Syneda are typical, and which agrees in distribu- 
tion with the Tenebrionidae among the Coleoptera. 
The speaker asked, What is the peculiar circumstance 


[Von. IV., No. 75. 


oe 


JuLY 11, 1884.] 


that demands of our western fauna this abnormal 
frontal development, the heavy tibial armature, and 
the corneous, lengthily extruded ? ovipositor ? 


Torrey botanical club. 


June 10. — Mr. P. H. Dudley exhibited specimens 
and gave a brief account of his recent studies of wood 
sections. A large number of micro-photographs of 
transverse, radial, and tangential sections of our tim- 
ber-trees were shown. Among the specimens were 
Sequoia sempervirens, in which attention was called 
to the very large cells (none less than a tenth of an 
inch in length), and to the fact, that, in this and other 
conifers examined, the pits in the cell-walls are only 
seen in abundance in the radial sections; Catalpa 
speciosa, which has lately been extensively employed 
for railroad-ties in the west; Ailanthus glandulosus, 
which the speaker stated he had found to contain the 
greatest number and largest ducts of any wood yet 
examined; Liriodendron tulipiferum, in which the 
ducts are very numerous but small; Maclura auran- 
tiaca, in which the parenchymatous tissue within the 
ducts was plainly noticeable. In the white oak, 
chestnut, and black walnut, it had been observed that 
these parenchyma cells shrink away, in drying, from 
the inside surfaces of the ducts and from each other, 
then appearing as separate vesicles. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


A List of the published writings of Spencer Fuller- 
ton Baird from 1848 to 1882, with indexes, compiled by 
George Brown Goode, the first of a proposed series 
of bibliographies of American naturalists, forms Bul- 
letin No. 20 of the U. S. national museum. In a 
prefatory note, Mr. Goode explains that since 1874 he 
has been collecting materials for ‘ An index-bibliog- 
raphy of American ichthyology,’ which will embrace 
“not only anatomical and descriptive ichthyology, 
but the literature of the fisheries, angling, fishery 
‘legislation and diplomacy, fishery statistics, and the 
commerce of the fisheries.”” Besides the titles and 
references, notes upon what each paper contains, 
and, in case of important papers, synopses of their 
contents, will be given: these notes will include refer- 
ences to every published engraving. It is hoped to 
finish this work in 1884, including in it material pub- 
lished before July of that year. The bibliography of 
Professor Baird’s writings is apparently in part mate- 
rial collected for the above-mentioned work, although 
notes are wanting to many titles. Other special 
bibliographies of prominent naturalists are in prepa- 
ration, among which one of Charles Girard and of 
Theodore Gill, by Mr. Goode, and one of Isaac Lea 
by Mr. Newton P. Scudder, are announced. 

The articles recorded for Professor Baird number 
1,063 titles; the numerous notices, abstracts, and re- 
views which appeared in Harper’s magazine and in 
Harper’s weekly being cited only in their reprinted 
form in the Annual record of science and industry. The 
general plan of this special bibliography is commend- 
able. An excellent biographical sketch of Professor 


SCIENCE. 45 


Baird follows the prefatory note, and is supple- 
mented by a portrait, which Professor Baird refused 
to allow to be inserted in the work, but which Mr. 
Goode has kindly sent to as many as possible of the 
recipients of the bibliography. It is the same which 
appeared in Science, No. 5. The list of genera (1) and 
species (32) named in honor of Professor Baird is par- 
donable material, perhaps, with which to fill three 
pages of a government publication. This form of 
honoring the names of naturalists means little, and 
has just reached the maximum of its absurd develop- 
ment in England, where an entomologist has calmly 
named a butterfly after himself. The real honor due 
Professor Baird as organizer and scientific worker is 
not enhanced by this valueless list. The chronological 
catalogue of papers occupies 246 pages of the work. 
In some cases the notes are long, and embrace lists 
of the genera and species, and even of the varieties, 
treated of in some of Professor Baird’s more extensive 
works. This may be a practicable or even a desirable 
method in bibliographies of workers in vertebrates, 
but would become unwieldy were it carried out for 
those whose work lay in some other portions of the 
animal kingdom. Following the chronological cata- 
logue are a systematic catalogue and a list of species 
discussed and illustrated, both referring, by number 
and by condensed title, to the list of titles. An alpha- 
betic index of subjects — not scientific names — closes 
the bibliography. 

A commendable feature of this bibliography is the 
complete independence of each entry, allowing the 
catalogue to be cut and pasted on cards without addi- 
tional writing. ‘There are points in which the mode 
of recording might be bettered. Initial capital letters 
are very properly discarded, although with some 
inconsistency of usage, from numerous words in titles 
of papers, following the practice of many modern 
bibliographers; but why should the compiler retain 
initial capitals in such unimportant parts of the title- 
page as ‘ With Eighty-seven Plates of Original figures,’ 
on p. 838 ? Considerable condensation might be made 
by using only arabic numerals, and by considering 
p., pl., fig., and like abbreviations, plural as well as 
singular. Thus ‘pp. i.-xvii., 1-496, pll. i.-xxxii.,’ 
would be more tasty, and more easily read, if printed, 
‘p. 1-17 + 1-496; pl. 1-32.2 The space occupied by 
|... |, in recording titlepages, might be given to more 
practical purpose, for indicating the actual size of 
volumes in centimetres (or even in inches), instead 
of using, as was done, the indefinite indications Svo 
and 4to. 


— Nature, June 19, states that letters addressed to 
the secretary of the committee of the British asso- 
ciation for the exploration of Kilimanjaro have just 
been received from Mr. H. H. Johnston, dated from 
the British residency, Zanzibar, May 138. After con- 
sultation with Sir John Kirk, Mr. Johnston had 
selected the Mombasa route for Kilimanjaro, and 
was expecting to depart for that port in about a fort- 
night’s time. The country between Mombasa and 
Chaga was said to be quiet, and to present no serious 
difficulties in the way. Mr. Johnston had succeeded 
in obtaining the services of three of the same bird- 


46 | SCIENCE. 


skinners that had been employed by Dr. Fischer, and 
of a botanical collector trained under Sir John Kirk, 
of whose kindness and assistance he speaks in the 
highest terms. Mr. Johnston, in spite of the trying 
climate of Zanzibar, was in excellent health, and had 
strong hopes of the success of the expedition. 


ELATUMBATO 


ee 


a 


S33 
MT KILIMANJARO}: 


MRTHOMSONS ROUTE 


We are pleased to learn that Mr. Joseph Thomson 
has arrived safely at Zanzibar from the expedition 
he undertook to the Masai region. It will be re- 
membered that Mr. Thomson left England in the 
end of the year 1882; his object being to proceed by 
Mount Kilimanjaro to the almost unknown country 
of the Masai, and to settle the question of the exist- 
ence of a Lake Baringo to the east of Victoria 
Nyanza. Mr. Thomson left Zanzibar in the spring of 
last year, but, after proceeding some distance, found 
the country so disturbed owing to the recent passage 
of a German explorer, Dr. Fischer, that he was com- 
pelled to return precipitately to Mombasa. In July 
last, however, he started again, and has evidently 
accomplished his work in a way quite worthy of his 
previous record. Passing round the north-eastern 
side of Mount Kilimanjaro, Thomson proceeded north 
to Lake Naivasha, halfway between Kilimanjaro and 
Mount Kenia; then on to the latter mountain, and, 
by way of Lake Baringo, to the shores of Victoria 
Nyanza. This latter lake he skirted as far as the 
outlet of the Nile, returning by a more northerly 
route, striking the west coast of Lake Baringo, and 
proceeding south and south-east by Ukambani to 
Mombasa. It is satisfactory to record that no lives 
have been lost except by illness. The telegram which 
the Geographical society has received from Sir John 
Kirk does not, of course, enter into minute details; 
but, from its general tone, it is evident that Mr. 
Thomson will have an interesting and instructive 
story to tell when he returns. The telegram does 
not state positively that Mr. Thomson found a lake 
where Baringo is placed on our maps; but, as Baringo 
is mentioned as having been touched at, it seems 
most probable that the information obtained from 
natives by the sagacious Wakefield is correct. All 
the country traversed by Mr. Thomson’s expedition 
to the north of Lake Naivashais new ground, hitherto 
untraversed by any explorer. Dr. Fischer, in his 


[Vou, IV., No. 7. 


recent expedition, reached only as far as the lake just 
mentioned. 


— In the anthropological section of the British 
association meeting at Montreal, the following spe- 
cially American topics, as to several of which Canada 
affords important evidence, are suggested for papers 
to be read: The native races of America, their phys- 
ical characters and origin; Civilization of America 
before the time of Columbus, with particular ref- 
erence to earlier intercourse with the old world; 
Archeology of North America, — ancient mounds and 
earthworks, cliff-dwellings and village-houses, stone 
architecture of Mexico and Central America, etc.; 
Native languages of America; European colonization, 
and its effects on the native tribes of America. The 
papers on each subject will, as far as possible, be 
grouped for reading on the same day, so as to insure 
a general discussion. 


— The Daily Iowa capital of June 24 contains an 
account, by Prof. H. W. Parker of Grinnell, of a large 
mammoth recently found in that city in digging a cel- 
lar. One of the remains is a molar tooth fifteen inches 
long, and which might have been sixteen or more . 
inches before the end of the crown was broken off 
and lost. It weighed fifteen pounds when first un- 
earthed. The other principal relic is a tusk, which 
must have been at least eleven or twelve feet long: 
it now measures, along the centre, seven and a half 
feet, and, where broken off at the end, the diameter 
is four inches; the largest diameter is eight inches. 
Two years ago a small tooth, and fragments of bone, 
including part of pelvis, were found in digging a cel- 
lar adjoining. Other fragments were exhumed last 
year from a cellar about three rods north of the site 
of the tusk. The tusk occurred five feet below the 
surface, the tooth and other fragments about eight, 
in yellow clayey loam. The Davenport elephant- 
bones, from a railroad cut in the bluff, were found 
in yellow clayey loess, twenty-one feet below the 
surface, and separated by three feet of bluish clay 
from an old peat-bed and ancient soil, probably simi- 
lar to that which is said to exist everywhere under 
our prairies, at an average of twenty-five or thirty 
feet below the surface. At Davenport the bowlder 
clay of the glacial period underlies the ancient soil. 


— One of the results of the deep-sea dredgings of 
the Albatross was the discovery, at a depth of nine- 
teen hundred and seventeen fathoms off the Atlantic 
coast, of probably the largest known amphipod crus- 
tacean, Eurythenes gryllus Bock. The few previously 
known specimens came from Cape Horn, Greenland, 
and Finmark, and have apparently all been taken 
from the stomachs of fishes. This species, and its 
occurrence in the extreme arctic and antarctic seas, 
have been much discussed, and are the subject of a 
long memoir by Lilljeborg; but the apparently anom- 
alous distribution is explained by its discovery in 
deep water, off our middle Atlantic coast. 


— Dr. C. V. Riley, U. S. entomologist, has gone to 
Europe, partly for rest, partly on special work of the 
U.S. agricultural department. 


RESERVOIR BUTTE, SHOWING TERRACES OF THE BONNEVILLE SHORE-LINES, 


“ 


mee IE. 


FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


In a previous number of Science we have 
alluded to several items of scientific interest 
in the sundry civil bill. All these items, ex- 
cept that relating to the naval observatory, 
have passed in a satisfactory form. ‘The elec- 
trical commission, which is to prosecute its 
labors during the Franklin institute exhibition 
next autumn, is to be appointed by the presi- 
dent. No special number of commissioners is 
prescribed, so that the composition of the com- 
mission is entirely in the hands of the authori- 
ties. The most difficult question connected 
with the make-up of the commission will be 
that of admitting into its ranks those who are 
interested in the various electric-light com- 
panies, or who are employees of such compa- 
nies. 
such interested parties are appointed on the 
commission, care should be taken that the lead- 
ing companies be equally and fairly represented. 
That this could be done in a satisfactory man- 
ner does not seem at all likely; and we must 
therefore look forward to a disinterested com- 
mission, before which all parties interested shall 
have a fair hearing. The amount appropri- 
ated for expenses is seventy-five hundred dol- 
lars. 

An appropriation of five thousand dollars 
has been made for the expenses of the me- 
ridian conference called by our government. 
Provision has been made for two additional 
conferees on the part of our government, thus 


conforming to the views expressed in a recent. 


number of Science. ‘That course seems to have 
been suggested independently by the govern- 
ment, and was, no doubt, prompted by the evi- 
dent desirability of having astronomical science 
well represented in our discussion of the ques- 
tion. 

The question of the organization of the sig- 
nal-service, coast and geodetic survey, geologi- 

No. 76. — 1884. 


There is no doubt whatever, that, if any 


cal survey, and hydrographic office, is to be 
considered by a congressional commission of 
three senators and three representatives. The 
senators are Messrs. Allison, Hale, and Pen- 
dleton ; the representatives, Messrs. Lowry of 
Indiana, Herbert of Alabama, and Lyman of 
Massachusetts. The selection of Mr. Lyman 
is understood to be due to his membership of 
the National academy, which designed the or- 
ganization of the geological survey five years 
ago. 

The proposition authorizing the appointment 
of a scientific commission to inquire into the 
organization of the naval observatory. under 
direction of the secretary of the navy, was 
rejected by the senate after passing the house. 
The significance of the rejection hardly needs 
to be commented upon, further than to remark, 
that it is well understood to be due to naval 
influence, and may be taken as an index of the 
willingness of naval officers to have their man- 
agement inquired into. 


Two academic honors have recently been 
conferred in this country upon scientific men, 
which are worthy of note because more rare 
and costly than such distinctions usually are. 
At New Haven, on the day before com- 
mencement, a bronze statue of Professor Silli- 
man, for more than fifty years a teacher of 
chemistry, mineralogy, and geology in Yale 
college, and the founder of the American 
journal of science and arts, was placed on 
its pedestal near the new chapel. The artist 
is Prof. John F. Weir of the Yale art school. 
Ie had not the advantage of knowing Profes- 
sor Silliman, but from numerous existing por- 
traits, and from a study of the personality of 
his subject, he has succeeded in reproducing 
and perpetuating, in a very satisfactory man- 
ner, the aspect, the bearing, and the character 
of one of the pioneers in American scientific 
education. ‘The figure is standing, is larger 
than life, and is in the costume of the day. 


48 


skilfully draped with a cloak. In the right 
hand a crystal is held, the only symbolism 
which the artist has employed. The inscrip- 
tion is restricted to the name, the title, and 
the dates ; and it might well be supplemented, 
on the other side of the pedestal, with some 
descriptive phrase or with an appropriate 
motto. Without such accessories, the monu- 
ment barely suggests the affectionate regard 
in which Professor Silliman was held by those 
who graduated at Yale during the first half of 
this century. The regret has also been ex- 
pressed, that the statue was not placed in or 
near the Peabody museum of mineralogy and 
geology, where everybody would be reminded, 
that, when Silliman began his work, the collec- 
tions of Yale college (now so magnificent) 
were packed in a candle-box, and carried to 
Philadelphia for identification. 'The man and 
his influence would thus be inevitably asso- 
ciated. If these two changes could be made 
in the inscription and the position, this well- 
deserved and well-executed memorial would 
be still more satisfactory than it is to those 
who honor the teacher whom it represents. 


The other honor to which we refer is that 
of a medal struck at the U.S. mint in Phila- 
delphia, at the request of the colleagues and 
friends of Professor Sylvester, to commemorate 
his residence in Baltimore during a period of 
seven years, marked, among other things, by 
the establishment of the American journal of 
mathematics. 'The medal, in size and general 
aspect, is not unlike that which was struck in 
commemoration of the life of Agassiz. On 
one side is an accurate and spirited portrait 
of the mathematician, with the name Sylvester : 
on the reverse a Latin inscription commemo- 
rates the fact that he was for seven years pro- 
fessor of mathematics in the Johns Hopkins 
university, — from 1876 to 1883. The original 
medal in gold was sent to Professor Sylvester, 
in his new home in the University of Oxford ; 
a duplicate in silver was retained in Balti- 
more; and a few impressions in bronze have 
been distributed among his scientific friends 
and correspondents. 


SCIENCE. 


[VoL. IV., No. 76. 


ATTENTION is called elsewhere in our col- 
umns to the laborious researches and brilliant 
discoveries by Koch before he was sent by the 
German government to Egypt and India to 
study cholera. Work of value upon the sub- 
ject of micro-organisms is not done in this 
country, nor will it be until some such encour- 
agement is offered to investigators, as is the 
case in France and Germany. ‘This kind of 
research requires the rare combination of many 
forms of training, added to a critical, analyti- 
eal, and judicial mind. These we can have ; 
but until the facilities for the work are offered, 
until the necessity for personal sacrifice and 
self-denial is done away with, we can hope for 
no better work in the future than has been 
done in the past: in other words, what is first 


_ needed in order to place our own investiga- 


tions upon an equality with those of the two 
countries mentioned above, is a thoroughly 
equipped, fully endowed laboratory, with a 
strong corps of well-trained and salaried 
officials. 


The congressional bill, offering a reward of 
one hundred thousand dollars to the discov- 
erer of the cause of yellow-fever, will meet 
with no claimants worthy of the name from 
workers in this country. It may, and proba- 
bly will, attract a crowd of mycologists; but 
the hope that any thing,of permanent value 
will come from it is an exceedingly faint one. 
The investigation can only be made through 
the outlay of private capital, which will be 
slow to seek any such channel for investment. 
The first expense would be great, and the total 
disbursements necessary for any complete ex- 
perimental evidence upon the subject would 
be beyond the calculations of any but those 
familiar with such work. ‘The true way to 
encourage such an inquiry lies in the estab- 
lishment of a commission composed of men 
thoroughly trained and qualified for the work, 
and then to treat it as the German government 
has treated its cholera commission; that is, 
to give it full powers and funds to allow the 
prosecution of its labors to the end. 


So far as Koch’s work upon tuberculosis is 


Ta 
~~ 


JULY 18, 1884.] 


concerned, it remains a complete monument of 
scientific accuracy, and has suffered nothing 
in the time since it was erected. The strength 


of his arguments has not been in ‘the least’ 


weakened, the accuracy of his experiments 
stands unassailed, and the justness of his 
conclusions is thus far incontrovertible. As 
matters stand to-day, we are bound to consider 
that the cause of tuberculosis is found, and 
that that cause is, or is contained in, the ba- 
cillus of Koch, to whom all honor is due for 
the beauty and completeness of his investiga- 
tions upon this important subject. 


In our account of the last annual meeting 
of the National academy of sciences, reference 
was made to the gift of eight thousand dollars 
by the widow of the late Dr. J. Lawrence 
Smith, a member of the academy. The deed 
of trust has recently been executed, and 
provides that the interest of the fund shall be 
used in striking a gold medal of the value of 
two hundred dollars, to be called the ‘ Law- 


rence Smith medal,’ and to be awarded by the - 


academy, not oftener than once in two years, 
‘to any person in the United States of 
America, or elsewhere, who shall make an 
original investigation of meteoric bodies, the 
results of which shall be made known to the 
public; such result being, in the opinion of 
the National academy of sciences, of sufficient 
importance and benefit to science to merit such 
recognition.’”’ The investigation for which 
the award is made, or its completed publica- 
tion, must ‘‘ have been made since the time of 
the last preceding award.’’ Preference is given 
to a citizen of the United States, when the 
choice may lie between such a one and a 
foreigner. Any sums which may accumulate 
from the interest of the fund, above what is 
required for the purposes specified, is to be used 
‘¢ in aid of investigation of meteoric bodies, to 
be made and carried on by a citizen or citizens 
of the United States of America.”’ 


We recall but three other important honorary 
awards at the disposal of learned societies in 
this country, — the Magellanic, the Rumford, 


SCIENCE. 


49 


aud the Walker, to mention them in the order 
of their foundation. The Magellanic, founded 
by John Hyacinth de Magellan, is an ‘‘ oval 
plate of solid gold, of the value of ten 
guineas,’’ which may be annually bestowed 
by the American philosophical society ‘‘ to the 
author of the best discovery or most useful 
invention relating to navigation, astronomy, 
or natural philosophy (mere natural history 
only excepted) ;’’ but the discovery must be 
unpublished, and never before publicly re- 
warded. We are not aware that it has ever 
been bestowed. The Rumford, founded by 
Count Rumford, is a gold and silver medal, 
bestowed biennially by the American academy 
of arts and sciences for notable researches by 
an American in light or heat. The Walker, 
founded by the late Dr. William J. Walker of 
Boston, is a money-prize of from five hundred 
to a thousand dollars, given once in five years 
by the Boston society of natural history to an 
American for specially valuable investigations 
in some department of natural history. The 
addition to this meagre list is therefore most 
welcome. Through the excellent provision 
granting the power of using any surplus in the 
direction of research, the necessity of award- 
ing the prize to claimants of insufficient merit 
is avoided, and the branch of investigation to 
which it applies is thereby doubly fostered: but 
we wish the requirement that the investigation 
which is crowned must have been made since 
the previous award, could be modified to a 
definite term of years; since, if two important 
investigations claimed the award, one would 
now be forever debarred. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


The use and spelling of terms, and some facts 
in embryology. 


In Science, No. 73, a critic notices my recently pub- 
lished ‘Contribution to the embryography of osseous 
fishes.’ I reply as follows: Fault is found with my 
terms ‘embryography,’ ‘yelk,’ etc. I chose the word 
‘embryography,’ not from a mere pedantic or eccen- 
tric whim, but because it was an expressive term, 
and covered what I meant in the general discussion. 
or description, of the development of a considerable 


D0 


number of species. The word ‘yelk’ is spelled ac- 
cording to the most approved usage throughout my 
memoir, both Webster and Worcester agreeing in this; 
and I would commend to my critic’s attention the re- 
marks relating to this word to be found in the work 
of the latter authority, where both Johnson and 
Walker are also cited in favor of the same spelling. 

The expression of opinion by my critic as to the 
relative value of previous literature is unfortunate. 
Hoffmann’s paper on the teleostean egg was cited for 
the very good reason that it was undoubtedly the 
most thorough and consecutive upon its special sub- 
ject, which had appeared up to that time, or even to 
the present. No American work can yet claim such 
a distinction. ; 

The charge that I have ‘ padded’ my paper with 
unnecessary quoted matter is unfair; for, out of one 
hundred and eighteen pages of text, nine are taken up 
with citations,—a proportion greatly exceeded in the 
papers of many competent authorities. And I ask my 
critic, in’ all fairness to me, if, by throwing out any 
one of the quoted passages, the paper as a whole 
would not lose in thoroughness and clearness of 
statement; for the object of my paper was to give 
a general statement of the facts relating to the 
development of fishes, so that it might be safely re- 
ferred to, especially as to the early stages. 

Whether my critic sees fit to accept my views upon 
the layer which I have termed the ‘ yelk-hypoblast,’ 
is a matter of indifference to me.. For his benefit, 
I may cite the names of the following masters in 
embryology. who agree with me more or less closely: 
Vogt, Kupffer, Hoffmann, Rauber, Gensch, Ziegler, 
and even, in one sense, His and Kolliker. 


JOHN A. RYDER. . 


Smithsonian institution, Washington, D.C., 
June 30. 


|Mr. Ryder will not find ‘ yelk’ used by the leading 
embryologists, either in England or America; ‘ yolk’ 
being the form used by Huxley, Balfour, Allen Thomp- 
son, Agassiz, etc. ‘Embryology’ is also similarly 
employed, instead of ‘embryography.’ In our notice, 
it was not said that either word was incorrect; but 
we meant exactly what was printed, that they are a 
‘little eccentric.’ In regard to Hoffmann’s paper, it 
is by no means ‘the most thorough,’ but contains 
important errors. We fail to see how the value of 
Hofftmann’s paper is affected by American work 
being considered less good. We regard Mr. Ryder’s 
Own essay as much more valuable than Hoffmann’s. 
As to the padding, we think the charge fair that the 
essay contains ‘an unnecessary number of lengthy 
extracts and abstracts :’ the latter Mr. Ryder ignores. 
It is generally understood that very little editorial 
supervision is exercised over most of our government 
publications: hence they are often diffusely written, 
and charged with much which might better be 
omitted. We do not think that Mr. Ryder intention- 
ally put in matter to fill out; but we do think he 
failed to leave out much that he would have omitted 
if his article had been for a carefully edited scientific 
Journal. As to the ‘ yelk-hypoblast,’ the future will 
decide between our opinions. 

Mr. Ryder is under a misapprehension, if he thinks 
our notice was intended to be unfavorable; for al- 
though we pointed out some blemishes, as we held 


them to be, we intended to convey the impression ~ 


that the substance of the work appeared to us very 
meritorious: therefore we said that ‘the work had 
been done with evident care and patience,’ and men- 
tioned a long series of observations which might be 


SCIENCE. 


‘signalized as being of especial interest and impor- 
tance.’ — ED. | % 


A remarkable new type of mollusks. — 


A very remarkable new form of Mollusca has re- 
cently been submitted to me for examination by Mr. 
G. W. Tryon of Philadelphia, who received it from 
Mr. C. R. Orcutt of San Diego, Cal. It was col- 
lected near that place on a stony bottom, where 
other bivalves are found in their season, and which 
appears to be nearly dry at low water. Other speci- 
mens were received direct from Mr. Orcutt, who col- 
lected about fifty. This animal is a pelecypod or 
lamellibranch with an internal shell. Nothing of the 
sort, or in the least approaching it, has ever been 
described. 

The animal, from the collector’s drawings, is, when 


living, somewhat of the shape of a small globose’ 


Cypraea, of inflated ovoid form, translucent, jelly- 
like, dotted above with small, rounded papillae, which 
appear of an opaque white on the general translucent 
ground. When living, Mr. Orcutt states, it was over 


-an inch in length. The specimens sent have been 


contracted by alcohol to less than half an inch in 
length. The mantle which covers the dome of the 
body is tough and thick: the sides are smooth, and 
nearly free from papillae. The superior median line 
isalittledepressed. The basal part of the anterior end 
in life is prolonged beyond the general mass in a wide 
trough, with the convexity upward, and somewhat 
expanded at its anterior extremity. About one-third 
of the way from the anterior end, the mantle is per- 
forated by an orifice, which pierces it in the vicinity 
of the mouth. The edges of this orifice project from 
the general surface, and it is lined with close-set, 
small papillae. At about the same distance from the 
posterior end is another tubular perforation, holding 
a similar relation to the anus; which has, however, 
plain edges, and is not internally papillose. 

Turning the animal over, we find the anterior 
trough of the mantle prolonged backward, like a slit 


with plain edges, to about the posterior third; from 


this projects a narrow, hatchet-shaped foot, with a 
strongly marked byssus-gland at its posterior angle; 
from this a bunch of white byssus extends to the 
stone or other object to which this mollusk attaches 
itself. The cavity of the mantle extends some dis- 
tance behind the commissure of the pedal opening. 
The anterior point of the foot is roofed by the trough- 
like expansion above mentioned. ‘The mouth is pro- 
vided with two pairs of small palpi. ‘Two gills, very 
finely microscopically laminate, extend backward from 
near the mouth, on each side, to the posterior end of 
the body, the wider one being the inner: between 
their posterior ends a thin reticularly perforate veil 
connects the two pairs, and shuts off the anal area 
from the rest of the mantle cavity. The intestine 
contains a hyaline stylet, and is considerably convo- 
luted; but the viscera offer no marked peculiarities 


when compared with ordinary pelecypods. The shells — 


are enclosed in two little sacs in the substance of the 
mantle. The umbones are near together, apparently 
connected by a brown gristle resembling an abortive 
ligament, and are nearly over the heart. The valves 
are about ten millimetres long and one millimetre 
wide, destitute of epidermis, prismatic, or pearly lay- 
ers. There are no muscular or pallial impressions, no 
adductors, hinge, or teeth. They resemble in form 
the exterior of Gervillia, as figured by Woodward, and 
are pure white. As they lie in the body, they diverge 
at a rather wide angle from the beaks, forward. The 
embryonic valves are retained like two tiny bubbles 
on the umbones. 


yon re ee ee tS 


[VoL. TV.) ie: 46. 


JULY 18, 1884.] 


Under as recent a classification as that adopted by 
Lankester, in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, this creature would form a new order, 
Amyaria, as opposed to the old Mono- and Dimy-aria. 
These orders being pretty generally given up, though 
not yet out of the text-books, it is probable that no 
others can yet be formulated. Whatever be its rela- 
tions to the higher groups, a point to be determined 
by further study, there can be no doubt that the ani- 
mal forms the type of anew family, Chlamydoconchae, 
and may take the name of Chlamydoconcha Orcutti. 
It is evident already, that the genus does nothing 
toward bridging the gap between the gastropods and 
pelecypods, but is simply a remarkably aberrant form 
of the latter group, and probably derived from some 
form with an external shell. It is able, according to 
Mr. Orcutt, by sphincter-like contractions of the man- 
tle, to produce currents of water over the gills, which 
are probably finally ejected by the anal tube. 

A paper on the subject, with figures, will be pub- 
lished shortly. Wo. H. DALL. 


Time without instruments. 


Students usually feel little interest in the method 
of time in astronomy by ‘a single altitude of the 
sun,’ because they do not expect to own an instru- 
ment with which to measure the altitude. They 
can easily make the apparatus described below, by 
which, with careful handling, time may be found 
with a probable error of fifteen seconds. 


Frame together the three pieces AB, AC, and DE, 
at right angles,— AB about sixty inches, AC eigh- 
teen inches and a half, and DE ten inches long, and 
each an inch and a quarter square. Cut a half-inch 
slit, one inch deep, in the end C, and in the direction 
AB. Fasten apiece of tin one inch square, with a 
hole an eighth of an inch in diameter, on the right- 
hand face of AC at C, with its hole opposite the 
centre of the slit. Set in a bubble at 1 by which to 
level AB. Let fall a perpendicular from the hole in 
the tin plate to AB; and at about twelve inches from 
the foot of that perpendicular commence the gradu- 
ation on the centre line AB, dividing into inches and 
half-inches, and numbering 12, 13, etc., towards B. 
It will be well to paste a strip of drawing-paper on 
the face AB, on which to make the graduation. 

Measure once for all the exact height in inches of 
the centre of the hole in the tin plate above the 
upper face of AB, which should be about eighteen 
inches, and multiply it by the decimal .9994358, 
which product designate by h. By using this for the 
height of AC, all altitudes will be corrected for mean 
refraction. 

To use it, place in the sunlight, — best when the sun 
is not less than 16° nor more than 45° high, — with 
AB levelled by the bubble, estimating by eye when 
AC is perpendicular, so that the bright spot from the 
hole in the tin shall fall on the graduated centre 
line of AB. With watch in hand, read the hour, 


SCIENCE. D1 


minute, and second when the centre of the elliptical 
bright spot is exactly on some dividing-line of the 
scale, and call the scale-reading r: then the sine of 


the sun’s altitude = — = sin 4, 


h 
Vr? + 1 
For the hour-angle = P, the most convenient for- 
mula is, —letting 6 = sun’s declination, and / = the 
sin a — sin 6 sin / 
cos 6 cos | 


This formula, with the known latitude (say, 36° 12’ 
45”), may be put in the form 


latitude of the place,—cos P = 


log cos P=log {sin a — [9.77143] sin 5} + a.¢. log cos § + 0.09322. 


A nautical almanac is needed for declination and 
the equation of time, though tabulated mean values 
of these for every tenth day of the year will answer 
for the usual accuracy required in common local 
time. 

The form of apparatus may be varied to suit the 
taste of the student, or he may use the tin disk with 
a plumb-line suspended from it, in connection with a 
straight-edge levelled by a carpenter’s level, and these 
of any lengths he chooses. 

Time by ‘ equal altitudes of the sun’ may be found 
by the same device. 

A. H. BUCHANAN. 


Cumberland university, Lebanon, Tenn., 
July 4. 


Rotation experiments on germinating plants. 


The opposite growth of the root and stem of a 
germinating plantlet, under other influences than that 
of gravity, we have recently shown by the following 
experiments. A circular trough (seen in section, 
b, fig. 1) some sixteen inches in diameter and three 


imites Is 


deep, rotates about the verticalaxisaa. The trough, 
closely filled with earth, was planted with a quantity 
of well-soaked beans and seed-corn, and the whole 
covered with the fine gauze represented by the dotted 
lines. Forty-eight hours were allowed for the seeds 
to begin their growth, before the trough was started 
in rotation. By means of a Tuerk’s motor, a uniform 
and continuous motion, at the rate of one hundred 
and eighty revolutions per minute, was then main- 
tained forfour days. Atthe end of this time the earth 
was carefully removed, and the positions of the young 
plants precisely noted. It was universally observed 
that the stems were accurately directed towards the 
axis, and the roots towards the circumference, of 
the trough. Figs. 2-6 represent several specimens. 
A B is the horizontal, A being towards axis, and 
B towards circumference; those of figs. 2, 5, and 6, 
were at a radius of six inches from axis; figs. 3 and 
4 had radii of five and four inches. The curves 
at the points C, C, C, C, are quite significant, being 
the points to which the radicals had extended before 


a2 SCIENCE. 


rotation commenced. The direction of the stems 
can be well seen in figs. 6 and 2. 

The cause of this mode of growth being, of course, 
the outward radial tendency of the plantlet in reac- 
tion upon the centripetal force acting through the 


Fies. 2-7. 


soil, we may put the intensity of the 1ew modifier 
27\2 
equal to the centripetal acceleration, CF) r. This 


gives a centrifugal ‘force,’ so called, of 5,348 degrees, 
or 5.4 g, at a radius of six inches. If we put MO 
(fig. 7) equal to gravity, and M N equal to this cen- 
trifugal ‘force,’ then, for an ideal case, M P will 
represent the resultant direction of the growing 
rootlet. This is but very loosely approximate to the 
observed positions, as might be expected. 

Cuas. S. SLICHTER. 


North-western university, Evanston, Ill., 
June 27. 


Perforations in wool fibre. 


In my investigations in wool fibre I have found some 
defective hairs that were perforated in places, evi- 
dently while growing on the sheep’s back. As the 
perforations are perfectly circular, it would indicate 
that they are made by some creature at present un- 
known. Would it not be worth the while of some of 
your scientific readers to examine into the matter, 
and discover, if possible, what the perforator may be, 
and whether it is likely to remain as little injurious 
as at present? Jos. M. WADE. 

Boston, July 7. 


The evolution of petals. 


In Mr. Grant Allen’s interesting treatise on the 
‘colors of flowers,’ the first chapter deals with the evo- 
lution of petals from stamens, in which the author 
shows that petals are but specialized stamens set apart 
for the purpose of attracting insects. His proofs are 
such that no candid reader is likely to finish the chap- 
ter, and apply its principles to the flowers he meets in 

his every-day walks, without being convinced of the 
correctness of the author’s views. The gradual devel- 


[VoL. 1V., No. 76. 


opement from stamen to petal can be seen in most of 
those cultivated flowers which exhibit a tendency to 
become double, as well as in those which have already 
become so. aed 

But it would seem that Mr. Allen had overlooked 
one point in the method of evolution. Throughout 
the entire book the idea is given that the process of 
evolution begins by the filaments becoming flattened. 
Thus, on p. 11, taking the English water-lily (Nym- 
phea alba) as a typical example, the author says, —. 

‘* In the centre of the flower we find stamens of the 
ordinary sort, with rounded stalks or filaments, and 
long, yellow anthers full of pollen at the end of each; 
then, as we move outward, we find the filaments grow- 
ing flatter and broader, and the pollen-sacs less and 
less perfect; next we find a few stamens which look 
exactly like petals, only that they have two abortive 
anthers stuck awkwardly to their summits; and finally 
we find true petals, broad and flat, and without any 
trace of the anthers at all. Here, in this very ancient 
though largely modified flower, we have stereotyped 
for us, as it were, the mode in which stamens were 
first developed into petals, under stress of insect selec- 
tion.”’ 

Again, on p. 115, he says, ‘‘It has been objected 
by two or three authoritative critics, that the original 
petals need not have been yellow, because they rep- 
resent the flattened filaments, not the anthers;’’ and 
the author goes on to show that filaments are usually 
of the same color as the petals. 


rPPP PYG 


FLOWER OF CYDONIA VULGARIS, SHOWING TRANSFORMATION 
OF STAMENS TO PETALS. 


An examination of a number of our common flow- 
ers shows, that, in many cases at least, the evolution 
of the petal begins with the anther rather than the 
filament. Thus, in the common quince (Cydonia vul- 
garis), many of the flowers possess stamens of which 
the anthers have become petaloid, while the filaments 
are of the normal type. Some of the anthers are 
merely flattened on one end; others are more so; 
while in others the anther has become a flat, white, 
petaloid disk on the end of a normal filament. From 
this, every gradation can be seen to the normal petal. 
In this instance, not only the pollen-walls, but the 
pollen itself, has become petaloid before the filament 
has been at all modified. In the flowers of the mock- 
orange (Philadelphus coronarius) the same transition 
often occurs, as well as in many of the double flowers 
of our gardens and conservatories. ; 

CLARENCE M. WEED. 


Agricultural college, Lansing, Mich. 


Metallic circuits in cables. 


When the full text of Mr. Gisborne’s paper, read 


before the Royal society of Canada, is published, it 
will be shown that his anti-induction experiments 
with all metallic circuits in underground cables were 
made in connection with an electric target, for which 
a prize medal was awarded to him at the London 
exposition of 1862; and the diagrams attached to his 
paper will also explain why parallel metallic circuits 
in a multiple cable, unless twisted according to his 
design, will not eliminate induction of currents in 


Pee she ae” 


JuLyY 18, 1884.] 


neighboring circuits. Submarine metallic circuits, 
both insulated and uninsulated, and operated upon 
the open-circuit system, were also experimented upon 
by Mr. Gisborne, in conjunction with the late Hon. F. 
O. J. Smith of Maine, during 1858-59, all of these 
experiments being upon record. 1D Gas 1 


Too big to swallow. 


Some young men standing on the shore of the Mis- 
sissippi, June 27, near this place, saw something sin- 
gular on the water. On going out to it with a boat, 
they captured it, and it proved to be a catfish with a 
land-tortoise in its mouth. The fish weighed a little 
less than twenty pounds. The turtle was about five 
inches across the back. It was fast within the jaws 
of the fish, requiring considerable force to extricate 
it. It wasdead. The fish was in a demoralized con- 
dition, allowing itself to be captured with the hands. 

P. J. FARNSWORTH. 


Clinton, Io., July 3. 
The gyration of a vibrating pendulum. 


Referring to Mr. Hendricks’s note on the gyration 
of a vibrating pendulum, in which reference is made 
to one of my statements, I wish to state that in the 
original paper the expression of 7 by oversight was 


T= sec 0 X one day. 


The error was discovered soon after printing. 
When this was corrected in the reprint, it was not 
observed that it would make the sentence quoted by 
Mr. Hendricks state what was never intended. 

W. FERREL. 


HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE MASSES. 


A popuLaRr fallacy in respect to the worth 
of the higher education has rarely been so 
clearly put as it is by that master of fallacies, 
Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. In his recent 
response to an invitation from the National 
educational assocation to attend the conven- 
tion in Madison, Wis., he says, ‘*‘ The higher 
education of the few mainly affects themselves ; 
but the education of the masses, which shall 
leaven the whole lump, is the foundation upon 
which the permanency of our government must 
rest at last.”’ In other words, Gen. Butler 
asserts that it is the dough, and not the yeast, 
which acts as the leaven. 

Every intelligent patriot is in favor of popular 
education, but who are to be the teachers of 
the people? Gen. Butler replies, ‘‘ It is the 
education of the masses which shall leaven 
the lump.”’ The boy is to lift himself over the 
fence by pulling at the straps of his boots. 

It is not even true in politics that the masses 
leaven the lump: it is the men of intellect 
who instruct and persuade and incite the mul- 


SCIENCE. 53 


titudes to united action. In literature and 
science it is quite as absurd to say that ‘‘ the 
higher education of the few mainly affects 
themselves.’’ A doctrine more fatal to the 
progress of knowledge, or more pernicious to 
the welfare of the people, could hardly be 
uttered by an intellectual demagogue. Did the 
higher education of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, 
Pliny, ‘ mainly affect themselves’? Did the 
higher education of Homer, Dante, Virgil, 
Shakspeare, ‘ mainly affect themselves’ ? 
How was it with Columbus, Luther, Newton, 
Bacon, Faraday, — did their higher education 
‘mainly affect themselves’? For whose bene- 
fit all the researches of Pasteur and Koch, — 
‘mainly themselves ’ ? 

If Gen. Butler were alone in cherishing the 
fallacy that advanced education is a luxury, 
which pleases a few impracticable souls, and 
does no good to the masses, his words might 
pass unnoticed by Science; but this deceptive 
doctrine sways many, even, of those who are 
devoted to teaching. It crops out in educa- 
tional conventions and in educational journals. 
The fallacy should be pointed out whenever it 
is uttered. The progress of the masses, the 
improvement of any age or any people, depends 
upon great men; great men are nurtured by 
great ideas; great ideas are developed by 
higher education, — the education which goes 
beyond that which is obvious to the abstract 
and fundamental, — the education which raises 
hard questions in respect to the unknown, and 
proceeds to seek the answer, confident that 
the discovery of every great truth will sooner 
or later contribute to the welfare of mankind. 

This is an education which does not mainly 
affect the few and cultivated: it elevates the 
masses. If this truth should ever become 
clearly understood by our countrymen, they 
will do as much for higher education as they 
have done for popular instruction ; and a happy 
day it will be for American civilization. Uni- 
versities and schools of science will flourish as 
they have never done before; the government 
will be served by men who know, and not by 
men who guess; the public health, intelligence, 
morality, and prosperity will all be promoted. 


— = 


D4 SCIENCE. 


THE AMERICAN INITIATIVE IN METH- 
ODS OF DEEP-SEA DREDGING. 


THE published records respecting the use of 
dredges for natural-history purposes carry us 
back to scarcely more than a century and a 
quarter ago, when Otho Frederick Muller, a 
prominent Danish naturalist, began his studies 
of the aquatic life inhabiting the coasts of Nor- 
way and Denmark below the shore-level. The 
dredge he used, a very simple affair, was, so 
far as we know, the first one ever devised for 
the special needs of the naturalist; and yet, 
with only a single important modification, as 
to the shape of the frame, it has been handed 
down to our time as the most efficient appli- 
ance for the ordinary purposes of dredging. 

As described and figured in 1779, it consisted 
of a plain rectangular iron frame, with all four 
sides of equal length, and bevelled to sharp 
edges in front, forming the mouth-piece to a 
large and open net. Four handles extended 
forward from the angles, and met in a single 
ring for the attachment of the drag-rope. ‘The 
principal defect of this dredge consisted in its 
very wide mouth, permitting the easy escape 
of specimens, both while dragging and during 
the hauling-in. 

Although Muller’s researches were confined 
to shallow water, apparently not exceeding a 
depth of thirty fathoms, they established a pre- 
cedent for subsequent operations, and afforded 
proof of the value of submarine collecting. 

This new field of exploration did not, how- 
ever, begin to enlist the active services of 
working naturalists to any extent until about 
the third or fourth decade of the present cen- 
tury, since which time the interest in marine 
zoological research has rapidly increased, and 
our knowledge of the sea-bottom has been ex- 
tended to the deepest known areas. For the 
first thirty or forty years, the improvement in 
methods of work scarcely kept pace with the 
progress of knowledge regarding the inhabit- 
ants of the sea; and it is only within the past 
fifteen years that the methods of deep-sea 
dredging have been at all perfected. 

To Dr. Robert Ball of Dublin, who was 
afterwards associated with Professor Edward 
Forbes in his memorable explorations, has gen- 
erally been given the credit of having devised, 
about 1838, the improved form of naturalists’ 
dredge, in nearly the same shape in which it is 
used to-day. However that may be, it was 
about the year last mentioned that both Euro- 
pean and American naturalists entered actively 
into the study of the sea-bottom ; and the his- 
tory of their various exploits down to the pres- 


baie ul i 


[Vou. IV., No. 76. 


ent time affords an exceedingly interesting 
chapter upon which the subject of our paper 
permits us to touch but slightly. 

It may be well to remark, however, that the 
character and results of European, and espe- 
cially British, exploration are much more widely 
and popularly known than are those of our own 
country. The reason is obvious. The active 
mercantile pursuits of a young and progressive 
people have naturally made them less appre- 
ciative of scientific facts and results than the 
inhabitants of many older countries, where 
business interests have fewer claims upon all 
classes. There has been but a slight demand 
for popular writings upon such an unpractical 
subject, and the plodding naturalist has gen- 
erally been content to record his observations 
and methods where they were accessible only 
to his brother-workers. For this reason, 
American naturalists have not received the 
credit which is their due, either at home or 
abroad ; and much of the honor that justly 
belongs to them has passed into other hands. 

So far as concerns the genefal public, this 
is not to be wondered at, when we consider 
that the only popular accounts of deep-sea 
dredging explorations obtainable in this coun- 
try are of English origin. Butthesame excuse 
does not hold good for the working naturalists 
of any country, including our own; as the 
progress of American deep-sea research, and 
the improvements in methods for carrying it 
on, have in nearly all instances been duly and 
promptly recorded in the proper channels to — 
insure wide and timely distribution. 

Since the very beginning of activity in this 
branch of investigation, American workers 
have not been far behind those of any Euro- 
pean country ; and their record is as creditable. 
Dredging was carried on by the Wilkes U.S. 
exploring expedition during the early part of 
its cruise, beginning in 1838; and at about this 
same time a few of our most earnest naturalists 
were using the dredge at home. ‘The late Dr. 
William Stimpson, one of the most intelligent 
observers in this branch, and whose name is 
closely linked with several important explo- 
rations, began his career-in Boston harbor 
between 1848 and 1850; his first instructions 
having been received from Dr. W. O. Ayres, © 
who began dredging fully ten years before. 
Stimpson’s researches were largely conducted 
under government auspices ; and the collection 
of submarine specimens resulting from his 
labors, distributed over many portions of the 
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was probably one 
of the very largest of its kind that had been 
made, up to the time of its unfortunate destruc- 


JuLy 18, 1884.] 


tion by fire at Chicago, in 1871. The loss of 
these collections, and of all the voluminous 
manuscript reports treating of them, followed 
by the sad death of the author, has deprived 
our country of a most important chapter in the 
history of submarine exploration. 

The sixth decade of this century, however, 
brought out many additional investigators ; and 
a fresh impetus was given to the work, which 
has since been expanded and developed to such 
an extent as to establish, beyond all question, 
American precedence in the methods of deep- 
sea research at least, both as regards dredging 
and sounding. 

From among the more energetic and suc- 
cessful of our modern dredgers may be men- 
tioned Prof. A. E. Verrill of Yale college, 
whose dredging studies began in 1864, on the 
coast of Maine, and who, since the organiza- 
tion of the U.S. fish-commission, has been its 
main helper and adviser in all matters pertain- 
ing to submarine research, the special direc- 
tion of the dredging operations having been 
intrusted to him from the beginning. His 
earlier experiences gave him a clear insight 
into the requirements of the new project, and 
enabled him to devise many valuable appli- 


ances, and improve upon those which had been . 


in use. ‘To his zealous and untiring efforts is 
due much of the perfection in present methods 
of work. 

In 1867 Mr. L. F. de Pourtalés, of the U.S. 
coast-survey, began the extensive series of 
deep-sea explorations off the southern coast 
of the United States, which were carried on 
for several years, and subsequently led to the 
eventful cruises of the steamer Blake between 
1877 and 1880, resulting in an entire revolu- 
tion in the methods of deep-sea dredging and 
‘sounding. ‘The investigations of Mr. Pourtalés 
anticipated, by a year, those of the English 
steamers Lightning and Porcupine, which 
have been so widely described, and were pre- 
ceded by only one series of systematic dredg- 
ings in equal depths of water,— those of the 
Professors Sars, father and son, of Norway. 
But little credit for this fact has been received 
from naturalists abroad ; the date of Mr. Pour- 
talés’ first cruise being generally regarded by 
them as 1868, although his first paper, descrip- 
tive of the character of his work, and of many 
new forms of deep-sea animals, appeared in 
December, 1867.* His collections, represent- 
ing principally the fauna of the Gulf Stream off 
Florida, gave new and interesting results ; go- 
ing farther to prove the existence of a rich and 


1 Bulletin Mus. comp. 2001. Cambridge, vol. i., 1863-69, pp. 
103-120. 


SCIENCE. 


Sy) 


diversified deep-sea fauna, different from that 
of the shore regions, than any previously ob- 
tained. 

That these dredgings were not undertaken 
to please the passing whim of some over- 
enthusiastic naturalist, but were as deliberately 
planned and carried out, and as successful in 
tueir results, as those of the English steamers 
which followed them in conception, a reference 
to the official publications of the coast-survey 
will sufficiently prove. As substantiating this 
statement, we may be pardoned for quoting a 
short paragraph from the report of Mr. Pour- 
talés, above referred to (December, 1867), in 
which the plans and objects of the new explo- 
rations are briefly stated. This would not be 
called for, were it not that it is this identical 
report which has been so utterly ignored by 
European writers, and equally overlooked by 
many American. Had it only been written in 
popular language, and been published with 
copious illustrations, it might have received 
the credit which has been denied it; but such 
channels of publication are seldom deemed 
necessary to establish priority in scientific re- 
search. 

The plan of operations, according to Mr. 
Pourtalés, was as follows : — 

‘¢The present superintendent of the coast- 
survey, Prof. B. Peirce, has lately directed the 
resumption of the investigations of the Gulf 
Stream, so successfully inaugurated by his pred- 
ecessor, but interrupted for several years by 
the war. Besides observations of the depth, 
velocity, and direction of that current, and the 
temperature and density of the water at differ- 
ent depths, the researches will be extended to 
the fauna of the bottom, of the surface, and 
of the intervening depths. Not only will an 
insight be thus obtained into a world scarcely 
known heretofore, but that knowledge will have 
a direct bearing on many of the phenomena of 
that great current. Thus a new light may be 
thrown on its powers of transportation from 
shallow to deeper water or along its bed, on 
its action in forming deposits in particular 
localities, or on its possible influence on the 
growth of coral-reefs on its shores.”’ 

In a subsequent passage, he summarizes his 
first season’s results in the following terse 
remarks, the italics being his own : — 

‘* However, short as the season’s work was, 
and few as were the casts of the dredge, the 
highly interesting fact was disclosed, that ani- 
mal life exists at great depths, in as great a di- 
versity and as great an abundance as in shallow 
water.”’ 

Early in the following year (1868) the same 


06 


explorations were resumed, and they were con- 
tinued through 1869. 

It may be thought that we have departed 
too widely from our subject in discussing with 
so much detail the progress of American re- 
search during a period in which no great im- 
provements were made in methods of work on 
this side of the Atlantic; but how could we 
have better furnished proof of the rapid growth 
of interest in such matters, and of the maturing 
of ideas which prepared the way for the im- 
portant changes marking the next decade? 

There is, however, one noteworthy addition 
to the collector’s outfit made in this period, 
which deserves special mention. On one of 
the dredging cruises of the English exploring 
steamer Porcupine, between 1868 and 1870, 
Capt. Calver, the naval officer in charge, at- 
tached several of the common deck-swabs to 
the end of the dredge-net, with the expectation, 
that, in sweeping the ocean-bottom, they would 
securely entangle all the rough and spiny 
objects lying loose within their path. His fond- 
est hopes were realized ; and the novel experi- 
ment, suggested by often finding such objects 
as sea-urchins, corals, and sponges, adhering 
to the exterior of the dredge-net, and even to 
the lower part of the drag-rope, gave origin 
to one of the most efficient implements of 
modern deep-sea research. 

When the beam-trawl, a well-known English 
appliance for the capture of bottom-fish, was 
first adopted into the outfit of the marine zool- 
ogist, we are unable to state; but it does not 
appear to have ever been extensively and sys- 
tematically employed in scientific research until 
so used by the U.S. fish-commission, beginning 
in 1872. It was afterwards used by the Chal- 
lenger from 1873 to 1878, and now greatly ex- 
cels the dredge in the extent and value of its 
results, wherever the ground is suited to its use. 

The year 1871 was signalized by the organ- 
ization of the U.S. fish-commission, one of 
the most important scientific establishments of 
modern times for marine zodlogical work. Al- 
though instituted primarily for the investiga- 
tion of fishery matters, it has, through the wise 
and liberal policy of its director, Professor 
Baird, accomplished most valuable results for 
marine biology. The latter department has 
been sedulously fostered, in the belief that its 
results would have an important bearing upon 
the practical questions at issue. No pains 
have been spared to perfect the methods of re- 
search, and many valuable contributions have 
already been made to the marine collector’s 
outfit. These are briefly described below ; and, 
as the history of the commission is already well 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. -lV:, IN@aiee 


known to most readers, we need refer here to 
only a few points which have marked its prog- 
ress. 

The earlier explorations were carried on 
mainly by means of sail-boats, and were con- 
fined to comparatively shallow water. From 
1873 to 1879 a naval tug was placed at the 
disposal of the commission every year; but in 
1880 the steamer Fish Hawk, a twin-screw 
propeller of two hundred and five tons (n.m.), 
was built expressly for the combined purposes 
of fish hatching and dredging. Its small size 
and light draught prevented long trips at sea; 
but it was well adapted for deep-sea work, and 
was supplied with all the improved appliances, 
as well as those which had originated with the 
commission, including wire rope, then recently 
introduced by the coast-survey. In 1883 the 
steamer Albatross, described in vol. ii. of 
Science (pp. 6, 66), was completed, and made 
her first successful cruise in the spring of that 
year. Her log for the summer of 1883 records 
the deepest trawling yet made in the Atlantic 
Ocean; the depth having been 2,949 fathoms, 
and the results successful. Brief accounts of 
her dredging cruises under Lieut.-Commander 
Tanner, U.S.N., have appeared from time to 
time in late numbers of Science. 

While the fish-commission claims priority for 
many improvements in apparatus primarily 
intended for depths under a thousand fathoms, 
it willingly yields the palm for deep-sea im- 
provements to the U. 8S. coast-survey, espe- 
cially in the persons of Commander Sigsbee, 
U.S.N., and Mr. Agassiz. The explorations 
of the steamer Blake from 1877 to 1880, in 
which the methods of deep-sea dredging and 
sounding were completely revolutionized, mark 
one of the most important stages in the prog- 
ress of marine research. Wire rope was sub- 
stituted for hemp, the dredge was altered to 
adapt it to the soft bottoms of deep water, on 
which dredging results had always been uncer- 
tain, and the beam-trawl was made reversible. 
The methods of handling and reeling the rope 
were also perfected. These changes and addi- 
tions were briefly described and figured from 
time to time, as work progressed, in the Bulle- 
tin of the Museum of comparative zodlogy, at 
Cambridge, by Mr. Agassiz and Mr. Sigsbee, 
and were afterwards fully discussed by the latter 
in one of the most elaborate and instructive 
reports ever dedicated to the methods of deep- 
sea research.’ It is a quarto volume of two 


1 Deep-sea sounding and dredging: a description and discus- 
sion of the methods and appliances used on board the coast and 
geodetic survey steamer Blake. By CHARLES D. SIGSBEE, lieu- 
tenant-commander U.S. navy, assistant on the coast and geo- 
detic survey. Washington, 1880. 


JULY 18, 1884.] 


hundred and eight pages and forty-one plates, 
describing the sounding and dredging appli- 
ances used by the Blake, and which, for the 
greater part, were devised or improved during 
her dredging cruise. So far as her dredging 
appliances are concerned, the credit for changes 
made belongs mostly to Mr. Sigsbee and Mr. 
Agassiz; the former having been in command 
of the expedition, and the latter in charge of 
the natural-history operations. 

During the seventh decade, European ex- 
plorers were not idle, and numerous deep-sea 
expeditions were fitted out. Most notable 
among these was the cruise of the British ship 
Challenger around the world between 1873 and 
1878. Her scientific results were most inter- 
esting ; but the older methods of deep-sea work 
were not greatly altered, although the practi- 
cability of using the beam-trawl successfully in 
the deepest water was fully demonstrated. 

In 1881 the French government inaugurated 
a series of submarine explorations in the At- 
lantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea; for that 
purpose fitting out a small naval vessel, the 
Travailleur, and placing the management of 
affairs in the hands of a competent scientific 
staff, under the directorship of Prof. A. Milne- 
Edwards. These investigations were contin- 
ued by the same vessel during 1882, the appli- 
ances and methods of work having apparently 
been patterned after those generally recognized 
in Europe. In 1883 a larger vessel, the Talis- 
man, was assigned to the work, and operations 
were established on a much grander scale than 
before. 

For an account of these explorations, de- 
scriptive of the methods of work and general 
results, we are indebted to the last volume 
of La Nature, a French journal of the char- 
acter of Science, which began in a January 
number the publication of a series of articles 
by one of the naturalists who accompanied 
the steamer.’ Coming from such an authorita- 
tive source, we are led to regard these papers 
almost in the light of a semi-official report, 
and look to them for at least a correct state- 
ment regarding the origin of their methods 
of work, inasmuch as these matters are dis- 
cussed in some detail, and with evident pride 
at the completeness of the outfit. That the 
outfit was complete, no one who is at all 
posted on the subject can deny ; for nearly all 
of the many improvements introduced by the 
coast-survey and fish-commission prior to 1880 
are most faithfully copied, and most heartily 


1 For an abstract of the portion relating to the apparatus em- 
ployed, see Science, No. 62. 


SCIENCE. 


57 


praised for their perfect adaptation to the re- 
quirements of research. 

We glance through the several pages of the 
report for at least some slight acknowledg- 
ment on behalf of American inventive skill; 
but beyond a brief statement to the effect that 
the hoisting-engine ‘‘ was of the same type as 
that employed by Mr. Agassiz,’’ and that he 
also ‘‘ used with good results the common 
form of beam-trawl,’’ we are left to infer that 
the entire outfit was of French origin; and 
such must be the impression of every one who 
reads these papers. In fact, in several in- 
stances, credit is explicitly bestowed on French 
inventors for certain of the appliances which 
do not differ in any essential features from the 
corresponding American patterns. 

What is to be gained by thus appropriating 
to the credit of a nation what properly belongs 
to another and a friendly one, by all the rights 
of international courtesy, it is difficult to un- 
derstand, and especially so in this age of sup- 
posed enlightenment, when every important 
discovery is carried with lightning rapidity to 
all parts of the civilized world. ‘The field of 
marine research is sufficiently broad to engage 
the entire attention of all the naturalists who 
have yet entered it; and the frequent mani- 
festations of jealousy on the part of foreign, 
and especially French investigators, which 
often result in wholly ignoring the works of 
an able American author, can but retard prog- 
ress instead of aiding it. 

Proofs of the superior excellence of Ameri- 
can methods of deep-sea research may be 
found in every important scientific library of 
Europe as well as this country ; and at the two 
most prominent international fisheries exhibi- 
tions of the world, — those of Berlin in 1880, 
and London in 1883,—all of the American 
appliances were displayed, and received the 
highest awards. They have therefore been 
made sufficiently well known to establish their 
merits before the scientific world; but, as no 
descriptions of them have yet been published 
for the benefit of the general public, we pro- 
pose in future numbers of Science to give ac- 
counts of their construction, and of the causes 
which lead to their introduction. 

RicHarRD RaATHBUN. 


SPECIAL MANURES FOR PARTICULAR 
CROPS. 


THE fact that the percentages of nitrogen and of 
the several ash ingredients vary quite widely in dif- 
ferent plants (legumes being rich in nitrogen, cere- 


58 SCIENCE. 


als in phosphoric acid, and root-crops in potash) 
has frequently led to the compounding of so-called 
special fertilizers or manures, intended to be particu- 
larly adapted to the growth of certain crops. The 
starting-point in the preparation of such fertilizers 
has usually been Liebig’s ‘ restitution theory’ (ersatz- 
lehre), according to which the soil must be manured 


with the same quantities of fertilizing materials as 


are removed by the crops produced. On this theory, 
a special manure for beans would contain much 
nitrogen, and one for corn or wheat much phosphoric 
acid. Such special manures were first brought prom- 
inently into notice in this country by Professor Stock- 
bridge of the Massachusetts agricultural college, and, 
for the last few years, have enjoyed great popularity, 
almost every prominent fertilizer-manufacturer pro- 
ducing fertilizers for all conceivable crops, even to 
orange-trees. These fertilizers have seldom had the 
same composition in two successive years; and those 
of each maker have differed from those of every 
other, thus affording to consumers an abundant 
variety from which to choose. 

It is not proposed here to enter into a consideration 
of all the numerous fallacies involved in the use of 
special manures, but only to present the results of 
some recent experiments, which have an important 
bearing upon the fundamental idea of such fertilizers. 
This idea is, in brief, that crops must be manured 
most abundantly with those elements which they 
contain most abundantly. There are not wanting, 
however, indications that this is not altogether true. 
For example: wheat contains, on the average, about 
half as much nitrogen as clover; yet experience has 
shown that wheat is greatly benefited by nitrogenous 
manures, while clover is comparatively indifferent to 
them. Indeed, it isa common practice to grow wheat 
after clover, using the latter crop to gather nitrogen 
for the former. Many other similar cases might be 
cited; and it isa noteworthy fact that many special 
manures, while professing to be compounded on the 
theory stated above, are, in fact, modified to corre- 
spond with these teachings of experience. 

All this suggests that one important factor in deter- 
mining the most suitable manuring for any crop is 
the power which that crop has of gathering its sup- 
plies from natural sources. Paul Wagner has recently 
published! some investigations upon this subject, 
which are interesting, both in themselves and in their 
suggestions for future work. He compared peas and 
barley, growing them in zinc vessels twenty-five centi- 
metres high and twenty-five centimetres in diameter. 
These vessels were uniformly filled with carefully 
mixed and sifted soil, were provided with a constant 
water-supply, and, in short, differed only in the 
manuring which they received. 

The following manurings were given in each 
series: No. 1, nothing; No. 2, nitrogen; No. 3, pot- 
ash; No. 4, phosphoric acid; No. 5, phosphoric acid 
and nitrogen; No. 6, nitrogen and potash; No. 7, 
potash and phosphoric acid; No. 8, potash, nitrogen, 
and phosphoric acid. Eachmanuring was duplicated, 


1 Landw. jahrbiicher, xii. 717. 


[Vou. IV., No. 76. 


so that thirty-two vessels were used in all. Nitrogen 
was given in every case at the rate of 40 kilos per 
hectare, in the form of nitrate of soda; potash, at the 
rate of 80 kilos per hectare, in the form of chloride; 
phosphoric acid, at the rate of 100 kilos per hectare, 
in the form of superphosphate. The duplicate manur- 
ings gave reasonably accordant results, and the 
author estimates the limits of error at 3% of the total 
yield. The following table shows the relative yield 
of total air-dry matter (grain and straw), that of the 
unmanured vessels being taken as 100. 


Crop. 
No. Manuring. 
Peas. | Barley. 
Y | Nothing =~. 2) pce eee 100 100 
2 | Nitrogen. = 9... “SS Rar eae eee 104 113 
3 | Potash . . a ele coe Carmen 100 107 
4 | Phosphoric acid. 4. 4 = aaee 126 113 
5 | Phosphoric acid and nitrogen . BG Fo 132 146 
6 | Nitrogen and potash . . So! O° 6 102 121 
7 | Potash and phosphoric acid. 147 126 
8 | Potash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen, 151 181 


A study of these figures, remembering that differences 
of three or four per cent have no significance, leads 
to the following conclusions: — 

The nitrogen had as good as no effect upon the 
peas (compare 1 with 2, 3 with 6, 4 with 5, and 7 with 
8: the greatest difference is 6%). The same com- 
parison for the barley shows that the nitrogen here 
had a very beneficial effect, the increase in the crop 
amounting to from 13% (nitrogen alone) to 55% 
(nitrogen in combination with potash and phosphoric 
acid). Interesting differences in the effect of potash 
and of phosphoric acid upon the two plants are also 
evident, but we pass over these for the present. 

The nitrogen of the unmanured soil amounted to 
13.77 grams in each vessel; that of the manuring, to 
0.20f agram. The nitrogen of the unmanured soil 
was fully sufficient to supply the needs of the peas, 
as the following considerations show. ‘There were 
produced — 


Containin 
Without manure. . .. . . .| 380.0 grams. | 0.91 grams. 
With nitrogen. . 313 0.95 §§ 
With potash and phosphoric acid, 44.0 * 1.34 
With potash, phoreE eee acid, and 
nitrogen . . 45.2. = one: 


That is to say, manuring with potash and phosphoric 
acid enabled the peas to produce 47% more dry mat- 
ter, the 0.43 of a gram of nitrogen necessary for this 
increase being obtained as readily from the compara- 
tively insoluble nitrogen of the soil as from the solu- 
ble nitrogen added as manure. 

For the production of barley, the figures stand as 
follows : — 


a 


JULY 18, 1884.] 


Containing 


Dry matter. nitrogen. 


Without manure. 18.5 grams. | 0.23 grams. 
Os OMe 0.26 §§ 


WW titropen. ...... =. 
With potash and phosphoric acid,| 17.0 ‘ OZone 
With potash, phosphoric acid, and 
MUPEOREMMES ee PT ee os ies ew I DARA SS O;Ad 1788 


The nitrogen of the unmanured soil was not suf- 
ficient to fully supply the needs of the barley; for 
while manuring with potash and phosphoric acid only 
enabled it to produce 26% more dry matter, contain- 
ing 0.06 of a gram of nitrogen, the addition of 0.2 of 
a gram of soluble nitrogen enabled it to show an 
increase of 81% of dry matter, containing 0.18 of a 
gram of nitrogen. 

These facts admit of but one conclusion; viz., that 
peas are able to assimilate the nitrogen contained in 
the soil much more readily than is barley. The fact 
that the pea-plant contains much more nitrogen than 
the barley-plant does not show that peas should receive 
much more nitrogenous manure than barley, but, on 
the contrary, that they can readily supply themselves 
with nitrogen, but need to be manured with potash, 
and particularly with phosphoricacid. Barley, on the 
other hand, contains little nitrogen, partly because it 


cannot gather it readily, and therefore it needs an 


artificial supply. In other words, the greater need 
of nitrogen on the part of the peas corresponds to a 
greater power of obtaining it. 

It is, of course, unsafe to generalize from these 
two experiments. At the same time, their results 
correspond so exactly with the teachings of experi- 
ence regarding the most suitable manuring for 
legumes and cereals respectively, and appear a priori 
so probable, that one can hardly avoid a strong belief 
in their general application. They certainly open an 
interesting and important field for further research. 
If it can be shown, that, in manuring any given plant, 
we ought to direct our attention more particularly to 
those elements of its food which it contains in rela- 
tively small quantity rather than to those present in 
abundance, we shall have made a very considerable 
advance in our knowledge of the theory of manures. 

H. P. ARMSBY. 


KOCH’S WORK UPON TUBERCULOSIS, 
AND THE PRESENT CONDITION OF 
THE QUESTION. 


THE question of the cause of that form of disease 
known as tuberculosis is one which has been the 
subject of discussion in medical circles for many 
years. Itis of especial interest to the laity, because 
in one of its forms it includes the affection so widely 
known as consumption of the lungs, or phthisis. 
The idea of a contagious nature as belonging to this 
process, i.e., to tuberculosis, was first broached in 
modern times by Villemin,! as the result of a series of 


1 Gazette médicale de Paris, December, 1865. Etudes sur la 
tuberculose. Paris, 1868. 


SCIENCE. 59 


experiments upon animals, conducted by him. These 
experiments attracted very great attention at the 
time, and were subsequently repeated, with varying 
degrees of success and failure, by numerous observ- 
ers. Twenty-five years before Villemin’s experiments 
were announced, Klencke } claimed to have produced 
tuberculosis in animals (rabbits) by the inoculation 
of tuberculous matter. His results do not, however, 
seem to have received the attention which they de- 
served; and it is to Villemin that is usually ascribed 
the beginning of the line of experiment which has 
resulted in the work which is under consideration 
to-day. 

Among those who have taken up the question of 
the specific nature of tuberculosis in inoculation ex- 
periments, may be especially mentioned Waldenburg, 
Klebs, Cohnheim, Frankel, and Baumgarten. In- 
halation experiments, in which the disease is sought 
to be communicated by forcing animals to inhale 
finely divided dried tuberculous materials, have been 
tried again and again with as conflicting results as 
in the preceding series. Those who have done the 
most noteworthy work in this direction are Schot- 
telius, Tappeiner, Weigert, Weichselbaum, and 
Balogh. 

Feeding-experiments form the third class by which 
an endeavor to obtain evidence for or against the 
specific nature of tuberculosis has been made. It is 
unnecessary to do more than mention the names of 
a few of those who have taken a prominent part in 
this branch of the investigation: such are Aufrecht, 
Klebs, Bollinger, Colin, Tappeiner, and Toussaint. 

These names, forming but a small part of the cata- 
logue of those who have been interested in the study 
of tuberculosis, will give some indication of the vast 
amount of work done, and the interest taken in this 
subject. 

After Villemin’s experiments, and coincident with 
all the work that was called out by them, the ques- 
tion of the nature of the virus of tuberculosis was 
eagerly discussed. The idea of a contagium vivum 
was first suggested by Buhl,? who claimed to have 
observed micro-organisms constantly occurring in tu- 
berculous nodules; these micro-organisms being both 
micrococci and bacteria. This idea was taken up by 
Klebs,? who claimed to have isolated a micrococcus 
by culture, and to have produced tuberculosis by the 
inoculation of this organism. Klebs’s experiments 
were repeated, and with the same, or nearly the same, 
successful results, by Schneller,4 Reinstadler,? and 
Deutschmann.® The acceptance of this monas tuber- 
culosum, as it was called, as the specific cause of the 
tuberculous process, was not general, however; and 
for various reasons the work of Klebs seems to be 


untrustworthy. 

1 Untersuchungen un erfahrungen, ete. Von Professor 
KLENCKE. Leipzig, 18438. Bd. i. 

2 Lungenentzundung, tuberculose, und schwindsucht, 1878. 

8 Prager med. wochenschrift, 1877, Nos. 42 and 48. 

* Ueber therapeutische versuche. Arch. fiir exp. pathol., bd. 
xi., 1879. Hep. und histolog. untersuchung tiber die entstehung 
der tuberculose, etc., 1880. 

5 Arch. fiir exp. pathol., bd. xi., 1879. 

6 Med. centralblatt, No. 18, 1881. 


60 SCIENCE. 


While all these investigations were going on, and 
the contradictory and conflicting results derived from 
them were being given to the world, other experi- 
ments were being conducted, the results of which 
were not announced as the work progressed, but were 
kept from publication until they had been verified in 
the most complete manner that modern methods 
would permit. These experiments were those of 
Robert Koch, conducted by him at the laboratory of 
the German board of health in Berlin, and pursued 
with unremitting diligence and care for over two 
years. ‘The results were first made public under the 
modest title of ‘The etiology of tuberculosis,’ at a 
meeting of the Berlin physiological society in March, 
1882, and were published in the Berliner klinische 
wochenschrift, 1882, No. 15. His method of work was 
as follows: — 

Starting with the assumption that a micro-organ- 
ism might be at the bottom of the disease, he care- 
fully searched for some evidence to support this 
theory by microscopic investigation of large numbers 
of tuberculous tissues from various sources. As a 
result, he found, that with favorable illumination of 
the specimen, and good lenses, it was possible to make 
out the almost constant presence, in tuberculous is- 
sues, of a rod-like organism much smaller and finer 
than most of those that had hitherto been observed. 
The occurrence of this organism was found to be so 
frequent, and in such early stages of the disease, that 
a suspicion of its causal relation to the pathological 
process was forced upon him. 

The discovery of the existence of this bacterium was 
but the beginning of the investigation, however; and 
the masterly series of experiments by which he went 
on to prove its specific relationship must be read to 
be appreciated. 

In the first place, it was necessary to isolate this 
organism from its surroundings, and to propagate it 
by itself; that is, to produce a ‘pure culture.’ The 
best means to do this could only be ascertained by 
experiment; and, after the conclusion of these ex- 
periments, his results were these. The organism 
was found to flourish best at a temperature of from 
36° to 40° C., —a much higher range than is neces- 
sary for most forms of bacteria. This being ascer- 
tained, it was necessary to find some suitable culture- 
soil upon which the organism could flourish; for the 
ordinary gelatine media would not remain solid at 
this temperature. Here it was found that the serum 
of the blood of sheep or cattle was the best medium 
to be employed; for, by exposure to a comparatively 
low temperature (65° C.), it would gradually solidify, 
until, at the end of a few hours of such exposure, it 
would become a transparent, amber-colored mass of 
a jelly-like consistency, of course remaining solid at 
a lower temperature for any length of time. After 
this was done, there was still another peculiarity of 
this organism to be appreciated, and that was its slow 
growth. Up to this time, bacteria were supposed to 
complete the cycle of their existence in a very short 
time, — usually measured by minutes, occasionally 
by hours. In this case, however, there was some- 
thing entirely different; and it was not until after a 


[Vou. IV., No. 76. 


large number of experiments had failed, that it was 


realized that they were dealing with an organism re- 
quiring from a week to ten days for any appreciable 
increase in its numbers to occur. 

Having found out all these peculiarities, it re- 
mained to study what happened in the culture- 
apparatus, as time went on. It was found that it 
required from two to three weeks for such a growth 
to take place upon the surface of the culture-medium ; 
that a portion could be transferred to another nutri- 
tive soil, and a new culture started: it was found 


that the growth occurred in dry, whitish-gray scales, . 


that, under a low power of the microscope, were seen 
to be rather of a sigmoid form; and it was found that 
when these scales were transferred to other soil and 
broken up, each fragment would produce like scales, 
and that this method of propagation could be kept up 
for months at atime. Inoculation of animals of vari- 
ous kinds with material from these cultures at any 
and all stages of their growth, done under the most 
rigid precautions for the exclusion of any impurities, 
or possibly specific matter, was found invariably to 
produce the disease tuberculosis. The tissues of 
these animals, when killed, presented the nodular 
appearances peculiar to the disease; and in these 
nodules were always found organisms exactly similar 
to those which had been injected. Cultures of these 
organisms showed exactly the same peculiarities as 
in the first instance; and inoculations with the result 
of these cultures produced the same pathological ap- 
pearances. 

In order to prove that these organisms alone would 
produce the disease, Koch used other substances than 
tuberculous matter for inoculation; and these sub- 
stances being proven by microscopic examination to 
contain no organisms, and being protected from ex- 
ternal contamination by all known precautions, gave 
entirely negative results, and in no case was tubercu- 
losis produced. On the other hand, in no case was 
there a failure to produce the disease, when materi- 
als containing the organism, or the organism itself, 
were employed as the inoculating material. 

Thus it will be seen that the conditions necessary 
for the establishment of a specific causal relationship 
between a micro-organism and a given disease were 
fulfilled in this case, so far as it was possible for one 
observer to bring them about. The constant occur- 
rence of an organism in the varying forms of the dis- 
ease in animals and in man; its isolation from the 
tissues, and reproduction by artificial means; its in- 
troduction into healthy animals, with the resulting 
pathological processes exactly similar to the original 
disease; its discovery in these inoculated animals; and 
its re-isolation and observation, — all these require- 
ments have been repeatedly fulfilled in the case 
of the bacillus of tuberculosis, together with that 
other trying one, that materials proven to contain 
no bacilli invariably fail to act in any specific man- 
ner. 

Not content with the work thus announced, Koch 
went on fora year longer with his experiments, the 
results of which were collected in July of last year, 
but have only recently reached American readers 


a 


JuLy 18, 1884.] 


in the second volume of the German health re- 
ports.1 In this article, Koch re-affirms his original 
announcement, and gives the results of further work 
in the same direction, all reached by experiments 
conducted with the same precision as the first se- 
ries. They bear out his assertions to the full, and 
with the exception of a few slight changes of tech- 
nique, and a modification of the staining methods 
employed, have led him to no change whatever in 
regard to his views as first expressed more than two 
years ago. 

These two papers taken together form a monument 
of scientific accuracy and care, and, so far as subse- 
quent investigations go, will carry conviction to the 
mind of any impartial judge. Confirmatory evidence, 
as regards the occurrence of the organism in ques- 
tion in tuberculous lesions, has been offered upon all 
sides, and in enormous mass. The real evidence, 
however, the repetition of the culture and inocula- 
tion experiments, is sadly deficient. This is, perhaps, 
not to be wondered at, because the apparatus neces- 
sary is so extensive, the training so severe, and the 
aptitude for the work so rare. In addition to all this, 
the time necessary for the experiments is so great, 
that the chances are that they never will be repeated 
to their full extent, although it is only by such thor- 
ough and exhaustive investigation that progress in 
this branch of scientific medicine can be expected. 

Some few observers have pretended to upset the con- 
clusions of Koch upon the basis of extremely unsatis- 
factory and incomplete observations. Spinaof Vienna 
is, Or was, a prominent champion of this class. His 
book was announced with a flourish as being in- 
tended to overturn, and as actually accomplishing the 
destruction of, all Koch’s theories. Upon its pub- 
lication, it was found to be nothing but a criticism 
of methods that Koch himself acknowledged to be 
faulty, and a few observations upon the occurrence 
of the bacillus, but with an entire absence of any 
culture, or properly conducted inoculation, experi- 
ments whatever; in all respects being so far below 
the work it was meant to criticise, that it was with 
pain and mortification that we heard it mentioned 
on the same plane, in the annual address to the 
Massachusetts medical society of this year. This, 
however, seems to be the limit of any noteworthy 
objections in Europe: in this country it is different, 
a number of gentlemen having considered themselves 
authorized to speak in opposition to Koch’s views 
upon the ground of personal observations. For the 
most part, however, their pretensions are too weak 
to receive serious notice: as, for example, Schmidt’s 
ery of ‘fat crystals;’ Gregg’s, of ‘ fibrine filaments ;’ 
Cutter’s,-of ‘Mycoderma aceti;’ or Formad’s, of 
‘narrow lymph-spaces.’ It is, perhaps, hardly fair 
to speak of Formad’s deplorable failure to maintain 
his opposition to Koch by any reasonable arguments 
at the last annual session of the American medical 
association. ‘Through imperfect counsel, the gentle- 
man was induced to come before the meeting, and 
after announcing far and wide his intention to give 


1 Nittheilungen aus dem rais. gesundheit, bd. ii., 1884. 


SCIENCE, 61 


results that would destroy the last vestige of strength 
to Koch’s assertion in regard to the specific nature 
of the bacillus of tuberculosis, instead of doing this, 
proceeded to read a reprint of an article published by 
him last fall, announcing that his results would be 
published in the near future. This, in the present 
condition of all questions relating to micro-organ- 
isms in this country, seems to be almost inexcusable. 
These results have been promised for months, and 
at the time of writing have not yet appeared. It 
seems as if it were the bounden duty of all those 
honestly interested in the advancement of scientific 
knowledge to talk and publish less, and to work 
more. What is needed is the publication of the results 
of work carefully and conscientiously performed, to- 
gether with the exact details of every step in every 
process by which those results were reached. In 
addition to this, we have a right to demand that all 
work of this kind shall be done by trained observers, 
in the presence of others equally well qualified for 
the observation, —not with and by half-trained 
students, —and that the very best appliances of 
modern research shall be employed in each and every 
observation made. In this way, and in this way 
only, can reliance be placed upon observations re- 
corded in work on micro-organisms; and it is the 
absence of work of this kind which gives so very 
little force to the opponents of the specific nature of 
the bacillus of tuberculosis. At the same time, it is 
the presence of this very accuracy of the detailed ac- 
count of every step in the process by which the results 
were reached, and of the completeness of the ex- 
periments and control experiments, that gives the 
convincing power to Koch’s work. Nothing that can 
be for an instant compared with it for simplicity and 
directness of statement, or completeness of detail, has 
yet been brought forward by his opponents. Until 
that is done, and it does not look probable at the 
present writing, his work must be accepted as con- 
clusive; and measures should be taken to control 
to some extent the wide-spread destruction of this 
disease, as it is most certainly within our power 
to do. 

Koch’s own work upon the subject of tuberculosis 
has been suspended for a year, owing to his absence 
in the east with the German cholera commission, 
with which he has lately returned. Whether he 
himself will take it up again is to be doubted; for 
his facilities for work are unbounded, and his natural 
impulse will, of course, be to open up untrodden 
paths of research. 


THE GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. 


THE board of visitors of this institution held its 
annual session on Saturday, June 14, and heard the 
report of the astronomer royal on the work of the 
observatory during the twelve-month ended May 20. 
Of this, Mr. Christie says, ‘‘It has gone on steadily 
in the same lines as in former years, with such small 
extensions in certain directions as could be made 
without infringing the long-established principle that 


62 SCIENCE. 


all observations are to be reduced and published 
without delay.”’ 

The fundamental instrument, the transit circle, 
has been kept well at work on the regular observa- 
tions of the sun, the moon, the planets and funda- 
mental stars, together with other stars, which, in the 
annual catalogue for 1888, number 1,550. The total 


number of transits observed was 5,213, and of circle- - 


observations, 5,049, —a larger number of meridian 
observations than usual. But what is of more in- 
terest, the reductions of these observations are main- 
tained in a state of forwardness unknown in national 
observatories generally. The computations on certain 
stages of the reductions of the meridian-work were 
reported to be well advanced on all observations up to 
the middle of May, 1884. It is worthy of note here, 
that the mean correction of the ‘ Nautical almanac’ 
positions of the moon in right ascension turns out 
to be no larger than — 0s.03 for the year 1883. This 
interesting concordance of theory and observation is 
due to the adoption in the ‘Nautical almanac’ of 
Professor Newcomb’s corrections to the ‘Tables de 
la lune’ of Hansen, which are the same as those 
employed in the construction of the ‘American 
ephemeris.’ 

The observations with the altazimuth have been 
restricted to the period from the last quarter of the 
moon to the first quarter in each lunation; it being 
considered, that, from the first quarter to the last, the 
observations of the moon on the meridian will be 
obtained in sufficient abundance. The astronomer 
royal regards it as evidence of the great value of the 
altazimuth, that, during the former period, nineteen 
observations of the moon were secured with it at 
times when the moon’s meridian-passage took place 
within three hours of the sun, and when observation 
with the transit circle was thus impracticable. 

With the equatorially mounted refracting tele- 
scopes, only the usual observations were conducted; 
but, with the spectroscope, results of much importance 
and interest were reached. ‘‘ For the determination 
of motions of stars in the line of sight, four hundred 
and twelve measures have been made of the dis- 
placement of the F line in the spectra of forty-eight 
stars, ninety-one measures of the b lines in nineteen 
Stars, and two measures of the D lines in one star, 
besides measures of the displacements of the b and 
F lines in the spectra of the east and west limbs of 
Jupiter, and in the spectra of Venus and Mars.... 
Some preliminary measures have also been made of 
the F line in the spectrum of the Orion nebula. 
The progressive change in the motion of Sirius from 
recession to approach, alluded to in the last two re- 
ports, is fully confiymed by numerous observations 
since last autumn, and a change of the same charac- 
ter is indicated in the case of Procyon.”’ 

With regard to solar photography, undertaken with 
the view to determine the amount of spotted area, it 
is interesting to note that the heliograph, which up to 
the present time has given pictures of four inches 
diameter only, has been modified so as to take eight- 
inch pictures, as was suggested two years ago by the 
solar-physics committee. The photographs taken in 


[Vou. IV. No. 76. 


India under the auspices of the same committee are 
now sent to Greenwich for reduction, thus resulting 
in a considerable increase in the number of days for 
which photographs are available. In 1883, for ex- 
ample, photographs on 215 days at Greenwich are 
supplemented by those on 125 days of India, giving 
a total of 340. In 1882, to 201 days at Greenwich 
were added 142 India, thus leaving only 22 days 
without photographs in the entire year. In the 
photographic branch of the observatory-work there 
has been much pressure ‘‘ during the long-continued 
maximum of sun-spots, the work of measuring the 
photographs having been somewhat further increased 
by the adoption of large-scale photographs of the 
sun.”’ 
The acquisition of the Lassell equatorial, and the 
uses to which the astronomer royal proposed putting 
it, were mentioned in the report of the previous year. 
A new dome for this telescope, thirty feet in diameter, 
and covered with papier-maché on a framework of 
iron, was completed by the Messrs. T. Cooke & Sons 
of York in March last; and the building is now about 
complete in all its details. The instrument itself has 
been generally cleaned and repaired. The mirror is 
in very good condition as regards polish, and the 
definition on stars is satisfactory. 

The magnetic and meteorological observations have 
been continued with the same regularity as in pre- 
vious years. The mean temperature of 1883 was 
49°.3, being 0°.4 lower than the average. The highest 
air-temperature was 85°.1, on Aug. 21; and the lowest, 
20°.6, on March 24. The mean daily motion of the 
air during the year was 291 miles, which is 12 miles 
more than the average. The number of hours of 
bright sunshine during 1883 was 1,241, being about 
30 hours above the average of the six preceding 
years. Mr. Christie informs us that no definite con- 
nection was noticed between magnetic or electric 
disturbances and the phenomena of the remarkable 
sunsets of the past winter. 


THE UNITED-STATES GEOLOGICAL 
SURVEY. 


Annual reports of the United-States geological survey 
to the secretary of the interior, li., ili. J. W. Pow- 
ELL, director. Washington, Government, 1882- 
83. 55+ 588 p., 32 fig., 62 pl.; 18+ 564 p., 56 fig., 
35+ 82 pl. 8°. 


Ir has often been remarked that the problems 
of geology are expressed in far simpler terms 
in America than in Europe, the birthplace of 
the science. It is hard to say whether it would 
have been better for geology if it had been 
born in a less adverse environment. Perhaps 
it might have developed more rapidly, but prob- 
ably not so healthily. Perhaps the very diffi- 
culties of the problems of geology in Europe — 
the conflicts of the schools through which the 
young science passed — have tended to invig- 


Paes SS ee ir + 


JULY 18, 1884.] 


orate its life. However this may be, there 
can be no doubt, that, this stage of pupilage 
passed, it was well that a new and larger field 
was opened here on this continent, where its 
activity might be more productive, and its 
growth more steady. On the North-American 
continent, and especially in the United States, 
it would seem that each separate geological 
problem is stated in the clearest way. In stra- 
tigraphy, where shall we find a series so con- 
tinuous and complete as in the region of the 
Wahsatch Mountains? In mountain structure, 
where are the extreme types so perfectly ex- 
pressed as in the Appalachian on the one hand, 
and the basin ranges on the other? In land- 
sculpture, where are there examples so simple 
and grand as in the plateau region? Of the 
obscure phenomena of the glacial epoch, where 
may we hope to find an explanation, if not in 
eastern United States? In the still more ob- 
scure problems of chemical geology, such as 
the geneses of ore-deposits, — problems which 
have hitherto baffled the utmost efforts of sci- 
ence, — what field so promising as the Ameri- 
can Cordilleras, where the process is still going 
on under our eyes? Finally, in paleontology, 
where are there fields richer than the paleozoic 
basin of the east, and the wonderful cretaceous 
and tertiary deposits of the west? 

These reflections have been suggested by 
reading the two bulky volumes before us. 
There can be no doubt that the establishment 
of the U.S. geological survey is an epoch not 
only in the geology of this country, but in the 
science of geology itself. Excellent work has 
been done before by individual effort, by state 
surveys, and by surveys undertaken by the war 
and interior departments ; but never before has 
the work been organized in a manner befitting 
so noble a field. The volumes before us are a 
proof of the excellence of the work being done: 
they consist of full abstracts of a series of 
monographs, most of which are yet unpub- 
lished. A simple enumeration of these is suffi- 
cient to show their great importance. They are 
Dutton’s ‘ Physical history of the Grand Cafion 
district,’ Gilbert’s ‘ History of Lake Bonne- 
ville,’ Russell’s ‘History of Lake Lahontan,’ 
Hague’s ‘Geology of Eureka district,’ Em- 
mons’s ‘ Geology of Leadville district,’ Beck- 
er’s ‘Geology of Comstock lode,’ Irving’s 
‘ Copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior,’ and 
Chamberlin’s ‘Terminal moraine of the sec- 
ond glacial epoch.’ It is evident that only 
the most rapid review of these memoirs is pos- 
sible here. 

The geology of the plateau region, through 
the labors of Powell and Dutton, is so well 


SCIENCE. 63 


known that only a brief recapitulation of its 
wonderful history is necessary. This region, 
now the highest in general elevation of the 
continent, was a sea-bottom, continuously or 
nearly so, from early carboniferous to the end 
of the cretaceous, and received, during this 
time, conformable sediments twelve thousand 
to fifteen thousand feet thick: this indicates, 
of course, a subsidence to the same extent. 
At the end of the cretaceous it began to rise, 
passing successively through brackish-water, 
fresh-water, land, and high-plateau conditions 
to the present time, the extreme elevation be- 
ing not less than eighteen thousand to twenty 
thousand feet. Accompanying this elevation, 
and as its effect, there has been a general ero- 
sion by which from six thousand to eleven 
thousand feet thickness of strata have been 
removed over the whole area, leaving the pla- 
teau still from seven thousand to eight thou- 
sand feet high; and lastly, into this plateau, 
a canon-cutting from three thousand to six 
thousand feet deep. The general erosion has 
given rise to a series of cliffs from a thou- 
sand to two thousand feet high, and extending 
for hundreds of miles; while the elevation, 
especially in its later stages, has broken the 
earth-crust into parallel oblong blocks from 
twenty to thirty miles wide and a hundred 
or more miles long, which, by settling un- 
equally, have produced vertical displacements 
of a thousand to six thousand feet. These 
displacements, having occurred in compara- 
tively recent times, have not yet been obliter- 
ated by erosion, and therefore still exist as 
cliffs. Thus, besides the east and west ero- 
sion-cliffs, there are also north and south 
displacement-cliffs: these latter pass by in- 
sensible gradations into monoclinal bends of 
the strata. As soon as the region became 
land, of course a river-system was estab- 
lished. As the region rose, the rivers cut 
down pari passu, and thus maintained their 
positions. The Grand Canon itself, into 
which the tributaries drain, is in the axis 
of the elevation. Thus it has come to pass 
that the rivers run against the inclination 
of the strata, cutting deeper as the strata 
rise, southward. ‘This remarkable persistence 
of river-beds, in spite of great orographic 
changes, was first pointed out by Powell. 
The time when these different events oc- 
curred has been accurately determined by 
Dutton. In eocene times, nearly the whole 
plateau region was covered by the waters of a 
vast lake, in which many thousand feet of strata 
were deposited, — the same which yielded such 
treasures of mammalian remains to Marsh and 


64 


Cope. At the end of the eocene, this lake 
was drained by elevation, the present river- 
svstem was established, and the general erosion 
commenced. It is probable, that, during the 
miocene, the climate was moist, the rain ex- 
cessive, and the general erosion very great. 
Most of the general erosion was done during 
this time. During the pliocene the elevation 
was greatly increased, the climate became dry, 


1. 
2; 


Ce 


iA 


and, while a moderate general erosion con- 
tinued, the stream-cutting became excessive. 
The upper, outer, and greater part of the Grand 
Canon was made at this time (see the accom- 
panying figure). ‘Toward the end of the plio- 
cene, things settled for a while: the streams 
reached a base-level, and cut no deeper for a 
longtime. At the beginning of the quaternary, 
a somewhat rapid rising again began, and has 
continued to the present time. ‘This last rising 
inaugurated the cutting of the inner canon. 
The comparatively rapid rising of the pliocene 
and quaternary times produced the north and 
south faults, and, in connection with these, 
igneous outbursts on a grand scale. 

Although the author does not, we would 
correlate this last elevation and its outbursts 
with the elevation and lava-flows which took 
place in California at the beginning of the 
quaternary, and the inner canon of the Colo- 
rado with the deep canons of the present river- 
systems of that state. In middle California 
the pliocene rivers were displaced by the lava- 
flows, and therefore had to cut new beds. 
These were cut much deeper than the old, 
because the country was greatly elevated at 
that time. But in southern California the 
country was elevated, but the rivers were not 
displaced: therefore, like the Colorado, they 
cut in the same place, but deeper; and rem- 
nants of the old beds are now found on the 
flanks of the present cafions. 

Capt. Dutton has sometimes been criticised 
for a style unbecoming a scientific treatise. 
We do not agree with these critics. Nothing 
short of vivid word-painting can give any 
adequate idea of the peculiar scenery; and 


SCIENCE. 


‘deposits ’ of Mr. Russell. 


[Vou. 1V., No. 76. 


certainly in this Capt. Dutton excels. We — 
would especially draw attention to his really 
magnificent description of the towers of Vermil- 
ion Cliffs (p. 86), of the temples and towers of 
Virgen River (p. 88), and his ride on Kaibab 
plateau to Grand Canon (p. 1386). 

It is needless to say that the memoir is illus- 
trated in a manner worthy of the subject. 

It is already well known, through the previous 


labors of Gilbert and King, that in quaternary 
times the basin region was largely occupied 
by two great lakes, separated by the East 
Humboldt Range. The one occupying Utah 
basin, of which Great Salt Lake, Utah, Bear, 
and Sevier Lakes are the residues, was named 
by Gilbert, Lake Bonneville ; while that occu- 
pying Nevada basin, and of which Pyramid, 
Winnemucca, Carson, Humboldt, and Walker 
Lakes are the residues, was named by Mr. 
King, Lake Lahontan. The complete study of 
these lakes has been undertaken by Mr. Gilbert 
and Mr. Russell. The great importance of this 
investigation lies in the fact that lakes without: 
outlets are the clearest indicators of changing 
climate. We can only touch lightly the most 
important results, referring the reader to the 
memoir for the proofs. 

According to King, in early. pliocene a great 
lake, which he calls Lake Shoshone, covered 
nearly the whole basinregion. This lake seems 
to have dried away almost completely by the 
end of the pliocene. At this point Gilbert takes 
up the history of the region. At the end of the 
pliocene, Utah basin had a dry climate and a 
small residuary lake, asat present. During the 
quaternary, the lake rose until it reached a level 


nine hundred feet above the present, but did 
not find an outlet. 


Then it dried away grad- 
ually and probably completely, and its residual 
salt was buried beneath fine clay, or ‘ playa 
This was followed 
by a second rising, which reached still higher, 
and the lake found an outlet into the Snake 
River. The lake was therefore fresh. The 
outlet stream cut its way down three hundred 
feet or more, until, finding a hard limestone, the 


3 


j 


JuLy 18, 1884.] SCIENCE. 65 


[MV'I NV.LNOHVT 


t 


“AUTIVA LQTOANOH NI Saua- 


i 


\ | | i 
tl il i 


66 | SCIENCE. 


lake stood at the six hundred foot level a long 
time, making a very distinct terrace (Provo 
terrace). Then by change of climate it lost its 
outlet, and dried away to its present condition. 
Mr. Gilbert correlates these changes with the 
first glacial, the inter-glacial, the second gla- 
cial, and the post-glacial periods. Other very 
important facts brought out by Mr. Gilbert are 
_those connected with recent orographic move- 
ments. The floor of Utah basin has recently 
moved, and is probably still moving. The 
movement is unequal. The floor is warping. 
The great fault on the west side of the Wah- 
satch has recently slipped, and will probably 
again slip. The Wahsatch Range has grown 
very recently, and is probably still growing. 
Such slips produce earthquakes. 
Inyo earthquake of 1872 was produced by a 
slipping of the great fault on the east side 
of the Sierra, as was first pointed out by 
LeConte.* 

Mr. Russell’s studies of Lake Lahontan en- 
tirely confirm the conclusions of Mr. Gilbert 
as to climatic changes. This lake also increased 
from mere residues to a level of five hundred 
feet above Pyramid Lake. Its shells show that 


it was at this time fresh; then it dried away. 


completely, burying its salts, if any, beneath 
playa deposits. ‘Then it rose again to the five 
hundred and thirty foot level (it was then also 
fresh) ; it again dried away to the present 
residues. Its terraces are traceable all around : 
it never found an outlet. 

Mr. Russell continues the observations, com- 
menced by King, on the remarkable deposits of 
this ancient lake. He divides these deposits 
into three kinds, which were made at different 
stages of the lake. In its first great rise, it 
deposited a hard, smooth, incrusting lime car- 
bonate (lithoid deposit). At the one hundred 
foot level and downwards, it deposited what 
Mr. King calls thinolite, and which he regards 
as a pseudomorph after gaylussite. In the 
last and greatest rise, it deposited the dendritic 
tufa. Mr. Russell calls attention to the fact, 
that, if thinolite be a pseudomorph after gay- 
lussite, it is difficult to understand what be- 
came of the enormous quantity of soda; for 
the lake never found an outlet. This problem 
is yet unsolved. 

It is seen, then, that Lake Lahontan, like Lake 
Bonneville, shows two wet periods separated by 
a dry period, and probably two glacial periods 
separated by an interglacial period.  Evi- 
dences of recent orographic movements are 
noted here also. Nearly all the basin ranges 
are formed by the tilting of long north and south 


1 Amer. journ. sc., Vol. xvi. p. 101, 1878. 


The great 


crust-blocks, each block being dropped on one 
side, and lifted on the other. The faults thus 
produced have been slipped very recently, and 
are probably still slipping. The mountains are 
still growing. 

The three memoirs—of Emmons on the 
geology of Leadville, of Becker on the Com- 
stock lode, and of Irving on the copper- 
bearing rocks of Lake Superior —all throw 
light on the genesis of ore-deposits. 

In Mr. Emmons’s admirable memoir we have 
a clear scientific account (the first ever given) 
of the wonderful argentiferous lead-deposits of 
Leadville. In this region the mountain system 
separating the plains from the plateau region 
consists of three ranges ; viz., the Colorado, the 
Park, and the Sawatch. The first two are sepa- 
rated by the Parks; the last two, by the valley 
of the Arkansas River. The Park Range, in 
the vicinity of Leadville, is called the Mos- 
quito Range. On the western slope of the 
Mosquito Range, or eastern side of Arkansas 
valley, is situated Leadville. The Mosquito 
Range consists of crumpled and faulted strata, 
from the Cambrian to carboniferous inclusive. 
The ore-deposits are in the carboniferous. 
Between the carboniferous strata are thick in- 
tercalary beds of porphyry, which have been 
forced between the separated strata without 
appearing on the surface. This irruption took 
place during the cretaceous. ‘The whole series, 
both sedimentary and intercalary-igneous, was 
then folded and faulted. The mode of occur- 
rence of the ore shows conclusively that it was 
deposited from solution in percolating water. 
The ore occurs in a gangue of oxides of iron 
and manganese, mixed with clay, in cavities 
and channels in the limestone. ‘The limestone 
was dissolved and the ore substituted by the 
same water, the clay being the residuum of 
the dissolved limestone. The ore was origi- 
nally disseminated in the porphyry, and thence 
leached out, and carried downward into the 
limestone. The original form was sulphides ; 
but in many cases this has been subsequently 
changed into carbonates, chlorides, etc. It is 
seen, then, that these are not true fissure- veins, 
but deposits in irregular water-channels some- 
what like the lead ores of Illinois, and like 
these latter, also, they occur in carboniferous 
limestone. 

These important conclusions of Mr. Emmons 
in regard to the genesis of ore-deposits are 
substantially confirmed by Mr. Becker’s study 
of the Comstock lode. This grandest of all 
lodes is, however, a true fissure-vein. We note 
only the most important conclusions of this 
careful memoir. 


[Vor. IV., No. 76. 


JULY 18, 1884.] 


The vein is at contact of a diabase country 
on the one side, with a diorite on the other. 
Mr. Becker finds evidences of repeated slip- 
ping. Below, it probably cuts into the diorite. 
The ore was derived from the eastern dia- 
base country, in the augite of which, analysis 
still finds the metals in small quantities. The 
disseminated metals were leached out and car- 
ried westward into the fissure, and there accu- 
mulated. The solvent water was hot, and 
contained alkaline carbonates and alkaline sul- 
phides; in other words, was solfataric. ‘The 
rocks were left in a widely decomposed con- 
dition. ‘These conclusions are confirmed by 
the observations of others, as well as of Mr. 
Becker himself, on the phenomena of deposit 
of silica and metallic sulphides from solfataric 
waters, now going on at Sulphur Bank and 
Steamboat Springs. It is not unlikely that 
the process is still going on also in Comstock 
lode. 

On several points Mr. Becker differs from 
previous observers. Richthofen, in his cele- 
brated memoir on A natural system of igneous 
rocks, gives a prominent place as a rock 
species to propylite. Mr. Becker thinks, and 
probably rightly, that propylite is only an 
altered andesite, and therefore that the species 
is untenable. Rosenbusch, however, had al- 
ready shown that propylite must be regarded 
as a modification of andesite, and Mr. Becker 
ought to have stated this fact. 

Again Mr. Becker differs (and we think again 
rightly) from Church as to the source of the 
heat of Comstock lode. Church ascribed it 
to kaolinization. Mr. Becker shows the in- 
sufficiency of this cause, and suggests as a 
more probable cause solfataric action, the fee- 
ble remnant of previous volcanism. 

The memoir of Mr. Irving on the copper- 
bearing rocks of Lake Superior deals with some 
of the most vexed questions in geology. When 
such men as Hunt, Whitney, Selwyn, Wads- 
worth, and Irving differ as to the age and 
stratigraphic relations of the copper-bearing 
series, those who have not personally examined 
the ground have no right to an opinion. Mr. 
Irving’s view is, that this series partly fills the 
great gap between the Huronian and the Cam- 
brian. It consists of sandstones and conglom- 
erates, with interbedded sheets of igneous 
rocks, mostly basic; the whole being of enor- 
mous thickness. 

As to the mode of occurrence and origin of 
the ore, there is a resemblance to, yet striking 
difference from, that of Leadville. As in Lead- 
ville, so here, we have alternating sheets of 
Strata and lava; also, in both, the ore seems 


SCIENCE. 


67 


to have been leached from the igneous, and 
gathered in fissures, cavities, water-channels 
of any kind in the intervening strata, by means 
of down-percolating water; also, in both, the 
deposit seems to have been made by substitu- 
tion; although the explanation of the substi- 
tution is more difficult in this case. But, on 
the other hand, the age of the strata is pre-Cam- 
brian instead of carboniferous; the strata are 
conglomerates and sandstones instead of lime- 
stones ; and the intercalary beds are contempo- 
raneous instead of subsequent, i.e., poured out 
on the surface, and covered with sediments, in- 
stead of forced between the strata. As to the 
obscure question of the reactions by which ore 
was deposited, the author seems to adopt Pum- 
pelly’s view, that the copper was carried in 
solution as sulphate, and was reduced by the 
iron of the basic rocks, which oxidized itself 
at the expense of the copper sulphate. 

The memoir of Hague on the Eureka dis- 
trict does not touch the mines of this district : 
that is left for a future memoir. It is con- 
fined wholly to descriptive geology. As such, 
although not entertaining popular reading, it 
is a model of painstaking, conscientious work. 
It is on such work, and such only, that a true 
geological science must be built. Only one 
point we have time to notice. Mr. Hague de- 
clares that there is no trachyte at all among 
the western eruptive, what has gone under 
that name being andesite. This decision is 
founded on the fact that plagioclase is the 
dominant felspar in all of them. The fact 
admitted, the decision seems well founded. 
But surely some consensus of view as to the 
basis of classification of eruptive is devoutly 
to be wished for. Shall it be the look and 
habit, or mode of occurrence, or mineral con- 
stitution, or age, or all these together? When 
shall order come out of this chaos? 

It is a pity that Mr. Chamberlin’s paper on 
the second glacial moraine comes last among 
the geological articles ; for we are pressed for 
room, and the subject is to us a specially invit- 
ing one. ‘The author commences his work by 
trying to remove the confusion which exists on 
the subject of drift-deposits. He makes three 
kinds of till: viz., 1, subglacial or true till; 2, 
englacial or superglacial till (a looser top 
material) ; 3, subaqueous till, often confounded 
with the first, but deposited by floating ice. He 
also distinguishes between osars and kames. 
After many other distinctions which deserve 
studious attention, he describes the peculiar 
structure and appearance of terminal moraines, 
and then applies these principles to the iden- 
tification and tracing of the second glacial, or 


“HOOdH TVIOVIN GNOOHS AHL 40 ANIVUON IVNINUAL AHL AO dVW IVUENAD 


CECRAK ITE} 


a 


ork nem 
MORALE yy 
S 
ye. 


) 


er 


SCIENCE. 


68 


a. : : . 


— 


Raiecne Se 
ASS 


ARAN 


SOIENOE, July 18, 1884. 


JuLy 18, 1884.] 


so-called ‘kettle’ moraine. Asis well known, 
chiefly through the work of the author, together 
with Upham and others, this moraine consists 
of a series of loops about the Great Lakes, and 
continuing thence eastward and westward. 
Commencing with the Green-Bay loop as most 
typical, the author describes every loop sepa- 
rately and minutely, taking them in succession 
going eastward, and then returning and going 
westward. All we can do here is to trace 
briefly the course of this moraine as shown in 
the map, plate xxviii. 

Commencing eastward, this moraine passes 
through Cape Cod and through Long Island, to 
New York. This part is often described as 
the first glacial or limit moraine. If so, the 
two are here coincident. But possibly the 
true limit is farther out to sea; or, more prob- 
ably, the ice-sheet at its farthest limit ran out 
here into the sea, and formed no moraine at 
all, its débris being carried away by icebergs. 
From New York the two moraines separate, the 
limit moraine passing through New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania, where it has been traced by Cook 
and Lewis; while the second glacial moraine 
turns northward into middle New York, passes 
in a curve around the Finger Lakes, and then 
southward to join the limit moraine in eastern 
Ohio. After running together a little way, they 
again part company, the limit moraine passing 
along an irregular line a little north of the Ohio 
River, then crossing the Mississippi and follow- 
ing the south and west side of the Missouri 
River into Montana and British America; 
while the second moraine turns northward, 
sweeps about the Great Lakes in a succession 
of loops, and then, making two more grand 
loops, — one in Iowa and one in Dakota, — it 
finally passes along the Coteau of the Missouri, 
and onward into British America. 

The importance of the work of Mr. Chamber- 
linand Mr. Upham, in connection with that of 
Messrs. Cook, Lewis, and Wright, on the first 
glacial or limit moraine, in their bearing on 
the question of the existence of a veritable 
ice-sheet, cannot be overestimated. 

In the paper on barometric measurements 
by Mr. Gilbert, a new method of measuring 
heights is brought forward. The essentials of 
this method are as follows : — 

For the purposes of observation there are 
two base stations, one high and one low, the 
difference in altitude between them being as 
great as possible, compatible with close verti- 
_cality. At these two stations, only the barome- 
ter and its attached thermometer are observed, 
no other instrument being considered neces- 
sary. The actual difference in altitude be- 


SCIENCE. 69 


tween these base stations is determined by 
spirit-level ; and this constitutes the altitude, 
—a, vertical base-line, by which all other al- 
titudes are gauged. 

The field-notes consist of barometric read- 
ings applying to the upper base station, the 
lower base station, and the new station, respec- 
tively. 

The method of computation consists in first 
correcting the instrumental readings for index- 
error and temperature. These readings are 
then collected in groups of three, each obser- 
vation at a new station being associated with 
the coincident observations at the base stations. 
The altitude of the upper base station is then 
computed as usual, without applying the cor- 
rections for moisture, temperature, or gravity ; 
and the height of the new station above the 
lower base station is calculated in the same 
way, thus assuming that the air is dry, and has 
a uniform temperature of 32° F.; and, these 
two results being considered approximate, the 
following proportion is made : — 


Approximate height of base-line : True height of base-line:: 
Approximate height of new station: True height of new station. 


There is little of importance in this publica- 
tion that has not appeared previously in some 
form or other. 

Of course, the method would, in the first 
place, be limited in its application to a very 
small horizontal area ; for only in such an area 
could the conditions of density be similar 
enough to allow of its use: and the first thought 
that would strike one would be the compara- 
tively rare occurrence of the conditions of 
verticality proposed, though the method cer- 
tainly has the mark and merit of ingenuity. 

Most of such devices are designed to do 
away with the influence of the ‘ hour of the 
day,’ as it is called, or the varying effect of 
the different conditions of temperature and 
moisture. Any real control over these ele- 
ments in the problem must come from the 
careful noting of all the circumstances under 
which the data are collected ; and the question 
can only be decided, if it ever is, by observa- 
tions continued for a long time. 

The only great effort to secure the data for 
this ‘horary’ correction was made by Plan- 
tamour, in his discussion of the forty-year 
series of observations carried on between 
Geneva and the St. Bernard hospice :* but this 
series only covers one of the many conditions 
under which such measurements may be made, 
for decided differences would be introduced by 
unequal insolation along mountain chains, near 


1 Mém. Soe. phys. Genéve. 


70 


plateaus (whether high or low), on the coast, or 
in different ‘seasons ; and it would seem from 
these records that the only means of obliterat- 
ing the effect of these temporary disturbances 
is in having a large number of observations 
made, and taking their average. 

This would also seem to throw some doubt 
upon the value of Williamson’s method of 
obtaining this correction from the curve of the 
day: for days differ so much that a large 
arbitrary or constructive element would be in- 
troduced, thereby damaging the results as far 
as scientific accuracy is concerned ; for we can 
easily see that the difference between a clear, 
bright day, and a day in which the sky might 
be wholly or partly covered, would be great, 
and therefore much would be left to the judg- 
ment of the observer with regard to applying 
the whole or only a part of any correction 
which might be obtained for use in such cases :* 
for, at best, we only get a sort of skeleton aver- 
age from the mathematical formulae; and it is 
quite certain that the formula of Laplace gives 
too high results for general use, since it is only 
adapted for the summer months. 

The second objection to this method, there- 
fore. would seem to be found in the compara- 
tively arbitrary use of the data obtained. 

If we could only obtain a partial solution 
of this problem by securing a portion of the 
proper correction, it would be a great gain. 

The temperature correction would not, per- 
haps, be so difficult to obtain; but, when we 
once introduce the element of moisture, we 
perceive that the uncertainty of controlling the 
conditions increases, except by having full 
averages of all the elements involved, as their 
variability is so great. 

One has only to look into the work of Plan- 
tamour to become convinced of this; and the 
results obtained from these records, as worked 
out by Dr. Guyot, show it conclusively. 

It has therefore been Dr. Guyot’s principle 
to simplify the methods, both of observation 
and of computation, as much as possible, so as 
to facilitate the making of a large number of 
observations, and from their averages obtain- 
ing better results. By this means the original 
records are touched as little as possible; and 
the results are sufficiently accurate for the 
purposes of the geographer. 

The trouble is, that these difficulties arise 
from the nature of the problem; and it is very 
doubtful whether they will ever be completely 
mastered. 

There is another objection to the proposed 
method, which would seem vital; and that is, 


1 Bulletin No. 2, E. M. museum of geology and archaeology. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 76. 


that it materially increases the cost of such a 
survey, not only by the employment of an 
additional observer, but also by making the 
measurement of a number of vertical base 
lines by level a necessity in an extended 
survey ; and any thing which does this, thereby 
bringing the expenses nearer to the amount 
necessary for a regular levelling-survey without 
proportionally increasing the accuracy of the 
results obtained (for the liability to errors of 
observation and computation is greater), is at 
least of questionable advantage. - 

In his ‘ Non-marine fossil Mollusea,’ Dr. C. 
A. White presents a valuable review of the © 
North-American brackish, fresh-water, and 
land Mollusca, beginning with their first repre- 
sentatives in the Devonian, and tracing the 
history of many cases of persistence to modern 
forms. Every paleontologist has to contend 
with large gaps in material ; and these are more 
extensive among the inland than among the 
marine Mollusca. Another difficulty les in 
distinguishing between the brackish and fresh 
and salt water forms. These are often com- 
mingled, especially in the Laramie rocks, which 
bear evidences of frequent littoral changes in 
the estuaries and inland seas. Following a 
geological introduction, the author presents an_ 
elaborate historical catalogue of the genera of 
the Conchifera and Gasteropoda. There is a 
happy omission of any attempt at revision of 
species (an endless task), and little technical 
description ; while more attention than usual is 
given to the interesting question of changes of 
habitat during successive periods, and relation- 
ships with other fossil and modern forms. A 
curious fact, which has so many parallels among 
the other Mollusca, is the early appearance and 
development of the pulmonate gasteropods, 
which are found as low as any of the Conchifera. 
With the necessary presumption of the deriva- 
tion of the non-marine from the marine types, 
the author infers that this has taken place not 
only in paleozoic, but in more recent geologi- 
cal times. The marine types, having suffered 
the fewest changes of environment, have been 
the most persistent; then rank the land and 
brackish-water types; but, in view of the con- — 
tinual changes in the fresh-water areas, the 
persistence, even to the present day, of several 
fresh-water forms, is most remarkable. Ac- 
cording to the author, the latter forms abounded ~ 
in the great tertiary lakes: they survived the — 
contraction of the lakes into the great river- — 
systems, and they owe their wide dispersal to 
the confluence of these river-systems, as in the 
case of the Ohio and Mississippi, which origi- 
nally poured into the Gulf. It appears that 


JuLY 18, 1884.] 


areas of extinction have been areas where the 
old river-courses have changed or dried up; 
and these, according to Powell and Dutton, 
are comparatively few. An interesting line 
of research suggests itself here, which lack of 
material may prevent at present, upon the 
divergence of structural characters after the 
separation of the eastern and western fauna 
by the Rocky-Mountain system. 

Professor Marsh’s paper upon birds with 
teeth contains little that did not appear in 
his monograph, ‘ Odontornithes: ’ it is, in fact, 


SCIENCE. | 71 


an abstract of that volume, with the omission 
of many details of structure. There have 
been added, however, several characters to 
Archaeopteryx, which the author himself dis- 
covered upon the European specimens. It is 
an astonishing fact, worth mentioning here. 
that in many foreign museums it is still con- 
sidered more important to preserve these speci- 
mens intact than to publish the rich truths they 
might reveal under a careful use of the ham- 
mer and chisel. 


INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 


GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 


U.S. geological survey. 


fiocks from Oregon. — During the field-season of 
1883, Mr. Frank Wood, a stone-cutter in Albany, 
Or., contributed to the Cascade-Range collection of 
rocks several specimens of stone used extensively in 
that part of the country for building and ornamental 
purposes. They were examined by Mr. J. S. Diller, 
and proved to be of unusual interest, not only on 
account of their economic value, but also for their 
bearing upon the geological history of the Cascade 
Range. 

Among them was an eruptive rock, which is quar- 
ried twenty miles east of Albany, on the western 
slope of the Cascade Range, and which presents an 
ancient aspect. The composition of this rock is that 
of a diabase with an admixture of rhombic pyroxene; 
but in its general facies and structure, as well as in 
the character of its alteration products, it is closely 
related to the gabbros. Rocks of the same character, 
high up in the mountains, are abundant a short dis- 
tance south-west of Mount Hood. While it has long 
been known that the Cascade Range is built up chiefly 
of recent lavas, it is becoming more and more evi- 
dent that eruptions of gabbroic and granitic rocks 
must be admitted as important elements in its con- 
struction. 

On the Willamette River, eight miles from Albany, 
a sandstone is quarried which belongs to the ter- 
tiaries of the Willamette valley, and, with the excep- 
tion of the cementing-material, is composed wholly 
of voleanic matter. When first taken from the quar- 
ry, it is said to be soft, and easily carved into any 
desired shape. Upon exposure, it becomes hard and 
more durable. This change in its physical character, 
so far as can be judged from the hand specimen in 
the collection, appears to be connected with a pecul- 
iar alteration in its cement. The unaltered sand- 
stone, when held in such a position as to reflect the 
light from its surface, is seen to have a peculiar shim- 
mer, which, upon closer examination, is found to 
come from the brilliant cleavage-surfaces of the well- 
crystallized calcite which forms the cement. The 


rock splits quite readily in three directions. Follow- 
ing these lines of easiest cleavage, a small rhombo- 
hedron was split out of the sandstone, which showed 
the peculiar shimmer on all sides. With an impro- 
vised goniometer, the angles between the reflecting 
surfaces were measured, and found to be the regular 
cleavage-angles of calcite. In the thin section it 
could readily be seen that the calcite cement had the 
same optical orientation throughout. There can be 
no doubt that all the calcitic cement within the hand 
specimen belonged essentially to the same crystal. 
Professor Irving has shown that siliceous cement in 
sandstone is very frequently arranged with reference 
to the crystallographic axes of the quartz-grains which 
it envelops. It is much less common, however, to 
find the cement arranged as in this Albany sand- 
stone. That carbonate of lime can arrange itself in 
one crystal, when mixed with from fifty to sixty per 
cent of sand, is clearly shown by the well-known 
crystals from Fontainebleau and Nemours, in France. 
Under atmospheric influences, the calcitic cement 
appears to be replaced by one which is in large part 
siliceous. The boundaries of the grains of sand 
become less distinct, and the cement assumes a 
spherulitic structure. To be able to assert positively 
that this peculiar structure in the cement of a sedi- 
mentary rock is due to weathering, our observations 
with the microscope need to be supplemented by an 
examination of the rock in situ at the quarry. The 
rock, therefore, becomes more durable, being insolu- 
ble, and is much less liable to injury from great and 
sudden changes of temperature. 

Krakatoa dust. — A report by Mr. Diller, on the 
Krakatoa dust submitted to him for examination, 
has been completed. Reusch determined the rhom- 
bie pyroxene in the Krakatoa dust to be bronzite, 
while Daubree, Renard, and others have asserted 
that it is hypersthene. Although Mr. Diller obtained 
the dust from four different localities, enough was 
not received to furnish sufficient rhombic pyroxene 
for chemical analysis to settle the question; and with- 
out a. Norrenbergs apparatus, or a microscope with 
a larger field than the one used by Mr. Diller for the 
observation of optic axial figures, so that the char- 


72 


acter of the double refraction of biaxial minerals can 
be determined, it is impossible to distinguish with 
certainty between bronzite and hypersthene. 


PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. 


Johns Hopkins university. 


Physical laboratory. — During the past year, origi- 
nal investigations have been carried on, on the photog- 
raphy of the spectrum by the concave grating, the 
variation of the magnetic permeability with change 
of temperature, the distribution of heat in the solar 
spectrum, the determination of the B. A. unit of 
electrical resistance in absolute measure, and the 
determination of the specific resistance of mercury; 
and experiments have been carried on, under the 
direction of Professor Rowland, with an appropria- 
tion from the government of the United States, with 
the view to aid in establishing an international unit 
of resistance. 

Chemical laboratory. — The following investigations 
have been completed during the year: a contribution 
to the history of active oxygen, the action of heat on 
ethylene, the chemical conduct of the sulphinide 
obtained by oxidizing a naphthaline-sulphamide, the 
effect of light on fermentation, and the relative stabil- 
ity of halogen derivatives of carbon compounds. 

Biological laboratory. — During the year, original 
investigations, the results of which either have been 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS 


Trenton natural-history society. 


July 8. — Dr. C. C. Abbott remarked on the spade- 
foot hermit-toad, Scaphiopus solitarius, the least com- 
mon of the batrachians. Their appearance after 
long intervals seems characteristic. ‘The speaker ob- 
served them in 1874, and not again until April 10, 
1884. By the 15th, the weather becoming cooler, they 
departed. On theafternoon of June 26, after a severe 
storm, they became abundantin the same pond, The 
eggs are deposited about submerged objects, hatch- 
ing in six days; the tadpoles growing rapidly, and the 
young toads leaving the water in two or three weeks. 
Like true frogs, this terrestrial batrachian can prob- 
ably thrive fairly well in water. The creature’s vocal 
powers are terrific. The sound has been compared 
to that produced by a heavily loaded, creaking wagon, 
rolling over hard and uneven ground, and to the 
groans of agonizing pain. Travellers on the highway 
an eighth of a mile distant, listened in amazement; 
and a ploughman was compelled to considerably 
shorten his furrows, as the mules refused to approach 
the source of the horrible yells. With the sound, a 
protuberance nearly the animal’s size appears beneath 
the throat and belly, gradually decreasing with the 
emission of the cry, but not entirely disappearing. 
It lives in holes about six inches deep, dug by itself, 
never entering the water except at the breeding-sea- 


SCIENCE. 


or soon will be published, have been made in the fol-_ 


lowing subjects: the nature of the process of the 


coagulation of blood; the chemical composition of — 


the blood of the terrapin; the influence of various 
salts and other substances on the contraction of the 
arterioles; the suction-pump action of the heart; the 
influence of sudden variations of arterial pressure 
on the rhythm of the heart; the action of carbolic 
acid on the heart, and its antagonism by atropine; 
the influence of convallarin and convallamarin on the 
heart; the anatomy of Nemertians; the development 
and metamorphosis of various insects; the develop- 
ment and histology of Salpa; and the histology of 
Amiurus, 

Marine laboratory. — During the summer of 1883, 
the seaside zodlogical laboratory for the study of 
forms of marine life was open at Hampton, Va., 
from May 1 until Sept. 29. The advanced work 
included original investigations on the following 
subjects: the anatomy and development of barnacles, 
the anatomy and development of crabs, the histology 
of Eudendrium, the anatomy and development of 
Balanoglossus, the development of the oyster, the 
anatomy of Lingula, the protozoea stage of crabs, the 
development of annelids, the anatomy and develop- 
ment of Chrysaora, the origin of the eggs of hybrids 
and tunicates, the function of the semicircular canals 
of sharks, and the general zodlogy of the Hydrome- 
dusae. 


OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


son. At the bottom of the pit it seizes such insects 
as enter, and probably seeks food by nocturnal wander- 
ing. The burrows, which it forms by throwing the 
earth to both sides by the assistance of the spur-like 
projection on each hind-foot, have a smooth, some- 
what tortuous, tubular entrance, oval in outline, and 
sufficiently large to allow of egress: the toad sitting 
in a chamber so placed that it would seem impossible 
for it to leap out, as De Kay suggests, when food ap- 
pears about the orifice at the surface. Indeed, tun- 
nels made in confinement were always angular; and 
it would be impossible for the animal to see an insect 
at the opening. The toad, therefore, probably leaves 
the hole, and seeks food at night. —— Mr. William 
Macfarland detailed his experiments on the building- 
habits of the basket-worm, Thyridopteryx ephemerae- 
formis. If the full-grown larva is removed from the 
case, it will not rebuild. But this is not so with the 
young worm: an individual about two-thirds grown 
had rebuilt five.times. The worm creeps under a 
leaf, enclosing itself by drawing the edges together 
with threads of silk. The leaf is then cut loose, the 
larva adding bits of sticks as the case is dragged 


about. —— Dr. A. C. Stokes presented a communica- — 

tion on the liver of the house-fly, with dissections. — 
The organ consists of two sets of tubules, originating © 
in sub-spherical bulbs, and uniting to form two tubes 
opening on opposite sides of the intestine behind the 


[Vox. IV., No. 76. 


s 
, 
4 


7 


Juny 18, 1884.] 


stomach. These are formed of delicate membrane, 
lined by a layer of secreting-cells so arranged that a 
central channel is left for the transmission of the 
bile. The cells are polygonal from mutual pressure, 
nucleated and nucleolated, often projecting, and giv- 
ing the tubes abeaded aspect. The bile is apparently 
composed of oil-globules and many fine dark granules. 
The entire organ is very tortuous, and closely applied 
to the alimentary canal. 


Minnesota academy of natural sciences. 


June 38. — Mr. C. L. Herrick described Spirochona 
gemmipara Ehr., — an infusorian found parasitic upon 
the gills, legs, and gill-covers of Gammarus lymnaeus, 
near the university grounds. The European Spi- 
rochona was the subject of an elaborate memoir by 
Hertwig, and was shown to be one of the most 
pleasing subjects for the study of the subdivision of 
the nucleus. Attention was drawn to the fact that 
the American species of Spirochona seems beyond a 
doubt identical with the European, while the Gam- 
marus, upon which it lives, is of a different species 
from that forming its host in Europe. It was not 
found upon Hyallela or elsewhere. Spirochona 
Scheutenii Stein is the only other member of the 
genus, and may not be distinct. —— Mr. Herrick 
also mentioned the occurrence of another curious 
protozoan in Minnesota, this form being similar to 
Ophridium versatile of Ehrenberg. The animal 
bearing this name is allied to the Vorticellae, and is 
social; but the colonies adhere to the surface of 
crystal-clear masses of jelly, which may be as large 
as one’s fist. The individuals are sessile upon the 
sphere, and are peculiar in the great length of the 
neck-like anterior part of the body when extended. 
The American specimen measured 0.16 of a millimetre 
when quite extended. The width of the peristome is 
.024 of a millimetre. The species was provisionally 
ealled Ophridium problematicum. A third infuso- 
rian was described as closely related with Paramoe- 
cium, but differing in several interesting particulars 
from it and its allies. In form, this animal is linear 
lanceolate (about 0.2 of a millimetre long), tapering 
posteriorly to an almost acuminate point. An- 
teriorly is a long vibratile proboscis, or flagellum, 
which exceeds, when extended, the whole length of 
the body. The mouth is situated at the base of this 
proboscis, and opens into a very short infundibulum. 
The whole surface of the body and proboscis is 
covered with minute cilia, which are inserted in 
rows, giving the body a punctate appearance. Longer 
cilia surround the mouth. The sarcode is trans- 
parent, and, aside from a few greenish food-balls, 
contained only a large number (over a dozen) of oval 
bodies of a similar character (endoplastules in an 
unobserved coiled endoplast ?) The motions of the 
animal are very quick, and are occasioned chiefly 
by the whip-like motions of the proboscis, which is 
extremely vigorous in movement, and alters its 
form greatly. Aside from this rapid motion, it can 
propel itself slowly by means of the cilia covering 
the entire surface. It is the type of a new genus, 


SCIENCE. 73 


and was called Phragelliorhynchus nasutus. —— Rey. 
L. J. Hange contributed a letter on the vegetable 
remains of the drift. As a missionary among the 
Scandinavians and Indians of the north-west for 
over a quarter of a century, his attention has been 
called frequently to these remains; and he has over 
seven hundred specimens of woods, leaves, etc., in 
his collection. In Minnesota, wood is found at from 
thirty-five to forty-five feet below the surface: going 
west into Dakota and Montana, the depth is greater. 
On the Missouri, above Bismarck, a stump twenty- 
three feet high and a foot in diameter was struck fifty- 
nine feet below the surface. Many pines have wood 
well preserved; others are completely silicified and 
chalcedonic. Upon many a high point of land in 
western Dakota one finds a pile of stones, and among 
them some fine specimens of the silicified wood 
peculiar to this region. These piles were evidently 
built by human hands; and the writer suggested that 
they were built by the Indians as altars or landmarks. 
—— Rey. Dr. H. C. Hovey related some interesting 
facts touching the habits of the ant-lion, a colony of 
which he keeps in his study. ; 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


OVER one hundred members of the British asso- 
ciation have notified the local committee at Philadel- 
phia of their intention to be present at the meeting 
of the American association. About seven hundred 
of the British association are expected at the meeting 
in Montreal. 


— Nature states that the arrangements for the 
meeting of the geological section of the British asso- 
ciation are now well advanced. 

The International geological congress meets at 
Berlin in September, and this will prevent many 
continental geologists from going to Montreal: Dr. 
Richthofen, however, will probably be present, and 
will communicate a paper on some comparisons be- 
tween the geology of China and North America. It 
is hoped that others may also arrange to come. 

Meeting in the typical Laurentian country, it is 
only to be expected that the archean rocks will 
receive much attention. Amongst the papers sent or 
promised are the following: Professor Bonney, on the 
lithological characters of the archean rocks in Can- 
ada and elsewhere; Mr. Frank Adams, on the occur- 
rence of the Norwegian ‘apatitbringer’ in Canada, 
with a few notes on the microscopic characters of 
some Laurentian amphibolites; Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, 
on the eozoic rocks of North America. 

On paleozoic geology and paleontology generally, 
the following are expected: L. W. Bailey, on the 
Acadian basin in American geology; E. W. Claypole, 
the oldest known vertebrates,—an account of some 
fossils recently discovered in the Silurian rocks of 
Pennsylvania; J. H. Panton of Winnipeg, geological 
gleanings from the outcrops of Silurian strata in the 
Red-River valley, Manitoba. Principal Dawson will 
give a comparison of the paleozoic floras of North 
America and Europe, whilst Mr. J. S. Gardner will 


74 SCIENCE. 


deal with the same subject as regards. the cretaceo- 
tertiary floras. Other papers are: G. F. Matthews, 
on the geological age of the Acadian fauna, and on 
the primitive conocoryphean; E. Wethered, the 
structure of English and American coals. 

After the azoic and paleozoic rocks of Canada, the 
drift-deposits are of great interest. The following 
papers bear on this subject: Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn, on 
a theory of ice-action in the formation of lake-basins 
and in the distribution of bowlders in northern lati- 
tudes; the Rev. E. Hill, on theories of glaciation; 
F. Drew, on the thickness of ice in the Himalayan 
valleys during the glacial period. 

Amongst other papers of interest are: Professor 
Hull (who is not expected to be present), on the geolo- 
gy of Palestine, giving an account of his recent ex- 
plorations; Prof. T. R. Jones, on the geology of 
South Africa; W. Whitaker, on the economic value 
of geological maps, with especial reference to water- 
supply, illustrated by the survey maps of the chalk 
areain England. Papers are also promised by Dr. 
Arch. Geikie, Dr. G. M. Dawson, Prof. V. Ball, 
Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins, Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, W. 
Carruthers, H. Bauerman, E. Gilpin of Halifax, N.S., 
and others. 

Several reports will be submitted by committees, or 
by persons appointed for this purpose at the last 
meeting of the association (the name mentioned is 
that of the secretary to the committee, or the re- 
porter): Prof. J. Milne, earthquakes in Japan; W. 
Cash, fossil plants of Halifax; G. R. Vine, British 
fossil Polyzoa; Dr. H. W. Crosskey, erratic. blocks 
of England, Wales, and Ireland; Prof. T. R. Jones, 
fossil Phyllopoda of the paleozoic rocks; C. E. De 
Rance, underground waters; J. W. Davis, Raygill 
fissure, Yorkshire; C. E. De Rance and W. Topley, 
erosion of seacoasts of England and Wales; F. Drew 
and Prof. A. H. Green, the present state of knowl- 
edge respecting the interior of the earth; W. Whita- 
ker, geological record; W. Topley, national geological 
surveys, and progress of the international geological 
map of Europe. . 

The local committee at Montreal is preparing a 
euide-book to the city and neighborhood, which will 
contain a geological map. A general geological guide 
to the dominion will be prepared by the geological 
survey of Canada. 


— We regret to learn, that, at the close of the first 
year, Williams college relinquished the only Ameri- 
ean table held at the Naples zoological station. It 
was occupied in the first part of the year by Dr. E. B. 
Wilson, and, in the latter half, by Prof. S. F. Clarke 
of the college; who, however, was taken ill soon 
after reaching Naples, and is not yet fully recovered. 
Only one applicant for the table appeared for the sec- 
ond year. 


— Raoul Pictet writes to the Journal de Géneve of 
his first acquaintance with Wurtz, as follows: — 

‘*It was in 1867. JI reached Paris with a letter of 
introduction from Mr. A. de la Rive, I entered the 
court-yard of the medical school, where was pointed 
out to me a square room quite poorly lighted, and 


[Vou. IV., No. 76. 


rather small for the twenty students who narrowly 
found place there. Mr. Wurtz, in laboratory costume, 
alert and active, was going from one to the other, 
and was talking with great animation. One of his 


_ favorite scholars was at this moment taking his ex- 


amination for the fellowship, with what anxiety to 
know the result. 

‘*T shall never forget the words which Mr. Wurtz 
with frank cordiality addressed to me: ‘You come 
from one of the masters of science; my laboratory is 
open to you; there are but twenty places; ah, well! 
this year there will be twenty-one of us.’ ‘Then 
after having appointed me to a place, and introduced 
me to Mr. Wilm, his chief attendant, he added, ‘ By 
the way, you know, I receive Friday evenings; you 
will always be welcome; this invitation I never 
repeat.’ 

‘* And in this way the students who were fortunate 
enough to be near the teacher found in him at the 
same time a learned professor, a director of their 
studies, an inspirer of their discussions, a defender 
of new but logical ideas, and a friendly adviser, an 
interesting and cheerful converser, a host at enjoy- 
able and easy receptions, happy to please and to be 
useful to those whom he considered his intellectual 
family. How can I reproduce here the impression 
left by the scientific discussions excited in the labora- 
tory by the work of a scholar or by a new discovery! 
There was an enthusiasm, an impulse, a joy, which 
we all felt under the direct and spontaneous influence 
of an instructing friend, a respected master.”’ 


— The fifth international hygienic congress will be 
held at The Hague from the 21st to the 23d of August, 
under the presidence of the ministers J. Hemskerk 
and de Beaufort. The work of the congress will be 
divided into five sections, and lectures will be given 
from three to four o’clock every afternoon. The prin- 
cipal speakers will be L. Pasteur, on methods of infec- 
tion; H. Paechiotti of Turin, on the hygiene of the 
future; Professor Finkelnburg of Bonn, on the influ- 
ence of the microbe theory; Jules Rochard, on the 
value of public hygiene; Stephen Smith of New York, 
on the medical professions in the United States; E. J. 
Marey of Paris, on useful powers in the forward move- 
ment; W. H. Corfield of London, on science and sick- 
ness; E. Irélat of Paris, on hygiene in dwellings; J. 
Crocq of Brussels, on drinking-water. Other lectures 
will be given by Drs. Koch and Bockh of Berlin. 
Applications for participation in the congress should 
be addressed to Professor van Overbeck de Meijer of 
Utrecht. 


— Ata late session of the section of physical and 
experimental science of the Royal society, Mr. G. 
Johnstone Stoney, late astronomical assistant to the 
Earl of Rosse, described a form of instrument which 
had proved very successful in completing the optical 
adjustment of reflecting-telescopes. The new colli- 
mator which he invented as long ago as 1857 was 
made by Mr. Grubb last autumn, and is a short-focus 
telescope of two inches aperture and eleven inches 
long, which, when used, is to be inserted into the eye- 
piece-holder of the large reflector. A spark between 


JULY 18, 1884. | 


platinum points is produced in the focus of this in- 
strument by a small Rhumkorff coil; and the light of 
the spark, emerging from the collimator, is reflected 
by the small mirror of the Newtonian, and thence to 
its large mirror. On pushing the collimator-eyepiece 
and platinum points a little inside the focus, the 
beam of light will, if every thing is in perfect adjust- 
ment, retrace its steps after reflection by the large 
mirror, and, re-entering the collimator, form an im- 
age coincident with the spark; and any want of 
adjustment is at once betrayed by the image in the 
field of view of the collimator not being coincident 
with the spark. Mr. Stoney represented this entire 
process of completing the adjustment as occupying 
less than half a minute, and as being so easy of ap- 
plication that he is in the habit of repeating it every 
time the telescope is turned upon a new object. 


—In a lecture, May 23, at the Royal institution of 
Great Britain, on recent researches on the distances 
of the fixed stars, and on some future problems in 
sidereal astronomy, Dr. David Gill, her Majesty’s 
astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, summarized 
as follows the late investigations at that place on the 
parallax of stars in the southern hemisphere : — 


Name of star. Observer. Parallax. Years. 
e@entami ... . . | G. & H. 0.757 4.36 
SMG e ae sw ct |G. eK 0.38 8.6 
Haeaiie 9352 5. =. G. 0.28 eG 
é Indi. G. & E 0.22 1 
02 Eridani G 0.17 19 
GpMagant. .. la. K. 0.14. DS 
Se Peeanae <9... Ide 0.06 | 54 
Wamopuis. . . « « E Insensible. - 
PCemauri . 9s: 2. | G Insensible. — 


The last column contains the star’s distance in 
light-units, or number of years in which light from 
the star would reach the earth. The observers are 
Dr. Gill and Dr. Elkin, now of the Yale college ob- 
servatory, New Haven. 


— Oberlin college, in Ohio, has acquired the botani- 
eal collection of Dr. Beardsiee of Painesville, contain- 
ing not far from three thousand species. The main 
part of the collection consists of the phanerogams 
of northern Ohio; but it also has many plants from 
the United States generally, especially sedges, grasses, 
and willows, with over six hundred species of mosses. 


— The New-York Sun for June 25 gives an instance 
of ingenuity on the part of some orioles in Central 
Park, which, finding the twig on which they were 
building their nest too weak for its support, fastened 
it by a long string to the branch above. 


— Mr. Arthur R. Hunt read a paper to the Linnean 
society of London, on June 5, on the influence of 
wave-currents on the fauna inhabiting shallow seas. 
The author refers to various physical data, among 
others quoting Professor Stokes and Mr. T. Stevenson; 
the latter stating that a current of 0.6819 of a mile 
per hour will carry forwards fine gravel, and that of 
1.3638 will roll along pebbles an inch in diameter. 


SCIENCE. 75 


From this and other facts, Mr. Hunt argues that wave- 
currents do materially influence the marine fauna 
inhabiting shallow water, not only those of the tidal 
strand, but likewise those inhabiting the deeper sea- 
bottom. He adduces instances of animals living 
among or on rocks, and of those frequenting sand or 
other deposits, enumerating species of starfish, mol- 
lusks, shrimps, crabs, and fish. He says that even 
the flat fishes (Pleuronectidae) seem to have changed 
their original forms and habits for the purpose of 
being able to live in shallow waters agitated by waves. 
Referring more particularly to species of Cardium, 
he endeavors to show how, under the influence of 
wave-currents, the variation of species may be pro- 
moted, and even their local extinction brought about. 


— Professor Sir William Thomson, of the Univer- 
sity of Glasgow, and Prof. E. Frankland, have been 
elected honorary members of the Academy of sci- 
ences, Vienna. 


— Professor Ayrton has been formally appointed 
professor of physics at the Central institution of the 
City and guilds’ institute, London. 


— Mr. Carl Pearson has been appointed professor 
of applied mathematics at the University college, 
London. 


— Professor Edward Hull of the geological survey 
of Ireland, and his party, sent to Arabia Petraea un- 
der the auspices of the Palestine exploration fund, 
have made a complete traverse of the Wady el Ara- 
bah, and constructed a special geological map of this 
grand valley, as well as a general one of the whole 
region between the Red Sea and the mountains of 
Edom and Moab, — the latter on a small scale, thirty 
miles to the inch, to accompany the personal narra- 
tive which is to appear in November next: the former 
on a larger scale, for the scientific report, which will 
appear later. The scientific report will be chiefly 
geological, but will probably contain zoélogical and 
botanical chapters by Mr. H. C. Hart, and meteoro- 
logical data by Mr. Lawrence, together with a beau- 
tiful hill-shaded map of the Wady el Arabah, 
constructed by Major Kitchener and his assistants. 


—It is proposed to organize, under the auspices 
of the American social science association, during 
its next annual session at Saratoga, Sept. S-12, an 
American historical association, consisting of profes- 
sors, teachers, specialists, and others interested in the 
advancement of history in this country. Arrange- 
ments will be made for the presentation of a few 
original papers, in abstract, at the first meeting of 
the American historical association, which will be 
held in Putnam hall, Saratoga, Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 
four P.M. 


— Before the section of physiology of the inter- 
national medical congress of Copenhagen will be 
brought the following problems and communications: 
Professor Hammarsten of Upsala, the mucous sub- 
stances, and their relation to the albuminoid sub- 
stances ; Prof. R. Norris of Birmingham, and Professor 
Hayem of Paris, the réle of fugitive corpuscles in the 
formation of fibrine and coagulation, and the relation 


76 7 SCIENCE. 


between the hematoblasts of Hayem, the piastrines 
of Bizzozero, and the fugitive disks of the blood of 
Norris; Professor Dogiel of Kazan, the coagulation 
of fibrine; Dr. Wooldridge of Cambridge, the coagu- 
lation of blood; Professor Worm-Miiller of Chris- 
tiania, the proportion of the number of the red 
globules of blood to the quantity of haemoglobin 
and to that of the dry globules; Dr. Otto of Chris- 
tiania, the latest researches on haemoglobin and 
methemoglobin; Dr. C. Bohr of Copenhagen, re- 
searches to determine the absorption in the disso- 
ciation of oxyhaemoglobin; Professor Charles of 
Cork, the gas found in the secretions, especially 
the bile; Professor Engelmann of Utrecht, Professor 
Ranvier of Paris, Professor Merkel of Konigsberg, 
and Professor Retzius of Stockholm, demonstrations 
to show the structure and changes in form of the 
muscular fibres and of protoplasm in relation to 
their physiological function; Professor Heidenhain 
of Breslau, and Dr. Langley of Cambridge, the 
modifications of the glandular cells during their 
activity, and the relation between these modifications 
and the question of the trophic nerves; Dr. Gaskell 
of Cambridge, the inhibitory or restrictive actions 
of nervous force, and the restricting nerves in gen- 
eral; Professor Dogiel of Kazan, the causes of the 
movements of the heart and of their regulation, and 
of the condition of the hearts of animals which have 
died from the effects of various poisons; Professor 
Kronecker of Berlin, the centre of co-ordination of 
the movements of the auricles of the heart; Prof. 
H. Munk of Berlin, the functions of the cortex 
of the cerebral hemispheres; Professor Mosso of 
Turin, Professor Marey of Paris, and Dr. Frangois- 
Franck of Paris, the mechanism of the circulation; 
Dr. Francois-Franck of Paris, the experimental pa- 
thology of the circulation of the blood by artificial 
lesions of the heart; Professor Burdon Sanderson 
of London, and Professor Mosso, of Turin, the ap- 
plication of instantaneous photography to physio- 
logical researches; Professor Marey of Paris, the 
application of instantaneous photography to the study 
of voluntary movements; Professor Hensen of Kiel, 
and Dr. B. Baginsky of Berlin, the relation be- 
tween the structure and the function of the labyrinth; 
Dr. Blix of Upsala, the specific functions of the 
nerves of the skin; Professor Hensen of Kiel, the 
question whether the doctrine of heredity is to be in- 
cluded in a course in physiology; Professor Kronecker 
of Berlin, the present state of the knowledge of 
deglutition; Dr. Openchowski of Dorpat, the auto- 
matic, reflex, and inhibitory motions of the cardia 
of the stomach; and Prof. P. L. Panum of Copen- 
hagen, the slender intestinal fistule for physiological 
researches. 


— Among recent deaths, we note those of Mr. G. 


H. Boutigny, the physicist, on the 17th of March, — 


at Paris; Dr. T. A. Moesta, on the 9th of April, at 
Marburg; Dr. J. Bachmann, professor of geology at 
Berne, at that place early in April; John Williamson 
of Louisville, Ky., at the White Sulphur Springs, June 
16; Prof. J. H. R. Goeppert, who made a special 


[Vou. IV., No. 76. 


study of fossil plants, on the 18th of May, at Breslau, 
in his eighty-fourth year; Don Eulogio Jiminez, a 
prominent Spanish mathematician, at Madrid; Prof. 
C. Moesta, formerly director of the observatory at 
Santiago, Chile, at Dresden, on the 2d of April, at 
fifty-nine years of age; Professor Schoedler, author - 
of Buch der natur, at Mainz, April 27; and Prof. 
G. von Boguslawski, editor of the Annalen der 
hydroygraphie, at Berlin, May 4; Henry Watts, the 
well-known editor of the Watts Dictionary of chem- 
istry, June 30, in his seventieth year. 


— The ethnological sub-commitee at Berlin has 
again engaged Capt. J. A. Jacobson for a long expe- 
dition through Russia and Siberia, and also through 
the Amur region to the Pacific coast. Capt. Jacob- 
son, who only a few months ago returned from a two 
and a half years’ journey through Alaska and north- 
west America, whence he brought a collection of eight 
thousand objects, will start very soon. After he has 
made this journey, he intends to go to British Colum- 
bia, and enter again the service of the animal-mer- 
chant, Carl Hagenbeck, at Hamburg, for whom he 
has made several journeys before, through Lapland, 
Greenland, and Labrador. 


— The annual meeting of the Entomological club 
of the American association for the advancement of 
science will be held in a parlor of Hotel Lafayette, 
Philadelphia, commencing at two P.M., Wednesday, 
Sept. 3. In accordance with the rules of the club, 
the meeting is called the day before the opening of 
the general meeting of the association. Entomolo- 
gists who desire to read communications are re- 
quested to notify, as early as Aug. 15, either Dr. D. 
S. Kellicott, president, Buffalo, N.Y., or Mr. O. S. 
Westcott, secretary, Maywood, Ill. 


— To increase the interest in the work of the 
chemical section of the American association, the 
chairman of the section, Prof. J. W. Langley of Ann 
Arbor, has suggested that one or more subjects be 
brought up for special discussion, and, with the hope 
that others may be suggested by the members, has 
issued a circular, in which he puts forward the 
following as probably offering good opportunity for 
debate: 1°. To what extent is the hypothesis of ‘ va- 
lence,’ or ‘ atomicity,’ of value in explaining chemi- 
cal reactions ? 2°. What is the best initiatory course 
of work for students entering upon laboratory prac- 
tice? 38°. What is the best method for determining 
phosphoric acid? 4°. To what extent is the ‘ influ- 
ence of mass’ of practical importance in analytical 
operations? If the choice of a majority of the sec- 
tion falls on one or two topics, Professor Langley will 
have the titles put upon the Philadelphia announce- 
ments. 


— As an improvement of the meteorological ser- 
vice on the coast of eastern Asia, a meteorological and 
astronomical station has been established at Hong- 
Kong, on the peninsula Kaulun, opposite the city. 
Hitherto the observatory at Manila warned the port 
of Hong-Kong when a typhoon approached. — 


Dae. NG ET. 


FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue long uncertainty has been ended sooner 
than could reasonably have been expected. 
Greely and the remnant of his party have been 
rescued from imminent death. ‘The energy, 
boldness, and judgment of our naval officers 
have triumphed over all obstacles ; and, in spite 
of inexperience in such work, complete success 
has been attained. With the enfeebled sur- 
vivors were rescued the complete records of 
the work at the station, such instruments as 
were originally taken, from Lady Franklin 
Bay, and the mortal remains of those who had 
succumbed, except a few who had become the 
prey of winds and currents. 


The party accomplished all that they were 
sent to do, and much more, without loss of 
life, serious accident or disease, to any of its 
members. Making a successful retreat with 
records, instruments, and all hands, to a point 
where a sufficient store to have carried them 
through the winter should have been in wait- 
ing for them, and where it is even probable a 
vessel might have safely rescued them in the 
autumn of 1883, it was their fate to suffer and 
die from causes due largely to the ignorance 
and incompetency of others. Fortunately it is 
not our duty to allot the blame, or specify the 
acts, or failures to act, which brought about 
the disaster. It will, without doubt, form the 
subject of official inquiry, to which it may safely 
be left. Meanwhile the victims of stupidity 
are charged by the great mass of sympathizers 
to the account of arctic exploration. 


In this journal (No. 60) we stated that it 
was probable that Greely started southward 
from Lady Franklin Bay in July or August, 
1885 ; that the members of the party were living 

No. 77, — 1884. 


and in good health at that time; that a success- 
ful retreat to Cape Sabine would depend upon 
the opportunity of using their boats; that it 
was impossible for them to carry more than five 
or six months’ provisions south with them ; that 
it did not seem likely that there were provisions 
enough at Cape Sabine to carry them through 
the winter ; that they would probably be found 
at Cape Sabine when navigation opened in 
1884; that the prospect of the party reaching 
the eastern side of Smith Sound was almost 
unworthy of serious consideration ; and that the 
programme which would waste the time of the 
relief-ships on the east side of Smith Sound 
was open to severe criticism. The remarkable 
manner in which these conclusions (which 
merely voiced the general opinion of accessible 
arctic experts) have been justified by the facts 


is worthy the consideration of those who con- 


sider arctic travel a matter of luck rather than 
of study and experience. 


The geographical results of Greely’s work 
are detailed elsewhere in this issue. The most 
interesting to geographers are the details in 
regard to the form of the western part of Grin- 
nell Land and the physical features of that area, 
and the discovery of abundant game and re- 
cent Eskimo traces in its northern part. The 
additions to the shore-line of North Greenland 
are also very welcome, though the practical 
proof of the insularity of that continent had 
been already given by Bessels in his discussion 
of the Greenland tides. The reaching by 
Lockwood and Brainard of the highest north- 
ern latitude yet attained appeals strongly to 
American sentiment. The story of heroic en- 
deavor, and patient, loyal endurance, will be 
heard with kindling hearts and filling eyes by 
the brave and enterprising of all nations, while 
universal sympathy goes forth to those whose 
best and dearest heroically met their fate, 
as their last faint breath went out beneath the 
cold gray arctic sky. 


718 SCIENCE. 


WHEN the announcements were made of the 
honorary degrees conferred at the tercentenary 
celebration of the University of Edinburgh, 
some surprise was felt that American men of 
science appeared to be forgotten, while Ameri- 
can physicians and theologians were selected 
with obvious discrimination for their academic 
distinctions. It is now stated that the authori- 
ties at Edinburgh intimated to several Ameri- 
cans devoted to science, that the university 
would confer upon them the degree of doctor 
of laws if they would come and receive it, 
and that, in case of their non-attendance this 
year, they might be admitted to the honor if 
present on some future occasion. The list of 
men thus chosen may not be authentic, and we 
shall therefore refrain from reprinting it; but, 
as given in the newspapers, it includes, among 
others, a geologist and zodlogist, a botanist, 
an astronomer, and a philologist, every one of 
whom would be acknowledged in this country 
as a worthy representative of American science. 


THERE is fine opportunity to make the com- 
ing electric exhibition in Philadelphia a public 
educator as well as a brilliant display by giving 
due care to the explanation of the different 
groups of exhibits. Only a very small share 
of the visitors to such exhibitions understand 
what they see; but by far the greater number 
would gladly learn more than they know if the 
way were open. The untaught majority of the 
visitors may wonder and admire, but they really 
learn very little. Their curiosity is excited, but 
their reason is not satisfied. Printed explana- 
tions are seldom given: verbal explanations are 
often too technical to be of much value, even 
when the exhibiters can be found, and are will- 
ing to tell their story for the hundredth time. 


This might all be changed, if an extended 
‘series of well-considered explanatory cards 
were composed with the special object of 
‘eaching the most elementary inquiry, and 
‘arranged in such succession that the visitors 
who follow around the aisles in proper order 
should read a concise statement of the elements 
essential to the various contrivances in the 


bewildering display. Take, for example, the 


batteries, which will surely be exhibited in 
large variety. At the beginning of this class 
of exhibits, there should be a large card on 
which should appear some such statement 
as the following: ‘‘ The essential elements of 
a battery are so and so; -these essentials are 
reached in various ways, thus and thus and 
thus.’’ Then in further explanation of the 
different kinds of batteries, which should be 
classified as rationally and as distinctly as 
possible, the advantages claimed for each class 
could be appropriately defined, as cheapness, 
durability, intensity, constancy, etc.; or the 


‘special object in view might be stated, and the 


peculiar means to this end briefly set forth. 


There would be a double gain accomplished 
by such a method. The direct gain would be 
a distinctly better understanding of the exhibi- 
tion among the many intelligent visitors who 
were not especially informed on electrical mat- 
ters. The indirect gain would be a step in 
general education, in the recognition of the 
relation between the essentials of an apparatus 
and the contrivances by which they are attained. 
For most persons the contrivances are of small 
importance: they cannot be remembered, ex- 
cept in a few cases where peculiar reasons may 
give them special interest. But the essentials, 
the principles of construction freed from the 
details, are of the greatest service to all. The 
time and work required for the preparation of 
such guide-cards would be great, but the pub- 
le would consider them well expended. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


_ Cretaceous phosphates in Alabama. 


IN a previous letter I announced the occurrence of 
phosphates in the lower beds of the rotten limestone 
of the cretaceous formation of Alabama. I have 
since discovered that they are by no means confined 
to this horizon. 


Immediately overlying the rotten limestone, and 


forming the uppermost strata of the cretaceous for- 
mation, are beds of marls and clays, alternating with 
hard, crystalline, sandy limestones, usually assigned to 
the Ripley group of Professor Hilgard. Specimens 
examined from many localities show that these beds 
in Alabama, from Livingston in Sumter county, east- 


ward nearly to the Georgia line, are very generally 


phosphatic. 


[Vor. IV., No. 77. 


» 
} 
2 
\ 
4 


JULY 25, 1884. | 


The material from this horizon, which has been 
examined by me, consists, 1°, of marls— either cal- 
eareous clay marls, or light chalky marls — composed, 


in the main, of carbonate of lime (the few analyses. 


of these marls which have been made, show an aver- 
age content of about five per cent of phosphoric acid ; 
they occur across the whole width of the state, and 
are, in many instances, in very good condition for 
spreading upon the land: a marl of this kind at 
Coatopa has already been used with very fine results) ; 
2°, of limestone rock, usually crystalline, hard, and 
sometimes sandy, but occasionally soft and crum- 
bling; in one locality the calcareous matter has been 
leached out, leaving a porous sandstone: this lime- 
rock. which is the Ripley limestone, holds from ten 
to fifteen per cent of phosphoric acid, and extends 
entirely across the state: the aggregate amount of 
phosphoric acid contained in it is enormous; 38°, 
of nodular or concretionary masses of phosphate of 
lime, and nuclei or casts of gasteropods, bivalves, 
nautili, baculites, etc.; these, wherever examined, 
appear to be nearly pure phosphate of lime, but are 
found in comparatively limited quantities: not more 
than half a dozen quantitative analyses have yet been 
made of the phosphatic material from these beds; but, 
in making the qualitative tests, I have always used 
equal quantities of the different substances, and have 
thus been able to form some estimate of their com- 
parative value. 

The outcrops of the phosphatic beds occurring at 
the base of the rotten limestone, already described 
in a former letter, pass near the following places, 
— Pleasant Ridge, Eutaw, Greensboro, Hamburg, 
Selma, Prattville, Wetumpka, Tuskegee, and Society 
Hill, — while the beds now described above, outcrop 
along a line about thirty miles south of the former, 
passing through or near the following places, — Liv- 
ingston, Coatopa, Moscow, Dayton, Prairie Bluff, 
Minter Station, Fort Deposit, Union Springs, Flora, 
etc. ; the one line of outcrop being along the northern 
border of the ‘prairie region,’ the other along its 
southern border. 

It is, further, an interesting fact that the upper beds 
of the rotten limestone itself are phosphatic. I ex- 
amined recently the outcropping limestone from 
Livingston for six miles northward, and in every case 
found it to be more or less phosphatic; and in a few 
places I found nodular phosphates in small quantity. 
in other localities, as at Boligee, and between New- 
berne and Uniontown, at a distance from either 
border of the rotten limestone, occur phosphatized 
nuclei of shells. I have not yet had the opportunity 
of exaniining the strata at these places, and cannot, 
therefore, say whether or not the phosphates are con- 
fined to these nuclei, but am inclined to think that 
phosphatized strata occur at intervals through the 
whole thickness of the rotten limestone, as well as at 
its base and summit. 

Whether any of these phosphates may be profitably 
shipped to distant points or not, it is certain, that, in 
the phosphatic marls and greensands, our farmers, in 
the ‘ prairie region’ at least, have the materials for 
restoring the fertility of their soils at a comparatively 
sinall cost. EUGENE A. SMITH. 


University of Alabama, July 12. 


Swarming insects. 


I am not a properly qualified reporter of scientific 
facts, but the following observations have interested 
me:— 
I sat on the doorsteps of 626 Euclid Avenue some 
days ago, watching the ‘ Canada soldiers,’ of which 


SCIENCE. 79 


gnat-like looking insect I enclose a specimen. They 
filled the air. They were absolutely myriads. The 
north wind, I am told, brings them from over the 
lake; but they are ephemeral, and their dead bodies 
are almost as numerous on the pavements as their 
live bodies in the air. 

As I sat watching their flight, my attention was 
attracted to a singular smoke-like appearance on the 
top of a tall elm which stood at the edge of the street- 
curb. From the topmost branches of this tree rose 
vertically into the air four or five waving, flickering 
tongues of what at first looked like smoke, To 
describe their peculiar lambent motion, I can think 
of nothing better than the ‘cloven tongues of fire’ 
mentioned in the ‘Acts of the apostles ;’ or the darting, 
flashing spires of the aurora borealis, only the color 
was smoky, notfiery. Igivearudedelineation. The 


waving, playing motion of these smoky spires is sim- 
ply indescribable. They would fade and re-appear, 
wave back and forth as if swayed by the wind, mount 
higher and higher, until sometimes one would leap 
up twenty, thirty, or forty feet into the air. The 
look was as if the tree was smoking, the thin wiry 
columns of smoke streaming upintothesky. Closer 
examination disclosed the fact that these pillars of 
smoke in the evening twilight were really columns 
of winged insects, but whether the ‘ Canada soldiers,’ 
or a smaller insect, I could not see; and inquiry 
elicited the further fact that this phenomenon is not 
exceptional. Perhaps it has already been noted in 
your journal, but I venture to send you this brief and 
imperfect account of it. A Cleveland resident, to 
whom I have read this, is quite confident that it was 
a smaller insect which was thus disporting itself. 


EDWARD ABBOTT. 
Cleveland, O., July 9. 


[The ‘ Canada soldier’ sent is a large ephemerid, 
found in immense numbers about the Great Lakes. 
The pulsating swarms of small insects seen about 
the tree-top were undoubtedly formed of gnats (Chi- 
ronomidae), allied to the mosquitoes. The phenome- 
non has been frequently witnessed, both in this 
country and in Europe, to the great astonishment of 
the spectators. — ED. | 


80 


THE ORGANIZATION OF AN INTERNA- 
TIONAL SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 


SEVERAL months ago Science published an 
editorial on the proposed foundation of an In- 
ternational scientific association. Since that 
first public announcement of the project, inter- 
est in it has deepened and spread. There is 
now in circulation, for additional signatures, a 
request supported by some of the leading scien- 
tific men of America, and addressed to the two 
national associations which meet on our side 
of the ocean this year. This request is to 
the effect that the two bodies shall consider the 
advisability of forming an international asso- 
ciation: it is therefore appropriate to consider 
the grounds upon which we may advocate the 
execution of the proposal. 

There are many persons who have long held 
the conviction that some regular opportunity 
for international intercourse between scientific 
men, bringing them from all countries into 
personal contact with one another, would be 
equally useful and pleasant. The only feasi- 
ble manner yet suggested, so far as I am aware, 
of insuring the desired opportunities, is to 
establish an international society after the gen- 
eral type of the national associations and the 
international congresses, such as the medical, 
geological, etc.,— organizations which have 
already justified their existence by the good 
they have accomplished. It is believed that 
the time has now come for extending habitual 
scientific co-operation beyond the limits of each 
country, to all those that are active in the pro- 
motion of science. Moreover, the manifold 
sciences of the present have so many common 
interests, that the welfare of each is inseparable 
from the welfare of all; and therefore, when 
they all unite for the common good, will the 
highest purposes of knowledge be best served. 
This itis which renders a general scientific con- 
gress more advisable than a number of special 
ones. The body of wider purpose would also 
represent more fitly the full dignity of science. 

What advantages may be expected from the 
proposed International scientific association? 
Foremost must be placed, I think, the opportu- 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 77. 


nities for personal intercourse between men of — 


the same interests, but who, living in countries 
wide apart, would otherwise never meet. Ex- 
perience amply demonstrates the reality of the 
interest and advantage of contact, direct and 


immediate, of mind to mind, which affords an 


insight into another’s way of thought otherwise 
impossible. This is because conversation en- 
ables one to get by a short cut to the pith of 
thought, and to secure an explanation of just 
whatever has been obscure in the conceptions of 
another. The action of others’ minds becomes 
understood as it never can be from books. New 
points of view open up, and the error of the 
personal equation is diminished. Another ad- 
vantage must be sought in the meeting of spe- 
cialists of different branches, who mutually 
inform one another of the living interests of 
each other’s science. The importance of the 
actual sessions lies in the discoveries and dis- 
cussions filling them, and is so well recognized 
that this allusion is sufficient. As the associa- 
tion will have great dignity and high standing 
in all countries, it will be appropriate for it to 
undertake the adjustment of many of the 
international interests of science, such as the 
unification of standards, and other affairs 
requiring the concerted action of separate 
nations. ‘The establishment of uniformity the 
world over, in many matters, may certainly be 
more authoritatively made through the medium 
of a representative congress of scientific men 
of all nations than by any other means. 

As regards the special occasion of founding 
the new organization, the advocates of doing 
so in Americas this summer maintain that an- 
other opportunity is not likely to soon re-occur 
so favorable as will be afforded by the meeting 
of the British association in Canada, followed 
immediately by that of the American associa- 
tion in Pennsylvania. If the scheme is carried 


out, it will, in fact, be the legitimate and an- 
ticipated culmination of a movement of which 
the coming to America of the British associa- 


tion is one part. In 1881 the proposal was 


made that the American association invite the — 


British to America. This was actively dis- 
cussed ; and finally it was determined —largely, 


ll ti ee Cee eh ee 


JULY 25, 1884.] 


I believe, from motives of real modesty — to 
postpone the invitation, and issue instead a 
large number of special requests to individuals 
to attend from abroad the meeting of our as- 
sociation at Montreal. This duty fell to the 
local committee of Montreal in 1882. The 
large number of foreign visitors who came re- 
vived the hope that the British association 
could be induced to come over as abody. The 
matter was then independently taken up by the 
Canadians, and pushed generously and eagerly 
towards the great success which every one 
now anticipates for the gathering at Montreal. 
From the first it has been understood, that if 
the original enterprise, which was in many 
ways so full of difficulty, should be brought to 
a successful issue, then the still greater enter- 
prise should be broached, and the foundation 
of a permanent international association be 
attempted. 

It is hoped that the British association will 
take some action in the matter. It has been 
suggested that a committee with powers might 
be appointed to confer with the American as- 
sociation at Philadelphia. The organization 
of the latter body is such that no further official 
action on its part is possible until the time of 
meeting itself; but there can be no doubt as to 
the cordiality with which any proposal emanat- 
ing from the British association will be received. 
At present no definite plans have been formed, 
as it has been felt that public discussion was 
necessary before making any decision; but, as 
it is advisable to gather as many suggestions 
beforehand as possible, I shall be glad to cor- 


respond with any one interested in the propo- : 


sal.! 
Cuarwes S. Minor. 


THE IMPLEMENTS OF THE IGLOO. 


In my former article on the igloo of the In- 
nuit, published in Science last August and 
September, I said, in closing, ‘‘I should like 
to give a few brief descriptions of those appur- 
tenances that might be strictly called igloo ac- 
cessories, as the native stone lamp and kettle, 
the well to fresh water through the thick ice 


ie . Minot’s address is 25 Mt. Vernon St., Boston, Mass. 
— Ep. 


SCIENCE. 


oI 


beside the snow-hut, and many other minor 
items all growing out of the igloo itself; but 
this article has already grown to such dimen- 
sions that they must be laid aside.’’ A letter 
from the editor, requesting to know more about 
the life of the Eskimos among whom I was 
thrown, has induced me to take up my aban- 
doned subject as an appendix to my former 
article about the igloo itself. 

The snow-stick, called by the Eskimos ah- 
now’ -tuk, is a constant companion of the igloo, 
and is used to knock the snow off of the rein- 
deer clothes or bedding, when by any chance 
it has gotten on them. After the igloos are 
built, when camping on a sledge-journey, the 
reindeer-skins that are to form the bedding are 
given a beating with the ah-now-tuk as they 
are taken from the sledge, before being put in 
the snow-house ; and this beating must be very 
thorough if there has been a high wind with 
drifting snow during the day, or the sledge has 
upset, or any mishap has occurred to fill the 
hair with snow or ice. When a hunter comes 
into an igloo from the chase or a journey, he 
takes off his outer reindeer-coat (coo’-le-tah) 
and outer trousers (kok’-liks), both with their 
hair turned outwards ; and, if there be any snow 
or ice on them, a few dexterous strokes with 
the snow-stick soon rids them of it, when they 
are carefully rolled up and put at the foot of the 
bed, or, if the native is going to retire for the 
night, under his head as a pillow. When severe 
exercise brings on profuse perspiration, this is 
taken up by the inner reindeer-clothes, with 
their hair turned inwards, in the shape of an 
evenly distributed moisture, which, in thick fur 
especially, seldom reaches to the skin itself; 
and, when these clothes are taken off for the 
night, this freezes into a hoar-frost-like cover- 
ing, which is beaten off by the ah-now-tuk in 
the morning, before they are resumed. Some- 
times it is impossible to thoroughly get rid of 
this sabulous ice, and nothing is more disagree- 
able to an explorer than to crawl out of a warm 
sleeping-bag in the morning, and craw] into this 
powdery ice still clinging to the fur of the inner 
clothes ; but there is nothing to be done but to 
grin and bear it for the few short minutes it 
takes to warm the fur with the bare skin of the 
body. 

The ah-now-tuk itself can be any sort of 
handy club that one can wield with the right 
hand, while the clothes, bedding, etc., are held 
in the left:* but there is usually a particular 


1 J have spoken of the Innuit as right-handed. In connection 
with this remark, I think it would not be uninteresting to repro- 
duce a small portion of my address before the New-York academy 
of sciences, Noy. 1, 1880, relating to the ambidexterity of the 
Innuit. I there said, ‘‘I have often been impressed with the 


82 SCIENCE. 


form made by the more industrious ones, that I 
have tried to represent in fig. 1 ; for, when ordi- 
nary sticks are used, it is in the most shiftless 
igloos and abject families, about whom nothing 


a Cross-section 
; ona db. 


15” to 18” long. : 
13” to 23” ona b. db 


Ite, Ale 


can be taken as typical. It is bluntly ‘ edged,’ 
as shown in cross-section in fig. 1; and this 
facilitates the pounding-out of the snow where 
it has been deeply embedded by a strong wind, 
or ice which has frozen into the fur. They are 
generally made of hard wood (fig. 2), procured 
from the traders or whalers ; but I understand, 
that, in intensely cold weather, oak or hickory is 
more liable to break than pine or spruce. When 
wood is very scarce, they are sometimes made of 
bone. Fig. 3 rudely represents one in the pos- 
session of the author, made by the Netschilluks 
in and around King William’s Land, from the 
shin-bone of a reindeer, carved with grooves 
in the handle to fit the fingers. Oftentimes 
both wood and bone ah-now-tuks are carved into 
fanciful designs or figures, — an art for which 
the Innuits are so well celebrated. Sometimes, 
when the snow rests lightly on the garments to 
be cleaned, a glove is taken from the hand and 
used as an ah-now-tuk, especially where large, 
heavy bear-skin gloves are worn, — such as, I 
understand from Lieut. Ray, the Point Barrow 
natives use altogether. But it is easy to see 


| m, Cr eso wet ea ae 


[Vou. IV., No. 77 


are clogged into the fur; for I have seen a rein- 


deer-coat, soaked in water and covered with | 
solid ice when frozen, rid of this so as to be no — 


longer noticeable to the eye, by an Innuit’s ap- 


Cross-section on ab. 
a 


Fre. 3: 


plication of the ah-now-tuk. It usually takes 
about two or three minutes to clean a coat ; but, 
when the sledges have been out all day in a se- 
vere storm, half an hour is nothing unusual 
in cleaning every thing made of reindeer-skin. 
I have already hinted at one use of the snow- 
stick in my previous article, when the woman 
of the household would belabor the intruding 
dogs over the nose; and it is occasionally em- 
ployed by the lords of creation in correcting 
their spouses, although I think I can say that 
such instances are more rare than among 
equally ignorant people of civilized countries. 

The ice-chisel and ice-scoop, called by the 
Eskimos too’-oke and e’-lowt, are used in 
digging through the ice on a lake to get to 
fresh water. Going into camp near a lake or 
river, one or two persons, usually nearly grown 
boys, are sent out on the ice to dig a hole to 
eet fresh water; for, if snow or ice have to 
be melted, a quantity of oil is consumed, and. 
the warm meal is usually delayed about half 
or three-quarters of an hour thereby. The 
first thing to be done is to be sure and select 


Fig. 2. —SNOW-STICK MADE FROM THE WOOD OF FRANKLIN’S SHIPS. 


that they cannot compare in efficacy with the 
true snow-stick, especially where ice and snow 


ambidexterity of the various Eskimo tribes with whom I have 
come in contact, those not possessing this functional symmetry 


being rare exceptions to a general rule; and even in those, the - 


superiority of dexterity over gaucherie is not so well marked as 
in their more civilized brethren. They drive their dogs, using 
their whip indifferently with either hand. They shoot their 
game indifferently from either shoulder, skinning and carving 
their carcasses without regard to the particular hand employed. 
In the most delicate and complicated tasks that they undertake, 
the use of one hand onlyis imposed until it is fatigued, when it is 
freely exchanged for the other. Assuming the simple-minded 
Innuit to be low in the ethnological scale, these facts might sup- 
port the theory, so ably advanced by Dr. Daniel Wilson of To- 
ronto, that the primitive condition of man and other vertebrates 
was, as their early foetal condition still is, one of complete bilat- 
eral symmetry,not only structural, but also functional.” 


a place that is not frozen to the bottom. In 
a hilly country, with steep granitic, trap, or 
similar banks to the lakes or rivers, any place 
will do. Wherever sedimentary deposits oc- 
cur, more caution is needed. In a river the 
native is not a bad judge of the places where 
he will find the swiftest currents even under 
the ice, and here he knows that the glacial 
covering is the thinnest. Any snow banks or 
drifts that have been formed by the wind be- 
fore the temperature in the winter reached its 
minimum, will give thinner ice, and conse- 


quently less work ; for the snow can be shov- 


~ 


t 


SEwiesty 


JULY 25, 1884.] 


elled off in two or three minutes, even from the 
deepest drifts. If these drifts should be cov- 
ered with a crust, the native at once knows 


that they were formed during the October or 
November thaw, before the ice could have 
been very thick; and a couple of feet of drift 
will save him digging through nearly double 


| 


i 
os 
zi 


| 


Wi 


] 
| 
! = 


Fie. 5. 


that amount of ice. And with many of those 
savage traits bordering on instinct, he can 
closely judge about the age of the drift; for, if 
made since the coldest weather, it has been no 
protection to the ice-covering, and only adds 


SCIENCE. 


83 


the labor of removing it, slight as it is. Where 
there is no covering to the clear blue ice, you 
will often see them extended full length, their 
little pug noses pressed against it; for they 
can, by varying peculiarities of the hues, tell if 
it be frozen to the bottom, or not. The site 
selected by all these conditions duly weighed, 
the operation is commenced by starting a hole 
about a foot and a half in diameter, and prob- 
ably a foot deep, with the ice-chisel. In cut- 
ting with this, the ice has been broken up into 
small fragments ; and these are taken out with 
the ice-scoop, and this alternation kept up 
until water is reached. ‘The ice-scoop is the 
native ladle of musk-ox horn, firmly attached 
to a pole from eight to ten feet long (fig. 6, D). 
This ladle is made from the splayed base of 
the horn of the musk-ox. Fig. 4 represents 
one in the author’s possession. Fig. 5 is 
taken from Hall’s ‘ Narrative of the second 
arctic expedition.’ Ordinarily they subserve 
the purpose of a tin cup, or similar utensil, 
and hold from a pint to nearly two quarts. 
When used for an e-lowt, four holes are bored 
in the heavy handle (as shown in fig. 4), and 
through these the ladle is lashed to the pole by 
sinew (fig. 7). 


ee eee eee 


mil \ 
WA, See eee SS 
Fie. 6. 


The ice-chisel (fig. 6, @) is any cutting 
instrument, like a bayonet, sabre-point, or 
sharpened iron, a mortising-chisel being the 
best, on a similar pole to that of the scoop. 
The Ookjooliks and Netschilluks used iron 
spikes from Sir John Franklin’s ships. Usu- 
ally it swells out near the butt, where it is lashed 
to the chisel; and the main object of this, be- 
sides giving securer lashings, is when the last 
few strokes are made, that let the water from 
beneath into the ice-well, with four or five as 
powerful and rapid thrusts as the digger can 
make. This projection knocks the lower rim 
of ice off, and keeps the well a uniform width 
throughout, — an im- 
portant item, for 
through this hole 
many a meal of sal- 
mon may be caught. 
These last strokes 
must be very rapid; 
for, when the water starts into the well from such 
a depth, it comes apparently with the force of 
a fire-engine; and, once a foot or two deep. 


84 SCIENCE. 


the ice-chisel can no longer be worked. I 
have often seen the water come up the well 
with such impetuosity that it would overflow 
the ice where the ice-digger was standing, then 
sink a couple of feet in the well, and keep pul- 
sating for five or ten minutes before coming to 
an equilibrium, generally about two to three 
inches from the upper ice-level. Besides the 
purpose of fresh water for cooking and drink- 
ing at a camp, the native sledgeman, if the ice 
be ripped from his sledge-runner by stones or 
ice while on a journey, will stop and dig 
through six or seven feet of ice to re-ice this 
part of his sledge — so important is it, if his 
vehicle be heavily loaded, or only dragged by 
a few dogs. 

The average ice-wells are about six or seven 
feet deep. The thickest we had to dig on our 
King William Land sledge-journey was eight 
feet four inches; and I very seriously doubt 
if it ever gets more than a foot or a foot and a 
half deeper than this on fresh water, in any 
part of the arctic, where all the ice is melted 
in the summer. ‘This distance, the natives told 
me, was the deepest they had ever seen. Of 
course their judgment can only be approxima- 
tion, but nevertheless moderately reliable. <A 
six-foot ice-well will be dug usually in about 
forty to forty-five minutes, although the more 
active may do it in half that time. If the ice 
has been much permeated by cracks, by dig- 
ging on one of these, and especially where two 
of them cross, one may greatly lessen the time. 
Another use to which these two instruments are 
put, extraneous to their usual purpose, is to 
stick them upright in the snow at a camping- 
igloo, and on their tops the dog-harnesses, 
which, if made of seal-skin or any kind of skin, 
are liable to be devoured by their wearers when 
unusually hungry; and this position, eight or 
ten feet in the air, is a very safe place for 
them for the night. <A native sledgeman, 
driving through rough, hum- 
mocky ice, often uses the ice- 


[Vou. IV.,, No. 7%. 


fore they gave it up or were successful. It is 
very astonishing how soon they can tell wheth- 
er the well is going to be a failure; the merest 
pinch of earth, way down in its depth of five 
or six feet, instantly arresting their eye, when 
the same would hardly be distinguishable on 
the surface, to the ordinary eye. That very 
instant they stop digging; for many of them 
are as careful of the edges of their ice-chisels 
as a man is of his razor. 

The implements used in the construction of 
the igloo, the snow-knife and snow-shovel, have 
already been described in the article on the 
igloo. ; 

The cooking-implements consist of the stone 
kettle (oo-quee’-sik) and stone lamp (kood’- 
lik), so often described 
by arctic travellers ; and 
for that reason I will 
only dwell upon them 
briefly. They are de- 
scribed by Surgeon Fish- 
er, of Parry’s first expe- 
dition, as made of lapis 
allaris, or pot-stone. Dr. Hayes not inaptly 
compares the lamp, in shape, to a clam-shell ; 
and, if the shell only had a slightly straighter 
edge, the comparison would be very good. 
Fig. 8 represents an outline view of one stand- 
ing on the usual three sticks stuck in the 
snow-platform in front of the snow-bed, a 6 
indicating the edge along which the flame is 
lighted. These lamps usually hold from half 
a pint to two or three quarts of oil, so vari- 
able are they in size; and this oil, when the 
lamp is properly adjusted by the rear stick, 
just touches the edge a0, along which there 
is placed a species of compact moss, that has 
been thoroughly dried, and rolled in the two 
open palms (as a sailor would prepare his pipe 
of tobacco) with a small quantity of fat, and 
lighted. This moss must be kept dense, or the 


Fie. 8. 


chisel to clear his way, and 


will make the angular ice in 


front of him disappear in a 


manner most astonishing. 
When one ice-well has been 
unsuccessful (that is, when the 
ice extends to the bottom), 
they may melt ice if they have 
plenty of oil: for by that time 
the igloo may be completed, and the lamp burn- 
ing, although generally they can and do dig 
two by that time; and I have known cases 
where they were extremely anxious to econo- 
mize oil, and six or seven wells were dug _ be- 


Fig. 9. 


lamp, with its six to thirty inches of flame 
along this edge, will smoke beyond endurance ; 
and this is done with a small stick of hard 
wood a little larger than a pencil. This ‘ trim- 
ming’ of the lamps is quite an accomplishment, 


JULY 25, 1884.] 


and only reaches perfection in the old women 
of the tribe, some of whom can prepare a lamp 
so that it will give a good steady flame for 
several hours, while usually half an hour is the 
best that can be expected. They are con- 
stantly broken; and those I saw thus injured 
were cemented with a mixture of blood, clay, 
and hair, according to the Innuits, although I 


Fie. 10. 


could not verify the mixture by watching the 
operation. Fig. 9 is a good view of a lamp 
(from Hall’s ‘ Narrative of the second arctic ex- 
pedition ’) that has been broken, and repaired by 
- Sinew; and, although: I do not now recall any 
such mending, I should think it better than the 
other, although, as far as I could see, the first 
way was so perfect that new cracks would form 
directly beside the old, but not in it; and I 
suppose that the one mentioned by Hall may 
have had this cement in addition to the sewing, 
in order that it should hold oil. Heavy as it 
is, the natives carry it with them everywhere ; 
and I hardly know of any thing in civilization 
that could effectually replace it, were they even 
inclined to do so. Its constant companion is 
the stone kettle, which is nothing more nor 


less than a rectangular vessel (fig. 10), hold- 
ing from a quart to a gallon, whose flat bottom 
is a little shorter than the flame of the lamp 
directly over which it swings, so that the 
flame just touches its bottom. It is superior, 
for their use, to brass, copper, or sheet-iron 
vessels of any shape, and has seldom been 


SCIENCE. 85 


replaced by them, even when these could be 
readily had; and the few cases I know have 
been unwilling ones. It suffers the same 
mishaps in breakage, mendings, and journeys, 
as its constant fellow the lamp, to which it is 
suited in size, and from which it is seldom 
parted. Over a framework of long wooden 
sticks, thrust through the side of the igloo if 
horizontal, or into the snow-platform if perpen- 
dicular, is laid a bent piece of wood or a barrel- 
hoop (fig. 11), across which is woven in’rough 
design a number of sinew strings, forming a 
network ; and on this net are laid the reindeer 
stockings and gloves, and every thing, in fact. 
that is required to be warmed or dried. This 
net can always be found in every igloo, and 
hanging from every sledge that is transporting 
household effects. 

The seal-skin bucket (fig. 12) holds from 
two quarts to double 
as many gallons, and 
is generally made 
large, so that its con- 
tents will not freeze 
solid during the night. 
It is made of seal-skin 
(the smaller hair-seal), 
tanned so as to be de- 
prived of the hair, and 
furnished with a han- 
dle of the same ma- 
terial sewed on. It 
always bulges out on one side into a sort of 
spout, where, by constant use in drinking from 
this place, they have produced it. When 
empty of water, and clogged with ice (as it 

usually is when they start to the ice- 
well to refill it), it is given a vigorous 
beating over a sledge, a hard snow-drift, 
or, if in a sportive mood, over a dog’s 
head, the broken ice-splinters flying in 
every direction, leaving it as limber as a 
piece of canvas. The im-moo’-sik, or 
musk-ox ladle, already described as_ sub- 
serving another purpose, and _ seal-skin 
bucket, are slowly giving way to the uten- 
sils of a similar character of civiliza- 
tion. 

The reindeer bedding can hardly be 
treated under this title, and the snow-knife 
and snow-shovel were described in my 

former article. The sum total of ‘igloo im- 
plements ’ shows them, therefore, to agree in 
simplicity and small numbers with all other 
implements with which the people wrest an 
existence from a niggardly nature. 
FREDERICK SCHWATKA, 
Lieut. U. S. army. 


Hie. 12: 


86 


COUES’S KEY TO NORTH-AMERICAN 
BIRDS. 


Key to North-American birds. Containing a concise 
account of every species of living and fossil bird at 
present known, from the continent north of the Mexi- 
can and United-States boundary, inclusive of Green- 
land. By Exxviorr Coves. 2d ed. Boston, 
Estes & Lauriat, 1884. 30+868 p., 561 fig.) 8°. 


THE original edition of the ‘ Key,’ published 
in 1872, consisting of three hundred and sixty- 
one imperial octavo pages and two hundred 
and thirty-eight woodcuts, is well known to 
all students of American birds. The present 
edition is not only ‘ entirely rewritten,’ but 
contains nearly four times as much matter, and 
more than twice as many illustrations, as the 
first; yet in bulk the work is scarcely larger, 
being printed on thinner paper and in smaller 
type. While most of the old illustrations have 
been retained, many have been replaced by 
better ones, nearly one-half are added from 
the author’s previous works and other published 
sources, while some fifty or more have been 
engraved expressly for this edition. While the 
old ‘ Key ’ has proved eminently useful, it was 
not without its defects, owing mainly to extreme 
conciseness of treatment. ‘The present ‘ Key ’ 
is modelled on the plan of the old, and written 
in the same spirit, but is the same mainly in 
title. 

The work opens with an ‘ historical preface,’ 
occupying some sixteen pages, in which is 
felicitously sketched the history of North- 
American ornithology from its earliest begin- 
ning nearly to the date of the first edition 
of the ‘ Key.’ The history is divided into 
‘epochs’ and ‘ periods;’ and the influence 
various writers have had upon the progress of 
the subject is judiciously weighed, and thrown 
into strong relief. Then follows the preface 
proper, in which the author explains the differ- 
ences between the present edition and the 
earlier one, and makes his acknowledgments 
of aid, in the preparation of the work, received 
from various persons and sources. 

The work proper is divided into four ‘ parts.’ 
Part i. (pp. 1-58) is entitled ‘ Field ornithol- 
ogy,’ and forms a manual of instruction for 
collecting, preparing, and preserving birds. 
This is a nearly verbatim reprint of a separate 
work having this title, published by the author 
in 1874, and already well known as a work of 
great practical usefulness to collectors. Part 
li., ‘General ornithology,’ is devoted to an 
elementary exposition of the structure and 
classification of birds, and occupies pp. 99—- 
236. It (1) defines birds as distinguished 
from other vertebrates, (2) discusses the prin- 


SCIENCE... 


ciples of classification and their application, 
(3) gives definitions and descriptions of the 
exterior parts of birds, and (4) devotes nearly 
one hundred pages to the anatomy of birds, 
giving a general outline of the subject. Part 
li. is very fully illustrated with well-chosen 
figures. The portion of the text devoted to 
the anatomy of birds is entirely new, and 
suffices to give very fairly the rudiments of 
the subject, which is all the author attempts. 
Many of the figures are drawn from nature by. 
Dr. Shufeldt expressly for the work: others 
are after Parker, Huxley, and other well-known 
authorities. This part closes with artificial 
keys to the orders, sub-orders, and families. 
The attempt made in the old ‘ Key’ to carry 
the student at once to the genera is here aban- 
doned. 

Part iii. (pp. 237-820), devoted to a ‘ Sys- 
tematic synopsis of North-American birds,’ 
forms, of course, the main body of the work. It 
describes all the species and sub-species, and 
defines the genera and higher groups of North- 
American birds. The descriptions are much 
amplified from those given in the first edition, 
but with the idea still in view of sharp defini- 
tion. The references to authorities previously 
given are omitted, perhaps not unwisely; and 
in their place we find an epitome of the life- 
history of the species, with special reference 
to their nesting-habits, song, flight, and migra- 
tions. These display at its best the author’s 
happy knack of hitting in few words a bird’s 
leading and characteristic traits. More space 
is also given to an.account of the geographical 
distribution of the various species and races, 
and the plumages of female and immature 
birds are more fully and much more satisfacto- 
rily indicated. 
is given under each sub-family, and the species 
are analyzed under the genera. The matter 


‘given under each species is apparently about 


four to six times greater than in the old ‘ Key,’ 
and is sufficient to give in satisfactory detail, 
not only its technical characters, but a glimpse 
at the rdle it plays in life. The number of 
species and sub-species treated is eight hun- 
dred and ninety-nine, which are placed under 
three hundred and forty-nine genera. The 
technical names are marked for accent, and 
they are also etymologically defined. 

Part iv. (pp. 821-830) is devoted to a ‘ Sys- 
tematic synopsis of the fossil birds of North 
America,’ numbering forty-six species. Of 
these, twenty-five are tertiary (sixteen being 
referred to living genera), twenty cretaceous, 
and one Jurassic. This part, the author tells 
us, has been revised by Professor Marsh. 


oO 
{=) 


[Vou. IV., Nos Vie 


An artificial key to the genera. 


JULY 25, 1884,] 


The classification adopted is at some points 
radically different from that employed in the 
first edition, particularly as regards the prima- 
ry divisions of the class. The number of ‘ or- 
ders ’ now adopted for North-American birds, 
which belong all to the ‘ sub-class’ Carinatae, 
is thirteen, subdivided into twenty sub-orders, 
sixty-three families, and seventy-seven sub- 
families. 

The twelve years which have passed since 
the appearance of the original edition of the 
‘ Key,’ have been marked by astriking increase 
in our knowledge of North-American birds. 
This advance would alone render any general 
work on the subject, published at that date, to 
some extent antiquated and unsatisfactory, 
however excellent it may have been in its time. 
The old ‘ Key ’ has unquestionably had a career 
of usefulness, and has helped on the advance 
that has so strongly characterized the last dec- 
ade of North-American ornithology; the ob- 
ject of the treatise being to enable any one, by 
its aid, to identify his specimens without re- 
course to other information than that the book 
itself afforded. The undertaking was to some 
extent, at least in its methods, an innovation 
in zodlogy, and, however well it may have 
served its purpose, was obviously open to im- 
provement, as such attempts must always be. 
Its defects were doubtless as quickly seen by 
its author as by others; and to remedy these, 
and bring the work down to date, the author 
was led to prepare this much enlarged, and in 
many ways greatly improved, second edition. 
The first edition emphasized, and in a large 
degree initiated, a new departure in respect to 
the status of many forms of North-American 
birds, which were degraded from species in reg- 
ular standing to the grade sub-species or geo- 
graphical races, and referred, as ‘ varieties,’ to 
the species from which they were found to be 
not completely differentiated. Since that time 
the custom has arisen and become established, 
among American ornithologists, of discarding 
the interpolated ‘ var.’ between the varietal and 
specific names of such forms; and, in accord- 
ance with this custom, the new ‘ Key ’ adopts 
the new ‘ trinomial’ nomenclature for such in- 
tergrading forms as it seems wise to recognize 
in nomenclature. The names are, in fact, 
strictly those of the author’s revised ‘ Check- 
list,’ published in 1882, plus about a dozen 
since added. 

As regards paper and typographical execu- 
tion, the work is all that need be desired; the 
composition and press-work being that of the 
Cambridge University press. The author tells 
us that his publishers generously allowed him 


SCIENCE. 87 


‘to make the book to suit himself,’ sparing no 
expense to which they might in consequence 
be put. While some of the cuts are not above 
criticism, many of them are fine, so that their 
average grade is high; and in nearly every 
case their origin is duly accredited. The work 
as a whole is certainly very tastefully executed. 


WIEDEMANN’S ELECTRICITY. 


Die lehre von der elektricitét. Yon Gustav WIEDE- 
MANN. 2vyols. Braunschweig, Vieweg, 1882-83. 
11+795, 7+1002 p. 8°. 


Tue work which forms the subject of this 
notice is the successor to ‘Die lehre vom 
galvanismus und elektromagnetismus,’’ by the 
same author, first published in 1861,-and fol- 
lowed by a second edition in 1874. Ever since 
its publication, the original work has been 
recognized as a practically exhaustive treatise 
on the topics included within the limits set by 
the author. Every discovery and observation 
is referred to the original publication, and its 
date is given. These references, so charac- 
teristic of the previous work, are continued 
and extended in the present treatise; and 
they form a classified index to the literature 
of electricity with the historical advantage of 
dates. One is surprised at the extent and 
range of the literature to which reference is 
made. 

It is a suggestive fact, that a third edition 
simply of the original work could not repre- 
sent the present knowledge of galvanic elec- 
tricity and electromagnetism with that unity 
and completeness which the author’s plan con- 
templated. The separation between static and 
galvanic electricity, which obtained up to the 
middle of the present century, can no longer 
be maintained: hence Professor Wiedemann 
wisely decided to extend the scope of his work, 
and to prepare with immense labor a practically 
new book under the more comprehensive title 
of ‘ Electricity.’ This decision must be uni- 
versally approved; for, aside from the very 
evident advantage of having a complete trea- 
tise in place of a partial one, the present con- 
ception of electricity forbids the treatment of 
the subject under its historical divisions. This 
division, which seemed imperative twenty-five 
or thirty years ago, has now become impossi- 
ble. No fundamental differences between the 
two classes of electricity, due to different 
methods of generation, are now recognized. 
With galvanometers sufliciently sensitive to be 
affected by static discharges, on the one hand, 
and with electrometers capable of measuring 


88 SCIENCE. 


with great ease the difference of potential be- 
tween the poles of a single cell, on the other, 
it is readily seen that static electricity acquires 
its predominant but not exclusive character 
from great difference of potential, while gal- 
vanic electricity produces its most striking 
effects by the transfer of great quantities of 
electricity as a current. The terms ‘static’ 
and ‘galvanic’ serve only to denote the ex- 
tremes of electrical phenomena. In fact, the 
contact theory of potential difference unifies the 
whole science by giving a common account of 
the historically diverse forms of statie and gal- 
vanic electricity ; for it is now generally be- 
lieved that the potential difference in frictional 
machines is due to contact of dissimilar bodies, 
while the old contest which began with Volta 
and Galvani is now set at rest by the happy 
compromise of assigning electromotive force 
to contact, and the energy of the current to 
chemical action. 

The first volume of Professor Wiedemann’s 
new work treats of general electrical phenom- 
ena, the excitation of electricity by contact of 
dissimilar bodies, Ohm’s law and its conse- 
quences, determination of resistance in a great 
variety of bodies, measurement of electromo- 
tive force, and galvanic elements. The second 
volume is devoted to dielectrics, the theory of 
frictional and influence machines, the relations 
between heat and electricity, and to electro- 
chemistry. 

Mathematical treatment of the subject is in- 
troduced so far as it serves to establish general 
principles or theories, and to discuss methods 
and confirm results. Beyond this, mathemati- 
cal discussions, which are interesting as mathe- 
matical exercises, but which do not advance 
our knowledge of physical principles, are 
either omitted entirely, or are referred to by 
citation. 

The applications of electricity are noticed 
only so far as they serve to give complete- 
ness to a scientific knowledge of the subject. 

It was reported a year ago that the manu- 
script of the two concluding volumes was nearly 
ready for the press. 

Professor Wiedemann has placed all physi- 
cists under obligations by his full and logical 
presentation of all the facts and principles of 
the science of electricity. - While the work does 
not possess the originality of Maxwell’s, and 
is written with an entirely different purpose, 
it must, nevertheless, be classed with it as one 
of the great works on electricity. Considered 
from the point of view of giving a complete ac- 
count of what is known respecting this branch 
of physics, and of showing what each investi- 


gator has contributed to our common stock 
of knowledge of electricity, this book is not 
equalled by any other in any language. 

| Hi. S.C: 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


No piece of news of wider interest has traversed 
the wires of two continents since Science was founded 
than that which announced last week the rescue of 


the Greely party. The story of their frightful suf- ~ 


ferings, their sad losses, and the successful accom- 
plishment of their duties, is briefly told in the two 
despatches from Lieut. Greely, which we print in full 
below. It appears, that, when found, they were hud- 
dled in a tent, which the force of the gale had blown 
down upon them. The strongest of them could hold 
aloft the signal-flag, to guide the relief-party they 
could hear but not see, for two brief minutes only; 
and the weakest begged to be left to die in peace. 
Their provisions were utterly exhausted, and they 
had been living for weeks on a stew made from their 
sealskin clothing, with lichens and small shrimps; 
and it is highly probable that a detention of the relief- 
party for two days would have cost the entire party 
their lives. 

The following two despatches from Lieut. Greely 
were received by the chief signal-officer on July 17: — 

Brainard, Bierderbick, Connell, Fredericks, Long, 
and myself, the sole survivors, arrived to-day, having 
been rescued at the point of death from starvation 
by relief-ships Thetis and Bear, June 22, at Camp 
Clay, north-west of Cape Sabine. All are now in 
good health, but weak. Sergeant Ellison, who was 
rescued, died July 8. Cross died last January; 
Christianson, Linn, Rice, Lockwood, Jewell, and 
Edwards, in April; Ellis, Rainston, Whisler, Israel, in 
May; Kingsbury, Salor, Henry, Bender, Pavy, Gar- 
diner, Schneider, in June. Abandoned Fort Conger 
Aug. 9. Frozen in pack, off Victoria Head, Aug. 29. 
Abandoned steam-launch, Sept. 11, eleven miles 
north-east of Cocked Hat Island. When on the point 
of landing, we were three times driven by south-west 
storms into Nares Sea. Finally landed, Sept. 29, in 
Baird Inlet. Learning by scouting-parties of the 
Proteus disaster, and that no provisions had been left 
for us from Cape Isabella to Sabine, moved, and estab- 
lished winter quarters at Camp Clay, halfway be- 
tween Sabine and Cocked Hat. Aninventory showed, 
that by a daily ration of four and one-third ounces 
of meat, seven of bread and dog-biscuit, and four 
ounces miscellaneous, the party would have ten days’ 
full rations left for crossing Smith Sound to Littleton 
Island, March 1. Unfortunately, Smith Sound re- 
mained open the entire winter, rendering crossing 
impossible. Game failed, despite daily hunting, from 
early in February. Before the sun returned, only 
five hundred pounds of meats were obtained. This 


year minute shrimps, seaweed, sassafras, rock-lichens, — 


and sealskin were resorted to for food, with results 
as shown by the number of survivors. Last regular 
food issued May 14. Onlya hundred and fifty pounds 


eo ae ae 


[Vou. IV., No. 77. - 


4 


JULY 25, 1884. 


of meat being left by Garlington, compelled me to 
send, in November, four men to obtain a hundred and 
forty-four pounds English meat at Isabella. During 
the trip, Ellison froze solid both hands and feet, and 
lost them all; surviving, however, through our terrible 
winter and spring, until July 8. Survivors owe their 
lives to the indomitable energy of Capt. Schley 
and Lieut. Emory, who, preceded by three and ac- 
companied by five whalers, forced their vessels from 
Upernavik, through Melville Bay, into northwater at 
Cape York with the foremost whaler. They gained 
a yard whenever possible, and always held it. Smith 
Sound was crossed, and our party rescued, during one 
of the most violent gales I have ever known. The 
boats were handled only at imminent risk of swamp- 
ing. Four of us then were unable to walk, and could 
not have survived exceeding twenty-four hours. 
Every care and attention were given us. Have saved 
and bring back copies of meteorological, tidal, astro- 
nomical, magnetic, pendulum, and other observations; 
also pendulum, Yale and standard thermometers, 
forty-eight photographic negatives, a collection of 
blanks and photographic proofs. Eskimo relics and 
other things necessarily abandoned. The Thetis re- 
mains here five days probably. 

GREELY, Commanding. 


For the first time in three centuries, England yields 
the honor of the farthest north. Lieut. Lockwood 
and Sergeant Brainard, May 13, reached Lockwood 
Island (latitude 83.24°, longitude 44.5°). They saw, 
from a two thousand feet elevation, no land north or 
north-west, but, to the north-east, Greenland, Cape 
Robert Lincoln (latitude 83.35°, longitude 38°). 
Lieut. Lockwood was turned back, in 1883, by open 
water on North Greenland shore, the party barely 
escaping drift into polar ocean. Dr. Pavy, in 1882, 
following the Markham route, was adrift one day in 
polar ocean north of Cape Joseph Henry. Escaped 
to land, abandoning nearly every thing. In 1882 I 
made a spring, and later a summer, trip into the inte- 
rior of Grinnell land, discovering Lake Hazen, some 
sixty by ten miles in extent, which, fed by ice-caps 
of North Grinnell Land, drains Ruggles River and 
Weyprecht Fiord into Conybeare Bay and Archer 
Fiord. From the summit of Mount Arthur, five thou- 
sand feet, the contour of land west of the Conger 
Mountains convinced me that Grinnell Land tends 
directly south from Lieut. Aldrich’s farthest in 1876. 
In 1883 Lieut. Lockwood and Sergeant Brainard 
succeeded in crossing Grinnell Land, and ninety 
miles from Beatrix Bay, the head of Archer Fiord, 
struck the head of a fiord from the western sea, tem- 
porarily named by Lockwood, Greely Fiord. From 
the centre of the fiord, in latitude 80.30°, longitude 
78.30°, Lieut. Lockwood saw the northern shore ter- 
mination some twenty miles west, the southern shore 
extending some fifty miles,- with Cape Lockwood 
some seventy miles distant, apparently a separate 
land from Grinnell Land. Have named the new 
land Arthur Land. Lieut. Lockwood followed, going 
and returning, ice-caps averaging about fifteen feet 
perpendicular face. It follows that the Grinnell Land 
interior is ice-capped, with a belt of country some sixty 


SCIENCE. 


89 


miles wide between the northern and southern ice- 
caps. In March, 1884, Sergeant Long, while hunting, 
looked from the north-west side of Mount Carey to 
Hayes’s Sound, seeing on the northern coast three 
capes westward of the farthest seen by Nares in 1876. 
The sound extends some twenty miles farther west 
than shown by the English chart, but is possibly shut 
in by land, which showed up across the western 
end. Thetwo-years’ station-duties, observations, all 
explorations, and the retreat to Cape Sabine, were 
accomplished without loss of life, serious accident, or 
even severe frost-bites. No scurvy was experienced 
at Conger, and but one death from it occurred last 
winter. GREELY, Commanding. 


On the same day, Commander Schley addressed 
the following telegram to the secretary of the navy, 
which summarizes the action of the relief squad- 
ron:— 

The Thetis, Bear, and Loch Garry arrived here to- 
day from West Greenland. All well. Separated from 
Alert a hundred and fifty miles north during a gale. 
At nine P.M., June 22, five miles off Cape Sabine, 
in Smith Sound, Thetis and Bear rescued alive 
Lieut. A. W. Greely, Sergeant Brainard, Sergeant 
Fredericks, Sergeant Long, Hospital-Steward Bier- 
derbick, Private Connell, and Sergeant Ellison, —the 
only survivors of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition. 
Sergeant Ellison had lost both hands and feet by frost- 
bite, and died July 6, at Godhaven, three days after 
amputation, which had become imperative. Seven- 
teen of the twenty-five persons composing this ex- 
pedition perished by starvation at the point where 
found. One was drowned while sealing to procure 
food. ‘Twelve bodies of the dead were rescued, and 
are now on board the Thetis and Bear. One Eskimo, 
Turnevik, was burried at Disco in accordance with 
the desire of the inspector of western Greenland. 
Five bodies, which were buried in the ice-fort near 
the camp, were swept away to sea by winds and cur- 
rents before my arrival, and could not be recovered. 
The names of the dead recovered, with date of death, 
are as follows: Sergeant Cross, Jan. 1, 1884; Wederick, 
Eskimo, April 5; Sergeant Linn, April 6; Lieut. 
Lockwood, April 9; Sergeant Jewell, April 12; Pri- 
vate Ellis, May 19; Sergeant Rainston, May 23; Private 
Whisler, May 24; Sergeant Israel, May 27; Lieut. 
Kingsbury, June 1; Private Henry, June 6; Private 
Schneider, June 18. The names of the dead buried 
in the ice-fort, with date of death, where the bodies 
were not recovered, are as follows: Sergeant Rice, 
April 6, 1884; Corporal Salem, June 3; Private Bender, 
June 16; Acting Assistant Surgeon Pavy, June 6: 
Sergeant Gardiner, June 12, drowned while breaking 
through the newly-formed ice while sealing; Jans 
Edwards, Eskimo, April 24. ... 

Greely abandoned Fort Conger Aug. 9, 1883, and 
reached Baird Inlet Sept. 29 following, with entire 
party well. Abandoned all his boats, and was adrift 
for thirty days on ice-floe in Smith Sound. His 
permanent camp was established Oct. 21, 1883, at 
the point where he was found. During nine months, 
his party had to live upon a scant allowance of food 
brought from Fort Conger, — that cached at Payer 


s 


90 | SCIENCE. 


ey 
- £oresby ff, 
nf, AS 
’ we 
2 
SON etree 
icloria at ~ 
ME Carey Sexo at 
ars = 
ce C2 
Cre cant 


2 


eo® 

pe oe Rens 

POS Se]. 
LA ° ser B¢ Ao ance(D0r Kane’ 
aa 


Cy, id Inlet 
abel, Littleton bg Stes farce 


Pandara lee ey CUSIRS win 
aR, 


Gh, 
ange 


(ab 


Ay TL winter 1853-4-5 Re 


MAP SHOWING POINTS VISITED BY GREELY’S PARTY. 


Harbor and Cape Isabella by Sir George Nares in 
1875, but found much damaged by lapse of time; 
that cached by Beebe at Cape Sabine in 1882; and a 
small amount saved from the wreck of the Proteus in 
1883, and landed by Lieuts. Garlington and Colwell 
on the beach where Greely’s party was found camped. 
When these provisions were consumed, the party was 
forced to live upon boiled sealskin strips from their 


sealskin clothing, lichens, and shrimps preserved in 
good weather, when they were strong enough to make 
exertion. As thirteen hundred shrimps were required 
to fill a gallon-measure, the labor was too exhausting 
to depend upon them to sustain life entirely. The 
channel between Cape Sabine and Littleton Island 
did not close, on account of violent gales, all winter; 
so that two hundred and forty rations at the latter 


JULY 25, 1884. ] 


point could not be reached. Ali Greely’s records, 
and all the instruments brought by him from Fort 
Conger, are recovered, and are on board. 

From Hare Island to Smith Sound I had a con- 
stant and furious struggle with ice in impassable 
‘floes. Solid barriers of ice were overcome by watch- 
fulness and patience. No opportunity to advance a 
mile escaped me; and for several hundred miles the 
ships were forced to ram their way from lead to lead, 
through ice varying in thickness from three to six 
feet, and, when rafted, much greater. The Thetis 
and Bear reached Cape York June 18, after a passage 
of twenty-one days in Melville Bay, with the two ad- 
vance ships of the Dundee whaling-fleet, and contin- 
ued to Cape Sabine. Returning seven days later, fell 
in with seven others of this fleet off Wostenholme 
Island, and announced Greely’s rescue to them, that 
they might not be delayed from their fishing-grounds, 
nor be tempted into the dangers of Smith Sound in 
view of the reward of twenty-five thousand dollars 
offered by Congress. Returning across Melville Bay, 
fell in with the Alert and Loch Garry off Devil’s 
Thumb, struggling through heavy ice. Commander 
Coffin did admirably to get along so far with the 


transports so early in the season, before an open- 


ing had occurred. Lieut. Emory, with the Bear, 
has supported me throughout with great skilfulness 
and unflinching readiness in accomplishing the great 
duty of relieving Greely. .. . The Greely party are 
very much improved since rescue, but their condition 
was critical in the extreme when found, and for sev- 
eral days after. Forty-eight hours’ delay in reaching 
here would have been fatal to those now living. The 
season north is late, and the closest for years. Smith 
Sound was not open when I left Cape Sabine. The 
winter about Melville Bay was the most severe for 
twenty years. 

This great result is entirely due to the unwearied 
energy of yourself and the secretary of war in fitting 
out this expedition for the work it has had the honor 
-to accomplish. —_ W. T. ScHLEy, Commander. 

From a despatch to the New-York Herald, we 
learn fuller details of the explorations, mostly under- 
taken by Lockwood and Brainard, to northern Green- 
land and the interior of Grinnell Land, which are 
positive additions to geography. The position of 
Lockwood Island (latitude 83° 24’ 30” north, longi- 
tude 44° 45’ west) was astronomically determined by 
observations extending over two days; and, in their 
journey to this point, animal life was found to be 
abundant, with scant vegetation similar to that met 
with in Grinnell Land. Traces of hares, lemmings, 
ptarmigan, and snow-bunting, and the tracks of a 
bear, were seen, and droppings of the musk-ox as far 
as twenty miles north of Cape Britannia. The party 
was absent fifty-nine days. In one of their journeys 
in the interior of Grinnell Land, Lockwood and 
Brainard reached its western coast, and looked out on 
the polarsea. They found an immense glacier, named 
Agassiz Glacier, forming the ice-cap of southern 
Grinnell Land, with a belt of land sixty miles wide 
between it and the northern ice-cap. At the mouth 
of Greely Fiord they rested three days for observation, 


SCIENCE. 91 


and determined their position to be latitude 80° 48’ 
39” north, longitude 78° 26’ west. From acliff twenty- 
two hundred feet high, they saw, on a clear day, 
that in the north the land terminated in a high head- 
land fifty to sixty miles distant, which they called 
Cape Brainard; and in the south, more distant, they 
named another headland Cape Lockwood. Beyond 
this, with open water between, they descried land 
which they took to be separate from Grinnell Land, 
and named Arthur Land. Lieut. Greely himself 
made two journeys into the interior, on which he was 
absent twelve and nineteen days respectively, and 
discovered a large body of fresh water, which he named 
Lake Hazen, fed by streams from the northern ice- 
cap, and discharging through Ruggles River into 
Weyprecht Fiord. The river was open at its mouth 
in April. Winter quarters of Eskimos were found, 
and some relics showing that they had possessed dogs, 
sleds, and iron. Two ranges of mountains were 
found parallel to and beyond the United States range, 
which he named Conger and Garfieldranges. Greely 
ascended Mount Arthur, about five thousand feet 
high, and the highest point in Grinnell Land. Game 
was found abundant on this journey, a hundred 
musk-oxen having been seen, with hares and birds. 
The return party left Fort Conger with the steam- 
launch, ice-boat, and two boats in tow, on Aug. 9. 
The next day they reached Cape Baird, across Lady 
Franklin Bay. They were frozen for five days in the 
ice before reaching Cape Lawrence, and gained Cape 
Hawkes by the 26th, where they took in the proyvis- 
ions left there by the English, and, leaving the same 
day, had open water for six hours; then the pack 
closed around them, and they drifted with it, being 
finally driven to within six miles of Cape Albert, just 
south of Victoria Head. Here they were obliged to 
leave the launch and one of the boats; and, making 
two small sleds from the timber of the launch, they 
started over the ice for Cape Sabine, eleven miles off, 
making the slow progress of about a mile a day. On 
Sept. 18 they had to abandon their last boat, the 
large sled weakening under it. Twice they were 
driven back into Kane Basin by south-west gales. 
Finally the floe, much broken, was driven, on Sept. 
22, into the mouth of Baird Inlet, the piece on 
which they were established being reduced to 
about fifty yards in diameter. They finally forced a 
landing on the northern side of the inlet on Sept. 
29. The sad prospect before them was speedily 
discovered by scouting-parties; and, to be nearer 
the base of their scanty supplies, they made their 
way northward through a passage to Buchanan 
Straits (proving Cape Sabine an island), and then 
eastward along the coast, to where they made their 
final camp, the advance reaching here Oct. 15. 
Here they built a hut of stones, roofed with a broken 
whale-boat and canvas, and banked with snow. 
This they were compelled to abandon early in May 
from the moisture from the melting snow, and to 
occupy the tent higher up the hillside, where the 
relief-party found them. During the entire winter . 
they had no fuel, except to warm, not cook, their 
food. As soon as their scanty stock of provisions 


; ¥ 
a * 


92 SCIENCE. 


was known, they were reduced to a daily allowance 
of 14.88 ounces each; and this was afterwards still 
further reduced to 6 ounces, making it last until 
May 14. During this entire time all the game they 
obtained was twenty-four small foxes averaging four 
pounds each, fourteen ptarmigan, and sixty dovekies, 
excepting a small seal and a bear, killed in April. 
The last, weighing 257 pounds, undoubtedly saved the 
lives of the last survivors of the party. 


— The managers of the Philadelphia electrical ex- 
hibition announce that the buildings are finished, and 
ready for the preliminary arrangements to accommo- 
date exhibits. The committee urge upon all who 
have applied for space to begin preparations for in- 
stallation. 


— Dr. Lewis Swift, director of the Warner obser- 
vatory, has received intelligence of the discovery of 
a comet by Prof. E. E. Barnard of Nashville, on the 
night of July 16; and the discovery was verified by 
the motion of the comet July 20. It is in the head 
of the Wolf (right ascension 15 hours, 50 minutes, and 
30 seconds, declination south 37:10), and is moving 
slowly in an easterly direction. It seems to be grow- 
ing brighter, and is probably coming toward the 
earth. This is the first comet discovered in the 
northern hemisphere this year. 


— From Nature we learn that the following are 
some of the special questions which have been ar- 
ranged for discussion at the next social science con- 
gress, which is to be held at Birmingham on Sept. 
17-24: — How far are the requirements of the country 
for well-trained teachers in elementary schools met 
by the pupil-teacher system and the existing training 
colleges ? In testing the efficiency of schools, should 
processes, or ‘ results,’ be chiefly regarded? Health: 
1°. What is the best method of dealing with (a) town 
sewage, (b) the products of house and street scaven- 
ging, and (c) the products of combustion ? 2°. What 
are the best means, legislative or other, of securing 
those improvements in the dwellings of the poor 
which are essential to the welfare of the community ? 
3°. How far may the average death-rate of a popula- 
tion be considered an efficient test of its sanitary 
condition, and by what means can the high death- 
rate of. children be reduced? 


— Nature states, that Dr. Chavanne, who is travel- 
ling on the Kongo for the Brussels national institute 
of geography, has established a meteorological obser- 
vatory at Boma. Mr. Stanley has transferred the 
site of his station of Vivi to a tableland some fifteen 
hundred metres to the north; and a railway from the 
new station to the Kongo is in course of construction. 
A new station, called Sette-Cana, has also been es- 
tablished at the mouth of the small river Sette. 
Numerous small wooden houses are being made in 
Belgium to be transported to the new Vivi. A sana- 
torium has been constructed at Boma. 


—In the report of the surgeon-general of the navy 
for 1881 (Washington, 18838, p. 70) are to be found 
photo-micrographs, and a short account of a comma- 
shaped bacterium, a rather unusual form, observed 


[Vox. IV., Novae 


by Surgeon J. H. Kidder in water through which 
air had been aspirated (summer of 1881), and in well- 
water near Washington (1883). Until we have more 
precise descriptions of Koch’s cholera bacillus than 
are yet available, it will be judicious for microscopists 
to bear in mind, in case of the appearance of cholera® 
on this side of the Atlantic, that similar forms have 
been found in water when no case of cholera was 
known to exist. Dr. Kidder supposed the form which 
he photographed to be the same as, or very similar to, 
that noted and figured by Billroth (Untersuch. wber 
coccobacteria septica, Berlin, 1874, taf. ii. B., C.), 
found in the droppings from an imperfect water- 
faucet in his work-room, and called by him Siphono- 
myxa nostocomli vienniensis. 


— The treasurer of the local committee of the 
American association reports that fifteen thousand 
dollars have been raised for the entertainment of the 
association while in Philadelphia, and recommends 
that the expenditures be kept within that sum, as 
it is doubtful whether more could be obtained. 


— Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, director of the 
observatory at Cordoba, Argentine Republic, has been 
elected an honorary member of the Royal meteoro- 
logical society. 


— An exhibition of appliances used in brewing will 
be held next September in Hanover. 


— The Kansas city review states that Prof. J. G. 
Porter of the coast-survey has been elected astronomer 
of the Cincinnati observatory. 


— By some good fortune whose explanation is too 
deeply political for our fathoming, the monthly Pilot 
charts continue to be issued from the hydrographic 
office; and the number for July maintains the value 
of its predecessors. It is notable for the number of 
waterspouts, of which eight are charted, and for the 
indication of currents by floating wrecks that have 
been observed on different dates. The schooner 
Warbeck drifted eastward just south of latitude 40°, 
from longitude 64° on April 9, to longitude 44° on 
June 12, thus travelling about nine hundred miles, 
or fourteen miles aday. A buoy, adrift from Cape 
Hatteras on June 1, was noticed on its way north-east 
on June 11, and was unfortunately picked up in 
latitude 40°, longitude 63° 30’, on June 21, having 
floated about five hundred miles in twenty days. 
These having followed the main extension of the Gulf 
Stream, their rate of motion was relatively rapid. 
The bark Ponema, that collided with the British 
steamer State of Florida on April 18, latitude 49°, 
longitude 36°, is reported from London to the hydro- 
graphic office as having been sighted on June 7, in 
latitude 49° 15’, longitude 33°, about thus having aver- 
aged only about two miles of eastward drifting a day. 
Again: the schooner Maggie M. Rivers, wrecked off 
Cape Hatteras on Jan. 7, was sighted on the eastern 
margin of the Gulf Stream on Feb. 6, and since then 
has been seen four times, the last date being June 14, 
wavering about with small change of position in 
the slack water a third way from the Bermudas to 
Norfolk. at 


SE1E NCE. 


FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Wirn all the applause bestowed on Lieut. 
Greely and his comrades for their self-sacrifice 
and heroism, we hear continually the remark, 
‘T hope this is the last of arctic explorations.’ 
This is not a strange utterance to proceed 
from those who have given no thought to the 
magnitude of the problems involved in modern 
polar research. One can even smile when a 
person who has never considered the subject 
says with spontaneous humanity, ‘‘ Such expe- 
ditions may be very good for science, but they 
are very bad for men.’’ But it is astounding 
to read the words which are attributed by the 
interviewer to the president of the United 
States when he heard of the rescue of the 
Greely party. He is reported by the New- 
York Herald (July 18) to have said that he 
‘*had never favored these explorations, as the 
geographical and scientific information secured 
could not compensate for the loss of human 
life. He could not see what had been gained, 
so far, that would justify any men, however 
ambitious and daring, in making another at- 
tempt.”’ . 


For the following reasons, we take a very 
different view of such expeditions. The pub- 
lic need to be reminded, to begin with, that 
science is not a person, a party, or a society, 
that has ‘interests’ to promote. Science is 
accurate knowledge, systematically arranged by 
men for the good of men. ‘To promote science 
is to promote an understanding of the world in 
which man dwells. Every great discovery in 
science sooner or later proves to be for the 
good of man. A great philosopher once said, 
‘There is nothing so prolific in utilities as ab- 
stractions ;’ and, if this be true, the intimations 
that discoveries may be ‘ good for science, and 
bad for mankind,’ are based upon a funda- 

No. 78.— 1884. 


mental error, which should always be met with 
a protest. 


Again: there is a strong presumption when 
ten of the most enlightened governments in 
Christendom (England, France, Germany, 
Austria, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, 
Holland, and the United States) are per- 
suaded by men of the greatest wisdom and 
knowledge, at the suggestion of one who knew 
by personal experience the hardships involved 
(the explorer Weyprecht), to engage simul- 
taneously in a certain line of investigation — 
we say there is a strong presumption that the 
investigation thus proposed is of profound im- 
portance to the world. In this case the prob- 
lem is one which every intelligent man can 
appreciate: it is nothing less than to increase 
our knowledge of the physics of the globe; to 
gather such facts, from so many places and by 
such careful methods, as will throw light upon 
the fundamental laws of terrestrial magnetism, 
and upon all the forces which govern the winds, 
the currents, and the ice-floes of the northern 
hemisphere. ‘The chief result in view is not 
that which attracts the most applause; it is 
not the indication on our maps of a few more 
miles of land, nor the carrying of our flag to a 
point‘a little nearer the pole than any flag 
ever been: it is the addition to science of ob- 
servations made daily during a period of well- 


has 


nigh two years, in a station most inaccessible, 
but most wisely chosen for comparison with a 
dozen other stations where like observations 
have been in progress. 


This contribution to human knowledge may, 
as the decades roll on, and it becomes a part 


of the capital of the world, yield the most 


abundant fruits. It was obtained, it could 
only be obtained, by the bravery, the intel- 
ligence, the self-sacrifice, of heroic men, sus- 
tained by governmental aid, strengthened by 
the consciousness that other men were else- 


94 SCIENCE. 


where engaged on the same humane service. 
Greely and his associates took their lives in 
their hands for the good of humanity, as 
the soldier does when he enters the army, 
as the physician when he studies the scourge, 
as the missionary when he penetrates the dark 
continent, as the navigator when he enters un- 
known seas. Some of the number have fallen 
without reaping the rewards of their enterprise ; 
some are returning with emaciated forms; all 
bravely did their part, and will be honored by 
their countrymen. ‘Peace has its victories as 
well as war;’ and those who have fought frost 
and famine, who have endured the hardships 
of three polar winters, that they might add to 
hunfan knowledge, deserve the lasting grati- 
tude of all thoughtful men. In days when 
luxury and comfort chain so many people to 
the fireside, and when the occasions for heroic 
action are so rare, it is good for human nature 
to witness fresh examples of heroism, all the 
better that these examples are for the sake of 
advancing science. All honor, therefore, to 
Greely and his brave companions, living and 
dead ; and honor, too, to Schley and his crew 
for the rescue they effected with so much skill. 
Now that these men have reached the ports of 
their native land, there should be a better wel- 
come for them than disparaging remarks, and 
the hope that there will be no more such efforts. 
‘ Let knowledge grow from more to more,’ and 
let those who extend its boundaries by hard- 
ships and bravery have their honorable places 
in the annals of science, and be welcomed 
without reserve when their arduous exploits 
are concluded. 


As THE season approaches when our scien- 
tific men congregate for consultation upon 
matters of common interest, it may be well to 
call their attention to a small matter, which is 
really of more consequence than would at first 
appear; namely, to the practice of repaging 
authors’ extra copies of articles published in 
journals and transactions of learned societies. 
The practice here complained of must occa- 
sionally be annoying to physicists, and, indeed, 
to every one who wishes to cite correctly, or 


to look up the references of previous writers ; 
but it is severely felt by naturalists, who have 
so many names to cite or refer to, and to whom 
correct bibliography, and prompt and right 
reference, are essential. In the case of an 
actual reprint in an independent form, there 
may be good reason or necessity for repaging ; 
yet even then the original pagination should 
be indicated. But in printing extra copies 
from the original type, there is no such neces- 
sity, and no real advantage: on the contrary, 
much disadvantage and confusion arises when 
a paper is cited from the journal or transac- 
tions of a society to which it was contributed, 
but under wrong pages. Some societies and 
journals refuse to have the original pagination 
removed; and, in our opinion, all should do 
so. Separate paging in addition may be per- 
mitted; but it were better to dispense even 
with this. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITGr 


x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


Light in the deep sea. 


PROFESSOR Verrill’s article in Science, No. 74, sug- 
gests the inquiry whether the faint light that he 
supposes to penetrate the deep seas may not have 
some rays of nearly all colors, and appear greenish 
to the deep-sea dwellers merely from an excess of rays 
of more rapid vibration, just as the sky appears blue 
from an excess of blue rays, not from the absence of 
other colors; and, further, whether the light reflected 
from the bright red or orange-colored animals that 
have been dredged from great depths does not give a 
many-colored spectrum, as is often the case with 
colored objects, so that, even when illuminated by 
greenish light, such animals would not necessarily be 
dull or black or invisible, but might be distinctly 
colored. If these questions were answered affirma- 
tively, the explanation of the colors of deep-sea 
creatures by the operation of protective imitation 
would not be simple. W. M. Davis. 

Cambridge, July 12. 


The long-continued ‘ bad seeing.’ 


‘ A fellow of the Royal astronomical society,’ in the 
English mechanic and world of science, vol. xxxix. 
p. 345, writes, — 


ss | . . As to the bad definition incident on the visibility of the 
afterglow, I should like to remark, that, for some time past, day- 
light definition of celestial objects has been worse than ever I 
remember it during my tolerably long observing experience. 
Transit-taking in daylight, save with the larger stars, has been 
quite impracticable, and over and over again I have looked in 
vain for Mercury. Of course, every one who is in the habit of 
using a telescope in the daytime is familiar with the fact, that on 
many seemingly cloudless days there is an otherwise invisible 
kind of haze, which impairs or destroys definition, and that the 
best or brightest vision is obtained in the blue sky visible be- 
tween large, floating annuli; but this curious obscuration has 


ol rn. he 


[Vou. LV., No. 78, 


Avu@eustT 1, 1884.] 


been just as apparent during the latter condition of the atmos- 
phere as during the former. Hasn’t the Krakatoa dust all set- 
tled down yet? ” 


Another observer (p. 322) bears witness to this 
‘continued and oftentimes peculiarly bad definition ;’ 
and Mr. W. S. Franks, in writing to the same journal 
(p. 416), attributes it ‘to the unusually dry season.’ 
Perhaps those who are working upon the subject 
of the ‘ Krakatoa dust’ can give some explanation 
of this exasperatingly persistent bad seeing. For 
months past it has been noticed here by all who have 
had occasion to observe in the daytime, and, indeed, 
I noticed it myself in the autumn of 1883; but I was 
not particularly struck with it at the time, as at 
certain seasons of the year we are in the habit of ex- 
pecting a smoky atmosphere and poor definition, on 
account of forest-fires or other causes. As the bad 
seeing has continued even down to the present date, 
we cannot account for it in this way. 

The haziness is usually confined to the south of 
our zenith (I am speaking more especially of meridian 
observations), and is most marked in the neighbor- 
hood of the sun. The sky is white, though this 
whiteness is sometimes barely perceptible, and the 
stars are unsteady. Stars of the third or fourth 
magnitude, which have frequently been seen on a 
good observing day in other years, it is almost useless 
to try for now. That the phenomenon is not local 
seems evident from the remarks of the English ob- 
servers quoted above; but has it been noticed by 
others in widely different latitudes ? 


WILLIAM C, WINLOCK. 
Washington, D.C., July 22. 


AN IDEAL UNIVERSITY FROM AN ENG- 
LISH POINT OF VIEW. 

Ay article in a recent number of the Contem- 
porary review, by James Bryce, on ‘ An ideal 
university,’ is well deserving the attention of 
Americans, all the more because its author is 
an Englishman, writing with immediate refer- 
ence to the wants of the city of London. He 
has, however, by repeated visits to this coun- 
try, become familiar with what we are doing, 
and he possesses that truly philosophic mind 
which is quite as ready to gather suggestions 
from the experiments of a new state of soci- 
ety as from old-world experience. An active 
member of Parliament, a professor of Roman 
law in the university of Oxford, the writer of 
an historical work of remarkable power, accus- 
tomed in his wide range of travels to observe 
with discrimination the influences of different 
religions, laws, and educational systems upon 
the life of the people, he combines in an 
exceptional way the wisdom of a scholar with 
that of the man of affairs. His plea is for an 
organization in the city of London which shall 


SCIENCE. 


95 


be a true university, not a corporation hold- 
ing examinations and conferring degrees, like 
the actual university of London, not a fellow- 
ship of colleges, not a group of museums and 
libraries ; for all these are in existence. His 
plea is for something different from, if not 
higher and better than, any or all these agen- 
cies: it isa plea for that higher and better 
organization which thoughtful Americans in all 
parts of this country are trying to develop. 

‘What is an ideal university?’ asks Mr. 
Bryce. The answer which he gives has in it 
nothing of novelty, nothing of eccentricity, 
nothing beyond the reach of a wealthy com- 
munity. It is the answer of common sense, 
directed by experience, to the solution of a 
very important problem. It is the answer 
which has often been given before, but rarely 
in such persuasive and intelligible phraseology. 
Assuming that a university is a body of men 
engaged in teaching the highest knowledge, 
and is therefore something very different from 
Carlyle’s ‘ true university, a collection of 
books,’ he claims that breadth is the first essen- 
tial,— catholicity, universality. He would have 
it include not only the subjects which are 
traditional (languages, mathematics, and the- 
ology), but the social sciences (politics and 
comparative jurisprudence), the sciences of 
observation and experiment, and even the 
applied sciences. In this last suggestion 
he is broader than most Germans, for they 
have hitherto inclined to teach the applied 
sciences away from the universities, in poly- 
technic and real schools. Americans have 
often, though not always, inclined to follow 
this German precedent; and those who hold 
the opposite view will be fortified in it by this 
word of Mr. Bryce. 

The next essential of the ideal university is 
freedom. The writer plants himself firmly, and 
without reservations, on the doctrine that any 
one who comes may study any subject he 
pleases, whether or no he studies any other 
subject, or enters for a regular course. He 
would let the university prescribe its course or 
courses, and give its honors and degrees in 
accordance with such restrictions. ‘* Place 


i 


96 


guard, if you like,’’ he says, ‘* at the doors of 
your examinations ; but let your lecture-rooms 
stand always open, like the churches of Cath- 
olic Europe, so that thereby even the passing 
wayfarer may hear the voice and be drawn in.”’ 
With the main intent of this remark, most of 
our colleges agree, opening their halls to spe- 
cial students ; but it may be as well to make a 
note of caution on the margin of what we 
read, lest the impression should be given that 
‘ happening in ’ to an occasional lecture makes 
the scholar. The regular and persistent atten- 
tion to a serious subject is the first element of 
success in university-work. The group of oc- 
casional attendants or special students in our 
colleges, according to our experience, includes 
a few of the very best, and some of the very 
worst, who ever enter the academic walls. 

The third essential of the ideal university, 
according to Mr. Bryce, is that it should teach. 
This pointed remark is obviously directed to 
the idea, which has been more developed in 
England than anywhere else, that the chief 
function of the university is to examine stu- 
dents, and confer degrees. ‘This is the avowed 
end of the university of London and of the 
Royal university in Ireland. In years gone by, 
even the universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
left the principal work of instruction to the 
colleges, reserving the prerogatives of holding 
examination and bestowing degrees. 

These three elements — breadth, freedom, 
and teaching-force — are the essentials of a 
university. Supplementary powers are the be- 
stowal of honors (if it is thought worth while 
to maintain the system of academic rewards), 
the prosecution of research (which will take 
-care of itself, if teachers of real ability are 
secured), and, finally, the acquisition of en- 
dowments (on which Mr. Bryce lays but little 
stress). 

On the subject of endowments, Mr. Bryce 
writes like one who has seen the evil which 
comes from the long perpetuity of individual 
whims; and he boldly declares that the prin- 
ciple should once for all be laid down, that 
charitable endowments belong, not to the dead, 
but to the living, and that each generation 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 78 


shall be free to use them for such objects as it 
finds most presently beneficial. These consid- 
erations ought to be weighed and discussed in 
the United States, where every year new and 
generous endowments are made for charity 
and education. One enlightened giver, whose 
name we could mention, having had his atten- 
tion called to this point, expressly provided 
that the million which he gave, might, after a 
certain period, be applied by his trustees to a 
purpose akin to the original object, but not 
identical with it, if in their judgment such a 
course would be wise. The difficulties expe- 
rienced at Andover and at Exeter in the man- 
agement of the Phillips funds are examples 
of the celerity with which conditions become 
fetters. 

Bryce’s main doctrine is, that the ideal uni- 
versity must ‘ give first-rate teaching.’ This, 
undoubtedly, is the true doctrine. But how 
are first-rate teachers to be developed or dis- 
covered, and how are they to be kept ‘ first- 
rate’ under all the counteracting influences 
to which they are exposed? There’s the rub. 
On these points we should like to hear further 
from Mr. Bryce. Shall only men of genius be 
chosen professors ? There are not men of 
genius enough to go round. Shall practical 
instructors, those who are well versed in didac- 
tic methods, be preferred ? The faculty which 
is filled up with such men will be governed by 
routine ; it will have neither éclat nor inspira- 
tion : it will be like a military school, —a place 
for training, not a place for the development 
of great minds. But suppose first-rate teach- 
ers are secured, men who have some genius 
and some common sense, how are they to be 
kept ‘ first-rate’? We reply, The university is 
responsible for its treatment of its professors. 
They must be kept at work, in actual instruc- 
tion, or they will grow indolent and sterile ; 
they must have considerable leisure, or they 
will not think and write and investigate, but 
will simply be repeaters of old stories; they 
must have ample supplies of books, journals, 
instruments, for these are the diet on which 
they grow; they must have stimulants, the 
best of all being the attention of bright and 


Aveust 1, 1884.] 


growing scholars around them, the next be- 
ing a consciousness that they are responsible 
for what they do to the world of science and 
letters, and not merely to their own colleagues 
and followers; and, finally, they must not only 
be fairly paid, but must be protected from 
temptations to every form of extravagance in 
the employment of their resources. Such are 
some of the difficulties which are to be encoun- 
tered when the simple idea of ‘ first-rate teach- 
ing’ is expanded. 

All that Mr. Bryce says about the end of an 
education is excellent: ‘‘ It is not. to train 
students merely as lawyers, physicians, cler- 
gymen, engineers, bankers, merchants, and 
statesmen, but as men; and the best thing 
the university can do for them is to form in 
them what we will call the philosophic mind.’’ 


THUNDER-STORMS. 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN once remarked, in sub- 
stance, sadly to a friend, ‘‘ It is now eight 
years since J showed that mankind could be 
protected from the danger of lghtning by 
lightning-rods ; yet there is hardly a house in 
Philadelphia provided with them.’’ The heart 
of the great American philosopher would be 
greatly warmed if he could perceive the activity 
of his disciples, who waylay every builder of a 
house, and awaken fears where all was peace 
before. ‘There is no question oftener asked of 
the professor of physics than this: ‘‘ Shall I put 
lightning-rods on my house, and, if I erect 
them, what should be their form and position ?’’ 
Personally I have given the following abbre- 
viated answers. ‘‘If your house is surrounded 
by tall trees, or if there are higher houses in 
your immediate neighborhood, I should trust 
to the trees, or kindly leave the expense of the 
lightning-rods to your neighbor. Ifyour house 
stands alone, a prominent point in the land- 
scape, on a cliff, or remote from trees, I should 
be in favor of a properly placed lightning-rod. 
I should place two or three pointed rods three 
or four feet above the highest point of the 
house ; allow the metallic rod, which should be 
at least one-half-a square inch in section, to rest, 
without glass insulators, upon the house; con- 
nect all the tin sheathing, the copper gutters, 
the gas and water pipes, with this lightning-rod ; 
and conduct the latter, by the shortest course 
possible, to wet earth.’’ 


SCIENCE. iss | 


These answers seldom conclude the corre- 
spondence, however, although one generally 
prefers to leave to the neighbor the expense of 
erecting lightning-rods. One brings instances 
of houses having been struck which are situated 
lower than one’s neighbors, and are surrounded 
with tall trees which over-topped the houses ; 
and one asks with a shudder, ‘‘ Can I connect 
my gas-pipes with a lightning-rod?’’ Indeed, 
the writer or would-be authority on lightning- 
rods has not an easy life before him. He must 
not only satisfy the timid heart of the believer 
in him, but he must also fight with all his know]- 
edge the brazen limb of ignorance and super- 
stition, who starts with the postulate that no 
scientific man knows any thing concerning thun- 
der and lightning, and that the true knowledge 
has been revealed only to himself while working 
in a cornfield. It is not long since, that an 
American professor of physics was sued for 
twenty or thirty thousand dollars damages for 
maintaining that the members of a lightning- 
rod company which placed lightning-rods like 
a letter U upon the roofs of houses were prac- 
tically quacks ; the theory of this lightning-rod 
being, that the lightning, if it struck one point 
of the U, would be dissipated into the air from 
the other point. There is a lightning-rod 
company in Massachusetts at the present time 
which erects lightning-rods on the theory that 
lightning always seeks electrical earth-cur- 
rents; and, if there are earth-currents beneath 
a house, that house should be protected, and 
the rods led into the path of the earth-current. 
If, on the other hand, no earth-currents run 
near the house, such a house is safe, and needs 
no lightning-rods. The electrician of this firm 
is self-taught: there are no books on electricity 
in his library. He discovers the earth-currents 
by a forked stick. Not deterred by the fact 
that there is no evidence to prove that a dis- 
charge takes place between a charged cloud 
and a current of electricity in the ground, and, 
moreover, no evidence to prove that earth- 
currents move in regular paths through the 
earth, and, indeed, no conclusive evidence of 
the existence of earth-currents, he persuades 
even the so-called practical electrician to re- 
arrange the lightning-rods on his house. 

The student of electricity is therefore called 
upon to assert the grounds of his belief: and he 
finds it difficult to convince his audience; for 
they are, in general, not sufficiently conversant 
with electrical phenomena to appreciate his 
arguments. ‘The position taken by most pro- 
fessors of physics on the subject of lightning- 
rods is based upon the experiments of Franklin, 
in which he showed that pointed metallic rods, 


98 


so to speak, facilitated electrical discharges ; 
the experiment of Faraday, by which it was 
shown that a person, and even the most deli- 
cate electrical instruments, inside a large me- 
tallic cage which was connected with the ground, 
were unaffected by powerful discharges of elec- 
tricity between the cage and the prime con- 
ductor of an electrical machine; and the 
statistics collected by the English government, 
which show, that, since vessels have been pro- 
vided with lightning-rods, the number of casu- 
alties produced at sea from lightning have been 
greatly reduced. A building covered by a 
metallic netting suitably connected with the 
ground would be well protected from light- 
ning. The nearest approach to this condi- 
tion of safety would be to connect all the 
network of metallic conductors about a house 
with wet ground; and one argument against 
placing under ground the network of tele- 
phone and telegraph wires in cities is, that 
at present, where they are very numerous, 
they protect buildings from danger from light- 
ning. ‘This is, of course, not the case where 
a single telephone or telegraph wire enters a 
house. ‘The latter should always be well con- 
nected with the gas or water pipe. In regard, 
however, to the belief that tall trees, higher 
than the houses in their immediate neighbor- 
hood, protect the houses, we can point to the 
well-known efficiency of small points in facili- 
tating electrical discharges by slow degrees. 
Each leaf and twig is such a small point. 
Moreover, during a rain, the dripping from the 
leaves reduces the electrical charge on the tree 
to the same sign and amount as that of the air 
in the immediate neighborhood, as is shown by 
the well-known experiment of Sir William 
Thomson, in which an insulated can, from 
which a stream of water issues in drops, is 
connected with an electrometer ; and the latter 
shows that the metallic can has taken the charge 
of the air in its neighborhood. The drops of 
water continually reduce the can to the electri- 
cal potential of the neighboring air. The tree, 
therefore, can be looked upon as a more impor- 
tant electrical factor than the few salient lower 
points of a building. 

It is safe to affirm that not one out of a 
thousand lightning-rods at present upon our 
buildings are of any use, for the simple reason 
that they are not led into moist ground, and 
therefore offer great resistance to the passage 
of an electrical discharge. Any one can be 
convinced of this by scraping the lightning-rod 
at any point, connecting a bright wire at this 
point, and, having led the other end of the wire 
to the water-pipe or to a body of water, placing 


SCIENCE. 


p* 


[Vou. IV., No. 78. 


one or two Leclanché cells in this circuit, and — 
leading the wire in a north and south direction 
directly over an ordinary pocket-compass. If 
the lightning-rod enters moist ground, or 
makes a connection with the earth, the compass 
should indicate an electrical current by its 
deflection. Generally it will be found that no 
such earth-connection exists, and the lightning- 
rod is therefore worse than useless. It should 
be immediately connected with the water-pipe, 
or with a spring, or some body of water. To 
illustrate the fact that the mere entrance of a 
metallic rod into the ground is not enough to 
insure the passage of an electrical discharge 
to the ground, drive two metallic rods into 
your lawn, at any suitable distance apart; 
connect them by a wire, which includes a 
Leclanché or other voltaic cell; and, having 
led the wire over a pocket-compass in a north 
and south direction, see if you obtain a deflec- 
tion of the needle. If, moreover, you labor 
under the delusion that a surface-sprinkling of 
the earth near the rods will give an electrical 
connection, itis best to perform the experiment. 
It is probable that several acres of lawn would 
have to be thoroughly sprinkled before a suit- 
able earth-connection could be obtained. A 
few experiments with a modern electrical 
machine —a Toepler-Holtz machine, for in- 
stance — will readily convince one of the effect 
of points in dissipating an electrical charge, 
and of the fact that an electrical discharge 
always takes the path of least electrical resist- 
ance between two points. Having ascertained 
these facts, one has acquired all the intellectual 
capital that is possessed by most lightning- 
rod men. If one apparently discovers that 
gilded lightning-conductors, or twisted ones, 
have peculiar attractions for the electrical dis- 
charges, one leaves the sure ground of fact for 
the region of the unproven. ‘The difficulty in 
our study of thunder-storms is, that we cannot 
experiment on a sufficiently large scale, and’ 
our means are too tardy to allow us to follow 
the exceedingly rapid changes of electrified 
bodies. What we call freaks of lightning are 
merely the expressions of electrical laws, com- 
bined with the laws of elasticity of matter. 


_ The forked lightning-discharge is an expres- 


sion of the fact that a positive charge is com- 
bining with a negative charge along a path of 
least resistance; and the air is fractured, so 
to speak, by the compression, just as a plate 
of glass yields in zigzag cracks when it is 
supported on one edge, and a force of com- 
pression is applied to the other edge. The 
influence of the medium through which the 
electrical discharge takes place can be readily. 


Aveust 1, 1884.] 


seen by obtaining the electrical discharge in 
different gases, such as carbonic-acid gas or 
nitrogen, and comparing these photographs 
with those taken in free air. Although we can 
study certain phenomena of atmospheric elec- 
tricity successfully in our laboratories, yet we 
cannot charge a cloud with positive electricity, 
and fill the sky with different strata of hot and 
cold air. Itis generally believed to-day among 
scientific men, that the electricity of thunder- 
storms cannot be attributed to sudden evapora- 
tion or condensation of moisture; for direct 
experiment has failed to reveal any electricity 
which is due to these causes. Mr. Freeman 
made many delicate experiments in the physi- 
eal laboratory of Johns Hopkins university 
to decide the question whether evaporation 
produces electricity, and he could find no evi- 
dence of any that was due to this cause. Herr 
Kayser has also lately experimented at the 
physical laboratory of Berlin upon the elec- 
trical effects of condensation, with negative 
results. Personally I feel that all the experi- 
ments hitherto conducted on the electricity due 
to evaporation and to condensation have been 
conducted on too small a scale to test the 
question; and I do not see how they can be 
conducted on a larger scale. When we think 
of the immense plan upon which these opera- 
tions are conducted in nature, of the evapora- 
tion from every square foot of the ocean, and 
of the rapid condensation through miles of 
space, we can realize that an infinitesimal 
amount of electrical charge, too small to be 
detected in a laboratory, might be integrated 
into a large amount, and, becoming localized, 
might produce the tremendous electrical dis- 


turbances which we witness in thunder-storms. . 


How, then, can we conduct future inves- 
tigations upon thunder-storms? The most 
promising direction for scientific work seems 
to be in the establishment of systematic obser- 
vations on thunder-storms, and on atmospheric 
electricity in general, over a large tract of 
country. In certain regions, thunder-storms 
follow certain definite paths, and other tracts 
are never visited by them. There is a general 
impression that electrical storms are, in com- 
mon language, attracted by rivers, and are 
more severe about large bodies of water in 
general. However this may be, nothing but 
systematic daily simultaneous observation, long 
continued, can increase our knowledge. If 
the government, in connection with the signal- 
service, should establish a number of electrical 
stations throughout the west and south, where 
thunder-storms and tornadoes are so frequent, 
daily thunder-storm maps might be issued, 


SCIENCE. 


' the ravine is wholly impassable. 


99 


showing the probable path of the electrical dis- 
turbances. Perhaps we should then see, in 
districts peculiarly infested by thunder-storms, 
certain ‘ insurance-against-danger-by-lightning 
retreats,’ in which Benjamin Franklin’s light- 
ning-rod should rise from a small hut, com- 
pletely covered with a network of metallic rods 
which are connected with running water or a 
large extent of moist earth. These safe re- 
treats would certainly be a great desideratum 
for many who now suffer greatly from nervous 
terrors during thunder-storms. 

JOHN TROWBRIDGE. 


THE FORMATION OF CANONS AND 
PRECIPICES. 


One of the most remarkable natural objects 
in the state of New York is to be seen at the 
crossing of the Genesee River, at Portage 
station, on the New-York, Lake Erie, and 
western railroad, 362 miles from New-York 
City, and 83 from Buffalo. The railway here 
spans a deep gulf on an iron bridge 820 feet 
long and 235 feet high, near the upper end of 
a wonderful canon. There are three falls 
of the river immediately below the bridge, 
measuring 60, 90, and 110 feet respectively. 
The gorge runs out in the Genesee shales at 
Mount Morris, being 20 miles long by the 
meanderings of the river, which falls 500 feet 
in that distance. In some places the banks 
are 350 feet high, nearly perpendicular, and 
It is a fine 
example of the work of water; and there are 
hundreds of others in that state, on a smaller 
scale, in the upper part of the Portage group. 
One of these is the celebrated Watkins Glen, 
a beautiful canon two miles long, with a suc- 
cession of cascades. The neighboring glen at 
Havana is very similar ; and there are a number 
of others farther north, several of which may 
be seen at Big Stream, Rock Stream, Dresden, 
and other places. Taghanic and Lodi Falls, 
and the glens and ravines about Ithaca on 
Cayuga Lake, and many other similar places, 
are all on the Portage formation, which forms 
a narrow east, and west band across western 
New York. It might be added, that both 
Seneca and Cayuga Lakes are, in part at least, 
simply old Portage glens, now filled with water. 
To many reflecting persons who, as summer 
tourists, visit these very curious and beautiful 
resorts, the thought occurs, why these canons 
are in these particular places above all others, 
and how they have been caused, the work of 
glaciers, or some convulsion of nature, being 


100 


the common explanation; and amateur geol- 
ogists puzzle themselves about their origin. 
It looks as though there was something special 
about the Portage group of rocks, everywhere 
abounding, as it does, in glens, gorges, and 
canons, to which the formation of these re- 
markable places is due. Why is the Portage, 
of all the ten or twelve formations in this state, 
the favorite one for these phenomena, being 
composed, as it is, of sandstones and shales 
very similar to those in other localities where 
nothing of the kind is found? 

The explanation is simple enough; namely, 
that it is owing to the peculiar alternation of 
thin beds of soft shale and harder sandstone 
rocks, and the presence of a stream of water 
running into lower ground, which performs the 
work of erosion, and the size of which must 
be adapted to the work; and upon that, too, 
the size of the gulfdepends. Beginning at the 
lower end or mouth of the present canon, 


_ the action of the waterfall first removes a little 


of the softer layers of shale, leaving the thin 
beds of harder sandstone projecting for a time, 
which, in their turn, are also broken off from 
want of support, in masses small enough to be 
entirely carried away by the stream, especially 
during the winter floods; thus preventing the 
formation of a slope, and exposing the bottom 
of the falls to another erosion. ‘Thus, by the 
recession of the falls, the canon is formed, 
provided another requisite is afforded ; namely, 
that the side-walis must maintain their erect 
position: otherwise a valley, instead of a 
canon, is formed. 

This raises another question; namely, why 
do not these precipitous side-walls, composed 
of apparently soft rocks, slope themselves 
down, and form well-rounded hills, as they do 
elsewhere? The answer is, because the harder 
layers of sandstone form what a mason would 
call ‘ the binders,’ which hold the natural wall 
in its upright position. The erosion of the 
canon is done by the stream of water under- 
cutting, like the work of the coal-miner, and 
then breaking down, the unsupported ‘ top- 
bench ;’ while, in the mean time, the action of 
the air and frost on the side-walls is so much 
slower than that of the stream of water, that, 
while the latter is rapidly cutting back, and 
making the ravine longer and deeper, the sides 
remain in their original upright position. As 
the falls recede, and a thicker sandstone or 
shale rock occurs, without the proper alter- 
nation of strata, it will form the permanent 
upper end of the gulf, which will be a precipice 
if it is a sandstone, and a slope if it is a thick 
bed of shale. It thus happens that the Portage 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 78. 


portion of nature’s masonry, and the neces- 
sary streams of water passing over it, are 
nicely adapted to the formation of glens and 
canons. In localities where there are no 
streams of sufficient size passing over the 
Portage group to a lower level, as on the sum- 
mit levels, there are high hills, it is true, but 
no glens or gorges. The eroding action of the 
elements being more uniform over the whole 
surface, and the transporting power of a rapid 
stream to carry away the falling fragments 
being wanting, therefore slopes, instead of pre- 
cipices, are there produced. 

There are also, in the state of New York, 
limestone glens, as they might be called, which 
are due to the same cause. At Trenton 
Falls, on the Utica and Black-River railroad, 
eighteen miles north of Utica, East-Canada 
Creek has cut a narrow passage, three miles in 
length, through the Trenton limestone, the 
formation being named from this locality. It 
is a canon with vertical walls a hundred feet 
high, in which are the celebrated and very 
beautiful falls. ‘The cause of the erosion is, 
that the limestone rock is in thin layers, of 
from six to ten inches thick, separated quite 
regularly by thin layers of shale of about the 
same thickness. It is owing to this regular 
mixture of hard and soft rock, in alternate 
courses, that the stream has been able to wear 
away the rock by undermining the shale into 
a succession of cascades ; and, what is equally 
important in forming a canon, the stream, a 
wild torrent from the Adirondack forests, is 
large enough to carry away the fragments of 
the overlying limestone as fast as it gives way. 
After cutting its channel back to a village 
called Prospect, a thicker and harder layer 
of gray limestone is encountered, which has 
stopped the recession of the falls, the stream 
being unequal to its destruction; and that is 
the end of the ravine. 

The gulf of the Genesee River from Roches- — 
ter to Lake Ontario was caused in the same 
way: for although the rocks are much thicker 
and stronger than any of those above referred 
to, yet the river is a correspondingly larger 
stream, and was able to cut through the alter- 
nating beds of Medina, Clinton, and Niagara 
limestone, shale, and sandstone ; and the flood 
of water is powerful enough, with the aid of 
the fall below, to carry away the material, and 
prevent the formation of a talus. 

At Niagara Falls and the gorge below, in 
the same formations as at Rochester, is a 
repetition of the same operation on a vast 
scale ; and as the river there is larger than the 
Genesee, so the canton is also longer, deeper, 


AveusT 1, 1884.] 


and more thoroughly cut down, the river’s 
wearing and transporting power being in pro- 
portion to the great beds of shale, sandstone, 
and limestone. 

In many localities in the state of New York 
and elsewhere, there are glens and ravines cut 
wholly out of the Genesee and Hudson River 
shales, where there are no alternations of hard 
and soft strata, asin the Portage. Precipitous 
hillsides are also of frequent occurrence, al- 
though the face of the rock soon turns to soil. 
The reason why the edge of apparently so soft 
a rock of such fine material withstands the 
weather, and presents these naked sections for 
such a length of time in mural banks in ravines, 
river-courses, and upon the shores of lakes, is 
on account of its uniformly foliated structure. 
A very slight examination will serve to show 
the thin laminae of which the entire rock is 
composed, like sheets of paper, reminding one 
of the resisting power of the edge of a book. 
The hardness of some kinds of coal is also 
owing to its laminated formation. A precipi- 
tous wall, whether built by nature or by art, 
must either be laid with a good cement, or 
it must be composed of material having a 
good bed, ‘ breaking joints’ both inward and 
laterally. 

A peculiarity of the loess or bluff formation 
on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers is, 
that although it is very fine, soft, and easily 
excavated with the spade alone, yet it presents 
very steep slopes and precipices resembling 
those of solid rocks. Unlike all other forma- 
tions of an earthy nature, it remains unchanged 
by the atmosphere and the action of frost. 
Road-cuts and embankments, however steep, 
stand for years like a wall; and wells dug in it 
require to be walled only to a point above 
the water-line, while the remainder stands so 
securely without support, that the spade-marks 
remain upon it for years, although it is not 
at all cemented together. In the city of St. 
Joseph, and all other places where the bluff 
formation is found, these peculiarities can be 
easily seen ; and they appear very remarkable 
to an eastern man, accustomed to the sloping 
down of banks of sand and clay. The ex- 
planation of it is, that, as is well known, the 
bluff is a lacustrine deposit. The material 
forming it floated in flakes in a quiet, shallow 
lake. The minute particles, assuming a flat- 
tened form, however it may have been caused, 
were very quietly and gently deposited in lay- 
ers, like little sheets of paper. There was no 
current, no movement of the particles to form 
rounded grains of sand, irregularly deposited 
in accidental disorder. On the contrary, the 


SCIENCE. 


101 
bluff is a well-built piece of miniature natural 
earth masonry, well bound together: hence 


there is no rolling tendency in the material, and, 
when cut down at right angles to the layers, it 
does not form a slope, like other kinds of earth. 
Thus, from precipices of rock of the heavier 
strata to those composed of the smallest, 
their mechanical structure is of great impor- 
tance, and the same homely comparison of the 
‘stretchers and binders’ of an artificial wall 
applies. 


JAMES MACFARLANE. 
Towanda, Penn. 


THE EQUATORIAL COUDE. 


IN spite of the loss of light in the two’ reflections 
from its mirrors,— which loss will vary with the 
condition of the reflecting silver films, but, under 
the best conditions, should not much exceed twenty 
per cent, — the equatorial coudé of the Paris obser- 
vatory would seem to be the coming form for nine- 
tenths of the equatorial work of an observatory. 
This form of ‘elbow equatorial’ has been described 
of late in so many scientific periodicals, that it is suf- 
ficient here to say that the polar axis forms a part of 
the tube, at the upper end of which the observer sits 
like a microscopist at his desk, and at whose lower 
end a 45° mirror turns the course of the rays into a 
tube at right angles to the axis; and at the outer end 
of this tube is the objective, with still another 45° 
mirror outside of it, which turns round the axis of 
this tube. This gives the motion in declination, and 
the rotation of the whole round the polar axis gives the 
motion in right ascension. All the movements, 
the reading of all the circles, the illumination, and 
every thing connected with the management and use 
of the telescope, are directly under the observer's 
control as he sits at his desk, where there is every 
facility for attaching spectroscopic, photometric, and 
micrometrie apparatus to the eye-piece end, which 
keeps its fixed position. Moreover, the observer and 
all this accessory apparatus can be entirely roofed in, 
and the room warmed in cold weather, if desired, and 
the observer made as comfortable, and the work as 
convenient, as that in any laboratory, while the 
whole heavens are at his command. 

There can be no question as to the desirability of 
this, when compared with the discomfort and exposure 
in the common observatory dome, and with the dit- 
ficulty of attaching accessory apparatus to, counter- 
poising, and using it upon, the moving end of an 
ordinary equatorial. Still further, the observing- 
room can be made entirely dark when desired; and 
the increased sensitiveness of the retina, under these 
circumstances, will be a great gain in delicate spectro- 
scopic and photometric work. Also, in work upon 
the sun, the possibility of protecting the accessory 
apparatus entirely from the sun’s direct rays, and 
even of working in the dark if desired, will be a 
great improvement upon the inconveniences unavoid- 
able in the common observatory dome. 


102 


The important point is, whether equally good defini- 
tion can be attained with these two extra reflections. 
Experience alone can decide this with certainty; but 
up to the limit already tried in the Paris instrument, 
about ten inches aperture, we have the strongest 
evidence of its possibility. Dr. Gill, astronomer at 
the Cape of Good Hope, in describing to the Royal 
astronomical society a flying visit to continental 
observatories, speaks of the Paris equatorial coudé 
as follows :— 


‘“‘One fine night, about eleven o’clock, we went to the obser- 
vatory, and set on y Leonis; and I am bound to say I never saw 
the diffraction-disks of a star better defined than in that instru- 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 78. 


Also it would seem, that if large lenses, whose 
thickness is limited, can be supported at the rim so 
that the distortions due to gravity are not appreci- 
able in the definition, then mirrors whose thickness 
is unlimited, and which can be supported in every 
possible way at the rim, and all over the back surface, 
might be made sufficiently rigid to resist distortion. 
To be sure, the effects of distortion are of quite a 
different order in the two cases, the effect of gravity 
in increasing the curvature of one side of a lens 
being partly counteracted by the diminished curva- 
ture of the other side, while the distortion of -a 
single reflecting surface appears with its full effect 


tenn 
‘ty 
(funn rs | 


SST Ta 


EQUATORIAL COUDE AT THE PARIS OBSERVATORY. 


ment. They were perfectly circular. The disks came as sharply 
to focus as any I ever saw; and I would not have believed, if I 
had not seen it, that it was possible to make an instrument in 
which, after two reflections, such definition could be found. Iam 
bound to say I never saw better definition in any instrument, and 
I never measured a double star so pleasantly and easily before.” 


Dr. Gill’s well-known investigations in stellar as- 
tronomy give to whatever he says in this line great 
weight, and no stronger testimony could be desired. 

When it comes to the question of the largest aper- 
tures, it would seem, a priori, that there should be 
no difficulty in making a glass mirror — where the 
internal constitution of the glass is not in question, 
and only one plane surface is demanded — 1.41 times 
as large as an objective, in which the glass of the 
two lenses must be homogeneous throughout, and 
four perfect surfaces are required. 


(Reproduced from /’Astronomie.) 


in the definition. But the far greater facilities for 
making the mirrors rigid should make up for this 
in a large degree. At any rate, the French opticians 
seem to have full confidence in their ability to do this, 
and it is certainly to be hoped that they will succeed. 


Washington. H. M. PAUL, 


THE ECHINODERMS DREDGED BY THE 
TALISMAN. 


Amone the deep-sea echinoderms, some of the 
holothurians attain a large size, one being seventy 
centimetres long. The mouth is situated at one end 
of the body, although near the termination of the 


1 Abridged from the French of H. FirHot in Za Nature. 


August 1, 1884.] 


intestines, which open at the other end of the crea- 
ture, are the orifices of branching tubes forming the 
respiratory organs. When holothurians are disturbed 
(as on being caught, for instance), they contract, and 
suddenly shoot out their viscera. But what is more 
singular and inexplicable is, that after some time 
these organs are reproduced. It would seem that the 
life of these animals, at whatever depth, would pass 
in perfect quiet; yet the holothurians living near the 
surface, as wel! as those between four and five thou- 
sand metres, are harassed by a swarm of parasites. 
Thus some of them, as Van Beneden says, are trans- 
formed into a kind of living hotel; some lodge in 
their respiratory organs little fishes (Ferasfer) with a 


body as long as that of an eel, but contracted; others — 
shelter one or more couples of the little crabs called 


Pinnotheres, or carry in their intestines the worms 
called Anoplodium. But besides these parasites, 
which do not live at the expense of the host, of whom 
they demand only a home, there are others which 
live on the host. — 

Perrier says, ‘‘A holothurian has essentially the 
form of a five-sided melon with an opening at each 
extremity. With holothurians of great depths, how- 
ever, this form almost entirely disappears. Some 
curve themselves back into a U-shape; others, as 
Ankyroderma, have the form of an ovoid sac, without 
the ambulacra which cut the surface of the other 
holothurians into five arms; the majority, instead 
of the characteristic radial symmetry of their allies, 
present a bilateral symmetry as distinct as that of the 
worms and the vertebrates, and creep on the mire by 
means of a ventral sole, like slugs, forming a peculiar 
example of the mode in which two organic types 
which seem separated by an unbridgable abyss may 
be found in the same animal.’’ 

The sea-urchins are represented at great depths 
by forms very varied, and peculiar to certain zones. 
Some are remarkable for the development and beauty 
of their spines. For a very long time the remains of 
a genus of echinoderms called Calveria had been 
found in cretaceous deposits; but only in 1869, during 
the cruise of the Porcupine, was the survival of this 
form at the bottom of our seas revealed to us. ‘‘ As 
the dredge was coming in,’’ says Thomson, speak- 
ing of this form, ‘‘ we got a glimpse from time to time 
of a large scarlet urchin in the bag. We thought it 
was one of the highly coloured forms of Echinus 
Flemingii of unusual size; and as it was blowing 
fresh, and there was some little difficulty in getting 
the dredge capsized, we gave little heed to what 
seemed to be an inevitable necessity, — that it should 
be crushed to pieces. We were somewhat surprised, 
therefore, when it rolled out of the bag uninjured; 
and our surprise increased, and was certainly in my 
case mingled with a certain amount of nervousness, 
when it settled down quietly in the form of a round 
red cake, and began to pant, —a line of conduct, to 
say the least of it, very unusual in its rigid undemon- 
strative order. Yet there it was, with all the ordinary 
characters of a sea-urchin, its interambulacral areas, 
and its ambulacral areas with their rows of tube feet, 
its spines, and fine, sharp, blue teeth; and curious un- 


SCIENCE. 


‘of extraordinary prosperity, 


103 


dulations were passing through its perfectly flexible 
leather-like test. I had to summon up some reso- 
lution before taking the weird little monster in my 
hand.”’ 

The flexibility of the sides of this particular 
echinus, aS was discovered, is due to a peculiar ar- 
rangement of the pieces forming the test. As for 
the palpitation which seems to have so impressed the 
English naturalists, it is simply due to the ship's roll- 
ing or pitching, or else to the vibrations arising from 
the action of the engines on board. 

A group most abundant in new forms is composed 
of the beautifully formed and often brilliantly col- 
ored animals called star-fishes. Attention must be 
directed first to Brisinga, which sometimes has as 
many as twenty long, flexible arms. These brilliant 
orange-red stars often violently detach their arms 
when they feel themselves caught and drawn up by 
the movement of the trawl; and it is very rarely 
that they can be studied in an uninjured state. Abs- 
jornsen, who first discovered them on the coast of 
Norway a little above Bergen, at a depth of 200 fath- 
oms, much admired the phosphorescent light shed by 
the body and the arms. ‘‘ Whole and uninjured as L 
saw it once or twice under the water in the dredge, 
this animal is peculiarly brilliant, a veritable gloria 
maris ;’’ and he accordingly gave it the name Brisin- 
ga, from a jewel of the goddess Freya. Brisinga 
coronata was obtained at the tropics, hitherto found 
only in the German ocean. In the cruise of the Por- 
cupine it was found at 914 metres. We found it 
between 736 and 1,435 metres. Other species occur at 
depths ranging from 882 to 3,455 metres. All these 
forms are new, and so abundant that thousands 
cover the bottom of the sea. 

Crinoids, the last echinoderms of which we shall 
speak, are cup-shaped. From the edges extend sim- 
ple arms, bifurcated or branched, with pinnules at 
the sides. From the back grows a jointed rod, which 
attaches itself to surrounding objects. In Antedon 
and Actinometra, represented on the plate, this rod 
exists only during an early stage, the body becoming 
free at a certain point in their development; while 
with Pentacrinus, also figured, and with Democrinus 
and Bathycrinus, it continues during the life of the 
animal. The crinoids have always been considered 
by naturalists interesting objects of study, as much 
on account of their rarity in the present marine 
fauna, as on account of their great abundance in very 
old geologic periods. In fact, these animals, which 
were common during the Silurian period, increased 
in numbers at the time of the calcareous carbonif- 
erous deposits, which are formed almost exclusively 
of beds composed of their remains. They were found 
again in abundance in that middle horizon of the 
triassic deposits called muschelkalk. After this time 
crinoids appear, as 
Thomson says, to have gotton the worst in the strug- 
gle for existence. As they approach the present 
period, the species become rarer, and are represented 
by fewerindividuals. At one time it was thought that 
Antedon alone existed at the present time. The dis- 
coveries made in the deep-sea explorations resulted 


WITH PENTACRINUS, AND 
A AND OTHERS) AND CRUSTACEANS. 


PEOPLED 


> 


= 


500 METRE: 


(ll 


eg: 


OPSE 


M 


( 


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ATES 


> 
ve 


rt 
& 
oa 
QQ 

ee 
jan) 


{ 


r 


ibs 


A DEP" 


AN TATE 
SOME COELEN: 


1E 


O 


O 


E 
ALS 


= 
Sis = Sse 
SSase . 2 


3 OF 
a 
ae ed 


Tr 


N 


OF TH 
ING 


Di 
‘OM 
SHOW 


(S"szeem er st 


A LO me : 
BOT” 


Aveust 1, 1884.] 


in the abandonment of this idea. Certain forms of 
crinoids, as Pentacrinus, Democrinus, and Bathycri- 
nus, are peculiar to great depths, and form in our seas 
numerous and widely separated colonies. 

A recent species of Pentacrinus, a genus largely 
represented in the lias and oolite, was brought in 
1755 from Martinique to Paris, and described by 
Guettard. At long intervals rare specimens from 
the Caribbean Sea have been seen. On the 21st of 
July, 1870, Gwyn Jeffreys, while dredging from the 
Porcupine at a depth of two thousand metres, in 
longitude 39° 42’, latitude 9° 43’, procured a score 
of specimens. It would seem as if their excellent 
state of preservation would prove whether they 
were free or fixed. Thomson, who studied them, 
believed that the animal lives slightly attached to the 
soft mud, changing at will its abode, and swimming 
by means of its feathery arms. On the Talisman, 
the trawl was twice dropped to depths occupied by 
this Pentacrinus; and we decided, contrary to the 
prevailing opinion, that these animals live firmly 
fixed by the backward-curving tendrils, which grow 
from the terminal joint of the rod. These hooks, 
as it were, solder themselves to the bottom, and can 
be detached only by breaking. 

We have attempted to show in our plate the char- 
acter of the bottom of the sea on which Pentacrinus 
lives, as it was shown by the dredging made opposite 
Rochefort, at fifteen hundred metres. Pentacrinus 
Wyville-Thomsoni in considerable numbers covers 
the ground, forming a kind of living meadow, from 
which rise large Mopseas. The rocky ground was 
covered with beautiful corals, resembling flowers 
with the calyx opened; and in the midst of this liv- 
ing world moved hitherto unknown crustaceans 
(Paralomis microps A. M. Edw.) whose carapace was 
ornamented with fine spines. Actinometra (crinoids 


SCIENCE. 


105 


which become detacled from their rods after full 
growth) were floating in the water, or fastened them- 
selves for short intervals by their tendrils to the 
branches of the Mopseas. Pentacrinus and Acti- 
nometra were of a beautiful grass-green, the Mopseas 
of an orange color, the corals of a deep violet, and 
the crustaceans of a mother-of-pearl whiteness. This 
profusion of life, and this prodigality of colors, at 
fifteen hundred metres below the surface, certainly 
form two of the most wonderful facts which have 
been reserved for the naturalist to discover. 

In 1827 Thomson found attached to Comatulas 
(free crinoids with no attaching rod) a Pentacrinus 
of small size, which he described under the name of 
Pentacrinus europaeus. This animal seemed to 
possess, in all the details of its structure, the char- 
acteristics of the fossil Encrinus and of the modern 
Pentacrinus.. Ten years later Mr. Thomson, when 
again examining a small crinoid, was much aston- 
ished to see it suddenly abandon its rod, and begin to 
swim with its arms for some time, and then to re- 
attach itself by its tendriJs. Continuing his studies, 
he saw the arms, originally branched at the summit, 
gradually assume the character of the arms of Coma- 
tula; and he was gradually brought to the knowledge 
that Pentacrinus europaeus was only a young Coma- 
tula. 

Comatulas are numerous at certain points on our 
coast, where they are found, according to their age, 
gracefully clinging among the sea-wrack, or sheltered 
under the pebbles accumulated on the reefs. Sev- 
eral species descend to a considerable depth, one being 
found abundantly at twelve hundred metres. At 
some places we saw Comatulas existing by thousands, 
and representing almost exclusively the animal life 
of the locality. 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


New-York academy of sciences, 


June 3. — Mr. G. F. Kunz read a paper on a new pro- 
cess of cameo or intaglio gem-engraving, in which he 
said, that, from his first experience in the dental chair, 
he received the impression that the machine used in 
tooth-drilling would be the proper one for engraving 
and cutting on stones similar to cameos and intaglios. 
In the engraving-lathe at present used, the tool re- 
volves on a horizontal shaft, to which are attached 
tools of different size and shape; the Italians and 
French using a screw-thread, while the English make 
use of a lead head, which is simply fastened in by the 
revolving of the wheel. A set of tools or drills often 
numbers over a hundred. Mr. Kunz exhibited the 
S. S. White improved dental engine, which is some- 
what similar to the other machines in use, and may 
be described as follows: A driving-wheel eleven inches 
in diameter is set in motion by a foot-treadle; and 
from this wheel the power is conveyed, by means of a 


cord of fibre or thin leather, to a pulley-head. To this 
is hinged a pivot-rod, extending from it as a flexible 
arm, which conveys the power to the drill through 
a steel or iron head-piece. The main advantage lies 
in the revolving-point being allowed so much free- 
dom of motion by the flexible wire arm, that it can 
be placed in any position desired, and held in any 
position on the work instead of the work being held 
on it. Any revolving-tool that can be placed at 
will on the work, in any desired position, gives the 
desired result; and this can be attained by a flexible 
driver, as in this machine. It night, however, be 
improved. 1°. The points or drills should be made 
of softer iron, to hold the particles of diamond-dust 
more readily. 2°. The tool should be arranged to 
work more steadily, and thus overcome any possible 
jar in very fine work, although it has drilled a series 
of holes in a metal plate, which no engraver with the 
old lathe could place more closely. 3°. The driving- 
wheel should be heavier and larger, to attain more 


106 SCIENCE. 


power and a greater rate of speed. 4°. The wheel 
and treadle should be placed under a bench, and the 


amorphous carbo 


SS : 
Packs SSE SOSA OL ODES SSS 


THE WHITE DENTAL ENGINE, APPLICABLE TO GEM-ENGRAVING. 


mittee appointed 
Minot has called 
flexible arm passed through its centre, in front of the 
workman. A machine of this kind might be used 
for all rough grinding-out; or, for some of the fine 


[Vou. IV., No. 78. 


work, a diamond-pointed tool, the diamond being the 
nado. 


This would in all respects be 
a miniature rock-drill. Mr. Kunz 
had no doubt that with this tool, 
the diamond being properly secured, 
any stone softer than diamond could 
be engraved much more readily than 
with any known drill; and that for 
engraving on diamond it could also 
possibly be used, since the amor- 
phous diamond is really harder than 
the crystalline form of this mineral. 
As engraving on this gem has been 
much more in vogue of late than 
ever before, its use in this field, also, 
would be required. It could at least 
make the round furrows, such as in 
ancient times were made by the bow- 
drill, and afterward by the diamond 
or emery-stone point, and then pol- 
ished out by the finer particles of 
these minerals. One great advan- 
tage of this method is, that the very 
pulsation, as it were, of the artist, 
will be conveyed to the drill, thus 
imparting to the stone whatever 
artistic feeling he may possess, in- 
stead of the mechanical, unartistic 
effect so common with the work of 
the old machine. By this method, 
should it be given a fair trial, not 
only will the style of work be likely 
to be greatly improved, but a ra- 
pidity of execution will be attained 
that has never been accomplished 
by the old lathe-machine, even by 
the best workmen. Who would 
think of a sculptor holding the 
statue against the chisel, or of a 
violinist rubbing the bow with the 
violin? And yet the present mode 
of engraving is quite correctly illus- 
trated in these apparently extreme 
examples. The conveyance of the 
pulsation through such a machine 
as this is really the same as the in- 
spiration which a musician or an 
artist conveys to his instrument, 
his brush, or pencil: it is what he 


feels; and the graver cannot convey this pulsation 
with the old lathe. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


In the article in our number of last week, on the 
organization of an international scientific association, 
no sufficiently distinct reference was made to the com- 


by the American association. Dr. 
our attention to the omission, which 


we endeavor to make good by the following statement. 
The committee referred to was appointed in 1882 at 
the Montreal meeting of the American association 


Avueust 1, 1884.] 


for the advancement of science, ‘‘ to confer with com- 
mittees of foreign associations for the advancement 
of science with reference to an international conven- 
tion of scientific associations.’’ The committee con- 
sists of Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, Mr. Alexander Agassiz, 
and Professor Simon Newcomb. If the British as- 
sociation responds, as has been suggested, by also 
appointing a committee, the official channels for 
the interchange of opinion between the two national 
bodies will be suitably established on both sides. We 
are unable to make any authorized statement as to 
what the American committee has done or proposes, 
but its membership justifies the conviction that it is 
capable of efficient action, wisely planned. We shall 
await their report with interest. 


— The circular of the Philadelphia local commit- 
tee announces that the local and general secretaries 
of the American association will have their offices in 
the library of Horticultural hall. The post-office 
will be in the Academy of music, where letters bear- 
ing the initials A. A. A. S. will be delivered. . 


In section B, physics, electricity will undoubtedly 


be a prominent subject of discussion. In conse- 
quence of the provision of congress for the appoint- 
ment, by the President of the United States, of a 
scientific commission to conduct a national confer- 
ence of electricians and investigations related to the 
international electrical exhibition, it is probable that 
official conferences of electricians will be held imme- 
diately after the meeting of the association, so as 
to allow all visiting scientific men interested in this 
department to participate. 

The president of section E, geology, suggests that 
the following order be observed in the reading of 
papers: 1°. Geography and stratigraphic (post-ar- 
chaean) geology; 2°. Geology of crystalline rocks; 3°. 
Mineralogy and lithology; 4°. Paleontology; 5°. Qua- 
ternary geology; 6°. Miscellaneous. Asa large num- 
ber of papers is expected, it is suggested that special 
days be assigned to the above topics in the order 
given. The subject of crystalline rocks will form a 
special topic of discussion. The presence of a num- 
ber of British geologists will add unusual interest to 
the occasion. Special geological excursions will be 
arranged to places of interest in the vicinity. 

It is proposed to effect an organization in section 
C, chemistry, under the title of the sub-section of 
agricultural chemistry. All chemists interested in 
the application of the science to agriculture are in- 
vited to attend this convention of agricultural chem- 
ists, to be held Monday evening, Sept. 10. The 
Association of the American journal of agricultural 
science will also meet during the week, and all per- 
sons interested in promoting this enterprise are in- 
vited to attend. 

Special efforts have been made to render the meet- 
ings of section D, mechanical science, of unusual 
importance, invitations having been sent to a large 
number of specialists and mechanical and engineer- 
ing societies to participate. Papers are expected on 
the subjects of standard bars, flat surfaces, screws, 
etc. Room will be provided for the erection of appa- 
ratus. 


SCIENCE. 


107 


All botanical members are requested to call at the 
Academy of natural sciences as soon as practicable 
after arrival, and register: this will constitute them 
members of the American botanical club of the 
association, which was instituted at the Minneapolis 
meeting, and entitle them to the privileges of the 
same. Special excursions will be organized to the 
Bartram gardens, the pine barrens of New Jersey, 
and other localities of botanical interest. 

It is expected that an effort will be made toward 
the formation of a sub-section on meteorology. 

The proposed organization of an International 
scientific association will be brought forward for dis- 
cussion. It is hoped that the British association 
also will take some action during its session at Mon- 
treal, to enable it to unite with the American asso- 
ciation in a common effort to found such a congress. 
Those who are interested in the undertaking, who 
can make any suggestions or desire information as to 
the plans formed, are invited by the local committee 
to communicate with Dr. Charles S. Minot, No. 25 
Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Mass., who, in accord- 
ance with the wish of the permanent secretary, has 
assumed charge of the correspondence relating to this 
matter. In this connection it is worthy of note that 
the local committee has sent invitations to more 
than two hundred foreign societies, inviting them to 
send representatives to Philadelphia. A number 
have accepted; and this increase in the number of 
foreign scientific men will add to the importance of 
the movement. Among the American societies 
which will meet simultaneously in Philadelphia are 
the American institute of mining engineers, the 
American institute of electrical engineers, the Penn- 
sylvania state agricultural society, the Agassiz asso- 
ciation, and the Association of collegiate alumnae. 
For all business concerning papers, membership, etc., 
address F. W. Putnam, Hotel Lafayette, after Aug. 
20; and for all local business, transportation, and 
rooms, address local secretaries, H. C. Lewis and E. 
J. Nolan, at the Academy of natural sciences. 


— The President has selected the following as mem- 
bers of the electrical commission to conduet experi- 
ments on the occasion of the exhibition at the Franklin 
institute: Prof. H. A. Rowland, Baltimore; Professor 
John Trowbridge, Cambridge; Prof. G. F. Barker, 
Philadelphia; Prof. R. A. Fisk, San Francisco; Prof, 
M. B. Snyder, Philadelphia; Prof. J. Willard Gibbs, 
New Haven; Professor Simon Newcomb, Washing- 
ton; Prof. E. J. Houston, Philadelphia; Prof. C. A. 
Young, Princeton; Dr. W. H. Wahl, Philadelphia. 


—-Some weeks ago a plan for bringing certain sub- 
jects for debate before the chemical section of the 
American association for the advancement of science, 
at its approaching meeting in Philadelphia, was con- 
sidered by the fellows of section C, and has resulted 
in the following selection: 1°. To what extent is the 
hypothesis of ‘valence’ or ‘ atomicity’ of value in 
explaining chemical reactions? 2°. What is the best 
initiatory course of work for students entering upon 
laboratory practice, and what are the best methods 
of illustrating chemical lectures? These subjects, if 


108 | SCIENCE. 


approved by the standing committee, will be offered 
for public discussion in the sectional meetings at such 
time as the committee may determine, probably on 
Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 8 and 9. In addition to 
the above, the following subjects have been carefully 
considered by some of the members, and papers or 
discussions on them may be expected, if the commit- 
tee are able to arrange for them upon the daily pro- 
grammes: Fermentation; Adulteration of food and 
drugs; Thermo- chemistry and chemical theory. 


— With a view of more generally disseminating 
the results of scientific investigation, and of facili- 
tating the work of the student in natural history, 
the following members and officers of the Academy of 
natural sciences, Philadelphia, have associated them- 
selves into a bureau of scientific information, whose 
function shall be the imparting, through correspond- 
ence, of precise and definite information bearing upon 
the different branches of the natural sciences. It is 
believed by them, that, through an organization of this 
kind, considerable assistance can be rendered to those 
who, by the nature of their surroundings, are pre- 
cluded from the advantages to be derived from 
museums and libraries. As the organization is of a 
purely voluntary character, it is to be hoped that no 
unnecessary burden will be imposed upon its mem- 
bers by communications of an essentially trivial 
nature. All correspondence must be accompanied by 
a return stamp (two cent), and may be addressed to 
the following: Joseph Leidy, M.D., Mycetozoa, Rhiz- 
opoda, Entozoa, Vertebrate paleontology ; Edward 
Potts, Pond life, Fresh-water sponges, and Bryozoa; 
George W. Tryon, jun., Conchology ; Benjamin 
Sharp, M.D., Worms, Annelids, Histology; G. H. 
Horn, M.D., North-American Coleoptera ; H. C. Mc- 
Cook, D.D., Ants, Spiders, Insect architecture ; Hen- 
ry Skinner, M.D., North-American moths ; Eugene 
M. Aaron, Diurnal Lepidoptera; W. N. Lockington, 
Echinoderms, Fishes; Spencer Trotter, M.D., North- 
American ornithology ; Thomas Meehan, Exotic 
and cultivated plants; J. H. Redfield, Ferns and 
North-American phanerogamic plants; J. T. Roth- 
rock, Vegetable physiology; F. Lamson Scribner, 
Grasses ; H. Carvill Lewis, Mineralogy, Glacial and 
stratigraphical geology; Angelo Heilprin, Inverte- 
brate paleontology, Physiography, Dynamical geol- 
ogy; D. G. Brinton, M.D., Ethnology, American 
linguistics, and Archeology; Harrison Allen, M.D., 
Ter ratolog gy; J. Gibbons Hunt, M.D., Microscopical 
technology ; E. J. Nolan, M.D., Bibliography of nat- 
ural history; Professor ese Allen, chairman ; 
Professor Angelo Heilprin, secretary. It is to be 
clearly understood that the scope of the organization 
does not embrace considerations of a purely profes- 
sional character, such as mineral or chemical analy- 
ses, nor the determination of collections, except by 
special agreement. Departments not represented in 
the above titles will be filled as early as practicable: 
correspondence pertaining to such should be ad- 
dressed to the secretary. In all other departments 
the respondents may be addressed directly, care of the 
Bureau of scientific information, Academy of natu- 
ral sciences. 


(Vou. IV., No. 78. 


— Lieut. A. R. Gordon of the royal navy, superin- 
tendent of the Canadian meteorological service, sailed 
from Halifax, June 22, in the steamer Neptune, with 
a party of observers, to establish stations along the 
Hudson’s Strait. The crew, with the explorers, will 
in all number fifty-five men. The expedition will first 
call at Nain, on the Labrador coast, and finally at 
Ramah, the northernmost station on the Atlantic 
coast, and but a few hundred miles south of Cape 
Chudleigh, at the entrance to the strait. Eskimo 
interpreters will be engaged at one or more of these 
Labrador stations. Seven stations in the strait will 
be established, as follows: No. 1, at Cape Chudleigh, 
at the south-east entrance of the strait; No. 2, on 
Resolution Island, at the north-east entrance of the 
strait, and about forty-five miles across from No. 7 
station; No. 8, at Cape Hope, or on the south side of 
about the centre of the strait, and about two hundred 
and fifty miles from stations 1 and 2; No. 4, di- 
rectly north of No. 3, on the Upper Savages Islands; 
No#5, on the south-east end of Nottingham Island, 
and ayo two hundred miles from No. 4; No. 6, on 
the south side of Mansfield Island, and a hundred 
and fifty miles from No. 5; No. 7, at Fort Churchill, 
four hundred and sixty miles from No. 6. 


— By order of the secretary of the navy, a board, 
consisting of Commodore Luce, Capt. Sampson, and 
Commander Goodrich, has reported upon the estab- 
lishing of a post-graduate course, or school of appli- 
cation, for officers of the navy. It recommends 
that the leading subjects of the course should be 
the ‘science and art of war,’ and ‘ Law and history.’ 
Subsidiary to these, instruction will be given in ord- 
nance, torpedoes, and hydrography. ‘These latter 
courses will consist partly of instruction in the higher 
mathematics and the physical sciences, and partly of 
practice at the Washington navy arsenal and experi- 
mental battery and the Newport torpedo station. 

Only officers of and above the rank of lieutenant 
are to be allowed to take the courses. In the two 
main branches the students are to come to the school, 
and the subjects are to be taught by eminent special- 
ists. For the instruction in science, the students 
must go to the instructors, wherever such and the 
necessary laboratories are to be found. For this and 
other reasons, the board recommends Newport for the 
site of the school, that the students in science may 
avail themselves of the facilities about Boston. 


— The Detroit Free press reports a fall of a light 
dust on Lake Michigan on June 135. The dust covered 
the ground about Wangoshance lighthouse to the 
depth of an inch. ; 


— The paper promised by Professor Bonney for the 
Montreal meeting of the British association will be 
on the archaean rocks of Britain, and not on the © 
archaean rocks of Canada. 


— The director of the meteorological observatory — 
of Turin, Father Denza, is organizing observations 
on board the Godard captive balloon, which ascends 
to an altitude of two hundred to three hundred me- — 
tres at the Turin exhibition. - 


Se. Nae rk. 


FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Apropos of the appointment of the electrical 
commission mentioned last week in our notes, is 
not the manner in which candidates are select- 
ed for scientific appointments at Washington 
worthy of serious consideration? ‘There seems 
to be no scientific authority there who feels 
entitled to come forward in such cases, and 
represent the views of scientific men. If the 
latter are appealed to, to come forward them- 
‘selves, the almost universal answer is, that they 
do not feel that their opinions would receive 
serious consideration at the hands of the ap- 
pointing power; and that, if the authorities 
really care for their opinions, it is very easy 
to ask for them. But, unfortunately, business 
at the national capital is not arranged on any 
such system. An appointing power is not an 
active personage who investigates for himself, 
but the occupant of a seat at an office-desk, 
waiting for people to come forward and present 
their views. ‘This personage does not assume 
that any one has any views unless he comes 
forward with them, and is not disposed to go 
around in search of opinions as long as he 
finds himself plentifully supplied with the arti- 
cle, ready-made, and thrust upon him. If 
asked to obtain the views of learned men, his 
reply would be a general invitation to all that 
class to come forward. Let the reader im- 
agine, if he pleases, an ‘industry ’ or an ‘ inter- 
est’ too modest to address the authorities. 


The bad effect of this state of things need 
not be dwelt upon: the practical question is, 
how it can be remedied. ‘The only remedy 
is to have some central scientific authority, 
in intimate relations with the administration, 
ready to come forward and represent the 
scientific opinion of the country on all occa- 
sions when the interests of science are in- 

No. 79.— 1884. 


volved. If we had a department of science, 
its head would naturally perform these func- 
tions: in the absence of this agency, and of 
any special statutory provision, nothing can be 
effectively done, unless our leading scientific 
men will lay aside modesty, and accept the 
disagreeable features of the situation. An 
unofficial representative, on confidential terms 
with the leading members of the administra- 
tion, might be nearly as effective as a depart- 
ment. But, mortifying though it may be, the 
general rule is that official position, as the 
responsible head of an establishment of some 
kind, is necessary to enable any man to com- 
mand any real weight. 


A STRIKING similarity may be observed be- 
tween the history of names of individuals 
among men, and the history of scientific names 
given to natural objects. In zodlogy the spe- 
cies or variety stands in the same relation to 
the naturalist as the individual man stands to 
his fellows. The object of names is in both 
cases to distinguish absolutely the species, 
variety, or individual, from others about it. 
When men live in comparatively small com- 
munities, and each individual leads a stationary 
life, one name has generally been found suf- 
ficient ; but in larger communities, or where a 
constant mingling of the people takes place 
through political commotions or increased fa- 
cility for travel, a necessity arises for binomial 
or trinomial, or even longer names. 


Thus in England, in Saxon days, one name, 
as a rule, sufficed; but after the conquest bi- 
nomial names were gradually adopted, though 
these had an earlier origin in France. Binomial 
nomenclature answered until the eighteenth 
century, when trinomial names began to be in- 
troduced, and now prevail. These now are 
often insufficient to meet the wants of modern 
man, to distinguish him as an individual, to 


a 


110 


enable him to receive his telegrams and letters 
when in the midst of such centres of population 
as London, Paris, Berlin, or New York; and 
thus the evolution of the four and five divided 
polynomial names is actually occurring, which, 
before another half-century, will doubtless be 
as common as trinomial names are to-day. In 
the United States the changes have taken place 
more slowly than in England, and in that coun- 
try less rapidly than in Germany and France. 
In America the trinomial system began to be 
adopted about the middle of the eighteenth 
century, but did not acquire prominence until 
well into the first quarter of the present century. 
In these remarks regard is paid to the mass of 
the people; for the nobility, and in some re- 
gions the pride of descent, have hastened or 
modified the general law of name evolution, 
while even in England, in some isolated dis- 
tricts, one name alone quite recently sufficed. 


Turning to natural history, it can be seen 
that in mineralogy and lithology the species 


are comparatively few, and a single name is’ 


used ; although traces of a binomial system can 
be seen in the latter, in such names as quartz 
porphyry, olivine diabase, hornblende andesite, 
etc. Several attempts, indeed, have been made 
to introduce a binomial nomenclature in miner- 
alogy, but they have always failed because 
both unnecessary and unnatural. In zodlogy 
and botany, in the olden time, one name was 
used ; but as these sciences increased in exact- 
ness, and in the number of their species, the 
binomial system was introduced by Linné. 
This has answered the purposes of science for a 
long period ; but the multiplicity of the species 
and varieties known has now become greater 
than the capabilities of that system, and a poly- 
nomial nomenclature is being surely evolved. 
Indeed, triple and quadruple names are as in- 
evitable to designate species and varieties, of 
animals at least, as such names have been 
found to be for individual men; and the wise 
and philosophic naturalist is undoubtedly the 
one who adapts his system to the tendency of 
the times, — the inevitable. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 79. — 


Twomodes seem available to meet this, one 


by the use of letters or numerals ; and the other 
by the addition, to the generic and specific 
names now employed, of a third or even fourth 
name, to indicate the variety and sub-variety so 
far as need be. ‘The former finds an example 
in the use of ‘sen.,’ ‘jun.,’ © 1st) )\2deeeeme 
‘3d,’ added to distinguish individuals, and of 
the Roman numerals affixed to the names of 
kings. This method is confessedly inconven- 
ient and of limited use. The second method 
accords with the custom of mankind, and would 
never have been adopted if it had not been the 
easiest, best, and most natural system for man 
and his capabilities. The trinomial system of 
zoology (genus, species, and variety) has its 
olden prototype in the Roman name system, — 
gens, family, and person; or nomen, cogno- 
men, and praenomen, — although the order of 
arrangement differs ; e.g., Caius Julius Caesar, 
Lucius Cornelius Scipio. Names, for example, 
like Turdus fuscescens salicicola would appear, 
from the above, to be of proper form; but such 
as Eutaenia sirtalis sirtalis, or Heterdon platy- 
rhinus platyrhinus, are as absurd as it would be 
to name a person John John Smith or George 
Washington Washington. The similarity of 
the laws and methods of development of nomen- 
clature, both for mankind in general and for 
the naturalist, is not remarkable ; for it merely 
displays the mind of man with its capabilities 
and limitations, acting on the same problem, 
—the separation of specials from generals. 
The resemblances in both cases have been car- 
ried out so fully, that even the organic chem- 
ists, in their nomenclature, rival that of the 
highland Scotchman in his palmiest days, and 
from the same cause, — the line of descent. 


Ir is a good sign that the importance of the 
explorations undertaken by the Peabody mu- 
seum is acknowledged by others than those 
in the immediate vicinity of Cambridge. The 
broad and national character of the museum is 
thus slowly meeting with appreciation. When 
we recall the fact that this is the only museum — 
in the country founded and conducted for the 


Auveust 8, 1884.] 


single purpose of the study of man, it seems 
impossible that it should long remain without 
a much larger support from friends of Ameri- 
can archeology and ethnology. We hope that 
the trustees will be encouraged in their efforts 
by a large increase to the subscriptions for 
American explorations, in addition to those 
mentioned in our notes. 


European naturalists regard the attention 
paid in this country to economic entomology, 
and the aid that has been given it by various 
states and by the general government, as one 
sign of ‘a practical people.’ With all the 
specialization in instruction in the foreign uni- 
versities, we are not aware that there is more 
than one which supports a professorship of 
entomology. This is Oxford, where the ven- 
erable Professor Westwood honors the Hope 
foundation. In this country, Harvard and 
Cornell each have their full professorship of 
this science; and to the latter a summer school, 
having special reference to agricultural ento- 
mology, has now been attached. This seems 
more appropriate than many of the summer 
schools now so much in vogue, inasmuch as 
the objects of study are at this season in the 
height of their investigations into the power 
of crops to sustain insect-life. To further the 
interests of the school, the trustees of Cornell 
university have relieved Professor Comstock 
of his duties during the winter semester; and 
an unusually good opportunity is thus afforded 
to teachers, as well as others, to familiarize 
themselves with the principles of this branch 
of economic science. 


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. 


Some United States geologists, and the propy- 
lite question. 


Your reviewer of the recent publications of the 
U.S. geological survey incorrectly states that Dr. 
Becker does not give Rosenbusch credit for his prior 
advocacy of the view that propylite is a modification 
of andesite (Science, iv. p. 67), for Becker does so 
on p. 90 of his ‘Geology of the Comstock lode;’ but 
your reviewer ought to have stated that Wadsworth 


SCIENCE. 


Lp | 


was the first American to advocate this relation of 
propylite and andesite, which he did in a paper pub- 
lished before that of Rosenbusch. In Wadsworth’s 
paper it was remarked, that his microscopic studies 
of the Washoe and other western propylites, collected 
by Richthofen and the Fortieth parallel exploration, 
had led him to conclude of these typical propylitic 
rocks, that ‘‘ the propylites are all altered andesites, 
with which species their chemical composition agrees; 
and that the diagnostic distinctions that Professor Zir- 
kel has placed between the andesites and propylites did 
not hold good, even in the specimens that he described, 
as would have been readily seen, had he given com- 
plete descriptions instead of the very imperfect and 
often inaccurate ones that have been published. 
The distinction between these rocks is simply in the 
degree of alteration; and they pass directly into each 
other.” 1 

Now, although Messrs. George F. Becker and Arnold 
Hague are fully known to have knowledge of this 
publication, they not only ignore completely the 
priority of Wadsworth, but also use language which 
would cause any reader not conversant with the 
subject to believe that Becker was the first American 
to oppose the species propylite. 

In connection with a professed history of the dis- 
cussion of the Washoe rocks, Becker states, ‘‘ Baron 
von Richthofen based the independence of the new 
rock propylite largely upon the occurrences in the 
Washoe district. Later investigators in the same 
field, without exception, have adopted his views. 
Professor Zirkel’s characterizations of the microscop- 
ical peculiarities of propylite were also founded 
chiefly on the Washoe occurrence. Though at the 
beginning of the present investigation [April, 1880] I 
was fully persuaded of the independence of propy- 
lite, I subsequently found reason to doubt it; but to 
prove a negative is notoriously difficult, and the great 
authority of my predecessors made the task still more 
onerous.” 2 

Mr. Hague writes, ‘‘ Recently Mr. George F. Becker, 
in his work on the Washoe district, made a thorough 
investigation of the so-called propylite, and as aresult 
denied the independence of the rock-species. ... We 
quite agree with him, so far as the non-existence of 
propylite as a distinct rock-species in the Great Basin 
is comeerned. 77° 

Any one who is conversant with the storm Wads- 
worth’s before-mentioned paper of 1879 excited will 
have no difficulty in understanding why it is that 
these and some other geologists, who are now stand- 
ing on almost if not quite identical ground with him, 
should proceed in such a manner.?- 

M. E. WADSWORTH. 


Museum of comparative zodlogy, 
Cambridge, Mass., July 21. 


Swarming insects. 


The editor was slightly unfortunate in his sugges- 
tion appended as a note to the letter of Mr. Abbott 
(Science, No. 77). I have just returned from Lake- 
side, Ottawa county, O., where the phenomenon 
spoken of by Mr. Abbott was witnessed almost every 
day for more than two weeks. The pulsating swarms 
were, beyond question, the ‘ Canada soldiers,’ a spe- 
cies of Ephemera. 

During the first ten days of the present month 


1 Bull. mus. comp. z06l., 1879, v. 285. 

2 Geology of the Comstock lode, 1882, p. 33. 

3 Amer. journ. sc., 1884 (3), xxvii. 454. 

4 See, further, Proceedings of the Boston society of natural 
history, 1883, xxii. 412-452; and 1881, xxi. 245-274. 


a ae 


112 


this insect swarmed in such numbers as to cover 
every exposed surface, and literally to darken the 
air to a height of fifty to seventy-five feet. When 
the Ephemerae emerge from the water, their flight 
is weak and uncertain. Instinct teaches them that 
they are carrying an extra armor, and they seek at 
once the nearest support as a place on which to 
moult. At such times these insects are as easily dis- 
turbed as a swarm of bees. A gust of wind from an 
unexpected quarter, giving a slight rustle to the 
leaves, will often cause them to rise in clouds from 
each branch. This motion seems a circling one; but 
the appearance is probably due to the fact that many 
of the insects are moving back upon the branches, 
while others are still ascending. No other insects 
were at all common along the lake during this time. 
It may be worth placing on record that that vener- 
able citizen known as the oldest inhabitant was 
speechless in the presence of these swarming millions. 
His memory could not recall another year in which 
the numbers were worthy to be compared with those 
of 1884. It will be impossible to convey in words an 
adequate conception of this invasion to those who 
have never witnessed any thing of the kind. 

Near the dock at Lakeside there is an electric 
lamp suspended about twenty feet above the ground. 
As might be expected, this became an object for at- 
tack as soon as the current was turned on in the 
evening. On the morning of July 7 the layer of 
dead insects covered an area of not less than twenty- 
five square feet, and was fully six inches deep imme- 
diately underneath the lamp. Kelley’s Island, four 
miles distant, appeared all the while as if enveloped 
in such a cloud of dust as rises over a race-course. 
On the evening of July 6 a wind compelled the 
insects to fly very close to the surface of the water, 
and their numbers appeared fully as great as the 
snowflakes of a winter’s storm. During these ten 
days the invasion extended along the entire south- 
ern shore of the lake, from Buffalo, through Cleve- 
land, Sandusky City, and Toledo, to Detroit. After 
a rain-storm the water of the lake was dense with 
them to a depth of at least two feet. Along the 
beach they were gathered in windrows. As far as 
my observation goes, fish will not eat the dead in- 
sects, but greedily devour living ones. The min- 
nows are very expert at this work, rarely failing to 
make a capture if the insect has touched the water. 

According to Packard, all the Ephmeridae pair 
while on the upper surface of the water. This is not 
strictly correct, for any afternoon one could see thou- 
sands of couples flying in the air and at elevations 
as great as fifty feet. When this took place over the 
water, the couple almost invariably fell into the lake, 
and was devoured by the fishes. Is nature produ- 
cing a stronger-winged variety ? 

EDWARD T. NELSON. 


Ohio Wesleyan university, 
Delaware, O., July 28. 


|The phenomena seen by Professor Nelson, as de- 
scribed by him, appear to be different from those wit- 
nessed by Rev. Mr. Abbott, and in all probability 
a wholly different insect was concerned. The myri- 
ads of Ephemeridae mentioned by both writers have 
been not unfrequently witnessed. A woodcut of a 
street-lamp in Cleveland, swarming with Ephemeri- 
dae, will be found in Morse’s ‘ First book of zodlogy.’ 


We have ourselves seen, from a long distance, wind- 


rows of their dead bodies and exuviae along the 
shore of Lake Winnipeg for very many miles, while 
the water of the lake was so covered with them 
that one could not dip up a cup of clear water. — ED.] 


SCIENCE. 


Man and the mastodon. 


Having had occasion recently to look over num- 
bers of the American journal of science of forty years 
ago, I have met with several notices of archeological 
interest. Among them is the following, in an article 
on the suburban geology of Richmond, Wayne county, 
Ind., by Dr. John T. Plummer, vol. xliv., 1848, p. 
302:— 

‘* A tusk [of the mastodon or mammoth] was exhumed from 
the gravel, fifteen feet below the surface, while excavating the 
Whitewater Canal, near Brookeville, about thirty miles south of 
Richmond; [and] a club-shaped implement, formed apparently 


of cliff-limestone, was also taken out of the gravel ten feet below 
the surface, near the spot where the tusk was found.” 


This implement is described as ‘‘ seventeen inches 
long, rounded at one end, tapering towards the other 
extremity.’’ I do not remember to have seen any 
reference to this in recent works; but as Dr. Plum- 
mer seems to have been an intelligent observer, and 
as he calls attention to the resemblance of this imple- 
ment to an ‘Indian hommony pestle,’ and to the 
remarkable fact that it was found under the above 
conditions, the note should be borne in mind, and 
other implements looked for in the gravels of the 
vicinity named. 

In the same article are noticed an ornament called 
ivory by Dr. Plummer, but probably shell, as like 
mistakes are often made (p. 301), mounds (p. 313), 
and (on p. 303) “several sticks, and a chip having 
palpable marks of an edged tool upon it,’’ found 
nearly thirty feet below the surface in excavating a 
well in Richmond. F. W. PUTNAM. 


THE MADISON EDUCATIONAL CONVEN- 
TION. 


Tue meeting of the National educational 
association at Madison, Wis., which closed its 
sessions on Friday, July 18, was the largest 
ever held in this country, and probably the 
largest of its kind in the world. Every state 
and territory in the Union was represented, 
and over six thousand teachers were on the 
ground. The weather was fine, the town 
beautiful, and very bountiful in its hospitality, 
the excursions numerous, the speakers elo- 
quent, the exposition, on the whole, more 
instructive, and in some departments larger, 
than at Philadelphia in 1876. Everybody was 
there, was heard, and most who desired it had 
some office provided for them, and had their 
names and words spread over the land by the 
efficient agent of the associated press. Half 
a dozen meetings were going on at the same 
time, and manuscript enough to run as many 
educational journals for the year was evolved ; 


so that those who went will not need to read 


for one year. ‘There were committee meetings 


[Vou. IV., No. 7% 


= » 
———— Sl 


August 8, 1884.] 


to fill every hour of the day; and more than 
once an honest teacher was said to have waked 
in the morning to find, that, in the small hours 
of the night before, he had been made president 
of some new society of which he had never 
heard. The agents of the railways, with fas- 
cinating chromos of attractive scenery, were 
organizing excursions at fabulously cheap rates 
for the neighboring lakes, and even for Alaska, 
whither a large party started the last day. 
Dignified and super-subtle agents of the many 
publishing-houses buttonholed every man who 
could and would help them, with an assiduity 
in every way worthy the greatest educational 
show on earth. Superintendents who needed 
new departures for their constituencies were 
seeking the support of the convention for 
all sorts of schemes and reforms. Societies 
for humanity to animals, temperance clubs, 
renowned champions of rights for women, 
Catholicism, represented by a no less adroit 
and subtle propagandist than M. Capel, were 
all on hand, and striving by every means in 
their power to make their cause heard in what 
all have come to feel to be the centre and source 
of all influences that are to be permanent and 
pervading in the land ; viz., the public schools. 
Private, high, normal, industrial, collegiate 
institutions had meetings of their own more or 
less numerous. Dr. Graham Bell and the deaf- 
mutes, Gen. Armstrong and the Indians, Mr. 
F. Adler and his workshops, the Concord sum- 
mer school of philosophy, the Quincy reform, 
were all represented by distinct addresses. An 
international league was organized, with nearly 
a score of officers, on the suggestion of an 
unknown enthusiast at Bonn, Germany; and 
at the end a very long series of resolutions, 
expressing the sentiments of a few end men on 
most of the open questions in the broad sphere 
of modern life, were approved ; and then with 
fireworks and cannon, and bands of music and 
illuminations, and out and in door eloquence, 
the vast assembly dissolved. 

This association is not a ring, though its 
offices and policy are entirely in the hands of 
a very few men; for its honors are empty, its 
Offices gratuitous, and some of the best edu- 


SCIENCE. 


113 


cators keep carefully aloof from it. That 
others are not recognized shows a want of 
wisdom at the centre, which reveals the weak- 
ness and instability of the entire organization. 
It was never more apparent than at this meet- 
ing, that education is, in this country, not a 
science, nor a profession, in any extended or 
respectable sense. Contrast the dismal time- 
killing trivialities which frittered away the 
time of the larger meetings, the emptiness of 
some of the addresses, the egotism and igno- 
rance of others, with the method of a meeting 
of a scientific association. 

Worst of all were, perhaps, the dismal hours 
of the so-called philosophy of education: any 
thing more stultifying and anti-pedagogic than 
most of this cannot be imagined. If a teacher 
can teach, he can interest a convention, or else 
is sure to have the sense to keep silent. By 
this test very few teachers were heard at 
Madison. No more earnest and inspiriting 
address was heard than Col. Parker’s, whose 
iconoclasm the managers greatly fear. He is 
in earnest in his work; and no man was heard 
with greater interest, though perhaps rarely 
without some feeling of strong dissent. It is 
said, teachers are not in the mood for earnest 
work at such assemblies. This is often true of 
the eastern, but not of the western teachers ; 
their enthusiasm is most inspiring, and may 
shame, as it is rapidly distancing, even the 
best of the more routine methods of the East. 
In view of this eagerness, some of the papers 
admitted by the president were a shame to 
him, and an insult to the intelligence and zeal 
of the hearers. There should be, before an- 
other meeting, a board of examiners to decide 
on the merits of papers, less with reference to 
names, and more to matter. 

On the whole, the address of President 
Bicknell was wise and suggestive and all- 
sided. His organization of this year shows 
great administrative capacity, and a clear sense 
of the needs of the hour. What was wanted 
this year was mass, quantity, if only to show 
to outsiders the strength of educational inter- 
ests. But progress is now so rapid here, that 
the wants of another year will be very different. 


114 


We hope the standard of the new president 
from the West will be quality first, and quan- 
tity afterward. Although in one sense he can 
hardly equal the success of this year, a higher 
kind of success desired by those who voted for 
him is possible. If he has the strength and 
wisdom to make it against all the solicitations 
which will tempt him, the most important new 
departure since the association was founded 
may be quietly made next year, even by a very 
small convention, in which quality shall be 
made the touchstone of all. 


A BURROWING SPIDER. 


In the somewhat heavy soil of certain fields, 
where but a scanty herbage thrives, the cave- 
making spider (Tarantula arenicola, as iden- 
tified by the Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook) has 
excavated so many of the nearly perpendicular 
and cylindrical burrows, that the place is almost 
honeycombed, and the surface is conspicuously 
dotted by the irregularly five-sided towers 
erected above each opening. The burrows 
vary from one-quarter to three-quarters of an 
inch in diameter, and in depth from eight to 
twelve, or even twenty, inches; the smaller 
being formed, it is said, by the young, which 
enlarge them with their growth. The walls are 
compact and smooth, but without lining. Tow- 
ers in other localities have been observed two 
inches high: none I have seen are above one 
inch, the majority being still less. 

Among my captives, the most active work- 
ers are an adult and a half-grown individual, 
between whose actions, while digging, slight 
differences are observable. In a glass jar they 
refused to do more than attempt to escape by 
unavailing efforts to scale the sides, but, when 
set free in the garden, they’at once began to 
exhibit their manner of burrowing, and dispos- 
ing of the excavated earth. Most of the labor 
is performed by the large and strong mandi- 
bles, with the probable assistance of the fore- 
legs. A pellet of earth, frequently a third of 
the worker’s cephalothorax in bulk, is loosened 
as the spider labors head downward, and is 
seized by the mandibles. The youngspider turns 
at the bottom of the burrow, and ascends, head 
first, to the edge of the aperture, where the pel- 
let is held just above the surface; then, by a 
blow from both fore-legs, it is thrown to a dis- 
tance varying from four to twelve inches, usu- 


SCIENCE. 


[Von. IV., No. 7% 


ally falling in particles, so that no fresh earth — 
is noticeable near the burrow-entrance. The 
half-grown individual then backs down the tube, 
and resumes work below. ‘The mature spider, 
while the pit is shallow, ascends backward with 
the load, comes entirely out of the orifice, turns 
around, and, having popped the abdomen into 
the opening, throws away the pellet. She rests 
for a few moments, again turns within the 
cave, and descends, head foremost. Before 
returning to work below, however, she often 
carefully examines the edges of the burrow- 
entrance, and, if the earth has become dry 
and friable, strengthens it by threads of web, 
applied by longitudinal strokes of the spin- 
nerets; and, if her movements have broken 
down the margins, she places her head under 
the edge, pushing and lifting the earth ina 
way suggestive of a dog’s method of heaping 
dirt on a bone with his nose. She then applies 
more web, and resumes her digging. But, as 
the burrow deepens, the mature spider also 
turns while below. I have, however, never 
observed a young individual bring up a pellet 
backward. 

That the spinnerets of this species take any 
part in pellet-making is improbable. Mrs. 
Mary Treat, while studying Tarantula turri- 
cula, observed their application to the earth- 
mass before its ejection. It is likely that 
Tarantula arenicola relies solely on the cohe- 
sion of the moist particles, without the addition 
of strengthening web, as I have repeatedly 
witnessed the dry soil of the field crumble to 
sand before the spider could get the pellet 
quite out of the tube. 

The young specimen brought up a load at 
intervals varying from two to five minutes ; and 
a cavern half an inch across and about one inch 
deep was excavated in an hour and a half. 
While deepening a burrow, a young spider in 
the field worked somewhat faster. Assuming 
a pit to be of the uniform width of three-quar- 
ters of an inch and twelve inches deep, the 
Tarantula must carry out the comparatively 
enormous amount of 5.31 cubic inches of earth. 

The towers are usually composed of short 
pieces of grass (fig. 1) placed above and 
across each other in an irregularly five-sided 
wall. Occasionally small twigs are used. In- 
deed, almost any light object will be utilized if 
within reach, for the spider will not leave the 
burrow to search for materials. If nothing is 
attainable without such an effort, she will erect 
alow wall of earth. In several instances tow- 
ers have been destroyed, and the ground cleared 
for a space of three inches radius; and from 
another place the sod was removed: but, in 


August 8, 1884.] 


every case, the spiders raised a bulwark of 
earth, one having attached a single sliver of 
pine shaving, the only thing within her reach. 
At times the grass is curved around the open- 
ing, as if a wisp had been taken, and the tower 
formed at almost a single stroke, without the 
labor involved in placing each blade sepa- 
rately. Near the fa- 
vorite field, a house- 
wife, in the annual 
frenzy of house- 
cleaning, had thrown 
out a quantity of 
coarse straw, which 
some of the Tarantu- 
las utilized by erect- 
ing towers (fig. 2) 
of comparatively im- 
mense straw logs. 
Two miles from the 
latter was found a lofty edifice (fig. 3) built 
of jiarge pieces of brown, partially decayed 
wood from an old railroad tie. Mrs. Treat 
has witnessed their construction by another 
species. I have not observed the entire pro- 
cess. 

The spiders’ favorite position is a crouching 
one at the summit, the legs within the tower, 
and supported by the walls. At the sight of 
any approaching object, they dart backward 
into the burrow. They are not disturbed by 
surface vibrations. Footsteps, even the pas- 
sage of a heavy wagon within five yards of 
the pit, do not affect them; but the slightest 
movement of the observer, two feet distant, 
or the sudden swaying of a bush, sends them 
to the burrow immediately. Dr. H.C. McCook, 
writing in a popular magazine, says of the use 
of these erections, that ‘‘ they probably serve 


as watch-towers, from which the keeper may 
observe the approach of her enemies,”’ as an 
attraction to roving insects, and perhaps to 
prevent flooding of the cavern by rain. The 
towers in this locality are far from being water- 
proof: they are used exclusively, I think, to 
facilitate the capture of food. But observers, 


SCIENCE. 


115 


so far as I am aware, have made no state- 
ments as to the method of food-capture, when 
the food fails to voluntarily scale the walls. 

The towers are observatories and transmit- 
ters of signals to the spider when below. From 
them she scans the field, as the robber barons 
of the olden time, from their battlements, 
watched for the com- 
ing of the caravan. 
The spider peers 
through the scanty 
grass-blades, se- 
lects her victim, and, 
as I have witnessed, 
leaps from the sum- 
mit to seize the prey. 
I have seen her 
spring at a fly on 
the ground, missing 
it, of course. But 
she does not always wait for food until the pit 
and tower are completed. I have seen her 
dart from the edge of an unfinished burrow, 
capture an ant three inches distant, and retire 
to the shallow cave. Ten minutes later she 
re-appeared empty-handed, and almost imme- 
diately attempted to seize another near by, but 
failed to do more by her frantic efforts than 
scrape up a heap of loose earth. 

The towers are so loosely constructed that 
an ant can scarcely run over the walls without 
making enough rattling to admonish the con- 
cealed spider, which at once hurries to the top, 
and, if the insect is acceptable, takes it in. 
A black ant running over the foundations 
almost invariably brings the spider up ; and the 
gentle tapping of a straw, or even dragging a 


straw across the dead grass in contact with 
the walls, is quite sure to be followed by the 
arachnid’s appearance. The sense of direc- 
tion, or the ability to perceive whence the dis- 
turbance proceeds, is well developed. The 
spider always ascends on that side to which 
the straw is applied, and the same individual 


116 


can be brought to each side in succession. 
The depth of the cavern seems to have little 
effect. I have called up the occupant from 
a burrow which subsequent examination has 
proved to be eighteen inches deep. Unless 
she has been deceived several times, she usu- 
ally runs up rapidly, and will occasionally snap 
at the end of the straw. While experimenting, 
it is hardly possible to avoid introducing frag- 
ments of the tower, or adherent particles of 
earth, and it occurred to me that these might 
be the call to which the spider responded ; but 
sand from an ant-hill, sprinkled in freely, had 
no effect. 

Mrs. Mary Treat, writing of another species 
of Tarantula, says that all food-remains were 
ejected in the same way as the earth pellets. 
Tarantula arenicola is not so neat. The earth 
beneath old burrows is often darker than the 
walls, and densely filled with fine rootlets. It 
is probably darkened and enriched by the spi- 
der’s excrement and food-remains. From bur- 
rows in the field it is the rule to take masses 
of débris, which consist of the spider’s exuviae, 
the heads and legs of ants, the elytra and 
other chitinous parts of beetles, with frag- 
ments of insect-wings. It seems that the 
dead and empty bodies are torn to pieces, and 
scattered at the bottom. This was done by a 
captive which would not dig, but which ac- 
cepted maimed flies. After extracting the 
juices, the spider tore the body into fragments 
so small that only careful search could find 
them. In but two instances have I observed 
an ejection of food-remains. <A mutilated fly 
was seized from a tower, and twenty-four hours 
later I did find what appeared to be the desic- 
cated remains. In the second case, two spi- 
ders were fighting fiercely when set free at 
evening, near the burrow of a small specimen 
in the garden. During the night the occupant 
of the burrow was dislodged, and the van- 
quished spider had been dragged into the pit 
which the conqueror had enlarged, and 
whence, in the course of the morning, frag- 
ments of the dead body were thrown out, 
among them the abdomen severed from the 
thorax, but not otherwise mutilated. Occa- 
sionally, also, an elytron can be found near a 
tower in the field. 

This disposition of remnants is somewhat re- 
markable ; since spiders in general are cleanly, 
and since this one is particularly intolerant of 
intrusive objects. A straw or stem dropped 
into the burrow is immediately carried up, and 
tossed away. The only instance observed, 
where a young spider ascended backward, 
was when trying to get a heavy stick out of 


SCIENCE. 


[Vor. IV., No. 79. 


the pit: having lifted in vain, she attempted 
to pull. . 
Noticing the fondness for ants, a number 
of bran-cracker crumbs were sprinkled at a 
distance of six inches from the tower, and an 
ant was soon struggling under a load larger 
than itself. Suddenly the spider on the tower 
started, erect and rigid: she leaped to the 
ground, she ran six inches, she seized that 
bit of cracker, and retreated with it to her bur- 
row, leaving the emmet on its back in the 
dust. For two hours she remained below. 
The following day I twice witnessed the same 
performance. The spider once overran the 
crumb, and so lost it. At the third time, the 
piece of biscuit became wedged in the tower 
as the spider was running in backward, and 
I plainly saw her nibbling at it. During a 
momentary absence for forceps to remove it, 
to examine for marks of mandibles, the spider 
carried it down and out of sight. The frag- 
ments were not touched, except as they were 
being borne about by the ants. Is it usual 
for spiders to take any but animal food? 
Dr. ALFRED C. STOKES. 


THE EXPLORING VOYAGE OF THE 
CHALLENGER. 


(Second Notice.)4 


Proressor HeErpMAN has published the first 
part of his memoir upon the Tunicata (vol. 
vi., 296 p., 37 pl.), which treats solely of the 
‘ Ascidiae simplices,’ the composite and pe- 
lagic forms being reserved for future consid- 
eration. From the historical preface to the 
index, this report is a model of systematic ar- 
rangement; the bibliography, and the chapter 
on anatomy and classification, being worked 
out with especially elaborate care. The most 
important generalizations reached are: 1. 
These simple ascidians are not numerous in 
the northern hemispheres, are comparatively 
scarce in tropical latitudes, and attain the 
greatest abundance in southern temperate re- 
gions; 2. Although simple ascidians occur in 
very deep water, and are fairly represented in 
the abyssal zone, they are chiefly a shallow- 
water group, and are most numerous around 
coasts in a few fathoms of water; 3. The oc- 
currence of simple ascidians does not depend 
upon temperature or character of bottom. The 
discussion of questions affecting the Tunicata 
as a class is reserved for the second part of the 
report. ‘The phylogenetic table on p. 286 is 
of great interest. 

1 See No. 66. 


~ 


‘Aucust 8, 1884.] 


There still remain to be published a number 
of reports upon Mollusca, — Huxley on the 
cephalopods, Boog Watson on the gasteropods, 
E. A. Craven on the pteropods and hetero- 
pods, Rudolph Bergh on the nudibranchiates, 
E. A. Smith on the lamellibranchiates, and 
Busk on the Polyzoa; the first instalment of 
the latter paper being announced for the next 
volume. 

In his report upon the Brachiopoda (vol. i., 
67 p., 4 pl.; also 


SCIENCE. 


117 


of the world, Halobatodes being one of its 
derivatives. 

The monograph of the anatomy of Peripatus, 
begun by the late Professor Balfour, has already 
been published under the editorship of Mose- 
ley and Sedgwick, the latter of whom is now 
continuing the subject by the use of material 
collected by himself at the Cape of Good 
Hope last summer. It is questionable, there- 
fore, whether this will form part of the Chal- 

lenger series. 


De Peeks. Se: 


Pree. royal soc., 


xvi. p- 428), 
Professor Thomas 


Hoek of Leyden 


has printed his re- 


Davidson of 


port upon the Pyc- 


Brighton discusses 


nogonida (vol. iil., 


the 31 species and 


fT ope 2k) py 


varieties obtained, 


which, in addition 


and presents a 


to discussing the 


catalogue of the 


41 species dredged 


recent species at 
present known. 


by the Challenger 
and the Knight 


Although the 
dredge was put 
down at 361 sta- 
tions, brachiopods 


Erraninide "Of 
which were new, 
contains a critical 
review of the gen- 


were found only 


era and_ species, 


129 in number 


thirty-nine times. 


The greater bulk 
of known species 
live at compara- 
tively moderate 
depths, few as 
deep as 500 fath- 
oms, and are spe- 
cifically rare from 
500 to 2,900 fath- 
oms. It is also 
shown that the 
same species is 
capable of existing 
Aeoraeiriere nt 
depths, without 
any observable 
modification in 
shape and _ char- 
acter. Frequent allusions are made to the 
American authorities Dall and Morse, the 
opinions of the former being referred to on 
almost every page. | 

Dr. F. Buchanan White, in his Report on 
the pelagic Hemiptera (vol. vii., 82 p.,3 pl.), 
discusses the interesting oceanic insects be- 
longing to the genera Halobates and Haloba- 
todes. He concludes that the region between 
the eastern part of the Indian Ocean and the 
West Pacific is the birthplace of the genus 
Halobates, whence it has spread to other parts 


CHALLENGER. 


THE DREDGING AND SOUNDING APPARATUS ON BOARD THE 


(Copied from The Atlantic.) — 


already known to 
science, in which 
frequent compli- 
mentary  refer- 
ences are made to 
the work of our 
countryman, E. B. 
Wilson, upon the 
same group. The 
most important 
generalizations 
obtained are: 1. 
That those genera 
which range most 
widely geographi- 
cally are also those 
which range most 
widely in depth; 
2. That, though there are deep-sea species, 
deep-sea genera do not appear to exist. The 
author admits his inability to show any defi- 
nite influence of deep-water habitat upon the 
form and structure of the animals under con- 
sideration. 

Dr. Hoek’s report on the Cirripedia (vol. 
vili., 189 p., 13 pl.) appears to be a very care- 
fully executed and scholarly essay. Its use- 
fulness is greatly enhanced by a well-made 
index, and an introduction in which the his- 
tory of the group, and its literature since the 


al 


118 SCIENCE. 


publication of Darwin’s monographs, are care- 
fully and critically summarized. Darwin knew 
147 species of cirripeds ; 18 were added by his 
successors ; while, in the present report, 59 are 
described, together with 1 new generic type; 
78 species, in all, having been collected. The 
percentage of new material in this group was 
therefore unusually great. 

Out of 34 genera known, 28 have never been 
observed at a depth greater than 150 fathoms. 
It is shown that there are no deep-sea genera ; 
for, even of the two genera ranging lowest in 
depth, species are known from shallow water. 
Dr. Hoek’s discussion of these two genera, in 
which he shows that their occurrence in great 
depths coincides in a striking manner with their 
paleontological history, is very suggestive ; as 
is also his statement, that, in the case of Seal- 
pellum, the deep-sea rather than the shallow- 
water forms have preserved the character of 
the oldest fossil species of the genus, while, in 
the case of Pollicipes, the more archaic types 
are found in shallow water. The author also 
points out the fact, that, while the deep-sea 
genera have a world-wide range, the deep- 
sea species ordinarily have only a very limited 
distribution. 

A most laborious paper is that upon the 
Ostracoda (vol. i., 184 p., 43 pl.), by Prof. G. 
Stewardson Brady of Sunderland, with its 
almost endless array of figures, at least 2,000 
in number. The paper is almost entirely de- 
scriptive ; families, genera, and species, old as 
well as new, being fully characterized. Out of 
the 220 species obtained, 143 were new; and 
only 15 of the entire number catalogued owe 
their names to other authority than the author. 
The deductions concerning geographical dis- 
tribution are, of course, very interesting. It is 
shown that Ostracoda occur very sparingly 
in the oceanic abysses: only 19 species were 
found at depths below 1,500 fathoms, and only 
52 below 500. The materials for a study of 
the horizontal distribution of the group were 
not very extensive ; and it is evident that there 
is still an immense amount to be done in the 
study of Ostracoda in all parts of the world, 
particularly in the shallow waters, which the 
Challenger rarely touched. 

The report upon the Copepoda, by the same 
author (vol. viii., 142 p., 55 pl.), is also purely 
descriptive: 106 species are enumerated, of 
which 47 are described as new, 10 new generic 
types being defined. It is an interesting evi- 
dence of the exhaustive character of Dana’s 
work while connected with the Wilkes explor- 
ing expedition, to note, that, out of the 90 
species of free-swimming Copepoda collected, 


30 were described by him, and that sixty per 
cent of the previously described forms in the 
list bear his name. Professor Brady’s draw- 
ings and descriptions are admirably executed. 
The lack of an index to text and plates is, 
however, much to be regretted. The Chal- 
lenger Copepoda were almost without excep- 
tion obtained by surface towing. ‘The only 
undoubted deep-sea species was Pontostratiotes 
abyssicola, of which a single specimen was 
obtained at 2,200 fathoms. 

Many of the reports on crustaceans are yet 
to appear, — discussions of the brachyurans, 
by E. J. Miers; the anomurans, by Professor 
Jules Barrois, director of the zodlogical labo- 
ratory at Villefranche; the macrurans, by C. 
Spence Bate; the Amphipoda, by the Rev. 
T. R. R. Stebbing ; and the Cumacea, Schizo- 
poda, Stomatopoda, and Isopoda, by authori- 
ties not yet named. 

Nothing whatever has been printed upon 
the Vermes as yet. The annelids are in the 
hands of Dr. W. C. McIntosh. Professor Ray 
Lankester has the gephyreans ; and Dr. Ludwig 
Graff, the Myzostomidae. The assignment of 
the Chaetognatha to Dr. Oscar Hertwig was 
announced in 1880; but this group has been 
omitted in later lists — without explanation, 
however, and it is to be hoped unintention- 
ally. 

The report upon the Holothurioidea, by Dr. 
Hjalmar Théel of Upsala (vol. iv., 176 p., 46 
pl.), is one of the most interesting of the 
special descriptive papers; since the deep-sea 
holothurians are shown to constitute a group 
by themselves, specially characteristic of the 
abyssal fauna, and very different from the 
littoral forms hitherto known. ‘This group, 
which is placed by the author in a new order, 
Elasipoda, is believed by him to have in certain 
respects attained a higher development than 
all the other echinoderms, — ‘‘ a development 
which is gradually approaching the higher 
classes of animals.’’ Previous to the publica- 
tion of this report, only three animals of this 
group were known ; these having been brought 
in by the Swedish and Norwegian dredging 
expeditions of 1875, 1876, and 1878. ‘There 
are here described 52 species and 3 varieties, 
distributed into 19 genera. Of this entire num- 
ber, only 4 are found at depths less than 500 
fathoms, as many more from 900 to 1,000, 
the remainder from 1,000 to 2,900 fathoms. 
‘¢Thus we learn that the Elasipoda abound 
over the floor of the ocean at great depths, 
and that the number of species and of individ- 
uals is greatly reduced shorewards.’’ 

_ G. Brown Goope. 


Aveust 8, 1884.] 


THE CENSUS REPORT OF 1880. 


Ir is now the middle of 1884, — four years 
since the date of the last census of the United 
States; yet the volumes of that census are 
not all published by the government. Light 
volumes have appeared, besides the bulletins 
issued during the years 1881 and 1882: viz.,two 
of the ‘ Compendium,’ containing 1,850 octavo 
pages, and published early in 1883; and six 
of the quarto volumes, containing from 850 to 
1,300 pages each, in which are given the more 
extended tabulations, and the general treatises 
on population, agriculture, manufactures, trans- 
portation, cotton-production, etc. The num- 
ber of these quarto volumes is not positively 
stated by the census officials, but will probably 
be twenty. We may consider the first six, 
however (of which the first four came out in 
1883, and the other two in 1884), without wait- 
ing until the series is complete, which may 
not be until two years hence. The important 
volume, which is to contain the ‘ social statis- 
tics’ of pauperism, insanity, crime, ete., is 
not yet in the printers’ hands; and the tables 
and general treatises on these topics are still 
subject to alteration by those who are editing 
them. The same is true of the mortality 
statistics and many others; and so liable is 
the work of editing these tables to be delayed, 
that it is quite impossible now to say when the 
final volume will appear. 

There are two ways of looking at a great 
statistical work of this sort, intended to show 
the economic and social relations of fifty mil- 
lions of people, scattered over millions of 
Square miles, in every form of civilization and 
every mode of living. One way is to consider 
what has been done to exhibit these statistics, 
and to be thankful for that; which must, of 
necessity, be an immense labor, and exposed 
to many minor inaccuracies. The other way 
is to set up a standard of performance in work 
of this kind, and to criticise what falls short of 
this standard. The latter would be the true 
method, if statistical science had yet advanced 
far enough to enable so great a census as 
ours was in 1880 to be taken with accuracy, 
and reported by persons who understand what 
they are to do, and how to do it in the same 
thorough manner in which trained investigators 
in some special science proceed. But there 
is as yet no example of census-work done in 
this manner, and we must not look for it in 
the work before us. <A certain degree of ac- 
curacy has been attained, though less, we 
believe, in most instances, than the specialists 
at the head of each branch of inquiry suppose. 


SCIENCE. 


119 


But the explanations and cautions and quali- 
fications which they put forth in each of these 
census volumes, in regard to the tabulations 
that present their particular topic, will soon 
convince the casual reader that he must use 
these statistics with much circumspection, or 
they will lead him astray ‘There is hardly a 
point, for example, on which the more elaborate 
work of this tenth census does not bring out the 
faults and defects of the earlier ones, and show 
that even the last preceding census, that of 
1870, which was taken under the same super- 
intendent (President Walker of the Institute 
of technology), was grossly and amusingly 
wrong in important particulars. 

It is therefore evident at once, that to com- 
pare the results in 1880 with those in 1870, 
1860, etc., in order to exhibit the growth of 
the United States, is only possible in a few 
general respects, if any reasonable exactness 
in the comparison is insisted upon. Some- 
times this comes from the nature of things, 
and not always from the errors of the enume- 
rators or tabulators in previous decades. For 
example: the value of the dollar (by which 
all products, debts, revenues, property, etc., 
are measured) was so different in 1870 from 
what it had been in 1860, and again from what 
it became in 1880, that it is not possible to 
make these pecuniary comparisons without 
great risk of mistake. To take the premium 
on gold in 1870 as the measure of depreciation 
for our currency, though this is all we can’ 
do, is well known, by those who noted prices 
and values then as compared with ten years 
before or since, to be extremely fallacious. 
The rubber yardstick of the imaginary trades- 
man, which was sometimes four feet long and 
sometimes only two, is a fair type of the fluc- 
tuating and elastic currency by which we have 
had to measure values since the civil war. 

But the fallibility of the men who make up 
the census schedules, who take the count of 
men, animals, crops, acres, houses, farms, 
mills, etc., is the chief source of inaccuracy 
in any census. It is not possible to foresee 
exactly what questions ought to be asked, or 
where to draw the line between attainable and 
inaccessible facts. The questioner may defeat 
his own purpose, not only by the form, but by 
the multiplicity, of his requirements. Nature 
quickly sets a limit to the power of answering 
the census inquiries accurately in case of the 
average citizen or his wife. To go beyond 
that limit is to invite error and blunder, as the 
expert tabulator of the answers well Knows: 
he therefore undertakes by his tabulation to 
amend the defects of the return. But this, also, 


120 SCIENCE. 


is Only possible to a limited extent; and the 
enlightened efforts of the expert may end in 
aggravating the blunders of the enumerator. 
His own opinion or prejudice may come in, and 
so warp the poor facts already twisted out of 
shape by the clumsy reporter of them, that 
they finally bear no likeness to the situation 
they ought to portray. A permanent statis- 
tical bureau, collecting its facts from year to 
year, and correcting the mistakes of one year 
by the better information of the next, is far 
less likely to err in this respect than an organ- 
ization which works, like our national census 
bureau, only at intervals of ten years. 
the latter may, and of late years does, extend 
its labors well over the whole period from one 
ten-years’ point to another, it still lacks the 
useful correction which annual returns inevita- 
bly supply. 

All things considered, the eight volumes 
before us are excellent, and indicate that the 
whole series, when completed, will far surpass, 
not only the work of any previous decade in 
this country, but the published results of any 
similar census in the world. The plan of 
President Walker was an ambitious one, his 
selection of experts and subordinates was 
mainly good, and the time allowed for them 
to complete their tasks has been ample. Un- 
fortunately, the cost of so great an enterprise 
was not well understood ; and the needful ap- 
propriations of money have not been made, or 
have been so delayed as to impede the work. 
The undertaking also suffered from its own 
vastness, and much of that which was hoped 
for was found unattainable. The important 
subject of pauperism, for example, — the cor- 
relative to our unexampled growth in material 
wealth, — receives inadequate treatment in the 
‘Compendium,’ and cannot be so exhibited in 
the quarto volume as to do it justice. Mr. 
Wines, who has charge of this topic, has given 
up in despair the effort to collect statistics of 
out-door relief, and only reports on the alms- 
house expenditure, and number of inmates. 
This is, in fact, to omit more than half the ma- 
terial belonging to the subject, and that portion, 
too, which best exhibits the growth of pauperism 
from year to year. In other divisions of the 
work a similar class of omissions may occur, 
in consequence of which the results will appear 
in some respects more defective than those of 
the last census. But in fact, and on the whole, 
they are much more complete ; and the volumes 
now issued, with those which are to appear, 
will furnish material to economic and scien- 
tific students for years to come. The more 
they use them, the better will they appreciate 


Though 


[Vou. aay No. a 


the foresight, labor, and research of the men — 
who compiled them, although they will also 
perceive more clearly how defective the most 
perfect statistics are foreordained to be. 


GEOLOGY OF THE SUSQUEHANNA 
RIVER REGION. 


Second geological survey of Pennsylvania: report of 
progress G'. The geology of the Susquehanna River 
region in the siz counties of Wyoming, Lackawanna, 
Luzerne, Columbia, Montour, and Northumberland. 
By I. C. Wurrr. With a colored geological map 
in two sheets, and 31 page plates in the text. 
Harrisburg, 1883. 380+ 464 p. 8°. 


Tue region to which this report relates em- 
braces nearly two thousand square miles of 
the Devonian and Silurian rocks lying north 
and west of the great anthracite-coal basins, 
along the north branch of the Susquehanna 
River. Although there are some small out- 
liers of the true coal-measures in this dis- 
trict, Professor White has referred to these 
only incidentally ; his report beginning at the 
base of the Pottsville conglomerate (millstone ~ 
grit) No. xii., and extending down to the old- 
est formation exposed, which is the Medina 
No. iv. 

The volume begins with a long prefatory 
letter by Professor Lesley, director of the sur- 
vey. This is essentially a somewhat critical 
summary of the more interesting features of 
Professor White’s report, which embraces two 
distinct portions ; the first third of the volume 
being a comprehensive account of the geology 
of the entire district, and comprising nearly 
every thing of general interest, while the re- 
mainder of the work is devoted to a detailed 
report by townships on each of the six coun- 
ties. 

A brief account of the drainage and topog- 
raphy is followed by a description of the inter- 
esting glacial phenomena. The great terminal 
moraine crosses Carbon, Luzerne, and Colum- 
bia counties in a general north-westerly di- 
rection, dividing the region into a north-east 
glaciated portion and a south-west unglaciated 
portion. Back of the moraine is the mantle 
of unmodified drift, derived entirely from the 
local rocks. In front of the moraine, or to the 
south and west, the whole country is covered, 
up to a height of seven hundred and fifty to 
eight hundred feet above tide, with a strati- 
fied deposit of modified drift. According to 
Professor White, this deposit was spread by 
the gigantic rivers resulting from the melting 
of the ice-sheet ; but Professor Lesley finds it 
necessary to suppose a subsidence of the land, 


Aveust 8, 1884.] 


that permitted the sea to wash the terminal 
moraine, and cover all points less than eight 
hundred ora thousand feet above tide. Out 
of the modified and unmodified drift the mod- 
ern rivers have carved their channels, leaving 
a series of well-marked terraces, the highest 
of which are now two hundred feet above the 
streams. 

But in the northern or Wilkes-Barre coal- 
basin, the Susquehanna and its tributaries are 
still fifty to a hundred and eighty-five feet above 
their pre-glacial beds for a distance of at 
least twenty-five miles; and these buried val- 
leys are of unusual interest, because at Blooms- 
burg, Sunbury, and Selinsgrove, points on the 
Susquehanna thirty to seventy miles below 


Wilkes-Barre, the rocky bed of the river is 


a hundred and ten, ninety, and seventy sfeet 
respectively higher than the buried channel at 
Wilkes-Barre. 

The geological structure of this district is 
typically Appalachian, a north-west and south- 
east section including ten principal overlap- 
ping flexures of the strata, and the eynelna: 
holding the anthracite-coal fields. 

Professor White believes there is a transition 
series between the Pocono sandstone No. x. 
and the Catskill No. ix., and another between 
the Catskill and the Chemung No. viii. 

The paleontology of this report presents 
several striking anomalies; various Devonian 
and Silurian types, including some of those 
regarded as most characteristic of their re- 
spective horizons, occurring here in associa- 
tions, and following each other vertically, in an 
order unknown elsewhere. Professor Lesley 
suggests that this apparent confusion may be 
due, in part, to incorrect determinations of the 
oe But some of the confusion is real; for 
Halysytes catenulata, a coral which no one 
could mistake, occurs very abundantly at one 
locality in the Stormville limestone, which be- 
longs near the middle of the lower Helderberg, 
although this form was never before found 
above the Niagara. 

Like most of the Pennsylvania reports, this 
volume is abundantly indexed ; there being six 
different indexes, covering fifty-four pages. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


A SHORT time since, we referred to the call of the 
Peabody museum of American archaeology for funds 
to enable the museum to continue its important and 
thorough explorations in Ohio. So far the work has 
been continued without interruption, thanks to the 
persons whose subscriptions are here acknowledged: 
Mr. John C. Phillips, Boston, $200; Hon. Stephen 


SCIENCE. 121 


Salisbury, Worcester, $100; Hon. Robert C. Win- 
throp, Boston, $50; Mr. H. A. Homes, Albany, N.Y., 
$5; Mr. A. H. Thompson, Topeka, Kan., $5; Mr. 
A. E. Douglass, New York, N.Y., $47; Mr. William 
B. Weedon, Providence, R.I., $50; Mrs. Esther Herr- 
man, New York, N.Y., $50: total, $507. 


— The French association for the advancement of 
science has appointed two delegates to attend the 
Philadelphia meeting of the American association, — 
Professor Joubert, professor of physics, and general 
secretary of the French society of physics; Professor 
Silva, professor of chemistry at the Municipal school of 
physics and industrial chemistry. This is of interest 
as promoting the formation of an international asso- 
ciation. 


— Before the section of economic science and statis- 
tics of the American association, papers are an- 
nounced on the following subjects: A study of cotton 
fibres, their value, etc., illustrated by photo-micro- 
graphs; The economics in deaf-mute instruction; 
Explanation of instruments used to determine the 
power to move trains, and also of instruments for the 
inspection of railroad-tracks; The apprenticeship 
question and industrial schools; The value of photo- 
micrographs of wood-fibres, illustrated with sections 
of thirty different woods; The use of graphics in 
statistics; Exhibitions, national and international, 
considered as economic forces; Theory and economy 
of the American system of patents; The allotment of 
lands to Indians, illustrated by experience with the 
Omaha tribes; The public and the professions, 1870-80; 
Statistics and organization of the classified public ser- 
vice in the United States; Some general results of the 
census of crime and misfortune in the United States; 
The economic element in the problem of manual 
training. (Several papers are expected on important 
topics. ) 

— We are informed by a private letter that three 
of the younger mathematicians of Germany, all men- 
of mark, are expecting to attend the meeting of the 
British association in Montreal, and are planning 
afterwards to visit the United States. Reference is 
made to Messrs. Lindemann of Konigsberg, Dyck of 
Munich, and Wedekind of Carlsruhe, all of them 
professors ordinarii in their respective places. 

— Nature states, that, at the request of the council 
of the British association, Admiral Sir Erasmus Om- 
manney, C.B., F.R.S., has consented to act as treas- 
urer during the meeting at Montreal, Canada. It 
further announces that Prof. W. G. Adams of King’s 
college will be unable to give the Friday evening 
lecture at Montreal, and that Prof. O. J. Lodge will 
take his place. The subject of Professor Lodge’s 
lecture will be ‘ Dust.’ 


— The Seth Thomas clock-company has under- 
taken, under the advice and guidance of Dr. L. Waldo, 
the construction of clocks of a high grade of excel- 
lence for scientific purposes, which they propose to 
call clocks of precision. They have already made 
considerable progress as to the best form of pendu- 
Jum suspension, and dimensions of the steel-jar mer- 
curial pendulum (which is filled in vacuo by a new 


i 


122 SCIENCE. 


process) : and, as soon as the small physical laboratory 
they are now building for this purpose is completed, 
they propose to investigate some of the questions 
which make good clock-making such a difficult art; 
such as, the permanency of length of pendulum-rods 
of various materials, the effect of air mechanically 
contained in the ordinary mercurial pendulums, the 
effect of mercuric oxide and other impurities of the 
mercury, and the effect of temperature changes on 
various forms of pendulum suspension. 

This is another instance of the tendency shown by 
American artisans to avail themselves of the most 
recent knowledge to be derived from scientific re- 
search. Some time since, we noticed that the Pratt 
& Whitney company of Hartford were spending many 
thousands of dollars in their efforts to produce screws 
and other measuring-engines which would accurately 
correspond to the established yard and metre. In this 
work they availed themselves of the assistance of 
Professor Rogers of Cambridge; and the results they 
attained must be gratifying to every student of physi- 
cal science interested in having accurate screws and 
gauges for use independently, or in connection with 
other pieces of apparatus. 


— The efforts of the committee of the Franklin 
institute to secure a valuable collection of books on 
electricity for the electrical exhibition are meeting 
with considerable success. Already the collection 
numbers about three thousand titles, and is constant- 
ly increasing. As is well known, the Pennsylvania 
railroad company has placed its old passenger-station 
at the disposal of the managers of the exhibition to 
furnish additional space. 

— The Chesapeake zoological laboratory, which is 
the name under which the marine zoological station 
of the Johns Hopkins university has been maintained 
during the last six years, is stationed this year at 
Beaufort, N.C., —a site which has been proved dur- 
ing three previous seasons, from 1880 to 1882, to be 
most favorable for zodlogical researches. Dr. W. K. 
Brooks, the director of the laboratory, has been pre- 
vented by long-continued ill health from assuming 
his usual responsibilities, though he has hoped to 
join the party for a time, His place as chief of the 
party has been taken for the season, at the request 
of the university, by H. W. Conn, Ph.D., who re- 
ceived not long ago one of the Walker prizes from 
the Boston society of natural history, and who has 
recently been appointed to a position in the Wesleyan 
university at Middletown. Besides Dr. Conn, there 
are nine investigators at work; among them, W. 
Bateson of St. John’s college (Cambridge, Eng.), 
H. H. Donaldson (A.B., Yale), E. A. Andrews (A.B., 
Yale), I. Nelson (S.B., Univ. Wisc.), H. L. Osborn 
(A.B.,Wesl.), and H. F. Nachtrieb (S.B.,Univ. Minn.). 
Others were expected to join the company. Private 
letters from Beaufort give indications that the sum- 
mer’s work will be fruitful in good results. 

— The Greely relief squadron, with the survivors 
on board, arrived at Portsmouth on Friday, Aug. 1, 
and a reception with a grand parade was given to 
them Monday, Aug. 4.. The remains of those who 
perished have been sent to New York for burial. 


SL! ) Sh ar op eee Seer ae 


— North-western North America contains so many | 
different linguistic stocks, and these are split up into ~ 


such a large number of languages and dialects, that 
any contribution to the supply of vocabularies from 
this region is important. A pamphlet of a hundred 
and twenty-seven pages, just issued by the geological 
survey of Canada, contains vocabularies of ‘‘ one 
or more dialects of every Indian language spoken 
on the Pacific slope from the Columbia River north 
to the Chilkat River, and beyond, in Alaska, and from 
the outermost seaboard to the main continental divide 
in the Rocky Mountains,” and is therefore a most wel- 
come addition to the working-material of the linguistic 
scholar. The vocabularies result from the joint labors 
of Messrs. N. Fraser Tolmie and George M. Dawson, 
whose names are a sufficient guaranty for the gen- 
eral accuracy of the work. The vocabularies number 
more than thirty, and are classed by the authors under 
no fewer than fourteen distinct stocks, —a number 
whieh it is probable will require to be reduced. Few 
scholars, at least, will be willing to admit Tsheheilis 
as a stock distinct from Selish, of which latter it 
is usually considered to be the westernmost division, 
nor to consider Bilhoola, Kawitshin, and Niskwalli 
distinct from Selish. The value of the volume is 
greatly enhanced by a map colored to show the dis- 
tribution of the Indian tribes of British Columbia. 
The linguistic stocks, the distribution of which within 
the above area is shown, are the Tlinkit, Tshimsian, 
Haida, Tinné, Kwakiol, Bilhoola, Aht, Kawitshin, 
Niskwalli or Skwalliamish, Selish, and Kootennha. 
The work is a substantial addition to the linguistic 
history of the area to which it pertains. 


— The bibliography of Ptolemy’s geography, which 
Mr. Justin Winsor has been printing by instalments 
in the Harvard university Bulletin, has been issued 
separately, in advance of its completion in the Bul- 
letin, and forms an interesting contribution (forty- 
two pages) to historical geography. Itis particularly 
valuable for the information it gives regarding the 
early cartography of America, and the ante-Colum- 
bian views of the ocean west of Europe. Much col- 
lateral matter serves to elucidate the subject. The 
name ‘America’ appears for the first time on a 
Ptolemaic map in 1522; but reasons are given for 
believing that it occurred in print or in manuscript 
as early as 1513-15. It appears that copies of the 
1478 edition have been sold at eighty, ninety, and a 
hundred pounds. 


— According to Nature, Pasteur’s experiments 
with the virus of hydrophobia are going on with un- 
broken success. He has thus far experimented on 
fifty-seven dogs, — nineteen of them mad, and thirty- 
eight bitten by them under uniform conditions. Out 
of these thirty-eight, half had been previously inocu- 
lated, the other half not. The latter, without a 
single exception, died with unmistakable signs of 
hydrophobia, whereas the nineteen others are about, 
and as well as ever. They will be watched for a year 
by veterinary doctors to see whether the inoculation 
holds good permanently or only temporarily. 


— A meeting was held on July 1, in the lecture- 


[Vou. IV., No. 2 


¥ 


AveustT 8, 1884.] 


room of the British museum, for the purpose of con- 
ferring as to the advisability of adopting the method 
of trinomial nomenclature now coming into use 
among American zoologists. The meeting was held 
on the occasion of the visit to England of Dr. Elliott 
Coues, a prominent advocate of the system in the 
United States. Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe read a paper 
on aseries of sub-species of goshawk, differing slight- 
ly in character, and coming from South Africa, 
Senegambia, Turkey, Asia Minor, India, Ceylon, 
and Burmah. Other cases he cited were those of Co- 
rone, in which the species differ only in size. These 
cases inclined Mr. Sharpe to view Dr. Coues’s pro- 
posals with favor. He was followed by Mr. Seebohm, 
who stated his belief that the present system of bi- 
nomial nomenclature had retarded our recognition of 
the fact of the existence of sub-species. Selecting 
the forms of nut-hatches, he illustrated the method 
by which he would convert Dr. Coues’s empirical 
into amore logical system. Dr. Coues was very heart- 
ily received. He said he recognized that nomen- 
clature wasa necessary evil. Since the establishment 
of the binomial system by Linné, there had been 
an absolute revolution in our ideas of what species 
were. ‘*‘ We now recognize that there are no such 
things as species, and that forms are so intimately 
related, that, did we know all, there would be an 
unbroken series;’’ and Dr. Coues instanced the 
American woodpecker in proof of this. Other speak- 
ers followed; the main objections to the new system 
being the fear of endless introduction of new names, 
and the temptation to those who already refined too 
much. In summing up, Professor Flower said that 
some fresh system of nomenclature would be inevita- 
ble, but what system remained to be seen. 


— The distinguished mathematician, Dr. George 
Salmon, regius professor of divinity in Trinity col- 
lege, Dublin, has been elected a corresponding mem- 
ber of the Académie des sciences, Institut de France, 
to succeed Dr. William Spottiswoode, the late presi- 
-dent of the Royal society. 


— Nature announces the death of the venerable 
Abbé Moigno at the age of eighty-one years. The 
name of the abbé has been long known in connec- 
tion with French science, and more especially as the 
founder, and till quite recently the editor, of Les 
mondes. 


— The State natural-history society of Illinois held 
its annual meeting at Peoria, at the National hotel, 
commencing July 7. Among the papers presented 
were the following: The president’s address, Dr. 
Julius S. Taylor; Illinois forestry, T. J. Burrill; 
Developments in the Streator coal-field, Edwin Evans; 
Mastodon and other remains of the loess and drift 
clays, and their relation to the climatology and geology 
of the deposits, Dakota mounds, Ancient pictographic 
’ records on the rocks in the vicinity of the Missouri 
River, Experiments with a copper-head serpent, Wil- 
liam McAdams; Marine algae, Rise of sap in trees, 
Corn fungi, A. B. Seymour; Silk-culture, J. E. 
Armstrong; Phytoptus galls on the leaves of Nyssa 
multiflora, H. Garman; Artificial production and 


SCIENCE. 


125 


propagation of insect diseases, S. A. Forbes; Loca- 
tion of sound by the ear, J. B. Taylor; Life-history 
of Prionyxystus robiniae Peck, Parasites of Apatura 
clyton, Preliminary stages of Papilio cresphontes, A. 
H. Mundt; Higher cryptogams, Mrs. Dr. Griffith; 
Instruction in zoology, B. P. Colton; Zodlogy in 
country schools, F. A. Houghton; Introduction of 
fishes into new waters by natural means, D. B. Wier; 
Embryology of the buccal mucous membrane, Will 
X. Sudduth. 


— At the March meeting of the Royal astronomical 
society, Dr. David Gill, her majesty’s astronomer 
at the Cape, stated that he had prepared a scheme 
for the investigation of the parallax of stars, but that 
the carrying it out, in so far as the southern hemi- 
sphere was concerned, depended on the generosity of 
the lords commissioners of the admiralty in provid- 
ing him with a heliometer necessary for the purpose. 
On the 13th of June he had an interview with the 
authorities of her majesty’s treasury, and was per- 
mitted to state to the society, at its meeting on the 
evening of the same aay, that they would not be 
wanting in the necessary generosity. It will be 
remembered that the co-operation of Dr. Elkin, work- 
ing with the large heliometer of the Yale college 
observatory, is included in this plan. 


— The first De Morgan memorial medal has been 
awarded by the London mathematical society to Pro- 
fessor Arthur Cayley, for his contributions to the mod- 
ern higher algebra and other branches of mathematics. 
The presentation of the medal will take place at the 
annual meeting of the society, in November next. 


— The way of connecting electric-light circuits, 
which is represented in fig. 1, has been introduced by 


Bre. 1. 


Dr. Hopkinson and Mr. Edison. Twodynamos, D, D, 
are connected in series to the principal lines, No. 1 
and No. 2; and a third conductor, called the ‘ com- 
pensator,’ is introduced to serve as the return circuit. 
The lamps Z and ZL are placed between the main 
lines and the compensating line. It is claimed that 
this arrangement diminishes the weight of copper 


124 


necessary in the wires by sixty per cent; but this 
figure is probably too high. If the electromotive 
force of the dynamo is too high for the lamps, a third 
wire between the two principal conductors may be 
used, and the lamps inserted between this and the 
two principal conductors. 


Fie. 2. 


Fig. 2 represents an arrangement invented by Mr. 
J. S. Beesman: it is composed of two dynamos, con- 
nected as shown, the two circuits of the dynamos 
being joined crosswise by the lamps. It will be seen 
that this arrangement permits each lamp to have the 
same difference of potential between its extremities, 
because, as each lamp is nearer one of the dynamos, it 
is the more distant from the other. If the lines are 
considered as rails, or other conductors on an electric 
railway, the speed will be the same at all points of 
the line; for the difference of potentials between the 
conductors will be constant: consequently, if several 
trains of the same weight run over the same line, 
they will not strain to go by each other. 


— Among recent German patents is one issued 
to D. French St. George of London, for a novel 
form of phonograph. The cut shows a round photo- 
graphic plate a, upon which a ray of light falls 
through the opening at e. <A slide over this opening 
is connected with the vibrating plate in the mouth- 


piece g in such a way, that, with the vibrations of the 
plate, the size of the opening is varied. The result 
is, that on the photographic disk, which is kept in 


SCIENCE. 


¥ 


rotation at a constant rate, there is produced, after 
development, a dark circle of varying width. Inorder 
to reproduce the tones of the voice, a ray of light is 
sent through this photographic image upon a selenium 
transmitter of the form invented by A. Graham Bell, 
and used in his radiophone. 


— The Berlin African association despatched an 
expedition to the Kongo during July, of which Lieut. 
Schulz is to be the leader. News has been received of 
the two travellers for this association, — Dr. Richard 
Bohm, and the engineer, P. Reichard,—of the date 
of last August. ‘They had crossed Lake Tanganyika 


- with the Belgian agent at Karema, Lieut. Storms, to 


Qua Mpara, and started across unexplored country 
for Lake Moeso. The Illustrirte zeitung states that 
Dr. Bohm is to succeed Lieut. Storms in command at 
Karema. The International African association has 
founded thirty-two stations in addition to Leopold- 
ville. Ten of these are on the Niadi-Kwilee, twenty 
on the Congo, and twoon the coast. During his last 
journey, Stanley acquired a considerable length of 
the river-bank. By means of the steamers and the 
new roads round the rapids, the journey to Stanley 
Pool can now be made in fourteen days. Col. Win- 
ton has taken the command between Vivi and Stan- 
ley Pool. 


—M. J. B. Morot, lately deceased, left to the 
Société de géographie a sum of two thousand francs, 
the interest of which is to form an annual prize for 
the French navigator who shall approach nearest 
to the north pole during the year; or, in default of a 
suitable receiver, the prize may, at the discretion of 
the society, accumulate fortwo years. In the absence 
of an arctic navigator, it may be awarded to the dis- 
coverer of an unknown island or country. 


— Capt. Sorensen has determined that the north- 
ern point of Europe is not Cape North, as usually 
assumed, but a promontory called Knivskjoerodde, 
about ten minutes of longitude west from Cape 
North, and reaching nearly a thousand metres ina 
northerly direction beyond the extremity of Cape 
North. 


— Three important memoirs on the geology and 
geography of eastern Europe have lately appeared. 
The first, by Dokuchaeff, treats of the distribution 
of the black loam (chernoi zemlia) of Russia, famed 
for its fertility. Another, by Paul Veniukoff, con- 
siders the distribution of the Devonian rocks of Rus- 
sia. The third, by Vitikin, discusses the formation 
of the valleys of central Russia. These, according 
to the author, are due to a gradual elevation of the 
land, which left the edges of a shallow sea trans- 
formed into plains, across which brooks made their 
way, cutting out ravines and channels, growing in 
importance and volume as the area of land enlarged, 
and finally becoming rivers. There was no lake- 
period, as in the Baltic region. With few exceptions, 
the lakes of central Russia are ancient river-beds, 


cut off by changes in the course of the stream. Behr’s 


law is exemplified in the valleys of the principal 
streams, which, like the Volga, Viatka, and others, 
have a general parallelism with the meridian. 


[Vou. IV., No. 79. 


SCIENCE. 


FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


_ A marKeED feature of recent scientific work 
is the tendency to international co-operation. 
Problems too large to be undertaken by a single 
institution, or even by one nation, are thus 
successfully solved. Two examples suggest 
themselves. ‘The first of these is the largest 
piece of astronomical work yet undertaken. 
Since 1870 a dozen observatories have been 
actively engaged in preparing a catalogue of 
about a hundred thousand stars in the northern 
hemisphere, a part of the sky being assigned 
to each observatory. The Greely expedition 
recalls the second example. This was one of 
a dozen expeditions fitted out by various 
governments to secure simultaneous meteoro- 
logical observations for one year at different 
points within the arctic circle. Other examples 
might be added, all tending to show that co- 
operation is likely to yield results of lasting 
value. ese rt 

We have on several occasions called atten- 
tion editorially, or through ‘four contributors, 
to the advantages likely to follow the organiza- 
tion of an international scientific association 
properly formed ; and the responses which have 
come to a recent appeal are to-day referred to 
in our notes. Besides the inspiration the indi- 
vidual members would gain from attendance 
at its sessions, such a society would inspire 
great confidence in the work that it might un- 
dertake. It would then become comparatively 
easy to secure proper means for investigation. 
Observers, too, would be much more willing 
to aid in a research in which there was little 
danger of needless duplication. 


A CORRESPONDENT Calls our attention to the 
omission of the Henry Draper medal in our 
brief list of honors founded in this country for 
scientific research. Both this and the Watson 
medal were overlooked ; as we were under the 

No. 80.—1884. 


impression that the gifts of Mrs. Draper and 
Professor Watson were wholly in aid of, rather 
than as rewards for, research. This last is 
the case in part with the Watson fund, the in- 
come of which is directed to be expended ‘ for 
the promotion of astronomical science.’ But 
in making the National academy of sciences his 
residuary legatee, Mr. Watson also provided 
that a gold medal of the value of one hundred 
dollars, with a further gratuity of one hundred 
dollars, should be given ‘‘ from time to time 
to the person in any country who shall make 
any astronomical discovery, or produce any as- 
tronomical work, worthy of reward, and con- 
tributing to our science.’? The fund is of 
recent date, and no award of the medal has yet 
been made; but a part of the expenses of the 
eclipse expedition to Caroline Island was paid 
from the fund. 

The fund given by Mrs. Draper to the na- 
tional academy, to commemorate one of its 
members, the late Dr. Henry Draper, is also 
very recent, and no award has yet been made. 
A gold medal of the value of two hundred 
dollars is to be awarded, not oftener than every 
two years, ‘ to any person in the United States 
of America, or elsewhere’ (with preference, 
other things being equal, to an American), 
‘who shall make an original investigation in 
astronomical physics ’ meriting such an award. 
This award, like the Lawrence Smith medal, 
can be given only for investigations made or 
published since the last preceding award. 


One is tempted to speculate on the compar- 
ative value of funds given in direct aid of 
scientific research, and of medals or gratuities 
rewarding successful discovery or searching 
investigation. The former, as the endowment 
of research, must surely produce the more 
immediate practical results; while the latter 
signalize the victories of science, and, when 
properly administered, direct public attention 
to what is of true value. But in the probable 


126 SCIENCE, 


extension of such foundations as the latter in 
this generous country, does there not lurk a 
possible danger, — a danger that their bestowal 
will fall into hands incapable of proper ad- 
ministration? If any one think this danger 
remote, let him reflect on the ill-judged selec- 
tion of recipients for honorary degrees in many 
of our best universities and colleges. Let such 
foundations remain, as now, in the hands of 
those whose position has been gained solely 
by research, and the danger vanishes. 


Tue standard of light adopted by the Paris 
electrical conference last April is the amount 
of light emitted by a square centimetre of 
melted surface of platinum at the point of 
solidification. It was believed that advantage 
could thus be taken of a physical constant 
(namely, the melting-point of platinum) upon 
which could be based all our present changing 
and unsatisfactory photometric standards. 
The adoption of this standard has been much 
criticised, for it does not seem to lend itself 
easily to actual photometric tests. Werner 
Siemens proposes that a piece of platinum foil 
should be enclosed in a cavity provided with a 
conical opening 0.1 of a square centimetre ; 
this piece of platinum to make part of an elec- 
trical circuit, the current in which can be so 
regulated that a comparison with any light can 
be made at the moment of fusion. The tem- 
peratures of solidification and fusion of plati- 
num do not differ sensibly from each other, and 
Siemens believes that the error introduced by 
taking the temperature of fusion instead of that 
of solidification would be small. The use of an 
electrical current to produce fusion has certain 
advantages, for the time of fusion can evi- 
dently be deferred until the proper moment. 
Preliminary experiments have shown that the 
light emitted from an opening 0.1 of a square 
centimetre in section by Siemens’s method is 
equivalent to nearly one and a half standard 
English candles. 

Although the standard adopted by the Paris 
conference seems to be based upon the unalter- 
able laws of matter, it does not seem as if 
it would ever be practically adopted. Some 


g 
e 


[Vou IV., No. 80. 


form of the modern incandescent electric light, 
it seems to us, would afford a much better 
prospect of a standard light. It is difficult 
to maintain the steadiness of such a light 
for photometric purposes; but this does not 
seem impossible to accomplish. It is evident, 
that, if we could maintain an electrical current 
constant through a platinum wire or carbon 
filament in a suitable medium, we should have 
the means of reproducing the same amount of 
heat, and therefore light, from the same area. 
Unfortunately, carbon changes in resistance 
at the point of incandescence; and the resist- 
ance of platinum is not invariable under re- 
peated heating and cooling in a comparative 
vacuum. An exhaustive investigation of the 
peculiarities of platinum or of iridium, under 
the effect of incandescence produced by the elec- 
trical current, would seem to be desirable before 
the French standard is accepted as a finality. 


& 


LETTER TO THE EDITOR, 


Tornado predictions. 


In an article on ‘ Tornado predictions,’ published 
in the July number of the American meteorological 
journal, a table of verifications is given, in which the 
average of successful predictions for several months 
is from ninety-six to ninety-eight per cent. 

An examination of the table shows that this re- 
markably high percentage of verification is largely 
made up, not of successful predictions of tornadoes, 
but of successful predictions of no tornadoes. In 
justification of this method of verification, the writer 
says, ‘‘It requires as much and often more study to 
say that no tornadoes will occur, as to make the 
prediction that conditions are favorable for their 
development.”’ If this explanation be accepted as 
satisfactory, what do the verifications signify ? 

A little consideration will show that the absolute 
value of these figures gives no basis from which to 
judge of the real success of the tornado predictions. 
The averages of ninety-six and ninety-eight per cent 
are mainly functions of the non-tornado days, with 
but slight modifications for the success or failure of 
the prediction of actual tornadoes. An ignoramus in 
tornado studies can predict no tornadoes for a whole 
season, and obtain an average of fully ninety-five per 
cent. The value of the expert work must, therefore, 
be measured by the excess which is obtained over 
the man who knows nothing of the subject. This is 
the only way to determine any significance in the 
method of verification above described. ‘The excess 
is but one or two per cent, and poorly exhibits the 
present stage of progress in tornado studies. The in- 
justice which is done is to be found in the method of 
verification adopted. In ascertaining the value of tor- 
nado or any other special storm predictions, the con- 
sideration of days on which no storms occur, and 
none are predicted, is entirely beside the question. 

If the writer of ‘ Tornado predictions’ will give the 
verifications obtained from positive predictions, and — 


AuaustT 15, 1884.] 


the occurrence of actual tornadoes, his measure of 
success will be directly apparent. G. 


THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF 
ELECTRICIANS. 


Tue president of the United States, in pur- 

suance of a special provision of congress, has 
appointed a scientific commission, the com- 
position of which we gave in No. 78, of which 
Professor Rowland is chairman, and which may, 
in the name of the United-States government, 
conduct a national conference of electricians in 
Philadelphia in the autumn of 1884. The law 
creating the commission is as follows: ‘* That 
the president of the United States be, and 
is hereby, authorized to appoint a scientific 
commission which may, in the name of the 
United-States government, conduct a national 
conference of electricians in Philadelphia in 
the autumn of 1884 ; that said commission may 
invite scientific men, native and foreign, to 
participate in the conference, and may, in 
general, determine the scope and character of 
its work; that the sum of seven thousand five 
hundred dollars be appropriated to meet the 
expenses of the commission in conducting the 
conference and investigations, and to meet 
the expenses of preparing reports of the same, 
provided that the whole amount of the ex- 
penses incurred by said commission shall not 
exceed the said sum of seven thousand five 
hundred dollars, and the members of said 
commission shall not receive any compensation 
for services.’’ It is left to the discretion of 
the commission to invite foreign scientific men 
to join in the labors of the conference ; and the 
United-States government does not dictate in 
regard to the topics which are to be treated in 
the conferences, further than to require that the 
first meeting shall be held as early as Aug. 7, 
1884. In the letter to each member of the 
commission, apprising him of his appointment, 
Secretary Frelinghuysen writes, ‘‘ It is hardly 
necessary to observe that this commission, ap- 
pointed for high scientific purposes, will not 
permit its influences to be exerted in behalf 
of any person or company, manufacturers of 
electrical apparatus or machines.”’ 


SCIENCE. 


127 


The raison d’étre of this commission is the 
conjunction of the electrical exposition in 
Philadelphia with the meeting of the American 
association of science in the same place, and 
the meeting of the British association in Mon- 
treal. It is hoped that a number of foreign 
scientific men may be induced to deliberate 
with the American commission upon more or 
less international electrical questions. It is 
thought by some that there is hardly need 
of another conference of electricians. The 
French conference has lately adjourned. Lord 
Rayleigh has made an exhaustive determination 
of the ohm. A standard of light has been 
adopted which is the best that present experi- 
ence indicates. ‘The meteorological directions 
of electrical science need time, and not confer- 
ences, for their development; and the protec- 
tion of international cables and international 
telegraphic relations was fully considered in the 
French conference. In answer to this view, 
it must be pointed out that the mere assemblage 
of those most interested and practised in any 
department of science is necessary in the 
present state of scientific research. There are 
no ‘gentle hermits’ in the subject of elec- 
tricity ; and no one can hope to advance the 
subject by working in a remote lighthouse or 
on a desert island. There may be Victor 
Hugos in poetry and fiction, but not in elec- 
tricity. 

It is possible that American science may 
enlighten foreign science, even on such trite 
subjects as the ohm and the standard of light. 
There is, moreover, the adoption of the elec- 
tric light by the American lighthouses, and a 
report upon the uses of electricity in connec- 
tion with torpedo warfare, —a subject, when 
it is considered that torpedoes constitute our 
principal means of harbor defence, of especial 
interest in the coming presidential election. 
The imagination needs only a slight stimulation 
to perceive that the government can reasonably 
expect as great a return for the sum of seven 
thousand five hundred dollars invested in an 
electrical conference, as it can hope to have 
from the same sum expended in improving 
the harbor of Podunk. 


128 


THE HARVARD PHYSIOLOGICAL 
LABORATORY. 


Tue physiological laboratory of the medical 
school of Harvard university presents some 
peculiarities of arrangement and appointments 
which seem worthy of a brief description. The 
rooms occupied for this purpose include about 
one-fourth of the available space of the second 
floor in the new building of the school at the 
corner of Boylston and Exeter Streets in 
Boston. The disposition of these rooms is 
shown in the accompanying plans (figs. 1 


SCIENCE. 


(WP), to which the overflow from any appa- 
ratus may be conducted. This pipe runs into— 


a small open sink lying below that portion of 
the table, and having also its own water-supply. 

Near the middle of the table are the binding- 
posts of a pair of electric wires (#) coming 
from tiie general laboratory, and close to these 
is the air-pipe (A) from the respiration appara- 
tus, to be presently described. ‘The course of 
the wires and pipe beneath the floor is shown 
by a dotted line in the plan. At the same end 


[Vou. IV., No. 80.- 


and 2). The large lecture-room, it will be f'—. _ x rea x 
h 
iii: i a_i! iad as 
: [Dr | cae WT Gin \ 5 
I Tied CT 
he 
| jsurarijoon 


a. 
al ges 


fos or 
‘CHEMICALRCOM 
+f W158 


et 
rf 


"i 


MECHANIC syontt 


i 


| \ 


OT: chemical table; DA, digestion apparatus; 
drawers; /'P, filter- -pump ; GC, glass case; Gm, galvanometer ; H, hood; 


os Fig. 1.— GENERAL PLAN OF LABORATORY AND LECTURE- 
% 


ROOM. 


/ 
me Lettering to plans of laboratory. — BC, battery-closet (gallery); BZ, blast- 
iH lamp ; Bl, balance; Bn, basin; CC, clothes-closets; Cl, closet (under ‘seats) ; 


’ Dk, desk; Dvr, chest of 


HS, eliostat shelf; IA, injection apparatus; JC, interrupter case; kn, kymo. 
graphion; JZ, lathe; LT, lecture-table; MC, meat-cutter 5 MT, mercury- 
table; OJ, operating instruments; PC, portfolio-case; PJ, pendulum my ograph; #, refrigerator ; RA, respiration apparatus; SA, 


soldering apparatus; S&, steam-bath; SZ, steam-engine; Sh, shelves ; 


scope; VA, varnishing apparatus; VS, ventilating shaft; 


WB, work- bench; 


Sk, sink; SP, seconds pendulum; ST, saw-table; 71, tele- 
WT, working- table. Lecture-room. —A, air-blast 


B; blackboards; Ip electricity ; G, gas; PT, pneumatic trough; W,; water ; WE, waste-pipe. 


seen, has also an ante-room leading to the 
chemical laboratories, which occupy the re- 
mainder of the fluor, the lectures of both de- 
partments being given in this room. It may 
be mentioned here that the stories of the build- 
ing are in general quite high, permitting the 
frequent use of mezzanines with great economy 
of space. 

In the lecture-room itself the table is the most 
interesting feature. When ready for use, it is 
merely a plain black walnut table, with a thick 
top about 5 metres long, 90 centimetres wide, 
and 86 centimetres above the floor. On this are 
water and gas cocks ( W, G), and a waste-pipe 


of the table is a movable cover over a large 
pneumatic trough. . Here, as elsewhere on the 
table, the water-supply is from a tank at the top 
of the building, so that the pressure is constant. 
As the pipes are independent, the necessary 
conditions of the water-supply for hydraulic 
experiments are satisfied. 
the table presents more novel features. It is 
movable, running on wheels, and exists in du- 
plicate, each of the two departments using the 
lecture-room being thus provided for. This 
section can be run off into the laboratory, and 
there loaded with any apparatus or material 
required for the lecture. It is thus possible to 


thd etki 


The middle half of 


a 


AvueustT 15, 1884.] 


prepare a difficult experiment much more read- 
ily and completely, or to leave complicated 


‘ apparatus set up for some length of time. The 


section has also a set of drawers containing 
such operating instruments, glassware, towels, 
etc., as are constantly required in the demon- 
strations, a shelf below carrying sand-baths, 
lamps, and the like. In the plan the movable 
table (ZT) stands in the laboratory, as when 
waiting for its lecture-load. Behind the table 
in the lecture-room are three sliding black- 
boards (B), 280 centimetres long and 120 
centimetres wide, which run tip and down in 
front of a small hood (#), communicating 
also with the adjoining chemical laboratory. 
In this way unpleasant smells or noxious 
gases are easily avoided; and apparatus 
may be set up while the lecture is going 
on. Along the upper edge of each black- 
board is a small brass rod, which has been 
found convenient for suspending diagrams 
and tables. Below are cupboards for fur- 
ther lecture-supplies, four electric bells be- 
ing placed at the side to summon various 
persons whose help may be required dur- 
ing the lecture. The seats slope upward 
with a gradually increasing pitch (in ac- 
cordance with the rule of construction given 
by Lachez), so that each person in the audi- 
ence has an equally good opportunity of 
seeing over the heads of those in front of 
him.’ Above the seats is a broad platform 
or gallery leading to the entrances for stu- 
dents, and corresponding to the mezzanine 
of the floor. At the back of this gallery 
the windows are provided with shelves for 
such microscopical demonstrations as the 
lectures require. The room is lighted al- 
most entirely from windows in the eastern 
and southern gallery; but, as the lectures 
for which the room was planned are usually 
delivered in the morning, no difficulty has 
arisen. A large chandelier has been found 
sufficient for the later hours of the winter 
afternoons and in the evening. A beam of 
light may be brought into the lecture-room by 
placing a heliostat on the shelf (HS) of the 
proper window in the southern wall of the 
building, and this ray can also be carried into 
the laboratory. At present no arrangements 
have been made to darken the lecture-room 
for lantern demonstrations; but this can be 
easily done, should it become desirable. 

A small ante-room at the side opens both into 
the main hall and the general laboratory. The 
latter is a large room (10.8 by 9.6 metres) and 


1 See Czermak : Ueber das physiologische privat-laboratorium 
an der Universitat Leipzig. 1873. 


SCIENCE. 


129 


of the full height (6.25 metres) of the story. 
Light is furnished by three large windows in 
the eastern wall, and by the five windows of 
the gallery at the northern end (see fig. 2). 
As the partition-wall which shuts off the small 
rooms is partly of glass, the light-supply is 
ample. A general view of this room and of 
the gallery, taken from a point near the door 
of the weighing-room, is given in fig. 3. The 
arrangement of the working-tables (WT7’) is 
evident from the plan. Those along the walls 
are firmly fixed in position, as is also the mid# 
dle table adjoining the interrupter-case (IC) : 
the other working-tables can be moved as re- 
quired. Two chemical tables (CT), with the 


Fig. 2.— HALF STORY. 


necessary shelves and chemicals, bowls, and 
filter-pumps, furnish places for from six to 
eight students in the practical courses or for 
special work. The working-tables adjoining 
the kymographion (/fn) and interrupter-case 
(IC) can be extended to the long table below 
the windows by a board, which is hooked into 
position as needed. In this way it is possible 
for two persons to operate in the most favora- 
ble light and position. The cases holding the 
operating instruments (OJ) will be seen to be 
very conveniently placed against the wall near 
the operating-table: at the side are shelves 
containing the ether, morphia, curare, etc., 
likely to be required. 

The ventilation of this room, like that of the 


180 


building in general, is provided for by large 
shafts in the wall, which, however, for the sake 
of simplicity, are not fully indicated in the 
plan. There are similar shafts for warming the 
rooms with heated air. There are also numer- 
ous steam-radiators for the coldest weather. 
Besides the waste-pipes belonging to the sinks 
and bowls, shown in the plan, there are many 
extra waste-pipes with stop-cocks, to which, by 
means of hose, water may be carried off from 


; iis uy 
~) Des 
ei iN 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 80. 


of place here. It is intended to serve primarily 
as a laboratory of research, and secondarily as 
an adjunct to the lectures on physiology in 
the preparation of suitable apparatus and ex- 
periments. Courses in ‘ practical physiology ’ 
are also given in the laboratory to the class 
in sections of a convenient size, but no in- 
struction in ‘ biology’ is contemplated. All 
histological work proper is carried on in a 


_ special department in another part of the build- 


mat 


tet ‘ceed. 
ho ‘ [ M4 al 
la j 


i ic Via 
r=) My 

“UA 
= - 


uN 


ln 


Vy i Ali oa a : 
i 
t 


any apparatus which can possibly be set up in 
any of the rooms. The sink in the north-west- 
ern corner of the laboratory and the adjacent 
basin (Bn) have both hot and cold water. 
With one exception, the water-supply comes 
directly from the ordinary city pipes. The 
exception is the chemical table against the 


southern wall, which has an independent sup- 


ply from the tank already mentioned, and there- 
fore useful for hydraulic experiments. 

To avoid any misapprehension, a word as to 
the purpose of this laboratory may not be out 


; Sie: Hs 


Fic. 8. — INTERIOR OF GENERAL LABORATORY. 


ing. It seems desirable to mention these 
things more particularly, lest any one should 
miss those features which are prominent in 
some American laboratories of recent date. — 

The centre of the room is occupied by a 
large double case (GC), with glass doors on 
both sides, intended to hold such pieces of 
apparatus as are used in laboratory-work. An- 
other glass case at the side of the room to the 
west serves the same purpose, while that in 
the little ante-room contains such special ap- 
paratus and preparations as are used regularly 


Aveust 15, 1884.] 


in the lectures. Alongside the latter is a port- 
folio case (PC) for the diagrams and drawings 
required in the same courses. Near the large 
case in the laboratory is the structure familiarly 
known as the ‘tower,’ but called the inter- 
rupter-case (JC) in the plan, which has been 
found to be a great convenience. A view of 
the upper portion of the tower is given in fig. 4, 
the lower part being merely a large closet for 
wire and other supplies. Its purpose is to hold 
various pieces of apparatus for interrupting or 
regulating the galvanic 
current. As a rule, 
all the batteries made 
use of in the laboratory 
are set up as required 
in the battery-closet in 
the gallery, and con- 
nected with wires run- 
ning to the tower, 
whence the current is 
conducted to the appa- 
ratus, or to wires run- 
ning into the rooms 
where electricity may 
be needed, as well as 
to the lecture - table. 
The general relation of 
the wires to the bat- 
tery- room and _ the 
tower is shown in the 
plan of the gallery (fig. 
2). A special line of 
very large copper wires 
is also shown, which 
goes directly, without 
a break, to the remoter 
work-rooms. This line 
has been found neces- 
sary for the battery re- 
quired to work a large 
Ruhmkorff coil at that 
distance. The pres- 
ent system of wires has 
been planned chiefly to 
meet the demands of 
ordinary work, but is capable of such exten- 
sion as may be required. Outside the tower 
hangs the seconds pendulum (SP), which is 
heavy enough to swing for about half an hour. 
It can be put in any circuit, and thus give 
very exact time or regular interruption in any 
room of the department. In the tower itself 
the only pieces of apparatus considered per- 
manencies are those seen in fig. 4, —a clock 
and a new interrupter, recently imported from 
Leipzig. The latter rather complicated in- 
strument seen on the left of the figure has 


h R 
Wi 


————— 


SCIENCE. 


Fig. 4. —INTERRUPTER-CASE. 


131 


valuable features; the platinum contacts be- 
ing under alcohol or petroleum, and so arranged 
that either the closing or opening induced cur- 
rent may be short-circuited. The rapidity of 
the shocks can be considerably varied within the 
limits of thirty in one second, and one in thirty 
seconds. This apparatus was constructed by 
Baltzar. In principle it is the same as that 
described by Bohr, in his article, ‘‘ Ueber den 
einfluss der tetanisirenden irritamente auf form 
und grésse der tetanus curve ’’ (Arch. anat. u. 
physiol., physiol. abth.,» 
1882, p. 233). Many 
changes have, how- 
ever, been made in the 
details before the pres- 
ent form was arrived 
at. In this a metal- 
lic cylinder turned by 
clock-work carries two 
sets of pegs (like the 
pins in a musical box), 
which strike against 
levers, and thus break 
contacts in the trough 
below. The pins of 
each series are so set 
that. the contact is 
broken in one lever a 
little sooner than in 
the other, and conse- 
quently is still broken 
in the latter when the 
former closes. In this 
way a simple change of 
the wires from the in- 
duction apparatus per- 
mits the short-circuit- 
ing of the opening or 
the closing induction 
shock at pleasure. By 
an ingenious arrange- 
ment a cog-wheel can 
be shifted so as to give 
the cylinder a very 
slow or arapid motion, 
as desired: the series of pegs thus do double 
work, and permit the great range of inter- 
ruptions already mentioned. 

The clock, seen on the right of the figure, 
has a revolving pendulum, and a set of toothed 
wheels, which interrupt the electric current at 
intervals of one, two, three, four, five, ten, 
fifteen, twenty, thirty, or sixty seconds. The 
duration of the interruptions may be any thing 
less than four seconds. By using a relay these 
may be changed into closures of correspond- 
ing length and interval. This cleck was con- 


SS AN 


SS 


amy A 


sf ~ 
1) 
eo 


132 


structed by Zachariae of Leipzig, and has been 
described by Dr. Bowditch in his communica- 
tion, ‘‘ Ueber die cigenthiimlichkeiten der reiz- 
barkeit, welche die muskelfasern des herzens 
zeigen’ (Ber. sdichs. gesellsch. wiss. Leipzig, 
Xxill. 1871, 658). 

Besides the more ordinary forms of inter- 
rupter in common use, the 
laboratory possesses several 
home-made ones, which have iy 
proved useful, and are set 
up in the interrupter-case as 
required. One is merely a 
simplified Bernstein’s acous- 
tic interrupter, in which a 
steel bar of variable length £&]/ 
(determined by a. sliding 
clamp) is kept swinging by 


Zz 


—— 


HNN 


=| 
a temporary mag- =) 
net above, while a 1a 
platinum point ) ) 
makes and breaks W a 
Te At 


in a cup of mer- 
cury below. An- 
other very simple 
and inexpensive 
form, which is easi- 
ly made, and prob- 
ably admits of more 
general applica- 
tion, consists of a 
steel rod swinging 
on a knife-edge at 
one end, while the 
other is attached to 
a long spiral spring 
fixed above. The 
swing is deter- 
mined by the ten- 
sion of the spring, 
and the position of 
variable weights on 
the bar. This ar- 
rangement has 
proved useful for 
slow interruptions, 
one to three in a 
second, the appa- 
ratus before men- 
tioned permitting four to ninety in the second. 

Against the wall, above the end of the chem- 
ical table on the southern side of the room, is 
the respiration apparatus (RA), whose con- 
struction is made clearer by the adjoining 
sketch (fig. 5). Itis merely a water-bellows of 
the ordinary form, receiving its water-supply 
by the upper pipe at the right, from the con- 
stant-pressure tank at the top of the building. 


—= > 


= 
== 


to bellows. 


SCIENCE. 


T a = 
=) } a 


Fig. 5.— RESPIRATION APPARATUS. 


Lettering to respiration apparatus. — A, water-motor; BC, stop-cocks 
for water-supply; D, revolving stop-cock; EF GHR, stop-cocks direct- 
ing stream of ar; J, regulating-cap; JKW, water-bellows; ZL, air- 
supply from bellows; J, pipe to lecture-room; NV, pipe to working- 
tables; O, filter-pump; P, air-pipe for blast-lamp; Q, rubber pipe of 
filter-pump; 7’, mercury-gauge; V, gas for blest-lamp; W, air-inlet 


[Von. IV., No. 80. 


The water enters the upper cylinder (J), and 
passes down through the pipes marked K, into 
the air-chamber in the basement two stories be- 
low, the compressed air coming up to the labo- 
ratory by the pipe Z. If the water enter the 
bellows by the lower stop-cock (C), a steady 
blast of air is obtained, which may work a blast- 
lamp at P, or, by a proper clos- 
ing of the stop-cocks, be car- 
ried to the glass-blowing table 
(BL) ,10.5 metres away ; a gas- 
pipe (1) being laid for this pur- 
pose along the wall, and under 
the edge of the long working- 
table. Bya different closure of 
the stop-cocks, the air-stream is 
directed to the lecture-room 
through the pipe MM, reaching 
the table ut A. Rubber hose 
attached to a stop-cock below 
the long wall-table permits the 
use of the same blast of air on 
any of the other working-tables 
of theroom. If the upper stop- 
cock (B) be opened, and the 
lower one (C) be closed, the 
water passes through a small 
motor (A) before entering the 
bellows; thus doing double 
work, first in falling from the 
tank to the motor, and then in 

falling further to the 
=p) basement. The mo- 


ne 
cE 


7 dq tor gives motion to 
h, 
is |_OF the cone below, and 
Iss a small stop-cock in 
hin the axis at D regu- 
al larly breaks the 
\ otherwise constant 
Taal stream of air, which, 
la) opening the _ stop- 


cock H, and closing 
that at G, permits 
free passage to 
this portion of the 
apparatus. <A slot- 
ted cap (JI) regu- 
lates the amount of 
air delivered, while 
the rapidity of the interruptions can be nicely 
adjusted by the amount of water flowing through 
the motor, and by the size of the wheel used 
on the cone. Another combination of high 
pressure and slow movement can be obtained 
by so adjusting the stop-cocks B and C that 
more or less water enters the bellows without 
passing through the motor. The large wheel 
and the cone are on sliding boards, so that 


ipinani 


ae anne ms SAE vi qr 


ace. 
AL . 
NN 5) 


> z ‘S iS 
~Z = a : tinal 
AN 


== = 4 Rat 
KSSSSSHAS TNS SN HSN SSS 
SSS 


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A PIECE OF ANCIENT PERU 


Section through A B. 
La Nature 


A PROPOSED DIVING-CHAMBER SUPPLIED WITH COMPRESSED AIR TO BE USED IN SUBMARINE EXPLORA- 
TIONS. — La Nature. 


fly 


VVGpHe 


THE LEAF-BUTTERFLY, FLYING AND ALIGHTED.— Science monthly. | 


METEOROLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL LABORATORY ON Pic DU MIDI 
ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA. — Science et natut 


SELECTED ILLUSTRATIONS F! 


METEOROLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL LABORATORY ON PIc DU 
MIDI FOR THE STUDY OF ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA. THE 
SPECIAL LABORATORY OF MUNTZ AND AUBIN FOR THE IN- 
VESTIGATION OF THE CHEMISTRY OF THE AIR.— Science et 


nature. 


VERTICAL RAY SEEN FROM PARIS. MARCH 20, JUST AFTER SUN- 
sev. — L’ Illustration. 


HALO SEEN FROM THE OBSERVATORY OF THE PARC DE SAINT-MARC, MARCH 25, AT 11 A.M.— Z’Jllustration. 


N TEMP ORARY FOREIGN J OURN ALS. Supplement to SCIENCE, Aug. 15, 1884, 


METEOROLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL LABORATORY ON Pic pu 
Mint FOR THE STUDY OF ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA. THE 
; AL LABORATORY OF MUNTZ AND AUBIN FOR THE IN- 
RY OF THE AIR.— Science et 


s 


GATION OF THE CHEMIS 
nature. 


VERTICAL RAY SEEN FROM Pants. MAncu 20, JUST AFTER SUN- 
sev. — L’llustration. 


A PIECE OF ANCIENT |/ERUVIAN POTTERY. — 


Section through A B. 
La Nature, 


A PROPOSED DIVING-CHAMBER SUPPLIED WITH COMPRESSED AIR TO BE USED IN SUBMARINE EXPLORA- 
Tons. — La Nalure. 


~ Pro pu Mrpt FoR TE STUDY op 
Science et natures 


‘THE LEAF-BUTTERFLY, FLYING AND ALIGHTED. — Science monthly. 


METEOROLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL LABORATORY 0 
ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA. — 


SELECTED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ONTEMPORA RY FOREIGN JOURNALS. Supplement to SCIENCE, Aug. 15, 1a, 
_ =. 


Marcu 25, av 11 Am. — L'Mlustration. 


HALO SEEN FROM THE OBSERVATORY OF THE PARC DE Sarnt-Marc, 


ahem - 


A ete ee a ne 


-_ 


AveusT 15, 1884.] 


the tension of the belts may be readily regu- 
lated. This form of stop-cock was arranged 
some years ago by Dr. Bowditch, to be run 
by the clock-work of the kymographion, and 
has been described by him in the Journal of 
physiology (ii. 8, p. 202). This interrupted 
blast of air is carried by the pipes already 
mentioned to any table where it is required. 
The system was planned for the present needs 
of laboratory-work, but could be readily ex- 
tended even to other work-rooms. It has thus 
far proved quite satisfactory, and readily 
adaptable to the artificial respiration of dogs, 
eats, or rabbits. 

Adjoining the respiration apparatus, the 
sketch shows a filter-pump (QO) and its simple 
mercury-gauge (7’), which can be attached to 
the same system of piping, and used at a dis- 
tance. ‘This is done by connecting the rubber 
tube @ with the pipe P. Although the sys- 
tem was not originally planned for use with 
negative air-pressures (the revolving stop-cock 
not being quite tight enough for such a pur- 
pose), it is very easy to produce a negative 
pressure of two hundred and forty millimetres 
(mercury) on the table in the lecture-room, or 
on the more remote working-tables of the gen- 
eral laboratory. 

At the other end of the room is a small 
mercury-table (MT). This is merely an ordi- 
nary table, with a raised edge, made tight 
and thoroughly varnished. A little shelf at 
one corner holds a bottle to catch the refuse 
mercury directed to a hole in this corner by 
a suitable shortening of the legs. A firm 
shelf on the pilaster near by holds a small 
meat-cutter (MC), and a press for extract- 
ing meat-juice and the like. At the other 
side of the mereury-table stands the large 
digestion apparatus (DA), or constant tem- 
perature box. This consists of two cylindrical 
boxes of sheet-copper of different sizes, joined 
by a rim at the top, and resting on legs made 
of iron rods. The inner box has a diameter of 
forty centimetres and a depth of twenty-nine 
centimetres, the corresponding dimensions of 
the outer casing being fifty-eight and thirty- 
eight centimetres respectively. The rim has 
two holes for corks carrying a thermometer 
and a glass tube of the regulator. At the side 
is a stop-cock for removing the water which 
fills the space between the two shells. The 
inner box is the air-chamber, and has a double- 
walled cover packed with charcoal. An extra 
cover has also been made, a thick wooden rim 
carrying two plates of glass, with an air-space 
between, so that any changes going on in the 
chamber kept at a constant temperature may 


SCIENCE. 


133 


be followed without removing the cover. The 
apparatus stands thirty centimetres above the 
floor, and, being covered with a layer of as- 
bestos packing two centimetres thick, it parts 
with its heat so slowly that a single Bunsen 
burner suffices to keep it at a temperature of 
60° C. The size of flame is determined by a 
olycerine regulator. A large glass tube sus- 
pended in the water contains the glycerine, 
which also fills a rubber tube communicating 
on a shelf above with the regulator, and ending | 
in a small funnel. The glycerine, as the water 
warms, expands, and rises into the funnel, 
until, at the desired temperature, a stop-cock 
is closed. After this any further expansion 
forces a rubber membrane against the end of 
the gas-pipe above, and shuts off the main gas- 
supply to the flame, leaving only a small amount 
regulated by another stop-cock, the ‘ pin-hole ’ 
of the ordinary mercury regulators. The con- 
traction of the glycerine, on cooling, draws the 
membrane down again, and thus increases the 
gas-supply. This regulator has been found 
very trustworthy ; and the temperature of the 
air-chamber has remained quite constant for 
weeks at a time, with only a very small flame. 

Only temperatures from 38° to 60° C. have been 
tested, but for these the variation has not 
exceeded half a degree C. As the volume 
of water to be heated is large, about sixty-four 
litres, considerable time is required to raise the 
temperature sufficiently ; and this is the only 
practical objection to the apparatus. ‘This is, 
of course, compensated for by the size of the 
air-chamber, rather over thirty-six litres. For 
experiments calling for speed, there is a small 
digestion apparatus at the table near the lecture- 
room. This is merely a water-bath, with an 
ordinary mercury regulator, and a water-supply 
from a Mariotte’s flask on the shelf at the 
back. For lecture demonstrations of artificial 
digestion, the laboratory has another piece 
of movable apparatus of convenient size and 
some elegance. 

Adjoining the glass case on the western wall 
is the varnishing apparatus (VA). This is 
a simple tin trough, slightly tipped at one end, 
where a rubber pipe runs to a supply-bottle, 
whose position on the shelves at the side deter- 
mines the filling or emptying of the trough. 
The smoked papers are run through the varnish, 
and then suspended from rods, to drip into the 
trough, and thus into the bottle. This form 
of apparatus was originally devised by Profes- 
sor Kronecker of Berlin. 

In the north-eastern corner of the laboratory, 
adjoining the chemical table, stands a large and 
convenient injection apparatus (JA) for the 


134 


preparation of animals or organs for micro- 
scopic work. It is merely a copper box, used 
as a water-bath, big enough to hold a large 
cat and several bottles of injection-material. 
Pressure is obtained by letting water from the 
tap run into a large bottle below the table. The 
compressed air then forces the injection-mass 
into the body, every thing being kept at a suit- 
able temperature by a lamp below. By using 
T-tubes several vessels may be injected with 
different substances at the same time. On a 
small table by itself, but at the side of one of 
the working-tables, is the kymographion (Jn). 
This is of the Ludwig pattern, with a long roll 
of paper. It has special wires from the tower 
and from the pendulum. Over the kymograph- 
ion is a large cover of painted cloth, stretched 
on a light wooden frame. By aid of a pulley 
in the ceiling, this cover is raised or lowered 
as required. A similar cover hangs above the 
table adjoining the pendulum, and an extra 
one is on hand to be placed where needed. 
The use of these dust-proof protectors makes 
it possible to keep complicated or delicate 
apparatus together for an experiment of in- 
definite duration, and safe from all ordinary 
disturbance when work is not going on. 

To the north the main laboratory opens di- 
rectly into two small rooms of less height, 
half-stories in fact, —the chemical room and 
that of the assistant. Between the two is the 
small private room of the professor. This 
contains working-tables, with water and gas, 
and can be conveniently used for private work. 
The assistant’s room has also a long work-table 
especially arranged, as regards light and height, 
for microscopical work; and the room is, in 
fact, partly occupied at present for the prepa- 
ration of material for histological demonstra- 
tions. This arrangement was made for the 
economical use of the animal supplies of the 
department. Another large table is intended 
for the examination of curves and records. 
There are also all the conveniences in the way 
of gas, water, waste-pipes, and electrical wires, 
needed to make the room convenient for private 
work. ‘The chemical room has a large work- 
table, with numerous drawers to hold the more 
delicate glass apparatus. There are also the 
necessary shelves for chemicals and reagents. 
At the side of the commodious hood is a steam- 
bath, which has proved a great convenience. 
The fittings of the room, and the apparatus, 
are merely such as are required for ordinary 
physiological work, the nearness of the chemical 
laboratory on the same floor making a larger 
room for this purpose unnecessary. 

The chemical room opens directly into the 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 80, 


workshop of the laboratory, where the instru- 
ments are cared for and repaired, and where 
not a little even of the more delicate apparatus 
can be made. This room has its own sink and 
hood for such work as may be unpleasant to 
the nose, or otherwise irritating. <A large 
and convenient work-bench occupies nearly all 
the northern end of the room. More in the 
centre of the room are the lathe (Z) and saw- 
table (ST), each capable of receiving motion 
from the little steam-engine (SH), of about 
two and a half horse-power. This receives 
steam from the same pipes which come to the 
steam-bath already mentioned. The shafting 
at present runs only a few feet into the main 
laboratory, but can be readily extended as 
occasion shall require. 

At the chief entrance of the main laboratory 
and the mechanic’s room is a small ante-room 
with clothes-closets (CC) for those regularly 
working in the department. This room also 
opens upon the staircase leading to the room 
above, and to the ‘gallery’ of the general 
laboratory, these forming the mezzanine of this 
portion of the floor. Their arrangement is seen 
in the second plan (fig. 2). This space has 
been left more or less open with a view to its 
future adaptation to such needs as shall arise, 
A portion of that over the mechanic’s room will 
probably soon be shut off by a glass partition, 
to make a quiet reading-room which will hold 
the working-library of the department. The 
larger space over the small rooms has .its own 
hood and a water-supply, and is well provided 
with gas. During the past year, extended 
experiments in bacilliculture have been carried 
on here. A part is soon to be fitted up with 
large plain tables for the courses in practical 
physiology, which are given for the students of 
the first year in as large sections as can be con-_ 
veniently managed. It would be easy at any 
time to make this space into several separate 
rooms, should they be required. 

At the end of the gallery proper, along the 
wall to the west, is the battery-closet (BC). 
This opens into its own ventilating-shaft, and 
has two large soapstone sinks, in one of which 
the battery plates and cups are washed, the 
other serving to hold the porous cups kept 
constantly under water. On shelves at the 
side are large bottles with glass stop-cocks to 
hold the acids and other solutions. A glass 
case near by contains such battery-material as 
is not in frequent use, or fails to find room in 
the large storage-drawers below the closet. 
Should such a necessity arise, a broad gallery 
could also be built along the southern wall of 
the large rcom. 7 14 aS 


AveustT 15, 1884.] 


The door in the middle of this southern wall 
on the main floor opens into a large closet, a 
store-room for glassware. ‘The remaining door 
leads to a set of smaller rooms under the gallery 
of the lecture-room, intended for special work, 
and to be more fully fitted up at some future 
time, or as the needs of investigation shall 
make desirable. 

Under the seats and openings into two of 
these small rooms are closets, dotted in the 
plan, which are convenient places for storage. 
The first of these rooms is known as the 
‘weighing-room.’ It contains a delicate bal- 
ance (Bl) on a firm shelf, and a Wiedemann’s 
galvanometer (Gm) fixed on a pier near the 
door. ‘The telescope (77) of the latter is 
attached to a column in the centre of the 
room. In the corner is a small refrigerator 
(FR) with a waste-pipe.. This room, as well 
as its neighbors, has water, gas, and wires 
from the tower. The next, or ‘dark room,’ 


has no windows, and is intended for optical » 


experiments, or for any work requiring the 
exclusion or perfect control of daylight. <A 
shutter near the door to the south permits any 
arrangement of diaphragms and lenses which 
can possibly be called for. At some future 
time a Thomson galvanometer will be set up 
in this room. 

The corner room, known as the ‘ light-room,’ 
has no special purpose, but is to be used for 
such work as may require a very good light 
and perfect quiet. The position of this room, 
in the corner of the building farthest removed 
from the streets, is very favorable for uninter- 
rupted, quiet investigation. In one corner is 
the ‘photograph-room’ for the preparation 
and development of the plates. Against the 
wall, in the opposite corner, a pendulum myo- 
graph (PM) is fastened permanently in posi- 
tion, and covered by a dust-proof case. This 
is the instrument made by Dr. J. J. Put- 
nam, and described by him in the Journal 
of physiology (ii. p. 206). Wires run from 
this apparatus to the adjoining closet,—an 
arrangement that is found convenient for 
experiments with reaction time. One of 
the southern windows of the light-room has 
also a broad heliostat shelf (A/S) outside, 
so that a beam of light may be sent even 
into the assistant’s room, or, by a suitable 
disposition of mirrors, into any part of any 
other room. The remaining door of the 
light-room opens upon a passage-way which 
leads to the chemical laboratories, and 
makes the departments independent of the 
main hall or the lecture-room for communi- 
cation. 


SCIENCE. 


155 


KRAKATOA. 


TuE more the information accumulates with re- 
gard to the eruption of Krakatoa on Aug. 27, 1883, 
the more this phenomenon proves to have been re- 
markable and unique as a series of violent explosions. 

From Nature of July 17 we learn, that, at the meet- 
ing of the Meteorological society of Mauritius on 
May 22, several interesting communications were 
made with regard to this eruption; among others, a 
letter from a M. Lecomte, dated at Diego Garcia 
(latitude 7° 20’ south, longitude 72° 35’ east of 
Greenwich) on April 24, describing how at breakfast, 
on the morning of Aug. 27, they had heard detona- 
tions, low but violent, and, attributing them to a 
vessel in distress, had run, and had sent men, to dif- 
ferent points of the shore of the island, who were 
unable to see any thing to cause such sounds; also 
how the captain and mate of the Eva Joshua, just 
leaving Pointe de 1’ Est to anchor at Pointe Marianne 
(these places I cannot find, but suppose, from the 
account, that they are near Diego Garcia), had heard 
the same detonations, and sent men to the mast- 
heads, without seeing any thing. These, with the 
previous reports from Rodriguez, showed that in three 
distinct cases the sounds of the Krakatoa explosions 
were plainly heard at distances of at least twenty- 
two hundred miles, and, in the case of Rodriguez, of 
nearly three thousand. 

It will be remembered, that in Nature, May 1, it was 
stated by Herr R. D. M. Verbeek that these sounds 
were heard in Ceylon, Burmah, Manila, New Guinea, | 
and at Perth on the west coast of Australia, and, in 
fact, at all places within a radius of about 50°, or 
two thousand miles. But these later reports from 
Rodriguez and Diego Garcia show, that across the 
waters of the Indian Ocean, with no land interven- 
ing, they were carried distinctly to much greater dis- 
tances. 

The still more remarkable atmospheric gravity- 
waves which travelled round and round the globe in 
all directions from the Straits of Sunda, and which 
were fortunately registered on the self-recording 
pressure-guage of the large gasometer at Batavia, 
close by Krakatoa, were also registered on the baro- 
grams at Mauritius; and here there were distinctly 
recorded four successive transits of the waves from 
east to west, and three from west to east, the same 
as Shown by Gen. Strachey to have occurred at some 
of the European stations. But, what is still more 
remarkable, there is a faint trace of a fifth transit 
of the waves from east to west on the morning of 
Sept. 2; i.e., more than six days after the explosions, 
and when the waves had travelled more than four 
times round the earth, or about a hundred and two 
thousand miles. The most sensitive barograph at 
the signal-office in Washington also shows small 
waves, which are probably the record, also, of this 
fifth transit (and barely possibly of the succeeding 
sixth transit of the same): but the phenomena at 
Washington are complicated by the fact that it is 
within about 33° of the antipodes of Krakatoa, and 
that the waves have different velocities east and west, 


136 SCIENCE. 


Y 
and also that the great circle through Krakatoa and 
Washington passes nearly over the poles, and in this 
direction the velocity seems to be still smaller; so 
that the phenomena for this region become more and 
more complicated for each succeeding transit, and, 
after the first two or three in each direction, rather 
difficult to unravel. Unfortunately, the other few 
barographs in use on this side the Atlantic — to all 
of which the great circles from Krakatoa take an 
entirely different direction from that to all the eastern 
stations — are not so sensitive as the best Washington 
barograph, and do not help much beyond the first 
two transits of the waves in each direction. 

It is noteworthy that these barometric disturbances 
were first noticed at Mauritius early in September, 
soon after their occurrence, and were at once inde- 
pendently attributed to the Krakatoa eruption, but 
were supposed to be due to successive series of ex- 
plosions day after day, until the publication long 
after, in Nature, Dec. 20, of the discovery of Mr. Scott 
and Gen. Strachey, showed them to be due to a single 
series of waves, travelling round and round the globe, 
from the explosions of Aug. 27. 

Perhaps the most interesting and important fact 
appearing from these Mauritius records, in connec- 
tion with these waves, is the difference in time of 
transit round the earth, as compared with that de- 
duced from the European stations by Gen. Strachey. 
The paths of the waves from Krakatoa to the latter 
stations are, on the average, something like 40° north 
of west (from Krakatoa), and, to Mauritius, about 
20° south of west; so that the great circles make an 
angle of about 60°. The difference in time of transit 
on these circles, and in the two directions on each, 
are best shown in the table below, where, following 
Gen. Strachey’s nomenclature, the successive waves 
are numbered from i. to vii., and the odd numbers 
denote the transits from east to west, and the even 
those from west to east. 


ee isa ee s | ¢ 
| > a | 
Se | = 2 Sem cere ls es S 
ht ae ; = : Ss s 
| > A ze a A 
S. E. to. W. N. W.toS. H. 
h.m.|h.m.|h.m.|h.m.||hom.|h.m.|h.m. 
European . 37 4 | 36 54 | 36 48 | 86.57 | 385 24) 35 9 | 3517 
a Weta ieee 
N. E. to 8. W. S. W.toN. E. 
AY Aem.|h.m. | A.m.|h.m.|\|him.|him.| hem. 
Mauritius . . . | 3434 | 34 37 | 34 43 | 34 38 || 35 15 | 36 13 | 35 44 


Of course, all the above numbers are liable to an 
uncertainty of several minutes; but, even when this is 
consilered, the differences are quite marked. While 
the average time of transit vid Europe is 1h. 40m. 
greater going west than going east, vid Mauritius 
it is lh. 6m. less; indicating, as far as atmospheric 
currents are concerned, an opposite effect on these 
two great circles, which make, roughly, an angle of 60° 


- 
. 


|Vou. IV., No. 80. 


with each other. The peculiar progression in the 
individual periods for successive transits can hardly 
be wholly accidental, and is in opposite directions; 
the waves vid Europe going (in each direction) faster 
and faster, and vi@ Mauritius being retarded. Per- 
haps the most striking difference is, that the mean 
period, regardless of direction, is nearly 1h. less vid 
Mauritius than vid Europe, —a fact most strikingly 
shown by taking the whole interval vii.-i., which, for 
the five European stations where vii. was traced, gives 
110h. 50m., and, for Mauritius, 103 h. 54m.; showing 
the wave to have gone three times round the earth 
seven hours quicker vid the more equatorial route, 
which is probably partly due to the higher tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere along this path, and also, 
perhaps, to the fact that this great circle passes over 
about as little land as any that can be drawn through 
Krakatoa. 

These facts show more forcibly how complicated 
the phenomena must have been near the antipodes 
of Krakatoa, and also at the latter place, upon the 
returns of the waves there. It is evident, that, when 
the Krakatoa committee of the Royal society shall 
have collected all the data, many interesting problems 
will arise in connection with these atmospheric 
waves; and, in connection with the distribution of 
Krakatoa dust by the upper currents (which, it may 
now be regarded as pretty well settled, was the cause 
of the wide-spread red-sunset phenomena), the explo- 
sive eruption of Krakatoa promises, if thoroughly 
investigated, to teach us more about the circulation 
of our atmosphere than years of ordinary meteoro- 
logical study could have done. H. M. PAUL. 


Washington, July 29. 


OVERWORK IN GERMAN SCHOOLS. 


AFTER forty-two years’ experience, it is now vir- 
tually conceded in Germany that physical exercise is 
not a sufficient antidote to brain-pressure, but that 
where the evil exists, the remedy must be sought in 
the removal of the cause. 

Official action with reference to over-pressure has 
been taken in Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemberg, Baden, 
Hesse, and Alsace Lorraine. In each instance it is 
based upon the report of a commission of inquiry, 
consisting of school directors, and members of school 
boards, as well as physicians. 

The official action based upon the reports of the 
commissions is embodied in decrees dealing with the 
scope and method of teaching, the number and 
hours of study in school, and the amount of home- 
study. / 

The Hessian government issued decrees about 
home-study in 1877, and again in 1881. Complaints 
of overwork increasing, a commission was appointed 
to make further investigation, and report in full. 
Their recommendations were, in the main, embodied 
in the decrees of Feb. 23, 1883. By these decrees a 
maximum of home-study was fixed for each class, 
amounting for the lowest classes to an hour a day; 
the quantity of Latin and Greek required was dimin- 
ished; and all tests of the student’s progress that 


— 


AueusT 15, 1884.] 


necessitate much reviewing were forbidden. It was 
expressly ordered that the day and hour for test- 
exercises ‘‘ shall not be announced to students more 
than twenty-four hours before they take place.’’ 

The Saxon decrees dated March 4 and 10, 1882, 
give particular directions as to the scope and methods 
of instruction, leaving the matter of study-hours un- 
touched. They set forth that instruction in the clas- 
sical languages is carried to excess in the gymnasia, 
being in many cases turned into teaching philology 
as a profession instead of being conducted as a means 
of general intellectual training. With reference to 
the ‘extemporalia’ that form a prominent exercise in 
many of the Saxon gymnasia, the decrees are very 
pronounced. ‘These essays which the students are 
required to translate and write down in a foreign 
language from dictation, are often, it is asserted, 
mere collections of questions in syntax, calculated to 
produce in the student ‘‘a feeling of anxiety and 
vexation instead of an agreeable consciousness of 
knowledge.’’ The result in the student is nervous 
excitement and subsequent intellectual torpor, — 
conditions from which the young should be carefully 
guarded. 

The Baden ministry published an outline of a 
decree, March 18, 1888, that had been prepared by the 
board of health, in conference with a number of 
teachers. Previous to this time, the different classes 
of the gymnasia had thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, 
and thirty-four hours of study a week, without count- 
ing elective studies and gymnastics. These are now 
reduced to twenty-eight and thirty-two hours for the 
two groups of classes below and above the secunda. 
Before 1869 the total number of hours of study for 
a Baden gymnasium of nine classes was 269 a week, 
in 1869 it was raised to 286, and it is now 268. Each 
study-hour is limited to fifty minutes. The amount 
of home-study is also definitely fixed, and the course 
of instruction modified somewhat. Asan evidence of 
the necessity of these changes, Professor Baumeister 
points out that in the lowest class of a gymnasium 
1,300 Latin words have to be learned the first quarter 
of the year, and nearly as many the second, mak- 
ing a daily average of about twenty words. These 
words, he observes, are not met with in any authors 
read by the boys till they reach the upper classes, 
and are generally expressions of ancient life, of which 
a nine-year old boy knows nothing. The intellectual 
effort required to memorize these words, leads, he 
holds, to injurious and lasting effects. 

The commission appointed by the stadtholder of 
Alsace Lorraine recommended that the number of 
study-hours should be restricted to twenty-six a week 
for the lowest classes of the gymnasia, and to twenty- 
eight and thirty-two for the higher; that the hours 
of home-study should be eight, twelve, and eighteen 
a week, progressing from the lowest class to the 
highest; and that six hours a week should be devoted 
to general physical exercise, including swimming, 
open-air sports, skating, and excursions. While the 
existing conditions will be somewhat ameliorated 
by these decrees, they do not seem to have brought 
about a final solution of the difficulty. Last year a 


SCIENCE. 


137 


petition upon the subject, signed by eminent teachers, 
physicians, and other citizens, was addressed to the 
Prussian chamber of deputies. After setting forth 
the deplorable effects of the excessive strain upon 
the nervous system of scholars, it appealed to the 
patriotism of the deputies to put am end to the abuse 
which, the petition asserts, ‘‘ threatens little by little 
to reduce the cultivated classes of society to a state of 
moral weakness that shall render them incapable 
of great and manly resolution.”’ 


A PROPOSED NEW DEPARTURE IN 
HYGROMETERY. 


In the Comptes rendus for June 30, Mr. Jamin, the 
newly elected perpetual secretary of the French 
Académie des sciences, proposes a new departure in 
hygrometry. 

The present system of expressing the amount of 
vapor of water in the atmosphere is to give the ratio 


if 
F? of the observed elastic force f, to the maximum F, 


which the vapor would have at the same temperature 
if the atmosphere were saturated with it, i.e., were 
at the dew-point; and this is called the ‘ relative hu- 
midity.’ Now, as this maximum F for the point of 
saturation does not by any means correspond to a 
constant ratio between the mass of the vapor of water 
in the air and the mass of its other constituents, 
but varies largely with the temperature, so that cold 
air will not hold nearly so much vapor of water as 
warm air, this system of expressing the amount of 
this vapor as a percentage of another percentage 
which is itself very variable, is, in the opinion of Mr. 
Jamin, a vicious one, at least for many purposes of 
meteorology. 

. In its stead he proposes to substitute just what a 
chemical analysis of the air in question would give; 
viz., its ‘hygrometric richness ’ as given by the ratio 
of the amount of vapor of water to that of the other 
constituents, and as expressed in volume by the frac- 


tion a or in mass by 0.622 eS: in which If 
is the total pressure of the atmosphere, and the de- 
nominator consequently denotes that of dry air, or 
of all the other constituents but water-vapor. 

Since observation does not give directly the relative 
humidity, but this is derived from an auxiliary table, 
Mr. Jamin shows that a table can be constructed 
which will just as readily give the hygrometric rich- 
ness, for which he proposes to adopt the volume- 


ff 
measure mag and he states that such a table 


will hereafter be published in the Annales du bureau 
central métévrologique. 

While the present system has its advantages in 
showing approximately the nearness to the dew-point, 
and hence to cloud-formation and possible fall of rain 
or snow, yet it would seem, that for the wider study 
of total rainfall and evaporation, in fact of the gen- 
eral diurnal and annual circulation of water between 


138 


earth and sky, the proposed plan of Mr. Jamin is the 
only logical one; and it deserves, and, coming from 
such a source, will no doubt receive, the thorough 
consideration of meteorologists. H. M. PAUL. 


Washington, July 22. 


INDIAN LANGUAGES OF SOUTH 
AMERICA. 


THE Indian languages of South America certain- 
ly deserve to be investigated as thoroughly as any 
other languages of the globe; but, unfortunately, there 
are only a few men who make of them an object of 
research. Abstracts of their grammatic elements 
have been published, from earlier sources chiefly, by 
Professor Friedr. Muller in his ‘ Grundziige der sprach- 
wissenschaft,’ and by Lucien Adam in his ‘ Examen 
grammatical de seize langues Américaines’ (Paris, 
.1882). The following treatises, published of late, have 
come to our notice, and have added considerably 
to our knowledge of these curious forms of human 
speech: 1°. Dr. Julius Platzmann’s ‘ Glossar der feu- 
erlandischen sprache.’ ‘This is an attempt to present 
the Yahgan dialect of the Fuegian Islands in lexical 
form, and is chiefly based upon a Fuegian translation 
of the Gospel of St. Luke. It is preceded by four 
historical and topographical articles, composed by Dr. 
Karl Whistling, enlarging upon physical peculiarities 
of these islands. 2°. The first results of a scientific 
exploration of the Fuegian Islands by Bove, aided by 
the government of Italy, have been made public by 
Giacomo Bove, in his ‘I Fuegini, secondo l’ultimo 
suo viaggio’ (Parte prima, Genova, 1883). Extensive 
vocabularies of the language are published in this 
volume. 38°. A manuscript of 1818, by John Luccok, 
containing grammatical elements and a vocabulary 
of the Tupi language or lingoa geral of Brazil, was 
published at Rio de Janeiro by H. Laemmert & 
Co., 1882. Curiously enough, the titlepage contains 
the statement that the material is ‘ badly arranged,’ 
4°, Dr. Julius Platzmann’s facsimile edition of Have- 
stadt’s book on Chilidigu, which has been previously 
referred to in Science, iii. 550. 5°. A short ethno- 
graphic and linguistic article on the Indians of An- 
tioquia and of the. Cauca valley, Columbian Union, 
was published by R. B. White, F.G.S., in the Jour- 
nal of the anthropological institute of Great Britain 
and Ireland, 1884. It contains vocabularies of the 
Noanama and Tado dialects of the Choco linguistic 
family. 6°. In the form of vocabularies of about two 
hundred terms each, seven Bolivian languages are 
given by Dr. Edwin R. Heath in the April number 
(18838) of the Kansas city review. These languages 
are the Canichana, Cayudba, Mobima, Moseténa, 
Pacavara, Maropa, and Tacaina. The author has given 
a graphic account of his travels through that -de- 
serted and malarial.country in the Transactions of 
the American geographical society of New York, 
1883. 7°. The foreign and Indian words introduced 
into the Portuguese of Brazil were collected by Braz 
da Costa Rabim in the Rivista trimensal of Rio Ja- 
neiro, vol. xlv., under the title ‘ Vocabulos indige- 


SCIENCE. 


Poe te eee 


[Vor IV., No. 80: 


nas e outros introduzidos no uzo vulgar.’ 8°. An 
array of notices of former travellers upon the Aimo- 
rés has been gathered by A. H. Keane,: professor 
at the London university, partly anthropological, 
partly ethnographical, with a short linguistic appen- 
dix, and published with his own remarks in the 
Journal of the anthropological institute, November, 
1883 (15 pages, 8°), under the superscription ‘ On the 
Botocudos.’ The tribal name, Aimorés (‘ vagrant 
enemies’), is preferable to and much older than 
Botocudos (‘the ones wearing the lip-ornament’), 
which applies to many other South-American tribes 
just as well. Another name, the one by which they 
call themselves, is Nkra/kmun (or ‘ men, people’). 


THE NEW BOGOSLOFF VOLCANO. 


THE Grewingk or New Bogosloff volcano, de- 
scribed in Science (Jan. 25, 1884) from observations 
made last fall by Capts. Hague and Anderson, was 
visited by the revenue-cutter Thomas Corwin on the 
20th of last May. Photographs and reports have 
been received at the treasury department which add 
considerably to our knowledge of its condition. It 
appears that the two peaks are united by a low dry 
spit, or bar, of sand and gravel which has doubtless 
been thrown up by the sea; and Ship Rock now rises 
from this bar nearly midway between the two peaks. 
Ship Rock, which is a nearly perpendicular pillar, 
seems, from the position of the barnacles on its base, 
to have been raised about twenty feet above its old 
level. The Bogosloff peak seems to have suffered by 
the commotion attending the eruption, as the Corwin. 
party estimates its height to be about five hundred 
feet, while observations in 1873 by the U.S. coast 
survey gave it a height of over eight hundred feet, 
the upper third of which was composed of extremely 
acute, inaccessible pinnacles. As this determination 
was dependent upon a base-line measured by a patent 
log, which might have been put considerably in error 
by currents, too much dependence must not be placed 
on the discrepancy; nevertheless, as older observa- 
tions all gave a greater height still, it is probable that 
a considerable change has taken place, if the Corwin’s 
estimate be correct. The Grewingk cone was stated 
to be eight hundred or a thousand feet in height, and 
three-quarters of a mile in diameter, by Capt. Hague. 
It is now reported to be nearly the same height as 
the Bogosloff peak, or some four hundred and fifty 
feet in height and half a mile in diameter. Until 
the details of the survey are received, no exact figures 
can be given. A convenient landing-place is formed 
by the bight on either side of the sand-spit above 
mentioned, where the shore is also bold, there being 
three fathoms under the stern, with the boat’s head on 
the beach. Farther off, the soundings are regular fora 
short distance, and then drop to a considerable depth ; 
north from the Grewingk peak, however, no bottom 
could be found close in with ninety fathoms of line. 
The observations for position do not seem to have 
been very good, owing to cloudy weather, but showed 
a close correspondence with earlier determinations. 


ae 


less covered with 


AvuGusT .15, 1884.] 


The summit of Grewingk was generally invisible 
from the clouds of steam which issued from many 
points of its surface, but no crater seems to exist. 
A sort of fissure existed in the south-west side, and 
two or three different pinnacles could be seen at the 
top when the wind drifted the steam away for a 
moment. Some of the jets of vapor were steady, 
others intermittent. No noise accompanied the ejec- 
tion of steam. The cone is composed of very differ- 
ent materials, 
most of which 
seem to have 
been upheaved 
from the sea-bot- 
tom; such as 
large bowlders, 
blocks of sand- 
stone, small 
pieces of shale, 
etc., all more or 


sand and _ fine 
pumice-ashes, in- 
to which one 
sank to the depth 
oryva f£oOo0t- or 
more in attempt- 
ing the ascent. 
No lavawas seen, 
nor any cindery 
rock. The as- 
cent was checked 
by the heat of the 
ashes, and the 
clouds of sulphu- 
rous steam, at a 
height of about 
two hundred 
feet. The stones 
about the jets 
exhibited incrus- 
tations of iron 
and sulphur; the 
latter forming 


large dendritic 
masses of a 
greenish color, 


which, at a little 
distance, looked 
like vegetation. 
The north-east : 
slope of the cone was steeper than the south-wester 
one, but more regular. 

The Bogosloff peak was alive with sea-fowl and 
sea-lions, but was destitute of vegetation. It showed 
no signs of volcanic activity. The volcanic ash ex- 
actly resembled that which fell at Unalashka Oct. 20, 
1883, and the iatter doubtless came from Bogosloff 
Island. The island, in its new form, is about a mile 
and a quarter in length, and half a mile in extreme 
width, trending north-west and south-east by com- 
pass, The Corwin will visit it again on her return 
from the north in the autumn. 


SCIENCE. 


159 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THE editor has received an acknowledgment 
from Dr. Anton Fritsch of the money forwarded to 
him, as already announced in Science, on behalf of 
American geologists toward a memorial tablet to 
Barrande. This tablet has been erected, at a cost of 
more than six hundred florins (of which 175.60 were 
sent from America), on a cliff at Kuchelbad, and is 
represented in 
the accompany- 
ing illustration 
from a _photo- 
graph sent by 
him. Dr. Fritsch 
returns his best 
thanks to the 
American donors 
in the name of 
the natural-his- 
tory section of 
the Prague mu- 
seum, ald says 
that the publica- 
tion of this proof 
of sympathy has 
made a deep im- 
pression upon 
his countrymen. 
The list of Amer- 
ican subscribers 
was printed in 
Vesmir for July 
1. From the 
same paper we 
learn that the 
Barrande fund 
for researches in 
the Silurian for- 
mation of Bohe- 
mia has reached 
4,200 florins. 

— Among the 
names of our sci- 
entific friends in 
Great Britain 
who have been 
mentioned as in- 
tending to visit 
America for the 
meetings of the 
British and American associations, we find the fol- 
lowing: Professor Adams, Mr. John Ball, Professor 
Robert Ball, Mr. C. S. Bate, Mr. R. M. Barrington, 
Prof. H. C. Bastian, Mr. A. W. Bennett, Mr. W. T. 
Blanford, Professor Bonney, Miss A. Buckland, Mr. 
W. L. Carpenter, Mr. W. Carruthers, Professor George 
Darwin, Mr. G. E. Dobson, Professor James Geikie, 
Mr. J, Glaisher, Professor Haddon, Mr. E. de Hamel, 
Dr. G. Harley, Professor Lawson, Sir John Lubbock, 
Professor MacKendrick, Professor MacNab, Professor 
Milnes Marshall, Professor Moseley, Lord Rayleigh, 
Sir E. Roscoe, Sir E. Ommanney, Mr. H. Saunders, 


7, 


140 SCIENCE. 


Mr. P. L. Sclater, Mr. A. Sedgwick, Mr. H. Seebohm, 
Mr. T. W. Sorby, Sir William Thomson, and Dr. E. 8S. 
Tylor. 

— The National electrical commission met in Phil- 
adelphia on Aug. 7. It was decided that the confer- 
ence to be conducted by the commission will be called 
for Monday, Sept. 8, to be then continued from day 
to day, as may be found necessary. The invitations 
to the conference will be confined to physicists of 
eminence, and to experts in the practical management 
of electrical appliances and apparatus. Itis proposed 
to extend special invitations to prominent foreign 
visiting electricians. It was also decided to issue a 
circular inviting the conferees to submit papers to 
be read before the conference. 

It is not definitely known what subjects will be 
discussed at the conference, but the following matters 
have been suggested: the sources of electrical energy; 
the theoretical conditions necessary to the most 
efficient construction of the dynamo-electric machine 
for the various purposes of practical work; the elec- 
trical transmission of energy; the systems of arc 
and incandescent lighting; the theory of the electric 
arc, storage batteries, electro-metallurgy; lighthouses 
for the coast; applications of electricity to military 
and mining engineering; lightning protection; induc- 
tion in telephone lines, and the problem of long-dis- 
tance telephoning; the question of underground 
wires; atmospheric electricity; earth-currents and 
terrestrial magnetism; photometry and standards for 
photometric measurements; the ratio of the electro- 
magnetic to the electro-static system of units, and the 
electro-magnetic theory of light; and finally, on ac- 
count of the pressing necessity for accurate and uni- 
form electrical measurements, it is probable that the 
question of establishing a National bureau of physi- 
cal standards will receive proper attention. 

— The circulars concerning the proposed inter- 
national scientific congress, to which reference was 
made in No. 77, have been issued; and the names of 
the signers received up to Aug. 4 are: of the 
special committee on the part of the American asso- 
ciation, T. Sterry Hunt, 8. Newcomb; officers of the 
association, George F. Barker, F. W. Putnam, Edw. 
D. Cope, John W. Langley, William H. Holmes, 
G. W. Hough, Franklin B. Hough, Alfred Springer, 
Theodore G. Wormley; fellows of the association, 
Cleveland Abbe, Harrison Allen, William Whitman 
Bailey, Albert S. Bickmore, Francis Blake, Thos. T. 
Bouvé, H. P. Bowditch, Edw. Burgess, Lucien Carr, 
F. W. Clarke, A. J. Cook, W. O. Crosby, Charles R. 
Cross, William H. Dall, Persifor Frazer, G. Brown 
Goode, Asaph Hall, C. E. Hanaman, William Hark- 
ness, Edwin J. Houston, Alpheus Hyatt, B. Joy 
Jeffries, Gaetano Lanza, Albert R. Leeds, H. Carvill 
Lewis, J. A. Lintner, Garrick Mallery, W. J. McGee, 
C.S. Minot, Charles E. Munroe, John M. Ordway, 
Henry F. Osborn, Edward C. Pickering, J. W. Powell, 
Ira Remsen, Alfred P. Rockwell, S. H. Scudder, 
George M. Sternberg, P. R. Uhler, A. E. Verrill, 
George L. Vose, Francis A. Walker, Justin Winsor. 

Probably some persons who have not received any 
circulars would be glad to support the movement; 


[Vou. IV., No. 80. 


and we trust that any such will send their names to 
Dr. Minot. There has been some difficulty in reach- 
ing many persons during the vacation season; and it 
is known that omissions of certain addresses have 
unfortunately been unavoidable. 

The support which the circular has received is 
remarkable for its extent and character, especially 
when its spontaneousness is considered. Most of 
the gentlemen upon the list given above are known 
as scientific investigators of acknowledged superi- 
ority, and many of them enjoy high fame; so that 
the plan of founding an international scientific con- 
gress meets the approval of a large proportion of those 
who contribute most to the dignity and importance 
of science in America. 


— In response to an invitation sent out by the local 
committee of the American association for the ad- 
vancement of science at Philadelphia, the following 
foreign scientific societies, among others, have sent 
the delegates mentioned to represent them at the ap- 
proaching meeting in that city: Royal society, Pro- 
fessor Sir William Thomson, W. T. Blanford, H. W. 
Moseley; Royal institution, Professor James Dewar; 
Zoovlogical society, P. L. Sclater (secretary), H. Saun- 
ders, G. E. Dobson; Royal microscopical society, Rev. 
W. H. Dallinger, A. W. Bennett, James Glaisher; 
Royal Irish academy, Prof. R. 8. Ball; Royal geologi- 
cal society of Ireland, Professor Valentine Ball (presi- 
dent), Prof. W. J. Sollas; Royal Dublin society, Prof. 
A. C. Haddon, G. F. Fitzgerald; Royal zodlogical 
society of Ireland, H. M. Barton, W. E. Peebles, A. 
Trail; Philosophical society of Glasgow, H. Muir- 
head, James Mastear, Prof. J. G. McKendrick, W. C. 
Crawford, John Kirsop; Natural-history society of 
Glasgow, D. C. Glen; Royal botanical society, W. C. 
Crawford; Manchester literary and philosophical 
society, Prof. A. Milnes Marshall; Asiatic society of 
Bengal, Major J. Waterhouse of Calcutta; Asiatic 
society of Japan, Dr. D. Murray, Rev. E. W. Lyle, 
Perceval Lowell; Société anthropologique de Brux- 
elles, Dr. Victor Jacques (general secretary); Asso- 
ciation Francaise pour l’avancement des sciences, 
Professor Joubert and Professor Silva; University of 
Japan (Tokio), Prof. D. Kikuchi (dean of depart- 
ment of science); Société entomologique de Bel- 
gique, Dr. H. A. Hagen; Ornithologischer verein in 
Wien, Dr. C. Hart Merriam: ; Royal sock of Canada, 
a laree number of delegates. 


— At about five minutes past rear eastern time, 
on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 10, an earthquake-shock 
was felt along the eastern coast, from North Caro- 
lina to Maine. The direction of the motion of the 
wave appeared, to most who considered it, as from 
north to south, or north-west to south-east. The 


motion, as magnified at the top of the highest build- 


ing in Boston, was sufficient to roll the signal-officer 
off his lounge. In New Jersey, where the shock was 
most severe, the railway-station at Seabright was 
shifted to one side, ‘ shaking up the contents.’ 


— The meeting this year of the German society of 
naturalists and physicians will be held at Magdeburg, 
Sept. 18-23. 


SCIENCE. 


FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Mempersuip in the American association for 
the advancement of science is readily attain- 
able by any one willing to pay a small annual 
fee, and it is largely affected by the localities 
which it visits in its annual peregrination. So 
many sections of the northern half of the 
United States have already been visited, that 
one would suppose the membership would now 
fairly represent the distribution of interest in 
science throughout the country; though for 
various reasons, and particularly because the 
association has never, at least in recent years, 
met there, one would expect a feeble showing 
from the southern and Pacific states. 


An inspection of the list of present mem- 
bers shows, however, some curious anomalies. 
The total number of members is 2,011. The 
cities having the largest number of members 
are New York (153), Boston (142), Cincinnati 
and Washington (127 each). The next high- 
est is Montreal (71), where the meeting was 
held two years ago, which distances Philadel- 
phia (51), which, in its turn, is scarcely ahead 
of St. Louis (49) and Cambridge (47). New 
Haven (30), with all its scientific activities, 
is not so far beyond Hartford (19) as we 
should expect. Chicago shows a meagre num- 
ber (26), and is surpassed by Baltimore (28). 
Salem, as the nominal headquarters of the 
- association, hardly responds with credit (20), 
while Minneapolis (31) surpasses Chicago 
and Baltimore. Providence (15), where the 
association has not met since 1855, makes a 
better showing than Indianapolis (7), where it 
met in 1871; or Dubuque (1), 1872; or Detroit 
(6), 1875; or Buffalo (12), 1876. Several 
of these are surpassed by New Orleans (10), 
near which the association never ventured, and 
by San Francisco (6), still farther removed 
from its activities; while Charleston, where 

No. 81. —1884. 


the association met in 1850, finds no represen- 
tation whatsoever. 


More than one-third of the association come 
from New York (349) and Massachusetts 
(841). Ohio (208) comes next, followed by 
the District of Columbia (129), Canada (120), 
and Pennsylvania (111). No other states fur- 
nish more than 100 members; but it is un- 
expected to see Connecticut (73) neck and 
neck with Missouri (72) ; Rhode Island (29) 
far in advance of Vermont (18) and Maine 
(14) ; Michigan (25) below Minnesota (54) ; 
Kansas and Nebraska (5 each) following Colo- 
rado (9), and even New Brunswick, Alabama, 
Florida, Texas, and West Virginia (7 each). 
Kentucky (31) surpasses Iowa (25), and 
Indiana (39) lags far behind Illinois (69). 
An examination of the list on the basis of 
population would, no doubt, prove interesting. 


How old may a newspaper be and still be a 
newspaper? This question has been up for 
decision before the secretary of the treasury, 
and it has been decided that a newspaper 
ceases to be a newspaper when it has another 
beside it. One newspaper is a newspaper : two 
or more newspapers sewed together are not 
newspapers, but form a book, ‘ at least printed 
matter.’ All this means that a New-York 
importer desired, as his customers most cer- 
tainly desire, that some bound volumes of 
periodicals should be admitted free of duty as 
periodicals, as, according to the last laws, the 
importer thought they should be. But no: the 
decision has come down, that ‘‘ it is fair to 
hold it was this fresh and concurrent statement 
[ which character it loses ‘ when kept for a year, 
and then fastened up with its fellows’] that 
congress meant should go free, and not (so 
far as news is concerned) the stale sheets, the 
accumulation of the year.’’ Cannot all who 
may be affected, as are all readers of foreign 
journals, bestir themselves to prevent such 
needless restrictions of their rights ! 


142 SCIENCE. 


The particular volumes upon which duties 
were called for in this case, were bound volumes 
of the Annales de dermatologie and Annales 
des maladies de l’oreille, — books which do not 
enter into competition with any produced in 
America, and which never can. If one wants 
a number or voiume of either of these annales, 
he must have it, and nothing else will do; and 
no reproduction is possible, on account of the 
limited demand. We have, then, one more 
decision which interferes with American stu- 
dents, makes their work the more expensive, 
and in no possible way can benefit the Amer- 
ican book-maker. Congress had granted a 
little relief, but that little has been made less 
by a thoughtless decision of the treasury. We 
say ‘ thoughtless ;’ because it is known to but 
few, outside those immediately interested, that 
the apparatus and books used by the scientific 
men of America must to a large extent be 
bought where they are principally produced, in 
Europe ; reproduction being out of the ques- 
tion, both on account of the limited demand, 
and, in case of apparatus, on account of an 
instrument being to some extent a work of 
art which only one man may be capable of 
bringing forth. 


Tue great question of our time is, How shall 
we better our methods of education? The 
main efforts to this end seem to be to better 
the system. The real need is of better teach- 
ers, not more painstaking or devoted teachers, 
for in these regards there is little to be desired ; 
but, as a class, our teachers are men and 
women whose opportunities of culture, whose 
means of obtaining a broad view of the sub- 
jects they teach, are deplorably small. Year 
by year the number of those who go to the 
teacher’s work from any thing like a univer- 
sity training become relatively fewer. The 
normal school is, unfortunately, taking the 
place of the university as the place of training 
for instructors in the primary and secondary 
schools. These institutions are admirably 
contrived to serve the immediate ends they 
seek to attain: they make business-like but 
slenderly provided instructors, who do their 


[Vou. IV., No. 81. : 


routine work better than those bred in schools 
of broad learning, but who miss the best that — 
a liberal training has to give. The normal 
school is fixed in our American system cer- 
tainly for fifty years to come. The practical 
question is, What can be done to lift their 
work to a higher level? 


There are two ways of doing this, each of 
which seems worthy of debate. One is to 
move the normal schools to the seats of good 
universities, and mingle the university teach- 
ing with the strictly technical instruction in 
pedagogics. ‘The very presence at a univer- 
sity will give a lift to the ideals of the pupils 
in the normal school. It will cost a penny 
more to train the youth than it does at pres- 
ent, but this is not a question of pennies. 
Nobody reckons pennies in war; and this 
work of education is the eternal war of man- 
kind. Another, cheaper, less effective, but 
still possibly useful plan is to give the normal- 
school teachers an occasional year of residence 
at a university, where they may for a time pur- 
sue knowledge for its own sake, and widen 
their views of their great work. Harvard uni- 
versity now allows its teachers one year in 
seven for private study. The state could 
afford to do as well by its normal-school teach- 
ers. If we lift the grade of our teachers, the 
‘system ’ will take care of itself. 


THE government printing-office has recently 
issued a catalogue of the aquatic mammals ex- 
hibited by the national museum at the great 
international fisheries exhibition in London last 
year. It consists of a general account of the 
more interesting seals and whales of our coast, 
with a briefly annotated list of all the species 
exhibited, and is prepared by Mr. F. W. True. 
It detracts very much from its value that it was 
not printed, and ready for sale or distribution, 
at the time of the exhibition. To appear now, 
when the collection is shipped to another con- 
tinent, seems somewhat of a farce, as its whole 
value now lies in what it contains apart from 
the collection. Either we should revise our 
dilatory, and at the end hasty, legislation in 


ete Se wha 


AUGUST 22, 1884.] 


such matters, or the exhibiting departments of 
the government will be forced to the necessity 
(to do proper credit to themselves) of main- 
taining exhibition series, which, with slight 
modifications for special occasions, may be 
kept at hand, to send wherever and whenever 
required. If we are rightly informed, the na- 
tional museum has already decided on some 
such step; and, if international exhibitions are 
to be a yearly occurrence, the museum should 
add to its staff a special exhibitionary force, 
and not weaken its efficiency for its proper 
work by these constant extra draughts upon 
its energy. | 


BeereeS TO THE EDITOR. 


Classification of the Mollusca. 


In Mr. Dall’s kindly notice of the article ‘ Mol- 
lusea’ in the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ published 
in your journal of June 13, he attributes to me ‘‘ the 
erroneous statement that the radula of Glossophora 
is horny,’”’ and adds that ‘it is really chitinous.’ In 
the ordinary sense of the word ‘horny,’ chitin is (I 
venture to think) correctly described as horny. That 
the radula is generally considered to consist of the 
chemical body known as chitin is distinctly stated in 
the article criticised by Mr. Dall. At the bottom of 
p- 460 occur the words, ‘a chitinous band (the rad- 
ula).? I should be glad to know if Mr. Dall has 
undertaken any special chemical analysis of the sub- 
stance of the radula (1). 

With regard to the very general presence of jaws 
in glossophorous Mollusca, I must maintain my state- 
ment. The presence of a calcareous impregnation is, 
it is true, not usual, but exceptional (2). 

Mr. Dall is mistaken in supposing that I have fol- 
lowed Macdonald in regard to formulae for the teeth 
of the radula. The other writers whom he cites as 
not followed are precisely those from whom my state- 
ments on the details of this subject were drawn (8). 

I have no fault to find with Mr. Dall for differing 
from me as to certain points of classification, but I 
should be glad to know his grounds for regarding the 
Zygobranchia as an artificial group. He merely re- 
asserts the old view, which I think E have sufficiently 
shown to be untenable (4). Mr. Dall also asserts 
that the orders of Lipocephala, based on the charac- 
ters of the adductor muscles, are defunct. In spite of 
this opinion, the muscles themselves still exist, and, 
in my opinion, furnish indications of natural and 
important divergent groups among the bivalves (5). 

I should be glad to know on what grounds Mr. Dall 
considers the three divisions of Lipocephala adopted 
by me to be unnatural. 

Lastly, let me say that I do not know on what 
authority Mr. Dall asserts that the calcareous devel- 
opments of the integument in Chaetoderma and Neo- 
menia have no relation to the shells of Chiton. That 
they also represent or replace the spines of Chitons 
is sufficiently obvious. But what is to prevent our 
conceiving of the epidermic shelly plate of a Chiton 
as originally developed by the gradual coalescence of 
a number of small calcareous denticles, in the same 


SCIENCE. 


143 


way as the mesodermic dermal bones of bony fishes 
have developed from the shagreen denticles of the 
sharks (6) ? E. Ray LANKESTER. 
University college, London, 
July 23. 


(1) Not being an organic chemist, I have not 
attempted analyses, but have tested many radulae 
with one result, — the cutting points of the teeth 
are always, and the whole radula generally, of a sub- 
stance allied to chitin. The very generally erroneous 
statements in the text-books led to the criticism of the 
language of Professor Lankester as tending to con- 
tinue the confusion. Chitin is surely as different 
chemically from horn as bone is, and it cannot. be 
desirable to continue to treat the two substances tn a 
way to perpetuate an error. Further data on this 
topic may be found in the August Naturalist, pp. 
776-778. 

(2) I should be grateful to Professor Lankester 
for the name of any recent mollusk having a‘ shelly’ 
or even a partially ‘ calcified’ jaw. 

(3) The formulae given for the teeth, and the 
method used in making a formula, as inferred from 
the text, which were the particular details criticised, 
are partly incorrect. I was wrong, however, in 
assigning a source to them. One (for instance, 
Patella vulgata) has the formula 8+3+1+53+3, in- 
stead of 3.1.4.1.8. No mollusk has more than one 
median tooth; and the central figure of the formula 
must in all cases be 1 or 0. I find the erroneous 
formula in Sars’s text, though he figures the teeth 
correctly. Again: Chiton stelleri has, like all Chitons 
hitherto examined, the formula6+2+1+2+6, instead 
of 0000.1.1.1.0000, which is given; but this is doubt- 
less copied from some other authority. However, 
accurate formulae for the Chitons and Limpets have 
been accessible for some years. Again: the teeth of 
the radula are divided by nearly all modern students 
of that organ into rhachidian or median, lateral, and 
uncinal teeth, —three series which have anatomical 
relations to the radula, which are usually pretty clear. 
For ‘lateral’ Professor Lankester substitutes the 
term ‘admedian,’ which is not, as far as I know, 
in use; and for the ‘uncini’ he adopts the term 
‘laterals,’ which I venture to think is undesirable 
as leading to confusion, and not in accord with 
general usage. 

(4) The grounds on which I sustain the generally 
accepted views of malacologists, as to the relations 
of the groups Professor Lankester has compounded 
into the order Zygobranchia, are, that the mere abor- 
tion of one of a pair of organs is not a character of 
ordinal value; nor are the characters assigned to 
Zygobranchia applicable to all its members. More- 
over, Iam of the opinion that the characters which 
unite the Rhipidoglossa among themselves and the 
Docoglossa among themselves are of higher systematic 
value than the characters here relied upon for dis- 
membering them. I believe, that, had the learned pro- 
fessor made researches among a large number of these 
forms, he would probably be of this opinion also. 

(5) The characters of the adductor muscles, as long 
as we were ignorant of intermediate forms, seemed 
to afford a good basis for orders in the Lipocephala. 
Now that we know of forms which are more or less 
intermediate, in the Pectinidae, Ostraeidae, Mytilidae, 
and other families, and that in the young (not embry- 
onic) there are frequently two adductors discernible 
in supposed monomyarians, with such forms turn- 
ing up as Dimya, and, more recently, Chlamydo- 
concha, all tending to efface the supposed definite 
limits between the alleged orders, it seems impos- 


144 


sible to retain these orders any longer. Stoliczka 
came to this view long ago, and much corroborative 
evidence has come to hand since. In fact, there does 
not at present seem to be any good basis for ordinal 
divisions in the Lipocephala. The divisions adopted 
by Professor Lankester are not unnatural; but they 
appear to have merely an approximate value, and 
shade into one another to such an extent as to be of 
little systematic use. 

(6) There is nothing to prevent any such concep- 
tion; but, unfortunately, there is no evidence, as yet, 
that it would conform to any subjective reality. A 
parallel statement would be, that the wool on a ewe 
‘replaces’ the horns on a ram. We can conceive 
that woolly or hairy secretions may be so modified as 
to produce horns, and, in fact, do produce them oc- 
casionally. The importance of the shell-gland in the 
embryonic condition of the Mollusca, as shown by 
Professor Lankester, than whom none have con- 
tributed more valuable investigations on this topic, 
forbids that we should consider these secondary cu- 
ticular products as its equivalent. That they are 
nothing less than identical with Chiton spines will, I 
think, be admitted by any.one who compares the 
figures of Reincke and Hubrecht on Chitons and Neo- 
menia respectively. There are also a great variety of 
other Chiton spines; and on some Fissurellidae, and 
even in some brachiopods, analogous structures may 
be found. 

In conclusion, Mr. Editor, permit me to express 
the hope that these more or less unimportant defects 
in detail, which are inevitable to all work of a general 
character, may not obscure what I have endeavored 
to state clearly (namely, the great value and useful- 
ness of Professor Lankester’s work), nor delay what I 
believe will be its eventual consequence, —an im- 
portant reformation in our general molluscan systems, 

W. H. Data 


The earthquake of Aug. 10. 


It is a little remarkable that the earthquake-shock 
of yesterday should have been felt with considerable 
force in the city of New Haven, which is built upon 
a sandy plain, while it was perceptible only as a short 
series of lateral vibrations, lasting about a second and 
a half, and so slight that it was unnoticed by most 
persons in the vicinity of the observatory. The 
observatory is built on a sandstone ledge, and is 
about a hundred and fifty feet above tide-water, in 
(geodetic) longitude west 72° 55’ 19.15”, and latitude 
north 41° 19’ 28.48”. 

At the time of the vibration the writer was sitting 
at a table, and its probable origin at once occurred 
tohim. Allowing for the few seconds occupied in 
taking out his watch, the tremor occurred at 2h. 7m. 
25s.; and, as the watch at that time was 1.5s. slow of 
the fifth hour west from Greenwich local mean time, 
the tremor may be set down as beginning at 2 h. 7m. 
27s. by this mean time; and I should estimate the 
uncertainty at not more than 2 s. 


LEONARD WALDO. 
Yale college observatory, Aug 11. 


On Sunday, Aug. 10, at 2h. 8m., I felt an earth- 
quake, lasting three orfour seconds. The oscillatory 
movement was from a little south of west, toward a 
little north of east. The oscillations were rapid but 
slight, with maximum intensity between the first 
and second second, when the movement began grad- 
ually to decrease. The accompanying sound was like 
the rumble of artillery-wagons. JULES MARCOU. 


Cambridge, Aug. 10. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vox IV., No. 81. 


EPIDEMIC CHOLERA AND INFECTIOUS 
DISEASES. 


Tur presence of cholera this summer in 
epidemic form in southern France, the appear- 
ance of sporadic cases at widely scattered 
places and on shipboard at various seaports 
of the European continent and of England, 
have brought western civilization once more 
face to face with two of the most important 
problems which modern science and social 
organization can be called upon to solve. — 
These problems just now come home to every 
one, but in ordinary years are put out of mind, 
or left to the care of laboratory devotees, or of 
officials charged with departments concerned 
with public hygiene. 

The first involves a purely scientific ques- 
tion as to the causes, modes of origin, and 
ways of propagation, of the infectious or so- 
called zymotic diseases: the second, evolving 
itself naturally from the first, is of a more 
immediately practical nature, and deals with 
the processes best calculated to prevent and 
antagonize these diseases, especially when 
presenting themselves as epidemics. And 
these problems owe this much to such epidem- 
ics, — that by them men as individuals, and 
governments (their representatives), are stim- 
ulated to a vigor of inquiry and action which 
are never evoked by a customary rate of mor- 
tality, however high, from endemic diseases, 
such as are always with us; just as the stim- 
ulus of prospective want often meets with 
a ready response where chronic destitution 
makes an ineffectual appeal to action. Ty- 
phoid-fever, resembling cholera very much in 
its propagation, demands a steady toll from 
the populations of Europe and North America, 
compared to which the occasional ravages of 
cholera become insignificant; and yet it is 
impossible to inspire them with an intelligent 
dread of that enemy expressing itself in pos- 
sible and comparatively simple precautions. 
The self-reliant Anglo-Saxon continues to re- 
gard typhoid-fever with a measure of the same 
indifference felt by the fatalist of India toward 
cholera; and the explanation is to be found, 


-) mo 


Aveust 22, 1884. ] 


we believe, largely in association, and not 
merely in the fact that fifty per cent of those 
attacked with the latter disease die, whereas 
about eighty-five per cent of typhoid-fever 
cases survive. The typhoid sufferer, as a 
survivor even, is robbed far more ruthlessly 
of time and strength, which by the Anglo- 
Saxon are transformed into wealth, which to 
him is life. 

By this seeming digression we would im- 
press upon readers, begging them to keep it 
steadily before themselves and their public 
authorities, the fact that cholera is but one 
form under which these great general prob- 
lems of the cause and prevention of infectious 
diseases present themselves. 
of cholera in France gives the health evangel- 
ist in the United States, who might otherwise 
continue crying in the wilderness, at once a 
text and a hearing, from which those who have 
come out from their usual routine must not be 
allowed to depart without a resolve to amend 
their ways, even though they escape this espe- 
cial visitation. This threatening of cholera 
should be the spur to animate northern zeal 
for the solution of these problems which the 
south so often finds in the proximity of yellow- 
fever. 

It now seems quite possible that the United 
States may escape, at least this year, an in- 
vasion of epidemic cholera; but if so, the re- 
prieve should be used to perfect precautions 
and vigilance against next year, and to collate, 
as far as may be, the latest scientific investi- 
gations with previous observation and experi- 
ence. Science has already published, either in 
full or in abstract, the seven reports to the 
German government emanating from the cholera 
commission under Dr. Koch in Egypt and in 
India. These, in giving ina somewhat popular 
form the results of studies of the fresh excreta 
of forty cholera patients and of the cadavers 
of fifty-two recent victims, offer an interesting 
and doubtless valuable contribution to the sub- 
ject under discussion, but by no means demon- 
strate that the active principle of cholera resides 
in a microbion, or that the particular microbion 
has been discovered. 


SCIENCE. 


The prevalence 


145 


Notwithstanding the labors and advances in 
this direction during the last ten or twelve 
years, the number of diseases in regard to 
which a positive affirmation can be made that 
they are caused by a micro-organism, and by 
a specific micro-organism, is still very small, 
and neither cholera nor typhoid-fever can as 
yet be included in that number. The num- 
ber in regard to which there is only a strong 
probability that they result from a specific 
germ, propagating amid favorable surround- 
ings, and finding entrance to the system of 
the victim under favorable circumstances, is 
much larger, and must still be regarded as 
embracing cholera. 

The investigations of the German commis- 
sion will probably be continued under the au- 
spices of the German health bureau at Berlin, 
or otherwise ; and the British government has 
at last appointed a commission, consisting of 
Drs. Klein and Heneage Gibbes, to go to India 
and pursue this inquiry as to the nature of 
cholera: so that a further elucidation of the sub- 
ject, and of the precise significance of Koch’s 
observations, may reasonably be anticipated 
at no distant day. In the mean time it is 
our duty to protest against a confident appli- 
cation to the disease itself of measures of 
prophylaxis, of treatment, of disinfection, or of 
quarantine, based upon the life-history of the 
comma-tipped bacillus, or upon its behavior 
when subjected to the action of certain media 
or of certain germicides. 

Although their specific microbions have not 
been definitely demonstrated, experience and 
observation have fairly established the proba- 
ble accuracy of certain views in regard to both 
typhoid-fever and cholera ; and upon these the 
measures to be adopted against such maladies 
are at present to be based. They are clearly 
and concisely set forth in a circular entitled 
‘Suggestions relative to epidemic cholera,’ 
lately issued by the Massachusetts board of 
health, itself following generally a previous 
circular emanating a year ago last June from 
the English local government board, and re- 
printed under the same authority, with other 
supporting papers, last July. 


146 SCIENCE. 


AMERICAN APPLIANCES FOR DEEP-SEA 
INVESTIGATION. —THE DREDGES. 


Tue use of dredges for obtaining marine 
specimens is said to have been suggested by 
the common oyster-dredge, — a one-sided con- 
trivance, well adapted for the shallow oyster- 
banks, on which 
itis skilfully han- 
dled by the oys- 
ter-fishermen of 
both Europe and 
America. This 
dredge possesses 
only a single nar- 
row, hoe - like, 
scraping edge, at- 
tached to a light 
frame above, fur- 
nished with rigid 
handles. The 
net has a coarse 
mesh of stout 
twine, or small 
interlacing iron 
rings, the two 
materials being 
often combined. 
This net is too 
coarse to retain 
Fic. 1.— Orno Frepertck Mix- the finer objects, 

LER’S DREDGE, A.D. 1750. which are as im- 

(From ‘ The depths of the sea,’ p. 239.) portant to the 

naturalist as the 

larger; and in even moderate depths there is 

constant danger of the frame capsizing in its 
descent through the water. 

It was these imperfections in the oyster- 
dredges, unsuiting them for careful work, that 
led to the changes in the shape of the frame 
and in the construction of the net, resulting in 
the production of the perfect yet simple ap- 
pliance which is now used with as much pre- 
cision in the deepest parts of the ocean as is 
the oyster-dredge in its few fathoms of water. 


The ordinary dredge. 

The dredges adopted by the U.S. fish-com- 
mission in 1871, aid still employed for all ordi- 
nary kinds of work, are of the Ball pattern, but 
slightly modified. The same pattern has also 
been used to some extent by the U.S. coast- 


[Vou. IV., No. 81. 


termed the ‘ deep-sea dredge,’ for vessels sup- 
plied with steam-hoisting engines. Otherwise 
than in size, however, these two dredges do 
not differ from one another. In the deep-sea 
pattern (fig. 2), the mouth-frame, which is 
constructed of the best quality of wrought-iron, 
measures two feet long by five and a half or 
six inches wide between the hinder edges of 
the scrapers which form the longer sides of the 
frame. The latter are two and three-fourths 
inches wide and a half-inch thick, being bevelled 
to a sharp edge in front, and are joined to the 
rounded end-pieces at an obtuse angle, which 
causes them to flare forward, —an essential 
feature for most kinds of dredging-work in 
which it is required that the scrapers should 
have a strong tendency to dig into, or ‘ nip,’ 
the bottom. The handles are of round iron, 
bent double, as shown in the figure, with a 
loop at the outer end for the attachment of 
the drag-rope, the lower ends making a single 
turn about the end- 
pieces of the frame, 
upon which the han- 
dles move freely. 

The net is either a 
closed bag of strong 
twine netting, having 
a finer mesh at the 
bottom than at the 
sides, or is made cyl- 
indrical in shape, of 
webbing having three 
or four meshes to the 
linear inch, the lower 
end being tied with a 
stout cord when in use. 
To protect the net from 
wear on rough bot- 
toms, and prevent its 
bursting open when 
heavily loaded, it is 
covered with a_bot- 
tomless canvas bag a 
few inches longer than 
the net itself. To the 
lower end of this bag 
and to the end of the 
net asmall round stick 
is fastened. This is in- 
Fic. 2.—Tus narurauists’ tended to prevent the 

DEE ee nee ce. touling of theme eames 


RIGGED BY THE U.S. FISH- 
COMMISSION. 


survey. being lowered, and al- — 
The fish-commission dredges are made in so to aid in reversing ~ 
two sizes,—the smaller, called the ‘boat- and emptying it after it has been hauled back 
dredge,’ being suitable for moderate depths of upon the deck. It is purposely made of soft 
water from small boats, where only hand-power wood, in order that it may break without tearing _ 


is available for the hauling-in; and the larger, the net if it becomes caught upon the bottom. — 


AvuGUST 22, 1884. } 


The drag-rope proper is tied directly to one 
handle only, but is connected with the other 


Fic. 3.— THE HOISTING AND REELING ENGINE OF THE U.S. FISH-COMMISSION STEAMER FISH 
HAWKE, SHOWING THE SUPPLY OF WIRE ROPE COILED UPON THE DRUM. VIEW FROM FOR- 


WARD, LOOKING AFT. 


by means of a rope 
of much smaller size, 
which, in case of foul- 
ing on rocky bottom, 
will be the first to part, 
enabling the dredge to 
be brought up side- 
wise, a not unfrequent 
occurrence. 

Such, in brief, is 
the construction of the 
most important dredg- 
ing-appliance of the 
past, and one which 
will undoubtedly be 
continued in use as 
long as marine explo- 
rations are carried on. 
For all the ordinary 
purposes of dredging, 
especially in moderate 
depths of water, it an- 
Swers every require- 
ment ; its flaring mouth 
causing it to dig slight- 
ly into sandy and mud- 


dy bottoms which are not too soft, and to 
scrape thoroughly over those of rock when 


Ss 


ING FORWARD FROM THE PILOT-HOUSE, 
AND THE DREDGING-BOOM. 


SCIENCE. 


not too ragged. 


147 


It is also cheaply con- 
structed, and therefore within the means of 


private individuals. 
The dredges used by 
the English Porcupine 
and Challenger expe- 
ditions were of the 
same pattern, though 
somewhat more com- 
plicated in construc- 
tion, and much larger 
and heavier. Judging 
from the reports of 
Sir Wyville Thomson, 
we are also led to be- 
lieve that they gave 
much less satisfaction 
than our own; and, 
although many of their 
apparent faults were 
acknowledged by the 
director in his ‘ Depths 
of the sea,’ no very 
great improvements 
are noted in the narra- 
tive of the Challenger 
voyage. All of the 
changes made by these 


Fic. 4. — THE FORWARD DECK OF THE U.S. FISH-COMMISSION STEAMER FISH HAWRE, LOOK- 
SHOWING THE HOISTING AND REELING ENGINE 


two important expeditions were apparently in 
the direction of increasing or lessening the 


148 


weight of the frame, and varying its propor- 
tions of length and breadth, the same general 
shape being always retained. The handles 
were modified in different ways, and several 
tangle-swabs were generally attached to the 
hinder end of the bag. 

The Porcupine dredges weighed from a 
hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty- 
five pounds, and the frames were in some cases 
four and a half feet long. Discussing their 
merits, Sir Wyville Thomson states, that in 
many instances he 
had evidence ‘ that 


SCIENCE. 


ee ee) ae ee ee 


[Vou. IV., No. 81. 


We might almost be led to consider that in 
this device we have a faint suggestion of the 
more recently invented Blake dredge; yet the 
two differ radically in construction, and no 
hint is given, in connection with the former, 
that a framework might be so constructed as 
to prevent the undue digging-in of the mouth- 
scrapers. The dredges used by the Challenger 
for all excepting the greatest depths were no 
smaller than those of the Porcupine ; the length 
of the frame being the same as that above 
given, and the width 
much greater (fif- 


the dredge, instead 


teen inches). 


of falling upon the 


The Blake dredge. 


surface, and then 


gliding along and 


The difficulty of 


gathering the loose 


obtaining good re- 


sults with the com- 


things in its path, 


has fallen upon its 


mon dredge, on the 


mouth, and dug into 


soft bottoms of mud 


the tenacious mud, 


and ooze which char- 


thereby clogging it- 


acterize the deeper 


self so as to admit 


waters off shore, 


but little more. I 


gave rise to many 


mean to try the ex- 


experiments on the 


periment of heavier 


steamer Blake dur- 


weights and lighter 


dredge-frames in the 
Challenger, and I be- 
lieve it will be an im- 
provement.”’ 

It was the fault 
here mentioned that 
suggested the con- 
struction of the 


ing her first dredg- 
ing-cruise (1877—- 
78), resulting in the 
construction of an 
entirely new pattern 
(fig. 7), well adapt- 
ed to this kind of 
work. The neces- 
sity for a change in 
this direction is well 


Blake dredge de- 
scribed below, and 
which is now used 


by both the coast- 
survey and fish-com- ||.) 
mission for the mud- 


q i 


ly 
: 


= 


expressed in the 
above quotation from 
NG Sir Wyville Thom- 
\ ~ a son. The whole ten- 
a SAAR dency of the flaring 


i 
dy bottoms of deep 
water. 

The Challenger 
dredge (fig. 6), as 
figured in the first 
volume of ‘ The At- 


THE BRITISH 


ON THE ‘ AUNT SALLIES.’ 


lantic,’ was an elaborate affair ; and much rigid-. 


ity was given to the entire appliance by two 
iron bars extending back, one on either side, 
from the mouth-frame to an iron crossbar behind 
the net. This cross-bar afforded attachment for 
tangle-swabs and weights, when such were de- 
sirable ; but its main object, in connection with 
the lateral bars and three loopings about the 
net, was to keep the latter distended, and pre- 
vent its folding over the mouth of the dredge. 


Fie. 5.— THE DREDGING ARRANGEMENTS AT THE STERN OF 
SHIP PORCUPINE, SHOWING THE ACCUMULA- 
TOR, THE DREDGE, AND THE MODE OF STOWING THE ROPE 


(From ‘ The depths of the sea,’ p. 248.) 


—~ mouth, with so shal- 
low a frame, is to 
work downwards as 
well as forwards; 
though in moderate 
depths this tendency 
may be more or less counteracted by a careful 
manipulation of the drag-rope. The dredge 
becomes clogged, and its farther progress is. 
of no avail in collecting the objects which live 
upon the surface of the mud. . 
The first remedy tried was applied directly 
to the ordinary dredge, and consisted in 
‘stopping’ a piece of two-and-a-half-inch rope 
around the hinder part of the frame, thereby 
correcting to a certain extent the unfavorable 


ie 


AveusT 22, 1884.] 


angles of the scrapers, raising their lips, and 
preventing their cutting so deeply into the 
mud. Better results were thus obtained; but 


SMT TTS 


eT IuIMImUTe Aa 


ia =, 


UES 


ak 


Fig. 6.— THE CHALLENGER’S DREDGE. 
(From ‘ The Atlantic.’) 


far better ones followed the completion of the 
flat frame, which was soon afterwards con- 
structed, and used during the remainder of 
the cruises. 

The Blake dredge, as it is called, was devised 
by Commander Sigsbee, U.S.N., and Master 
Jacoby, U.S.N.; the ‘‘ object sought in the 
fashioning of the new dredge ’”’ having been, 
according to the account of Mr. Sigsbee, SOTO 
effect a skimming of the bottom rather than a 


SCIENCE. 


149 


deep penetration therein.’’ Its essential fea- 
tures (as shown in fig. 7) are its broad, non- 
flaring scrapers, and rectangular iron frame or 
‘skeleton box’ outlining its entire shape, the 
entire framework being rigidly joined together. 
These cause it to rest flat upon the bottom, and 
prevent its digging in beyond a slight depth. 
The small quantity of mud which enters at a 
time is being constantly washed from the net, 
to a greater or less extent, by the force of the 
water passing through it, leaving only the 
coarser portions and the specimens behind. 
When a sample of the fine bottom-material is 
desired, the lower part of the net is lined with 
some open-mesh cloth, like muslin or scrim. 
The length of the 
frame is about four 
feet, the width about 
three feet, and the 
depth nine inches. 
The scrapers are six 
inches wide and three- 


DIM 


+>. 
- 


— 
he 


fourths of an inch 

thick, being bevelled vf 
on the inner faces at } 
the front to form sharp ies 


edges. The net, con- 
structed of twine web- 
bing, hangs loosely 
within the frame, over 
which a canvas cov- 
ering is fastened for 
its protection. As 
used by the Blake, a 
transverse bar of wood 
or iron, for the attach- 
ment of weights and 
tangles, was secured 
to three sister - hooks 
at the hinder end of 
the frame. 

This form of dredge 
has since been adopt- 
ed by the fish-commis- 
sion for deep-sea ex- 
plorations, and often 
replaces the simple 
frame and net used in 
connection with the 
Chester rake - dredge 
described below. 


Fie. 7. — FIRST FORM OF THE 
BLAKE DREDGE. 
(From Sigsbee’s ‘ Deep-sea 
sounding.’) 


Rake-dredges. 
Togtsra Prof A! 1. 
Verrill, in immediate 
charge of the dredging operations of the U. § 
fish-commission, conceived the idea of supple- 
menting the work of the common dredge by the 


= 
150 


use of a greatly modified form, called the rake- 
dredge, the object of which is to dig deeply into 


Fig. 8. — VERRILL’S RAKE-DREDGE. 


the bottom, and unearth the many burrowing 
forms of marine invertebrates which are rarely 
taken in the old pattern. 
This apparatus consists 
of a triangular frame of flat- 
bar iron, each side meas- 
uring forty-two inches in 
length. The hinder por- 
tion of the frame, which is 
three feet long, is constructed of two bars 
placed face to face, each furnished with six 
strong iron or steel teeth, about a foot in 
length, on opposite sides. ‘These teeth, there- 
fore, project in opposite directions; and the 


SCIENCE. 


frame is reversible in use, working either side 
down. It is also so bolted together that it 

can be folded up for convenience in trans- 

portation. From a crossbar near the hinder 

end of the frame, there is suspended a capacious 

net, which trails behind. The mouth-frame of 

this net is made of round iron. 

This implement, therefore, consists essential- 
ly ofa large dredge, not furnished with scrapers, 
but preceded by a stout rake or harrow. ‘The 
character of the work which it is intended to 
perform is obvious, and the many interesting 
forms which it has added to the collections of 
the fish-commission have caused it to be con- 
sidered one of the most important additions to 
the dredger’s outfit. It can, however, be used 
only on smooth muddy or sandy bottoms, and 
requires considerable force to drag it through 
compact mud or sand. . 

The same form of rake-dredge, without alter- 
ation or improvement, was adopted by the 
French exploring-steamer Talisman in 1883. 

Capt. H. C. Chester of the fish-commission 
party devised, in 1880, a new form of rake- 
dredge (fig. 9), which is now generally em- 
ployed in place of the old pattern. The net is 
similar to the one above described ; but the rake 
consists of a heavy rectangular frame of flat 
iron, along the opposite and longer sides of 
which the teeth are arranged, projecting out- 
wards. The rake-frame measures three feet 
long by nine inches wide; and the teeth are 
about eight inches long, stout, curved, and 
pointed. 

The principal improvement claimed consists 
in separating the two rows of teeth so that the 
upper row may not interfere with passage back- 
ward into the net of the larger objects dug up 
by the lower teeth as they scrape along the 
bottom. 


Fic. 9. —-CHESTER’S RAKE-DREDGE. 


An ingenious pattern of rake-dredge, in- 
tended for collecting small forms of inverte- 
brates in shallow water, was invented in 1880 
by Mr. James E. Benedict of the same party. 
As represented in fig. 10, it consists of a double 


[Vou. IV%, No. 81. 


Av@usT 22, 1884.] 


rake, and a cylinder of galvanized sheet-iron, 
thirty inches long by eleven inches in diameter, 
containing an elongate, tapering strainer, and 
supported in an iron framework having six 
runners of round iron at equal distances apart. 
The mouth is furnished with a short conical 
strainer of coarse wire netting projecting from 
the front, and a funnel-shaped collar of sheet- 
iron opening inwards. This dredge is designed 
for collecting the small, unattached forms of 
marine animals living upon smooth bottoms, 


Fig. 10. — BENEDICT’S RAKE-DREDGE. 


which are crushed or lost sight of in the ordi- 
nary dredges and trawls. The rake is intended 
to give the bottom-materials a thorough stir- 
ring up, so as to dislodge the animals, which, 
together with the sediment, come in contact 
with the nose-piece of the cylinder, only those 
below a certain size being able to passin. This 
appliance has proved very effective in collect- 
ing in perfect condition many delicate species 
of animals which had previously been seldom 
obtained in suitable shape for study, and at 
the recent London fisheries exhibition it elicited 
much favorable comment from European natu- 
ralists. RicHarp RatTHBUN. 


THE ORIGIN OF THE OHIO MOUNDS. 


The mounds of the Mississippi valley historically con- 
sidered. By Lucren Carr, assistant curator of 
the Peabody museum of American archaeology. 
[From vol. ii. of the Memoirs of the Kentucky geo- 
logical survey. N.S. Shaler, director.] 1883. 
109 p. 4°. | 
Tue thesis which Mr. Carr has to defend in 

this elaborate paper is that the red Indian, as 

he is known historically, and without implying 
any lapse from a higher condition of life than 
he now occupies, was quite capable of building 
the mounds of the Mississippi valley. As we 
have no positive proof of what the people were 
who did build them, and no record of the time 
of building, except inferentially in some cases 


SCIENCE. 


151 


from the rings of trees, he claims that there is 
no necessity of supposing them the work of 
other folk than those found upon the spot by 
the whites at the first contact. Further, should, 
by any chance, evidence be found hereafter to 
fix the so-called mound-builder as another race, 
there is no ground to believe them to be higher 
in the social scale than the red Indian of his- 
toric times. He admits that in size the Ohio 
mounds, in some cases, exceed those which the 
Indian is actually known to have built in recent 
times ; but in his opinion the difference is one 
of degree, not of kind, and accordingly 
weighs little in the discussion. To estab- 
lish his ground, Mr. Carr meets the objec- 
tions to it historically. It is urged that 
a people like our modern Indians could 
not have built the mounds, because they 
were followers of the chase, and not agri- 
culturists ; and 
without being 
agriculturists 
they could not 
have supplied 
the subsistence 
for the large 
number of men necessary to erect these mounds. 
There are two ways of answering this propo- 
sition. One is by asserting that there is no 
evidence that the building was done in such 
a way as to require much labor in a short time ; 
while it may be believed that the labor was 
extended over a long time, and hence required 
few workers at any one time. This answer 
Mr. Carr ignores. The other reply is, that it 
is an unfounded assumption to affirm that the 
red Indian was not an agriculturist, when it 
is susceptible of proof that he not only sup- 
plied from the fields daily wants, but laid in 
store for unfruitful years and for barter. This 
position Mr. Carr abundantly sustains from the 
older writers. 

The second proposition which he meets sets 
forth the so-called mound-builders as worship- 
pers of the sun, and their structures as infer- 
entially allied with that cult; while the Indian 
is not and was not such a worshipper. His 
answer to this is, that the red Indian is, and 
particularly was, a sun-worshipper ; and this he 
establishes satisfactorily from the early chroni- 
clers. Further, it is a mere assumption, in his 
opinion, to call a certain class of these mounds 
religious while there is no proof of it. The 
truth seems to be, that designations of con- 
venience have grown to be arguments obscur- 
ing the question. 

Having thus in two sections of his paper 
proved that the Indian could have built such 


152 


works if he would, Mr. Carr next undertakes 
to show that the Indian is known within his- 
toric times to have built similar though smaller 
works. Arraying a mass of testimony from 
the old and even later writers, sufficient in 
quality and quantity, he succeeds in doing 
this. 

There is one natural objection to his con- 
clusion. While some, or most it may be, of 
existing mounds should be traced to early gen- 
erations of the red Indian, or of races on his 
plane, he does not admit that it is supposable 
that another race, possibly of higher grade, 
may have built other of the mounds. 

We suspect that the truth of this last propo- 
sition is to rest on other investigations than 
Mr. Carr has yet touched. Manifestly, that 
the Indian could have built the mounds does 
not prove that he did ; and, even if it be proved 
that some of the mounds in question can be 
directly traced to him, it does not follow that 
others may not have been built by a different 
people, since mound-building cannot be con- 
fined historically to any single people or any 
single continent. 

Perhaps Mr. Carr has thrown the burden of 
proof upon the opposers of his theory, since it 
may be fair to argue that there is no necessity 
of supposing another race to account for the 
mounds. Granting that Mr. Carr establishes 
his point from the external evidences of the 
mounds, there yet remains a test for his theory 
in the contents of the mounds. Mr. Carr ac- 
knowledges this shortcoming of his argument, 
and promises in due time to examine the ques- 
tion from the testimony of the skulls and relies 
of workmanship, as well as from evidences 
of parallel custom, which can be drawn from 
the records of the exploration of the mounds. 
These, it seems to us, are to be the final tests. 
It is clear that history cannot settle the ques- 
tion, but archeological investigations may. 
We suspect that Mr. Carr wrongly estimates 
the comparative value of the two methods in 
a question of this kind. He says that the in- 
vestigators who have given rise to the views 
which he combats have been ‘ practical ex- 
plorers, who have brought to the investigation 
a certain number of facts, chiefly cumulative 
in character, and who have not as a rule been 
possessed of that measure of historical infor- 
mation which is necessary to a correct inter- 
pretation of these facts.’’ It is indisputable 
‘that the historical evidence accumulated by 
Mr. Carr may be helpful; but the fact still 
remains, that this evidence must be viewed in 
the light of the archeological results. It may 
be safe to grant all that these historical evi- 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 81. 


dences prove; but arguments respecting the 
origin of the mounds, based on them, become 
inferential, and may or may not accord with the 
archeological demonstrations. There can be 
no question which is to be the ultimate tri- 
bunal. 


. SIDGWICK ON FALLACIES. 


Fallacies: a view of logic from the practical side. 
By ALFRED Sipewick, Berkeley fellow of the 
Owens college, Manchester. New York, Ap- 
pleton, 1884. (International scientific series.) 
164375 p. 16°. 


Ir does not often fall to the lot of a reviewer 
to find so little to praise in a book by so clever 
a writer and clear-headed a logician as the 
author of the treatise on fallacies, which has 
appeared in the International scientific series. 
What most obviously calls for complaint is its 
want of adaptation to the main purpose for 
which, by its publication in this series, and by 
the explicit avowal of the author in his preface, 
it seems to have been designed ; namely, to be 
of profit to the general reader. No reader who 
has not become familiar with the technical lan- 
guage of logicians, and even with many phases 
of logical controversy, is at all likely to follow 
our author with sufficient interest to so much as 
comprehend what he is talking about, much 
less to carry away a clear and lasting impression 
of important truths. Not that much knowledge 
of logic is presupposed ; but the discussion is 
so full of abstractions and subtleties, of nice 
distinctions which we are presently told are 
no distinctions at all, and identifications of 
things we, had supposed very unlike and which 
we are presently told we would better keep 
apart as of old, that if we add to the intangibil- 
ity of such questions the difficulty, for novices 
in logic, of promptly seizing the precise force 
of the terms which are necessarily employed, 
we cannot expect any very valuable results 
from their perusal of the book before us. 

But, in point of fact, it is not to tyros only 
that the book will be a disappointment. There 
is much balancing of views on nice points of 
language, and every now and then a most. re- 
freshing bit of sarcasm, for our author has a 
keen eye for all sorts of logical weakness ; and 
there is often plain talk about the practical 
limitations to which we are subject in the search — 
for truth. But there is an extraordinary absence 
of decision and concentrated statement, — 
qualities indispensable to the success of a work 
of this kind. On almost every point the author 
comes to the conclusion that little or nothing 
which is useful can be said about it. With — 


“AUGUST 22, 1884.] 


this conclusion we are not prepared to express 
a disagreement ; but we feel quite convinced of 
the unprofitableness of reading three or four 
hundred pages of particularly uninteresting 
matter to arrive at it. 

There are two reasons why it seems especially 
ungracious to speak so slightingly of the value 
of Mr. Sidgwick’s book. In the first place, 


almost every page bears evidence of the author’s » 


logical power and literary cleverness ; and many 
passages are really good and valuable. ‘There 
is an excellent chapter on the burden of proof ; 
the remarks on the variation in the meaning of 
words, and many other detached discussions, 
are admirable ; and the author is always refresh- 
ingly severe on the subject of baseless meta- 
physical speculation. It is pleasant, too, to 
come upon such human, unscholastic ways of 
putting things as we are frequently treated to. 
Thus, on p. 128: — 


“For, besides the real danger of platitude, there is 
. an opposite danger to be avoided; namely, that of 
unduly and vexatiously stopping an argument to have 
the terms explained. Without wishing exactly to 
defend those who made Socrates drink poison, one 
still cannot help recognizing that there is a limit, be- 
yond which the laudable desire for definiteness loses 
its value, and becomes a hindrance and asnare. There 
is something so fatally easy in the attitude of a sceptic 
or mere questioner. Any child can keep demanding 
explanations, any man sufficiently stubborn can delay 
the most important truth by pretending not to un- 
derstand its import. An obstructive policy of this 
kind requires no great intellectual power; and, when 
adopted solely for obstructive purposes, it demands, 
as much as any thing, arule of urgency. Life is not 
long enough for exhaustive explanations.”’ 


And on p. 289 : — 


‘Nothing could well be more confusing than an 
attempt to apply the cumbrous machinery of the 
syllogism to arguments met with in real life. And 
whoever has tampered with his mother-wit by sub- 
stituting for it a clumsy logic depending on elaborate 
mnemonics, must, no doubt, pay the penalty in loss 
of power, so long as the mischief remains.”’ 


In speaking of the methods of induction, 
as stated by Mill, the author judiciously re- 
marks, — 


“Since there may possibly be, in some quarters, a 
disposition to take these methods for more than they 
were probably intended to be worth, there will per- 
haps be some use in reminding the reader that it is 
the guarding against the danger to which each method 
is liable, that is in every case the all-important cir- 
cumstance, far more so than the mere employment 
of this or the other method.’’ 


And a clever hit is made in introducing these 
methods : — 


“While, as their author himself (and more lately, 
Professor Jevons) expended labor in showing, none 
of these is, except in an ideal sense, completely satis- 
maetory’’ ... 


SCIENCE. 


153 


The other reason for one’s dislike to con- 
demn the book as a whole is, that the 
author’s faults are so largely the défauts de ses 
qualités. His mind is so open to every argu- 
ment that can be urged on either side of a 
question, that he finds it much harder than 
ordinary mortals do to come to a decision ; and 
he is so conscientious in his attempt to tell the 
reader the whole truth, that he gives some 


‘measure of approval to any view that has the 


least proportion of truth in it. This scrupu- 
lousness is most annoying and obstructive when 
he deals with the definitions of his terms. Here 
we have to watch a long process of painful 
labor, sometimes over very simple matters, 
almost always with very little result. It is, of 
course, a vulgar error to suppose that a scien- 
tific definition ought to be so framed that no 
doubt can arise as to any individual case being 
comprehended under it. Scientific men well 
understand by this time, that, however we may 
frame our definition, there will always be a 
strip, more or less narrow, of debatable ground 
along the boundary. But Mr. Sidgwick is 
alone, we may hope, in going a step farther, 
and carefully making his boundary run in such 
a way that the debatable ground shall be 
co-extensive with the whole territory. This 
peculiar excess of refinement, which so often 
interferes with the effectiveness of our author’s 
work, strongly reminds one of two recent im- 
portant works on ethics and economics, and 
almost demands the coining of the adjective 
‘ Sidgwickian ’ to describe it. 

Of logical errors there are few, if any, in the 
book ; but the author occasionally illustrates his 
own doctrine of the difficulty of establishing 
a charge of fallacy, due to one’s inability to 
know how a given argument was intended to be 
understood by its proposer. Thus, in the quo- 
tation discussed on p. 259, et seg., we can but 
regard the criticism as captious. If the passage 
is an example of false analogy at all, it is so in 
a very mild degree ; nor are the two examples 
on p. 264 strikingly in point, if at all. And 
this leads us to mention one final criticism on 
the work, in so far as it is intended to be 
practically useful. There are very few illustra- 
tive examples, and a notable absence of any 
discussion of the fallacies which have actually 
played a part in the history of intellectual 
progress. ‘The author does not familiarize the 
reader with the dangers of fallacious reasoning 
by concrete instances, or stimulate his interest 
by pointed discussions involving the applica- 
tions of principles rather than the principles 
themselves. It would be time to write a book 
in the spirit of this one, when everybody had 


e 


154 SCIENCE. 


become as good a scientific thinker as Faraday 
or Darwin; but to-day, while fallacies of the 
crudest kind are rampant in every field of dis- 
cussion, from religion and party-politics to 


Teta ee 


[Vou. IV., No. 81. 


biology and political economy, something less 
ethereal and impalpable than this statement of 
the necessity of philosophic doubt would have 
been far more useful. 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. 


July & — Professor Angelo Heilprin described a 
new trilobite from Walpack Ridge, about ten miles 
north of the Delaware Water-Gap. The tail-piece, 
which was the only part of the animal found, indi- 
cated an individual some six or seven inches or more 
in length, and clearly demonstrated its relationship 
to the genus Phacops, sub-gefius Dalmania. Among 
its faunal associates were Phacops Logani, P. (Dal- 
mania) pleuroptyx, Acidaspis tubercularus, Spirifer 
macropleura, Atrypa reticularis, Strophomena punc- 
tulifera, S. rhomboidalis, Orthis subcarinata (or O. 
multistriata ?), Merista sp., etc. The horizon is that 
known as the Stormville shales (lower Helderberg), 
evidently the equivalent of the Delthyris shales of 
the New-York geologists. 


Philosophical society, Washington. 


April 26.— Prof. J. R. Eastman reported the dis- 
covery of a mass of meteoric iron at Grand Rapids, 
Mich. An analysis by Dr. F. W. Taylor gave: iron, 
94.54; nickel, 3.81; cobalt, 2.40; insoluble, about .10; 
total, 100.85; specific gravity, 7.53. Mr. William 
H. Dall read a paper entitled ‘Certain appendages of 
the Mollusca.’ Mr. J. S. Diller read a communi- 
cation on the volcanic sand which fell at Unalashka, 
Oct. 20, 1883, and some considerations concerning its 
composition. The substance of this communication 
has already appeared in Science. There ensued a 
general discussion of the nature and properties of 
volcanic dust, and of the theory which ascribes recent 
peculiar meteorologic phenomena to the dust ejected 
from Krakatoa. Capt. C. E. Dutton argued that the 
formation of volcanic dust particles by the bursting 
of bubbles tends to give them a somewhat definite 
general size, and does not produce a large amount of 
dust fine enough for indefinite suspension. The op- 
posite view was maintained by Prof. H. M. Paul, and 
was sustained by Mr. Diller, who said that the micro- 
scope revealed no limit to the fineness of the Kraka- 
toan dust. The higher the magnifying-power applied, 
the greater the number of particles visible; and this 
relation extends to the limits afforded by the capacity 
of the instrument. Professor Paul thought the vio- 
lence of the Krakatoan explosion was competent to 
charge the atmosphere at very great altitudes, and 
considered the fineness of the dust a sufficient expla- 
nation of its indefinite suspension. Mr. William B. 
Taylor suggested that electricity might be an efficient 
cause of suspension. It is a common phenomenon 
of volcanic eruption; and dust particles charged with 
the same kind of electricity as the earth would be 


repelled not only by one another, but by the earth. 
The period elapsing between sunset and the red after- 
glow testifies to the great altitude of the phenome- 
non; and at such altitude the air is not only very 
rare, but is anhydrous, and the discharge of electri- 
city is impossible. 

May 10.— Mr. G. H. Williams of Johns Hopkins 
university addressed the society on the methods of 
modern petrography, classifying them as chemical, 
mechanical, optical, and thermal, and explaining 
their several functions. There followed a sympo- 
sium on the question, ‘What is a glacier?’ Mr. I. C. 
Russell defined a glacier as an ice-body originating 
from the consolidation of snow in regions where the 
secular accumulation exceeds the loss by melting and 
evaporation (that is, above the snow-line), and flow- 
ing to regions where loss exceeds supply (that is, be- 
low the snow-line). Mr. 8S. F. Emmons defined it as a 
river of ice, possessed, like an aqueous river, of move- 
ment and of plasticity. In virtue of plasticity, it 
adapts itself to the form of its bed. The névé field is 
the reservoir from which it derives its supply of ice, 
and the initial impulse of movement. Until the névé 
moves from its wide and shallow bed into a narrower 
and deeper one, and thus gives outward proof of the 
plasticity of the ice of which it is composed, it does 
not become a glacier. It may become crevassed, and 
it may carry blocks of rock on its surface without 
losing its névé character. Mr. W. J. McGee said that 
the phenomena of glacier ice and névé belong to a 
graduating series, and can be only arbitrarily discrimi- 
nated. He regarded as artificial and incompetent, 
classifications depending on acclivity of the ice-bed, 
on constriction of the ice-body, on ability to sustain 
bowlders, and on rate of motion. All things consid- 
ered, the most satisfactory line of demarkation is the 
snow-line. Mr. William H. Dall discriminated masses 
of ice moving in a definite direction from fields of ice 
practically stationary, restricting the term ‘ glacier’ to 
the former. A glacier is a mass of ice with definite 
lateral limits, with motion in a definite direction, and 
originating from the compacting of snow by pressure. 
Prof. T. C. Chamberlin said that the subject illus- 
trated the fact that hard and fast lines belong only 
to nomenclature, whereas nature is characterized by 
gradations. The true distinction in this case is not 
structural, but genetic. There is an area of growth 
and an area of waste to every glacier. It is only 
superficially that the area of growth coincides with 
the névé, and the névé field is accurately defined only 
on the summer day of maximum waste. Capt. C. E. 
Dutton said that his intended remarks had been an- 
ticipated by Professor Chamberlin. Definition can 


a 


AUGUST 22, 1884.] 


rarely or never be made rigorous. Glaciers vary in 
their characteristics like other groups of phenomena. 
While those features which characterize them are 
present, there is no difficulty of recognition; but ex- 
ceptional cases arise in which a portion only of the 
diagnostic features are present, and persons who 
desire extreme precision of language are then com- 
pelled to hesitate. The difficulty is probably best 
met by the use of qualifying terms. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


FELLOWS of the American association for the 
advancement of science, who may desire to avail 
themselves of the privileges of honorary membership 
of the British association, and to attend the Montreal 
meeting, will be furnished with the usual ‘ travelling 
certificates’ on application to Mr. J. D. Crawford, 
post-office box 147, Montreal, Canada. These cer- 
tificates should enable the fellow to purchase convey- 
ance for himself to and from Montreal at reduced 
rates. 

—In regard to the phosphorescence of jelly-fish, 
R. Meldola writes to Nature, that the conclusions 
arrived at by Mr. Verrill (Science, July 4, p. 8) can- 
not fail to be of interest to all who have ever specu- 
lated on the significance of the luminosity displayed 
by so many Acalephae, Medusae, and other marine 
organisms. When in the tropics, in 1875, very simi- 
lar ideas occurred to Mr. Meldola; and in an address 
on the phenomena of cyclical propagation, delivered 
to the Essex field-club on Jan. 28, 1882, he ventured to 
put forward the following views: ‘‘ It was in the Bay 
of Bengal, when on the eclipse expedition of 1875, 
that I first saw shoals of Medusae in their full splen- 
dor. Speculating on the meaning of the vivid colors 
and brilliant phosphorescence of these creatures, I 
came to the conclusion that both these characters 
might be protective danger-signals of the same na- 
ture, and fulfilling the same function, as the bright 
colors of distasteful caterpillars according to Wal- 
lace’s well-known theory, or the phosphorescence of 
the Lampyridae according to Thomas Belt (‘ Natural- 
ist in Nicaragua,’ p. 320). The ‘urticating’ powers of 
the jelly-fish would certainly make them unpleasant, 
if not absolutely dangerous to predatory fish, and 
their bright colors and luminosity at night may thus 
be true warning characters.’’ 


—A joint convention was recently held by the 
council and past presidents of the British institutions 
of civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and naval 
architects, and of the Iron and steel institute, and 
the Society of telegraph engineers and electricians, 
to take steps toward the erection of a memorial to 
the late Sir William Siemens. At a meeting held 
on June 28, it was reported that the authorities of 
Westminster Abbey would be pleased to permit the 
introduction of a memorial window in honor of the 
distinguished physicist and engineer. The cost was 
estimated at from seven hundred to eight hundred 
pounds. The proposal was accepted; and it was 
decided to limit subscriptions to one guinea each, 


SCIENCE. 


155 


and to receive them only from members of one of 
these five societies, of all of which the deceased was 
a member. Subscriptions are payable to Mr. James 
Forrest, secretary of the Institution of civil engi- 
neers. 


— Dr. Asa Gray’s ‘ Flora of North America,’ part ii. 
(Caprifoliaceae-—Compositae inclusive), is at length 
issued. It contains 474 pages, mainly devoted to 
Compositae, which number 1,610 species arranged in 
237 genera. For the convenience of distant botan- 
ists, it is sent by mail, free of postage, to those who 
remit the price ($5), and order it of the curator of 
Harvard university herbarium, Cambridge, Mass. 

—In September next a geographical professorship 
will be established at each of the Russian universi- 
ties. In Germany, fourteen out of twenty-one uni- 
versities have a chair of this sort. 


— Lessar is again in the Seraks country, and will 
explore the middle part of the region watered by the 
Murghab River, which has never been visited by 
Kuropeans. 


— The international society for the cure of oph- 
thalmia offers a gold medal for the best essay on 
diseases of the eye. The medal is designed by 
Hartzes of Berlin, and bears a portrait of Albrecht 
von Graefe. 


—In Russia the statistics of the last thirty years 
show a great diminution in the forest-trees, but scan- 
tily replaced by the planting of firs, as there is no 
supervision of forests: there is said to be a consequent 
change for the worse in the climate, and diminution of 
fruitfulness, especially in the districts round Nishni 
Novgorod and Moscow. In the Moscow government, 
which used to be rich in fruit-bearing trees, apples 
and cherries have much decreased in number, and 
pears have wholly disappeared. 


_— A new fog-horn, invented by Mr. Bryceson, has 
recently been tried on the Thames by the represen- 
tatives of the admiralty. It isin the form of a pump, 
and is worked by a strap fastened to the signalman’s 
foot, and so worked as to produce short or long 
sounds, asrequired. ‘Theadvantages of the invention 
are, the length of time to which the sound can be 
drawn out, its cheapness, and the fact that it can be 
heard for three-quarters of a nautical mile in stormy 
weather. 


— The vertical camera, for use in photographing 
natural-history objects, is described in a pamphlet, 
‘* La photographie appliquée aux sciences biologiques 
et le physiographie universel,’’ by Dr. A.-L. Donna- 
dieu, and published at Lyon by J.-B. Carpentier. 


— In the Monthly notices of the Royal astronomical 
society for May, appears a paper by Professor Hall, 
upon the motion of Hyperion, the satellite of Saturn 
just outside of Titan, and whose motion is greatly 
perturbed by the latter, both on account of its mass, 
and the nearness and eccentricity of Hyperion’s or- 
bit. The mean motion of Hyperion is still somewhat 
uncertain, from the fact that there are no systematic 
observations of it since those of Lassel in 1852, until 
Professor Hall took up the systematic observation of 


156 


Saturn’s satellites in 1875, upon taking charge of the 
great Washington refractor. This ignorance of the 
exact value of the mean motion is especially unfortu- 
nate in the case of Hyperion, from the fact that 
four times this motion very nearly equals three times 
that of its disturbing giant neighbor, Titan; in which 
case the perturbations become very large, or, in case 
this relation is an exact one, the theory of their mo- 
tions is very greatly modified. Until, then, the lapse 
of time and continued observation shall show how 
much the quantity 4n—3n’ differs from zero, it is Pro- 
fessor Hall’s opinion that it will be useless to attempt 
the complete theory of Hyperion’s motion. 

To show something of the rapid clranges in the 
elements of the orbit due to the great perturbations 
going on, Professor Hall has discussed the observa- 
tions of each year separately, assuming a value of the 
inclination and longitude of node determined before- 
hand from his earlier observations, — which quantities 
are very little disturbed, — and by least squares: has 
deduced for each year, including Lassel’s 1852 obser- 
vations, values of the semi-major axis, eccentricity, 
and longitude of peri-Saturnium for Hyperion. The 
most remarkable feature of the results is the rapid 
retrograde motion of the peri-Saturnium, amounting 
to about 20° per year for the epoch 1875-77, but ap- 
parently diminishing quite rapidly. This motion is 
comparable with the rapid retrogression of the moon’s 
nodes; but it would seem to be rather irregular, unless 
the printed annual values of P are liable to consider- 
able uncertainty. Professor Hall calls attention to 
the desirability and importance of re-reducing Lassel’s 
observations, and publishing them more in detail.” 


— Insecten-borse is the title of an advertising fort- 
nightly sheet just started in Leipzig for the benefit 
of collectors, dealers, and amateurs in entomology. 
The first number, composed of four quarto pages, 
contains a surprising variety and number of objects 
for sale. 


— A blue grotto, similar to that of Capri, has been 
found on the Island of Busi, off the coast of Dalma- 
tia. It is formed by three connected grottos, which 
can only be approached from the sea. It is highly 
vaulted, and is only lighted through an opening under 
the sea; this causing the glorious reflected blue light. 


—It is proposed to hold a special American exhi- 
bition in London in May, 1886, at which the products, 
manufactures, and varied phases of life in the United 
States, will be represented. 

— We learn from Nature that Prof. R. S. Ball has 
accepted an invitation from the Lowell institute, 
Boston, to give a course of six lectures on ‘Chapters 
in modern astronomy’ next October. 

— A German expedition has been despatched to 
Cape Town in the corvette Elizabeth. Itis fitted out 
by the firm of Luderitz of Bremen, and will after- 
wards proceed to Angra Pequena. The leader of the 
expedition is Lieut. Siegmund Israels, a Hamburger, 
who served in the English army during the Ashantee 
war. An engineer has been engaged from Dissel- 
dorf, who will use his experience in the service of a 
Westphalian firm of iron founders. 


SCIENCE. 


‘y Sere ow “—— T= 443) a 


[Vou Was No. Sia 


— We learn from Germany, that the Italian geolo- 
gists have written to the president of the interna- 
tional geological congress at Berlin, asking that the 
intended meeting of September next be postponed 
to another year, on account of the cholera, and the 
quarantine imposed at the boundary of several king- 
doms in Europe. Later information is, that the con- 
gress will be postponed to September, 1885, not only 
on account of the cholera, but also on account of the 
number of members drawn off to America by the 
meeting of the British association. It is also stated 
that the reports of several of the committees could 
not be ready this year. 


—A hypsometric chart of European Russia, pre- 
pared by Gen. Tillo, has been published at the 
expense of the ministry of public works. The alti- — 
tudes of more than 18,000 points are indicated on this 
chart, of which 12,000 were trigonometrically fixed, 
4,000 determined by levelling, and only 490 rest upon 
barometric observations. More than 1,500 mean 
heights for the level of the water at points on vari- 
ous rivers are also included. The chart is accom- 
panied by an explanatory memoir. 


— Prof. George H. Darwin of Trinity college, 
Cambridge, is now in this country, and has lately 
married a Philadelphia lady, Miss Maud Dupuy. 
He returns to England after the conclusion of the 
meeting of the British association for the advance- 
ment of science at Montreal. 


— Apropos of the distinction which has lately 
fallen to Professor Roscoe of Manchester, — a knight- 
hood conferred by the queen in consideration of his 
services in connection with the technical education 
commission, —the London Academy calls to mind 
the fact that he affords a fine example of the union of 
the qualities needed by the successful investigator 
with those of a good man of business; and that his 
popular sympathies have won him the warm regard 
of the Lancashire workingmen, among whom the 
study of science is more common than might be 
supposed. 


— According to the Personal-verzeichniss der Uni- 
versitat Leipzig fir das summer semester, 1884, there 
are, in all, 3,160 students at the university, of whom 
608 are studying medicine, 99 pharmacy, 232 natural 
science (naturwissenschaften), and 137 mathematics. 
There are 41 Americans at the university, of whom 
7 are studying science. Three of the whole number 
of students were matriculated as early as 1878, and 
33 more in 1879. Dr. Caspar René Gregory of Phila- 
delphia has just been appointed privat-docent in the 
theological faculty in recognition of his researches in 
textual criticism. 

— The following societies will be represented at 
Philadelphia, in addition to those already mentioned 
(Science, iv. 140): Geological survey of India, Theo. 
Hughes Hughes (deputy superintendent); Belfast 
natural-history and philosophical society, Messrs. 
James Musgrave, Henry Musgrave; Linnean soci- 
ety, Messrs. John Ball, A. W. Bennett, W. Carru- 
thers, C. Delaune, Howard Saunders, and Dr. James 
Murie. . 


wi a Sa 


FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


As we go to press the British association 
for the advancement of science is opening its 
first meeting on this side of the Atlantic. 
_ Although the acceptance of the urgent invi- 
tation to the British-association by the Cana- 
dians was tardy, and at first reluctant, the 
English have responded at last with hearty 
good will; and the flood which entered Mon- 
treal on the early days of this week put the 
elasticity of the hotels, and the generosity of 
the people, of Montreal to the severest test. 
Though some of the scientific men, best known 
to fame and the American public through their 
former personal visits, or their writings of a 
general interest, — men like Tyndall and Hux- 
ley, Hooker and Lubbock, — have not come to 
the meeting, there are present on the opening 
day a sufficient number of the leaders of science 
to insure a notable gathering, and to well re- 
pay such of their American brethren as have 
taken long journeys to meet them. Many of 
our own countrymen are in attendance, glad to 


be among the first to welcome their colleagues ; _ 


and many more would doubtless have come, 
did they not fear they would infringe too much 
on hospitalities intended for the honor of trans- 
atlantic friends. It is estimated that about 
eight hundred have crossed the Atlantic to 
attend the meeting, as members or associates, 
and that at least six hundred more have been 
enrolled from Canada and the United States, 
including the fellows of the American associ- 
ation who have accepted honorary member- 
ship. 


The arrangements of the local committee 
have been as thorough and careful as could be 
expected. The rooms devoted to the use of 
the association leave, indeed, something to be 
desired, as many of them are far too small for 

No. 82.— 1884. 


members’ tickets. 


convenience; but they have generally the ad- 
vantage, not only of close proximity to each 
other, but of an airy situation on the upper 
edge of the city, which may be welcome before 
the week is out. But, in the halls of McGill 
college and its affiliated institutions, accom- 
modation was not found for all; and the sec- 
tions of geography and statistics have been 
assigned to rooms a quarter of a mile distant, 
in the city proper. The local committee has 
thoroughly canvassed the city, and printed a 
list of places where lodgings may be had. 
Each member is provided with a handbook of 
the Dominion of Canada, —a generous volume, 
accompanied by maps, containing all one could 
desire, excepting an index, and a plan of Mon- 
treal. The latter, however, is printed most 
conveniently on the back of the large, folding 
Evening soirées and gar- 
den-parties, with excursions in abundance, are 
planned at various times during the meeting ; 
but the sessions are unbroken by any ‘ lunch,’ 
except such as individuals may obtain at any 
time for a pittance, in a tent on the university 
grounds. 


The sections meet daily at eleven, and con- 
tinue in session for five hours without inter- 
mission. One sees the association here as he 
sees it in England, holding its traditions un- 
tarnished. In one matter, however, they have 
given way to Canadian solicitation by permit- 
ting the meeting of the association to be 
opened in American fashion, by ‘addresses of 
welcome from the city of Montreal, holding a 


special session for the purpose. One point in 


. which the association meetings differ notably 


from our own, is in limiting the attendance at 
all meetings, addresses, and lectures, as well 
as at all festivities, to members of one class or 
another. Such a restriction in our own asso- 
ciation would doubtless be an additional incen- 
tive to membership in places where it holds its 
meetings, and it could certainly prove no bar 


158 


to membership in other quarters. The meeting 
bids fair to be every thing its promoters could 
desire. 


Tue recent earthquake suggests two lines 
of unsatisfactory reflection. The number of 
appreciative observations of the shock, dis- 
coverable by careful search through many 
newspapers, is extremely small, although the 
movement of furniture, the swaying of sus- 
pended objects, and the overturning of chim- 
neys, gave ample opportunity for critical 
examination. Records of time are also inac- 
curate in the highest degree. Seconds are 
rarely given, and there is no statement as to 
the error of the timepiece. In place of this, 
the temperature of the air, the direction of 
the wind, and the ‘strange appearance of the 
sky,’ are frequently mentioned, as if these ir- 
relevant phenomena were of the highest im- 
portance. In a country where earthquakes 
are, happily, as rare as here, it would not be 
fair to expect that very many persons should 
take full advantage of their unlooked-for op- 
portunity of earthquake study ; but after mak- 
ing all due allowance for the infrequence of 
shocks, and for the small share of school in- 
struction bearing on seismology, the general 
absence of critical observations is disappoint- 


ing. 


More remarkable than the earthquake, more 
surprising than the lack of observations, is the 
readiness with which some of those who ought 
to know better have committed themselves to 
explanations of the origin or cause of the 
shock, on the demand of the all-absorbing 
newspaper reporter. From one professor we 
learn that the shock ‘‘ originated somewhere 
about the Rocky Mountains, and travelled east- 
ward;’’ another was inclined to refer the dis- 
turbance to the ‘‘ sliding of granite and trap 
strata, caused by contraction and expansion ;”’ 
others still, hold to the gratuitous generaliza- 
tion that ‘‘ every earthquake-shock is an un- 
completed effort of nature to create a volcano.”’ 
Such a variety of opinion fully justifies a re- 


porter’s rather sarcastic conclusion: ‘* Thus 


SCIENCE. 


[VoL. IV., No.825m 


the three professors differed from each other in 
their views.’’ This difference is the more to be 
regretted, as there was excellent ground for 
agreement in answering the reporters. It would 
have been very safe to reply, ‘‘ When we know 
what has really happened, we may be able to 
say something more about it.”’ 


TuHE necessity of irrigating extensive tracts 
of the west has taught us that irrigation has 
its advantages. The crops raised under it are 
not only larger, but more reliable, than those 
of districts where irrigation is not considered 
necessary. It is somewhat as though the 
farmer could control the amount and frequency 
of rainfall and it; shows, that, in countries 
where the rainfall is abundant, it is distrib- 
uted in a manner that comes far short of the 
best. In some parts of the west there is water 
enough for irrigating purposes, but it flows in 
large rivers which it would require great ex- 
pense to turn upon the land. The Upper Mis- 
souri and Yellowstone rivers belong to this 
class. They flow through arid but otherwise 
fertile districts. They are large and perma- 
nent streams, and it seems a calamity that 
they should be allowed to run forever to waste. 


The suggestion of a contributor in another 
column, that the government take time by the 
forelock, forestall monopoly, and lead popula- 
lation into this section by establishing gigantic 
irrigating-works for the utilization of this val- 
uable water, is not so wild as many of the 
schemes that actually have been put through 
Congress; as, for example, the Pacific railroad 
schemes. Is agriculture any less important 
than commerce? Yet it seems as though, in 
this chiefly agricultural country, it is the only 
interest that is unable to obtain a hearing. It 
has not even a cabinet officer to represent it. 
To judge from the space assigned to it at the 
Centennial exhibition, as compared with that 
devoted to war, for example, one would have 
supposed that war was the leading occupation 
of Americans, rather than agriculture. The 
question of irrigating the arid but irrigable 
portion of our public domain is destined to ~ 


= 


AveusT 29, 1884. ] 


become a leading one in the near future; and 
our statesmen will do well to begin soon to 
give it their thoughtful attention. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


Increase in growth of young robins. 


THE past season my attention had been attracted 
to the rapid growth made by a nest of young robins 
on our porch. Early in July another pair of robins 
built a nest on a bracket on the same porch, in which 
the female laid three eggs. I carefully watched the 
nest, to note the appearance of the young, as I had 
determined to accurately weigh the young birds daily, 
after hatching, as I was curious to learn just how 
much they might increase in growth during each suc- 
ceeding twenty-four hours, up to the time of flight. 
On July 28, two eggs hatched, the third being infer- 
tile. At two o’clock, July 28, I weighed the young 
birds separately, as I did for the next twelve days 
at about the same hour. I have designated the birds 
as 1 and 2; and the following figures represent their 
increase in weight in grams: — 


= JULY 
No. 
28 29 30 31 
Grams Grams Gram: Grams. 
ll 60 6 5.8 8.7 14.3 21.15 
2 age 6 10 14.7 24 
| AUGUST. 


as 2. 3. 4, 5. 6. 7. 8. | 9. 


Grams.|/Grams.|Grams.| Grams. |Grams.| Grams. |Grams.|Grams.|Grams. 


1. . .|25 | 38.8} 42.5 | 48.75 | 51.2 | 52.45 | 52.2| 53 | 52.2 
2. . . | 26.8] 34 | 43.5 | 48 52.6 | 55.3 | 57.6 | 57.8 | 57.8 


The above figures are surely interesting, and will, 
without doubt, surprise many readers who before had 
no idea of the increase in growth made by the young 
of birds. As can be seen, the growth made by No. 1 
was not so constant and steady as that made by No. 
2; and, whereas No. 1 lost some in weight Aug. 8 and 
9, No. 2 sustained no loss. The loss in weight was 
owing, I think, to the great quantity of lice which 
infested the birds and nest. CuHas. S. PLUMB. 


N.Y. experiment-station, 
Geneva, N.Y. 


The meng-leng. 


In China the sphex, or solitary wasp, makes a neat 
mud-cell in a crevice, puts therein the store of young 
insects which are to be the food of its own larva, 
lays its egg in the midst, closes the entrance of the 
cell, leaving only a minute window in the front wall, 
and flies away, with reason for such complacency 
as is produced in the feminine mind by snug house- 
keeping. The egg develops, the larva sucks the juices 
of the imprisoned spiders and flies, and finally the 
little wasp issues through the window, equipped for 
flight in the sunshine. 

The Chinese call this lone, busy, steel-blue insect 
the ‘meng-leng,’ and have a peculiar notion of its 
habits. They say that it has no domestic nor social 
relationships, but longs, like other creatures, for little 
folk of its kind. So it makes a cot, and puts therein 
the child of some fruitful mother of another family, 


SCIENCE. 


low ‘bone-bed.’ 


159 


seals the infant carefully into its domicile, and then, 
flying frequently back from commonplace occupations, 
it puts its mouth to the little window of the cot, and 
buzzes and sings ‘meng-leng, meng-leng, meng-leng!’ 
And the little creature within, hearing itself con- 
stantly called a ‘meng-leng,’ believes itself to be one, 
and gradually and surely verifies its name, coming 
out in due time a perfect sphex. 
So in China an adopted child is popularly and 
poetically called a little ‘ meng-leng.’ 
ADELE M. FIELDE. 


Indian languages in South America. 


Your interesting notice of recent works on ‘ Indian 
languages of South America’ (Science, Aug. 15, p. 
138) requires to be completed by the mention of the 
remarkably valuable treatise by the venerable travel- 
ler, J. J. von Tschudi, —‘ Organismus der Kechua 
sprache’ (Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, 1884, 534 p.). 
For the first time in the history of American linguis- 
tics, we have here presented an exhaustive analysis 
of the lexical and grammatical structure of a native 
tongue, fully adequate to the demands of modern 
study. Von Tschudi has made a long investigation 
of the Kechua. As far back as 1853, he published 
his treatise upon it, and has twice edited the original 
text of the celebrated Ollantadrama (1853 and 1875). 

The introduction to his last work occupies a hun- 
dred and twenty-five pages, and contains a brief 
exposition of his views on the ancient history and 
mythology of the Inca race, and on the affinities of 
their language. Based, as his opinions are, on a most 
careful analysis of the tongue and on ample personal 
observation, they must have great weight with future 
ethnologists and antiquaries. To mention only one 
of his many novel conclusions, he denies any affinity 
between the Aymara and Kechua languages, and 
considers Bertonio’s grammar and dictionary of the 
former (from which such affinity has been argued) 
as based on a local and corrupt dialect. 

I would further add to your list the meritorious 
treatise of Giovanni Pelleschi, ‘Sulla lingua degli In- 
diani Mattacchi del Gran Ciacco’ (Firenze, 1881), 
where, in the scope of seventy pages, he imparts much 
fresh information about this little-known tongue; 
and, if not too remote to be called recent, it is worth 
while mentioning the republication in Lima, in 1880, 
of the extremely scarce ‘Arte de la lengua Yunga,’ 
by F. de la Carrera,—an idiom presenting many 
curious features, both in phonetics and structure. 


D. G. BRINTON, M.D. 
Media, Penn., Aug. 16. 


Fish-remains in the North-American Silurian 
rocks. 


Mr. E. W. Claypole states in Science, July 11, 
that he has come into the possession of some fossil 
fish which lead him to the conclusion that there are 
forms of fish more ancient in America than are known 
elsewhere. From Mr. Claypole’s letter, I gather that 
he imagines that the upper Ludlows and the ‘ bone- 
bed’ are the earliest rocks which yield fish-remains. 
I would direct attention to the fact that the lower 
Ludlow rocks of England have yielded the remains 
of fish; viz., the Scaphaspis (Lankester). The Sca- 
phaspis ludensis was discovered at Leintwardine, in 
lower Ludlow strata, which must have been deposited 
long ages before the accumulation of the upper Lud- 
Soon after the shield of this fish 
was detected, I personally investigated the physical 
position of the rocks in which it was found. The 
Leintwardine beds are the only locality where the 


160 


relics of this first-known fish have hitherto been 
found. Some excavations, made of late in the passage 
beds between the old red sandstone and the Ludlow 
rocks at Ledbury in Herefordshire, have afforded a 
fine series of the fish found in the ‘bone-bed’ and 
passage rocks. Among them, Mr. Piper has obtained 
plates and cephalic shields of Scaphaspis, Pteraspis, 
Cyathaspis, and Auchenaspis. Auchenaspis has been 
found perfect; and much more of the structure of 
these early fishes has come to light. But there is a 
good deal of difference in the geological horizon of 
these fish at Ledbury and that of the Scaphaspis at 
Leintwardine. The lower Ludlows appear in great 
thickness at Ledbury, but hitherto they have not 
presented us with fish. W. S. SymMonps. 
The Camp, Sunningdale, July 31. 


Depth of the glacial submergence on the 
upper Mississippi. 


I desire to call attention to certain facts which 
appear to me to indicate a submergence of even the 
highest land at this point, which, it may be said, is 
near the centre of the driftless area. I am not aware 
of their having been previously noted. 

That which first called my attention to the matter 
was the discovery that the layer of broken stone 
which covers the undisturbed rock on the top of the 
bluffs to a depth of four to six feet, contained nu- 
merous shells belonging to several species of pul- 
moniferous gasteropods. I have thus far obtained 
specimens of the following species (the identifica- 
tions were kindly furnished by Mr. Sanderson Smith 
of the U.S. fish-commission): Helicina acculeata Say, 
Lymneae columella Say, Helix (Patula) attenuata 
Say, Helix (Helicodiscus) lineata Say, Helix (Patula) 
striatella Anthony. 

The condition of the shells, and the positions in 
which found, even more than the mere fact of their 
occurrrence, indicate submergence by giving strong 
evidence of wave-action, evidence of which is also 
seen in the general order and arrangement of the 
stones composing the layer, especially in the remark- 
able evenness of its upper surface. Overlying this 
layer of broken stone, and sharply distinguished from 
it, is a layer of earth from two to four feet thick, 
destitute of either stones or shells, and having all the 
characteristics of the loess, which, in unmistakable 
deposits, reaches a height of two to three hundred 
feet above the Mississippi. As the bluffs at this 
point reach to about five hundred feet above the 
river, a submergence to at least that extent is indi- 
cated, —a conclusion which is sustained by other 
facts, which I need not now refer to. 

G. H. SQUIER. 


Trempealeau, Wis. 


THE VISIT OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIA- 
TION. 

AxtHoucH the British association does not 
meet officially on our own soil, we may yet re- 
gard it as in some sort paying a visit to our 
neighborhood, and opening up such an oppor- 
‘tunity for personal communication between the 
scientific men of England and America as has 
never before offered itself. It is true that Prin- 


cipal Grant, as a Canadian by adoption, sug- 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 82. 


gests to the members to be satisfied with Canada — 
on this occasion, ‘‘and to leave the United 
States and Mexico to other and more conven- 
ient seasons.’’ He strengthens this suggestion 
by the statement that the time of meeting of 
the American association was chosen so as to 
give the members of that body an opportunity 
of visiting Montreal, thus correcting the cur- 
rent impression that the object was to make it 
convenient for the members of the British 
association to visit Philadelphia. ‘The Cana- 
dians may also feel fairly entitled to all the 
credit which the visit of the association can 
bring, since so long a journey by so large a 
body of men would hardly have been seriously 
considered, but for Canadian enterprise. A 
proposal was privately discussed among us, a 
few years ago, to invite the British association 
to Boston on the occasion of the anticipated 
exposition of 1883. But, after the exposition 
was abandoned, no one was so bold as to seri- 
ously press the invitation in the absence of any 
special attraction to second it; and it was left 
for our neighbors to successfully attack the 
problem which we had abandoned as hope- 
less. It is not, however, to be expected that 
the individual members of the association will 
be greatly influenced by sentiment in the use 
they make of their time on this side of the 
ocean, or that Canadian pride, enterprise, or 
loyalty, will prevent them from crossing the 
border. Not even such energy as that of our 
neighbors, and such glory as that of their 
dominion, can compensate for the charm of 
novelty in life and institutions offered the 
foreigner by such countries as ‘‘ the United 
States and Mexico.’’ It may be well worth the 
while of a studious Englishman to take a long 
journey to learn from actual inspection what an 
English province can become under the influ- 
ence of so energetic a people as those of 
Canada; but he cannot suppress his curiosity 
to study the ampler and more varied civilization 
which his race is working out under political 
conditions less like those to which he is accus- 
tomed. We therefore look upon the present 
meeting as nearly the equivalent of a visit to 
our own country, and, in the name of the stu- 


AUGUST 29, 1884.] 


dents of science in America, we extend a cor- 
dial welcome to the greatest body representative 
of the intellect of the old world which has ever 
visited our shores. Did our visitors not repre- 
sent the most hospitable of nations, we should 
indulge in bolder assurances of the warmth of 
the reception they will meet with from all classes 
of Americans. But those who know what Eng- 
lish hospitality is will content themselves with 
modestly hoping that American hospitality does 
not fall far short of it, and with remarking that 
our great railways extend a corporate hospi- 
tality to distinguished visitors which is not 
known abroad. 

The sentimental consideration that the visit 
is one the very possibility of which is a strik- 
ing illustration of what science has done, will 
add zest to the occasion. In times past, the 
idea of a local society choosing a place of meet- 
ing across the Atlantic would have appeared 
as quixotic as can readily be imagined. In- 
deed, we can but suspect that the project at 
first presented a little of this appearance to a 
majority of those concerned, and that a meet- 
ing very successful in point of numbers was 
hardly expected. But the result seems likely 
to more than realize the hopes of the most 
sanguine supporters of the project, and it is 
fitting that the promoters of science should en- 
joy to the utmost a result which the work of 
their class has rendered possible. 

Circumstances are in several ways favorable 
for paying us a visit. The time and place of 
holding the meeting of the American associa- 
tion were especially chosen so as to facilitate 
the reception of any visitors from the sister- 
organization who might grace the meeting by 
their presence. Arriving in Philadelphia, they 
will find not only our own association, but the 
electrical exhibition of the Franklin institute. 
Although the latter cannot be expected to rival 
the great displays at Paris and Vienna, it will 
afford a better opportunity than any which 
has been offered in Europe, for seeing what has 
been done here in forwarding the utilitarian 
applications of electricity. Visiting electri- 
cians, of whom we may hope for a considera- 
ble number, may also expect an invitation to 


SCIENCE. 


161 


take part in the electrical conferénce, which is 
to be conducted under the auspices of the 
government, and in which the novelties of the 
exhibition will be made known. Philadelphia 
is only four hours distant from the national 
capital, and thus a visit can be made to the 
collections of the government without any 
serious loss of time. The division of his time 
between pleasure and business will be a ques- 
tion for the decision of each individual visitor, 
to whom the journeys and excursions tendered 
to the American association will be freely open. 
He should, however, bear in mind that the col- 
leges and universities are generally in vacation 
till near the close of September. 

Finally, the student of politics and sociology 
will regard it as fortunate that his visit takes 
place in the height of a presidential canvass, 
thus enabling him,to study one of the most 
interesting of political phenomena on the lar- 
gest scale. If he judges only from the course 
of newspaper criticism on the presidential 
parties and candidates, he will doubt what the 
future has in store for us; but, if he looks 
deeper, he will see a process of endosmosis, 
by which, from the huge mass of objurgation, 
falsehood, and not very elevated humor, politi- 
cal acumen is being infiltrated into the minds 
of millions of voters. And no one, whatever 
his politics, need fear the danger of being con- 
verted to new principles. Whether he be the 
most advanced Liberal, or the most conserva- 
tive Tory, he will have no difficulty in seeing 
every thing by the light he brings with him, and 
returning home with all his views strongly 
confirmed. 


LORD RAYLEIGH. 


Lorp Ray.eicuH, the president of the British 
association of science for this year, is well 
known to all Americans who have kept pace 
with the development of physical science. 
Although his reputation cannot be called a 
popular one, yet no student of physical science 
can well be ignorant of his investigations; and 
his treatise on sound places him easily in the 
front rank of writers on a subject of which the 


162 


_ theoretical and practical importance is second 
to none in its bearing on the progress of 
humanity. $ 

John W. Strutt, the third of his race bear- 
ing the title Lord Rayleigh, is the eldest son 
of John James, second Lord Rayleigh, and of 
Clara Elizabeth Latouche, daughter of the late 
Capt. Vicars, R.E. He was born Nov. 12, 
1842; was educated at Trinity, Cambridge, 
of which he was a fellow. He was married 
in 1871 to Evelyn Georgiana Mary, second 
daughter of the late James Balfour, Esq:, of 
Whittinghame, N.B., and succeeded to the 
title in 1873. 

Lord Rayleigh’s career at the University 
of Cambridge, which he entered at the age 
of nineteen, was a distinguished one. He 
secured the Sheepshanks astronomical exhibi- 
tion in 1864. The following year he came out 
senior wrangler and first Smith prizeman. 
Trinity college thereupon elected him to a 
fellowship, which he held until his marriage, 
in 1871. In 1879 he was elected to succeed 
Maxwell as director of the Cavendish physical 
laboratory at Cambridge; and he received the 
medal of the Royal society in 1882, and was 
president of section A of the British associa- 
tion in 1882. This brief record of the im- 
portant dates in the life of Lord Rayleigh may 
make his life seem uneventful to the ordinary 
reader; but the student of his writings will 
perceive that the years between his acceptance 
of the fellowship at Cambridge, and his appear- 
ance as president of the British association for 
the advancement of science at Montreal, have 
been eventful in the scientific sense, and full 
of work. It was no ordinary compliment to 
a man to be selected as the successor of Max- 
well. We well remember the commendation 
pronounced by leading English men of science 
before Lord Rayleigh became director of the 
Cavendish laboratory, —‘ strong man, Lord 
Rayleigh ;’ and this simple and peculiarly Eng- 
lish method of commendation still expresses 
the truth to-day. An Englishman said to the 
writer lately, ‘‘ They question the necessity 
of the House of lords and the use of lords. 
Look at Lord Rayleigh! Cannot we expect 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 82.. 


from this select body of men of hereditary 
traits and of inherited possessions great things 
in science, if they will only abandon the subject 
of franchise bills and the marriage of wife’s 
sisters, and follow the path pointed out by Lord 
Rayleigh ?’’ nh 

Lord Brougham, it is true, had scientific 
tastes, and wrote papers on optics ; but, if one 
wishes to compare the physical science of 
Brougham’s time with that of the present, and, 
moreover, to compare the scientific attainment 
of Lord Brougham with Lord Rayleigh, let 
him read Brougham’s papers, and then turn to 
Lord Rayleigh’s investigations on diffraction- 
gratings, and to his various papers on theoret- 
ical optics. Perhaps his most important work 
is the ‘Theory of sound,’ in two volumes, 
begun on the Nile in 1872, and published in 
1877-78. This work has received the com- 
mendation of Helmholtz, and takes the place, 
in theoretical acoustics, which Helmholtz’s 
‘ Tonempfindungen ’ fills in physiological and 
practical acoustics. 

In looking at Lord Rayleigh’s investigations 
before the appearance of the ‘ Theory of sound,’ 
we perceive that he has embodied in this work 
the special investigations and mathematical 
work of nearly ten years. Before the appear- 
ance of this work, the subject of acoustics had 
been treated in a disconnected manner. There 
were geometrical, and what might be called 
synthetic, treatises ; but, with the exception of 
Donkins’s ‘Acoustics,’ there was no generalized 
and analytical work on sound. What Newton 
did for mathematics, when he discovered the 
method of fluxions, or the principles of the 
differential and integral calculus, Lord Ray- 
leigh has’ done for sound. He has bridged 
over, so to speak, angular intervals, has filled 
up discontinuities, and has made the general 
treatment of acoustical equations flexible. In 
reading this treatise, one speedily finds that it 
is not a narrow or limited one. The entire 
range of modern mathematics is employed ; 
and the system of generalized co-ordinates 
receives, in this treatise, perhaps the greatest 
exemplification of its power. One cannot read 
the treatise who has not become familiar with 


AUGUST 29, 1884.] 


the highest flights of modern mathematics. 
Moreover, the lecturer on the great doctrine 
of the conservation of energy will find that this 
book is founded upon this doctrine, and opens 
with its fundamental equations. Lord Ray- 
leigh pointed out, before the appearance of 
this treatise, the use of a peculiar function, ex- 
pressing the law of decay, so to speak, and 
subsidence of 
impulses in 
any system or 
configuration ; 
and although 
he probably 
saw its chief 
employment 
was in the dis- 
cussion of the 
dissipation, 
and frittering 
into heat, of 
sound. - vibra- 
tions in any 
complicated 
system, yet he 
probably saw, 
in common 
with Maxwell, 
that the dissi- 
pation func- 
tion could be 
employed in 
electricity to 
express the os- 
cillation and 
change of elec- 
trical induc- 
tion - currents, 
also, into other forms of energy. 
gent reader of Rayleigh’s ‘Theory of sound’ 
has a great intellectual pleasure in tracing in 
it the methods of reciprocity of similitudes, the 
illustrations of the conservation of energy, and 
must rise from its perusal with a clearer notion 
than he has had before of the unity of physi- 
cal forces, of the great modern truth of the 
equivalence between work and heat. 

Since Lord Rayleigh has become director 


The intelli- 


SCIENCE. 


163 


of the Cavendish laboratory, he has organ- 
ized its scientific work, and has made it a 
centre of physical investigation as well as 
of instruction. His determinations of the 
ohm, which were presented to the Paris con- 
ference of electricians, 1883-84, were gener- 
ally regarded as the most accurate, and formed 
the basis of the unit of electrical resistance now 

formally adopt- 


ed. -He has 
lately investi- 
gated the 


methods of ob- 
taining a prac- 
tical unit of the 
strength of an 
electrical cur- 
rent, and has 
shown that the 
method by the 
deposition of 
silver is capa- 
ble of a high 
degree of ac- 
curacy. EE 
will be seen 
that he unites 
unusual quali- 
ties for direct- 
or of physical 
science, great 
mathematical 
ability, and 
the power to 
execute and 
supervise sci- 
entific investi- 
; gation. 

Lord Rayleigh’s countenance will soon be- 
come familiar to every American man of 
science ; and we hope that even the uneducated 
American will learn to see in him, not the lord 
of the manor of Terling and the patron of 
two livings, but a peer of the distinguished 
school of mathematicians of Cambridge, Eng., 
the pre-eminence of which, in mathematical 
science, American centres of learning can 
honor, but not dispute. 


164 


ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY. 


At the present time there is no satisfactory 
theory of the source of atmospheric electricity. 
Many believe, in the absence of positive evi- 
dence of the production of electricity by the 
operation of evaporation and condensation, 
that the earth has a definite charge, which 
resulted from the operations at its birth, and 
which it has kept undiminished in amount; 
and that thunder-storms are merely the expres- 
sion of local accumulation due to currents of 
air. 
Mr. G. Le Goarant de Tromelin, in a late 
number of the Comptes rendus, advances the 
opinion that atmospheric electricity is due to 
the friction of the air, humid or dry, upon 
the surface of land or water, and calls atten- 
tion to Armstrong’s hydro-electric machine, 
which produced electricity of high tension by 
the friction of jets of steam in issuing from 
narrow orifices. According to Tromelin, the 
wind, in skimming over the surface of water, 
carries water from the crests of the waves, 
which play the part of the comb of Armstrong’s 
machine. ‘The roughness of the soil does the 
same on land when a damp wind passes over 
it. The charge thus produced is collected upon 
the vesicles of clouds. The potential energy 
of a cloud depends upon its configuration and 
its temperature. If this configuration changes 
under the effect of condensation or congelation 
of the aqueous particles, the cloud absorbs a 
certain amount of energy, which must be found 
again under the form of an augmentation of 
potential energy: hence there is an electrical 
interchange constantly going on in the cloud 
region of the air; and when these changes are 
rapid, and great in amount, we have thunder- 
storms and other great electrical manifesta- 
tions. 

The advocates of Mr. Tromelin’s views can 
point to the effect of the blasts of sand driven 
by the wind upon the pyramids, and to the 
extraordinary electrical manifestations upon 
high peaks in Colorado, where every aiguille 
seems to hiss, at times, with the escaping elec- 
trical charge. 

We believe that the time has arrived when 
the scientific world no longer looks upon 
electrical phenomena as isolated and separate 
from the phenomena of heat and light, or 
chemical reactions. We cannot believe that 
any change can take place in the arrange- 
ment and mutual attractions of molecules 
without electrical manifestations. If we are 
to have a thermal chemistry, we must also 
have an electrical chemistry ; and the history 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 82, _ 


of the energy of a chemical reaction is not 
completely told when we sum up the heat of 
this reaction, unless we count also the heat- 
equivalent of the resulting electrical changes. 
If we were, therefore, to frame a theory of 
atmospheric electricity, we should begin it 
with the assertion that every change in the 
configuration or arrangement of particles of 
matter is accompanied by an electrical dis- 
turbance; and, as far as this assertion goes, 
all the present theories of atmospheric elec- 
tricity would fall under it as special cases. 

The object of this paper, however, is not 
to frame hypotheses, but to trace the recent 
work which has been done in systematic 
observation of atmospheric electricity. It is 
only to systematic observation that we can 
evidently look for information which will be 
of immediate practical value to our signal- 
service. Unfortunately, no systematic cbser- 
vations have been made for any length of time 
in any country. 

The electrical conference at Paris, held last 
April, was adjourned from a meeting of the 
previous year; and committees were appointed 
to study the subject of atmospheric electricity 
and earth-currents in different countries. The 
time was evidently too short for such a stu- 
pendous undertaking ; but the conference did 
valuable work in stimulating systematic obser- 
vation, and creating a bureau at Berne, to 
which it was recommended that observations 
made in different countries should be sent. 
The agitation of the subject of such observa- 
tions called forth several papers. Professor 
Roiti of Florence presented to the conference 
the result of observations made through sev- 
eral months with a self-registering apparatus. 
He found that the zero of Mascart’s electrom- 
eter changed from time to time, and traced 
this change to the mechanical effect of the 
sulphuric acid upon the platinum wire con- 
nected with the electrometer needle. He 
therefore dispensed with the Leyden jar of the 
Thomson and the Mascart electrometer, and 
suspended the needle by a very fine silver wire 
which was connected directly to the positive 
pole of a water-battery of many cells. This 
instrument was found to work well. Professor 
Roiti believes that local disturbances have 
creat effect, and that these local effects must 
be carefully taken into account in comparing 
simultaneous observations over large areas. 

Athough the scientific world has generally 
accepted Thomson’s quadrant electrometer, or 
some modification of it (like that of Mascart’s 
or Clifton’s), as the most suitable instrument’ 
for the observation of atmospheric electricity, 


AvuausT 29, 1884. ] 


and has also adopted Thomson’s water-drop- 
per (which consists merely of an insulated can 
of water connected with the quadrants of the 
electrometer, the water issuing from this can 
in small drops, reducing it to the potential of 
the air), still there are those who believe that 
this method does not give correct results. 
Professor Palmieri, who has been connected so 
long with the meteorological stations on Mount 
Vesuvius, rejects Thomson’s electrometer, and 
the water-dropper also. He believes that the 
electricity of the air is not led to the water- 
dropper by conduction, and that the insulated 
water-can does not take the electricity of the 
air by any similar process. According to his 
views, the electrical state of the air can be as- 
certained by its inductive effect upon a disk of 
metal which is suddenly elevated or lowered in 
the air; and he has devised a special electrom- 
eter, strongly resembling Peltier’s electrome- 
ter, and a special apparatus for elevating and 
lowering a disk. He, moreover, does not 
think that continuous photographic registra- 
tions are of much use, since electrical obser- 
vations are only of value when accompanied 
by observations on the condition of the sky 
with respect to clouds, and upon the direction 
of the wind. 

Professor Palmieri’s methods and instru- 
ments do not impress us very favorably. There 
must be great difficulty in insuring good insula- 
tion by his method of suddenly elevating a disk 
in the air. Moreover, his theory of induction 
does not appear to us to be well founded. The 
Thomson method of observing atmospheric 
electricity seems to promise better results than 
any other; yet it is not by any means perfect, 
especially in its practical adaptation to the 
needs of a government signal-service. The ex- 
periments which are being conducted at the 
physical laboratory of Harvard college show 
that in the American climate it is extremely 
difficult to secure a regular flow of water from 
the water-dropper, and to obtain good insula- 
tion, on account of frost and snow. During 
the months which are free from snow and ice, 
heavy showers wet the insulating stand of the 
water-dropper, and thus destroy the insulation. 
The latter evil can be obviated to some degree 
by a well-constructed screen of wood. It has 
been found preferable to neglect the insulation 
of the can, and allow the drops of water to 
fall upon a metallic plate, thrust out from the 
side of the room in which the electrometer is 
situated, by means of a glass cylinder through 
the centre of which runs a wire which connects 
the metallic plate with the electrometer. The 
drops of water fall, in turn, from the metallic 


SCIENCE. 


165 


plate, and reduce this to the potential of the 
air, while the insulation of the metallic disk 
can be perfectly maintained in all weathers. 
Preliminary experiments have also been made 
upon an arrangement which promises to be of 
use in winter, when the weather would prevent 
the use of the water-dropper. ‘This arrange- 
ment consists merely of a wheel provided with 
metallic brushes. ‘The wheel is run rapidly by 
simple clock-work, and is insulated. ‘The 
brushes touch one end of an insulated con- 
ductor exposed to the air, and then touch a 
conductor connected with the earth, in this 
way imitating the action of the water-dropper. 
An arrangement of this kind, which will work 
in all changes of weather, is essential in the 
climate of the United States. 

The preliminary experiments at the labora- 
tory of Harvard college have also shown that 
it is essential that the electrometer should not 
be very distant from the water-dropper or its 
equivalent. A naked iron wire connected the 
electrometer with a water-dropper which was 
about three hundred feet distant at the top 
of a building, and at least sixty feet from the 
ground. ‘The photographic record of the ex- 
cursions of the electrometer needle showed 
that it moved irregularly to and fro under the 
influence of the fluctuation of potential along 
the wire. There is evidently a certain relation 
between the size of the conductor, which is 
reduced to the potential of the air by the suc- 
cession of water-drops, and the number of ori- 
fices from which the water must issue in order 
to reduce the conductor and connecting wire to 
the potential of the air. 

The photographic records that have been 
made show unmistakably that north-west winds 
in the colder months are preceded by a rise 
in the electrical potential of the air, and that 
during an east wind the potential falls. These 
general indications seem to be independent of 
loeal effects, and lead us to believe that elec- 
trical signal-station observations will be useful 
in predicting changes of weather. Photographs 
of the varying electrical state of the air could 
be forwarded to Washington from different 
stations, and a map could be made on which 
stations at the same electrical potential could 
be connected; and thus any law connecting 
the electrical state of the atmosphere with 
other meteorological changes could probably 
be ascertained. Much remains to be done, 
however, in ascertaining the best position for 
such signal-stations, and in perfecting simple 
and practical apparatus for the use of com- 
paratively unskilled observers. 

JOHN TROWBRIDGE. 


166 


IRRIGATION IN THE UPPER MISSOURI 
AND YELLOWSTONE VALLEYS. 


In crossing the great plains over the Union 
Pacific railroad, through Nebraska and Wyo- 
ming, or over the Kansas division through Kan- 
sas and Colorado, one is struck not only by 
the aridity of the country, but also by the fact 
that no streams of water exist there, adequate, 
if completely utilized, to irrigate any consider- 
able part of that immense area. One is also 
struck by the monotony of the physical fea- 
tures, the absence of mountains or hilly areas, 
as well as of timber. The possibility of set- 
tling this vast region seems very remote; and 
only the discovery of some new and as yet 
untried method can prevent these plains from 
constituting, for ages to come, the great natural 
barrier between the east and the west, — a bar- 
rier far more complete than that furnished by 
the Rocky Mountains themselves. 

This condition exists to a greater or less ex- 
tent as we go southward, though the direction 
of this belt of uninhabitable country lies some- 
what to the west of south. Before I had seen 
Dakota or Montana, I feared, when reflecting 
upon these facts, that such a belt might extend 
northward also, and thus, as it were, actually 
divide the United States into two sections, 
marked off from each other by a permanent 
physical obstruction. This problem seemed 
to me of the utmost importance, for it is the 
remote future that must be considered; and if 
the country has proved capable of so nearly 
dividing upon an east-and-west line, where 
there does not exist a single natural feature 
to render the two sections distinct, what might 
not be apprehended at some future day, when 
sectional differences arise between the east and 
the west, if cut off from each other by an unin- 
habited desert five hundred miles in width? 

It was therefore with special interest that 
I studied the northern extension of this belt. 
The fact that the isohyetals actually curve 
eastward, i.e., that the precipitation is less as 
we go northward on a given meridian, led me 
to suppose that the difficulties would not dimin- 
ish. It is certain, however, that the decreased 
evaporation, due to the reduced temperatures 
of the more northern parts of the dry belt, 
much more than compensate for the difference 
of rainfall. Itis, moreover, currently believed 
by the inhabitants of these more northern dis- 
tricts, that the atmosphere is constantly kept 
somewhat moist by the influence of the Pacific 


coast and the Upper Columbia region. A. 


short sojourn on the Upper Missouri and Yel- 
lowstone Rivers convinced me of the accuracy 


SCIENCE. 


[Von. IV., No. 82, 


of this view. The general movement of the 
atmosphere is from west to east. ‘The moun- 
tains to the westward are not high, — at least, 
except at isolated points, — and do not, there- 
fore, suffice to condense all the moisture that 
passes over them. Near the sources of these 
streams, as at Bozeman, crops are raised with- 
out irrigation, whenever they can withstand the 
frosts, although the rainfall is there only six- 
‘teen inches per annum; and the same is true 
for eastern Dakota, with no greater precipita- 
tion. It is also a matter of record, that the 
temperature on this latitude diminishes toward 
the east, and that colder weather prevails in 
Minnesota than in Dakota, and in Dakota than 
in Montana. The people attribute this to the 
occurrence of what they denominate ‘ Chinook 
winds ;’ i.e., winds laden with moisture, and 
moderated in temperature from the warmer 
regions of the Pacific slope. 

Notwithstanding this, it must still be con- 
fessed, that, for all the lower parts of this region 
of country, —the proper valleys of these rivers, 
— irrigation is essential to successful agri- 
culture. All statements to the contrary are 
inspired by interest, usually by the railroad in- 
terest, which hopes thereby to increase travel. 
A number of instances of this came to my 
notice, one in particular, in which a resident 
who had published such a statement in a rail- 
road circular was found reaping a field of un- 
filled oats, six inches high, to be stacked for 
fodder. | 

Is this country, then, inhabitable, i.e., capa-: 
ble of sustaining a population? No one will 
deny that it now possesses advantages for 
stock-raising ; but a country which is only fit 
for flocks and herds can never have sufficient 
population to give it importance in a state. A 
mining region may attract enough inhabitants 
to become somewhat influential, and will re- 
main so as long as the mines continue to yield. 
But the only permanent and reliable basis of: 
population is agriculture. It is not necessary, 
however, that all the land be devoted to agri- 
culture: in fact, it really needs that only a 
small portion of the soil be actually under the 
plough to support comfortably a region in which’ 
other operations can be carried on in parts not 
adapted to agriculture. If that portion of the 
Upper Missouri and Yellowstone valleys which 
lies between the river and the first general rise 
or terrace, including the valleys of the numer- 
ous coulées, or creeks, that flow into it as far 
as the same level would extend, could be ade- 
quately irrigated, this area would furnish an 
agricultural basis, sufficient, with the great 
stock-raising region that lies back of it, to 


Aveust 29, 1884.] 


ouarantee the ultimate scttlement of the coun- 
try to any required degrce of density. I speak 
of the valleys of these rivers, because it is along 
these that railroads are either already con- 
structed, or are soon to be constructed ; and 
also, because, whatever may be the case else- 
where, a large part of these valleys far above 
the flood-line is alluvial in character, and highly 
fertile. ° 

Now, in comparing this region once more 
with that of the Upper Platte, whether with the 
south fork in Colorado, or with the north fork in 
Wyoming, one great distinguishing fact of the 
utmost importance presents itself. This fact 
is, that while, if every drop of the water that 
flows in the Platte and its tributaries could be 
‘turned upon the land, it would only irrigate a 
small fraction of its own valley, we have in the 
Missouri and Yellowstone, even in August, a 
volume of water large enough, if economically 
applied to this object, to convert the whole of 
the arable land lying adjacent to them into a 
rich agricultural region. 

Major Powell and his able assistants have 
carefully calculated the relation of water-supply 
to irrigable territory ; and they come to the con- 
clusion that in Utah a flow of one cubic foot 
per second will irrigate one hundred acres of 
land. If this should prove a low estimate for 
Utah, where evaporation is so rapid that it 
dries up large rivers almost in their course, 
it would certainly be ample in the region of 
Chinook winds. 

The volume of water carried by the Upper 
Missouri and Yellowstone for that part of their 
course of which we are speaking has not been 
definitely ascertained. The average annual dis- 
charge of the Missouri River at its mouth was 
determined by Humphreys and Abbott at 120,- 
000 cubic feet per second. A measurement 
was once taken at the source of the Upper 
Missouri, i.e., at Three Forks, at a time when 
the river was found to be four feet below high 
water, and eight inches above low water, when 
the volume was found to be 8,541 cubic feet 
per second. Between these two great ex- 
tremes we are compelled to estimate for our 
present purposes. Perhaps 50,000 cubic feet 
per second would not be an excessive estimate 
for the volume of the Missouri below the mouth 
of the Yellowstone ; or, assuming, as is claimed, 
an equal volume for each branch, 25,000 feet 
each for the two rivers above their junction. 
The calculation should not be based upon low 
water, since little use can be made of water in 
August and September, when the rivers are low- 
est ; while it is in May and June, when the water 
is still high, that irrigation is chiefly required. 


SCIENCE. 


167 


Each of these rivers, could all their water be 
utilized, would irrigate, at the above estimate, 
2,500,000 acres, or nearly 4,000 square miles. 
This average would hold for points higher up ; 
since the supply of these streams from their 
tributaries scarcely exceeds the evaporation, 
and the Missouri is not much larger at Fort 
Union than at Fort Benton. The distance 
between these points, by the windings of the 
river, is 669 miles. If the valley of this river 
could be irrigated to a width, on an average, of 
two miles, this would make, at the most, less 
than 1,400 square miles of surface. This, how- 
ever, would be reduced in many ways. ‘The 
smaller curves would be straightened. Much 
of the way the valley is narrow, and for long 
stretches, especially in the upper portion, it is 
reduced to a mere canon: 1,000 square miles, 
or 640,000 acres, would be a large estimate 
for this portion of the Upper Missouri, which 
certainly would not require more than half of 
the available water. The same would be true 
of the Yellowstone ; and thus, after thoroughly 
irrigating their own valleys, these great rivers 
might, should this be found practicable, furnish 
large quantities of water, to be conducted from 
points near their elevated sources to other out- 
lying fertile tracts, which would also become 
the centres of a wide-spread and thrifty popula- 
tion. 

To this scheme, I am aware, many minor 
objections may be raised, such as the destruc- 
tion of navigation, about which there would be 
differences of opinion, but especially respecting 


the method by which it could be put into prac- 


tice. This latter question, neglecting all de- 
tails, we may now briefly consider in its most 
general aspects. 

It is in the nature of things, that the settlers 
themselves of the districts in question can 
never carry out this extensive system of irri- 
gation. To be made a practical success, it 
would require an immense outlay of capital. 
The few who will go there, knowing that no 
such system exists, could never afford to in- 
augurate it. The effect of its not being done 
must be to prevent its ever being done: there- 
fore, under the ordinary laws of supply and 
demand, it can never be accomplished ; yet no 
one in this age of great engineering enterprises 
will deny the physical possibility of such a 
scheme. Scarcely any one, probably, could 
be found to question its importance. It must 
be clear to all, that, if the means of readily 
irrigating these lands existed, that country 
would be rapidly filled up by a thriving agri- 
cultural population, which would bring after 
it its customary train of civilizing agencies. 


168 SCIENCE 


And the political-economist knows that this 
means increase of national wealth, while the 
statesman sees in it enhanced national stability 
and power. Yet, by the natural method on 
which civilization advances, the conditions to 
this much-needed settlement can never be 
secured. 

Notwithstanding this, I believe this end will 
yet be reached. ‘The human race is rapidly 
outgrowing the natural or genetic method. 
There is another method, scarcely as yet rec- 
ognized by the political-economists, but which 
is being more and more resorted to by enlight- 
ened men for overcoming such great physical 
obstacles to the attainment of clearly-perceived 
advantages. This is the method of foresight, 
or calculation. Individuals employ it for the 
attainment of both private and public ends. 
Capitalists combine, and lead civilization into 
regions it would otherwise never have pene- 
trated. It is very probable that a gigantic 
irrigating company will some time be formed, 
which will, by degrees, accomplish more or 
less satisfactorily the desired object. But, in 
such case, great evils are likely to result, — evils 
analogous to those that have arisen from per- 
mitting great corporations to construct much- 
needed transcontinental lines of railway. An 
immense irrigation monopoly would inevitably 
erow up, which would largely neutralize the 
benefits derived from the project. Settlement 
would be impeded by excessive water-rates ; 
and endless litigation, and conflicting legal 
decisions, would constantly deter population, 
and jeopardize industry. 

A far better plan would undoubtedly be state 
action. If the territory of Montana possessed 
the means to undertake such a scheme, it could 
scarcely fail to prove highly remunerative at 
the end of a certain period. But here some 
such an obstacle exists as in the case of mere 
spontaneous settlement. Not until these tracts 
are already well-peopled will the territory pos- 
sess the means of inducing settlement ; and we 
have again a ‘ vicious circle,’ which ends where 
it begins. 

The only unobjectionable plan, as it seems to 
me, is national action. The nation is the lar- 
gest of all capitalists, and, at the same time, 
has no tendencies towards monopcly. If we 
could obtain the same degree of collective fore- 
sight in the general government as exists in 
the average capitalist, nothing could be easier 
than for the United States, acting as a corpo- 
ration that seeks only its own interest, not only 
to secure the particular end of which we are 
now speaking, but to develop its own resources, 
and increase its wealth and prosperity in num- 


[Vou. 1V., No. 82. 


berless other directions, by the ordinary exer- 
cise of such foresight. 

The present case seems to be one in which 
the nation has a special interest, rendering it 
peculiarly fitting that it should extend its aid. 
It is of the utmost importance as a matter of 
national security, and of immunity from dan- 
gers which no statesman can foresee, that the 
-rapidly-growing west, with its peculiar interests, 
be cemented as speedily and firmly as possible 
to the east; and nothing can so effectually 
secure this end as to make the population of 
the entire Union an unbroken phalanx from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

Lester F. Warp. 


LAWSUITS AGAINST GRUBS AND 
GRASSHOPPERS. 


EVERYBODY knows that migrations of grasshop- 
pers were a hard plague in biblical times, and even 
before them. Ever since those remote centuries this 
plague has not ceased to disturb mankind, accompa- 
nied or followed by failure of crops, by famine and 
pestilence. Wherever these hideous guests arrived, 
the most persistent war has been waged against them, 
but it has always ended with the defeat of mankind. 
The consequences were the same as in all other de- 
feats in those remote times. When men were help- 
less, the intervention of the law or the intervention 
of God was called upon to interfere, and to stop the 
ravaging intruders. ‘The reasoning of the people was 
indeed rational, considering the low state of culture 
and education. The officers and representatives of 
the law, as well as the clergy, the natural interpreters 
between the people and God, were obliged to submit 
to the wishes of the helpless and therefore unruly 
people. It is to be supposed that both acted in good 
faith; nevertheless, we find sometimes indications of 
a more advanced intelligence, and it is evident that 
they have then submitted only because resistance was 
impossible. As such proceedings would have been 
too ridiculous and useless if not done in a seemingly 
lawful and imposing form, we find that by and by 
the development of laws against obnoxious creatures 
in the middle ages was perfected. A defender was 
given to the miscreant, as it was deemed lawful that 
he could not be judged and condemned without being 
heard andjdefended. According to the opinion of 
the old jurists, even to the devil a defender cannot 
be denied : therefore we find a number of curious 
law cases reported in those times. In the south of 
France, a pig which had killed a child was con- 
demned and hanged. Some thieves were hanged, 
together with their dogs; and the Lex Carolina con- 
tains a number of paragraphs, not very fit to be 
repeated, which imposed the sentence of death on 
animals. Lawsuits against creatures obnoxious to 
men, and injuring their property, are often reported 
by the chroniclers, sometimes with a certain kind of 


AvucGustT 29, 1884. ] 


humor. Grasshoppers and grubs were the most fre- 
quent offenders. 

Bartholomaeus Chassanaeus, a jurist of repute in 
the old territory of Burgundy, proposed a course of 
proceedings proper for such a lawsuit, and its conse- 
quences, — the judgment of excommunication. He 
says, after written summonses are served, and after 
a judge is appointed, two advocates are to be chosen, 


—one for the people, the other for the grasshoppers. _ 


The first begins the case against the defendant, and 
concludes finally that the grasshoppers should be 
burnt. The other advocate objects, and answers that 
the order cannot be issued until after a judgment has 
been rendered that the grasshoppers should leave the 
country. If this was not done by the defendant in 
a specified term of days, the thunder of excommuni- 
cation was to be thrown on the defendant. 

A later jurist, Job Ludolf of Saxony, a man 
with the extraordinary knowledge of twenty-five lan- 
guages, speaks in 1694 at some length against the 
proceedings just related. He declares himself to be 
pained by the lack of knowledge of the law of ex- 
communication shown by Bartholomaeus, and by the 
miserable arrangement of the process as proposed by 
him. Apparently it was at that time not the fashion 
of to-day among lawyers to begin with the slur of ‘‘a 
slight difference of opinion, as emitted by my honored 
friend on the other side.’’ Ludolf says, when the 
greater excommunication is intended, the defendant 
has to be summoned before the court in the pre- 
scribed manner the first, the second, the third, and 
the fourth time, and then has to be brought before 
the court. Then comes the answer of the defend- 
ant. The argument and the principle of law must be 
given, so that it may appear whether the controversy 
consists in a difference about facts or law. It must be 
decided whether witnesses are needed, and on whom 
the burden of proof falls. Other parties interested in 
the case ought to be thought of : for instance, tame 
and wild birds should be heard, because they are in 
danger of being deprived instantaneously of their 
favorite food; the Acridophagi (grasshopper-eating 
people) should be heard, as they could otherwise take 
exceptions, and move the nullity of the case, or they 
could by appeal from the judgment, which injures 
other parties and is therefore unjust, suspend the 
execution of said judgment. Further, it would be 
unjust to compel grasshoppers to leave and to go to 
neighboring territories; and perhaps it would be more 
to the point to allow them to be eaten by any one 
who likes them. The proceeding proposed by Bar- 
tholomaeus, says LudoJf, could never be proved to 
agree with the decree of the Holy See; and nothing 
like it is to be found in the Pontificale Romanum. 
There is a threefold excommunication, — the minor, 
the major, and the anathema (which is the end of all), 
— ‘that the culprit’s body is given over to Satan, to 
save the spirit for the day of the last judgment.’’ 
After all, it seems that lawsuits in those days have 
been very similar to those of to-day, —not shorter, 
not less complicated, except that nothing is men- 
tioned about retainers and obligatory fees. 

It is only right to state that Ludolf concludes with 


SCIENCE. 


169 


the following words: ‘ But of what use is all this 
against disgusting beasts?’ It is praiseworthy, that, 
among the twenty-five languages known by him, he 
chose just the one known by everybody to express 
feelings which could easily have been followed by 
more than dangerous consequences in those dark 
times. 

In 1479 appeared in the canton of Berne, Swit- 
zerland, an enormous number of grubs; and it was 
feared that the whole crop would be destroyed: there- 
fore the council of the commonwealth sent a deputa- 
tion to the Archbishop of Lausanne, with the petition 
to banish the obnoxious creatures from the canton. 
Of course, it is not stated that the neighboring can- 
tons had agreed to receive the grubs, but the arch- 
bishop seeins not to have considered the incongruity 
of said petition. He gave an affirmative answer, and 
authorized the priest at Berne to impose the banish- 
ment of the grubs, providing for strict observance of 
the customs and laws. After a prayer, an advocate 
for the people was chosen. He notified the court of 
his appointment, and proposed the citation of the 
grubs. On a certain day some of the grubs were 
brought before the court, and their advocate chosen. 
The priest, followed by a large crowd of pious people 
in a solemn procession, went to the cemetery, to the 
fields, to the vineyards, and to the banks of the river, 
to serve the summons on the defendant. He deliv- 
ered the following, at that time probably courteous, 
address as warning and as citation to the felons: — 

‘““Ye hideous and degraded creatures, ye grubs! 
There was nothing like ye in the ark of Noah. By 
orders of my august superior, the archbishop of Lau- 
sanne, and in obedience to the holy church, I com- 
mand ye all and every one to disappear, during the 
next six days, from every place where food grows for 
man or beast. If not obedient, I enjoin ye to appear 
on the sixth day, at one o’clock, afternoon, at Willis- 
burg, before the Archbishop of Lausanne.’’ 

As some righteous people objected because the cita- 
tion was not exactly made in the manner provided 
by law, the case was postponed, and, after a lawful 
citation, another day was named. Then the process 
began. The advocate chosen for the defendant was 
Jean Perrodet, a well-known dogmatical and obsti- 
nate disputant. Perhaps it will appear somewhat 
doubtful if the nomination of this advocate fulfilled 
exactly the demands of the law and custom of the 
time, as it is stated that Mr. Perrodet died a short 
time before his nomination. Nevertheless, the case 
and the complaint were read ; and, as no defender ap- 
peared, the judgment was given for the plaintiff. 

‘*We, Benedictus of Monferrand, Archbishop of 
Lausanne, condemn and excommunicate Ye obnox- 
ious worms and grubs, that nothing shall be left of 
Ye, except such parts as can be useful to man.’’ 

The government ordered its officers to report the 
consequences of the excommunication; but the saucy 
chronicler says ‘‘ that no success had been obtained 
— probably on account of the sins of the people.’’ 
In the year 1338 immense swarms of grasshoppers 
came from Tartary to Hungary and Austria, and ar- 
rived the day of St. Bartholomew at Bozen, South 


Asin 
oul 


iN 
A 


FIG. 1.—BOTTOM OF THE SEA AT A DEPTH OF TWELVE HUNDRED METRES, PEOPLED WITH 
COELENTERATES (MOPSEA), IN THE BRANCHES OF W HICH CRARS (GALATHEA) CRAWL ABOUT, 
AND BY SILICEOUS SPONGES ATTACHED TO CORALS (APHROCALLISTES), OR ANCHORED IN A 
VASE (CHONDROCLADIA). 


AUGUST 29, 1884.] 


Tyrol. The migration lasted seventeen days, from 
morning till night. The grasshoppers came down and 
ate every thing, grape-vines excepted. The swarms 
were so thick that the sun could not be seen, and 
they went farther to the shores of the Mediterrane- 
an. But the eggs and the young ones hatched from 
them were left behind: therefore a process was begun 
against them. The grasshoppers were condemned 
and excommunicated by the priest of Kaltern. The 
judgment was framed as follows: — 

** As grasshoppers are obnoxious to the country and 
to men, be it resolved by the court that the priest 
shall, by candles burning from the pulpit, condemn 
them in the name of God, of his Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost.’’ 

A similar process was begun in the year 1516 
against caterpillars in Troyes, France. 
H. A. HAGEN, 


THE LOWER FORMS OF LIFE DREDGED 
BY THE TALISMAN.! 


ACTINIAS, generally known as sea-anemones, at- 
tract. attention both, by the beauty of their forms 
and by their bright and varied colors. They are 
~ represented:;in the, 
deepest waters, and. 
some forms gath- 
ered on bottoms at 
from four thousand 
to five thousand 
metres possess a 
color as beautiful 
as that of the shore 
species.: 

Madrepores have 
a carbonate-of-lime 
skeleton. They are 
present sometimes 
in abundance to a 
depth of twenty-. 
five hundred me- — 


tres. Madrepore 
branchus generally 
covers large dis- 


tricts, and often the 
cords of trawls 
dragging on bot- 
toms inhabited by 
Lophelia were torn 
in shreds. Solita- 
ry madrepores are 
very numerous, and especially affect muddy bottoms; 
and they have beautifully varied forms, some resem- 
bling a cup, others a horn, and still others having the 
form of flowers. 
Various forms of alcyonarians, a special group of 
corals, were found at considerable depths. At the 
Cape Verde Islands the same species of coral which 
is found in the Mediterranean, and is of so great 


1 Abridged from the French of H. FitHon in Za Nature. 
For previous notices see Science, Nos. 62, 68, 71, and 78. 


SCIENCE. 


Fie. 2.— GLOBIGERINA AND ORBULINA, MUCH ENLARGED. 
(From Science et nature.) 


171 


commercial value, was found at a depth of a hun- 
dred metres. Between five hundred and six hundred 
metres there was found an interesting alcyonarian, 
Coralliopsis Perieri, which much resembled Dana’s 
Corallium secundum of the Fiji Islands. Isis and 
Mopseas (see fig. 1), with slender rods formed of a 
series of calcareous cylinders supporting flower-like 
polyps with eight bi-pinnated tentacles, were taken 
at twenty-five hundred metres. Other forms, with 
gorgons, having a horny axis with metallic reflections 
like gold, people with their graceful forms the abysses 
of the ocean. 

The sponges form one of the most interesting parts 

of the Talisman collection. One generally thinks of 
these as always possessing the characteristics of our 
commercial sponges. When one sees their wonderful 
tissues, formed of needles interwoven with glistering 
white rock-crystal, one is impressed, first with sur- 
prise, and then with admiration. Sponges are dis- 
tributed from the coast to the greatest depths explored 
(five thousand and five metres). The littoral or shal- 
low-water forms have a horny or calcareous skeleton, 
while those living at great depths have a skeleton 
formed of siliceous spicules, sometimes free, some- 
times joined into a network. The most remarkable 
siliceous sponges are Holtenia, shaped like a bird’s 
nest, having at the 
circumference, or 
else only at the 
base, a long cheve- 
lure of siliceous 
threads, enabling it 
to anchor to the 
bottom; Euplectel- 
las, having the form 
of a long trellised 
horn; and Hyalo- 
nema and Chondro- 
_chladia (see fig. 1), 
which thrust into 
the mire a strong 
twisted fringe of 
long spicules, re- 
sembling spun 
glass. Among the 
siliceous sponges, 
in which the spic- 
ules form a kind of 
network, Aphrocal- 
listes is most re- 
markable, a speci- 
men of which is 
represented in the 
plate. In this sponge the needles form hexagonal 
meshes, Prolongations like glove-fingers, more or 
less distorted, detach themselves from the central 
part; and some of them, on coming in contact with 
solid bodies, or rocks, or corals, attach themselves 
very closely. The upper portion of the sponge (see 
fig. 1) is closed by an elegantly formed siliceous bas- 
ket-work. As the colony increases, several of these 
trellises are formed. 

The last animals to be mentioned, the Protozoa, 


172 SCIENCE. 


are the most degraded in organization, and inhabit 
the bottoms of all depths. Foraminifera are so plenty 
at some points, that Mr. Schlumberger has counted 


Temp"® Ent! fa Ent. ie aaa Entre Hae anaries jEntreles se CapVert; ese 
Mogador. ; NesCanariec Yes Ilesdu Cap Vert. I tes Acorea, ! Rochefart. 


T 


i 


1325 


983 =~- - - 


At | 


6000 } ——-—-—_—--______ 


Fig. 3. — THERMOMETRIC CURVES, AND CORRESPONDING 
DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN-BED. 


more than a hundred thousand of them in a cubic 
centimetre of mire. They live at the bottom of the 
ocean, and not, as formerly supposed, at the surface; 
and the accumulations from their tests (see fig. 2) 


iles 
du Cap Vert Mer des Sargasses 


\ St Antonio Wes Agores 
0, 


ee ~~ 
X= 


Fig. 4.— PROFILE OF THE OCEAN-BOTTOM TRAVERSED BY THE TALISMAN. 


make what is termed the ‘ Globigerina ooze,’ and will 
form, in the course of time, beds like those of certain 
geological horizons of the tertiary of Europe. 


—— WX QO = SSNS 
ARRAN EQ 
MII AKA MMMQMM AS 


[Vor. IV., No. 82 


In 1868, during a cruise of the Porcupine, Mr. 
Cacpenter and Sir Wyville Thomson discovered, 
among the particles of lime brought up by the dredes; 
a sort of jelly which made very slow movements. 
Within it were calcareous corpuscles of peculiar 
shape, which some naturalists thought to be the prod- 
ucts of the protoplasm itself, while others thought 
it the débris of calcareous algae. Huxley called it 
Bathybius Haeckeli. This discovery caused a great 
sensation; and it was questioned whether this living 
slime did not at certain periods undergo evolu- 
tion, and then give rise to new creatures. Wyville 
Thomson could not find Bathybius, and it was dis- 
covered that previous observers had been deceived 
by a chemical reaction. The supposed Monera was 
nothing more than a simple gelatinous precipitate 
of sulphate of lime, as it forms when concentrated 
alcohol is turned into sea-water. The mode of pres- 
ervation of the lime had created Bathybius. 

Here the general description of the results of the 
cruise of the Talisman is brought to a close. Yet I 
have thought it would be interesting to show the 
result of our researches on temperatures at great 
depths; and I have drawn two curves (fig. 3), the 
upper showing the thermometric records, the lower 
the corresponding depths. On examination it will 
be noticed that they do not always agree. Thus the 
lowest temperature we found was at 3,482 metres, 
while it was a little higher at 5,000 and 6,000 metres. 
From this the importance of deep currents, and the 
part they play in the distribution of life in the ocean, 
may be judged. 

Another curve (fig. 4), drawn by Mr. Milne- 
Edwards, shows the profile of the bottom of the sea 
between the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores, on 
the one hand, and between these islands and France, 
on the other. Our relief differs considerably from 
that indicated on the German charts recently pub- 
lished (see dotted line). 


KOREAN CURIOS. 


PossIBLy the most curious things in the possession 
of the Korean embassy, which recently visited the 
United States, were two thumb-rings (fig. 1), worn 
by the Prince Min Yong Ik one at a time, and usually 
on the thumb of the right hand, apparently rather 
more as an object to play with than 
as an ornament. 

One of them, supposed by the 
prince to be jade, was found, on ex- 
amination, to be serpentine; hard- 
ness (4.5, and specific gravity 2.62. 
It was;white in color, with an oily 
lustre, and had on it a number of 
small brown stainings resembling an 
oxidation of iron. In the centre of 
each spot, apparently forming a nu- 
cleus, was a small, dendritic, moss- 
like marking. This ring measured 34 millimetres 
across the opening,’ the width of the opening being 22° 
millimetres. Its length. was 28.5 millimetres. One 


FRANCE 
Rochefort 


Chassiron 


Av@ustT 29, 1884.] 


edge was ground off quite sharp, and the other 
rounded. One of the rings was noticed to be slightly 
flattened on one side. 


Fia. 1. 


The spectacles worn by the embassy (fig. 2) were 
rather curious as regards form and size. They were 
made of transparent, colorless, and smoky quartz, and 
are worn more to rest the eyes than as aids to sight. 


One pair, with glasses of smoky quartz, was very 


curiously marked, or rather streaked, showing the 
twinning of the crystal; and this feature was com- 
mented upon by them as a desirable one. The mate- 
rial of the glasses is obtained from Kyeung Ju, in the 
south-western part of the province, and is manufac- 


tured by thirteen spectacle-makers of note; there 


being also, in addition to these, a number of inferior 
workmen. The frames are made of horn, measuring 
five inches and a half in length, and two 
inches in width across the glasses. 

The amber beads which they wear (fig. 
3) are all imported from Europe, and a 
peculiar, long, rounded one was used as a 
button. | 

A curious button (fig. 4) is also used by 
them. It is worn on each side of the 
head, behind the ears, sewed to a velvet 
band; and a string attached to the hat 
passes under the button to hold the hat 
on the head. When made of gold, they denote the 
highest rank, and are worn only by the prince. 

Every Korean woman wears two rings, always 
exactly similar in every respect, and as a rule per- 
fectly plain. These are half oval in form, and are 
made either of gold, silver, amber, or coral. The 
coral, until recently, has been brought from China, 
and must have been cut from 
very large branches of this ma- 
terial. 

They themselves say that 
their ladies are the best, or 
rather the most elaborately, 
dressed women in the world. 
In confirmation of this, the 
prince gave as his reason for leaving his wife at 
home, that her clothes would not have stood the wear 
of the journey. 


Fie. 3. 


Fie. 4. 


SCIENCE. 


173 


The prince described some crystals which must 
be the most remarkable yet known for quartz, if there 
is no error in his statements. They were described 
as hexagonal in form, and in length six times the 
height of a man, while over one foot across. After 
being shown a sketch of stalactites, the prince made 
a drawing of the crystals which showed the distinct 
terminal planes of quartz; and he insisted that they 
were not the same as the stalactites. They were 
described as red and white in color. It is barely pos- 
sible from their form, that they are crystals of trap; 
but from their color and terminations it would seem 
otherwise. They are found rising from the water at 
Ohoong Sokh Chung, Kong Won Do, Tsing Chun 
county, a province on the east coast of Korea. 

GEORGE F. Kunz. 


THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN INSTI- 
TUTIONS. 


Johns Hopkins university studies in historical and po- 
litical science. HERBERT B. ADAms, editor. 
Vol. i. Local institutions. Baltimore, Univer- 
sity, 1888. [470] p. 8°. 


Tue first volume of the Johns Hopkins uni- 
versity ‘Studies in historical and _ political 
science’ for the year 1883 is devoted to the 
subject of American institutions of local self- 
government,—a subject which has heretofore 
been greatly neglected, or, at any rate, treated 
in only a fragmentary and irregular manner. 
The present is the first attempt made to in- 
vestigate it comprehensively and systemat- 
ically; not exhaustively, by any means, or 
with any pretence to completeness, even of 
outline. Certainly, no person would look, in 
a year of independent studies, for any thing 
more than a commencement of so large a work. 
As the second year’s issue does not propose 
to continue the same line of investigation, it 
seems fitting to examine the results of last 
year’s labors, and determine what they have 
accomplished, and what they leave to be ac- 
complished. 

The studies before us embrace a wide range 
and variety of subject, including no fewer 
states than Massachusetts, Connecticut, Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, Michigan, 
and Illinois, — states far enough apart, one 
would think, in origin and character, to include 
every phase of American municipal life. Not- 
withstanding the admirable judgment, how- 
ever, with which the subjects have been 
selected, it will be seen at a glance that there 
are vital omissions. New York, which has 
afforded the model for municipal government 
for almost the entire north-west, and which 
has some traces of the Dutch system still left ; 
Virginia, the ruling state of the south, and 


L74 


representing the cavalier instincts of English 
royalists ; the survivals of French institutions 
in Louisiana, and of Spanish farther west and 
in Florida, —these, at least, must come into a 
complete scheme ; and those of New York will 
probably be found the most important of all, 
so far as the genesis of American local insti- 
tutions is concerned. 

The principal line of investigation in this 
group of studies has been conducted by Prof. 
H. B. Adams, the editor of the series, and has 
been devoted to showing the organic connec- 
tion between the town institutions of New 
England and the corresponding institutions of 
Old England. No less than five papers are 
devoted to this end, —No. 2, ‘ The Germanic 
origin of New-England towns;’ No. 4, 
‘Saxon tithing-men in America;’ No. 8, 
‘Norman constables in America;’ and Nos. 
9 and 10, ‘Village communities of Cape 
Anne and Salem.’ ‘These five papers contain 
a very interesting account of the corporate 
features, and the most. primitive magistracies 
of the New-England towns. 

The corporate quality, the continuity of ex- 
istence, the identity of organization and of 
magistrates, — all these points are well brought 
out in these papers; but the most important 
feature of the New-England town-system re- 
mains yet to be explained, — the town-meet- 
ing, which John Adams placed with good right 
as one of the four corner-stones of New-Eng- 
land democracy. 

The New-England town-meeting is a wholly 
unique institution. There have been popular 
assemblies often in history; but the New- 
England town-meeting differs from all these by 
radical and fundamental features. Not that it 
possesses any attribute of real sovereignty, or 
even any independent original action: it is 
an institution of wholly subordinate character, 
and with derived powers, as is shown by the 
fact that its sphere of action is absolutely 
limited by the specifications of the warrant. 
No business can legally come before the meet- 
ing which is not definitely stated in this in- 
strument. 

A more important characteristic — that, in- 
deed, in which it differs essentially from every 
other popular assembly — is what we may call 
the parliamentary character of its procedure. 
Just as the British parliament, representing 
the people of Great Britain, sits in judgment 
upon the king and ministers, who hold their 
places by its will, and subjects them to a rigid 
accountability, just so the people of the New- 
England towns, assembled in March meeting, 
supersede for the time the town magistrates. 


SCIENCE. 


‘[Vou. IV., No. 82. | 


For that day the selectmen are private citizens. 
The first business of the meeting is ‘ to choose 
a moderator ;’ and the moderator is the officer 
of the meeting, wholly independent of the 
selectmen, just as the speaker is the officer 
of parliament, wholly independent of king and 
council. The town-meeting, like parliament, 
holds the strings of the purse, and not merely 
votes taxes, but appropriates them to definite 
objects of expenditure. 

This is a feature peculiar to the New-Eng- 
land popular assembly: it is not English, it is 
not even Teutonic. The English court-leet 
and folk-mote, the Frank mal, as well as the 
Athenian ecclesia and the Roman comitia, were 
presided over by the magistrate who sum- 
moned them; and the same is true of the town- 
meetings in most other parts of the United 
States. It is from the effective responsibility 
thus exercised over the town-officers by the 
body of the citizens, that the peculiar vitality 
and democratic character of the New-England 
town-system, noticed by De Tocqueville and 
others, are derived. The origin of-this re- 
markable feature seems the most interesting 
and important question in the history of New- 
England local institutions. 

The western states have, as a rule, modelled 
their town-system upon that of New York 
rather than of New England, — a system better 
in many respects, but differing from it chiefly 
in the absence of the town-meeting. It fol- 
lows, as was remarked before, that the New- 
York local institutions are historically the most 
important of all, and that the most important 
problem to be solved in these investigations is 
the cause of this divergence in institutions 
between two English communities in the same 
latitude, and separated only by an imaginary 
boundary-line. Maine and New Hampshire, 
proprietary colonies, fell spontaneously into 
the system that prevailed in the charter colonies 
south of them; perhaps, in part, for the 
reason that they were, one temporarily, and the 
other for a much longer period, annexed to 
Massachusetts. How did it come about that 
this group adopted this unique system of self- 
government, while New York, their nearest 
neighbor, developed so different a system ? 

This question finds a partial answer in Mr. 
Gould’s paper (No. 3) upon local govern- 
ment in Pennsylvania, in which the policy of 
the Duke of York is briefly described. This 
‘¢ was a close imitation of the English system : 
it recognized the old municipal divisions of 
ridings, towns, and parishes.’’ It is just at 
this point that we need further elucidation, 
Mr. Gould’s theme confining him to the special 


AuGusT 29, 1884.] 


forms of local government developed under 
the proprietary government of Pennsylvania. 
‘ Towns and parishes,’ — these are in English 
institutions, as a rule, identical; the parish be- 
ing the ecclesiastical organization of the town- 
ship, as the manor is its feudal form. Now, 
it is a significant fact, that south of Mason and 
Dixon’s line the manor was the form adopted, 
in which the popular assembly was the court- 
leet. One of the most interesting and valuable 
papers of the whole series is that of Mr. 
Johnson (No. 7), upon old Maryland manors, 
with the records of a court-leet and a court- 
baron; which records ‘‘ are the first of their 
kind that have been utilized by students of 
Maryland history.’’ But the parish, primarily 
ecclesiastical, though also used for civil pur- 
poses, existed by the side of the manor, as 
shown by Mr. Ingle, in his paper (No. 6) on 
parish institutions of Maryland, and by Mr. 
Ramage, in his paper (No. 12) on local gov- 
ernment in South Carolina. The parish, in 
the beginning regularly conterminous with the 
town, was also found in New England, where 
the Congregational Church was established by 
law, as the Episcopal was in Maryland and 
South Carolina. 

Now, it is an important fact, in connection 
with this inquiry, that it was just in the period 
before the planting of the English colonies in 
America, probably as a result of the Reforma- 
tion, that the parish became the regular organ 
of lecal self-government in England. Its ves- 
try was an assembly of all inhabitants of the 
parish, not-for church concerns alone, but for 
all matters of public interest, thus taking the 
place of the old court-leet, or popular court of 
the township. It is probably from this vestry 
that the New-England town-meeting was de- 
rived, with considerable modifications and 
enlargement of powers. It was, it must be 
noticed, fully as ecclesiastical in character as 
the vestry, none but church-members being 
allowed to take part in it; and, a significant 
fact, the name of its elected president, ‘ mod- 
erator,’ appears to have been taken from the 
usage of the Scotch church assemblies. The 
English vestry was regularly presided over by 
the rector. 

_It appears probable, therefore, that, while 
the New-England ‘ town’ was a direct descend- 
ant of the English town, its assembly, or town- 
meeting, was not derived directly from the 
court-leet, or primitive popular assembly, which 
had become feudalized, and brought under the 
authority of the lord of the manor, but from 
the vestry, —the form of public assembly which 
alone possessed vitality and a certain demo- 


SCIENCE. 


175 


cratic character at the close of the sixteenth 
century. It may be inferred from Mr. Gould’s 
statement, that the New-York town-system had 
the same origin ; but for some reason its assem- 
bly never received the remarkable develop- 
ment of that of New England, and the town 
itself was reduced to comparative insignificance 
by the establishment of a county-system of a 
character intermediate between that of the 
south, where the county is the principal civil 
division, and that of New England, where it 
is hardly more than a group of towns. The 
system thus created, the relation between coun- 
ty and town established in New-York, with 
the distinctive town-system which exists in 
connection with it, may fairly be called the 
American system. It has spread in the west 
to the exclusion of the New-England system ; 
and, as is shown in Mr. Shaw’s interesting paper 
(No. 3), on local government in Illinois, it is 
driving out the southern system, even where 
the latter had the start. It should be noticed, 
at the same time, that the Illinois town-meet- 
ing, differing from that of most of the states 
of the north-west, is shown by Mr. Shaw to 
have been modelled upon that of New Eng- 
land. 

The admirable work done in the first series 
of these papers needs, therefore, to be supple- 
mented in two directions in particular. First, 
the Virginia county-system, that which appears 
to have controlled local institutions generally 
in the south-west, should be described. Sec- 
ond, it needs to be shown how the New-York 
county and town system, which at present 
exercises a controlling influence throughout 
the north-west, and is successfully rivalling the 
Virginia system, even on its own ground, came 
into existence. 

There remain several interesting subjects, 
discussed in these papers, into which we have 
not space to enter. It will be only necessary 
to mention Mr. Johnston’s ‘ Genesis of a New- 
England state’ (No. 11), in which the town 
principle is shown to have had a peculiar and 
remarkable career in Connecticut ; Mr. Bemis, 
upon local government in Michigan and the 
north-west (No. 5); and Professor Adams’s 
illustrations (already mentioned) of land com- 
munities in Massachusetts. This subject, it 
may be stated, has been examined with the aid 
of original documents, and with considerable 
fulness of detail, by Mr. Melville Egleston, in 


1 [In Rhode Island the towns have some of the functions 
which counties have in Massachusetts, and the power of the 
county becomes far less important. For instance: in Massachu- 
setts the county lays out highways; in Rhode Island this is the 
function of the town, and it sometimes happens that roads on 
opposite sides of a town-line do not connect. — ED.] 


176 SCIENCE. 


a pamphlet entitled ‘The land-system of the 
New-England colonies,’—a work which well 
supplements the series before us. 


THE EXPLORING VOYAGE OF THE 
CHALLENGER. 


(Third notice.)1 


“One of the most important of all the out- 
comes of the expedition is undoubtedly Alex- 
ander Agassiz’s memoir upon the Echinoidea 
(vol. iii., 8321 p., 45 pl.) which occupies fully 
two-thirds of one of the massive volumes of 
the report. Mr. Agassiz’s personal acquaint- 
ance with all known types of Echinoidea, re- 
cent and fossil, gives him an advantage as an 
authority over all his contemporaries; and, 
without some such special training, it would 
have been a matter at least of extreme diffi- 
culty to decipher the complex relations of the 
multitude of singular forms intermediate be- 
tween the faunas of ancient and modern times, 
which have been brought to light by the Chal- 
lenger expedition. The value of these collec- 
tions may best be shown by a bit of statistics. 
When the author’s ‘ Revision of the Echini’ was 
publishing (1872-74), there were enumerated 
207 species, distributed in 89 genera, including 
2 deep-sea species discovered by the Porcu- 
pine, and 13 by Count Pourtalés. In the gen- 
eral list which accompanies this report, there 
are 297 species and 107 genera enumerated, 
making, in all, 90 species and 25 genera added 
to the former list, in spite of the reduction 
in number by the cancelling of nominal spe- 
cies. This shows that 80 species of deep-sea 
echinoids have been discovered since those 
of Mr. Pourtalés, and that fully one-third of 
the whole number of known species of Echi- 
noidea have been discovered since the days of 
deep-sea dredgings. It would seem absurd to 
attempt, in a review so limited as this, even to 
call attention to the main points of interest in 
a memoir of such extent as this. The most 
instructive chapters for biologists in general, 
however, are those upon the ‘‘ character of 
systematic affinity of allied groups of Echinoi- 
dea’’ (p. 18), upon the ‘‘ relations of the Ju- 


rassic Echinoidea to the echinid faunas of the © 


present day’’ (p. 19), upon the ‘‘ connection 
between the cretaceous and recent echinid 
faunas’’ (p. 25), and upon the ‘‘ geographical 
range of the continental and abyssal species ’”’ 
(p. 246) ; in which latter, especially, is pur- 
sued a line of thought of great importance to 
all those who are considering the problems of 


1 For previous notices see Nos. 66, 79. 


i ad oe a 


[Vou. IV., No. 82. " 


the origin of marine faunas. Roetter’s litho-— 
graphic delineations are especially worthy of 
admiration. 

Another paper, especially satisfactory by | 
reason of its extent and completeness, is Col. 
Theodore Lyman’s report on the Ophiuroidea 
(vol. v., 387 p., 48 pl.). This is a monograph 
of all the known species (500 in number), and 
is illustrated by about 750 beautiful lithographic 
figures, drawn by L. Trouvelot. Mr. Lyman’s 
introductory remarks, with his diatribes against 
genealogical tables and theories of phylogeny, 
will delight even those whom he intends to 
criticise, so genial and keen is the humor with 
which his views are expressed; and there is 
something refreshing, too, in the curt, sharp-cut 
phrases in which his general conclusions are 
formulated. Exceedingly interesting, too, is 
the manner in which the writer has succeeded 
in framing his diagnoses of species, genera, and 
families, in simple words, half of them of one 
syllable, and Anglo-Saxon in origin at that. 

He surely has fulfilled his intention ‘‘not to 
add to the jargon in which zodlogy is now 
smothering,’’ —a jargon, he declares, ‘‘ such as 
Moliére would scarcely have ventured to put in 
the mouth of the medical faculty in his Malade 
imaginaire.’? The number of new species 
added by the Challenger was 170, with 21 
new genera. ‘The tables of distribution, geo- 
graphical, bathymetrical, and thermal, with 
the ‘brief reflections on their indications,’ are 
suggestive in many directions, and we regret 
that the reflections may not here be quoted at 
length. In general terms, it may be said ‘‘ that 
a very large proportion of the species live 
exclusively on the littoral zone, and that 
therein are included species both of cold and 
of hot water, though the number of the latter 
is much the larger. Then there is a large 
fauna of 50 species, which live exclusively 
below 1,000 fathoms, and which have to endure 
a degree of cold near to freezing, an enormous 
water-pressure, and an entire absence of sun- 
light. Between these extremes there are 
large groups whose favorite, or even neces- 
sary, habitat is restricted to given depths.” 
Sixteen genera do not go lower than 30 
fathoms ; and they, without exception, inhabit. 
warm seas. ‘‘ This proves that certain groups 
demand a high temperature, and cannot accom- 
modate themselves to a lower one. Should 
any of them, therefore, be found fossil, it 
would be reasonable to infer that the horizon 
was a shallow covered by warm water. Nine 
genera have not yet been found above 1,000 
fathoms:’’ their occurrence, therefore, as fos- — 
sils, might denote a geological bottom of great — 


AveusT 29, 1884.] , 


depth, and covered by cold water of very 
heavy pressure. 

The reflections of the author upon the ther- 
mal tables are to the effect that the warm-water 
species, which are also of comparatively shal- 
low water, are by far the most numerous, — 
a proportion which suggests that heat, light, 
and small pressure tend to produce variety in 
form and structure. ‘* Yet,’’ it is remarked, 
‘¢there is not that vast difference between deep 
cold species and shallow warm ones which 


SCIENCE. 


iF 


zoologist, but that science has been simply 
his diversion, in the midst of many other time- 
consuming occupations, as legislator, fish-cul- 
turist, farmer, and politician. 

Two papers more will complete work upon 
the echinoderms, and these are being prepared 
by Mr. P. H. Carpenter of Eton college. 
The Comatulidae were his from the start; and 
the stalked crinoids, which were reserved for 
his personal study by the late director, will be 
completed by him, and reported upon in a 


THE RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE SHIP, THE MESSENGER-WEIGHTS, THE TOGGLE (G@), AND THE DREDGE (B, ETC.), AT 
DIFFERENT STAGES OF PAYING-OUT FROM THE CHALLENGER. 


might reasonably be looked for, on the theory 
that so-called natural forces are alone potent 
to effect change.”’ ! 

The work on fossil species is simply a re- 
view of the present state of knowledge, which 
is admitted to be very unsatisfactory. At pres- 
ent it cannot be said that a single fossil genus 
is identical with the living ; but there is much 
unstudied material in museums. The index 
is a workmanlike conclusion to a most schol- 
arly production; and our transatlantic fellow- 
workers, who insist in their reviews upon 
calling the author Professor Lyman, will be 
surprised to know that he is not a professional 


paper under the joint authorship of Thomson 
and Carpenter. 

Work upon the Coelenterata is progressing 
at a satisfactory rate. The Alcyonarians are 
still unpublished, the work being in the hands 
of Prof. E. Percival Wright. 

Professor Albert von Kolliker disposes of the 
Pennatulida in an essay of forty-one pages 
(vol. i., 41 p., 11. pl.), with 61 beautifully 
executed lithographic figures. The expedition 
brought home 88 species of 19 genera, of 
which 27 species and 7 genera were new to sci- 
ence. The author formerly believed the great 
majority of the Pennatulida to occur at depths 


178 


of 20 fathoms or less ; but the number of deep- 
sea forms now known is nearly equal to that 
of the shore-species of shallow-water forms. 
The deep-water forms appear, however, to be 
almost absent from the Atlantic; the Pacific, 
and the south polar seas. The simpler forms 
of the Pennatulida, especially those with sessile 
polyps, inhabit the great depths. These, of 
which the Protoptilidae and Umbellulidae are 
the most numerous, are believed to be the 
oldest, ‘ the last remnants of an extinct pri- 
mary creation;’ and of them the Challenger 
discovered a large number of species, with a 
wide distribution. This conclusion of the 
author is of especial interest, since the pres- 
ence of their less complex representatives in 
deep water has been shown to be the rule in 
other groups of invertebrates as well. 

The report upon the Actiniaria, by Profes- 
sor Richard Hertwig of Konigsberg (vol. vi., 
136 p., 14 pl.),is a very laborious and exhaus- 
tive piece of work; and the fulness of the 
descriptions of anatomical details, as well as 
the elaboration of the drawings, are causes of 
surprise, when one remembers that zodlogists 
have hitherto usually refused to work with 
shrivelled alcoholic preparations; unless, in- 
deed, drawings have been made from the living 
animals. 39 species were examined, of which 
30 were new. ‘The reader shares with the 
author his manifest disappointment, that the 
study of this group suggests answers to so few 
of the questions which naturally arise. At the 
same time, we cannot fail to recognize the im- 
portance of the author’s concluding remarks, 
in which he demonstrates that life in the great 
depths has a visible influence upon the organi- 
zation of the Actiniae, especially in the form 
of the tentacles, and shows how the nature of 
the food of the deep-sea forms has probably 
favored the transformation of the long tenta- 
cles of the ordinary littoral forms into tubes, 
or even simple openings in the oral disk. | In 
the diverse arrangement of the septa in deep- 
sea forms, he finds, also, an important indica- 
tion ; namely, that the diversity in the structure 
of the Anthozoa was formerly much greater 
than it is at present, and that the remains of 
this diversity have been more extensively pre- 
served in the depths of the sea than in the 
shallow waters. 

Professor Hertwig makes frequent allusions 
to the work of the American authorities Verrill 
and Couthouy ; and to the attainments of the 
former, in this department of zodlogy, he pays 
a well-merited compliment. 

Prof. Henry N. Moseley of Oxford has 
printed his report upon the corals, chiefly in 


SCIENCE. 


_[Von. IV., No. 82. 


the group Hydrocorallinae, Helioporidae, and 
Madreporaria, which is worked out with the 
author’s customary skill and minuteness. 
Many valuable papers on the structure of corals, 
based upon Challenger material, have also been 
published by Professor Moseley in the Philo- 
sophical transactions, and elsewhere. 

Professor Ernst Haeckel’s paper on the 
deep-sea Medusae (vol..iv., 259 p., 32 pl.) is, 
in its first half, devoted e an elaboraes dis- 
cussion of the general morphology and histol- 
ogy and phylogeny of the Medusae, having 
special reference to the new morphological 
facts derived from his study of this collection. 
The essentials of this paper were embodied 
by the author in his ‘System der Medusen,’ 
published in 1879; and it has already been 
reviewed in Science, vol. i. p. 195. 

Professor Allman prints the first instalment: 
of his memoir on the Hydroida, which con- 
sists of a report upon the Plumularidae (vol. 
vii., 55 p., 20 pl.). The introductory remarks 
upon the general morphology are of great im- 
portance as bringing the subject up to the 
present standard of information. It is pleasant 
to note the appreciation with which the work 
of Mr. Fewkes is now and again referred to. 
Out of the 31 species referred to, 26 are new, 
and a number of genera are for the first time 
characterized. Professor Allman asserts, that, 
in tropical and sub-tropical regions, this group: 
has its maximum in multiplicity of forms, in 
the size of the colonies, and in individual pro- 
fusion. He also calls attention to the apparent. 
existence of two centres of maximum plumu- 
larian development, —an eastern one, in the: 
warm seas of the East-Indian archipelago ; 
and a western one, in the waters which sur-- 
round the West-Indian Islands, and bathe 
the eastern shores of central and equinoctial 
America, —centres which are nearly coinci-- 
dent with those of maximum development in 
the Chiroptera. 

Dr. William B. Carpenter’s memoir on the 
genus Orbitolites (vol. vii., 47 p., 8 pl.) con- 
tains a résumé of an investigation which has 
been carried on by this veteran in deep-sea 
research, extending over more than a third of 
a century. ‘The discussion of the four species 
under examination occupies but a small por- 
tion of the paper, which really deals with the 
entire group of Foraminifera, and concludes. 
with a ‘Study of the theory of descent,’ in 
which the power of natural selection to origi- 
nate any varietal forms whatever is distinctly 
denied. a 

The report on the Calcarea, by N. Poljaeff,. — 
of the University of Odessa (vol. viii., 76 p.,. 


AvausT 29, 1884.] 


9 pl.), is in the main devoted to developing a 
new system of classification for the group, and 
to the criticism of Professor Haeckel’s mono- 
graph, ‘ Die kalkschwamme.’ 30 species were 
brought in by the Challenger, 23 of which were 
new. All these are elaborately described, 
and illustrated by most exquisite plates, chiefly 
drawn by the author. Mr. Poljaeff expresses 
the hope, ‘‘ that the systematic arrangement of 
the group Calcarea, here proposed, will serve 
as a sufficiently sure basis for further investi- 
gations,’? —a hope which will be shared by 
all, but which in the present unsettled state of 


SCIENCE. 


179 


opinion among specialists in this department, 
and in view of the scarcity of material for 
investigation, is perhaps a trifle premature. 
Other papers upon the Protozoa are prom- 
ised, but are mostly far down in the list. The 
Hexactinellid sponges are assigned to Prof. 
F. E. Schulze; the Tetractinellidae, to Pro- 
fessor Solles; the Monactinellidae, to Mr. S. 
O. Ridley. Mr. H. B. Brady’s paper on the 
Foraminifera, and Professor Haeckel’s on the 
Radiolaria, will probably first be printed. 
G. Brown Goope. 


Smithsonian institution. 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


RECENT PROGRESS IN PHYSICS: 


AFTER referring to what at first appeared a rather 
startling experiment, the holding of a meeting of 
the association outside of Great Britain, and to the 
undoubted pleasure and benefit the members would 
receive from their visit to Canada, Lord Rayleigh 
spoke of the loss the association had met in the death 
of Sir W. Siemens, and gave a brief account of Sie- 
mens’s scientific work. He called attention to the 
fact that it is now some years since the presidential 
chair had been occupied by a physicist, and, while 
regretting that he should be called on to preside when 
the association met in a country of so great interest to 
the naturalists, he proposed to do the best he could 
by giving a sketch of the progress in late years of 
physical science. 

It is one of the difficulties of the task, that subjects 
as distinct as mechanics, electricity, heat, optics, and 
acoustics, to say nothing of astronomy and meteor- 
ology, are included under physics. Any one of these 
may well occupy the lifelong attention of a man of 
science; and to be thoroughly conversant with all 
of them is more than can be expected of any one 
individual, and is probably incompatible with the 
devotion of much time and energy to the actual ad- 
vancement of knowledge. Another difficulty incident 
to the task, which must be faced but cannot be over- 
come, is that of estimating rightly the value, and. 
even the correctness, of recent work. It is not 
always that which seems at first the most important 
that proves in the end to be so. The history of 
science teems with examples of discoveries which 
attracted little notice at the time, but afterwards 
have taken root downwards, and borne much fruit 
upwards. 

One of the most striking advances of recent years 
is in the production and application of electricity 
upon a large scale. The dynamo-machine is, indeed, 

1 Address to the British association for the advancement of 
science at Montreal, Aug. 27, 1884, by the Right Hon. Lord Ray- 
leigh, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., F.R.G.S8., professor of 


experimental physics in the University of Cambridge, president 
of the association. 


founded upon discoveries of Faraday, now more than 
half a century old; but it has required the protracted 
labors of many inventors to bring it to its present 
high degree of efficiency. Looking back at the mat- 
ter, it seems strange that progress should have been 
so slow, not merely in details of design, the elabora- 
tion of which must always require the experience of 
actual work, but with regard to the main features of 
the problem. It would almost seem as if the diffi- 
culty lay in want of faith. Long ago it was recog- 
nized that electricity derived from chemical action is 
(on a large scale) too expensive a source of mechani- 
cal power, notwithstanding the fact that (as proved 
by Joule in 1846) the conversion of electrical into 
mechanical work can be effected with great economy. 
From this it is an evident consequence that electri- 
city may advantageously be obtained from mechani- 
cal power; and one cannot help thinking, that, if the 
fact had been borne steadily in mind, the develop- 
ment of the dynamo might have been much more 
rapid. But discoveries and inventions are apt to 
appear obvious, when regarded from the stand-point 
of accomplished fact; and he drew attention to the 
matter only to point the moral that we do well to 
push the attack persistently when we can be sure 
beforehand that the obstacles to be overcome are only 
difficulties of contrivance, and that we are not vainly 
fighting unawares against a law of nature. 

The present development of electricity on a large 
scale depends, however, almost as much upon the 
incandescent lamp as upon the dynamo. The suc- 
cess of these lamps demands a very perfect vacuum, 
—not more than about one-millionth of the normal 
quantity of air should remain, — and it is interesting 
to recall, that, twenty years ago, such vacua were 
rare even in the laboratory of the physicist. It is 
pretty safe to say that these wonderful results would 
never have been accomplished had practical appli- 
cations alone been in view. The way was prepared 
by an army of scientific men, whose main object 
was the advancement of knowledge, and who could 
scarcely have imagined that the processes which they 
elaborated would soon be in use on a commercial 


180 


scale, and intrusted to the hands of ordinary work- 
men. 

The requirements of practice react in the most 
healthy manner upon scientific electricity. Just as 
in former days the science received a stimulus from 
the application to telegraphy, under which every 
thing relating to measurement on a small scale ac- 
quired an importance and development for which we 
might otherwise have had long to wait, so now the re- 
quirements of electric lighting are giving rise to a new 
development of the art of measurement upon a large 
scale, which cannot fail to prove of scientific as well 
as practical importance. Mere change of scale may 
not at first appear a very important matter, but it is 
surprising how much modification it entails in the 
instruments, and in the processes of measurement. 
For instance: the resistance-coils on which the elec- 
trician relies, in dealing with currents whose maxi- 
mum is a fraction of an ampere, fail altogether when 
it becomes a question of hundreds, not to say thou- 
sands, of amperes. 

The powerful currents which are now at com- 
mand constitute almost a new weapon in the hands 
of the physicist. Effects which in old days were 
rare, and difficult of observation, may now be pro- 
duced at will on the most conspicuous scale. Con- 
sider, for a moment, Faraday’s great discovery of the 
‘magnetization of light,? which Tyndall likens to 
the Weisshorn among mountains, as high, beautiful, 
and alone. It is even possible that it might have 
eluded altogether the penetration of Faraday, had 
he not been provided with a special quality of very 
heavy glass. At the present day these effects may 
be produced upon a scale that would have delighted 
their discoverer, a rotation of the plane of polariza- 
tion through 180° being perfectly feasible. With the 
aid of modern appliances, Kundt and Rontgen in 
Germany, and H. Becquerel in France, have detected 
the rotation in gases and vapors, where, on account 


of its extreme smallness, it had previously escaped ~ 


notice. 

Reference was made to the importance the question 
of the magnetic saturation of iron was assuming in 
the discussion of the problems arising in connection 
with the dynamo-machines, and to the work of Row- 
land and Stoletow on the theory of the behavior of 
soft iron under varying magnetic conditions. 

The introduction of powerful alternate-current 
machines by Siemens, Gordon, Ferranti, and others, 
is likely also to have a salutary effect in educating 
those so-called practical electricians whose ideas do 
not easily rise above ohms and volts. It has long 
been known, that, when the changes are sufficiently 
rapid, the phenomena are governed much more by 
induction, or electric inertia, than by mere resist- 
ance. On this principle, much may be explained that 
would otherwise seem paradoxical. To take a com- 
paratively simple case, conceive an electro-magnet 
wound with two contiguous wires, upon which acts 
a given rapidly periodic electromotive force. If one 
wire only be used, a certain amount of heat is de- 
veloped in the circuit. Suppose, now, that the second 
wire is brought into operation in parallel, —a pro- 


SCIENCE. 


ceeding equivalent to doubling the section of the 
original wire. 
constant currents would be sure to think that the 
heating-effect would be doubled by the change, as 
much heat being developed in each wire separately 
as was at first in the single wire; but such a con- 
clusion would be entirely erroneous. ‘The total cur- 
rent, being governed practically by the self-induction 
of the circuit, would not be augmented by the acces- 
sion of the second wire; and the total heating-effect, 
so far from being doubled, would, in virtue of the 
superior conductivity, be halved. 

During the last few years, much interest has been 
felt-in the reduction to an absolute standard of meas- 
urement of electromotive force, current, resistance, 
etc.; and to this end many laborious investigations 
have been undertaken, some of the results being 
embodied in the resolves of the Conference of elec- 


- tricians assembled at Paris. 


For the measurement of current strength, advan- 
tage may be taken of Faraday’s law, that the quan- 
tity of metal decomposed in an electrolytic cell is 
proportional to the whole quantity of electricity that 
passes. The best metal for the purpose is silver, 
deposited from a solution of the nitrate or of the 
chlorate. The results recently obtained by Professor 
Kohlrausch and by Lord Rayleigh are in very good 
agreement ; and the conclusion that one ampere, 
flowing for one hour, decomposes 4.025 grains of sil- 
ver, can hardly be in error by more than a thousandth 
part. This number being known, the silver voltame- 
ter gives a ready and very accurate method of meas- 
uring currents of intensity, varying from a tenth of 
an ampere to four or five ampéres. 

The beautiful and mysterious phenomena attend- 
ing the discharge of electricity in nearly vacuous 
spaces have been investigated and in some degree 
explained by De la Rue, Crookes, Schuster, Moulton, 
and the lamented Spottiswoode, as well as by various 
able foreign experimenters; and a remarkable obser- 
vation by Hall of Baltimore, from which it appeared 
that the flow of electricity in a conducting-sheet was 
disturbed by magnetic force, has been the subject of 
much discussion. 

Without doubt, the most important achievement of 
the older generation of scientific men has been the 
establishment and application of the great laws of 
thermo-dynamics, or, as it is often called, the me- 
chanical theory of heat. The first law, which asserts 
that heat and mechanical work can be transformed 
one into the other at a certain fixed rate, is now 
well understood by every student of physics; and 
the number expressing the mechanical equivalent of 
heat resulting from the experiments of Joule has 
been confirmed by the researches of others, and espe- 
cially of Rowland. But the second law, which practi- 
cally is even more important than the first, is only 
now beginning to receive the full appreciation due 
to it. One reason of this may be found in a not 
unnatural confusion of ideas. Words do not always 
lend themselves readily to the demands that are made 
upon them by a growing science; and the almost un- 


avoidable use of the word ‘equivalent’ in the state- — 


[Vou. IV., No. 82. 


An electrician accustomed only to — 


Aveust 29, 1884.] 


ment of the first law is partly responsible for the 
little attention that is given to the second, for 
the second law so far contradicts the usual statement 
of the first as to assert that equivalents of heat and 
work are not of equal value. While work can always 
be converted into heat, heat can only be converted 
into work under certain limitations. For every prac- 
tical purpose, the work is worth the most; and, when 
we speak of equivalents, we use the word in the same 
sort of special sense as that in which chemists speak 
of equivalents of gold and iron. The second law 
teaches us that the real value of heat, as a source of 
mechanical power, depends upon the temperature 
of the body in which it resides: the hotter the body, 
in relation to its surroundings, the more available 
the heat. 

In order to see the relations which obtain between 
the first and the second law of thermo-dynamics, it 
is only necessary for us to glance at the theory of the 
steam-engine. Not many years ago, calculations were 
plentiful, demonstrating the inefficiency of the steam- 
engine, on the basis of a comparison of the work 
actually got out of the engine with the mechanical 
equivalent of the heat supplied to the boiler. Such 
calculations took into account only the first law of 
thermo-dynamics, which deals with the equivalents 
of heat and work, and had very little bearing upon 
the practical question of efficiency, which requires 
us to have regard, also, to the second law. Accord- 
ing to that law, the fraction of the total energy which 
can be converted into work, depends upon the rela- 
tive temperatures of the boiler and condenser; and 
it is therefore manifest, that, as the temperature of 
the boiler cannot be raised indefinitely, it is impos- 
sible to utilize all the energy which, according to the 
first law of thermo-dynamics, is resident in the coal. 

On a sounder view of the matter, the efficiency of 
the steam-engine is found to be so high that there is 
no great margin remaining for improvement. The 
higher initial temperature possible in the gas-engine 
opens out much wider possibilities; and many good 
judges look forward to a time when the steam-engine 
will have to give way to its younger rival. 

To return to the theoretical question, we may say, 
with Sir W. Thomson, that, though energy cannot 
be destroyed, it ever tends to be dissipated, or to pass 
from more available to less available forms. No one 
who has grasped this principle can fail to recognize 
its immense importance in the system of the uni- 
verse. Every change — chemical, thermal, or me- 
chanical — which takes place, or can take place, in 
nature, does so at the cost of a certain amount of 
available energy. The foundations laid by Thomson 
now bear an edifice of no mean proportions, thanks 
to the labors of several physicists, among whom must 
be especially mentioned Willard Gibbs, and Helm- 
holtz. The former has elaborated a theory of the 
equilibrium of heterogeneous substances, wide in its 
principles, and, we cannot doubt, far-reaching in its 
consequences. Ina series of masterly papers, Helm- 
_ holtz has developed the conception of free energy, 
with very important applications to the theory of the 
galvanic cell. He points out, that the mere tendency 


SCIENCE. 


181 


to solution bears, in some cases, no small proportion 
to the affinities more usually reckoned chemical, and 
contributes largely to the total electromotive force. 
Also, in England, Dr. Alder Wright has published 
some valuable experiments relating to the subject. 

From the further study of electrolysis, we may ex- 
pect to gain improved views as to the nature of the 
chemical reactions, and of the forces concerned in 
bringing them about. Lord Rayleigh did not consider 
himself qualified to speak on recent progress in gen- 
eral chemistry; but if he might, without presump- 
tion, venture a word of recommendation, it would 
be in favor of a more minute study of the simpler 
chemical phenomena. 

Under the head of scientific mechanics, it is prin- 
cipally in relation to fluid motion that advances may 
be looked for. The important and highly practical 
work of the late Mr. Froude in relation to the pro- 
pulsion of ships is, doubtless, known to most. Rec- 
ognizing the fallacy of views widely held, as to the 
nature of the resistance to be overcome, he showed, 
that, in the case of fair-shaped bodies, we have to 
deal almost entirely with resistance dependent upon 
skin-friction; and, at high speeds, upon the genera- 
tion of surface-waves, by which energy is carried off. 
Although Professor Stokes, and other mathemati- 
cians, had previously published calculations pointing 
to the same conclusion, there can be no doubt that 
the view generally entertained was very different. 
Mr. Froude’s experiments have set the question at 
rest in a manner Satisfactory to those who had little 
confidence in theoretical prevision. Although the 
magnitude of skin-friction varies with the smooth- 
ness of the surface, we have no reason to think that 
it would disappear at any degree of smoothness con- 
sistent with an ultimate molecular structure. That 
it is connected with fluid viscosity is evident enough, 
but the modus operandi is still obscure. 

Some important work bearing upon the subject has 
recently been published by Prof. O. Reynolds, who 
has investigated the flow of water in tubes as depend- 
ent upon the velocity of motion, and upon the size of 
the bore. The laws of motion in capillary tubes, dis- 
covered experimentally by Poiseuille, are in com- 
plete harmony with theory. The resistance varies as 
the velocity, and depends in a direct manner upon 
the constant of viscosity. But, when we come to the 
larger pipes and higher velocities with which en- 
gineers usually have to deal, the theory which presup- 
poses a regularly stratified motion evidently ceases 
to be applicable, and the problem becomes essen- 
tially identical with that of skin-friction in relation 
to ship-propulsion. Professor Reynolds has traced 
with much success the passage from the one state of 
things to the other, and has proved the applicability, 
under these complicated conditions, of the general 
laws of dynamical similarity, as adapted to viscous 
fluids by Professor Stokes. 

As also closely connected with the mechanics of 
viscous fluids, an important series of experiments 
upon the friction of oiled surfaces, recently executed 
by Mr. Tower for the Institution of mechanical en- 
gineers, must not be overlooked. When the lubrica- 


182 SCIENCE. 


tion is adequate, the friction is found to be nearly 
independent of the load, and much smaller than is 
usually supposed, giving a coefficient as low as a 
thousandth. When the layer of oil is well formed, 
the pressure between the solid surfaces is really 
borne by the fluid; and the work lost is spent in 
shearing, that is, in causing one stratum of the oil to 
glide over another. ; 

The nature of gaseous viscosity, as due to the dif- 
fusion of momentum, has been made clear by the 
theoretical and experimental researches of Maxwell. 
A flat disk, moving in its own plane between two 
parallel solid surfaces, without contact, is impeded by 
the necessity of shearing the intervening layers of 
gas; and the hinderance is proportional to the velocity 
of the motion and to the viscosity of the gas, so that, 
under similar circumstances, this effect may be taken 
aS a measure, or rather definition, of the viscosity. 
From the dynamical theory of gases, to the develop- 
ment of which he contributed so much, Maxwell 
drew the startling conclusion that the viscosity of 
a gas should be independent of its density; that 
within wide limits the resistance to the moving disk 
should be scarcely diminished by pumping out the 
gas, so as to form a partial vacuum. Experiment 
fully confirmed this theoretical anticipation, — one 
of the most remarkable to be found in the whole his- 
tory of science, —and proved that the swinging disk 
was retarded by the gas as much when the barome- 
ter stood at half an inch as when it stood at thirty 
inches. It was obvious, of course, that the law must 
have a limit; that at a certain point of exhaustion 
the gas must begin to lose its power; and Lord Ray- 
leigh remembers discussing with Maxwell, soon after 
the publication of his experiments, the whereabouts 
of the point at which the gas would cease to produce 
its ordinary effect. His apparatus, however, was 
quite unsuited for high degrees of exhaustion; and 
the failure of the law was first observed by Kundt 
and Warburg, at pressures below one millimetre of 
mercury. Subsequently the matter has been thor- 
oughly examined by Crookes, who extended his ob- 
servations to the highest degrees of exhaustion, as 
measured by MacLeod’s gauge. Perhaps the most 
remarkable results relate to hydrogen. From the 
atmospheric pressure of seven hundred and sixty 
millimetres, down to about half a millimetre of mer- 
cury, the viscosity is sensibly constant. From this 
point to the highest vacuum, in which less than a mil- 
lionth of the original gas remains, the coefficient of 
viscosity drops down gradually to a small fraction 
of its original value. 

Such an achievement as the prediction of Maxwell’s 
law of viscosity has, of course, drawn increased at- 
tention to the dynamical theory of gases. At the 
same time, the theory presents serious difficulties; 
and we can but feel, that, while the electrical and 
optical properties of gases remain out of relation to 
the theory, no final judgment is possible. 

In optics, attention has naturally centred upon the 
spectrum. By the use of special photographic meth- 
ods, Abney has mapped out the peculiarities of the 
invisible rays lying beyond the red with such success 


that our knowledge of them begins to be comparable 
with that of those visible to the eye. Equally im- 
portant work has been done by Langley, using a 
refined invention of his own, based upon the princi- 
ple of Siemens’s pyrometer. Interesting results have 
also been obtained by Becquerel, whose method is 
founded upon a curious action of the ultra-red rays 
in enfeebling the light emitted by phosphorescent 
substances. One of the most startling of Langley’s 
conclusions relates to the influence of the atmos- 
phere in modifying the quality of solar light. By the 
comparison of observations made through varying 
thicknesses of air, he shows that the atmospheric 
absorption tells most upon the light of high refran- 
gibility; so that, to an eye situated outside the atmos- 
phere, the sun would present a decidedly bluish tint. 

Cornu has made use of the fact that the refrangi- 
bility of a ray of light is altered by a motion of the 
luminous body to or from the observer to determine 
whether a line is of solar or atmospheric origin. For 
this purpose a small image of the sun is thrown upon 
the slit of the spectroscope, and caused to vibrate two 
or three times a second, in such a manner that the 


light entering the instrument comes alternately from’ 


the advancing and retreating limbs. As the sun is 
itself in rotation, and thus the position of a solar 
spectral line is slightly different according as the light 
comes from the advancing or from the retreating 


limb, a line due to absorption within the sun ap- 


pears to tremble, as the result of slight alternately 
opposite displacements. But, if the seat of the ab- 
sorption be in the atmosphere, it is a matter of 
indifference from what part of the sun the light 
originally proceeds; and the line maintains its posi- 
tion in spite of the oscillation of the image upon the 
slit of the spectroscope. 

The instrumental weapon of investigation, the 
spectroscope itself, has made important advances, 
The magnificent gratings of Rowland are a new power 
in the hands of the spectroscopists, and, as triumphs 
of mechanical art, seem to be little short of perfec- 
tion. 

The great optical constant, the velocity of light, 
has been the subject of three distinct investigations 
by Cornu, Michelson, and Forbes. As may be sup- 
posed, the matter is of no ordinary difficulty, and it 
is therefore not surprising that the agreement should 
be less decided than could be wished. From their 
observations, which were made by a modification of 
Fizeau’s method of the toothed wheel, Young and 
Forbes drew the conclusion that the velocity of light 
in vacuo varies from color to color, to such an extent 
that the velocity of blue light is nearly two per cent 
greater than that of red light. Such a variation is 
quite opposed to existing theoretical notions, and 
could only be accepted on the strongest evidence. 
Mr. Michelson, whose method (that of Foucault) is 
well suited to bring into prominence a variation of 
velocity with wave-length, has recently repeated his 
experiments with special reference to the point in 


question, and has arrived at the conclusion that no 


variation exists, comparable with that asserted by 
Young and Forbes. 


[Vou. 1V., No. 82. 


The actual velocity differs little 


tyr 4eyeete aes. « 


_——s 


AUGUST 29, 1884.] 


from that found from his first series of experiments, 
and may be taken to be 299,800 kilometres per 
second. — 

It is remarkable how many of the playthings of our 
childhood give rise to questions of the deepest scien- 
tific interest. In spite of the admirable investigations 
of Plateau, it still remains a mystery why soapy 
water stands almost alone among fluids as a material 
for bubbles. The beautiful development of color was 
long ago ascribed to the interference of light, called 
into play by the gradual thinning of the film. Some 
of the phenomena are, however, so curious as to 
have led excellent observers like Brewster to reject 
the theory of thin plates, and to assume the secre- 
tion of various kinds of coloring-matter. 

When the thickness of a film falls below a small 
fraction of the length of a wave of light, the color 
disappears, and is replaced by an intense blackness. 
Professors Reinold and Riicker have recently made 
the remarkable observation, that the whole of the 
black region, soon after its formation, is of uniform 
thickness, the passage from the black to the colored 
portions being exceedingly abrupt. By two inde- 
pendent methods, they have determined the thickness 
of the black film to lie between seven and four- 
teen millionths of a millimetre; so that the thin- 
nest films correspond to about one-seventieth of 
a wave-length of light. The importance of these 
results in regard to molecular theory is too obvious to 
be insisted upon. 

In_ theoretical acoustics, progress has been steadily 


maintained, and many phenomena which were ob- 


scure twenty or thirty years ago, have since received 
adequate explanation. If some important practical 
questions remain unsolved, one reason is that they 
have not yet been definitely stated. Almost every 
thing in connection with the ordinary use of our 
senses presents peculiar difficulties to scientific in- 
vestigation. Some kinds of information with regard 
to their surroundings are of such paramount impor- 
tance to successive generations of living beings, that 
they have learned to interpret indications, which, 

from a physical point of view, are of the Slondecest 
character. Every day we are in the habit of recogniz- 
ing, without much difficulty, the quarter from which 
a sound proceeds; but by what steps we attain that 
end las not yet been satisfactorily explained. It has 
been proved, that, when proper precautions are taken, 
we are unable to distinguish whether a pure tone (as 
from a vibrating tuning-fork held over a suitable 
resonator) comes to us from in front, or from behind. 
This is what might have been expected from an a 
priori point of view; but what would not have been 
expected is, that with almost any other sort of sound, 

. from a elap of the hands to the clearest vowel- sound: 

the discrimination is not only possible, but easy and 
instinctive. In these cases it does not appear how 
the possession of two ears helps us, though there is 
some evidence that it does; and, even when sounds 
come to us from the right or left, the explanation of 
the ready discrimination which is then possible with 
pure tones is not so easy as might at first appear. 
We should be inclined to think that the sound was 


SCIENCE. 


altogether. 


183 


heard much more loudly with the ear that is turned 
towards than with the ear that is turned from it, and 
that in this way the direction was recognized. But, 
if we try the experiment, we find, that, at any rate 
with notes near the middle of the musical scale, the 
difference of loudness is by no means so very great. 
The wave-lengths of such notes are long enough, in 
relation to the dimensions of the head, to forbid the 
formation of any thing like a sound-shadow, in which 
the averted ear might be sheltered. 

In concluding this imperfect survey of recent prog- 
ress in physics, Lord Rayleigh said emphatically 
that much of great importance had been passed over 
He should have liked to speak of those 
far-reaching speculations, especially associated with 
the name of Maxwell, in which light is regarded as a 
disturbance in an electro-magnetic medium. Indeed, 
at one time, he had thought of taking the scientific 
work of Maxwell as the principal theme of his 
address. But, like most men of genius, Maxwell 
delighted in questions too obscure and difficult for 
hasty treatment; and thus, much of his work could 
hardly be considered upon such an occasion as the 
present. Maxwell’s endeavor was always to keep 
the facts in the foreground; and to his influence, in 
conjunction with that of Thomson and Helmholtz, is 
largely due that elimination of unnecessary hypothe- 
sis which is one of the distinguishing characteristics 
of the science of the present day. 

In speaking unfavorably of superfluous hypothesis, 
Lord Rayleigh did not wish to be misunderstood. 
Science is nothing without generalizations. De- 
tached and ill-assorted facts are only raw material, 
and, in the absence of a theoretical solvent, have but 
little nutritive value. At the present time, and in 
some departments, the accumulation of material is 
so rapid that there is danger of indigestion. By a 
fiction as remarkable as any to be found in law, what 
has once been published, even though it be in the 
Russian language, is usually spoken of as ‘ known;’ 
and it is often forgotten that the rediscovery in the 
library may be a more difficult and uncertain process 
than the first discovery in the laboratory. In this 
matter, we are greatly dependent upon annual reports 
and abstracts, issued principally in Germany, with- 
out which the search for the discoveries of a little- 
known author would be well-nigh hopeless. Much 
useful work has been done in this direction in con- 
nection with our association. Such critical reports 
as those upon hydro-dynamics, upon tides, and upon 
spectroscopy, guide the investigator to the points 
most requiring attention, and, in discussing past 
achievements, contribute in no small degree to future 
progress. But, though good work has been done, 
much yet remains to do. 

In estimating the present position and prospects 
of experimental science, there is good ground for 
encouragement. The multiplication of laboratories 
gives to the younger generation opportunities such 
as have never existed before, and which excite the 
envy of those who have had to learn in middle life 
much that now forms part of an undergraduate 
course. As to the management of such institutions, 


184 


there is room for a healthy difference of opinion. 
For many kinds of original work, especially in con- 
nection with accurate measurement, there is need of 
expensive apparatus; and it is often difficult to per- 
suade a student to do his best with imperfect appli- 
ances, when he knows that by other means a better 
result could be attained with greater facility. Never- 
theless, it seems important to discourage too great 
reliance upon the instrument-maker. Much of the 
best original work has been done with the homeliest 
appliances; and the endeavor to turn to the best 
account the means that may be at hand develops 
ingenuity and resource more than the most elaborate 


SCIENCE. 


[Vor. IV., No, S2uum 


determinations with ready-made instruments. There 
is danger, otherwise, that the experimental education 
of a plodding student should be too mechanical and 
artificial, so that he is puzzled by small changes of —_ 
apparatus, much as many school-boys are puzzled by 
a transposition of the letters in a diagram of Euclid. 

In closing, Lord Rayleigh touched on the ‘ Greek 
question,’ or ‘Greek and Latin question,’ and tried 
to ease the fears of the good souls who fear some day 
to awake and find their souls are no longer their own, 
but have been made away with by some scientific n 
investigator. 


INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 


GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 


U.8. geological survey. 


(Work proposed for the ensuing fiscal year.) 


THE plans for work to be done during the year 
ending June 30, 1885, have been matured as follows, 
subject to the exigencies of the service: — 

North Atlantic district. Topography. — The 
work done during the past year, in this district, by 
the authority of the secretary of the interior, will be 
continued under the general direction of Mr. Henry 
Gannett. Recognizing the value of the work in prog- 
ress in Massachusetts, the governor recommended 
and the legislature appropriated a sum of forty thou- 
sand dollars, to be expended during three years — ten 
thousand the first year, and fifteen thousand during 
two succeeding years —for topographic work, to be 
done under the general direction of a commission ap- 
pointed to co-operate with the geological survey. This 
commission consists of Hon. F, A. Walker, president 
of the Institute of technology, Prof. N. S. Shaler of 
Harvard college, and Assistant H. L. Whiting of the 
coast-survey. Four parties will be put in the field, in 
charge of Messrs. H. F. Walling, Anton Karl, J. D. 
Hoffman, and 8S. H. Bodfish respectively, assisted by 
Mr. W. G. Newman and others. The topographic 
work by the state of New Jersey having ceased, and 
the material having been transferred to the geological 
survey without expense to the United States, it is 
proposed that the topographical work be taken up by 
Mr. C. C. Vermeule, aided by competent assistants, 
under the general superintendence of Prof. George 
H. Cook, state geologist, who gives his services gra- 
tuitously for that purpose. 

General geology.—General geological work 
will be carried on in New England under the direc- 
tion of Prof. R. Pumpelly. 

South Atlantic district. Topography.— The 
work begun in 1882 will be continued under the gen- 
eral direction of Mr. Gilbert Thompson. Six topo- 
graphical parties will enter the field under Messrs. C. 
M. Yeates, Morris Bien, F. M. Pearson, W. A. Shum- 
way, and one other; there will be also two triangula- 


tion parties, one under S. S. Gannett, with general 
assistants Messrs. Wilson, Blair, McKinney, Oyster, 
Hackett, Hayes, Wakefield, Niblack, Michler, and 
Harrison. The area it is proposed to survey includes 
that portion of the Appalachian region comprised in 
eastern Kentucky, south-western Virginia, western. 
North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, north-western 
South Carolina and Georgia, and northern Alabama. 

General geology. — This part of the work in 
this district will be in charge of Mr. G. K. Gilbert, 
assisted by Messrs. I. C. Russell, Ira Sayles, H. R. 
Geiger, J. C. White, and W. D. Johnson. The work 
begun in the District of Columbia will be suspended 
during the absence of parties in the field, but the 
geology will be extended by Mr. McGee through parts 
of Virginia and Maryland. 

Southern Mississippi and Rocky Mountain district. 
Topography.—Excepting in Yellowstone Na- 
tional Park, the general direction of work in this dis- 
trict will be taken by A. H. Thompson. In Arizona 
two parties, under H. M. Wilson and A. P. Davis, 
will be assisted by Messrs. Holman, Wallace, Maher, 
and Chapman. In Texas, Mr. E. M. Douglas will 
direct the work, as will Mr. R. U. Goode, with Messrs. 
Hawkins and Ratcliff assisting, in parts of Kansas, 
Missouri, and Arkansas. Some astronomical work in 
this district will be executed by Mr. Robert S. Wood- 
ward, assisted by Bushrod Washington. In the Yel- 
lowstone National Park, Mr. J. H. Renshawe will 
remain in charge of the work, assisted by Ensigns 
Chase and Garrett and Mr. S. A. Aplin. 

Geology.—Arnold Hague, assisted by Messrs. 
Iddings, Weed, Wright, and Davis, will carry on the 
geological survey of the Yellowstone Park. 

Northern Mississippi and Rocky Mountain district. 
Geology.— The survey of the glacial formations 
in this district will be continued under Prof. T. C. 
Chamberlin, assisted by Messrs. Salisbury and Todd. 
General geological work in Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
Minnesota, will be continued, as heretofore, under the _ 
direction of Mr. R. D. Irving, assisted by Messrs. — 
Chauvenet, Daniells, C. W. Hall, Vanhise, and Mer- — 
riam. Dr. F. V. Hayden will re-enter upon his inves- 


i 


tigations of the geology of the Upper Missouri, assisted — 


" 
« 
s 
> 
ed 
> 


AUGUST 29, 1884.] 


by Dr. A. C. Peale. The extinct volcanoes of the 
Rocky Mountain and Cascade ranges will form the 
subject of continued study by Capt. C. E. Dutton, 
U.S.A., assisted by Messrs. Diller and Van Hoesen. 

Economic geology.—The commissioner of 
Indian affairs having requested, and the secretary of 
the interior having directed it, an examination of the 
coal-lands of the Great Sioux reservation in Dakota 
will be made by Mr. Bailey Willis and assistants. In 
Colorado, especially in the Kokomo, Silver Cliff, and 
Denver districts, work will be continued by Mr. S. F. 
Emmons, assisted by Messrs. Cross, Dun, Eakins, 
Hillebrand, Rodgers, and Schonfarber. 

District of the Pacific. Topography.— This 
work, which has been in progress for two years, will 
be in charge of Mark B. Kerr, assisted by Messrs. 
Ricksecker and Ahern. The topographical and geo- 
logical survey, carried on under the auspices of the 
Northern Pacific railway in Montana and Washing- 
ton Territory by Prof. R. Pumpelly, having been dis- 
continued, the maps, field-notes, and material have, at 
his instance, been turned over to the U. S. geological 
survey. ‘These explorations, covering some forty-two 
thousand square miles, will thus be utilized and made 
public on the standard scale of the survey. 

Geology.—Dr. Becker, assisted by Messrs. Mel- 
ville, Raborg, and Turner, will continue the geological 
exploration of the cinnabar deposits of California. 


(General work of the survey.) 


Statistics and economic geology. — Last year Mr. 
Albert Williams, jun., collected a large amount of 
mining statistics, which were issued under the title of 
the ‘Mineral resources of the United States.’ No 
volume published by the survey has been more eagerly 


SCIENCE. 


185 


sought for, or given more general satisfaction. It is 
proposed to issue one of these volumes yearly, thus 
bringing the mining statistics annually up to date. 
Paleontology. Vertebrates.— The vertebrate 
paleontology of the north-west will be further investi- 
gated by Prof. O. C. Marsh, assisted by Messrs. Willis- 
ton, Bostwick, Hermann, and Barbour. Inver te- 
brates.— Dr. C. A. White, assisted by Messrs. J. 
B. Marcou, L. C. Johnson, and Frank Burns, will 
carry on investigations among mesozoic and tertiary 
forms. Mr. C. D. Walcott, with the assistance of 
Messrs. Cooper Curtice and J. W. Gentry, will inves- 
tigate the paleozoic fauna. ‘The work on the fossil 
lamellibranchiata, begun by Professor James Hall, 
will be promoted by the assistance of the survey. 
Paleobotany.—Dr. Newberry will continue his 
work on the fossil flora of the north-west, and Prof. 
W. M. Fontaine his researches on mesozoic botany; 
while general paleobotany will be in charge of Mr. 
Lester F. Ward, assisted by Mr. O. C. Ward. 
Chemistry.—Since the organization of the laboratory 
of the survey, its work has grown enormously, almost 
precluding original investigations by the mass of 
economic questions demanding solution. The work 
will continue to be directed by Prof. F. W. Clarke, 
assisted by Messrs. Chatard, Gooch, Barns, Hallock, 
Manners, Whitfield, Erni, Chase, and Howard. 
Forestry. — The work of mapping the forest dis- 
tricts of the United States will be continued under 
the direction of Mr. George W. Shutt. 
Publications. —Mr. W. H. Holmes will continue 
to supervise the preparation of the illustrations of 
various kinds for the survey publications, on the sat- 
isfactory and artistic character of which so much 
depends. He willbe assisted by qualified collabora- 
tors. 


RECENT PROCHEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. 


July 15. —Mr. Thomas Meehan remarked that in 
many composite flowers the pollen is ejected from 
the apex of the staminal tube, and it became a mat- 
ter of interest to ascertain the mechanism by which 
this is accomplished. The flowers of Compositae are 
much frequented by pollen-collecting insects, honey- 
gatherers seldom resorting to them. It is difficult, 
therefore, to watch the flow of pollen in the open air, 
as it is collected by the insects as fast as it appears. 


‘Some flowers of Helianthus lenticularis Dougl. were 


gathered, and, for the purpose of study, placed in 
saucers of water in a room where insects could not 
disturb them. In this way it was observed, that, 
after the corolla tube had reached its full length, very 


- early the following morning the staminal tube com- 


menced to grow beyond the mouth of the corolla, and 
by about nine A.M. had extended to a distance of one- 
fourth the whole length of the latter. The pollen 
then commenced to emerge through the upper por- 


tion of the staminal tube, which, the stamens narrow- 
ing, left the apices free. During the day the pollen 
continued to pour out, until by nightfall a large 
amount had accumulated at the apex of the tube. 
The morning of the second day the arms of the 
pistil emerged, and commenced to expand; and at once 
the staminal tube commenced to descend. At the 
end of the third day the staminal tube had retired 
entirely within the tube of the corolla, and, with 
the pistil, had begun to wither. A careful examina- 
tion shows, that, through the whole course, the col- 
umn of united anthers remains entirely of the same 
length, the filaments only being elastic. These 
stretch fully one-half their length. They are at- 
tached to the tube of the corolla at the inflated por- 
tion, a short distance above the akene, and extend to 
about midway between this point and the end of the 
tubular portion at the base of the limb; but, when 
the anther-tube is extended, the filaments occupy the 
whole of the space. Thus pollen could fall on the 
stigma of the previous day’s flower; but, as this is 


a 


186 


already covered by its own, such a supply is hardly 
likely to be of much service: we may therefore say 
that the arrangements favor self-fertilization. 


Philosophical society, Washington. 


May 24.—Mr. H. H. Bates read a paper on the. 


physical basis of phenomena. —— Professor Thomas 
Robinson spoke of the strata and timbering of the 
east shaft of the water-works extension. As an inci- 
dent to the engineering-works for the increase of the 
water-supply of Washington, a shaft has been sunk 
through the superficial deposits in the vicinity of 
Howard university. Professor Robinson presented 
a complete record of the formations pierced by the 
shaft, and discussed, also, the peculiar method of 
timbering. 

June 7.— Mr. G. K. Gilbert presented a plan for 
the subject-bibliography of North-American geologic 
literature; and Major J. W. Powell presented a slightly 
different plan for the same purpose. These plans 
proposed to establish at the outset a limited number 
of divisions of the subject-matter of the literature, 
and to simultaneously prepare a bibliography of each, 
the total number of bibliographies being about sev- 
enty-five. A long discussion ensued, in the course 
of which the plans were vigorously criticised by 
Dr. Billings, who maintained that any classification 
would be found to require continual modification, 
and would be ultimately unsatisfactory. He advo- 
cated the adoption of the subject-index method, and 
the accumulation of a large body of references before 
classification was attempted. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


WE have much pleasure in presenting the readers 
of Science with a few facts relating to some of the 
more prominent members of the British association, 
who are expected to be present at the Montreal meet- 
ing. 

The permanent general secretaries (honorary) are 
Capt. Douglas Galton and Mr. A. G. Vernon Har- 
court. The former has held office for many years; 
and, in addition to a wide scientific culture, possesses 
a special knowledge of every thing relating to sanitary 
science, and hence has been much engaged in pro- 
moting the International health exhibition. He is a 
cousin of Mr. Francis Galton. Mr. Harcourt is a 
near relative of the home secretary of state, and is 
professor of chemistry at Christchurch college, Ox- 
ford. He has devoted special attention to the chem- 
istry of gas-lighting. The secretary, and general 
executive officer of the association, is Prof. T. G. 
Bonney, who is now president of the Geological so- 
ciety of London. For many years he was fellow and 
tutor of St. John’s college, Cambridge, but at present 
fills the chair of geology, etc., at University college, 
London. He is distinguished rather as a petrologist 
and mineralogist than as a paleontologist. The 
treasurer, Prof. A. W. Williamson, the distinguished 
chemist, is unable to attend this meeting; but his 
functions will be discharged by Professor Burdon 


= ~ Ot le Die a the ee Ae a 
(tig : : ‘ 
. aa . 


“SOIENCE. 


Sanderson, Waynflete professor of physiology at Ox- 


ford, and one of the scientific advisers of the govern- 
ment. The president of the association for this year 
is the Right Hon. Lord Rayleigh, an account of whose 
life is given on another page. 

Among the twelve vice-presidents are the Right 
Hon. Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir J. D. Hooker, and Prof. 
E. Frankland. Sir L. Playfair has been nominated 
as the president of the association for the Aberdeen 
meeting in 1885. Born in 1819, he very early took 
great interest in chemistry, and in 1858 was elected 
professor thereof in the University of Edinburgh, 
which he now represents in parliament. He ren- 
dered great services as special commissioner in charge 
of juries at the International exhibitions of 1851 and 
1862. In 1873-74 he was postmaster-general, and 
from 1880 to 1883 was deputy-speaker of the house of 
commons, and chairman of committee of ways and 
means. <A great authority on all educational ques- 
tions, he is one of the very few members of parlia- 
ment who are eminent in science. Sir J. Hooker, 
the director of Kew gardens, so famous for his inves- 
tigations of the laws which govern plant-distribution, 
was president of the Royal society from 1873 to 1878, 
and of this association in 1868. In 1877 he accom- 
panied the U.S. survey parties in Utah and Colorado. 
Dr. Frankland, born in 1825, was president of the 
Chemical society in 1871, and for many years has 
been connected with the government teaching of 
chemistry, his present office being that of professor 
of chemistry in the Normal school of science, South 
Kensington. Much of his work has been in connec- 
tion with the Rivers’ pollution commission. 

Coming now to the presidents of sections, mathe- 
matics and physics (section A) will be under the guid- 
ance of Sir W. Thomson, who has been professor of 
mathematics in the University of Glasgow since 1846, 
at which time he was twenty-two years of age. His 
famous researches in thermo-dynamics and in mag- 
netism, and his practical work in submarine teleg- 
raphy, scarcely need a reference here. He was 
knighted in 1866, on the successful completion of the 
Atlantic cable, and was president of the association 
in 1871. Chemistry (section B) will be presided over 
by Prof. H. E. Roscoe, who, since 1858, has been pro- 
fessor of chemistry in Owens college, Manchester. 
He is president of the Literary and philosophical 
society of Manchester, and vice-chancellor of the new 
Victoria university. He is also one of the Royal com- 
mission on technical instruction, and will be knighted 
for his services in that capacity. He was president 
of the Chemical society in 1880, and the first presi- 
dent of the new Society of chemical industry in 1881. 
Geology (section C) will have for its president Mr. W. 
T. Blanford, the secretary of the Geological society of 
London. Section D (biology) will be guided by Prof. 
H. N. Moseley, who made his scientific reputation as 
one of the naturalists of the Challenger deep-sea 
surveying expedition, and eventually succeeded Pro- 
fessor Rolleston in his chair at the University of 


Oxford. Gen. Sir Henry Lefroy, a distinguished 
scientific officer of the Royal artillery, will preside — 


over section E (geography). He has recently pub- 


(Vou. IV., No. 82. 


| 
| 
: 
| 


Aveust 29, 1884. ] 


lished a valuable contribution to terrestrial mag- 
netism. Section F (economic science and statistics) 
will be presided over by Sir Richard Temple, who was 
superintendent of relief operations for the Bengal 
famine in 1874, and governor of the Bombay presi- 
dency from 1877 to 1880. The president of section G 
(engineering) will be Sir Frederick Bramwell, brother 
of Baron Bramwell, the distinguished judge. Heisa 
member of the heavy ordnance committee, and is con- 
stantly consulted by the government on engineering 
questions. At this meeting, the science of anthro- 
pology, instead of being, as heretofore, a sub-section 
of D (biology), will be raised to the dignity of a sec- 
‘tion by itself; and over section H, Dr. E. B. Tylor, the 
famous anthropologist, will preside. Born in 1832, 
he has devoted his life to the study of the races of 
mankind, their history, languages, and civilization. 
He is president of the Anthropological society, and 
keeper of the Oxford university museum, succeed- 
ing there Prof. H. J. Smith, whose chair of mathe- 
matics has just been filled by Professor Sylvester. 
Two evening lectures to the whole association will 
be given on Friday, Aug. 29, and Monday, Sept. 1, by 
Prof. O. J. Lodge and Rev. W. H. Dallinger. Dr. 
Lodge is professor of physics at University college, 
Liverpool, and is one of the most rising physicists of 
the day. The subject of his discourse is ‘ Dust,’ to 
which he has devoted much attention of late. Rev. 
W. H. Dallinger is principal of the Wesley college, 
_ Sheffield, and one of the lecturers for the Gilchrist 
educational trust. His subject, on this occasion, is 
““The modern microscope in relation to the least and 
lowest forms of life,’’ his researches on which, in con- 
nection with Dr. Drysdale of Liverpool, required 
enormous patience and perseverance to carry to a suc- 
cessful issue. : 
Within the limits of space allotted for this purpose, 
a few more names of those who are expected to be 
present, and to take part in the meeting, may be men- 
tioned in alphabetical order: Prof. J. C. Adams, the 
Lowndean professor of astronomy in the University 
of Cambridge, widely known as the discoverer of the 
planet Neptune, from calculations of disturbances in 
the orbits of the other planets; Professor James De- 
war, Jacksonian professor of natural and experiment- 
al philosophy at Cambridge, and Fullerian professor 
of chemistry at the Royal institution, London (the ap- 
pointment held by Faraday), whose collaborateurs are 
Professors Liveing and McKendrick; Sir F. Evans, 
who succeeded Admiral Richards as the hydrographer 
to the British admiralty; Mr. James Glaisher, the 
veteran aeronaut and meteorologist, who in 1865 suc- 
ceeded Admiral Fitzroy in the meteorological depart- 
ment of the board of trade; Professor Leone Levi, 
born in Italy, naturalized in England in 1847, who 
was the main promoter of the first (Liverpool) cham- 
ber of commerce in Britain, founded in 1849 —he is a 
great authority on international and commercial law; 
Dr. W. H. Perkin, president of the Chemical society 
of London, and also of the Society of chemical indus- 
try, who was the founder of the aniline-dye industry, 
and is now engaged in magneto-optical researches; 
Rey. S. J. Perry, director of Stonyhurst observatory 


SCIENCE. 


187 


since 1860, chief of the Kerguelen Island transit of 
Venus expedition of 1874, and of the Madagascar 
similar expedition of 1882; Prof. W. Chandler Rob- 
erts, chemist to the mint, and professor of metallurgy, 
etc., at the normal school of science, succeeding Dr. 
Percy — his researches on the physical properties of 
alloys are well known; Dr. P. L. Sclater, one of the 
secretaries of this association from 1877 to 1882, who 
since 1859 has been secretary of the Zodlogical society 
of London — he is specially known as an ornitholo- 
gist; and Mr. Walter Weldon, who occupies a distin- 
guished place among those who have striven to apply 
pure science to manufacturing problems, chiefly con- 
nected with the soda industry, with which, probably, 
no man is better acquainted —he preceded Dr. Per- 
kin as president of the Society of chemical industry. 


— A number of papers and abstracts have already 
been received for the mechanical section (D) of the 
American association; and a sufficient number, in 
addition, are expected from prominent gentlemen, to 
make sure that the sessions will be of unusual in- 
terest. In addition to the address of President R. H. 
Thurston, two papers have been promised by Prof. 
William A. Rodgers of Cambridge, in connection 
with his already celebrated labors on standard bars, 
perfect screws, etc. In the same connection, a paper 
will be read by J. A. Brashear of Pittsburgh, Penn., 
on the manipulation of optical surfaces. Other pa- 
pers on connected subjects are expected; and it is 
suggested that at least one session be devoted to these 
papers, and discussions upon them. From Mr. Allan 
Stirling of New-York City, is promised ‘The econ- 
omy of the electric light;’ and the engineer, Mr. 
W. A. Traill, of Portrush, Ireland, will explain the 
Giant’s Causeway and Portrush electric tramway, 
and exhibit a working model of the same. A session 
may therefore be occupied with modern applica- 
tions of electricity. Another session will be occu- 
pied with papers upon civil-engineering subjects, 
among which may be mentioned, ‘*‘ Three problems 
in river physics: 1°. The transportation of sediment, 
and the formation and removal of sand-bars; 2°. The 
flow of water in natural channels; 3°. The relation 
of levees to the low-water navigation of rivers;’’ by 
Professor Johnson of Washington university, St. 
Louis, Mo. Other papers announced are, ‘ The 
strength of cast-iron,’ by J. A. Millar, secretary of 
the Institute of engineers and ship-builders, in Scot- 
land; ‘Driven wells,’ by J. C. Hoadley of Boston; 
‘ Belting,’ by Professor Lanza of the Massachusetts 
institute of technology; ‘Steam-cylinder condensa- 
tion,’. by Assistant-Professor Fisher; and ‘ Methods 
of teaching in mechanical engineering,’ by Professor 
Alden of the Worcester free institute. It is hoped 
that there will be sufficient papers upon the last sub- 
ject to devote a session thereto, and gentlemen inter- 
ested are requested to come prepared to take active 
part in the discussions. 

Professor Webb, the secretary of the section, may 
in future be addressed at the association headquarters 
in Philadelphia; and he requests that abstracts, and 
especially titles of papers, should be sent as soon as 


188 


possible to the permanent secretary, Prof. F. W. 
Putnam, Hotel Lafayette. Space has been provided 
for models and apparatus, and attention is directed 
to the reduced rates of transportation to and from 
Philadelphia. 


— From the report of Lieut. W. P. Ray, U.S.N., in 
charge of branch hydrographic office, New Orleans, 
La., Aug. 9, we learn that Capt. C. W. Reed, of the 
City of Dallas, reports that all the captains cruising 
along the eastern edge of the bank of Yucatan and 
north-eastern part of Yucatan have been very much 
surprised at the absence of the usual northerly cur- 
rent during April, May, June, and July. There has 
been no perceptible current until the last three days. 
The sailing directions give one and a half to two and 
a half knots per hour for these months. 


— The Navy department has ordered Commander 
W. T. Sampson and Lieut. Commander T. F. Jewell 
to Montreal, in attendance on the British association 
for the advancement of science, and Lieut. Com- 
mander Jewell to Philadelphia during the meeting 
of the American association. 


— The U.S. geological survey has recently pub- 
lished two topographical sheets of north-eastern 
Arizona, and one of north-western New Mexico, 
crossed by the line of the Atlantic and Pacific rail- 
road, —the work of surveys in 1881, 1882, and 1885, 
by Messrs. Gilbert Thompson, A. H. Thompson, and 
their subordinates. ‘The scale is 1: 250,000, with con- 
tours every two hundred feet. The region included 
is of relatively simple plateau structure, complicated 
by volcanic action that has built cones and spread out 
lava-beds, and by the erosion of irregularly branch- 
ing cafions which in several places have a remarkable 
resemblance to the veins of a maple-leaf. Most of 
the stream-courses are now dry, and serve as well- 
enclosed trails between the scattered settlements. 
Shallow lakes and pools are not uncommon, and 
springs are marked at the heads of small ravines; but 
their waters soon disappear in the sand below. Many 
Indian villages and ruins are mapped, including the 
Zuni towns on the Mesas, and the cliff dwellings of 
the Cafions de Chelly and del Muerto. The lettering 
is not so good as it should be, that of the legend of 
the plates being about as bad as possible, and the 
spelling of some of the Spanish names is certainly un- 
Spanish. The artistic execution reflects no credit 
upon the survey, being far below the standard gained 
in recent years. 


— The thirty-ninth volume of the Mémoires of the 
topographic section of the Russian general staff has 
recently appeared in St. Petersburg. Its contents 
comprise, among other important papers, a report by 
Lebedeff on the Bessarabian triangulation. As the 
author’s work is connected with the general triangu- 
lation of the empire, it has been taken in hand with 
the view, among other things, of calculating the dif- 
ference of level between the Black and Baltic Seas. 
The result, however, is subject to too large a probable 
error to have more than an experimental interest; but 
a levelling recently executed has proved that there is 


SCIENCE. 


“Mountains. 


4 
no sensible difference of level between the Black Sea 
at Odessa and the Baltic at Libava. 

A topographical exploration of northern Khorassan 
and southern Turcomania, with the astronomical 
data furnished by Gladysheff, has permitted the con- 
struction of an excellent map of this region on a scale 
of 1: 210,000. Farther to the east, Arkhipoff has 
established the course of the routes leading from 
Karchi and Bukhara to Kilif and Charjui, along the 
Amu Daria. 

The topography of the country between the Altai 
Mountains and the valley of the Upper Irtish, along 
the Russo-Chinese frontier, has been recently the 
subject of extensive exploration, a sound basis being 
afforded for the work by the astronomical observa- 
tions of Miroshnichenko. 

Triangulation has recently been carried on between 
Vladivostok and the Amur on a line between the 
Ussuri River and the west flanks of the Sikhota 
In the same province, by surveys along 
the Russo-Chinese frontier, a termination has teen 
put to the uncertainty in regard to the boundary 
which has so long interfered with the proper admin- 
istration of justice and collection of taxes. 


— Great preparations are being made for the exhi- 
bition of goldsmiths’ work, to be held next year in 
the ancient town of Nuremberg. Exhibits are to be 
duty free; and a lottery, of which the prizes will 
be exhibits, will be held, and a guaranty fund of 
fifty thousand pounds has been subscribed. Indian 
and Persian work is expected; Japanese, promised. 
America, Spain, and Portugal have shown their sym- 
pathy with the undertaking; and France, Italy, Bel- 
gium, and Austria are already represented. The 
historical department is expected to be of consider- 
able scientific interest. 


—Letters received from Prjevalski announce his 
arrival at Alashan in January, 1884, after having 
crossed Mongolia without accident. No one was ill, 
though the mercury had frozen several times during 
the journey. At present the explorers should be in 
Thibet, or at least in Tzaidam. 


— The principal results of the meteorological sta- 
tion in Novaia Zemlia have been made public. The 
coldest monthly mean was that of January, 1883 
(about —2° F.); but the thermometer indicated 
—61° F. on several occasions. The north-east 
and north-west winds were extremely violent, and 
being always accompanied by drifting snow, and 
sudden in springing up, were dangerous for any of 
the party who might be away from the station. 


— The fall of a meteor near Odessa was recently 
reported to the French academy. It seems, that as 
the track of the meteor, as seen from the city, made 
it probable that it must have fallen near by, a reward 
was offered by one of the local papers for its dis- 
covery, which was responded to by a peasant who 
had seen it fall in the field where he was at work. 


It proved to be a shapeless mass of about eighteen — 


pounds. 


[Vou. IV., No. 82. 


Se ee ee 


4 


} 
» 


— | 


eae Nee. 


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1884. 


THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION MEET- 
wNG IN PHILADEEPHIA. 

In selecting Philadelphia as the place of its 
meeting in 1884, the American association for 
the advancement of science has returned to its 
birthplace. Forty-four years ago, a score of 
geologists — one of whom, James Hall, still 
lives in honor and vigor— assembled in the 
rooms of the academy of sciences, and formed 
the Association of geologists and naturalists. 
Three years later, in Boston, it was decided to 
enlarge this association; and so at another 
meeting in Philadelphia, on the 20th of Sep- 
tember, 1848, under the guidance of a leader 
who has but lately departed,—the beloved 
William B. Rogers, — a new constitution was 
adopted, other scientific professors and workers 
were enlisted, and the association, as we now 
know it in its catholic comprehensiveness, was 
launched upon its course. 

The new name and the new form were doubt- 
less suggested by the British association, which 
dates its origin from the meeting at York in 
1831. The object of the American society was 
declared to be, ‘‘ by periodical and migratory 
meetings to promote intercourse between those 
who are cultivating science in different parts of 
the United States ; to give a stronger and more 
general impulse and a more systematic direc- 
tion to scientific research in our country; and 
to procure for the labors of scientific men in- 
creased facilities and a wider usefulness.’’ 
Subsequently the scope of the society was 
extended, and ‘America’ took the place of 
‘United States.’ 

In again re-assembling at Philadelphia, when 
time has reversed the digits from ’48 to ’84, 
it is natural to consider how far the purposes 
of the founders have been fulfilled. The most 
Sanguine among them could not have antici- 
pated such a growth of scientific endowments, 
in the period of one generation, as we now look 

No. 83. —1884. 


back upon. The museums, the laboratories, 
the surveys, the observatories, the professor- 
ships, the schools of science and technology, 
which have been established and maintained 
since the association was formed, not only in 
the east but in the west, are results which, per- 
haps, may not be directly attributed to the 
association, but which certainly would never 
have been secured without a wide diffusion of 
scientific enthusiasm, such as usually follows 
these migratory congresses of investigators and 
teachers. We are among those who believe, 


that, if it could be shown that the association 


does nothing for the intellectual advantage of 
its members, nevertheless, all the efforts ex- 
pended in its management are rewarded like 
the labors of the sowers in the springtime. 
The seed springs up, ‘some ten, some sixty, 
some a hundred fold.” The educated people in 
every community, whether they are specially 
interested in science or not, are always at- 
tracted to the meetings; and the reports of 
papers and addresses are read far and wide 
through the land. Impressions are thus made 
in respect to the importance of different lines 
of research ; and the names of scientific leaders 
become known to those who would never enter 
the dens and caves of the specialists, and would 
never have the benefit of their inspiration were 
it not for these autumnal conferences. 

Rarely is there a meeting of the association 
which does not afford striking examples of the 
relations of government to science, and of the 
importance of securing for the public the results 
of prolonged research. Astronomy, geology, 
geodesy, certain branches of physics, ethnology, 
and now biology, through the admirable studies 
of the U.S. fish-commission, receive their most 
generous encouragement from the national 
government. ‘To make the same assertion in 
another form, we may say that an enlightened 
people insists upon it that congress shall secure, 
for the good of all citizens, whatever results 
can be obtained by the liberal employment of 


190 


science in the public service. More than this, 
individual citizens have discovered that there 
is no better use for wealth than by endowments 
like those which are annually added to the edu- 
cational resources of the country. In aiding 
all such tendencies, the American association 
has performed a noble part. 

As we have seen, the founders of the asso- 
ciation declared as their first object the pro- 
motion of ‘‘ intercourse between those who are 
cultivating science in different parts of the 
United States.’’ One of the obstacles to prog- 
ress in this country is the wide separation of 
those who are workers in kindred departments. 
A professor in Dublin or in Edinburgh may 
go to London in a night; but it takes seven 
days for our California friends, and half that 
time for many a professor in the interior, to 
reach Washington or Boston. So much the 
more reason is there that these annual con- 
gresses, bringing people together from every 
part of the land, should be kept up. Acquaint- 
ances, friendships, copartnerships, promotions, 
criticisms, suggestions, assistance, are the 
fruits of this intercourse. Those who live in 
the centre of scientific activities, who see more 
people of mark in every month than are to be 
seen at other places in a year, are in danger of 
undervaluing all popular assemblies and conven- 
tions, and are tempted to stay away from the un- 
satisfactory throng. But it has been fortunate 
that nearly all the most eminent members of 
the American association have been ready to 
attend these meetings frequently, if not invari- 
ably, and to give the encouragement of their 
presence, their counsel, and their friendly 
greetings, to those who were younger. Not to 
mention any who are living, was there, ever 
a more benignant and inspiring teacher than 
Agassiz? did any one ever forget the greetings 
of Bache who once felt his friendly grasp? 
and could anybody be more ready than Henry to 
lend a helpful hand to all who needed encour- 
agement? Are there not scores of workers in 
the field to-day who remember with gratitude 
this trio, and others of their kin, as they ap- 
peared, for instance, at the Albany meeting 
when the association was in the first flush of 


its youthful vigor? 


[Von. IV, No. 88. 


Are there not like rec- 
ollections of the great assembly of 1880, when 
Boston and Cambridge gave such admirable 
facilities for seeing institutions and men? 

It seems to us that there is always danger 
of so multiplying the number of meetings, and 
of so subdividing the sections, as to confuse 
the members of the association, detract from 
the general interest, and interfere with the ex- 
change of personal courtesies. The remedy 
lies with the officers of the association, pre- 
venting with firm and judicious decisions ,the 
reading of poor papers, and cutting off the 
discussions of wordy and-rambling speakers. 
A few able papers are much better worth the 
consideration of the association than a multi- 
tude of unimportant communications. Pon- 
deranda non numeranda. 

As we write these lines, the meeting has not 
begun; but the circulars which have been 
issued show that every thing has been done in 
Philadelphia which experience in hospitality 
can suggest for the pleasure of the associa- 
tion. We trust that the reflex influences of the 
gathering will be felt upon the new institute of 
biology, on the great schools of medicine, on 
the University of Pennsylvania, on the Acad- 
emy of natural sciences, and on all the other 
scientific foundations of which the city is justly 
proud. The seat of the American philosophi- 
cal society is a shrine which the countrymen 
of Franklin and Rittenhouse will visit with 
pleasure under the presidency of Lesley. 


J. PETER LESLEY. | 


Tue subject of this notice was born Sept. — 
17, 1819, in Philadelphia. Both his grand- — 
father and father were cabinet-makers, intelli- 
gent, strong, and honest men, who brought up 
large families in the faith of the Church of 
Scotland, and in a love for hard work of every 
kind, physical and intellectual. He was sent 


to school on his sixth birthday, to the academy 


on his twelfth, and to the University of Penn- 
sylvania on his fifteenth, getting his diploma ; 
in 1838. At an early age, his religious expe — 
riences were of the severest type. He knew 


be geil il all a 


- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


the Bible, especially the Old Testament, almost 
by heart ; had read Bunyan’s ‘ Pilgrim’s prog- 
ress’ scores of times, and ‘ Robinson Crusoe ’ 
still oftener; went three times to church every 
Sunday, and twice to Sabbath school ; and was 
in the best trim for becoming a candidate for 
the ministry, 
4o which, in 
fact, he had 
been secretly 
dedicated 
mrom his 
birth. The 
family physi- 
cian, howev- 
er, refused to 
permit him to 
enter Prince- 
ton seminary 
after gradu- 
ating from 
college; and 
an accident 
threw into 
his lap a 
commission 
as sub-assist- 
ant on the 
Geological 
survey of 
Pennsylva- 
nia, under 
the direction 
of Prof. Hen- 
ry D. Rogers, 
so that it was 
only in the 
autumn of 
1841 that he 
comm enced 
his theologi- 
eal studies at Princeton, N.J. 

He early announced his intention not to 
apply for ordination, but to spend his ministry 
among the castaway people of the Alleghany 
Mountains, with whose wretched spiritual con- 
dition he had become acquainted in the course 
of his geological surveys. To give himself a 


SCIENCE. 


191 


closer and deeper view into the character of the 
descendants of the original immigrants to Penn- 
sylvania, he sailed from New York to Liverpool 
as a steerage passenger in 1844, walked through 
England and around France with a knapsack 
and blouse, visited the Waldenses of Dauphine 

and the Piet- 
% ists in Gene 
crossed 
the Jura on 
foot, and mid- 
dle Germany, 
and spent 
the winter 
months with 
Tholuck at 
the universi- 
ty at Halle, 
returning in 
a sailing-ves- 
sel from Bre- 
men to Phil- 
adelphia the 
following 


(MELLEL TLS 


va, 


Mayisqs tile 
spent the 
next two 


years in the 
mountain- 
districts of 
the state, un- 
til his natu- 
rally vigorous 
constitution 
gave way, 
under inces- 
sant mental 
excitement, 


bodily fa- 
4 tigue and ex- 
posure. 


A long illness ensued ; but late in 1848 the 
worn-out missionary became the salaried pastor 
of an Orthodox-Congregationalist church near 
Boston, and -continued in that capacity three 
years, when, bidding farewell to his parish and 
to theology, he returned to his native place 
and natural science, to commence life anew. 


192 


The next ten years were the most active of 
his life, most of the time being spent in the 
field. In 1856 he published a ‘‘ Manual of 
coal and its topography, illustrated by original 
drawings, chiefly of facts in the geology of 
the Appalachian region of the United States,’’ 
and was appointed secretary of the American 
iron association. In 1859 appeared his ‘‘ Iron 
manufacturer’s guide to furnaces, forges, and 
rolling-mills of the United States, with discus- 
sions of iron as a chemical element, an Amer- 
ican ore, and a manufactured article, in 
commerce and in history.’’ Jan. 15, 1858, 
while examining the iron-works of southern 
Ohio, Mr. Lesley was elected librarian, and 
Jan. 7, 1859, one of the four secretaries of the 
American philosophical society, and continues 
to hold these offices, which, for the first year or 
two, withdrew him almost entirely from field- 
work. From 1860 to 1866 Mr. Lesley was 
busily employed by capitalists to pronounce 
upon projected mining-plants, and by mine- 
owners to examine their properties, the call for 
iron and coal being great on account of the 
civil war. In 1864 and 1865 serious illnesses, 
produced by overwork, prepared the way for a 
complete breakdown of his nervous system in 
the early summer of 1866, from which he did 
not recover until the early winter of 1869, this 
interval of three years and a half being spent 
mostly in Europe. 

Mr. Lesley went from Italy to the Paris 
exposition of 1867 as one of the ten commis- 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PENDING PROBLEMS OF ASTRONOMY.' 


THIRTY-SIX years ago this very month, in this city, 
and near the place where we are now assembled, the 
American association for the advancement of science 
was organized, and held its first meeting. Now, for 
the first time, it revisits its honored birthplace. 

Few of those present this evening were, I suppose, 
in attendance upon that first meeting. Here and 


1 Address to the American association for the advancement 
of science at Philadelphia, Sept. 5, 1884, by Prof. C. A. Young, 
professor of astronomy at Princeton, retiring president of the 
association. 


sioners appointed by the United States senate; 
but his illness steadily increased, and he was — 
compelled to abandon his duties. Not until 
1872 could he again do six hours of hard work 
a day; and a new career of usefulness was 
opened to him by his appointment, in that year, 
to the professorship of geology in the new de- 
partment of science of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, and in 1873 to the directorship of the 
Second geological survey of the state, still in 
progress. For four years (1873-78) he per- 
formed the duties of both offices, finding his 
only relaxation in a short voyage to Europe 
every two years; but a threatening recurrence 
of his former malady induced him to offer his 
resignation to the trustees of the university, 
who, however, preferred to grant him an in- 
definite furlough, until the close of the geologi- 
cal survey. 

With what untiring zeal he has devoted him- 
self to the work of that survey is only known 
to those who have been associated with him in 
the work. How successfully he has conducted 
it, is shown to the world through the seventy 
volumes recording its progress. If his hun- 
dreds of papers, scientific and literary, read 
before the American philosophical society, had 
never been published, this great work alone 
would place him in the front rank of American 
geologists. Of the personal character of a 
man whose modesty is his most prominent 
trait, it is difficult to speak as one would wish 
during his life. , 


there, among the members of the association, I see, 
indeed, the venerable faces of one and another, who, 
at that time in the flush and vigor of early manhood, 
participated in its proceedings and discussions; and 
there are others, who, as boys or youths, looked on 
in silence, and listening to the words of Agassiz and 
Peirce, of Bache and Henry, and the Rogers brothers — 
and their associates, drank in that inspiring love of © 
truth and science which ever since has guided and ~ 
impelled their lives. Probably enough, too, there — 
may be among our hosts in the audience a few who 
remember that occasion, and were present as spec- 
tators. 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


But, substantially, we who meet here to-day are a 
new generation, more numerous certainly, and in 
some respects unquestionably better equipped for 
our work, than our predecessors were; though we 
might not care to challenge comparisons as regards 
native ability, or clearness of insight, or lofty pur- 
pose. 

And the face of science has greatly changed in the 
mean time; as much, perhaps, as this great city and 
the nation. One might almost say, that, since 1848, 
“all things have become new’ in the scientific world. 
There is a new mathematics and a new astronomy, 
a new chemistry and a new electricity, anew geology 
and a new biology. Great voices have spoken, and 
have transformed the world of thought and research 
as much as the material products of science have 
altered the aspects of external life. The telegraph 
and dynamo-machine have not more changed the 
conditions of business and industry than the specu- 
lations of Darwin and Helmholtz and their compeers 
have affected those of philosophy and science. 

But, although this return to our birthplace sug- 
gests retrospections and comparisons which might 
profitably occupy our attention for even a much 
longer time than this evening’s session, I prefer, on 
the whole, to take a different course; looking for- 
wards rather than backwards, and confining myself 
mainly to topics which lie along the pathway of my 
own line of work. 

The voyager upon the inland sea of Japan sees 
continually rising before him new islands and moun- 
tains of that fairyland. Some come out suddenly 
from behind nearer rocks or islets, which long con- 
cealed the greater things beyond; and some are veiled 
in clouds which give no hint of what they hide, until 
a breeze rolls back the curtain; some, and the great- 
est of them all, are first seen as the minutest specks 
upon the horizon, and grow slowly to their final gran- 
_ deur. Even before they reach the horizon line, while 
yet invisible, they sometimes intimate their presence 
by signs in sky and air; so slight, indeed, that only 
the practised eye of the skilful sailor can detect them, 
though quite obvious to him. 

Somewhat so, as we look forward into the future 
of a science, we see new problems and great subjects 
presenting themselves. Some are imminent and in 
the way,—they must be dealt with at once, before 
further progress can be made; others are more re- 
motely interesting in various degrees; and some, as 
yet, are mere suggestions, almost too misty and in- 
definite for steady contemplation. 

With your permission, I propose this evening to 
consider some of the pending problems of astronomy, 
—those which seem to be most pressing, and most 
urgently require solution as a condition of advance; 
and those which appear in themselves most interest- 
ing, or likely to be fruitful, from a philosophic point 
of view. 

Taking first those that lie nearest, we have the 
questions which relate to the dimensions and figure 
of the earth, the uniformity of its diurnal rotation, 
and the constancy of its poles and axis, 

I think the impression prevails, that we already 


SCIEI 


193 


know the earth’s dimensions with an accuracy even 
greater than that required by any astronomical de- 
mands. I certainly had that impression myself not 
long ago, and was a little startled on being told by 
the superintendent of our Nautical almanac that the 
remaining uncertainty was still sufficient to produce 
serious embarrassment in the reduction and compari- 
son of certain lunar observations. The length of the 
line joining, say, the Naval observatory at Washing- 
ton with the Royal observatory at the Cape of Good 
Hope, is doubtful; not to the extent of only a few 
hundred feet, as commonly supposed, but the unter- 
tainty amounts to some thousands of feet, and may 
possibly be a mile or more, probably not less than a 
ten-thousandth of the whole distance; and the direc- 
tion of the line is uncertain in about the same degree. 
Of course, on those portions of either continent which 
have been directly connected with each other by geo- 
detic triangulations, no corresponding uncertainty 
obtains; and as time goes on, and these surveys are 
extended, the form and dimensions of each continu- 
ous land-surface will become more and more perfectly 
determined. But at present we have no satisfactory 
means of obtaining the desired accuracy in the rela- 
tive position of places separated by oceans, so that 
they cannot be connected by chains of triangulation. 
Astronomical determinations of latitude and longi- 
tude do not meet the case; since, in the last analysis, 
they only give at amy selected station the direction of 
gravity relative to the axis of the earth, and some 
fixed meridian plane, and do not furnish any linear 
measurement or dimension. 

Of course, if the surface of the earth were an exact 
spheroid, and if there were no irregular attractions 
due to mountains and valleys and the varying density 
of strata, the difficulty could be easily evaded; but, 
as the matter stands, it looks as if nothing short of 
a complete geodetic triangulation of the whole earth 
would ever answer the purpose, —a triangulation 
covering Asia and Africa, as well as Europe, and 
brought into America by way of Siberia and Be- 
ring Strait. 

It is indeed theoretically possible, and just con- 
ceivable, that the problem may some day be reversed, 
and that the geodesist may come to owe some of his 
most important data to the observers of the lunar 
motions. When the relative position of two or more 
remote observatories shall have been precisely deter- 
mined by triangulation (for instance, Greenwich, 
Madras, and the Cape of Good Hope), and when, by 
improved methods and observations made at these 
fundamental stations, the moon’s position and motion 
relative to them shall have been determined with an 
accuracy much exceeding any thing now attainable, 
then by similar observations, made simultaneously 
at any station in this hemisphere, it will be theoreti- 
cally possible to determine the position of this sta- 
tion, and so, by way of the moon, to bridge the 
ocean, and ascertain how other stations are related 
to those which were taken as primary. I do not, 
of course, mean to imply, that, in the present state of 
observational astronomy, any such procedure would 
lead to results of much value; but, before the Asiatic 


194 


triangulation meets the American at Bering Strat rae 
is not unlikely that the accuracy of lunar obeeeee 
tions will be greatly increased. 

The present uncertainty as to the earth’s dimen- 
sions is not, however, a sensible embarrassment to 
astronomers, except in dealing with the moon, espe- 
cially in attempting to employ observations made at 
remote and ocean-separated stations for the deter- 
mination of her parallax. 

As to the form of the earth, it seems pretty evident 
that before long it will be wise to give up further at- 
tempts to determine exactly what spheroid or ellip- 
soid most nearly corresponds to the actual figure of 
the earth; since every new continental survey will 
require a modification of the elements of this sphe- 
roid in order to take account of the new data. It will 
be better to assume some closely approximate sphe- 
roid as a finality ; its elements to be forever retained 
unchanged, while the deviations of the actual surface 
from this ideal standard will be the subject of con- 
tinued investigation and measurement. 

A more important and anxious question of the 
modern astronomer is, Is the earth’s rotation uni- 
form, and, if not, in what way and to what extent 
does it vary? The importance, of course, lies in the 
fact that this rotation furnishes our fundamental 
measure and unit of time. 

Up to a comparatively recent date, there has not 
been reason to suspect this unit of any variation suf- 
ficient to be detected by human observation. It has 
long been perceived, of course, that any changes in 
the earth’s form or dimensions must alter the length 
of the day. The displacement of the surface or 
strata by earthquakes or by more gradual elevation 
and subsidence, the transportation of matter towards 
or from the equator by rivers or ocean currents, the 
accumulation or removal of ice in the polar regions 
or on mountain-tops, — any such causes must neces- 
sarily produce a real effect. So, also, must the fric- 
tion of tides and trade-winds. But it has been 
supposed that these effects were so minute, and to 
such an extent mutually compensatory, as to be quite 
beyond the reach of observation; nor is it yet certain 
that they are not. All that can be said is, that it is 
now beginning to be questionable whether they are, 
or are not. 

The reason for suspecting perceptible variation in 
the earth’s revolution, lies mainly in certain unex- 
plained irregularities in the apparent motions of the 
moon. She alone, of all the heavenly bodies, changes 
her place in the sky so rapidly, that minute inaccura- 
cies of a second or two in the time of observation 
would lead to sensible discrepancies in the observed 
position; an error of one second, in the time, corre- 
sponding to about half a second in her place, —a 
quantity minute, certainly, but perfectly observable. 
No other heavenly body has an apparent movement 
anywhere nearly as rapid, excepting only the inner 
satellite of Mars; and this body is so minute that its 
accurate observation is impracticable, except with the 
largest telescopes, and at the times when Mars is 
unusually near the earth. 

Now, of late, the motions of the moon have been 


~ very carefully investigated, both theoretically and 


observationally; and, in spite of every thing, there 
remain discrepancies which defy explanation. We 
are compelled to admit one of three things, — either 
the lunar theory is in some degree mathematically 


incomplete, and fails to represent accurately the 


gravitational action of the earth and sun, and other 
known heavenly bodies, upon her movements; or some 
unknown force other than the gravitational attrac- 
tions of these bodies is operating in the case; or else, 


finally, the earth’s rotational motion is more or less. 


irregular, and so affects the en and con- 
founds prediction. 

If the last is really the case, it is in some sense a 
most discouraging fact, necessarily putting a limit to 
the accuracy of all aasinesem, unless some other un- 
changing and convenient measure of time shall be 
found to replace the ‘day’ and ‘ second.’ 

The question at once presents itself, How can the 
constancy of the day be tested? ‘The lunar motions 
furnish grounds of suspicion, but nothing more; since 
it is at least as likely that the mathematical theory 
is minutely incorrect or incomplete as that the day is 
sensibly variable. 

Up to the present time, the most effective tests 
suggested are from the transits of Mercury and from 
the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites. On the whole, the 
result of Professor Newcomb’s elaborate and exhaus- 
tive investigation of all the observed transits, together 
with all the available eclipses and occultations of 
stars, tends rather to establish the sensible constancy 
of the day, and to make it pretty certain (to use his. 
own language) that ‘‘inequalities in the lunar mo- 
tions, not accounted for by the theory of gravitation, 
really exist, and in such a way that the mean motion 
of the moon between 1800 and 1875 was really less 
(ie., slower) than between 1720 and 1800.” Until 
lately, the observations of Jupiter’s satellites have 
not been made with sufficient accuracy to be of any 
use in settling so delicate a question; but at present 
the observation of their eclipses is being carried on 
at Cambridge, Mass., and elsewhere, by methods that 
promise a great increase of accuracy over any thing 
preceding. Of course, no speedy solution of the 
problem is possible through such observations, and 
their result will not be so free from mathematical 
complications as desirable, — complications arising 
from the mutual action of the satellites, and the ellip- 
soidal form of the planet. On account of its free- 
dom from all sensible disturbances, the remote and 
lonely satellite of Neptune may possibly some time 
contribute useful data to the problem. 

We have not time, and it lies outside my present 


[Vor. IV., No. 83. 


scope, to discuss whether, and, if so, how, it may be 


possible to find a unit of time (and length) which 
shall be independent of the earth’s conditions and 
dimensions (free from all local considerations), cos- 


mical, and as applicable in the planetary system of 


the remotest star asin our own. At present we can 
postpone its consideration; but the time must un- 
questionably come, when the accuracy of scientific 


observation will be so far increased, that the irregu- 


larities of the earth’s rotation, produced by the causes — 


SE SS OS 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884. | 


alluded to a few minutes ago, will protrude, and be- 
come intolerable. Then a new unit of time will have 
to be found for scientific purposes, founded, perhaps, 
as has been already suggested by many physicists, 
upon the vibrations or motion of light, or upon 
some other physical action which pervades the uni- 
verse. 

Another problem of terrestrial astronomy relates 
to the constancy of the position of the earth’s axis 
in the globe. Just as displacements of matter upon 
the surface or in the interior of the earth would 
produce changes in the time of rotation, so also 
would they cause corresponding alterations in the 
position of the axis and in the places of the poles, — 
changes certainly very minute. The only question 
is, whether they are so minute as to defy detection. 
It is easy to see that any such displacements of the 
earth’s axis will be indicated by changes in the lati- 
tudes of our observatories. If, for instance, the pole 
were moved a hundred feet from its present posi- 
tion, towards the continent of Europe, the latitudes 
of European observatories would be increased about 
one second, while in Asia and America the effects 
would be trifling. 

The only observational evidence of such move- 
ments of the pole, which thus far amounts to any 
thing, is found in the results obtained by Nyren in 
reducing the determinations of the latitude of Pul- 
kowa, made with the great vertical circle, during the 
last twenty-five years. They seem to show a slow, 
steady diminution of the latitude of this observatory, 
amounting to about a second in a century; as if the 
north pole were drifting away, and increasing its dis- 
tance from Pulkowa at the rate of about one foot a 
year. 

The Greenwich and Paris observations do not 
show any such result; but they are not conclusive, 
on account of the difference of longitude, to say 
nothing of their inferior precision. The question is 
certainly a doubtful one; but it is considered of so 
much importance, that, at the meeting of the Inter- 
national geodetic association in Rome last year, a 
resolution was adopted recommending observations 
specially designed to settle it. The plan of Sig. 
Fergola, who introduced the resolution, is to select 
pairs of stations, having nearly the same latitude, 
but differing widely in longitude, and to determine 
the difference of their latitudes by observations of 
the same set of stars, observed with similar instru- 
ments, in the same manner, and reduced by the 
same methods and formulae. So far as possible, the 
same observers are to be retained through a series of 
years, and are frequently to exchange stations when 
practicable, so as to eliminate personal equations. 
The main difficulty of the problem lies, of course, 
in the minuteness of the effect to be detected; and 
the only hope of success lies in the most scrupulous 
care and precision in all the operations involved. 

Other problems, relating to the rigidity of the earth 
and its internal constitution and temperature, have, 
indeed, astronomical bearings, and may be reached 
to some extent by astronomical methods and consider- 
ations; but they lie on the border of our science, and 


time 


195 


forbids any thing more than their mere mention 
hefé, 

If we consider, next, the problems set us by the 
moon, we find them numerous, important, and diffi- 
cult. A portion of them are purely mathematical, 
relating to her orbital motion; while others are phys- 
ical, and have to do with her surface, atmosphere, 
heat, ete: 

As has been already intimated, the lunar theory is 
not in a satisfactory state. I do uot mean, of course, 
that the moon’s deviations from the predicted path 
are gross and palpable, — such, for instance, as could 
be perceived by the unaided eye (this I say for the 
benefit of those who otherwise might not understand 
how small a matter sets astronomers to grumbling) ; 
but they are large enough to be easily observable, ana 
even obtrusive, amounting to several seconds of arc, 
or miles of space. As we have seen, the attempt to 
account for them by the irregularity of the earth’s 
rotation has apparently failed; and we are driven to 
the conclusion, either that other forces than gravita- 
tion are operative upon the lunar motions, or else 
(what is far more probable, considering the past his- 
tory of theoretical astronomy) that the mathematical 
theory is somewhere at fault. 

To one looking at the matter a little from the out- 
side, it seems as if that which is most needed just 
now, in order to secure the advance of science in 
many directions, is a new, more comprehensive, and 
more manageable solution of the fundamental equa- 
tions of motion under attraction. Far be it from me 
to cry out against those mathematicians who delight 
themselves in transcendental and n-dimensional 
space, and revel in the theory of numbers, — we all 
know how unexpectedly discoveries and new ideas 
belonging to one field of science find use and appli- 
cation in widely different regions, — but I own, I feel 
much more interest in the study of the theory of 
functions and differential equations, and expect more 
aid for astronomy from it. 

The problem of any number of bodies, moving 
under their mutual attraction, according to the New- 
tonian laws, stands, from a physical point of view, 
on precisely the same footing as that of two bodies. 
Given the masses, and the positions and velocities 
corresponding to any moment of time, then the whole 
configuration of the system for all time, past and 
future (abstracting outside forces, of course), is ab- 
solutely determinate, and amenable to calculation. 
But while, in the case of two bodies, the calculation 
is easy and feasible, by methods known for two 
hundred years, our analysis has not yet mastered 
the general problem for more than two. In special 
instances, by computations, tedious, indirect, and 
approximate, we can, indeed, carry our predictions 
forward over long periods, or indicate past conditions 
with any required degree of accuracy; but a general 
and universally practicable solution is yet wanting. 
The difficulties in the way are purely mathematical: 
a step needs to be taken, corresponding in importance 
to the introduction of the circular functions, into trig- 
onometry, the invention of logarithms, or the dis- 
covery of the calculus. The problem confronts the 


196 


astronomer on a hundred different roads; and, unt 
it is overcome, progress in these directions must be 
slow and painful. One could not truly say, perhaps, 
that the lunar theory must, in the mean while, remain 
quite at a standstill: labor expended in the old ways, 
upon the extension and development of existing 
methods, may not be fruitless, and may, perhaps, 
after a while, effect the reconcilement of prediction 
and observation far beyond the present limits of ac- 
curacy. But if we only had the mathematical powers 
we long for, then progress would be as by wings: we 
should fly, where now we crawl. 

As to the physical problems presented by the moon, 
the questions relating to the light and heat—the 
radiant energy —it sends us, and to its temperature, 
seem to be the most attractive at present, especially 
for the reason that the results of the most recent in- 
vestigators seem partially to contradict those obtained 
by their predecessors some years ago. It now looks 
as if we should have to admit that nearly all we re- 
ceive from the moon is simply reflected sun-light and 
sun-heat, and that the temperature of the lunar sur- 
face nowhere rises as high as the freezing-point of 
water, or even of mercury. At the same time, some 
astronomers of reputation are not disposed to admit 
such an upsetting of long-received ideas; and it is 
quite certain, that, in the course of the next few years, 
the subject will be carefully and variously investigated. 

Closely connected with this is the problem of a 
lunar atmosphere — if, indeed, she has any. 

Then there is the very interesting discussion con- 
cerning changes upon the moon’s surface. Consider- 
ing the difference between our modern telescopes and 
those employed fifty or a hundred years ago, I think 
it still far from certain that the differences between 
the representations of earlier and later observers 
necessarily imply any real alterations. But they, no 
doubt, render it considerably probable that such alter- 
ations have occurred, and are still in progress; and 
they justify a persistent, careful, minute, and thor- 
ough study of the details of the lunar surface with 
powerful instruments: especially do they inculcate 
the value of large-scale photographs, which can be 
preserved for future comparison as unimpeachable 
witnesses. 

I will not leave the moon without a word in respect 
to the remarkable speculations of Professor George 
Darwin concerning the tidal evolution of our satellite. 
Without necessarily admitting all the numerical re- 
sults as to her age and her past and future history, 
one may certainly say that he has given a most plau- 
sible and satisfactory explanation of the manner in 
which the present state of things might have come 
about through the operation of causes known and 
recognized, has opened a new field of research, and 
shown the way tonew dominions. The introduction 
of the doctrine of the conservation of energy, as a 
means of establishing the conditions of motion and 
configuration in an astronomical system, is a very 
important step. 

In the planetary system we meet, in the main, the 
same problems as those that relate to the moon, with 
a few cases of special interest. 


For the most part, the accordance between theory 
and observation in the motions of the larger planets 
is as close as could be expected. The labors of Le- 
verrier, Hill, Newcomb, and others, have so nearly 
cleared the field, that it seems likely that several 
decades will be needed to develop discrepancies suf- 
ficient to furnish any important corrections to our 
present tables. Leverrier himself, however, indi- — 
cated one striking and significant exception to the 
general tractableness of the planets. Mercury, the 
nearest to the sun, and the one, therefore, which 
ought to be the best behaved of all, is rebellious to a 
certain extent: the perihelion of its orbit moves 
around the sun more rapidly than can be explained 
by the action of the other known planets. The evi- 
dence to this effect has been continually accumu- 
lating ever since Leverrier first announced the fact, 
some thirty years ago; and the recent investigation 
by Professor Newcomb, of the whole series of ob- 
served transits, puts the thing beyond question. Le- 
verrier’s own belief (in which he died) was, that the 
effect is due to an unknown planet or planets be- 
tween Mercury and the sun; but, as things now 
stand, we think that any candid investigator must 
admit that the probability of the existence of any 
such body or bodies of considerable dimensions is 
vanishingly small. We do not forget the numerous 
instances of round spots seen on the solar disk, nor 
the eclipse-stars of Watson, Swift, Trouvelot, and 
others; but the demonstrated possibility of error or 
mistake in all these cases, and the tremendous array 
of negative evidence from the most trustworthy ob- 
servers, with the best equipment and opportunity, 
makes it little short of certain that there is no Vul- 
can in the planetary system. 

A ring of meteoric matter between the planet and 
the sun might account for the motion of the peri- 
helion; but, as Newcomb has suggested, such a ring 
would also disturb the nodes of Mercury’s orbit. 

It has been surmised that the cause may be some- 
thing in the distribution of matter within the solar 
globe, or some variation in gravitation from the ex- 
act law of the inverse square, or some supplementary 
electric or magnetic action of the sun, or some 
special effect of the solar radiation, sensible on ac- 
count of the planet’s proximity, or something pecul- 
iar to the region in which the planet moves; but as 
yet no satisfactory explanation has been established. 

Speaking of unknown planets, we are rather reluc- 
tantly obliged to admit that it is a part of our scien- 
tific duty as astronomers to continue to search for the 
remaining asteroids; at least, I suppose so, although 
the family has already become embarrassingly large. 
Still I think we are likely to learn as much about 
the constitution, genesis, and history of the solar 
system from these little flying rocks as from their 
larger relatives; and the theory of perturbations will 
be forced to rapid growth in dealing with the effects — 
of Jupiter and Saturn upon their motions. 

Nor is it unlikely that some day the searcher for 
these insignificant little vagabonds may be rewarded — 
by the discovery of some great world, as yet unknown, 
slow moving in the outer desolation beyond the re- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


motest of the present planetary family. Some config- 
urations in certain cometary orbits, and some almost 
evanescent peculiarities in Neptune’s motions, have 
been thought to point to the existence of such a 
world; and there is no evidence, nor even a presump- 
tion, against it. 

Mercury as yet defies all our attempts to ascertain 
the length of its day, and the character and condi- 
tion of its surface. Apparently the instruments and 
methods now at command are insufficient to cope 
with the difficulties of the problem; and it is not easy 
to say how it can be successfully attacked. 

With Venus, the earth’s twin-sister, the state of 
things is a little better: we do already know, with 
some degree of approximation, her period of rotation ; 
and the observations of the last few months bid fair, 
if followed up, to determine the position of her poles, 
and possibly to give us some knowledge of her moun- 
tains, continents, and seas. 

It would be rash to say of Mars that we have 
reached the limit of possible knowledge as regards a 
planet’s surface; but the main facts are now deter- 
mined, and we have a rather surprising amount of 
supposed knowledge regarding his geography. By 
‘supposed’ I mean merely to insinuate a modest 
doubt whether some of the map-makers have not 
gone into a little more elaborate detail than the cir- 
cumstances warrant. At any rate, while the ‘ areog- 
raphies’ agree very well with each other in respect 
to the planet’s more important features, they differ 
widely and irreconcilably in minor points. 

As regards the physical features of the asteroids, 
we at present know practically nothing: the field 


is absolutely open. Whether it is worth any thing. 


may be a question; and yet, if one could reach it, I 
am persuaded that a knowledge of the substance, 
form, density, rotation, temperature, and other 
physical characteristics, of one of these little orphans, 
would throw vivid light on the nature and behavior 
of interplanetary space, and would be of great use in 
establishing the physical theory of the solar system. 
The planet Jupiter, lordliest of them all, still, as 
from the first, presents problems of the highest im- 
portance and interest. A sort of connecting-link 
between suns and planets, it seems as if, perhaps, we 
might find, in the beautiful and varied phenomena he 
exhibits, a kind of halfway house between familiar 
terrestrial facts and solar mysteries. It seems quite 
certain that no analogies drawn from the earth and 
the earth’s atmosphere alone will explain the strange 
things seen upon his disk, some of which, especially 
the anomalous differences observed between the ro- 
tation periods derived from the observation of mark- 
ings in different latitudes, are very similar to what 
we find upon the sun. ‘The great red spot’ which 
has just disappeared, after challenging for several 
years our best endeavors to understand and explain 
it, still, I think, remains as much a mystery as ever, 
—a mystery probably hiding within itself the master- 
key to the constitution of the great orb of whose 
inmost nature it was an outward and most character- 
istic expression. The same characteristics are also 
probably manifested in other less conspicuous but 


SCIENC 


7 


equgliy curious and interesting markings on the 
varied and ever-changing countenance of this planet; 
so that, like the moon, it will well repay the most 
minute and assiduous study. 

Its satellite system also deserves careful observa- 
tion, especially in respect to the eclipses which occur; 
since we find in them a measure of the time required 
for light to cross the orbit of the earth, and so of the 
solar parallax, and also because, as has been already 
mentioned, they furnish a test of the constancy of 
the earth’s rotation. The photometric method of 
observing these eclipses, first instituted by Professor 
Pickering at Cambridge in 1878, and since re-invented 
by Cornu in Paris, has already much increased the 
precision of the results. 

With reference to the mathematical theory of the 
motion of these satellites, the same remarks apply as 
to the planetary theory. As yet nothing appears in 
the problem to be beyond the power and scope of 
existing methods, when carried out with the neces- 
sary care and prolixity; but a new and more com- 
pendious method is most desirable. 

The problems of Saturn are much the same as 
those of Jupiter, excepting that the surface and at- 
mospheric phenomena are less striking, and more dif- 
ficult of observation. But we have, in addition, the 
wonderful rings, unique in the heavens, the loveliest 
of all telescopic objects, the type and pattern, I sup- 
pose, of world-making, in actual progress before our 
eyes. There seems to be continually accumulating 
evidence from the observations of Struve, Dawes, 
Henry, and others, that these whirling clouds are 
changing in their dimensions and in the density of 
their different parts; and it is certainly the duty of 
every one who has a good telescope, a sharp eye, 
and a chastened imagination, to watch them care- 
fully, and set down exactly what he sees. It may 
well be that even a few decades will develop most 
important and instructive phenomena in this gauzy 
girdle of old Chronos. Great’ care, however, is 
needed in order not to mistake fancies and illusions 
for solid facts. Not a few anomalous appearances 
have been described and commented on, which failed 
to be recognized by more cautious observers with less 
vivid imaginations, more trustworthy eyes, and better 
telescopes. 

The outer planets, Uranus and Neptune, until 
recently, have defied all attempts to study their sur- 
face and physical characteristics. Their own motions 
and those of their satellites, have been well worked 
out; but it remains to discuss their rotation, topog- 
raphy, and atmospheric peculiarities. So remote 
are they, and so faintly illuminated, that the task 
seems almost hopeless; and yet, within the last year 
or two, some of our great telescopes have revealed 
faint and evanescent markings upon Uranus, which 
may in time lead to some further knowledge of that 
far-off relative. It may, perhaps, be that some great 
telescope of the future will give us some such views 
of Neptune as we now get of Jupiter. 

There is a special reason for attempts to determine 
the rotation periods of the planets, in the fact that 
there is very possibly some connection between these 


198 


periods, on the one hand, and, on the other, the 
planets’ distances from the sun, ‘their diameters and 
masses. More than thirty years ago, Professor Kirk- 
wood supposed that he had discovered the relation in 
the analogy which bears his name. The materials 
for testing and establishing it were then, however, 
insufficient, and still remain so, leaving far too many 
of the data uncertain and arbitrary. Could sucha 
relation be discovered, it could hardly fail to have 
a most important significance with respect to theo- 
ries of the origin and development of the planetary 
system. 

The great problem of the absolute dimensions of 
our system is, of course, commanded by the special 
problem of the solar parallax; and this remains a prob- 
lem still. Constant errors of one kind or another, 
the origin of which is still obscure, seem to affect the 
different methods of solution. Thus, while experi- 
ments upon the velocity of light and heliometric 
measurements of the displacements of Mars among 
the stars agree remarkably in assigning a smaller 
parallax (and greater distance of the sun) than seems 
to be indicated by the observations of the late transits 
of Venus, and by methods founded on the lunar 
motions, on the other hand, the meridian observa- 
tions of Mars all point to a larger parallax aud smaller 
distance. While still disposed to put more confidence 
in the methods first named, I, for one, must admit 
that the margin of probable error seems to me to 
have been rather increased than diminished by the 
latest published results deduced from the transits. 
I do not feel so confident of the correctness of the 
value 8.80 for the solar parallax as I did three years 
ago. In its very nature, this problem is one, how- 
ever, that astronomers can never have done with. 
So fundamental is it, that the time will never come 
when they can properly give up the attempt to in- 
crease the precision of their determination, and to 
test the received value by every new method that 
may be found. 

The problems presented by the sun alone might 
themselves well occupy more than the time at our 
disposal this evening. Its mass, dimensions, and 
motions, as a whole, are, indeed, pretty well deter- 
mined and understood; but when we come to ques- 
tions relating to its constitution, the cause and nature 
of the appearances presented upon its surface, the 
periodicity of its spots, its temperature, and the main- 
tenance of its heat, the extent of its atmosphere, and 
the nature of the corona, we find the most. radical 
differences of opinion. 

The difficulties of all solar problems are, of course, 
greatly enhanced by the enormous difference between 
solar conditions and the conditions attainable in our 
laboratories. We often reach, indeed, similarity suf- 
ficient to establish a bond of connection, and to afford 
a basis for speculation; but the dissimilarity remains 
so great as to render quantitative calculations unsafe, 
and make positive conclusions more or less insecure. 
We can pretty confidently infer the presence of iron 
and hydrogen and other elements in the sun by ap- 
pearances which we can reproduce upon the earth; 
but we cannot safely apply empirical formulae (like 


that of Dulong and Petit, for instance), deduced 
from terrestrial experiments, to determine solar tem- 
peratures: such a proceeding is an unsound and un- 
warrantable extrapolation, likely to lead to widely 
erroneous conclusions, 

For my own part, I feel satisfied as to the substan- 
tial correctness of the generally received theory of the 


sun’s constitution, which regards this body as a great. 


ball of intensely heated vapors and gases, clothed out- 
wardly with a coat of dazzling clouds formed by the 
condensation of the less volatile substances into drops. 
and crystals like rain andsnow. Yet it must be ac- 
knowledged that this hypothesis is called in question 
by high authorities, who maintain, with Kirchoff and 
Zoliner, that the visible photosphere is no mere layer 
of clouds, but either a solid crust, or a liquid ocean of 
molten metals; and there may be some who continue 
to hold the view of the elder Herschel (still quoted 
as authoritative in numerous school-books), that the 
central core of the sun is a solid and even habitable 
globe, having the outer surface of its atmosphere cov- 
ered with a sheet of flame maintained by some action 
of the matter diffused in the space through which the 
system is rushing. We must admit that the question 
of the sun’s constitution is not yet beyond debate. 

And not only the constitution of the sun itself, but 
the nature and condition of the matter composing it, 
is open to question. Have we to do with iron and 
sodium and hydrogen as we know them on the earth, 
or are the solar substances in some different and 
more elemental state ? 

However confident many of us may be as to the 
general theory of the constitution of the sun, very 
few, I imagine, would maintain that the full explana- 
tion of sun-spots and their behavoir has yet been 
reached. We meet continually with phenomena, 
which, if not really contradictory to prevalent ideas, 
at least do not find in them an easy explanation. 

So far as mere visual appearances are concerned, 
I think it must be conceded, that the most natural 
conception is that of a dark chip or scale thrown up. 
from beneath, like scum in a caldron, and floating, 
partly submerged, in the blazing flames of the photo- 
sphere which overhang its edges, and bridge across 
it, and cover it with filmy veils, until at last it settles 
down again and disappears. It hardly looks like a 
mere hollow filled with cooler vapor, nor is its appear- 
ance that of a cyclone seen from above. But then, 
on the other hand, its spectrum under high disper- 
sion is very peculiar; not at all that of a solid, heated 
slag, but it is made up of countless fine dark lines, 
packed almost in contact, showing, however, here 
and there, a bright line, or at least an interspace 
where the rank is broken by an interval wider than 
that which elsewhere separates the elementary lines,— 
a spectrum, which, so far as I know, has not yet found 
an analogue in any laboratory experiment. It seems, 
however, to belong to the type of absorption spectra, 
and to indicate, as the accepted theory requires, that 
the spot is dark in consequence of loss of light, and 
not from any original defect of luminosity. 
certainly, are problems that require solution. 


The problem of the sun’s peculiar rotation and i 


[Vou. IV., No. 83. 


Here, as 


- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884. | 


equatorial acceleration is a most important one ~ 


and still unsolved. Probably its solution depends 
in some way upon a correct understanding of the 
exchanges of matter going on between the inte- 
rior and the surface of the fluid, cooling globe. It 
is a significant fact (already alluded to), that a similar 
relation appears to hold upon the disk of Jupiter; the 
bright spots near the equator of the planet complet- 
ing their rotation about five minutes more quickly 
than the great red spot which was forty degrees from 
the equator. It is hardly necessary to say that an 
astronomer, watching our terrestrial clouds from some 
external station (on the moon, for instance), would 
observe just the reverse. Equatorial clouds would 
complete their revolution more slowly than those in 
our own latitude. Our storms travel toward the east, 
while the voleanic dust from Krakatoa moved swiitly 
west. We may at least conjecture that the differ- 
ence between different planets somehow turns upon 
the question, whether the body whose atmospheric 
currents we observe is receiving more heat from 
without than it is throwing off itself. Whatever 
may be the true explanation of this peculiarity in the 
motion of sun-spots, it will, when reached, probably 
earry with it the solution of many other mysteries, 
and will arbitrate conclusively between rival hypothe- 
ses. 

The periodicity of the sun-spots suggests a number 
of important and interesting problems; relating, on 
the one hand, to its mysterious cause, and, on the 
other, to the possible effects of this periodicity upon 
the earth and its inhabitants. I am no ‘sun-spottist’ 
myself, and am more than sceptical whether the 
terrestrial influence of sun-spots amounts to any 
thing worth speaking of, except in the direction of 
magnetism. But all must concede that this is by 
no means yet demonstrated (it is not easy to prove 
a negative); and there certainly are facts and 
presumptions enough tending the other way to 
warrant more extended investigation of the subject. 
The investigation is embarrassed by the circumstance, 
pointed out by Dr. Gould, that the effects of sun-spot 
periodicity, if they exist at all (as he maintains they 
do), are likely to be quite different in different por- 
tions of the earth. The influence of changes in the 
amount of the solar radiation will, he says, be first 
and chiefly felt in alterations and deflections of the 
prevailing winds, thus varying the distribution of 
heat and rain upon the surface of the earth without 
necessarily much changing its absolute amount. In 
some regions it may, therefore, be warmer and dryer 
during a sun-spot maximum, while in adjoining 
countries it is the reverse. 

There can be no question, that it is now one of the 
most important and pressing problems of observa- 
tional astronomy to devise apparatus and methods 
delicate enough to enable the student to follow 
promptly and accurately the presumable changes in 
the daily, even the hourly, amounts of the solar radi- 
ation. It might, perhaps, be possible with existing 
instruments to obtain results of extreme value from 
observations kept up with persistence and scrupulous 
eare for several years at the top of some rainless 


SCIB 


E. 199 


mountain, if such can be found; but the under- 


taking would be a difficult and serious affair, quite 
beyond any private means. 

Related to this subject is the problem of the con- 
nection between the activity of the solar surface and 
magnetic disturbances on the earth, — a connection 
unquestionable as matter of fact, but at present un- 
explained as matter of theory. It may have some- 
thing to do with the remarkable prominence of iron 
in the list of solar materials; or the explanation may, 
perhaps, be found in the mechanism by means of 
which the radiations of light and heat traverse inter- 
planetary space, presenting itself ultimately as a 
corollary of the perfected electro-magnetic theory of 
light. 

The chromosphere and prominences present severai 
problems of interest. One of the most fruitful of 
them relates to the spectroscopic phenomena at the 
base of the chromosphere, and especially to the strange 
differences in the behavior of different spectrum- 
lines, which, according to terrestrial observations, 
are due to the same material. Of two lines (of iron, 
for instance) side by side in the spectrum, one will 
glow and blaze, while the other will sulk in imper- 
turbable darkness; one will be distorted and shattered, 
presumably by the swift motion of the iron vapor to 
which it is due, while the other stands stiff and 
straight. 

Evidently there is some deep-lying cause for such 
differences; and as yet no satisfactory explanation 
appears to me to have been reached, though much 
ingenious speculation has been expended upon it. 
Mr. Lockyer’s bold and fertile hypothesis, already 
alluded to, that at solar and stellar temperatures our 
elements are decomposed into others more elemental 
yet, seems to have failed of demonstration thus far, 
and rather to have lost ground of late; and yet one 
is almost tempted to say, ‘It ought to be true,’ and 
to add that there is more than a possibility that its 
essential truth will be established some time in the 
future. 

Probably all that can be safely said at present is, 
that the spectrum of a metallic vapor (iron, for in- 
stance, as before) depends not only upon the chem- 
ical element concerned, but also upon its physical 
conditions; so that, at different levels in the solar at- 
mosphere, the spectrum of the iron will differ greatly 
as regards the relative conspicuousness of different 
lines; and so it will happen, that, whenever any mass 
of iron vapor is suffering disturbance, those lines 
only which particularly characterize the spectrum of 
iron in that special state will be distorted or re- 
versed, while all their sisters will remain serene. 

The problem of the solar corona is at present 
receiving much attention. The most recent investi- 
gations respecting it — those of Dr. Huggins and Pro- 
fessor Hastings — tend in directions which appear to 
be diametrically opposite. Dr. Huggins considers that 
he has succeeded in photographing the corona in 
full sunshine, and so in establishing its objective 
reality as an immense solar appendage, sub-perma- 
nent in form, and rotating with the globe to which 
itis attached, One may call it ‘an atmosphere,’ if the 


200 


to say that plates which he has obtained do really 
show just such appearances as would be produced by 
such a solar appendage, though they are very faint 
and ghost-like. I may add further, that, from a let- 
ter from Dr. Huggins, recently received, I learn that 
he has been prevented from obtaining any similar 
plates in England this summer by the atmospheric 
haze, but that Dr. Woods, who has been provided 
with a similar apparatus, and sent to the Riffelberg in 
Switzerland, writes that he has ‘an assured success.’ 

Our American astronomer, on the other hand, at 
the last eclipse (in the Pacific Ocean), observed cer- 
tain phenomena which seem to confirm a theory 
he had formulated some time ago, and to indicate 
that the lovely apparition is an apparition only, a 
purely optical effect due to the diffraction (not re- 
fraction, nor reflection either) of light at the edge of 
the moon—no more a solar appendage than a rain- 
bow ora mocksun. There are mathematical consid- 
erations connected with the theory which may prove 
decisive when the paper of its ingenious and able 
proposer comes to be published in full. In the mean 
time it must be frankly conceded that the observa- 
tions made by him are very awkward to explain on 
any other hypothesis. 

Whatever may be the result, the investigation of 
the status and possible extent of a nebulous envelope 
around a sun ora star is unquestionably a problem 
of very great interest and importance. We shall be 
compelled, I believe, as in the case of comets, to rec- 
ognize other forces than gravity, heat, and ordinary 
gaseous elasticity, as concerned in the phenomena. 
As regards the actual existence of an extensive gas- 
eous envelope around the sun, I may add that other 
appearances than those seen at an eclipse seem to 
demonstrate it beyond question, — phenomena such 
as the original formation of clouds of incandescent 
hydrogen at high elevations, and the forms and 
motions of the loftiest prominences. 

But of all solar problems, the one which excites the 
deepest and most general interest is that relating to 
the solar heat, its maintenance and its duration. For 
my own part, I find no fault with the solution pro- 
posed by Helmholtz, who accounts for it mainly by 
the slow contraction of the solar sphere. The only 
objection of much force is, that it apparently limits 
the past duration of the solar system to a period not 
much exceeding some twenty millions of years; and 
many of our geological friends protest against so 
scanty an allowance. The same theory would give 
us, perhaps, half as much time for our remaining 
lifetime; but this is no objection, since I perceive no 
reason to doubt the final cessation of the sun’s activ- 
ity, and the consequent death of the system. But 
while this hypothesis seems fairly to meet the require- 
ments of the case, and to be a necessary consequence 
of the best knowledge we can obtain as to the genesis 
of our system and the constitution of the sun itself, 
it must, of course, be conceded that it does not yet 
admit of any observational verification. No meas- 
urements within our power can test it, so far as we 
can see at present. 


utes the solar heat to the impact of meteoric matter, 
and that other most interesting and ingenious theory 
of the late Sir William Siemens. 

As regards the former, however, I see no escape 
from the conclusion, that, if it were exclusively true, 
the earth ought to be receiving, as was pointed out 
by the late Professor Peirce, as much heat from 
meteors as from the sun. This would require the fall 
of a quantity of meteoric matter, — more than sixty 
million times as much as the best estimates make 
our present supply, and such as could not escape the 
most casual observation, since it would amount to 
more than a hundred and fifty! tons a day on every 
square mile. ‘ 

As regards the theory of Siemens, the matter has 
been, of late, so thoroughly discussed, that we proba- 
bly need spend no time upon it here. To say nothing 
as to the difficulties connected with the establish- 
ment of such a far-reaching vortex as it demands, 
nor of the fact that the temperature of the sun’s sur- 
face appears to be above that of the dissociation point 
of carbon compounds, and hence above the highest 
heat of their combustion, it seems certainly demon- 
strated, that matter of the necessary density could 
not exist in interplanetary space without seriously 
affecting the planetary motions by its gravitating 
action as well as by its direct resistance; nor could 
the stellar radiations reach us, as they do, through a 
medium capable of taking up and utilizing the rays 
of the sun in the way this theory supposes. 

And yet I imagine that there is a very general sym- 
pathy with the feeling that led to the proposal of the 
theory, —an uncomfortable dissatisfaction with re- 
ceived theories, because they admit that the greater 
part of the sun’s radiant energy is, speaking from a 
scientific point of view, simply wasted. Nothing like 
a millionth part of the sky, as seen from the sun, is 
occupied, so far as we can make out, by objects upon 
which its rays can fall: the rest is vacancy. If the 
sun sends out rays in all directions alike, not one of 
them in a million finds a target, or accomplishes any 
useful work, unless there is in space some medium 
to utilize the rays, or unknown worlds of which we 
have no cognizance beyond the stars. 

Now, for my own part, I am very little troubled 
by accusations of wastefulness against nature, or by 
demands for theories which will show what the 
human mind can recognize as ‘use’ for all energy 
expended. Where I can perceive such use, I recog- 
nize it with reverence and gratitude, I hope; but the 

1 Jn an article on astronomical collisions, published in the 
North-American review about a year ago, I wrongly stated the 
amount at fifty tons. There was some fatality connected with 
my calculations for that article. I gave the amount of heat due 
to the five hundred tons of meteoric matter which is supposed 
to fall daily on the earth with an average velocity of fifteen miles 
per second as fifty-three calories annually per square metre, —a 
quantity two thousand times too great. Probably the error 


would have been noticed if even the number given had not been 
so small, compared with the solar heat, as fully to justify my 


argument, which is only strengthened by the correction. I owe ~ 
the correction to Professor LeConte of California, who called my — 


attention to the errors. 


[Vou. IV., No. 88. 


It may be admitted, too, that much can be said in 7 
favor of other theories; such as the one which attrib- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884. | 


failure to recognize it in other cases creates in my 
mind no presumption against the wisdom of nature, 
or against the correctness of an hypothesis otherwise 
satisfactory. It merely suggests human limitations 
and ignorance. How can one without sight under- 
stand what a telescope is good for? 

At the same time, perhaps we assume with a little 
too much confidence, that, in free space, radiation 
does take place equally in all directions. Of course, if 
the received views as to the nature and conduct of the 
hypothetical ‘ether’ are correct, there is no possibil- 
ity of questioning the assumption; but, as Sir John 
Herschel and others have pointed out, the proper- 
ties which must be ascribed to this ‘ether,’ to fit it 
for its various functions, are so surprising and almost 
inconceivable, that one may be pardoned for some 
reserve in accepting it as a finality. At any rate, as 
a fact, the question is continually started (the idea 
has been brought out repeatedly, in some cases by 
men of real and recognized scientific and philosophic 
attainment), whether the constitution of things may 
not be such that radiation and transfer of energy 
can take place only between ponderable masses; and 
that, too, without the expenditure of energy upon 
the transmitting-agent (if such exist) along the line 
of transmission, even in transitu. If this were the 


case, then, the sun would send out its energy only to » 


planets and meteors and sister-stars, wasting none 
_ in empty space; and so its loss of heat would be enor- 
mously diminished, and the time-scale of the life of 
the planetary system would be correspondingly ex- 
tended. So far as I know, no one has ever yet been 
able to indicate any kind of medium or mechanism 
by which vibrations, such as we know to constitute 
the radiant energy of light and heat, can be trans- 
mitted at all from sun to planet under such restric- 
tions. Still one ought not to be too positive in 
assertions as to the real condition and occupancy of 
so-called vacant space. The ‘ether’ is a good work- 
ing hypothesis, but hardly more as yet. 

I need not add, that a most interesting and as yet 
inaccessible problem, connected with the preceding, 
is that of the mechanism of gravitation, and, indeed, 
of all forces that seem to act at a distance: as for 
that matter, in the last analysis, all forces do. If 
there really be an ‘ether,’ then it would seem that 
somehow all attractions and repulsions of ponder- 
able matter must be due to its action. Challis’s 
investigations and conclusions as to the effect of 
hydrodynamic actions in such a medium do not seem 
to have commanded general acceptance; and the field 
still lies open for one who will show how gravitation 
and other forces can be correlated with each other 
through the ether. 

Meteors and the comets, seeming to belong neither 
to the solar system nor to the stellar universe, pre- 
sent a crowd of problems as difficult as they are inter- 
esting. Much has undoubtedly been gained during 
the last few decades, but in some respects that which 
has been learned has only deepened the mystery. 

The problem of the origin of comets has been sup- 
posed to be solved to a certain extent by the re- 
searches of Schiaparelli, Heis, Professor Newton, 


201 


and others, who consider them to be strangers com- 


ing in from outer space, sometimes ‘captured’ by 
planets, and forced into elliptic orbits, so as to be- 
come periodic in their motion. Certainly this theory 
has strong supports and great authority, and proba- 
bly it meets the conditions better than any other yet 
proposed. But the objections are really great, if not 
insuperable, — the fact that we have so few, if any, 
comets moving in hyperbolic orbits, as comets met 
by the sun would be expected to move; that there 
seems to be so little relation between the direction of 
the major axes of cometary orbits, and the direction 
of the solar motion in space; and especially the 
fact, pointed out and insisted upon by Mr. Proctor in 
a recent article, that the alteration of a comet’s natu- 
ral parabolic orbit to the observed elliptic one, by 
planetary action, implies a reduction of the comet’s 
velocity greater than can be reasonably explained. 
If, for instance, Brorsen’s comet (which has a mean 
distance from the sun a little more than three times 
that of the earth) was really once a parabolic comet, 
and was diverted into its present path by the attrac- 
tion of Jupiter, as generally admitted, it must have 
had its velocity reduced from about eleven miles a 
second to five. Now, it is very difficult, if not out of 
the question, to imagine any possible configuration 
of the two bodies and their orbits which could result 
in so great a change. While Iam by no means pre- 
pared to indorse as conclusive all the reasoning in 
the article referred to, and should be very far from 
ready to accept the author’s alternative theory (that 
the periodic comets have been ejected from the plan- 
ets, and so are not their captives, but their children), 
I still feel that the difficulty urged against the received 
theory is very real, and not to be evaded, though it 
may possibly be overcome by future research. 

Still more problematical is the constitution of these 
strange objects of such enormous volume and incon- 
ceivable tenuity, self-luminous and transparent, yet 
reflecting light, the seat of forces and phenomena 
unparalleled in all our other experience. Hardly a 
topic relating to their appearance and behavior can 
be named which does not contain an unsolved prob- 
lem. The varying intensity, polarization, and spec- 
troscopic character of their light; the configurations 
of the nucleus and its surrounding nebulosity; and 
especially the phenomena of jets, envelopes, and tail, 
—all demand careful observation and thorough dis- 
cussion. 

I think it may be regarded as certain, that the ex- 
planation of these phenomena when finally reached, 
if that time ever comes, will carry with it, and be 
based upon, an enormous increase in our knowledge 
as to the condition, contents, and temperature of inter- 
planetary space, and the behavior of matter when re- 
duced to lowest terms of density and temperature. 

Time forbids any adequate discussion of the nu- 
merous problems of stellar astronomy. Our work, 
in its very nature incessant and interminable, con- 
sists, of course, in the continual observation and 
cataloguing of the places of the stars, with ever- 
increasing precision. These star-places form the 
scaffold and framework of all other astronomical 


202 


Sc ape 
investigations involving the motions of the heave 
bodies: they are the reference-points and bench- 
marks of the universe. Ultimately, too, the com- 
parison of catalogues of different dates will reveal 
the paths and motions of all the members of the 
starry host, and bring out the great orbit of the sun 
and his attendant planets. 

Meanwhile, micrometric observations are in order, 
upon the individual stars in different clusters, to as- 
certain the motions which occur in such a case; and 
the mathematician is called upon again to solve the 
problem of such movement. 

Now, too, since the recent work of Gill and Elkin 
in South Africa, and of Struve, Hall, and others, else- 
where, upon stellar parallax, new hopes arise that we 
may soon come to some wider knowledge of the sub- 
ject; that, instead of a dozen or so parallaxes of 
doubtful precision, we may get a hundred or more 
relating to stars of widely different brightness and 
motion, and so be enabled to reach some trust- 
worthy generalizations as to the constitution and 
dimensions of the stellar universe, and the actual 
rates of stellar and solar motion in space. 

Most interesting, also, are the studies now so vigor- 
ously prosecuted by Professor Pickering in this coun- 
try, and many others elsewhere, upon the brightness 
of the stars, and the continual variations in this 
brightness. Since 1875, stellar photometry has _ be- 
come almost a new science. 

Then, there are more than a myriad of double and 
multiple stars to watch, and their orbits to be deter- 
mined; and the nebulae claim keen attention, since 
some of them appear to be changing in form and 
brightness, and are likely to reveal to us some won- 
derful secrets in the embryology of worlds. 

Each star also presents a subject for spectroscopic 
study; for although, for the most part, the stars may 
be grouped into a very few classes from the spectro- 
scopic point of view, yet, in detail, the spectra of ob- 
jects belonging to the same group differ considerably 
and significantly, almost as much as human faces do. 

For such investigations, new ,instruments are 
needed, of unexampled powers and accuracy, some 
for angular measurement, some for mere power of 
seeing. Photography comes continually more and 
more to the front; and the idea sometimes suggests 
itself, that by and by the human eye will hardly be 
trusted any longer for observations of precision, but 
will be superseded by an honest, unprejudiced, and 
unimaginative plate and camera. The time is not 
yet, however, most certainly. Indeed, it can never 
come at all, as relates to certain observations; since 
the human eye and mind together integrate, so to 
speak, the impressions of many separate and selected 
moments into one general view, while the camera can 
only give a brutal copy of an unselected state of things, 
with all its atmospheric and other imperfections. 

New methods are also needed, I think (they are 
ungestionably possible), for freeing time-observations 
from the errors of personal equation; and increased 
precision is demanded, and is being progressively 
attained, in the prevention, or elimination, of instru- 
mental errors, due to differences of temperature, to 


INCE. 


BAU! hi f vd TONERS eee} 


mechanical strains, and to inaccuracies of construc- 
tion. Astronomers are now coming to the investiga- 
tion of quantities so minute, that they would be 
completely masked by errors of observation that for- 
merly were usual and tolerable. The science has 
reached a stage, where, as was indicated at the begin- 
ning of this address, it has to confront and deal with 
the possible unsteadiness of the earth’s rotation, 
and the instability of its axis. The astronomer has 
now to reverse the old maxim of the courts: for him, 
and most emphatically at present, de minimis curat 
lex. Residuals and minute discrepancies are the 
seeds of future knowledge, and the very foundations 
of new laws. 

And now, in closing this hurried and inadequate, 
but I fear rather tedious, review of the chief problems 
that are at present occupying the astronomer, what 
answer can we give to him who insists, Cui bono? and 
requires a reason for the enthusiasm that makes the 
votaries of our science so ardent and tireless in its 
pursuit ? Evidently very few of the questions which 
have been presented have much to do directly with 
the material welfare of the human race. It may 
possibly turn out, perhaps, that the investigation of 
the solar radiation, and the behavior of sun-spots, 
may lead to some better understanding of terrestrial 
meteorology, and so aid agricultural operations and 
navigation. I do not say it will be so, —in fact, I 
hardly expect it, —but I am not sure it willnot. Pos- 
sibly, too, some few other astronomical investigations 
may facilitate the determination of latitudes and 
longitudes, and so help exploration and commerce; 
but, with a few exceptions, it must be admitted that 
modern astronomical investigations have not the 
slightest immediate commercial value. 

Now, I am not one of those who despise a scientific 
truth or principle because it admits of an available 
application to the affairs of what is called ‘ practical 
life,’ and so is worth something to the community in 
dollars and cents: its commercial value is — just what 
it is—to be accepted gratefully. 

Indirectly, however, almost all scientific truth has 
real commercial value, because ‘ knowledge is power,’ 
and because (I quote it not irreverently) ‘the truth 
shall make you free,’ — any truth, and to some extent; 
that is to say, the intelligent and intellectually cul- 
tivated will generally obtain a more comfortable live- 
lihood, and do it more easily, than the stupid and the 
ignorant. Intelligence and brains are most power- 
ful allies of strength and hands in the struggle for 
existence; and so, on purely economical grounds, all 
kinds of science are worthy of cultivation. 

But I should be ashamed to rest on this lower 
ground: the highest value of scientific truth is not 
economic, but different and more noble; and, to a 
certain and great degree, its truest worth is more as 
an object of pursuit than of possession. 
tical life’ —the eating and the drinking, the clothing 


and the sheltering — comes /irst, of course, and is the 
necessary foundation of any thing higher; but it is 
not the whole or the best or the most of life. Apart — 
from all spiritual and religious considerations, which 
lie one side of our relations in this association, there | 


[Vou. IV., No. see 


The ‘ prac- 


Se Se oe 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


can be no need, before this audience, to plead the 
higher rank of the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral 
life above the material, or to argue that the pabulum 
of the mind is worth as much as food for the body. 
Now, it is unquestionable, that, in the investiga- 
tion and discovery of the secrets and mysteries of 
the heavens, the human intellect finds most invig- 
orating exercise, and most nourishing and growth- 
making aliment. What other scientific facts and 
conceptions are more effective in producing a mod- 
est, sober, truthful, and ennobling estimate of man’s 


SCIENCE. 


203 


lace in nature, both of his puny insignificance, 
regarded as a physical object, and his towering spirit, 
in some sense comprehending the universe itself, and 
so akin to the divine ? 

A nation oppressed by poverty, and near to starv- 
ing, needs first, most certainly, the trades and occupa- 
tions that will feed and clothe it. When bodily com- 
fort has been achieved, then higher needs and wants 
appear; and then science, for truth’s own sake, comes 
to be loved and honored along with poetry and art, 
leading men into a larger, higher, and nobler life. 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


SOME DISTINCTIVE FEATURES 
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 


OF 


THE general plan of organization of the 
British and American associations for the ad- 
vancement of science is the same. The Eng- 
lish body has a ‘ council’ corresponding closely 
to our standing committee, and a ‘ general com- 
mittee’ corresponding to our body of fellows. 
There are, however, many points of difference 
which it is well worth while to study with a 
view of seeing what suggestions of value we 
may derive for our own guidance. The first 
of these is, that the British association has 
long since given up the practice of meeting and 
transacting business as an organized body. 
The general meetings are held only to hear 
such papers as the president’s annual address, 
and not to transact business of any kind. The 
transaction of all business by the several com- 
mittees saves much time which the American 
association spends in the work of organizing 
the meeting, and electing new members; and 
we may expect, that, as our numbers increase, 
this work will become so cumbrous that we 
shall finally adopt some plan of putting it en- 
tirely into the hands of committees. 

The organization and conduct of the scien- 
tific proceedings are so like those adopted by 
ourselves as to call for little remark. The 
division into sections is substantially the same 
as with us; and the main difference between 
the sectional programmes is that no estimated 
length of a paper is given by our neighbors, 
thus avoiding one source of deception which 
frequently annoys intended listeners. Per- 
haps it was owing to the peculiar circum- 
stances of the meeting, that the papers and 
discussions were of a quality superior to what 
we are wont to expect in a semi-popular as- 
semblage. Only men who had some serious 
object could undertake so long a journey ; and 


the result has been, that what such men have 
had to say was heard without any admixture 
of the crude and ignorant speculations so often 
interjected into the discussions, and even form- 
ing the subject of the papers. The one sub- 
ject in which English thought has always been 
pre-eminent is the theories of physics, and the 
discussion on the seat of electromotive forces 
was all the more creditable from the barren- 
ness of the subject. This discussion well illus- 
trated the comparative state of science in the 
two countries; which may be expressed by 
saying, that, while a few men of the highest 
genius stand on the same level, foreign coun- 
tries are greatly superior to us in the number 
of trained men, thoroughly grounded in first 


principles, which they are able to bring for- 


ward. The lucid statement by Professor Wil- 
lard Gibbs of New Haven, of the principles 
involved, was the feature of the discussion ; 
yet it would have been hard for the speaker to 
collect in his own country so appreciative an 
audience as that which greeted him from be- 
yond the ocean. 

The most valuable work of the British asso- 
ciation has been the reports and investigations 
undertaken by committees of its appointment. 
Occasionally these reports have comprised 
synopses of the progress of science in special 
branches made by individual members, and 
presented to the society. The greater number 
have, however, been accounts of special re- 
searches, the funds for prosecuting which have 
been supplied by the association. A splendid 
example of such work, which must ever re- 
dound to the credit of the body which under- 
took it, is the system of electrical units now 
universally adopted, the basis for which was 
furnished by a committee of the British asso- 
ciation. It can hardly be too much to say, 
that no one work of recent times has done 
more for the progress and diffusion of electrical 


i 


204 


science than this. . 
erally continued from year to year, and thus 
form permanent working bodies, each pursuing 
a definite object. Naturally, nearly all the 
work will be done by one or a small number of 
members; but the latter have the advantage 
and stimulus of the co-operation and advice 
of their fellow members, who again are in a 
position to provide for the continuance of the 
work in case the person in charge gives it up. 
An idea of the present importance of this fea- 
ture of the organization may be gained from 
the fact, that there are more than forty such 
committees at work, reporting annually. Some 
examples may be cited to show the character 
of the work undertaken: A committee on 
underground temperature collects determina- 
tions of the rate of increase of temperature in 
mines, and other places where it is possible to 
determine it ; another is collecting and inves- 
tigating meteoric dust; another investigates 
the lunar disturbance of gravity; Mr. Francis 
Galton is at the head of a committee devising 
a system of statistical measurements of human 
beings ; the economists have a committee in- 
vestigating the rate of wages, and its relation 
to economic progress. In a word, a range of 
subjects from tables of binary quantics to pat- 
ent legislation, and the migration of birds, are 
being regularly investigated. We wish there 
could be a body of men in this country pursu- 
ing similar objects. 

The number of Americans present at the 
meeting was even greater than could have been 
expected ; and the high character of the Ameri- 
can representation is sufficiently shown by the 
fact that six ex-presidents of the American 
association were in attendance. 


STEPS TOWARDS A KINETIC THEORY 


OF MATTER. 


THE now well-known kinetic theory of gases is a 
step so important, in the way of explaining seemingly 
static properties of matter by motion, that it is scarcely 
possible to help anticipating, in idea, the arrival at a 
complete theory of matter, in which all its properties 
will be seen to be merely attributes of motion. 

Rich as it is in practical results, the kinetic theory 
of gases, as hitherto developed, stops absolutely short 
at the atom or molecule, and gives not even a sug- 
gestion towards explaining the properties in virtue 
of which the atoms or molecules mutually influence 
one another. 


1 Address to the mathematical and physical section of the 
British association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by Professor Sir 
Wituiam THomsSON, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., L. & E., 
¥.R.A.S., president of the section. 


. 4 


The committees are @en- 


Every one who has hitherto written or done any 
thing very explicit in the kinetic theory of gases has 
taken the mutual action of molecules in collision as 
repulsive. May it not, after all, be attractive? Im- 
agine a great multitude of particles enclosed by a 
boundary which may be pushed inwards in any part, 
all round, at pleasure. Now station an engineer 
corps of Maxwell’s army of sorting demons all round 
the enclosure, with orders to push in the boundary 
diligently everywhere when none of the besieged 
troops are near, and to do nothing when any of them 
are seen approaching, and until after they have 
turned again inwards. The result will be, that, with 
exactly the same sum of kinetic and potential ener- 
gies of the same enclosed multitude of particles, the 
throng has been caused to be denser. Now, Joule’s 
and Thomson’s old experiments on the efflux of air 
prove, that if the crowd be common air, or oxygen, 
or nitrogen, or carbonic acid, the temperature is a 
little higher in the denser than in the rarer condition 
when the energies are the same. By the hypothesis, 
equality of temperature between two different gases, 
or two portions of the same gas at different densities, 
means equality of kinetic energies in the same num- 
ber of molecules of the two. From the observations 
proving the temperature to be higher, it therefore 
follows that the potential energy is smaller in the 
condensed crowd. This (always, however, under 
protest as to the temperature hypothesis) proves 
some degree of attraction among the molecules, but 
it does not prove ultimate attraction between two 
molecules in collision, or at distances much less than 
the average mutual distance of nearest neighbors in 
the multitude. 

We must look distinctly on each molecule as being 
either a little elastic solid, or a configuration of mo- 
tion in a continuous, all-pervading liquid. How we 
can ever permanently rest anywhere short of this last 
view is not evident; but it would be a very pleasant 
temporary resting-place on the way to it, if we could, 
as it were, make a mechanical model of a gas out of 
little pieces of round, perfectly elastic, solid matter, 
flying about through the space occupied by the gas, 
and colliding with one another, and against the sides 
of the containing vessel. But alas for a mechani- 
cal model consisting of the cloud of little elastic 
solids flying about amongst one another! Though 


each particle have absolutely perfect elasticity, the 


end must be pretty much the same as if it were but 
imperfectly elastic. The average effect of repeated 
and repeated mutual collisions must be to gradually 
convert all the translational energy into energy of 
shriller and shriller vibrations of the molecule. Even 
if this fatal fault in the theory did not exist, and if 
we could be perfectly satisfied with the kinetic the- 
ory of gases founded on the collisions of elastic solid 
molecules, there would still be beyond it a grander 
theory, which need not be considered a chimerical 


object of scientific ambition, —to explain the elas- 


ticity of solids. 

If we could make out of matter devoid of elasticity 
a combined system of relatively moving parts, which, 
in virtue of motion, has the essential characteristics 


wee, en 


[Vor. IV., No. 88. 


” 
td 


Oke Te ee ee 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


of an elastic body, this would be at least a finger-post, 
pointing a way which we may hope will lead to a ki- 


netic theory of matter. Any ideal system of material 
particles, acting on one another mutually through 
mass-less connecting springs, may be perfectly imi- 
tated in a model consisting of rigid links jointed to- 
gether, and having rapidly rotating fly-wheels pivoted 
on some or on all of the links. The drawings (figs. 1 
and 2) illustrate two such material systems. The di- 
rections of rotation of the fly-wheels in the gyrostatic 


le 
Fie. 1. 


system (fig. 2) are indicated by directional ellipses, 
which show in perspective the direction of rotation of 
the fly-wheel of each gyrostat. The gyrostatic system 
(fig. 2) might have been constituted of two gyrostatic 
members, but four are shown for symmetry. The 
enclosing circle represents in each case, in section, an 
enclosing spberical shell to prevent the interior from 
being seen. In the inside of one there are fly-wheels; 
in the inside of the other, a massless spring. The 
projecting hooked rods seem as if they are connected 
by a spring in each case. If we hang any one of the 
systems up by the hook on one of its projecting rods, 
and hang a weight to the hook of the other projecting 
rod, the weight, when first put on, will oscillate up and 
down, and will go on doing so forever, if the system 
be absolutely unfrictional. If we check the vibration 
by hand, the weight will hang down at rest, the pin 
drawn out to a certain degree; and the distance drawn 
out will be simply proportional to the weight hung on, 
as in an ordinary spring-balance. 

Here, then, out of matter possessing rigidity, but 
absolutely devoid of elasticity, we have made a per- 
fect model of a spring in the form of a spring-balance. 
Connect millions of millions of particles by pairs of 
rods such as these of this spring-balance, and we 
have a group of particles constituting an elastic solid. 

The gyrostatic model spring-balance is arranged to 
have zero moment of momentum as a whole, and 
therefore to contribute nothing to the Faraday rota- 
tion. With this arrangement, the model illustrates the 
luminiferous ether in a field unaffected by magnetic 
force. But now let there be a different rotational ve- 
locity imparted to the jointed square, round the axis 
of the two projecting hooked rods, such as to give a 
resultant moment of momentum round any given line 
through the centre of inertia of the system, and let 
pairs of the hooked rods in the model thus altered, 


205 


an 
which is no longer a model of a mere spring-balance, 
be applied as connections between millions of pairs 
of particles, as before, with the lines of resultant 
moment of momentum all similarly directed: we 
now have a model elastic solid which will have the 
property that the direction of vibration in waves of 
rectilinear vibrations propagated through it shall turn 
round the line of propagation of the waves; just as 
Faraday’s observation proves to be done by the line 
of vibration of light in a dense medium between the 
poles of a powerful magnet. ‘The case of wave-front 
perpendicular to the lines of resultant moment of 
momentum (that is to say, the direction of propaga- 
tion being parallel to these lines) corresponds, in our 
mechanical model, to the case of light travelling in 
the direction of the lines of force in a magnetic field. 

But now, with the view of ultimately discarding 
the postulate of rigidity from all our materials, let us 
suppose some to be absolutely destitute of rigidity, 
and to possess merely inertia and incompressibility, 
and mutual impenetrability with reference to the still 
remaining rigid matter. With these postulates, we 
can produce a perfect model of mutual action at a 
distance between solid particles, fulfilling the condi- 
tion, so keenly desired by Newton and Faraday, of 
being explained by continuous action through an in- 
tervening medium. Imagine a solid bored through 
with a hole, and placed in our ideal perfect liquid. 
For a moment let the hole be stopped by a diaphragm, 
and let an impulsive pressure be applied for an instant 
uniformly over the whole membrane, and then in- 
stantly let the membrane be dissolved into liquid. 
This action originates a motion of the liquid relatively 
to the solid, of a kind to which has been given the 
name of ‘irrotational circulation,’ which remains ab- 
solutely constant, however the solid be moved through 
the liquid. Thus at any time the actual motion of 
the liquid, at any point in the neighborhood of the 
solid, will be the resultant of the motion it would 
have in virtue of the circulation alone were the solid 
at rest, and the motion it would have in virtue of the 
motion of the solid itself had there been no circulation 
established through the aperture. It is interesting 
and important to remark, in passing, that the whole 
kinetic energy of the liquid is the sum of the kinetic 
energies which it would have in the two cases sepa- 
rately. “Now, imagine the whole liquid to be enclosed 
in an infinitely large, rigid containing-vessel; and in 
the liquid, at an infinite distance from any part of the 
containing-vessel, let two perforated solids, with irro- 
tational circulation through each, be placed at rest 
near one another. The resultant fluid motion due to 
the two circulations will give rise to fluid pressure on 
the two bodies, which, if unbalanced, will cause them 
to move. 

It might be imagined that the action at a distance, 
thus provided for by fiuid motion, could serve as a 
foundation for a theory of the equilibrium and the 
vibrations of elastic solids, and the transmission of 
waves like those of light through an extended quasi- 
elastic solid medium. But, unfortunately, the equi- 
librium is essentially unstable. If, however, we 
connect the perforated bodies, with circulation through 


i S 


them in the hydrokinetic system, by jointed rigid cori- 
necting-links, we may arrange for configurations of 
stable equilibrium. Thus, without fly-wheels, but 
with fluid circulations through apertures, we may 
make a model spring-balance, or a model luminifer- 
ous ether, either without or with the rotational 
quality corresponding to that of the true luminifer- 
ous ether in the magnetic fluid; in short, do all by 
the perforated solids, with circulations through them, 
that we saw we could do by means of linked gyro- 
stats. But something that we cannot do by linked 
gyrostats, we can do by the perforated bodies with 
fluid circulation: we can make a model gas. The 
mutual action at a distance, repulsive or attractive 
according to the mutual aspect of the two bodies 
when passing within collisional distance of one 
another, suffices to produce the change of direction 
of motion in collision, which essentially constitutes 
the foundation of the kinetic theory of gases. 

There remains, however, as we have seen before, 
the difficulty of providing for the case of actual im- 
pacts between the solids. 

Let us annul the solids, and leave the liquid per- 
forming irrotational circulation round vacancy, in 
the place of the solid cores which we have hitherto 
supposed ; or let us annul the rigidity of the solid cores 
of the rings, and give them molecular rotation accord- 
ing to Helmholtz’s theory of vortex motion. As to 
whether, however, when the vortex theory of gases is 
thoroughly worked out, it will or will not be found 
to fail in a manner analogous to the failure already 
pointed out in connection with the kinetic theory 
of gases composed of little elastic solid molecules, 
one cannot at present speak with certainty. 


PROGRESS OF CHEMISTRY SINCE 1848.1 


WirTH the death of Berzelius in 1848 ended a well- 
marked epoch in the history of chemistry: with that 
of Dumas —and, alas! that of Wurtz also—in 1884 
closes a second. 

The differences between what may properly be 
termed the ‘ Berzelian era,’ and that with which the 
name of Dumas will forever be associated, show 
themselves in many ways, but in none more marked- 
ly than by the distinct views entertained as to the 
nature of a chemical compound. 

According to the older notions, the properties of 
compounds are essentially governed by the qualitative 
nature of their constituent atoms, which were sup- 
posed to be so arranged as to form a binary system. 
Under the new ideas, on the other hand, it is mainly 
the number and arrangement of the atoms within the 
molecule which regulate the characteristics of the 
compound, which is to be looked on, not as built up 
of two constituent groups of atoms, but as forming 
one group. Another striking difference of view be- 
tween the chemistry of the Berzelian era and that of 


1 Abstract of an address to the chemical section of the Brit- 
ish association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by Professor HENRY 
ENFIELD RoscoEk, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.C.S., president of 
the section. 


what we sometimes term the ‘ modern epoch,’ is illus- 
trated by the so-called ‘ substitution theory.’ Dumas, 
to whom we owe this theory, showed that chlorine 


_ can take the place of hydrogen in many compounds, 


and that the resulting body possesses characters simi- 
lar to the original. But there is another change of 
view, dating from the commencement of the Dumas 
epoch, which has exerted an influence, equal, if not 
superior, to those already named on the progress of 
chemistry, and that is, as to the use of equivalent 
or molecular weights. 

The theory of organic radicals, developed by Liebig 
so long ago as 1834, received numerous experimental 
confirmations in succeeding years. Bunsen’s classi- 
cal research on cacodyl, proving the possibility of 
the existence of metallo-organic radicals capable 
of playing the part of a metal, and the isolation of 
the hydrocarbon ethyl by Frankland in 1849, laid 
what the supporters of the theory deemed the final 
stone in the structure. 

The fusion of the radical and type theories, chiefly 
effected by the discovery in 1849 of the compound 
ammonias by Wurtz, brings us to the dawn of mod- 
ern chemistry. Henceforward organic compounds 
were seen to be capable of comparison with simple 
inorganic bodies, and hydrogen capable of replace- 
ment not only by chlorine or by a metal, but by an . 
organic group or radical. 

At the Edinburgh meeting of this association in 
1850, Williamson read a paper on ‘ Results of a re- 
search on aetherification,’ which not only included a 
satisfactory solution of an interesting and hitherto 
unexplained problem, but was destined to exert a 
most important influence on the development of our 
theoretical views: for he proved, contrary to the then 
prevailing ideas, that ether contains twice as much 
carbon as alcohol, and that it is not formed from the 
latter by a mere separation of the elements of water, 
but by an exchange of hydrogen for ethyl; and this 
fact, being in accordance with Avogadro’s law of 
molecular volumes, could only be represented by 
regarding the molecule of water as containing two 
atoms of hydrogen to one of oxygen, one of the 
former being replaced by one of ethyl to form alco- 
hol, and the two of hydrogen by two of ethyl to 
form ether. Then Williamson introduced the type 
of water (subsequently adopted by Gerhardt) into 
organic chemistry, and extended our views of the 
analogies between alcohols and acids by pointing 
out that these latter are also referable to the water- 
type, predicting that bodies bearing the same rela- 
tions to the ordinary acids as the ethers do to the 
alcohols must exist,— a prediction shortly afterwards 
(1852) verified by Gerhardt’s discovery of the anhy- 
drides. 

Again, in 1852, we note the first germs of a theory 
which was destined to play an all-important part in the 
progress of the science; viz., the doctrine of valency, 
or atomicity; and to Frankland it is that we owe this 
new departure. But whether we range ourselves 
with Kekulé, who supports the unalterable character 
of the valency of each element, or with Frankland, 


who insists on its variability, it is now clear to most — 


ry ea 


[Vou. LV., Novigaaaneae 


- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.]| 


chemists that the hard and fast lines upon which this 
theory was supposed to stand cannot be held to be 
secure. 

But however many doubts may have been raised, 
in special instances, against a thorough application of 
the law of valency, it cannot be denied that the gen- 
eral relations of the elements which this question of 
valency has been the means of bringing to light are 
of the highest importance, and point to the existence 
of laws of nature of the widest significance; as seen 
in the periodic law of the elements first foreshadowed 
by Newlands, but fully developed by Mendelejeff and 
Lothar Meyer. But this periodic Jaw makes it pos- 
sible for us to do more: for as the astronomer, by 
the perturbations of known planets, can predict the 
existence of hitherto unknown ones, so the chemist, 
though of course with much less reliable means, has 
been able to predict with precision the properties, 
physical and chemical, of certain missing links 
amongst the elements; such as ekaluminium and 
ekaboron, then unborn, but which shortly afterwards 
became well known to us in the flesh as gallium and 
scandium. 

Arising out of Kekulé’s theory of the tetrad nature 
of the carbon atom, came the questions which have 
caused much debate among chemists: 1°. Are the 
four combining units of the carbon atom of equal 
value, or not? and 2°, Is the assumption of a dyad 
earbon atom, in the so-called non-saturated com- 
pounds, justifiable, or not? The answer to the first 
of these, a favorite view of Kolbe’s, is given in the 
now well-ascertained laws of isomerism; and from 
the year 1862, when Schorlemmer proved the identity 
of the hydrides of the alcohol radicals with the so- 
called radicals themselves, this question may be said 
to be set at rest. 

Passing from this subject, we arrive, by a process 
of natural selection, at more complicated cases of 
chemical orientation; that is, given certain com- 
pounds which possess the same composition and 
molecular formulae but varying properties, to find 
the difference in molecular structure by which such 
variation of properties is determined. Problems of 
this nature can now be satisfactorily solved, the num- 
ber of possible isomers foretold, and this prediction 
confirmed by experiment. 

The discovery of the aniline colors by Perkin, their 
elaboration by Hofmann; the synthesis of alizarin by 
Graebe and Liebermann, being the first vegetable 
coloring-matter which has been artificially obtained ; 
the artificial production of indigo by Baeyer; and, 
lastly, the preparation by Fischer of kairine, a 
febrifuge as potent as quinine,—are some of the 
well-known recent triumphs of modern synthetical 
chemistry. 

In no department of chemistry has the progress 
made been more important than in that concerned 
with the accurate determination of the numerical, 
physical, and chemical constants, upon the exactitude 
of which every quantitative chemical operation de- 
pends. Amongst the most interesting recent ad- 
ditions to our knowledge, made in this department, 
we may note the classical experiments, in 1880, of 


207 


a} “i 


J. W. Mallet on aluminium, and, in the same year, 
of J. P. Cooke on antimony, and those, in the present 
year, of Thorpe on titanium. 

In referring to the work in spectrum analysis, Pro- 
fessor Roscoe recalled some of the more remarkable 
conclusions to which the researches of Lockyer, 
Schuster, Liveing and Dewar, Willner, and others, 
in this direction, have led. In the first place, it is 
well to bear in mind that a difference of a very 
marked kind, first distinctly pointed out by Alex. 
Mitscherlich, is to be observed between the spectrum 
of an element and that of its compounds, the latter 
only being seen in cases in which the compound is 
not dissociated at temperatures necessary to give rise 
to a glowing gas; second, that these compound 
spectra (as, for instance, those of the halogen com- 
pounds of the alkaline-earth metals) exhibit a certain 
family likeness, and show signs of systematic varia- 
tion in the position of the lines, corresponding to 
changes in the molecular weight of the vibrating sys- 
tem. Still, it cannot be said that as yet definite proof 
has been given in support of the theory that a causal 
connection is to be found between the emission spec- 
tra of the several elements belonging to allied groups 
and their atomic weights, or other chemical or physi- 
cal properties. In certain of the single elements, 
however, the connection between the spectra and the 
molecular constitution can be traced. In the case 
of sulphur, for example, three distinct spectra are 
known. The first of these, a continuous one, is ex- 
hibited at temperatures below 500°, when, as we 
know from Dumas’ experiments, the density of the 
vapor is three times the normal, showing that at this 
temperature the molecule consists of six atoms. The 
second spectrum is seen when the temperature is 
raised to above 1000°, when, as Deville and Troost 
have shown, the vapor reaches its normal density; 
and the molecule of sulphur, as with most other 
gases, contains two atoms; and this is a band-spec- 
trum, or one characterized by channelled spaces. 
Together with this band-spectrum, and especially 
round the negative pole, a spectrum of bright lines is 
observed. This latter is doubtless due to the vibra- 
tions of the single atoms of the dissociated molecule, 
the existence of traces of a band-spectrum demonstrat- 
ing the fact, that, in some parts of the discharge, the 
tension of dissociation is insufficient to prevent the 
reunion of the atoms to form the molecule. 

The most remarkable results obtained by Abney 
and Festing show that the radical of an organic body 
is always represented by certain well-marked absorp- 
tion-bands; differing, however, in position, according 
as it is linked with hydrogen, a halogen, or with car- 
bon, oxygen, or nitrogen. Indeed, these experiment- 
ers go so far as to say that it is highly probable, that, 
by this delicate mode of analysis, the hypothetical 
position of any hydrogen which is replaced may be 
identified; thus pointing out a method of physical 
orientation, of which, if confirmed by other ob- 
servers, chemists will not be slow to avail them- 
selves. 

One of the noteworthy features of chemical prog- 
ress is the interest taken by physicists in fundamental 


208 


questions of the science, —Sir William Thomson's _ 


interesting speculations, founded upon physical phe- 
nomena, respecting the probable size of the atom; 
and Helmholtz’s discussion of the relation of elec- 
tricity and chemical energy; and the theory of the 
vortex-ring constitution of matter, thrown out by Sir 
William Thomson, and lately worked out, from a 
chemical point of view, by J. J. Thomson of Cam- 
bridge. 

Another branch of chemistry which has recently 
attracted much experimental attention is that of 
thermo-chemistry, — a subject upon which, in the 
future, the foundation of dynamical chemistry must 
rest, and one which already proclaims the truth of 
the great principle of the conservation of energy, in 
all cases of chemical as well as of physical change. 
But here, although the materials hitherto collected 
are of very considerable amount and value, the time 
has not yet arrived for expressing these results in 
general terms; and we must therefore be content to 
note progress in special lines, and wait for the ex- 
pansion into wider areas. 

In conclusion, Professor Roscoe spoke of the part 
English chemists had played in the past, and of the 
marked difference between the data-gathering Ger- 
man work, and the systematizing of the facts known, 
which is going on in England. He also referred to 
what he considered the best method of educating 
chemists, — by giving them as sound and extensive a 
foundation in the theory and practice of chemical 
science as their time and abilities will allow, rather 
than forcing them prematurely into the preparation 
of a new series of homologous compounds, or the in- 
vestigation of some special reaction, or of some pos- 
sible new coloring-matter, though such work might 
doubtless lead to publication, —and called attention 
to the prominence of English industrial chemistry. 


THE CORRELATION OF GEOLOGICAL 
FORMATIONS.} 


TuIs address was devoted to a consideration of a 
few remarkable exceptions to the rule that similarity of 
faunas and floras in fossiliferous formations through- 
out the surface of the world implies identity of geo- 
logical age. Some interesting contributions have 
been made to this question by the geological survey 
of India, where Mr. Blanford’s experience has been 
chiefly derived, and by the geologists of Australia and 
South Africa; and he first noticed a few typical in- 
stances, several of them Indian, in which the system 
of determining the age of various formations by the 
fauna or flora has led to contradictory results, and 
then showed where the source of error appears to lie. 
The famous Pikermi beds of Greece, a few miles east 
of Athens, contain a vertebrate fauna nearly always 
quoted as miocene; but they overlie strata with well- 
proved pliocene marine Mollusca. The Siwalik beds 
that flank the Himalaya north of Delhi are still 


1 Abstract of an address to the geological section of the British 
association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by W. T. BLANFORD, 
F.R.S., Sec. 7, G.S., F.R.G.S., president of the section. 


n i a TS) Pee, Go ad ee Gree 
ee... } F 


CE. [Vou. IV., No. saa au 
classed as miocene by most European writers, but — 
are regarded as pliocene by the Indian survey, on 
evidence found by tracing them west and south into 
Sind. The Gondwana system of central India, a 
great sequence of fresh-water beds probably of fluvi- 
atile origin, over 20,000 feet thick, is of unusual 
interest on account of the extraordinary conflict of 
paleontological evidence it presents to the observer. 
Its subdivisions are numerous, and vary in almost 
every place of occurrence. One (the Talchir beds) 
contains rounded bowlders chiefly of metamorphic 
rocks up to six feet across, embedded in fine silt: 
others are characterized by an intermingling of floras 
and faunas that give rise to a mass of contradictions; 
beds with a Triassic fauna overlying, others with 
Rhaetic or Jurassic floras. The Australian coal- 
measures and their associated beds present even a 
more remarkable instance of homotaxial perversity, 
a Jurassic flora being of the same age as a carbon- 
iferous marine fauna. Some of these beds (Hawkes- 
bury) again contain transported bowlders, which 
occur once more in the lower members (Ecca beds) 
of the Karoo formation of interior South Africa. The 
latter presents a striking likeness to the Gondwana 
system of India. In both countries, a thick fresh- 
water formation occupies a large area of the interior 
of the country, whilst on the coast some marine 
Jurassic and cretaceous rocks are found; and as in 
India, so in South Africa, the uppermost inland mes- 
ozoic fresh-water beds are capped by volcanic. 

Other examples of discrepancies in paleontologi- 
cal evidence might be given, but he would add merely 
a mention of the single case known to him in which 
the discordant records are both marine, namely, Bar- 
rande’s ‘colonies’ in Bohemia; but here the dis- 
cordance is much less than in the cases before cited, 
and moreover Barrande’s conclusion is disputed by 
other observers. 

In most of the cases he had named, the conflict is 
between the evidence of marine and terrestrial or- 
ganisms. Manifestly one or the other of these leads 
to erroneous conclusions; and in making choice be- 
tween the two, most geologists accept evidence of the 
marine fossils. The reason is not far to seek. So 
far as he was aware, no case is known where such an 
anomaly as that displayed in the Gondwanas of India 
has been detected amongst marine formations of 
which the sequence was unquestioned. Further, if 
we compare the distribution of marine with that of 
terrestrial and fresh-water animals and plants at the 
present day, we shall find a very striking difference; 
and it is possible that this difference may afford a 
clew to the conditions that prevailed in past times. 

Wanderers into what they fancy unexplored tracts 
in paleontology are likely to find Professor Huxley’s 
footprints on the path they are following. In his 
paper on the Hyperodopedon, he says: ‘*It does not 
appear to me that there is any necessary relation 
between the fauna of a given land and that of the 


seas on its shores. . . . What now happens geo- — E 


graphically to provinces in space, is good evidence as 
to what, in former times, may have happened to 
provinces in time; and an essentially identical land- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


fauna may have been contemporary with several 


successive marine faunae. At present our knowl- 
edge of the terrestrial faunae of past epochs is so 
slight that no practical difficulty arises from using, 
as we do, sea-reckoning for land time. But I think 
it is highly probable that sooner or later the inhabit- 
ants of the land will be found to have a history of 
their own.”’ 

When these words were written, more than twenty- 
four years ago, scarcely one of the geological details 
to which Mr. Blanford called attention was known. 
He need not point out how wonderful a commentary 
such details have afforded to Professor Huxley’s 
views. But there is, he believed, an additional distinc- 
tion between land and marine faunas, that requires 
notice. At the present day the difference between 
the land-faunas of different parts of the world is so 
vastly greater than that between the marine faunas, 
that if both were found fossilized, whilst there would 
be but little difficulty in recognizing different marine 
deposits as of like age from their organic remains, 
terrestrial and fresh-water beds would in all proba- 
bility be referred to widely differing epochs. 

Our present knowledge of the distribution of ter- 
restrial and marine faunas and floras can be only 
briefly treated. Among mammals and reptiles, the 
marine forms are generally the most widely diffused. 
Fishes give better illustration: eighty families are 
typically marine, and twenty-nine are confined to 
fresh water; of the first, fifty are universally, or 
almost universally, distributed; while of the second, 
only one (Cyprinidae) is found in five of Wallace’s 
regions, and not one is met with in all six. It is 
impossible to conceive a greater contrast. The dis- 
tribution of land and sea Mollusca leads to a similar 
conclusion as to the relatively narrow range of the 
landforms. Throughout the marine invertebrata, but 
few generic types are restricted to particular seas: the 
majority are found in suitable habitats over a large 
portion of the oceans. Indeed, the marine provinces 
that have been hitherto distinguished are founded 
rather on specific than on generic distinctions. 
Botany offers a still more remarkable example: so 
uniform is the marine vegetation of the world, that 
no separate regions can be established in the ocean, 
while Drude makes fourteen on the land. 

Mr. Blanford alluded to the evidence of the exist- 
ence of land-regions in past times. Proofs are already 
accumulated of differences between the fauna of dis- 
tant countries in tertiary times. The eocene, miocene, 
and pliocene Vertebrata of North America differ quite 
as much from those of Europe as do the genera of the 
present day; and there was as much distinction be- 
tween the mammalia of the Himalayas and of Greece 
when the Siwalik and Pikermi faunas were living as 
there isnow. The reptiles of the American Jurassic 
deposits present wide differences from those of the 
European beds of that age. But there is no reason 
for supposing that the limits or relations of the zo6- 
logical and botanical regions in past times were the 
same as they now are. It is quite certain, indeed, 
that the distribution of land-areas has undergone 
enormous variations, whether the great oceanic tract 


hasr 


209 


Porat 
emained uifchanged in its general outlines or not; 
and the migration of the terrestrial fauna and flora 
must have been dependent upon the presence or ab- 
sence of land communication between different con- 
tinental tracts: in other words, the terrestrial regions 
of past epochs, although just as clearly marked as 
those of the present day, were very differently dis- 
tributed. 

The idea that marine and terrestrial faunas and 
floras were similar throughout the world’s surface in 
past times, is so ingrained in paleontological science, 
that it will require many years yet before the fallacy 
of the assumption is generally admitted. No circum- 
stance has contributed more widely to the belief than 
the supposed universal diffusion of the carboniferous 
flora. The evidence that the plants which prevailed 
in the coal-measures of Europe were replaced by to- 
tally different forms in Australia, despite the closest 
similarity in the marine inhabitants of the two areas 
at the period, will probably go far to give the death- 
blow to an hypothesis that rests upon no solid ground 
of observation. In a vast number of instances it has 
been assumed that similarity between fossil terres- 
trial faunas and floras proves identity of geological 
age ; and by arguing in a vicious circle, the occurrence 
of similar types, assumed without sufficient proof to 
belong to the same geological period, has been alleged 
as evidence of the existence of similar forms in distant 
countries at the same time. 

It may perhaps have surprised some, that Mr. Blan- 
ford scarcely alluded to any American formations, 
and especially that he had not mentioned so well- 
known and interesting a case of conflicting paleon- 
tological evidence as that of the Laramie group. His 
reason was simply, that there were probably many 
present who were personally acquainted with the 
geology of the American cretaceous and tertiary beds, 
and who were far better able to judge than he of the 
evidence as a whole. To all who are studying such 
questions in America, he thought it would be more 
useful to give the details of similar geological puzzles 
from the eastern hemisphere, than to attempt an 
imperfect analysis of difficult problems in the great 
western continent. 


THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEEP-SEA LIFE. 


THE physiology of the deep-sea life has, until lately, 
received but little attention from professed physiolo- 
gists. Noone has yet set forth the numerous diffi- 
culties which are encountered, when the attempt is 
made to comprehend the mode in which the ordinary 
physiological processes of Vertebrata and other ani- 
mals are carried on under the peculiar physical con: 
ditions which exist at great depths. 

A knowledge of the conditions under which gases 
occur in a state of absorption in the ocean-waters 


1 Abstract of an address to the biological section of the 
British association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by H. N. 
MOSELEY, Esq., M.A., ¥.R.S., Linacre professor of human and 
comparative anatomy in the University of Oxford, president of 
the section. 


210 


is of primary importance to the physiologist... t 


appears from the results of Professor Dittmaz’s 
’ researches into the composition of the ocean-water 
collected by the Challenger, that, contrary to what 
was before suspected, the presence of free carbonic 
acid in sea-water is an exception. Hence, with re- 
gard to Mr. Murray’s interesting discovery, that, after 
certain depths are reached, pteropod shells are dis- 
solved, and disappear from the sea-bottom, and at 
certain farther depths Globigerina shells suffer the 
same fate, Professor Dittmar holds that the solution 
is not due to the presence of free acid, but to the sol- 
vent action of the sea-water itself. Thus the amount 
of carbonic acid normally present throughout the 
ocean cannot be inimical to life; but there must. be 
in the depths of the ocean numerous bodies of 
richly carbonated water. 

French physiologists have lately commenced re- 
searches on some of the problems of deep-sea life. 
Experiments have been made by Mr. Regnard with a 
view of determining the effects of high pressures, 
corresponding with those of the deep sea, on various 
organisms. Yeast, after being exposed to a pressure 
of a thousand atmospheres, equal to a depth of about 
sixty-five hundred fathoms of sea-water, for an hour, 
was mixed with a solution of sugar. An hour elapsed 
before any signs of fermentation appeared; and a mix- 
ture of yeast and sugar solution did not ferment at 
all whilst under a pressure of six hundred atmos- 
pheres, equal to a depth of about thirty-nine hun- 
dred fathoms. Algae, seeds of phanerogamic plants, 
infusoria, and even Mollusca and leeches, were found 
to be thrown into a condition of sleep, or latency, by 
exposure to similar pressures, recovering from this 
condition after a shorter or longer period of return 
to normal conditions. A fish without a swimming- 
bladder, or one with the bladder emptied of air, may 
be submitted to a pressure of a hundred atmospheres, 
equivalent to a depth of six hundred and fifty 
fathoms, without injurious effect. At two hundred 
atmospheres, equivalent to a depth of thirteen hun- 
dred fathoms, it becomes torpid, but soon revives 
when the pressure is removed. At three hundred 
atmospheres, equivalent to a depth of about two 
thousand fathoms, the fish dies. ‘These experiments 
are of the highest interest. The pressure made use 
of was obtained by means of water, in the absence of 
air other than that absorbed at the normal atmos- 
phere pressure; and thus the physical conditions 
produced were closely similar to those actually ex- 
istent in the deep sea, ‘They are the first of their 
kind. 

Professor Paul Bert’s somewhat similar experi- 
ments related to a different question altogether ; 
namely, the effect, on aquatic organisms, of water 
subjected to the pressure of compressed air. He 
found that young eels were rapidly killed when sub- 
jected to a pressure of only fifteen atmospheres, and 
could not survive one of even seven atmospheres for 
any considerable time. He pointed out the essential 
difference between the conditions produced in such 
experiments and those existing in the deep sea, where 
the charge of oxygen contained by the water has been 


yr 


taken up at the surface under a pressure of one at- 


mosphere only. 

A question of the utmost moment, and one that 
has received a good deal of attention, is that as to 
the source of food of the deep-sea animals. Certainly 
a large proportion of this food is derived from the 
life on the ocean-surface. The débris of pelagic ani- 
mals sinks slowly downwards, forming on its passage 
a sparsely scattered supply of food for any animals 
possibly living at intermediate depths, but becoming 
concentrated, as it were, on the bottom. A large part 
of the food-supply is also derived from the débris of 
the coasts, either directly from the littoral zone, or by 
rivers and the action of the tides from terrestrial life. 
Deep-sea life appears to diminish in abundance as 
coasts are receded from. Unfortunately, our knowl- 
edge of pelagic vegetable life is very imperfect, and it 
is to be hoped that botanists may be led to take up the 
subject. It will then be possible to form a nearer 
estimate of the extent to which plants are capable of 
forming a sufficient ultimate food-source for the 
greater part of the pelagic fauna, and, through it, of 
deep-sea life. The question is of importance; be- 
cause, if the deep sea derived its main supply from 
the coasts and land-surfaces in the early history of 
the habitation of the globe by animals, there can 
have existed scarcely any deep-sea fauna until the 
littoral and terrestrial faunas and floras had become 
wellestablished. It seems certain that the food, as it 
reaches the deep sea, is mostly in the form of dead 
matter; and it may be that the long but slender 
backward-directed teeth of many deep sea fish, re- 
sembling those of snakes, are used rather as aids 
for swallowing whole other fishes which have fallen 
from above, dead, and thus making the best of an 
occasional opportunity of a meal, than for catching 
and killing living prey. 

Many interesting results may be expected when the 
histology of animals from great depths comes to be 
worked out, and especially that of the special sense- 
organs. At present very little has been attempted in 
this direction; principally, no doubt, because deep-sea 
specimens are too precious to be used for the pur- 
pose. With regard to the all-important question of 
the nature of the light undoubtedly present in the deep 
sea, it is hardly possible to accept Professor Verrill’s 
recent startling suggestion (Science, iv. 8), that sun- 
light penetrates to the greatest depths with perhaps 
an intensity at from two thousand to three thou- 
sand fathoms, equal to that of some of our partially 
moonlight nights. Such a conjecture is entirely at 
variance with the results of all experiments on the 
penetration of sea-water by sunlight, as yet made by 
physicists,— results which have prevented other natu- 
ralists from adopting this solution of the problem. 

The progress of research confirms the conclusions, 
early formed, that it is impossible to determine any 
successive zones of depth in the deep-sea regions, 
characterized by the presence of special groups of 


animals. Some groups of animals appear to be char- 


acteristic of water of considerable depth; but rep- 
resentatives of them struggle up into much shallower 
regions. ‘There are numerous genera, and even spe- 


[Von IV., No. 83. oe 


v 
k 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


cies, which range even from the shore-region to great 
depths. These facts add seriously to the difficulties 
encountered in the attempt to determine approxi- 
mately the depths at which geological deposits have 
been found. Dr. Theodore Fuchs has attempted to 
determine what geological strata should be considered 
as of deep-sea formation; but, as he defines the deep- 
sea fauna as commencing at a hundred fathoms, and 
extending downwards to all depths, his results have 
little value as indicating the depths of ancient seas, or 
the extent of upheaval or depression of their bot- 
toms. Mr. John Murray has shown that the depths 
at which modern deep-sea deposits have been formed 
can be approximately ascertained by the examination 
of their microscopical composition, and the condition 
of preservation of the shells and spicules. 

The most important question with regard to life in 
the ocean, at present insufficiently answered, is that 
as to the conditions with regard to life of the inter- 
mediate waters between the surface and the bottom. 
The greatest uncertainty and difference of opinion 
exist as to whether the intermediate waters are 
inhabited at all by animals, and, if they are inhab- 
ited, to what extent; and these intermediate waters 
constitute by far the greater part of the ocean. 
Great care should be exercised in drawing conclu- 
sions from the depths ascribed to animals in some of 
the memoirs in the official work on the Challenger 
expedition. In many instances it is quite possible 
that a particular specimen may have entered the 
net at any depth. 

With regard to the constitution of the deep-sea 
fauna, one of its most remarkable features is the gen- 
eral absence from it of paleozoic forms, excepting so 
far as representatives of the Mollusca and Brachiopo- 
da are concerned ; and it is remarkable, that, amongst 
the deep-sea Mollusca, no representatives of the Nau- 
tilidae and Ammonitidae, so excessively abundant in 
ancient periods, occur, and that Lingula, the most 
ancient brachiopod, should occur in shallow water 
only. It might well have been expected, that, had 
the deep sea been fully colonized in the paleozoic 
period, a considerable series of representative forms 
of that age might have survived there, in the absence 
of most of the active physical agents of modification 
which characterize the coast-regions. 

With regard to the origin of the deep-sea fauna, 
there can be little doubt that it has been derived 
almost entirely from the littoral fauna, which also 
must have preceded, and possibly given rise to, the 
entire terrestrial fauna; yet it is not improbable that 
we should look to the pelagic conditions of existence 
as those under which most of the earliest types of 
animal life were developed. Nearly all the present 
inhabitants of the littoral zone revert to the pelagic 
free-swimming form of existence in their early devel- 
opmental stages. And these pelagic larval forms are 
in many cases so closely alike in essential structure, 
though springing from parents widely differentiated 
from one another in the adult form, that it is impos- 
sible to regard them as otherwise than ancestral. 
The various early pelagic free-swimming forms, rep- 
resented now mostly only by larvae, gradually adapted 


SCIENG. 


; 211 


"eae 
themselves to coast-life, and underwent various modi- 


fications to enable them to withstand the beating of 
the surf on the shores, and the actual modifying al- 
terations of the tides, which, together with other cir- 
cumstances of coast-life, acted as strong impulses to 
their further development and differentiation. Some 
developed hard shells and skeletons as protections; 
others secured their position by boring in the rocks 
or mud; others assumed an attached condition, and 
thus resisted the wash of the waves. 

It is because the ancestors of nearly all animals 
have passed through a littoral phase of existence, 
preceded mostly by a pelagic phase, that the investi- 
gations now being carried on, on the coasts in marine 
laboratories, throw floods of light on all the funda- 
mental problems of zoology. From the littoral fauna 
a gradual migration must have taken place into the 
deep sea; but probably this did not occur till the lit- 
toral fauna was very fully established, and consider- 
able pressure was brought to bear on it by the 
struggle for existence. Life, too, must have become 
abundant in the littoral zone before there could have 
been a sufficient food-supply in the deeper regions 
adjoining it. Not until the development of terres- 
trial vegetation and animal life can the supply have 
reached its present abundance. Such a condition 
was, however, certainly reached in the carboniferous 
period. From the general absence of representatives 
of paleozoic forms from the deep sea, it is just pos- 


- sible, that, if deep oceans existed in paleozoic periods, 


they may not have been colonized at all, and that 
active migration into deep waters commenced in the 
secondary period. Very possibly the discharges of 
carbonic acid from the interior of the earth, which 
Professor Dittmar believes may have been sufficient 
to account for the vast existing deposits of coal and 
limestone, may have been much more abundant over 
the deep-sea beds in the paleozoic period, than at 
present, and have rendered the deep waters more or 
less uninhabitable. 


RECENT GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. 


AFTER some introductory remarks referring to his 
previous visit to Canada, Gen. Lefroy alluded to the 
relations of geography to geology as instanced in the 
changes in the earth’s surface within historical times 
by the operation of geological causes. A recent 
German. writer, Dr. Hahn, has enumerated ninety- 
six more or less extensive tracts known to be rising 
or sinking. For example: Mr. R. A. Peacock has 
accumulated evidence that the Island of Jersey had 
no existence in Ptolemy’s time, and Mr. A. Howarth 
has collected similar proofs with regard to the arctic 
regions; and every fresh discovery, notably those of 
the gallant and ill-fated DeLong and of Nordenski6ld, 
adds to the number. Professor Hull has reached 
the conclusion that the land between Suez and the 


1 Address to the geographical section of the British associa- 
tion at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by Gen. Sir J. H. Lerroy, 
R.A., C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S., F.S.A., vicepresident of the 
Royal geographical society, president of the section. 


a a 


Pearl 


] [Vor. IV., No. 83. 


212 


Bitter Lakes has risen since the exodus; and from the mission intrusted to Mr. Joseph Thomson last’ 


the Indian survey it is ‘almost certain’ that the 
mean sea-level at Madras is a foot lower than it was 
sixty yearsago. From the Chinese annals it is learned 
that the so-called Hot Lake (Myk-kul) of Turkestan 
was formed about a hundred and sixty years ago; 
and there seems no good reason to reject the Japanese 
legend that Fusiyama itself was thrown up in the third 
century before our era. 

He then touched lightly on the progress made in 
our knowledge of the geography of the Dominion of 
Canada, which comprises within its limits the pole 
of vertical magnetic attraction, commonly called the 
magnetic pole, and the focus of greatest magnetic 
force, also often but incorrectly called a pole. The 
first of these, discovered by Ross in 1835, was re- 
visited in May, 1847, by officers of the Franklin ex- 
pedition, whose observations have perished, and was 
again reached, or very nearly, by McClintock in 
1859, and by Schwatka in 1879. Neither of these 
explorers, however, was equipped for observation. 
The utmost interest attaches to the question whether 
the magnetic pole has shifted its position in fifty 
years; and, although far from rating the difficulty 
lightly, it is probably approachable overland, without 
the great cost of an arctic expedition. The second, 
which is in the neighborhood of Cat Lake, has never 
been visited, although Dr. R. Bell was within two 
hundred miles of it. These two objects, and the 
exploration of an almost unknown tract of some 
seventy thousand square miles, lying east of Athabasca 
River, were declared worthy of the scientific ambi- 
tion and energy of the dominion. He alluded also 
to the extent and importance of Lake Misstassini, 
which has recently been discovered in no very remote 
part of the dominion, —a lake rivalling Lake Ontario, 
if not Lake Superior, in magnitude. 

He then mentioned the report of Lieut. R. P. Rodg- 
ers, U.S. N., on the state of the canal-works at 
Panama so lately as Jan. 25 last, and read the official 
returns of the amount of excavation during the 
months of October, 1883-March, 1884, by which it 
appeared that the quantity eveavated per month had 
greatly increased during that time, and shows that 
the limit has not been reached. The two great prob- 
lems which await solution are, how to deal with the 
River Chagres, and how to manage a cutting nearly 
four hundred feet deep. The Chagres, which is sub- 
ject to great fluctuations of volume, it is proposed to 
arrest by an enormous dike, 1,050 yards long at 
the bottom, 2,110 yards at the top, 110 yards thick 
at the base, and 147 feet in the greatest height ; 
the overflow of the reservoir so constructed to be led 
away by two artificial channels, partly utilizing the 
old bed. The cutting, nearly five hundred feet wide 
at the top, it is proposed to attack by gangs working 
on twelve different levels at the same time, one each 
side of the summit, dividing the width at each level 
into five parallel sections. Thus there will be a 
hundred and twenty gangs at work together, and it is 
confidently hoped that the whole will be really fin- 
ished in 1888. 

He next turned to another quarter, and referred to 


year, in East Africa, by the Royal geographical 
society. After an unsuccessful start from Zanzibar in 

March of last year, —in which, however, he reached — 
Kilima-njaro, and ascended it about nine thousand 
feet, — he returned to the coast from Taveta, and start- 
ed again in July, this time from Mombasa. We are 
not yet fully acquainted with his route; but we know ~ 
that he again reached the great mountain reputed to 
have an elevation of more than twenty thousand feet; 
that thence he reached the east side of Lake Nyanza; 
that he is the first who has stood on the shores of 
Lake M‘Baringo; that thence, always among natives 
who had never before seen a white man, he reached 
Mount Kenia, reputed to be eighteen thousand feet 
high, and found his way back to the coast without 
any conflict or loss of life by violence; and this after 
a journey of about five hundred miles, nearly the 


‘whole of it through a country previously unknown 


to geography. Before Mr. Thomson’s return to Zan- 
zibar, Mr. H. H. Johnston, under direction of a com- 
mittee of this association, whose plans are devoted 
primarily to the investigation of the fauna and flora 
of Kilima-njaro, had left Zanzibar in good health, 
and with every hope of ultimate success. 

The president then alluded to the unfortunate 
French expedition of Col. Flatters, who, together 
with several other officers and men, was killed by 
the Youaregs in February, 1881. The French tray- 
ellers have emphasized the probable consequences of 
the rapid progress of the religion of Mohammed among 
the African races of the northern equatorial zone, 
which in time may reach the populous basin of the 
Kongo, and may greatly affect the white settlements 
and missionary enterprises in Central Africa here- 
after. 

The Upper Kongo, from Stanley Falls to Stanley 
Pool, is now pretty well known; but as to its tribu- 
taries, much remains to be learned. Mr. Stanley has 
discovered two new lakes. The labors of that en- 
ergetic traveller, Mr. de Brazza, have to a great ex- 
tent cleared up the geography of the region included - 
between the Kongo and the Ogowé, from the equator 
southwards; and there are now said to be twenty-two 
trading-stations in this part of the country. We are 
not informed what commerce exists. Higher up, but 
still to the north, Mr. Stanley has ascended the Aru- 
wimi about a hundred miles, without having solved a 
question of no little interest; namely, whether it is 
identical with the Wellé, and takes its rise in the same 
watershed which feeds the White Nile, or whether 
we have not, beyond its sources, a drainage system, 
as yet untraced, but which may connect together a 
number of rivers whose relations to one another, and 
whose final outlet, are alike unknown. Lupton Bey 


reported, nearly two years ago, that a very large lake 


had been visited by one of his native subordinates 
west of the Aruwimi; and it is, in his opinion, proba- 
ble that the Wellé flows into it. The southern basin 
of the Kongo has been crossed from Koando to N yan- 
givé by the late Dr. Pogge and Lieut. Wissman, the 
latter of whom continued his journey by Yabora to 
Zanzibar. He brings confirmation of the often re- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


ported existence of a dwarfish race on the upper 
waters of the Sankuru. 

Proceeding southward to the region of Portuguese 
exploration, Messrs. Britto, Capello, and Ivens, who 
reached the Upper Quango in 1878, returned last 
January to Loando, with the intention, it is said, of 
descending one of its great tributaries. They are now 
on the Kumene. Dr. Pogge compares the climate of 
Mussumba on the 8th parallel, in the month of De- 
cember, to that of North Germany; and the fact illus- 
trates, what we learn from so many other quarters, 
that much of the interior of Africa belongs, by reason 
of its elevation above the sea, to a far more temperate 
zone, and is better suited to the European constitu- 
tion, than its geographical position promises. ‘The 
terrible prevalence of fever, which has cost so many 
lives, will probably be mitigated in time, and by im- 
proved accommodation. The hills are comparatively 
freefromit. The progress already made in the white 
occupation of Central Africa was well shown by a table 
of actual centres of trade, or missionary institutions 
(a hundred and twenty in number), now established 
there.! 

He then took up the Russian project for diverting 
the Oxus, or Amu Darya, from the Sea of Aral to the 
Caspian; the level of which, according to Mr. George 
Kennan, a recent American traveller, is steadily but 
slowly falling, notwithstanding the enormous quantity 
of water poured in by the Volga, the Ural, and other 
rivers. In fact, Col. Vinukof says, that the Caspian 
is drying up fast, and that the fresh-water seals, 
which form so curious a feature of its fauna, are fast 
diminishing in number. At first view, there would 
not appear great difficulty in restoring water com- 
munication, the point where the river would be di- 
verted being about two hundred and sixteen feet 
above the Caspian; but accurate levelling has shown 
considerable depressions in the intervening tract. 
Certainly the Oxus, or a branch of it, once flowed 
into the Caspian Sea. Prof. R. Lentz, of the Russian 
Académie impériale des sciences, sums up his investi- 
gation of ancient authorities by affirming that there 
is no satisfactory evidence of its ever having done 
so before the year 1320. Passages which have been 
quoted from Arab writers of the ninth century, only 
prove, in his opinion, that they did not discriminate 
between the Caspian Sea and theSeaof Aral. There 
is evidence that in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies the river bifurcated, and one branch found its 
way to the Caspian, but probably ceased to do so in 
the sixteenth century. This agrees with Turkoman 
traditions. We may safely conclude that the thing 
will not be done; noris it at all probable that Russian 
. finances will permit the alternative proposal of cut- 
ting a purely artificial canal by the shortest line, at an 
estimated expense of from fifteen to twenty million 
roubles. 

One of the finest feats of mountaineering on record 
was performed last year by Mr. W. W. Graham, who 
reached an elevation of twenty-three thousand five 
hundred feet in the Himalayas about twenty-nine hun- 


+ A list of these is given in an appendix to the address, with 
their geographical positions collated with great care. 


213 


od: feet above the summit of Chimborazo, whose 
ascent by Mr. Whymper, in 1880, marked an epoch 
in these exploits. Mr. Graham was accompanied 
by an officer of the Swiss army, an experienced 
mountaineer, and by a professional Swiss guide. 
They ascended Kabru, a mountain visible from Dar- 
jeeling, lying to the west of Kanchinjunga, whose 
summit still defies the strength of man. 

The primary triangulation of India, commenced in 
the year 1800, is practically complete. Much second- 
ary triangulation remains to be executed, but chiefly 
outside the limits of India proper. The Pisgah 
views, by which some of the loftiest mountains in 
the world have been fixed in position, sometimes 
from points in the nearest Himalayas, a hundred 
and twenty miles distant, only serve to arouse a 
warmer desire for unrestrained access. The belief, 
long entertained, that a summit loftier than Mount 
Everest exists in Thibet, is by no means extinct; but 
it is possible that the snowy peak intended may prove 
eventually to be the Mount Everest itself of the 
original survey. 

The Upper Oxus has now been traced from its 
sources in the Panjah, chiefly by native explorers; 
and to them we may be said to be indebted for all 
we know of Nepaul, from which Europeans are as 
jealously excluded as they are from the wildest 
central Asian kanate, although Nepaul is not so far 
from Calcutta as Kingston is from Quebec. 

~The Australian continent has been crossed again 
from east to west by Mr. Mills, who started with thirty 
camels attended by five Afghan drivers. Six of them 
died from the effects, as was supposed, of eating 
poisonous herbage. Mr. Mills did not deviate much 
from the tracks of the late Mr. W. C. Gosse and of 
Mr. J. Forrest: his journey has therefore added little 
to previous geographical knowledge; but it has helped 
to make the route better known, and afforded fresh 
evidence that the value of the camel in those terrible 
Australian saharas is in no degree less than it is where 
he has long been known as the ‘ship of the desert.’ 
Another traveller, Mr. C. Winnecke, starting from the 
Cowarie station on the Warburton River, in 28° south, 
has traversed about four hundred miles of new coun- 
try in a northerly direction, and made a sketch-map 
of forty thousand square miles, up to Goyders Pillars, 
—a remarkable natural feature in the Tarleton Range. 
He, too, owed his success to the employment of 
camels. The international cireumpolar expeditions 
have added, perhaps, to local knowledge, especially 
as regards the climate and means of supporting life 
at various stations, but not much, so far as reported, 
to geography generally. To this remark, however, 
a brilliant exception must be made. The distinction 
of the nearest approach to the north pole, yet made 
by man, has been won by the late Lieut. Lockwood 
and Sergt. Brainerd, of Lieut. Greely’s expedition. 
They reached on May 13, 1882, an island not before 
known, in latitude 83° 24’ north, longitude 44° 5’ west, 
now nained after its discoverer. This is four or five 
miles beyond Capt. Markham’s farthest point (83° 20’ 
north), and it appears to be by no means the only 
geographical achievement which in some measure 


214 


rewards the painfal sufferings and losses of the pai rity. 
Lieut. P. H. Ray, U.S.A., has also rectified many 
details of the map about Point Barrow, and dis- 
covered a range of hills, which he has named the 
Meade Mountains, running east from Cape Lisburne, 
from which at least two streams, unmarked, flow 
into the Polar Sea. We may expect similar service 
from the Italian parties at Patagonia, and from the 
Germans in South Georgia. Since the voyage of the 
Challenger, no marine researches have been more 
fruitful of results than those of the Talisman and 
the Dacia. The first was employed last year by the 
French government, to examine the Atlantic coasts 
from Rochefort to Senegal, and to investigate the 
hydrography and natural history of the Cape Verde, 
Canary, and Azores archipelagoes. The other ship, 
with her companion the International, was a private 
adventure, with the commercial purpose of ascertain- 
ing the best line for a submarine telegraph from 
Spain to the Canaries. These last two made some 
five hundred and fifty soundings, and discovered 
three shoals, one of them with less than fifty fathoms 
of water over it, between the continent of Africa and 
the islands. If we draw a circle passing through 
Cape Mogador, Teneriffe, and Funchal, its centre 
will mark very nearly this submarine elevation: the 
other two lie to the north of it. The Talisman found 
in mid-ocean but sixteen hundred and forty fathoms, 
among soundings previously set down as over two 
thousand fathoms. 

Gen. Lefroy then spoke of the extension of rail- 
ways in Mexico, South America, Africa, and Asia, 
and of the agreement to refer local time on this con- 
tinent to a succession of first meridians, one hour 
apart. The next step will not be long delayed: that 
is, the agreement of the civilized world to use one 
first meridian; Paris, Ferrol, Washington, Rio de 
Janeiro, gracefully, as we venture to hope, giving 
that precedency to Greenwich, which is demanded 
by the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the 
existing nautical charts of all nations, and of maps 
and atlases in most of them, already refer their 
longitudes to that meridian. No other change would 
be so easy, or so little felt. 


THE GENERAL STATISTICS 
BRITISH EMPIRE.! 


OF THE 


WE will group our statistics under the following 
headings: 1°. The area consisting of widely extended 
regions; 2°. The inhabitants of these many lands; 
3°. The works of man as they are displayed in this 
vast theatre of action. 

First, then, the area of the British Empire may be 
set down at more than eight and a half millions of 
Square miles. Out of this total, there are only a hun- 
dred and twenty thousand square miles in the United 
Kingdom. There are a million and a half of square 


1 Abstract. of an address to the economic science and statis- 
tics section of the British association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, 
by Sir RricHaRD TEMPLE, Bart., G.C.S.1., C.I.E., D.C.L., LL.D., 
F.R.G.S8., president of the section. 


‘tween which is that of religion. 


miles in India; and the remainder, or seven millions, 
belong to the colonies and to the scattered posses- 
sions. 

But there are other regions which have fallen, or 
are falling, under its political control more or less, 
such as Egypt, including a part of the Egyptian Su- 
dan, some districts in southern Arabia, a part of 
Borneo, Zululand, the Transvaal, Afghanistan, and 
Beluchistan. Thus the total area, directly or in- 
directly, under the authority of the British empire, 
may be taken at nearly ten millions of square miles, 
or about one-fifth of the fifty millions of square miles 
composing the habitable globe. 

As might be expected in an empire whereof the 
real basis of power is maritime, the coast-line is of 
an extraordinary length, to be measured by about 
28,500 miles, with forty-eight large harbors. For the 
whole of this length, marine surveys have been pre- 
pared. But greatness does not depend on area alone, 
and there is a vast range in the scale of value for 
lands. Outof the ten millions of square miles, hardly 
one-fifth is cultivated or occupied, in the widest use 
of the term ‘occupation.’ In India, which is popu- 
larly, though not quite correctly, supposed to be 
thickly populated, the cultivable waste is not less 
than a quarter of a million of square miles. 

In the second place, respecting the inhabitants, 
the total population amounts to 305,000,000 of souls 
in those regions which are included directly in the 
empire. This mass of humanity is composed of 
many diverse nationalities, a cardinal distinction be- 
Christianity, the 
religion of the dominant race, is professed by one- 
seventh of the whole. The religion which includes 
the largest number is Hinduism. There are 188,- 
000,000 of Hindus; and it may, indeed, be said that 
the whole Hindu race is subject to the British crown. 
The Hindus, then, form more than a half of the total 
population in the empire. The number of Buddhists 
is not considerable, amounting to about 7,000,000. 
The imperial area is, on the whole, but sparsely 
populated, with an average of only thirty-three per- 
sons to the square mile, notwithstanding the mighty 


aggregate of the people, as the population is most . 


unequally distributed. 

The third and last heading relates to the works of 
man, his riches and power, his industrial and com- 
mercial operations. 

One, among the primary tests of national resources, 
is the public revenue. The total of yearly revenue 
and receipts, governmental and local, amounting to 
£264,000,000 sterling, is unequalled, but falls at the 
moderate rate of one and a quarter pounds sterling 
per head of the total of British subjects. 
large revenue received throughout the empire for local 
purposes. This income (including various receipts, 
but excluding loans) amounts to hardly less than 


£61,000,000 sterling yearly; and the greater part is — 


levied by direct taxation. 

Another test of power relates to the provision for 
external defence and internal protection. Now the 
men trained to arms in the British empire may be 
stated at 850,000, including the regular British forces 


[Vou. IV., No. ag. 


ae 
ix 


There is a. 


Te 


tt 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


at home and abroad, the militia, and volunteers in 
the United Kingdom, and in the colonies, the British 
native forces in India, and other countries. This 
includes 10,000 Egyptian troops under a British gen- 
eral, but excludes the forces of the native states of 
India, and of the other countries politically connected 
With the empire. If, however, the forces of the na- 
tive states of India were to be added (and they are 
generally available for imperial purposes), then the 
total of 850,000 would be raised to nearly 1,000,000. 
Thus the men under arms, or effectively trained to 
arms, are in number more than 750,000, and, under 
the last-named computation, would amount to nearly 
1,000,000. The defensive armaments of the empire, 
by sea and land, cost £41,000,000 sterling annually, 
or twenty per cent of the total of revenue and re- 
ceipts. The police for the empire numbers 560,000. 
Thus we have, for the whole empire, an average of 
one policeman to every 571 of the people, and to 
every sixteen square miles. 

It is never to be forgotten, that one of the main 
reasons why the British empire is able to keep its 
land-forces at a comparatively low scale is its prepon- 
derance at sea. The predominance which we hope 
to find in the British navy will hardly be shown by 
the enumeration of ships. With this caution, how- 
ever, it may be stated that there are 246 British 
war-vessels afloat, or in commission; of which 72 are 
sailing-ships, and 174 have steam-power. There 
are now 65 iron-clads, either complete or nearly com- 
plete. The number of officers and men amounts to 
57,000. The number of iron-clads ready for action 
at the shortest notice is now 44, of which 25 are at 
sea. 

The mercantile marine has nearly half of the steam 
tonnage, of the carrying power of the port of entries, 
and of the freight earnings of all the nations togeth- 
er, and two-thirds of the ship-building. The total 
trade of the British empire cannot be easily exhib- 
ited statistically. However, if the aliquot parts of 
the trade of the principal nations be computed, then 
34 per cent, or one-third of the world’s commerce, 
pertains to the British empire. 

The manufactures of the United kingdom are 
valued at £818,000,000 sterling annually. In general 
terms, it may be stated, that British manufactures 
form one-third of those for all Europe put together. 
The great competitor is of course the United States, 
where the value appears to exceed that of the United 
Kingdom. The American manufactures are indeed 
wonderful, not only in their present magnitude, but 
in the rapidity of their progress, and in the prospect 
of their extension. 

It follows from these facts, that the wealth of the 
United Kingdom in land, cattle, railways and public 
works, houses and furniture, merchandise, bullion, 
shipping, and sundries, valued at £8,720,000,000 ster- 
ling, exceeds that of any European state, and is just 
double that of Russia. But it is exceeded by the cor- 
responding figure for the United States, namely, 
£9,495,000,000 sterling. The £8,720,000,000 of Brit- 
ish wealth represent a sum seven times the annual 
income, namely, £1,247,000,000, which seems to be a 


215 


- feipéalculation. According to this, the British people 


earn 14 per cent on their capital, which rate is about 
the same as that of the United States. It exceeds 
the corresponding ratio on the continent of Europe. 
But it is considerably surpassed by the ratios in Can- 
ada and Australia, — 18 and 22 per cent respectively. 

The construction of public works is a test of na- 
tional progress. Those works which may here be 
selected for mention are railways, electric telegraphs, 
and canals. It is calculated that 46 per cent of the 
railway traffic of the world is done by the railways of 
the British Empire: the distances run, however, are 
less than on the continent of Europe or in the United 
States. The electric telegraph does six times as much 
in the old country as in the new. 

The total public debt, governmental and munici- 
pal, for the British Empire, reaches a total of £1,312,- 
000,000 sterling. 

He concluded this statistical summary by adverting 
to a group of subjects into which moral considerations 
largely enter; namely, thrift and education. 

The decrease of crime and pauperism is satisfactory 

in the United Kingdom; while pauperism hardly ex- 
ists in the other dominions of the empire, and the 
charitable funds raised in the United Kingdom are 
enormous. The number of patients in the hospitals, 
though large, is not remarkable relatively to the size 
of the empire. 
_ Respecting education, there are 5,250,000 pupils at 
schools in the United Kingdom, 860,000 in Canada, 
611,000 in Australia, and 2,200,000 in India, making 
up a total of 8,921,000 pupils in the British Empire. 
The fact is, that in India, although education has 
made a remarkable progress within the last genera- 
tion, yet the lee-way to be made up was enormous, 
owing to the neglect of many centuries; and many 
children of a school-going age still remain out of 
school. But the comparison attains special interest 
when made with the United States, where a truly 
noble progress is exhibited, and where the number of 
pupils reaches to 10,000,000, the annual expenditure 
being £17,000,000 sterling. Thus the extraordinary 
fact remains, that in respect of educational statistics 
the United States are numerically in advance of even 
the British Empire. 

The religious missions to non-Christian nationali- 
ties constitute a bright feature in the British Empire. 
The statistics of the Roman Catholic missions are 
not fully known, but their operations are very con- 
siderable. The income of the various Protestant 
missionary societies is hardly less than £750,000 ster- 
ling annually, and the number of European ordained 
missionaries maintained by them is about 900. 


ON THE RELATION OF MECHANICAL 
SCuMNCEH TO OTHER SCIENCES? 


THERE are those who object that section G deals 
too little with pure science, too much with its applica- 
1 Abstract of an address to the mechanical science section of 


the British association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by Sir F. J. 
BRAMWELL, F.R.S., V.P.Inst.C.E., president of the section. 


216 S 


tions. It may be, as the members of section G migh all 


retort, that it is possible to attend so much to pure 
science as to get into the unchecked region of scien- 
tific speculation, and that, had the members of section 
G been debarred from the application of science, the 
speculation of Dr. Lardner might to the present day 
have been accepted as fact. 

The speaker thought all men, even though they 
be followers of science in its purest and most ab- 
stract form, must concur in the propriety of section 
G dealing with engineering subjects generally, as 
well as with abstract mechanical science. This ad- 
mitted he would ask — certain what the answer must 
be — whether there is any body of men who more ap- 
preciate and make greater use of the applications of 
pure science than do the members of this section. 
Surely every one must agree that the engineers are 
those who make the greatest practical use, not only 
of the science of mechanics, but of the researches 
and discoveries of the members of the other sections 
of this association. 

It would be the purpose of his address to establish 
the proposition, that not only is section G the sec- 
tion of mechanical science, but it is emphatically the 
section, of all others, that applies in engineering, to 
the uses of man, the sciences appertaining to the oth- 
er sections of the association, — an application most 
important in the progress of the world, and an ap- 
plication not to be lightly regarded even by the strict- 


est votaries of pure science; for it would be in vain | 


to hope that pure science would continue to be pur- 
sued, if from time to time its discoveries were not 
brought into practical use. The connection between 
this section and that of mathematical and physical 
science (A) is most intimate. Without a knowledge 
of thermal laws, the engineer engaged in the con- 
struction of heat-motors will find himself groping in 
the dark. He anticipated, from the application of 
thermal science to practical engineering, that great 
results are before us in those heat-motors, such as 
the gas-engine, where the heat is developed in the 
engine itself. Passing from heat-motors, and con- 
sidering heat as applied to metallurgy: from the time 
of the hot blast to the regenerative furnace, it is due 
to the application of science by the engineer that the 
economy of the hot blast was originated, and that it 
has been developed by the labors of Lowthian, Bell, 
Cowper, and Cochrane. Equally due to this applica- 
tion are the results obtained in the regenerative fur- 
nace, in the dust-furnace of Crampton, and in the 
employment of liquid fuel, and also in operations 
connected with the rarer metals, the oxygen-furnace 
and the atmospheric gas-furnace, and, in its incipient 
stage, the electrical furnace. To a right knowledge 
of the laws of heat, and to their application by the 
engineer, must be attributed the success that has 
attended the air-refrigerating machines, by the aid 
of which fresh meat is at the end of a long voyage 
delivered in a perfect condition; and to this applica- 
tion we owe the economic distillation of sea-water 
by repeated ebullitions and condensations at success- 
ively decreasing temperatures. 

Coming to the mathematical side of section A, 


[Vor. IV., No. 88. 


whether we consider the naval architect preparing 
his design of a vessel to cleave the waves with the 
least resistance at the highest speed, or whether we 
consider the unparalleled series of experiments of 
that most able associate of naval architects, the late 
William Froude, carried out as they were by means of 
models which were admirable in their material, their 
mode of manufacture with absolute accuracy to the 
desired shape, and their mode of traction and of 
record, we must see that both architect and experi- 
menter should be able to apply mathematical science 
to their work, and that it is in the highest degree de- 
sirable that they should possess, as Froude did, those 
most excellent gifts, science and practical knowledge. 

Passing from section A to section B (chemical 
science), the preparation from the ore of the vari- 
ous metals is, in truth, a branch of engineering; but 
to enable this to be accomplished with certainty 
and economy, it is essential that the engineer and 
the chemist should either be combined in one and 
the same person, or go hand in hand. 

Reverting to the water-engineer, the chemist and 
the microscopist have their sciences applied to ascer- 
tain the purity of the intended source; and, as in the 
case of Clarke’s beautiful process, by the application 
of chemistry, water, owing its hardness to that com- 
mon cause, carbonate of lime, is rendered as soft as 
the water from the mountain lake. 

With regard to the subjects treated by section C 
(geology), the speaker instanced the Channel tunnel 
as a case in which, without the aid of geology, the 
engineer would not be able to give an opinion on 
the feasibility of the enterprise. The engineers said 
there is a material, the compact non-water bearing 
gray chalk, which we have at a convenient depth. 
on the English side, and is of all materials the most 
suitable. Ifthat exist the whole way across, success 
is certain. Then came geological science, and that 
told the engineer that in France the same material 
existed; that it existed in the same position in rela- 
tion to other stratifications as it existed in England; 
that the line of outcrop of the gault lying below it 
had been checked across; and that, taken together, 
these indications enabled a confident opinion to be 
expressed that it was all but certain this gray chalk 
stratification did prevail from side to side. 

To come to section D (biology), the botanical side 
of it is interesting to the engineer as instructing him 
in the locality and quality of the various woods that 
he occasionally uses in his work. With regard to that 
most important part of the work of D, which relates 
to ‘germs’ and their influence upon health, the en- 
gineer deals with it thus far: he bears in mind that 
the water-supply must be pure, and that the building 
must be ventilated, and that excreta must be removed 
without causing contamination. 

In conclusion, reference was made to the relations 
of the engineer to the geographical explorer and the 
student of economic science. The great works, the 
results of engineering skill, enable the geographer 
to reach his field of exploration the more readily, 
and are called into existence by the dictates of the 
economist. 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


SOME AMERICAN ASPECTS OF 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


Tue term ‘prehistoric’ stretches back from times 
just outside the range of written history into the re- 
motest ages where human relics justify the opinion 
that man existed. Far back in these prehistoric pe- 
riods,the problem of quaternary man turns on the pres- 
ence of his rude stone implements in the drift-gravels 
and in caves, associated with the remains of what may 
be called the mammoth fauna. Not to recapitulate 
details, the point to be insisted on is, how the effect of 
a quarter of a century’s research and criticism has 
been to give quaternary man a more and more real 
position. It is generally admitted, that, about the 
close of the glacial period, savage man killed the huge 
maned elephants, or fled from the great lions and 
tigers on what was then forest-clad valley-bottom, in 
ages before the later waterflow had cut out the 
present wide valleys fifty or a hundred feet or more 
lower, leaving the remains of the ancient drift-beds 
exposed high on what are now the slopes. The evi- 
dence of caverns such as those of Devonshire and 
Perigord, with their revelations of early European 
life and art, has been supplemented by many new 
explorations, without shaking the conclusion arrived 
at as to the age known as the reindeer period of the 
northern half of Europe, when the mammoth and 
cave bear and their contemporary mammals had not 
yet disappeared, but the close of the glacial period 
was merging into the times when, in England and 
France, savages hunted the reindeer for food, as the 
arctic tribes of America do still. The evidence in- 
creases as to the wide range of paleolithic man. He 
extended far into Asia, where his characteristic rude 
stone implements are plentifully found in the caves 
of Syria and the foot-hills of Madras. The question 
with which this section may have especial means of 
dealing is, whether man likewise inhabited America 
with the great extinct animals of the quaternary pe- 
riod, if not even earlier, —a question which leads at 
once into the interesting argument, how far any ex- 
isting people are the descendants and representa- 
tives of man of the post-glacial period. ‘The problem, 
whether the present Eskimos are such a remnant of 
an early race, is one which Professor Boyd Dawkins 
has long worked at. Since he stated this view in his 
work on cave-hunting, it has continually been cited, 
whether by way of affirmation or denial, but always 
with that gain to the subject which arises from a the- 
ory based on distinct facts. 'To be mentioned as pre- 
liminary are the questions, Were the natives met with 
by the Scandinavian seafarers of the eleventh century 
Eskimos ? and, Whereabouts on the coast were they 
actually found? When the race of bold sea-rovers 
who ruled Normandy, and invaded England, turned 
their prows into the northern and western sea, they 
passed from Iceland to yet more inclement Greenland ; 
and thence, according to Icelandic records, which are 
too consistent to be refused belief as to main facts, 

1 Abstract of an address to the section of anthropology of the 


British association at Montreal, Aug. 28, 1884, by Epwarp B. 
Tytor, D.C.L., F.R.S., president of the section. 


SCIEN 


1. 217 


they dailed some way down the American coast. But 
where are we to look for the most southerly points 
which the sagas mention as reached in Vineland ? 
Rafn confidently maps out these places about the 
promontory of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts; and this 
has been repeated since, from book to book. Mr. 
Tylor pleaded guilty to having cited Rafn’s map, 
but now felt bound to say that the voyages of the 
Northmen ought to be reduced to more moderate 
limits. It appears that they crossed from Greenland 
to Labrador (Helluland), and thence, sailing more or 
less south and west, in two stretches of two days 
each, they came to a place near where wild grapes 
grew, whence they called the country Vine-land. 
This would therefore seem to have been somewhere 
about the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and it would be an 
interesting object for a yachting-cruise to try, down 
from the east coast of Labrador, a fair four-days’ sail 
of a viking ship, and identify, if possible, the sound 
between the island and the ness, the river running 
out of the lake into the sea, the long stretches of 
sand, and the other local features mentioned in the 
sagas, thus throwing light on the southern limit of 
the Eskimos. The skrdlings, who came on the sea 
in skin canoes (hudhkeipr), and hurled their spears 
with slings (valslongva), seem by these very facts to 
have been probably Eskimos; and the mention of their 
being swarthy, with great eyes and broad cheeks, 
agrees tolerably with this. If we may take it that 
Eskimos eight hundred years ago, before they had 
ever found their way to Greenland, were hunting seals 
on the coast of Newfoundland, and caribou in the 
forest, their life need not have been very unlike what 
it is now in their arctic home. Some day, perhaps, 
the St. Lawrence and Newfoundland shores will be 
searched for relics of Eskimo life, as has been done 
with such success in the Aleutian Islands by Mr. 
W. H. Dall; though on this side of the continent 
we can hardly expect to find, as he does, traces of 
long residence, and rise from a still lower condition. 
Surveying, now, the vast series of so-called native 
or indigenous tribes of North and South America, 
we may admit that the fundamental notion on which 
American anthropology has to be treated is its rela- 
tion to Asiatic. This kind of research is, as we 
know, quite old; but the recent advances of zodlogy 
and geology have given it new breadth, as well as 
facility. The theories which account for the wide- 
lying American tribes, disconnected by language as 
they are, as all descended from ancestors who came 
by sea in boats, or across Bering Strait on the ice, 
may be felt somewhat to strain the probabilities of 
migration, and are likely to be remodelled under the 
information now supplied by geology as to the dis- 
tribution of animals. It has become a familiar fact, 
that the Equidae, or horse-like animals, belong even 
more remarkably to the new than to the old world. 
There was plainly land-connection between America 
and Asia, for the horses whose remains are fossil in 
America to have been genetically connected with the 
horses re-introduced from Europe. To realize this 
ancient land-junction of Asia and America, — this 
‘tertiary-bridge,’ to use Professor Marsh’s expres- 


218 | . SO qi 


sion, —it is instructive to look at Mr. Wallace’s: br 


of the present soundings, observing that an eleva- 
tion of under two hundred feet would make Bering 
Strait land, while moderately shallow sea extends 
southward to about the line of the Aleutian Islands, 
below which comes the plunge into the ocean depths. 
If, then, we are to consider America as having re- 
ceived its human population by ordinary migration 
of successive tribes along this highway, the impor- 
tance is obvious of deciding how old man is in 
America, and how long the continent remained 
united with Asia, as well as how these two difficult 
questions are bound up together in their bearing on 
anthropology. 

To clear the obscurity of race-problems, as viewed 
from the anatomical stand-point, we naturally 
seek the help of language. Of late years the anthro- 
pology of the old world has had ever-increasing help 
from comparative philology. Within America the 
philologist uses with success the strong method of 
combining dictionary and grammar in order to define 
his great language-groups; such as the Algonquin, 
extending from Hudson’s Bay to Virginia, the Atha- 
pascan, from Hudson’s Bay to New Mexico, both 
crossing Canada in their vast range. But attempts 
to trace analogies between lists of words in Asiatic 
and American languages, though they may have 
shown some similarities deserving further inquiry, 
have hardly proved an amount of correspondence be- 
yond what chance coincidence would be capable of 
producing. Thus when it comes to judging of affini- 
ties between the great American language-families, 
or of any of them, with the Asiatic, there is only the 
weaker method of structure to fall back on. Here 
the Eskimo analogy seems to be with North Asiatic 
languages, presenting in an exaggerated form the 
characteristic structure of the vast Ural-Altaic or 
Turanian group of Asiatic languages. 

The comparison of peoples according to their social 
framework of family and tribe has been assuming 
more and more importance since it was brought for- 
ward by Bachofen, McLennan, and Morgan. One of 
its broadest distinctions comes into view within the 
Dominion of Canada. The Eskimos are patriarchal, 
the father being head of the family, and descent and 
inheritance following the male line. But the Indian 
tribes farther south are largely matriarchal, reckon- 
ing descent, not on the father’s, but the mother’s 
side. In fact, it was through becoming an adopted 
Iroquois that Morgan became aware of this system, so 
foreign to European ideas, and which he supposed at 
first to be an isolated peculiarity. No less a person 
than Herodotus had fallen into the same mistake over 
two thousand years ago, when he thought the Lyk- 
ians, in taking their names from their mothers, were 
unlike all other men. Itis now, however, an accepted 
matter of anthropology, that, in Herodotus’s time, 
nations of the civilized world had passed through this 
matriarchal stage, as appears from the survivals of it 
retained in the midst of their newer patriarchal insti- 
tutions. For instance: among the Arabs to this day, 
strongly patriarchal as their society is in most re- 
spects, there survives that most matriarchal idea that 


RE te Peay 7 oe 


maternal. uncle. He is bound to his sister’s children 
by a ‘ closer and holier tie’ than paternity, as Tacitus 
says of the same conception among the ancient Ger- 
mans. Obviously, great interest attaches to any ac- 
counts of existing tribes which preserve for us the 
explanation of such social phenomena. Some of the 
most instructive of these are too new to have yet 
found their way into our treatises on early institu- 
tions: they are accounts lately published by Dutch 
officials among the non-Islamized clans of Sumatra 
and Java. Among the Malays of the Padang High- 
lands of Mid-Sumatra, who are known to represent 
an early Malay population, not only kinship, but hab- 
itation, follows absolutely the female line; so that 
the numerous dwellers in one great house are all con- 
nected by descent from one mother, one generation 
above another, children, then mothers and maternal 
uncles and aunts, then grandmothers and maternal 
great-uncles and great-aunts, etc. There are in each 
district several suku, or mother-clans, between persons 
born, in which marriage is forbidden. Here, then, 
appear the two well-known rules of female descent 
and exogamy; but now we come into view of the re- 
markable state of society, that, though marriage exists, 
it does not form the household. The woman remains 
in the maternal house she was born in, and the man 
remains in his. His position is that of an authorized 
visitor; if he will, he may come over and help her in 
the rice-field, but he need not: over the children he 
has no control whatever; and, were he to presume to 
order or chastise them, their natural guardian, the 
mother’s brother (mamak), would resent it as an at- 
front. The law of female descent, and its connected 
rules, have as yet been mostly studied among the 
native Americans and Australians, where they have 
evidently undergone much modification. Thus, one 
hundred and fifty years ago, Father Lafitau mentions 
that the husband and wife, while, in fact, moving into 
one another’s hut, or setting up a new one, still kept 
up the matriarchal idea by the fiction that neither he 
nor she quitted their own maternal house. But, in 
the Sumatra district just referred to, the matriarchal 
system may still be seen in actual existence, in a 
most extreme and probably early form. 
such new evidence, we look at the map of the world 
from this point of view, there discloses itself a re- 
markable fact of social geography. It is seen that 
matriarchal exogamous society (that is, society with 
female descent, and prohibition of marriage within 
the clan) does not crop up here and there, as if it were 
an isolated invention, but characterizes a whole vast 
region of the world. If the Malay district be taken 
as a centre, the system of intermarrying mother-clans 
may be followed westward into Asia, among the 
Garos, and other hill tribes of India. Eastward from 
the Indian Archipelago it pervades the Melanesian 


islands, with remains in Polynesia; it prevails widely — 


in Australia, and stretches north and south in the 
Americas. This immense district represents an area 
of lower culture, where matriarchalism has only in 
places yielded to the patriarchal system, which de- 


velops with the idea of property, and which, in the 


one’s nearest relative is not one’s father, but one’s 


If, led by | 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1884.] 


other and more civilized half of the globe, has carried 
all before it, only showing in isolated spots, and by 
relics of custom, the former existence of matriarchal 
society. Such a geographical view of the matriarchal 
region makes intelligible, facts which, while not thus 
seen together, were most puzzling. Thoughit is only 
of late that this problem of ancient society has re- 
ceived the attention it deserves, it is but fair to men- 
tion that its scientific study began long ago, in the 
part of the world where we are assembled. It is re- 
markable to find Father Lafitau already pointing out, 
in 1724, how the idea of the husband being an intruder 
in his wife’s house bears on the pretence of surrepti- 
tiousness in marriage among the Spartans. He even 
rationally interprets in this way a custom which to 
us seems fantastic, but which is a most serious ob- 
servance among rude tribes widely spread over the 
world. A usual form of this custom is, that the hus- 
band and his parents-in-law, especially his mother-in- 
law, consider it shameful to speak to or look at one 
another, hiding themselves, or getting out of the 
way, at least in pretence, if they meet. The comic 
absurdity of these scenes, such as Tanner describes 
among the Assineboins, disappears if they are to be 
understood as a legal ceremony, implying that the 
husband has nothing to do with his wife’s family. 

It is obvious that in this speculation, as in other 
problems now presenting themselves in anthropology, 
the question of the antiquity of man lies at the basis. 
Of late, no great progress has been made toward fix- 
ing a scale of calculation of the human period; but 
the arguments as to time required for alterations in 
valley-levels, changes of fauna, evolution of races, 
languages, and culture, seem to converge more con- 
clusively than ever toward a human period, short, 
indeed, as a fraction of geological time, but long 
as compared with historical or chronological time. 
While, however, it is felt that length of time need 
not debar the anthropologist from hypotheses of de- 
velopment and migration, there is more caution as to 
assumptions of millions of years where no arithmeti- 
cal basis exists, and less tendency to treat every thing 
prehistoric as necessarily of extreme antiquity; such 
as, for instance, the Swiss lake-dwellings and the 
Central-American temples. There are certain prob- 
lems of American anthropology which are not the 
less interesting for involving no considerations of 
high antiquity : indeed, they have the advantage 
of being within the check of history, though not 
themselves belonging to it. 

A brief account may now be given of the present 
state of information as to movements of civilization 
within the double continent of America. Conspicu- 
ous among these is what may be called the north- 
ward drift of civilization, which comes well into view 
in the evidence of botanists as to cultivated plants. 
To see how closely the two continents are connected 
in Civilization, one need only look at the distribution 
on both of maize, tobacco, and cocoa. It is admitted 
as probable, that, from the Mexican and Central- 
American region, agriculture travelled northward, 
and became established among the native tribes. 
This direction may be clearly traced in a sketch of 


SCIENG@) 


y Ye 


/ 219 


be 


their aericulture. The same staple cultivation passed 

ou from place to place. Agriculture, among the In- 
dians of the great lakes, is plainly seen to have been 
an imported craft by the way in which it had spread 
to some tribes, but not to others. The distribution 
of the potter’s art is similarly partial. With this 
northward drift of civilization other facts harmonize. 
Now that the idea of the mound-builders being a 
separate race of high antiquity has died out, and 
their earth-works, with the implements and orna- 
fhents found among them, are brought into com- 
parison with those of other tribes of the country, 
they have settled into representatives of one of the 
most notable stages of the northward drift of culture 
among the indigenes of America. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


In order to facilitate the work of the Electrical 
conference to be held in Philadelphia, the chief signal- 
officer has issued to the members of the conference 
the following subjects, as suggested for discussion, 
with a view to recommending proper observations 
and reports: 1. What unpublished records exist in 
the hands of electric-lighting, telegraph, and tele- 
phone companies, relative to ground-currents and 
atmospheric or auroral influences? 2. What is the 
general experience on east-west, north-south, and 
other lines? 8. What records can be kept by mana- 
gers of all lines without interfering with daily busi- 
ness? 4. What special observations can be made? 
5. What special lines can be, perhaps, wholly devoted 
to the continuous record of the phenomena? 6. Do, 
or can, the noises and currents, as observed on tele- 
phone and telegraph lines, give information as to the 
location and future movement of a thunder-storm, 
aurora, rain, cold wave, etc.? 7 Are observations 
on buried lines, or those covered with metallic tubing, 
or double aérial lines, specially desirable? 8. How 
can we best secure a complete daily electric survey of 
a given small portion of country, and a general sur- 
vey of a larger region? 9. What is practicable in the 
way of securing a daily map of the distribution of 
atmospheric and terrestrial electric potentials? 10. 
Who will maintain self-recording electrometers? 


2 
oe 


Fig. 1. 


— The ability of flies to walk on glass and other 
polished surfaces receives a new explanation at the 
hands of Dr. J. E. Rombouts in the Archives du 


220 


Pk, eee: 
musée Teyler, ser. ii. part 4. He denies the for mer 


views, that it is due to pressure of the air, or to the 
effect of a viscous liquid exuded by the foot, and 
says that it can be accounted for only by capillary 
action. In order to study the process, he enclosed a 
fly in a thin box with a glass plate as a bottom; and, 
when the box was turned so that the glass was up- 
permost, the feet could easily be studied under the 
microscope. The cushions of the fly’s feet are dis- 
tinctly seen to be covered with club-shaped hairs (fig. 
1., 1a.) to the number of eight hundred or one thou- 
sand, arranged with considerable regularity. From 
these a fatty liquid is exuded, which leaves on the 
glass a trace of their contact (fig. 2). The ability to 


MAP 


OF TRE RORTH-WESTERH SHORES OF HUCSORS STRAITS 
Trem 

BOAT’ JOURNE/S /N AUGUST (880, AND INFORMATION 

COMELLE D pra WINTER SLEDGE. JOURNEYS ae WHALING MASTERS 


w 
Lieu” Freo® “Scuwarka, US.ARmy. 


adhere to the glass arises from the attraction exer- 
cised by each of these little drops of liquid on the 
hair from which it is exuded. Various experiments 
with hairs are recorded to show that capillary force 
would be sufficient to easily bear the weight of a fly, 
even were the fluid pure water. 

— The accompanying map of the north-western 
shores of Hudson’s Strait is of interest at the present 
time, on account of the expedition which lately went 
there under the command of Lieut. A. R. Gordon, 
to gather information as to the possibility of using 
the strait in a line of water-connection from the 
west to Europe. The map was compiled by Lieut. 
Frederick Schwatka, from surveys made by him 
while on boat-journeys in August, 1880, and winter 
sledge-journeys, and from information gathered 


ties first named by him. 

— Dr. Chervin has been studying the medical geog- 
raphy of the department of the Seine inférieure with 
reference to disabilities which are developed by the 
annual conscription. The period chosen covered 
twenty years. After those cases of feeble constitu- 
tion, evidently unfit for military duty, the most 
frequent disability was dental caries, after which fol- 
lowed hernia, etc. In considering the department as 
a whole, the average number of conscripts rejected 
on this account was fifteen per cent; but, in con- 
sidering the separate cantons, it was shown that 
they vary greatly in this regard, the least average 


being eight per cent, and the highest nearly twenty- 
four per cent. In seeking a cause for this singular 
difference, that sometimes alluded to, the drinking 
of sour Norman cider, was considered to have little 
real influence. The question of race was believed to 
be more important. So far as form and height are 
concerned, the tables for twenty years showed two 
physical groups or races, —the smaller in the west; 
the larger in the east, especially about Dieppe aud 
Neufchatel. The taller race is much more subject 
to dental caries than the other, and this is confirmed 
by testimony from other departments. Baldness pre- 
vails to such an extent, that two per cent of the re- 
cruits examined wele exempt, on that account, at the 
early age of twenty. Some connection appears to 
exist between this deficiency and decay of the teeth. 


from whalers, and gives the position of many locali- i , 


- 


SCIENCE 


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 
_ Tue American association for the advance- 
ment of science borrowed its constitution, in 
large measure, from the British. Yet, while it 
is evident in the nature of things that the same 


rules cannot answer for two countries differing 


so widely in geographical extent, one weak- 
ness of the American, as compared with the 
British society, lies in its lack of an efficient 
organization in the interim between two meet- 
ings, and the necessity that the non-permanent 
members of the standing committee should be 
chosen from and by the members present at 
one of the annual gatherings. ‘This deficiency 
has been emphasized by the visit of the Brit- 
ish association on this side of the water, and 
by the proposal for an international association 
of some sort. 


This leads us to draw the attention of those 
interested to one or two features of the recent 
Montreal meeting, which might well be adopted 
by the American association, and would re- 
quire no alteration of the constitution. One 


_is the grouping of papers in each section, so 


that those of a similar character are read to- 
gether, eliciting a better discussion, freer from 
discursiveness, and at less cost of time; an- 
other is fixing set subjects for discussion on 
some topics of interest, to be opened by desig- 
nated members ; a third is the daily disposal of 
the entire schedule, no matter how much the 
papers have to be abbreviated or the session 
prolonged, so that each day’s programme is 
fresh. The most important of all is the appro- 
priation of grants of money to committees for 
special scientific work during the year, the 
grants this year amounting to over £1500. 


Tue crowrH of the American association, 
during the past five years, warrants the belief 


that such grants are entirely within its disposal, 
No. 84, —1884. 


if it will simply reverse its plan of printing 
papers in full. We believe that only five of 
the numerous papers read at Montreal are to 
be printed in extenso; such papers having to 
be recommended by the sectional committees, 
and approved by the general committee. In 
our own association, the matter is completely 
within the control of the standing committee, 
which, by adopting a similar policy, might soon 
bring the association into possession of a per- 
manent fund of fifty thousand dollars, — such 
as the British association now enjoys, — instead 
of leaving it to fulfil but half its mission on its 
paltry investment of a couple of thousand dol- 
lars. At present, the American association is 
expending more than four thousand dollars a 
year in printing ; while the British association, 
with twice the membership, and an average 
presentation of twice as many papers, prints 
no bulkier a volume, and less than half of it 
is made up of members’ papers. The avenues 
of publication in America are now ample enough 
for all papers of permanent value. 


Ir nas been justly held, that the meeting of 
the British association in Canada would produce 
a direct stimulus to science in the dominion. 
The association itself has evidently deter- 
mined that it shall. Welcomed with the utmost 
cordiality, fostered by the government, and re- 
ceiving the marked attention of the governor- 
general, it has raised, among its own members, 
a science-scholarship fund for McGill Uni- 
versity, — probably to be devoted to civil en- 
gineering, — has been the occasion of a gift 
of fifty thousand dollars for a public library in 
Montreal, and has passed a series of resolu- 
tions pointedly calling the attention of the 
Canadian government to two important duties 
to science and humanity which it has hitherto 
neglected, —a proper system of tidal observa- 
tion along its extended coasts, for the benefit 
of navigation ; and systematic researches upon 
the native tribes of half a continent. 


222 


Erunic problems have a natural interest for 
the American people. Their great task is to 
fuse together the life of many lands, — to bring 
political and social union out of the widest 
diversities that the races of men afford. They 
follow a true instinct in giving time and 
public money to such problems. The bureau 
of ethnology is doing an admirable work 
in gathering the history of our departing 
aborigines. There is, however, another field 
of labor, — one not yet fairly entered on, either 
by private students or by the ordered phalanxes 
that are marshalled in the cause of science by 
the bureaus of the federal government. As 
the indigenous savages were forced towards the 
setting sun by the plough-driving Aryans, 
the shore was crossed by another savage race, 
the African, that has come to stay for all time 
in our fields. 


There can be no question that the African 
in the United States presents us with the 
greatest and most interesting experiment that 
has ever been tried by civilized man upon a 
lower people. Around this race have gathered 
a host of problems of the utmost importance 
to pure science, and of infinite interest in that 
field of nature called sociology, into which 
science is with such difficulty making a slow and 
blundering way. Out of the very numerous 
inquiries that should be made in this field we 
may note the following, that are at the moment, 
perhaps, the most important because they 
concern matters that need to be studied at once. 
First among these is the question of the origin 
of our American negroes. ‘There is a great 
deal that still can be gathered concerning this 
question. No close observer of the negro race 
in this country can fail to have noticed the 
wide diversity of type masked behind the de- 
ceiving uniformity of hue. Second, we have 
the problem of the physical and mental change 
that has come over this people since their re- 
moval to America. Third, the effects of climate 


in different parts of the United States upon 


these black races, — effects on shape, liability 
to disease, longevity, etc. What to do with 
and for the negro, and how to do it, is the 


s 4 4 aes ee 
a we 


SCIENCE. | 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. q 


question of all questions most immediately 
and imperatively before us. We best begin 
to deal with it by making a scientific study 
of him. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


The initiation of deep-sea dredging. 


In a recent number of Science (July 18), Mr. Rath- 
bun is rather severe upon European naturalists for 
their supposed ignorance of the fact that the Gulf- 
Stream dredgings carried on by the Corwin, under 
the superintendence of the late Mr. Pourtales, were 
commenced in 1867, the year before the first British 
expedition in the Lightning; and he speaks of Mr. 
Pourtalés’ report of December, 1867, as having been 
‘utterly ignored’ by European writers. 

It is quite true that no reference was made to this. 
report in the historical account of the subject which 
formed part of the preliminary report of the dredging 
operations of the Lightning, presented to the Royak 
society by Dr. Carpenter on Dec. 17, 1868; for the 
bulletin of the Museum of comparative zoology, which 
contained Pourtales’ report, had not then reached ~ 
him. The correspondence between Dr. Carpenter 
and Sir Wyville Thomson, which Jed to the cruise of 
the Lightning (published as an appendix to Dr. Car- 
penter’s report), was carried on in entire ignorance of 
the fact that Pourtales had dredged down to a depth 
of three hundred and fifty fathoms a twelvemonth 
before. In fact, it was only after their return in 
September, 1868, that they heard for the first time of 
the work done by Mr. Pourtales in May of that and 
of the previous year. Buta short account of it, re- 
ceived from Prof. A. Agassiz, was quoted by Dr. 
Carpenter; and reference was given to a fuller notice 
of Mr. Pourtales’ results in Silliman’s journal for 
November, 1868. 

It will be seen, therefore, that Dr. Carpenter, far 
from ignoring the researches of Mr. Pourtales in the 
Corwin, fully recognized their priority to those car- 
ried on in the Lightning during the autumn of 1868. 
He could not well refer to a document, which, though 
published a year previously, had not yet come into 
the hands of British naturalists, and consequently 
could not receive from them the credit which Mr. 
Rathbun says has been denied it. But Mr. Pour- 
talés’ dredgings were noticed in the same number of 
the proceedings of the Royal society as were those 
of the Lightning; and I do not well see how their 
value could have been more fully recognized, consid- 
ering what was then known about them in this 
country. 

I freely admit, however, that in ‘ The depths of the 
sea,’*the book to which Mr. Rathbun so pointedly 
refers (though without naming it), it is stated that 
the dredgings of Mr. Pourtalés were ‘commenced’ in 
1868. This is one of several minor inaccuracies. 
which are unfortunately to be found scattered 
through the work; and, however much they are to be: 
regretted, it must be remembered that at the time it — 
was written the author was in bad health, with his 
time fully occupied by his professorial duties, and by 
the preparations for the cruise of the Challenger, 
which commenced almost before the book was in the 
hands of the public. In fact, the later chapters, 
which contain the erroneous reference to the date of 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


Mr. Pourtalés’ first dredgings, were written under 
very considerable difficulties, as I well remember 
hearing from the author himself. But the ‘ priority 
in scientific research,’ which Mr. Rathbun claims for 
Pourtalés’ work, had been accorded to it four years 
previously, at the earliest possible opportunity, in 
the Proceedings of the Royal society. So far as I 
know, this honor has never been ‘denied’ to one 
who would have been the last to claim it for himself. 
I fully admit, however, that the date of his earlier 
work has been incorrectly given in certain popular 
accounts of the subject; but this was done acci- 
dentally, and without the slightest intention of 
appropriating any credit for the work of British 
naturalists which was justly due elsewhere, as will 
be evident from what I have said already. 

P. HERBERT CARPENTER. 


Eton college, Windsor, Eng., 
Aug. 11. 


The ‘bassalian fauna;’ ‘Pentacrinus 


asteriscus.’ 


I notice that Mr. Gill has ‘‘recently proposed the 
name ‘bassalian realm’ for the collective deep-sea 
faunas.’’ I do not know whether it is proposed to 
define this name more strictly by assigning to it any 
particular bathymetrical limits; but it may be well to 
notice, that, in his presidential address to the biologi- 
ea] section of the British association at Plymouth in 
1877, Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys suggested the use of the 
name ‘*‘benthal’ (from the Homeric word évé6oc, 
signifying the depths of the sea) for depths of one 
thousand fathoms and more,’’ while retaining the 
term ‘abyssal’ for depths down to one thousand 
fathoms. 

There is another point to which I have long thought 
of directing the attention of the readers of Science, 
and I therefore take this opportunity of doing so. 

The surveys of Hayden, Wheeler, and others, in 
Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, have revealed the very 
wide distribution, in beds of Jurassic age, of a cri- 
noid which has been called Pentacrinus asteriscus. 
Nothing is known of this form but a number of 
stem-joints (1 speak under correction, and shall be 
pleased to hear that I am wrong); but most of the 
figures of these joints which I have seen (e.g., that 
given by White in the paleontology of Wheeler’s sur- 
vey) seem to me to indicate that the type should be 
referred to Extracrinus rather than to Pentacrinus. 
The essential characters of the stem-joints of Extra- 
erinus are well shown in plate liii. of Buckland’s 
‘Geology and mineralogy,’ figs. 9-13; on tab. 101 of 
- Quenstedt’s ‘Encriniden,’ especially figs. 24, 27, 33, 
and 37; and also on plate xii. of the Austins’ ‘ Mono- 
graph of recent and fossil crinoids.’ The five in- 
terradial petals are quite narrow, and much less 
distinctly oval than in Pentacrinus, sometimes be- 
coming almost linear, with rounded outerends. The 
interpetaloid spaces are plain, and devoid of sculp- 
ture; while the markings at the sides of the petals 
are much more delicate than in Pentacrinus, having 
more the character of striae or crenulation than of 
coarse ridges. They are also much more numerous 
than in Pentacrinus, and are limited to the sides of 
the petals, not reaching the outer edge of the joint- 
face. Under these circumstances, I suspect that it 
is to Extracrinus, and not to Pentacrinus, that we 
must refer the joints which were described by Meek 
and Hayden as having lance, oval, petaloid areas, 
“bounded by rather narrow, slightly elevated, trans- 
versely crenulate margins.”’ 

Extracrinus was proposed by the Austins for the 
two well-known liassic fossils, Pentacrinus briareus 


SCIENCE. 


223 


and P. subangularis; but recent investigations have 
shown that the genus extends up into the great 
oolite (Bathonien) of Britain, France, and Switzer- 
land. I have no knowledge, however, of any triassic 
species of Extracrinus; though Pentacrinus is well 
represented in the St. Cassian beds, and has been 
found associated with Encrinus in the ‘ wellenkalk’ 
of Wurtemberg. 

It is therefore interesting to find that the triassic 
form of Pentacrinus asteriscus, which was obtained 
by the fortieth parallel survey from the Dun Glen 
limestone and the Pah Ute range, differs from the 
Jurassic specimens found in south-east Idaho and 
western Wyoming, almost precisely in those points 
which distinguish Pentacrinus from Extracrinus. 
According to Hall and Whitfield, the chief distinc- 
tion of the triassic forms lies ‘‘in the more obtuse 


_ points of the star, and the filling-up of the angles 


between the points, and also in the broader form of 
the elliptical figures on the articulating surfaces of the 
disks.”’ They suggest that the differences may pos- 
sibly be of specific value; but, having carefully 


studied a large variety of stem-joints of Penta- 


crinidae, both recent and fossil, I am inclined to go 
farther, and to suspect.that the triassic type may be- 
long to Pentacrinus, but the Jurassic form to Extra- 
crinus. 

The two genera differ very considerably in the char- 
acters of the calyx and arms, as will be fully ex- 
plained in the report on the Pentacrinidae dredged 
by the Challenger and the Blake, which will appear 
in the course of the winter. But, in the mean time, I 
shall be most grateful for any information respecting 
Pentacrinus asteriscus, in addition to that which has 
been already made public; and I need not say that I 
should much like to have the opportunity of making 
a personal examination, both of the triassic and the 
Jurassic specimens. P. HERBERT CARPENTER. 


Eton college, Windsor, Eng., 
Aug. 11. 


Points on lightning-rods. 


The following passage occurs in J. E. H. Gordon’s 
excellent ‘‘ Physical treatise on electricity and mag- 
netism,”’ vol. i. p. 24: ‘‘It was held that the knobs 
[on the ends of lightning-rods] must be most effica- 
cious, because the lightning was seen to strike them, 
and never struck the points. The fact that a point 
prevents the lightning from ever striking at all was 
not known.”’ 

This is not true. The highest rod on my house is 
some fifteen feet above the others, and about thirty 
feet higher than the surrounding buildings; and yet, 
notwithstanding the fact that it is tipped with a 
brush of five points, it was struck a few years ago. 
The points are gilded iron, and the topmost one was 
melted into a ball about one-eighth of an inch in 
diameter. The rods are all connected by horizontal 
pieces held about three inches from the tin roof by 
glass insulators, after the fashion of ignorant light- 
ning-rod agents. The neighbors say that the sparks 
flew so thickly between the rods and the roof, as to 
resemble a sheet of flame. The shock was, singularly 
enough, so slight that it is doubtful whether it was 
due to the electrical discharge, or the deafening crash 
of thunder that instantly followed the splitting sound 
of the spark. A. B. PORTER. 

Indianapolis, Aug. 23. 


Photographs of the interior of a coal-mine. 


One of the most interesting enterprises to which 
the preparations for the New Orleans exposition have 


224 


given rise is the successful attempt to photograph the 
interior of a coal-mine in Pennsylvania. The mine 
selected for the experiment was the Kobhinoor colliery 
at Shenandoah, operated by the Philadelphia coal and 
iron company, from whose representatives all neces- 
sary facilities were obtained. 

The experiment was conceived of, and successfully 
carried out, by Mr. James Temple Brown, who was 
sent out from the metallurgical department of the 
National museum to collect specimens illustrative of 
the coal industry. An attempt was first made to 
photograph by the aid of magnesium light, but the 
results proved unsatisfactory. The Arnoux electric- 
light company then volunteered to supply an electric 
plant. and to erect and take charge of it gratuitously. 
The five negatives obtained by the use of this light 
were highly satisfactory, and show some features of 
coal-mines which probably have not hitherto been 
seen by scientific men, nor, indeed, by miners them- 
selves, whose feeble lamps give them only a glimpse 
of the immediate surroundings. 

The photographs will be enlarged, and exhibited at 
the New Orleans exposition. Whatever credit at- 
taches to this somewhat novel undertaking is due 
primarily to the generous encouragement of the di- 
rector of the museum, and to the thoughtfulness and 
energy of Mr. Brown. The representatives of the 
Philadelphia coal and iron company very kindly gave 
the matter their personal attention, and the photogra- 
pher employed for the work labored enthusiastically 
for the results obtained. 

F. W. TRUE. 


U. 8. National Museum, Sept. 5. 


ELECTRICAL TESTING ESTABLISH- 
MENTS. 


Tue Electrical review seconds the sugges- 
tion of the Hngineer, that an ‘ electrical testing 
establishment’ be founded in England, where 
any ambitious inventor may find the apparatus 
and conveniences which he may need for a 
proper testing and perfecting of his ideas. 
The Review calls attention to the impossibility 
of a poor man, however ingenious he may be, 
being able to work upon any improvement in 
cable telegraphy, as at least an artificial cable 
must be at his command, — a necessity which 
. would cost him several thousand dollars. In 
the same way with experiments on electric 
lamps: the cost of the necessary plant is very 
considerable, and the amount required for sup- 
plies to be used in constant trials is by no 
means to be neglected. 

The founding of such an establishment for 
the aid of inventors has been suggested by 
several of the successful members of the class 
in America, but has not, we believe, been car- 


SCIENCE. 


a 
[Vou. IV., No. 84. — 


ried out. There would, at the start, be the dif- 
ficulty of deciding as to the worthiness of any 
scheme which might be brought forward for 
development. ‘The inventor is necessarily an 
enthusiast, and an extremely fickle being, who 
would come in one morning all aglow for a new 
form to be given the carbon filament in an in- 
candescent lamp, and the next would have 
nothing of lamps, but would earnestly urge 
some peculiar construction of telephone-cable 
to get rid of the ‘ cross-talk.’ This constant 
jumping, accompanied by the necessary amount 
of perseverance, leads him finally to some goal, 
but at the same time makes him an obnox- 
ious companion to the steady-going workman 
who must needs follow him, nothing being more 
discouraging to an artificer than to see the 
results of his one day’s work overthrown on 
the next. : 
It may be urged, that the man with capacity 
for improving the methods of the world’s work 
will sooner or later, but surely, push himself 
forward into a position where he can help 
himself through a connection with some rich 
telegraph, electric-light, or manufacturing com- 
pany, where his powers will have full play, and 
his suggestions be listened to and put in effect. 
It should also be considered whether, in estab- 
lishing any ‘ helping-hand’ arrangement, the 
principal or only result would be to assist those 
for a time who give promise of valuable devel- 
opment, but who are lacking in the strong fibre 
necessary for successful accomplishment. Not- 
withstanding all objections, it may appear to 
some that the possibility of enabling some one 
worthy man to bring his work to perfection ten, 
twenty, or thirty years before he could if left 
to his own unaided resources, would justify 
the expenditure of considerable sums on what 
would be found to be the chaff of inventions. 
What the result might be, is very difficult to 
say. There might be some very successful work 
done in such a laboratory, properly guarded, 
and where the applicants were kept as con- 
stantly as might be to their purpose: there 
certainly would be a vast number of cranks — 
knocking at the door. ; 
The editorial in the Electrical review brought 


2 £ sie ee 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


out a response from one of the ‘electrical 
schools’ of England, which shows the result of 
the trial of such a method of aiding inventors, 
although a free use of the laboratories could not 
be offered. In this reply it is stated that the 
school has for several years openly offered the 
facilities of its laboratories to any inventor who 
may come forward, and wish such facilities to 
aid him in perfecting his work ; and that as yet 
they have received two applications, both of 
which were withdrawn on account of the re- 
muneration which the school felt called upon 
to ask. One of the applicants was a cable 
company, and considered five shillings a day 
too much for the use of the very extensive 
apparatus required ; and the other looked upon 
five pounds as excessive for the use of power 
and a dynamo, with skilled superintendence 
and advice. 

As the most feasible solution, for the pres- 
ent, of the question, how to advance the uses 
of electricity, many of our large telegraph, 
telephone, and electric-light companies have 
established testing-laboratories for the use of 
their employees, and give regular employment 
to professional inventors whose researches are 
directed by the officers of the company; but 
little is done in these laboratories to promote 
research by persons not connected with the 
companies themselves. Our universities and 
technological schools, in many cases, possess 
well-equipped physical laboratories, containing 
electrical testing-apparatus for the use of the 
students. These laboratories exist for the pur- 
pose of promoting research, and might, under 
suitable restrictions, be thrown open to invent- 
ors as well as to students. 

However the difficulty is to be met, it is un- 
doubtedly the case, that research looking to 
the utilization of electricity as a motive power 
and as a source of light is fettered and hin- 
dered by the expense of the apparatus required. 
If a special laboratory, to be under the direc- 
tion of suitable persons, could be established 
in this country for the promotion of electri- 
cal research, especially for research in those 
branches that necessitate the employment 
of expensive apparatus, invention in these 


SCIENCE, 


225 


branches would be stimulated, and the whole 
community would be the gainer. In France 
the profits of the late International electrical 
exhibition have been devoted to the establish- 
ment of an electrical laboratory. Perhaps the 
managers of the forthcoming electrical _exhi- 
bition in Philadelphia may take the hint. 


AMERICAN APPLIANCES FOR DEEP- 
SHA INVESTIGATION. — TRAWLS AND 
TANGLES. 

Beam-trawls. 

Tue beam-trawls designed for zoological 
collecting have usually been patterned closely 
after those employed by the English fishermen, 
and in this form are well adapted for moderate 
depths of water. In fact, the only objection 
to their use in great depths is their lability 
to capsize while being lowered, often causing 
them to land upon the bottom wrong side up. 
They were first employed on this coast by 
the fish-commission in 1871; and the earliest 
records of their use by the English, in deep 
water at least, are given in the Challenger nar- 
rative (beginning in 1873), no reference being 
made to the subject of beam-trawls in the 
account of the voyages of the Lightning and 
Porcupine. In all the exploring-work of the 
fish-commission, the beam-trawls have been 
used quite as frequently as the dredges; the 
trawling-results being far richer as to the larger 
forms of life, and including immense numbers 
of fishes which could never be obtained by the 
dredge, and would otherwise have remained 
undiscovered. 


Fig. 1.— THE BEAM-TRAWL. 


As is known to most naturalists, the beam- 
trawl (fig. 1) consists of a large, tapering, 
bag-like net, which is dragged over the bottom, 
mouth forwards, to entrap such fish as live 
close to the ground. ‘The mouth is held open 


226 


by a long beam, generally of wood, supported 
upon iron runners; and there are one or more 
inner, funnel-shaped traps, to prevent the 
escape of fish after they have entered. The 
nets are sometimes very large, and the beams 
often measure forty-five or fifty feet in length. 
The lower side of the mouth of the net, which 
is leaded, hangs loose, so as to drag over the 
ground in a deep backward curve. It does 
not dig into the bottom, but simply scoops into 
its capacious mouth every loose object lying in 
its course. Large quantities of soft sand and 
mud are, however, often taken up. 

In adapting the fishermen’s trawl for zodlo- 
gical work, a few modifications have been 
made, mainly as regards size and the materials 
used in its construction. For small trawls a 
beam of iron gas-pipe is now preferred by the 
fish-commission to wood, as being more dur- 
able, less bulky, and less liable to injury from 
pressure in deep water; the defect of wooden 
beams, in the latter respect, having seriously 


SCIENCE. 


a depth of 2,650 fathoms in nearly the same 
locality, but in the Pacific Ocean made several 
successful casts in more than 3,000 fathoms, 
the trawl they had having been of about the 
same size and pattern as the American. | 

The method of attaching the bridle in th 
Challenger trawl was similar to that afterwards 
adopted for the Blake trawl, the bridle ropes 
being made very long, and extending along 
the sides of the net to its extremity, with 
lashings to the runners on each side, and to 
the hinder end of the bag. The object of this 
arrangement of the bridle was not stated by 
Sir Wyville Thomson; but it was presumably 
to allow the forward fastenings to break, in 
case of fouling, and permit of the net being 
hauled up hind-end first.» 


The Blake trawl. 


The objection above raised to the use of the 
ordinary beam-trawl in deep water suggested 


Fig. 2.— THE BLAKE TRAWL OR DOUBLE BEAM-TRAWL. 


inconvenienced the deep-sea trawling opera- 
tions of the Challenger. 

The different sizes of trawls employed vary, 
in the length of beam, from seven and a half 
to eighteen feet, a wooden beam being used 
for the latter size only. With an eleven-foot 
beam, the runners measure twenty-eight inches 
in height and four feet in length, the beam 
having a diameter of two inches and a quarter, 
and screwing into brass strap bands on the 
tops of the runners. The openings through 
the runners are closed by netting. In the 
smaller trawls the net is about eighteen feet 
long, with a single pocket, and, in the larger, 
measure from twenty-five to forty feet in length, 
with either one or two pockets. 

For the greater depths of water, the eleven 
and fifteen feet beams are preferred. The 
largest size is seldom used, except in moderate 
depths; and in shallow water, the Otter trawl, 
another English pattern, is not unfrequently 
employed. 

The common beam-trawl has been used suc- 
cessfully by the fish-commission in all depths 
down to 2,949 fathoms, the latter indicating 
the deepest trawling-station on record for the 
Atlantic Ocean. The Challenger trawled to 


IN USE (OR IN POSITION FOR DRAGGING ON THE BOTTOM). 


to the officers of the Blake dredging-party, in 
the winter of 1877-78, the construction of a 
reversible trawl, having in this respect all the 
advantages of the naturalists’ dredge. This 
pattern, termed the ‘ Blake trawl,’ or ‘ double 
beam-trawl,’ bears the same relation to the 
fishermen’s beam-trawl as does the naturalists’ 
dredge to the oyster-dredge; the changes in 
both cases being demanded by the necessity of 
working with greater precision in deep water, 
where the loss of time occasioned by the use of 
ill-suited appliances cannot well be afforded. 
The Blake trawl (fig. 2) was the joint 
invention of Mr. Alexander Agassiz, Com- 
mander Sigsbee, U.S.N., and Lieut. Ackly, 
U.S.N., and was used with great success on 
the several dredging-cruises of the steamer 
Blake from 1878 to 1880, undergoing, during 
this time, a few slight improvements to perfect 
its working. In 1880 it was adopted by the 
fish-commission for deep-water work, in con- 
nection with the old pattern ; and in 1883 it was 
also copied by the French exploring-steamer 
Talisman. The following description is made 
up from one of the trawls belonging to the 
latter party, and differing but slightly from — 
that of the Blake. ey 


4 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


The runner-frames, made of bar-iron half 
an inch thick by three inches wide, form a 
very broad D-shaped figure, being equally 
curved above and below in front, and extend- 
ing thence straight back to the upright hinder 
end, beyond which the runners project slight- 
ly, the overlapping portions being perforated 
_ for the attachment of the net. These frames 
measure three feet and a half in height by 
four feet in length, and are rigidly connected 
by two beams of iron gas-pipe, ten feet and 
three-quarters long and two inches and a 
quarter in diameter, which screw into brass 
collars riveted to the inner sides of the run- 
ners.— one in front, and one behind. ‘The 
net, like the frame, is perfectly symmetrical in 
shape, and consists of a cylindrical or slightly 
conical bag of stout twine webbing, open at the 
lower end. Its length may vary from eighteen 
to twenty-five feet; and, to give it increased 
strength, a double thickness of webbing is 
generally employed. The folds formed in 
tying the lower end of the net for use serve 
to retain a certain quantity of the fine bottom- 
material. 

The method of attaching the net to the 
runner-frame is simple. A two-and-a-quarter- 
inch rope runs around the entire mouth, and 
is laced to the hinder ends of the runners, and 
secured to the four hinder corners of the same. 
In common with the mouth of the net, this 
rope is left sufficiently slack between the 
runners on both sides; so that, whichever side 
is uppermost, the slack of that side curves 
down to the level of the beams, and does not 
obstruct the lower half of the opening: the 
lower slack line naturally curves backward 
upon the ground. ‘These slack portions of the 
line are weighted to serve as lead lines. 

There is an inner pocket, or trap, to the net, 
and a series of four glass or cork floats to 
assist in keeping it expanded. The runner- 
openings, and the space between the beams, are 
also closed in with netting. The bridle for the 
attachment of the drag-rope may be fastened 
to the fronts of the runners, or carried back to 
the hinder end of the net, as before explained. 
Other methods of arranging the net have been 
tried, but that above described has proved 
most satisfactory. 


Trawl-wings. 


It has long been observed, that enormous 
quantities of small and delicate free-swim- 
ming animals, especially Crustacea of the lower 
orders, come up completely crushed in the 
mass of material which frequently fills the 


SCIENCE. 


227 


trawl; and it was also evident that still larger 
quantities must escape through the coarse 
meshes of the net. To collect and preserve 
these forms, Capt. H. C. Chester arranged in 
1880 for the use of the fish-commission, in 
connection with the beam-trawls, a large tow- 
ing-net, having a rectangular mouth-frame of 
iron three feet long by eight inches wide, and 
a moderately fine mesh bag of netting about 
three feet in length. Into the lower end of 
this bag is fitted one of the ordinary silk or 
linen towing-nets for the purpose of retaining 
the very smallest objects. Two of these tow- 
ing-nets are fastened to each trawl of either 
pattern nearly every time they are used ; being 
attached, one at each end of the beam (as 
shown in fig. 3), by means of a piece of small 


Fie. 3.— THE TRAWL-WINGS ATTACHED TO THE BEAM-TRAWL; 
IN USE. 


gas-pipe lashed by one end to the beam, or 
extending a short distance into it, if the latter 
is also of iron. The trawl-wings, as these 
nets have been christened, give such excellent 
results, that their appearance at the surface, 
after a haul, is as anxiously watched for as is 
that of the trawl proper. 


Tangles. 


While the use of hempen tangle-swabs at- 
tached to the dredge was introduced by the 
English exploring-steamer Porcupine in 1868 
or 1869, the idea that they were worthy of be- 
ing used separately appears to have originated 
with Professor Verrill of the fish-commission in 
18715; since which time other explorers, both 
European and American, have employed them 
to a slight extent in the same way. It has 
been the experience of this commission, that 
the combination of tangles with the dredge or 
trawl is, to say the least, cumbersome; and, 
following in the wake of either, they generally 
pick up only the more or less mutilated speci- 
mens which have been injured by the iron 
scrapers or the lead line. By attaching them 
at the sides, however, as is sometimes done, 
the latter objection is removed. 

The true province of the tangles is a very 
rocky bottom, where neither the dredge nor 


228 SCIENCE. 


trawl can be safely used; and here they per- 
form a real service, notwithstanding the impos- 
sibility of extricating the delicate specimens 


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Fie. 4, — THE TANGLES (VERRILL’S PATTERN). 


from the hempen swabs without injury. ‘They 
may also be employed on moderately rough 
bottoms to supplement the work of the dredge ; 
but, used separately, both have, by actual expe- 
rience, been proved to obtain far better results. 
On smooth bottoms, it does not seem rational 
to suppose that the tangles can in any way add 
to the results afforded by the beam-trawls, 
properly managed ; and several trials, made on 
rich ground of this character, have shown such 
to be the case. 

A short distance beyond the coast-line, we 
generally come upon such uniformly smooth 
bottom,’ that the beam-trawl can be trusted 
nearly everywhere. Working in such a region 
as this, enormous hauls would be obtained day 
after day ; the trawl delivering its specimens in 
exceptionally good condition, and affording the 
full variety of life which existed there. Dur- 
ing the earlier part of the explorations, alcohol 


[Vor. IV., No. 84. 


was used at the rate of two to three barrels a 
day, and certainly better results could not 
be asked for. At intervals the tangles would 
be lowered, but they never furnished any 
thing new; and the pitiable condition of the 
specimens they brought up, when compared 
with those from the trawl, caused their use to 
be discontinued. And what more could be 
expected of them, when attached to the run- 
ners or net of the trawl? 
The tangles devised by Professor Verrill, in 
1871, were secured to a triangular iron frame, 
similar to that of the rake-dredge. In 1873, 
however, they were altered and improved as 
represented in fig. 4. | 
They consist of an iron bar, rigidly attached 
to two rings or wheels, as a framework, from 
which extend several small iron chains, each 
carrying from three to five hempen swabs of 
medium size. The wheels are not intended to 
revolve, but merely to keep the bar above the 
ground, so as to prevent its coming in contact 
with the specimens ; and whatever injury befalls 


bH1G. d.— SIGSBEE’S GRAVITATING TRAP. 


the latter must result from their entanglement 
among the hempen fibres. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


Towing-nets. 


As to the towing-nets for collecting at the 
surface, and at depths intermediate between 
the surface and the bottom, we have but a single 
noteworthy improvement to mention, — the 
eravitating-trap of Commander Sigsbee, which 
was successfully worked on the last dredging- 
cruise of the steamer Blake. It is designed to 
traverse rapidly any given vertical space at any 
required depth, for the purpose of determining 
the character and abundance of life at different 
levels. It does not, however, afford the means 
of obtaining continuous horizontal towings at 
intermediate depths, unmixed with the life of 
higher levels ; such a result being still a subject 
for future investigation. 

The gravitating-trap (fig. 5) consists of a 
brass cylinder, two feet long by forty inches in 
diameter, riveted to a wrought-iron frame, cov- 
ered with gauze at the upper end, and having a 
flap-valve opening inward at the lower. It is 
suspended to the wire dredge-rope on which it 
travels, by means of a friction-clamp; while at 
the point below, to whichitis to descend, there 
is a friction-buffer. The weight of the cylin- 
der and its frame, from the manner in which 


SCIENCE. 


229 


they are suspended, keeps the valve closed 
until the apparatus has been lowered to the 
highest level from which it is desired to take 
the specimen. Every thing being in readiness, 
a small weight or messenger is sent down the 
rope, which, on striking the friction-clamp, dis- 
engages it, allowing the cylinder-clamp and 
messenger to descend by their own weight to 
the buffer. As the cylinder strikes the buffer, 
the valve closes, and is held in this position, 
during the hauling-back, by the weight above it. 
This implement may be worked at any depth, 
and the distance traversed by the cylinder may 
be regulated at will. The many details of con- 
struction have been purposely omitted. 

For the ordinary towing-nets for surface- 
collecting, and for use in connection with the 
trawl-wings, silk bolting-cloth, which can be 
obtained of any size of mesh, has been sub- 
stituted for the various other kinds of cloth 
formerly employed. Bolting-cloth, though 
moderately expensive, is very strong and dur- 
able, and the nets constructed of it have given 
creat satisfaction. The towing-net frames are 
made of heavy brass wire, and are generally 
circular in shape, though an elongated rectan- 
cular frame is sometimes employed. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


THE PHILADELPHIA MEETING. 


We have made arrangements for publishing 
reports and abstracts of so many of the papers 
presented at Philadelphia, that our readers 
can soon judge for themselves of the scientific 
importance of the meeting ; and we shall there- 
fore restrict our editorial comments, this week, 
to some general impressions which were formed 
during the progress of the session. 

The intense heat of the first five days was a 
serious drawback from the pleasure of attend- 
ance, but it was the only drawback. It doubt- 
less deterred from the journey a few who would 
otherwise have been present; but the arrange- 
ments of the Philadelphians were so complete, 
that those who were in the city encountered 
the minimum of discomfort, and enjoyed the 
utmost benefits which a great convention can 
afford. It was particularly fortunate that Sat- 
urday was kept free from all sessions, for many 
persons were thus enabled to devote two days 
to refreshment by the seashore or in the moun- 
tains in the company of their associates and 
friends. Every thing which could be done 


by an enlightened and wealthy community, 
devoted to hospitality, was done to show an 
interest in, and respect for, the workers in 
science, American and foreign. Nothing was 
forgotten or neglected. The permanent offi- 
cers of the association did their part with the 
most satisfactory efficiency. Museums, libra- 
ries, and collections were freely opened; and 
the electrical exhibition, though not complete, 
was far enough advanced to be an attrac- 
tive and instructive show. The convention 
of the mining engineers, and the convention of 
Agassiz clubs, augmented the number of at- 
tendants upon the meetings. 

The public interest in the sessions, as usual, 
reached its height at the delivery of the presi- 
dential address. On this occasion, Professor 
Young, as our readers have already discov- 
ered, presented a masterly review of the pres- 
ent condition of astronomical science and of 
the problems which next invite attack. With 
many bright flashes, his discourse was as or- 
derly as the solar system; and he balanced 
this view and that with the skill of a trained 
physicist. It is rare on such anniversaries for 


230 


a speaker to be so felicitions in the choice and 
treatment of his theme. We trust that our 
readers will pardon us for saying, that by the 
kindness of the lecturer we were able, at the 
close of his discourse, to distribute the number 
of Science in which it was printed. 

We are inclined to think that the custom 
which puts the president’s address in the even- 
ingisunwise. It is usually an elaborate essay, 
depending for its interest more on its matter 
than on its style; though, in this, style and mat- 
ter were both excelient. Sometimes, as at the 
present session, very close attention must be 
given by ordinary listeners if they would seize 
the points of the discourse. Why should this 
lecture be given in the evening, when every- 
body is tired, when the gas augments the solar 
heat, and when many are impatient for the 
social entertainment which is to follow? Why 
should it not be delivered at a morning session? 

So far as the daily newspapers came under 
our eye, there seems to be a great falling-off 
in their abstracts of the papers. The report- 
ers seem to be in despair as to what to select 
from the superabundance of material, and in 
many cases their choice is hap-hazard.  In- 
deed, it is very difficult for any one to deter- 
mine from the programme what will be of most 
interest, or exactly when particular papers will 
be read. Some ‘sifting’ or ‘ grinding’ com- 
mittee seems indispensable to eliminate such 
papers as are for any reason inappropriate to 
these gatherings. There should be a survival 
of the fittest, and the rest should disappear. 

We trust the day will come when it will be 
considered the mark of a bad education to read 
or speak indistinctly in public, — when bad ut- 
terance will be as great an offence against the 
usages of good society as bad grammar or 
bad spelling. More than one speaker in Phila- 
delphia has thwarted his own purposes by his 
low, inarticulate, or suppressed vocalization. 
Instead of awaking an interest, he has smoth- 
ered it. Why should college professors speak 
so poorly as many of them do? 

So far as our observations go, the most use- 
ful meetings of the sections appear to be those 
in which a discussion is provoked upon some 
interesting question, not necessarily on a new 
point. For example, such debate as took 
place in the mechanical section, on instruction 
in mechanics; or that in the physical section, 
on thunderstorms; or as that proposed in the 
chemical section, on the best methods of teach- 
ing chemistry, — are valued by all who are pres- 
ent, more, even, than elaborate papers which 
can hardly be appreciated until they are 
printed. 


SCIENCE. 


vere Ve  — 


[Vor. IV., No. 84 . 


The ‘ special committees’ of the association 
did not appear in a very efficient aspect, when 
the long list of them (eleven in number) was 
called Monday morning, with but one written 
and two oral responses. We may also add, 
that better modes of promoting the work of 
the association can be devised than these ‘ gen- 
eral sessions,’ which consume the best hour of 
the morning, and really accomplish very little 
good. 

The number of members enrolled as present, 
up to Tuesday morning, was 1,157; and many 
more have since arrived. ‘The members of the 
British association have been received with - 
great cordiality ; and every proposal to con- 
tinue the friendly relations which have been 
fostered this summer, and all proposals looking 
toward an international scientific congress, are 
received with great favor. 

As a whole, we are sure that the Philadel- 
phia meeting is one of the best, if not the very 
best, which has ever been held. 


COLLEGE MATHEMATICS.3 


PROFESSOR Eppy announced as the subject of his 
address, the present state of mathematical training in 
our colleges; its aims, its needs, and its relations to 
education and to scientific research. It is an article 
of faith firmly held and oft expressed by the under- 
craduate, that higher mathematics is a study which 
can be thoroughly mastered only by exceptional gen-. 
iuses. One very bad feature in this state of things. 
is, that this sentiment respecting mathematical study 
is not confined to undergraduates, but is largely 
shared, not only by the faculties in general, but by 
the instructors and professors of mathematics as 
well. 

There are various reasons which have led mathe- 
matical teachers to this opinion, besides the ill success. 
that has attended their efforts with their pupils. It 
must be admitted that, too often, the instructors. 
themselves have not become engrossed in their stud- 
ies, perhaps not even interested in them, That we 
have in this country no large body of men whose 
life-work has been, day by day, directed in the line 
of mathematical investigation, is evident toall. The 
paucity of important mathematical investigations 
emanating from this side of the Atlantic is proof of 
it. But even where the professorial chair is filled by 
an eager and brilliant mathematician, he often feels 
the hopelessness of initiating his pupils into this all- 
absorbing realm of thought in the few brief months 
at his disposal. Thus it has come to pass, that the 
study has been used simply as a form of mental disci- 
pline or intellectual gymnastics: the object sought 


1 Abstract of an address to the section of mathematics and — 
astronomy of the American association for the advancement of 
science, at Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. H. T. Eddy of the 
University of Cincinnati, vice-president of the section. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


was not to learn how to use this the most splendid 
‘instrument of intellectual research yet devised by 
the wit of man. 

There is an underlying consciousness running 
through the whole scheme of education based upon 
classical study, that the objects of such study are not 
in themselves of vital importance to the student, but 
that their value is chiefly to be found in the reflex 
influence upon the person submitting to its disci- 
pline. Pretend to deceive ourselves as we may upon 
this point, the undergraduate feels this with every 
breath of his young life. Professor Eddy did not 
take the position that classical study is in itself a 
delusion, nor that the ancient languages and philo- 
logical science are not most worthy and inspiring 
objects of study for those who really intend to know 
something of them, or for those whose tastes and 
capacities fit them for their pursuit; but that this 
demoniacal spirit of study for the sake of discipline, 
which possesses our colleges, must be cast out before 
they can rightly train classical scholars, or stand 
where they should stand in the forefront of higher 
culture in the liberal arts: and this by the intro- 
duction of a spirit of study very different from the 
disciplinary spirit,—a spirit which, for the lack of 
a better name, we may call the scientific spirit; a 
spirit of sincere and earnest inquiry after knowledge. 

There is apparently no reason why the spirit which 
so largely animates scientific study should be confined 
to that kind of study, for it is not the nature of the 
study which determines the spirit in which it shall 
be pursued. Mathematics is a case very much in 
point in this regard. The truth is, young men of 
spirit will not shirk hard work, if they are convinced 
that by it they can open up any fair field of knowl- 
edge which appears desirable. And the speaker said, 
that, under such influences, he had seen students 
gain, during the first half of their college course, such 
familiarity with those branches of higher analysis 
which are the common groundwork of modern inves- 
tigation in analytical mechanics and mathematical 
physics, as to have really open to them the literature 
of these subjects; and this not in isolated instances 
merely, but with class after class. It is popularly 
supposed, as before stated, that the number fitted by 
_ nature for mathematical study is small. Such, Pro- 
fessor Eddy has been convinced against his precon- 
ceived opinions, is not thefact. Itisastudy as much 
sought after, and pursued as eagerly, as any other 
branch of liberal study; provided only that the teach- 
ers thereof are themselves men who have a live in- 
terest in the subject, are capable, patient, and apt at 
giving instruction. 

Professor Eddy then discussed somewhat more in 
detail the scope of mathematical instruction in col- 
lege. The geometry of Euclid, which should be rele- 
gated to the schools, has long held a part of honor in 
the mathematics of the college course. The cause 
for this is easily seen. It is a subject which lends 
itself, more readily than any other branch of mathe- 
Matics, to the form of discipline in vogue. It cer- 
tainly is a matter of vastly more importance as a piece 
of mathematical training, to have the student of 


, 3 


SCIENCE. 


231 


Euclid acquire the habit of discovering for himself 
the demonstration of new propositions, than that the 
study of Euclid should be made a huge memoriter 
exercise, as is usually done in college. The clear ap- 
prehension of geometrical relations, aside from the 
language describing them, is of the first importance, 
and may be cultivated by any work which deals with 
such relations. 

Several other mathematical subjects could well be 
covered before entering college. These are the ele- 
mentary parts of algebra, the numerical solution of 
plane triangles, the practical use of logarithmic ta- 
bles, and the elementary ideas of analytical geometry. 
The field would then be cleared, .so that the training 
in all those forms of analysis which are distinctively 
modern, and which must needs be taught by men in 
sympathy with its methods, would fall within the 
years of the college course. 

Objection may be made to the amount of mathe- 
matical preparation which it is here proposed to put 
into the schools. 

But what ought the actual scope of mathematical 
instruction to be during the college course ? 

It seems superfluous to say, that, without the mas- 
tery of the infinitesimal calculus, any mathematical 
culture of importance is hopeless; and that a knowl- 
edge of its methods, accompanied by facility in their 
employment, is absolutely essential to the understand- 
ing of the exact sciences. 

Calculus is not omitted from the scheme of study 
of any classical college in this country; but it is 
hardly too much to say, that, so far as any real knowl- 
edge of it is concerned, it might as well be omitted 
from them all. 

The text-books in use are of such very elementary 
and defective character, that no sufficient knowledge 
of the subject can be obtained from them. They are 
constructed on the plan of omitting almost every thing 
which may present any special difficulty. It has 
been in effect assumed by those imbued with the dis- 
ciplinary spirit, that a knowledge of this subject 
could be conveyed to the student by daily recitation 
upon its principles and developments. This is as 
useless an attempt as to try to prepare an army for 
the battle-field by a daily lecture instead of a daily 
drill, or by explaining tactics instead of practising 
them. The important processes actually employed 
in calculus are not so very numerous, nor are they 
especially difficult to acquire. No real use, however, 
can be made of its methods until these are acquired. 
It must often happen that the full significance of 
such processes is not apprehended until long after 
they are employed with dexterity. Certain it is that 
such dexterity and familiarity conduce wonderfully 
to their correct comprehension. 

The daily marking system is perhaps the most 
characteristic and most pernicious expression of the 
college disciplinary spirit. How have the evils of that 
system been intensified in our larger colleges by the 
wholesale manner in which the work is done! The 
work of recitation and instruction can, no doubt, 
often be advantageously combined; but what is the 
probability that valuable instruction will be commu- 


232 SCIENCE. 


nicated during the hour to which the exercise is 
confined, when the number of students in the recita- 
tion-room is thirty, forty, or even fifty? What a 
perversion of the purposes of the noble endowments 
for higher education, to expend almost the entire 
energy of the teaching force of the many institutions 
which adopt this system, in a daily effort to weigh with 
minutest accuracy the fidelity with which assigned 
tasks have been committed to memory! The most 
diverse views may be entertained as to whether the 
college course can embrace analytical mechanics, or 
the theory of determinants (now so universally used), 
or whether it can omit vector and quaternion anal- 
ysis. When, however, it is known that in a small 
western college graduating less than a dozen annu- 
ally, we have now had for years volunteer classes, 
pursuing all these and other subjects annually, with 
success, the possibility of including them in a college 
curriculum must be acknowledged. 

In conclusion, Professor Eddy wished to call for 
reform in our mathematical teaching. Let it not be 
so conducted that he who has neither taste for the 
study, nor special knowledge of it, stands on an equal 
footing as a teacher with the man of real mathemati- 
cal insight. Now is a favorable time for revising our 
estimates of what can and ought to be done in this 
field. Higher mathematical culture has commenced 
a new and fruitful growth in this country in various 
places; and an association of the mathematicians of 
this country might be of service for the purpose of 
concerted action in improving the mathematical train- 
ing in our colleges. 


WHAT IS ELECTRICITY ?2 


Au. Professor Trowbridge hoped to do was to make 
his audience ask themselves the question with more 
humility and a greater consciousness of ignorance, 
We shall probably never know what electricity is, any 
more than we shall know what energy is. What 
we shall be able, probably, to discover, is the rela- 
tionship between electricity, magnetism, light, heat, 
gravitation, and the attracting force which manifests 
itself in chemical changes. Fifty years ago scientific 
men attached a force to every phenomenon of nature: 
thus there were the forces of electricity and magnet- 
ism, the vital forces, and the chemical forces. Now 
we have become so far unitarian in our scientific 
views, that we accept treatises on mechanics which 
have the one word ‘Dynamik’ for a title; and we 
look for a treatise on physics which shall be entitled 
‘Mechanical philosophy,’ in which all the phenomena 
of radiant energy, together with the phenomena of 


energy which we entitle electricity and magnetism, — 


shall be discussed from the point of view of mechan- 
ics. What we are to have in the future is a treatise 
which will show the mechanical relation of gravita- 
tion, of so-called chemical attracting force, and elec- 


1 Abstract of an address before the section of physics of the 
American association for the advancement of science, at Phil- 
adelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. JouN TROWBRIDGE of Harvard col- 
lege, Cambridge, vice-president of the section. 


be Dotter 1) a 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. 


trical attracting force, and the manifestations of what 
we call radiant energy. We have reduced our knowl- 
edge of electricity and magnetism to what may be 
called a mechanical system, so that in a large number 
of cases we can calculate beforehand what will take 
place, and we are under no necessity of trying actual 
experimenis. It is probable, for instance, that the 
correct form of a dynamo-machine for providing the 
electric light can be calculated and the plans drawn 
with as much certainty as the diagrams of a steam- 
engine are constructed. We may congratulate our- 
selves, therefore, in having a large amount of system- 
atic knowledge in electricity: and we see clearly how 
to increase this systematic knowledge; for we have 
discovered that a man cannot expect to master the 
subject of electricity who has not made himself famil 

iar with thermo-dynamics, with analytical mechanics, 
and with all the topics now embraced under the com- 
prehensive title of ‘physics.’ 

Out of all the theories of electricity, the two-fluid 
theories, the one-fluid or Franklin theory, and the 
various molecular theories, not one remains to-day 
under the guidance of which we are ready to march 
onward. We have discovered that we cannot speak 
of the velocity of electricity. All that we can truly 
say is, we have a healthy distrust of our theories, and 
an abiding faith in the doctrine of the conservation 
of energy. 

It is one thing to become familiar with all the ap- 
plications of the mechanical theory of electricity, and 
another to make an advance in the subject so that we 
can see the relations of electrical and magnetic at- 
traction to the attraction of gravitation and to what 
we call chemical attraction. To this possible relation- 
ship, Professor Trowbridge wished to call attention. 
The new advances in our knowledge of electrical 
manifestations are to come from the true conception 
of the universality of electrical manifestations, and 
from the advance in the study of molecular physics. 
When we let an acid fall from the surface of a metal, 
the metal takes one state of electrification and the 
drop of acid the other: in other words, we produce a 
difference of electrical potential. On the other hand, 
a difference of electrical potential modifies the aggrega- 
tion of molecules. The experiments of Lippman are 
wellknown. He has constructed an electrometer and 
even a dynamo-electric machine which depend upon 
the principle that the superficial energy of a surface 
of mercury covered with acidulated water is modified 
when a difference of electrical potential is produced 
at the limiting surfaces. The manifestations of what 
is called superficial energy, — that is, the energy mani- 
fested at the surface of separation of any two sub- 
stances, — and the effect of electricity upon the super- 
ficial energy, afford much food for thought. There 
have always been two parties in electricity, —one 
which maintains that electricity is due to the contact 
of dissimilar substances, and the other party which 
believes that the source of electrical action must be 
sought in chemical action. Thus, according to one 
party, the action of an ordinary voltaic cell is due to 
the contact, for instance, of zinc with copper; the acid 
or solution of the cell merely acting as the connecting 


a 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


link between the two. According to the other party, it 
is to the difference of the chemical action of the metals 
on the connecting liquid, that we must attribute the 
rise and continuance of the electrical current. The 
electromotive force of a voltaic cell is undoubtedly 
due to the intrinsic superficial manifestation of energy 
when two dissimilar metals are placed in connection 
with each other either directly or through the medium 
of a conducting liquid. The chemical action of the 
liquid brings new surfaces of the metals constantly 
in contact; moreover, we have the difference of super- 
ficial energy between the liquid and the metals, so 
that our expression for electromotive force is far from 
being a simple one: it contains the sum of several 
modifications of superficial energy at the surfaces of 
the two metals and at the two boundaries of the 
liquid and the metals. 

We have again a development of electromotive 
force by the mere contact of the metals at different 
temperatures. The electrical current that arises is 
due to the difference of superficial energy manifested 
at the surface of the two junctions. We know that 
the action is on the surface, for the size of the junc- 
tions does not affect the electromotive force. Sup- 
pose that we should make the metals so thin that 
an ultimate molecule of iron should rest against an 
ultimate molecule of copper, should we not arrive at 
a limit, at a definite temperature of the conversion 
of molecular vibration into electrical energy? And 
also, when our theory is perfected of the number of 
moieeules along a linear line of copper against a 
linear line of zinc which can produce a current of 
electricity of a given strength,—the jostling, so to 
speak, of these ultimate molecules of two metals at 
different temperatures might form a scientific unit of 
electromotive force in the future science of physical 
chemistry. By means of an alloy we can apparently 
modify the superficial energy at the surface of a solid. 
Thus an alloy with a parent metal will give a varying 
electromotive force. If we could be sure that an 
alloy was always of a definite chemical composition, 
and not a more or less mechanical admixture, it 
seems as if we could get closer to the seat of elec- 
tromotive force by a number of quantitative measure- 
ments. Unfortunately, the physical nature of alloys 
is not definitely known, and there is little coherence 
or regularity in our measurements of their electro- 
motive force. Wecan modify the superficial energy 
of metals, not only by melting metals together, but 
also by grinding them to a very fine powder, and 
compressing them again by powerful means into 
solids more or less elastic, and then examining their 
superficial energy which is manifested as electro- 
motive force. Professor Trowbridge is still engaged 
upon researches of this nature; and, if the work is 
not brilliant, he hopes that it will result in the ac- 
cumulation of data for future generalization. 

The subject of thermo-electricity has been eclipsed 
by the magnificent development of the dynamo-elec- 
tric machines; but we may return to thermo-electri- 
city as a practical source of electricity. Professor 
Trowbridge has been lately occupied in endeavoring 
to modify the difference of potential of thermo-electric 


SCIENCE. 


233 


junctions by raising one junction to a very high tem- 
perature under great pressure; for it is well known 
that the melting-point of metals is raised by great 
pressure. If the metal still remains in the solid state 
under great temperature and great pressure, can we 
not greatly increase the electromotive force which re- 
sults from the difference of superficial energy mani- 
fested at the two junctions ? 

It is evident that our knowledge of electricity will 
increase with our knowledge of molecular action, and 
our knowledge of molecular action with that which 
we call attractive force. It is somewhat strange, that, 
although we are so curious in regard to electricity, we 
seldom reflect that gravitation is as great a mystery 
as electrical attraction. What is the relation between 
electricity and magnetism and gravitation and what 
we call the chemical force of attraction ? 

The question of the connection between electricity 
and gravitation dwelt much in Faraday’s thoughts. 
He failed, however, to find the slightest relation be- 
tween gravitation and electricity; and he closes his 
account of his experiments with these words: ‘‘ Here 
end my experiments on this subject for the present, 
but I feel the conviction that there must be some 
connection between electricity and gravitation.”’ 
Was the direction in which he experimented the true 
direction to look for a possible relation? and cannot 
the refined instruments and methods of the electrical 
science of the present aid us in more promising lines 
of research? If we could prove that whenever we 
disturb the relative position of bodies, or break up 
the state of aggregation of particles, we create differ- 
ence of electrical potential; and, moreover, if we could 
discover that the work that this electrical potential 
can perform, together with the heat that it developed 
by the process, is the complete work that is done on 
the system against attractive force, or as so-called 
chemical attractive force, — we should greatly extend 
our vision of the relation of natural phenomena. 
And thus pursuing the line of argument of his address, 
Professor Trowbridge ventured to state an hypothet- 
ical law which it seemed to him is at least plausible: 
That ‘‘ whenever the force of attraction between 
masses or molecules is modified in any way, a differ- 
ence of electrical potential results.’’ Is it not reason- 
able to suppose that certain anomalies which we now 
find in the determinations of specific heats of compli- 
cated aggregation of molecules are due to our failure 
to estimate the electrical equivalent of the movements 
and interchanges of the molecules? Let us take the 
case of friction between two pieces of wood: is it not 
possible that the friction is the electrical attraction 
which results from the endeavor to connect the phe- 
nomenon of superficial energy with electrical mani- 
festations, that the friction between two surfaces is 
modified by keeping these surfaces at a difference 
of electrical potential? In Edison’s motophone, we 
see this exemplified in a very striking manner. 

Professor Trowbridge’s own studies have been 
chiefly in the direction of thermo-electricity and in the 
subject of the electrical aspect of what we call super- 
ficial energy. ‘These experiments so far deepen the 
belief that any change in the state of aggregation of 


234 : SCIENCE. 


particles, —in other words, any change which results 
in a modification of attracting force, — whether gravi- 
tative or the commonly called chemical attracting 
forces, results in an electrical potential; and con- 
versely, that the passage of electricity through any 
medium produces a change of aggregation of the mole- 
cules and atoms. If we suppose that radiant energy 
is electro-magnetic, cannot we suppose that it is ab- 
sorbed more readily by some bodies than by others, 
or, in other words, that its energy is transferred, so 
that with the proper sense we would perceive what 
might be called electrical color, or, in other words, 
have an evidence of transformations of radiant energy 
other than that which appeals to us as light and 
color? We have arrived at the point in our study of 
electricity where our instruments are too coarse to 
enable us to extend our investigations. Is not the 
physicist of the future to have instruments delicate 
enough to measure the heat equivalent of the red and 
the yellow and the blue violet rays of energy? in- 
struments delicate enough to discover beats of light as 
we now discover those of sound? The photographer 
of to-day speaks in common language of handicap- 
ping molecules by mixing gums with his bromide of 
silver, in order that their rate of vibration may be 
affected by the long waves of energy. Shall we not 
have the means of obtaining the mechanical equiva- 
lent of such handicapped vibrations? We have ad- 
vanced; but we have not answered the question 
which filled the mind of Franklin, and which fills 
men’s minds to-day: What is electricity? 


CHEMICAL: Ar iT NET Y= 


PROFESSOR LANGLEY first reviewed the history of 
chemical theory, and called attention to the final ex- 
tinction of the term ‘affinity’ in the chemical litera- 
ture of the present day. 

Shortly after the opening years of the present cen- 
tury, three general methods were indicated for the 
study of the force of affinity. Instead of being suc- 
cessively taken up and abandoned, like all preceding 
speculations, they have remained steadily in use dur- 
ing the eighty years which have intervened, and to-day 
they are still the most promising means at our dis- 
posal. These three methods may be called the ther- 
mal, the electrical, and the method of time or speed. 
It will be convenient to consider each one separately. 

The most important generalization to be drawn 
from thermo-chemica] phenomena is, that the work of 
chemical combination, or the total energy involved 
in any reaction, is very largely influenced by the sur- 
rounding conditions of temperature, pressure, and vol- 
ume; and the conclusion they force upon us in regard 
to the nature of affinity is most important, namely, 
that this force in accomplishing work is dependent, 


’ like all other forces, on the conditions exterior to the 


reacting system which limit the possible amount of 


1 Abstract of an address to the section of chemistry of the 
American association for the advancement of science, at Phila- 
delphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. J. W. LANGLEY, of the University of 
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., vice-president of the section, 


[VoL. IV., Wovreen 


change. Affinity is therefore at last definitely re- 
moved from the category of those mystical agents, so — 
often imagined by our predecessors in a less critical 
age, which had no correlation with the general forces 
of nature. 

Under the title ‘dissociation,’ St. Claire Deville 
gave to the chemical world, in 1857, a new and fruit- 
ful method of investigating the nature of compounds 
by determining the temperature at which bodies 
break up or are dissociated. The laws developed by 
Deville and his successors in this field show us, that, 
after the point is reached at which decomposition 
commences, the further breaking up is determined 
by the pressure of the evolved products of the re- 
action, so that the permanence of the body depends 
on the magnitude of two variables, pressure and tem- 
perature, either of which may be varied at will 
through a wide range. 

The electrical method of dissecting chemical forces 
has been followed less actively than the thermal one. 
Besides the well-known experimental contributions 
of Davy, Becquerel, and Faraday, may be mentioned 
Joule’s researches on the heat absorbed during elec- 
trolysis, and especially the work of C. R. Adler Wright, 
on the ‘determination of affinity. as electromotive 
force.’ The general outcome of these researches is, 
that the products of electrolysis are so numerous, and 
so varied by the results of secondary actions, that it is 
very doubtful whether the electromotive force meas- 
ured is that due solely to the union of those atoms 
which are indicated by the principal equation of the 
reaction. 

The method of time or speed of chemical reactions 
has a history as old as that of its two associates; but 
the story is much less eventful, for very little work 
has been done in this field. The most notable work 
has been done by Gladstone and Tribe, by ascer- 
taining the rate at which a metallic plate could pre- 
cipitate another metal from a solution. 

To these general methods for studying the problems 
of chemical dynamics, should be added the investiga- 
tion of the action of mass, by Gladstone, in his well- 
known color work on tle sulphocyanide of iron; of 
the chemical action of light, by the late J. W. Draper 
in this country, and Prof. H. E. Roscoe in England, 
as well as Becquerel in France, — pioneers who have 
since been followed by a host of students of scientific 
photography. 

In the review just given, no attempt has been 
made to do more than glance at the important con- 
tributions to the theory and methods of measuring 
affinity. Many names have been passed by, and 
much work has been necessarily ignored. 

The history of the various modifications and ad- 
ditions which have been made to the primitive 
conception of the nature of affinity, when briefly 
summarized, appears to be this: Hippocrates held — 
that union is caused by a kinship, either secret or 
apparent, between different substances. Boerhaave 
believed affinity to be a force which unites unlike 
substances. Bergman and Geoffroy taught that union ~ 
is caused by a selective attraction; and therefore they 
called it ‘elective affinity.’ Wenzel and his success- 


ae” ke 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


ors showed that affinity is definite in action and 
amount: it has limits, or proceeds per saltum. Ber- 
thollet contended that affinity is not definite: he 
proves that it is often controlled by the nature and 
the masses of the reacting bodies. Dalton, Berzelius, 
Wollaston, and others held, on the contrary, this 
force to be definite, and to act per saltum: it is a 
power which emanates from the atom. Davy, Am- 
pere, and Berzelius believed affinity to be a conse- 
quence of electrical action. Avogadro in one way, 
and Brodie in another, show us affinity exerted by 
molecules as well as atoms. It is a force which binds 
together, not only particles of the same substance, 
but also of heterogeneous substances. From the fact 
of the actual existence of radicles, and from the phe- 
nomena of substitution, was developed the notion of 
position, and that, therefore, affinity varied with the 
structure of the body as well as with its composition. 
The differences between the number of atoms which 
are equal to hydrogen in replacing power have led to 
the doctrine of valence, which, if it has any influence 
on theories of affinity, shows that this property of 
matter has two distinct concepts, — one, its power 
of attracting a number of atoms ;: the other, its 
power of doing work or evolving energy. These two 
attributes seem to be in no way related to each other. 
Mendelejeff and Lothan Meyer have shown, by the 
facts which are grouped under the title ‘ periodic 
law,’ that the properties of elements seem to be 
repeating functions of the atomic weight. Hence 
affinity is connected in some way with that same 
property, which is also shown by the differential ac- 
tion of gravitation on the absolute chemical unit of 
matter. Finally, Williamson, Kekulé, and Michaelis 
have suggested that combination is brought about 
and maintained by incessant atomic interchange; 
hence, that affinity is fundamentally due to some 
form of vibration. 

The idea which seemed so simple and natural a one 
to Hippocrates has grown successively more complex 
and less sharply defined; and we are compelled to 
admit that the years have not brought the theory of 
affinity to a state of active growth. Chemists have 
more and more turned their attention to details, to 
accumulating methods of analysis and synthesis, 
to questions of the constitution of salts, to discus- 
sions about graphic and structural formulae, and to 
hypotheses about the number and arrangement of 
atoms in a molecule; but they have not, until quite 
recently, made systematic attempts to measure the 
energies involved in reactions. Why? The answer 
ean be found mainly in two reasons. First, the word 
‘affinity’ is in bad odor. We see how enormously 
complicated the phenomena of chemical action have 
become, and we have lost all faith in hypotheses 
which can be evolved by the mere force of meta- 
physical introspection. Second, there is a more im- 
portant reason, arising from what has hitherto been 
the traditional scope of our science. Chemistry alone 
of the physical sciences has offered no foothold to 
mathematics; and yet all her transformations are 
governed by the numbers which we call ‘atomic 
weights.’ What is it which causes chemistry, so pre- 


-_ 


SCIENCE. 


eminently the analytic science of material things, to 
be the only one which does not invite the aid of 
mathematics? It is because three fundamental con- 
ceptions underlie physics, while only two serve the 
needs of the chemist. If a term so much used just 
now by transcendental geometers may be borrowed, 
one would say that physics is a science of three 
dimensions, while chemistry is a science of two di- 
mensions. In the first, nearly every transformation 
is followed by its equation of energy; and this in- 
volves the concepts space, mass, time: while, in the 
second, an ordinary chemical equation gives us 
the changes of matter in terms of space and mass 
only; that is to say, in units of atomic weight and 
atomic volume. 

Think for a moment what physics would be to-day 
without those grand generalizations, Newton’s theory 
of gravitation, Young’s undulatory theory of light, 
the dynamic theory of heat, the kinetic theory of 
gases, the conservation of energy, and Ohm’s law in 
electricity. Every one of these, except the last, is a 
dynamic hypothesis, and involves velocity —that is, 
time —as one of its essential parts. In comparison 
with the above, all ordinary chemical work may be 
termed the registration of successive static states of 
matter. The analyst pulls to pieces, the synthetic 
chemist builds up; each records his work as so many 
atoms transferred from one condition to another, and 
he is satisfied to exhibit the body produced quietly 
resting in the bottom of a beaker, motionless, static. 
The electrolytic cell tells us the stress of chemism 
for specified conditions as electromotive force; the 
splendid work done in thermo-chemistry enables us 
to know the whole energy involved when A unites 
with B, or when A B goes through any transforma- 
tion however intricate, but it does not inform us of 
the dynamic equation which accompanies them, and 
which should account for the interval between the 
static states. 

Whenever we look outside of chemistry, we find that 
the lines of the great theories along which progress is 
making are those of dynamic hypotheses. If we go 
to our biological brethren, we see them too moving 
with the current; the geologist studies upheavals, 
denudation, rate of subsidence, glacial action, and all 
kinds of changes, in reference to their velocity; the 
physiologist is actively registering the time element 
in vital phenomena, through the rate of nervous 
transmission, the rate of muscular contraction, the 
duration of optical and auditory impressions, etc. ; 
even the sociologist is beginning to hint at velocities, 
as, indeed, we should expect in a student of revolu- 
tions; and we cannot ignore the fact that all the 
great living theories of the present contain the time 
element as an essential part. The speaker could but 
think the reason that chemistry has evolved no great 
dynamical theory, that the word ‘affinity’ has disap- 
peared from our books, and that we go on accumulat- 
ing facts in all directions but one, and fail to draw 
any large generalization which shall include them 
all, is just because we have made so little use of the 
fundamental concept, time. To expect to draw a 
theory of chemical phenomena from the study of 


236 


electrical decompositions and of thermo-chemical 
data, or from even millions of the customary static 
chemical equations, would be like hoping to learn the 
nature of gravitation by laboriously weighing every 
moving object on the earth’s surface, and recording 
the foot-pounds of energy given out when it fell. 
The simplest quantitative measure of gravity is, as 
every one knows, to determine it as the acceleration 
of a velocity: when we know the value of g, we are 
forever relieved, in the problem of falling bodies, 
from the necessity of weighing heterogeneous objects 
at the earth’s surface, for they will all experience the 
same acceleration. May there not be something like 
this grand simplification to be discovered for chemi- 
cal changes also? 

The study of the speed of reaction has but just 
begun. Itis a line of work surrounded with unusual 
difficulties, but it contains a rich store of promise. 
All other means for measuring the energies of chem- 
ism seem to have been tried except this: is it not, 
therefore, an encouraging fact, that to the chemists 
of the nineteenth century is left for exploration the 
great fruitful field of the true dynamics of the atom, 
the discovery of a time rate for the attractions due 
to affinity? 


THE MISSION OF SCHENCE} 


AFTER thanking the section for the honor con- 
ferred upon him by electing him their chairman, and 
referring to the success of the meeting of the British 
association at Montreal, Professor Thurston an- 
nounced as the subject of his address, ‘The mission 
of science.’ He spoke of his address, as vice-president 
at St. Louis in 1878, on the philosophic method of 
the advancement of science, in which he had called 
attention to the need of specialists, amply supplied 
with the proper means, to do the work of observing, 
collecting, and co-ordinating the results of observa- 
tion. As an all-important factor in this the modern 
system of scientific investigation, he had spoken of 
the men who have given, and who are still generously 
and liberally giving, material assistance by their splen- 
did contributions to the scientific departments of our 
colleges and of our technical schools. 

It may well be asked, What is the use, and what is 
the object, of systematically gathering knowledge, 
and of constructing a great, an elaborate system, hav- 
ing the promotion of science as its sole end and aim? 
What is THE MISSION OF SCIENCE? The great fact 
that material prosperity is the fruit of science, and 
that other great truth, that, as mankind is given op- 
portunity for meditation and for culture, the higher 
attributes of human character are given development, 
are the best indications of the nature of the real mis- 
sion of science, and of the correctness of the conclu- 
sion that the use and the aim of scientific inquiry 


1 Abstract of an address to the section of mechanical science 
of the American association for the advancement of science at 
Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. R. H. THuRsTON of Stevens insti- 
tute, Hoboken, N.J., vice-president of the section. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. : 


are to be sought in the region beyond and above the 
material world to which those studies are confined. 

It being granted that the mission of science is the 
amclioration of man’s condition, it becomes of impor- 
tance to consider the way in which our knowledge is — 
increased. While the scientific method of advance- 
ment of science is evidently that which will yield the 
greatest returns, it is not the fact that we are indebted 
to such philosophic methods for the production of the 
modern sciences. The inventor of gunpowder lived 
before Lavoisier; the mariner’s compass pointed the 
seaman to the pole before magnetism took form as a 
science; the steam-engine was invented and set at 
work, substantially in all essential details as we know 
it to-day, before a science of thermo-dynamics was 
dreamed of. , 

But all this is of the past. Science has attained a 
development, a stature, and a power, that give her 
the ability to assume her place in the great scheme of 
civilization. Hereafter she will direct and will lead. 
The blind, scheming ways of the older inventor will 
give place to the exact determination, by scientific 
methods, of the most direct and most efficient way 
of reaching a defined end,— methods now daily 
practised by the engineer in designing his ma- 
chinery. 

It is only in modern times, and since the old spirit 
of contempt for art, and of reverence for the non- 
utilitarian element in science, has become nearly ex- 
tinguished, and since our systems of education have 
begun to include the study of physical science, that 
we have had what is properly called a division of 
‘applied science.’ Inthe days of classical learning, 
science was only valued as it developed a system of 
purely intellectual gymnastics. Archimedes was 
the most perfect prototype, in those days, of the 
modern physicist and mechanician, of the scientific 
man and engineer; yet he, and all his contempora- 
ries, esteemed his discovery of the relation between 
the volumes of the cylinder and the sphere more 
highly than that of the method of determining the 
specific gravity of a solid, or the composition of an 
alloy, and deemed the quadrature of the parabola a 
greater achievement than the theory of the lever 
which might ‘move the world.’ His enumeration of 
the sands of the seashore was looked upon as a 
nobler accomplishment than the invention of the 
catapult, or of the pump, which, twenty-one centu- 
ries after his death, still bears his name. 

No system of applied science could exist among 
people who had no conception of the true mission of 
science; and it was not until many centuries had 
passed, that mankind reached such a position, in their 
slow progress toward areal civilization, that it became 
possible to effect that union of science and the arts 


‘which is the distinguishing characteristic of the age 


in which we live. 

In illustration of the gradual evolution and growth > 
of correct theory, and of this slow development of 
rational views, of the methods of scientific deduction, 
and of the invariably tardy progress from a beginning 
distinguished by defective knowledge and inaccurate 
logic, in the presence of what are later seen to be 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


plainly visible facts, and of what ultimately seem 
obvious principles, observe the rise and progress of 
our hardly yet completed theory of that greatest of 
human inventions, the steam-engine. 

Studying the history of the development of this 
theory, it cannot fail to become strikingly evident 
that, throughout, experimental knowledge and practi- 
eal construction have been constantly in advance of 
the theory; and that the science of the conversion of 
heat-energy into mechanical power has, in all stages 
of this progress, come in simply to confirm general 
conclusions, previously reached by deduction from 
experience and observation, to give the reasons for 
well-ascertained facts and phenomena, and often 
—not always promptly or exactly—to define the 
line of improvement, and the limitations of such 
advance. 

The theory itself began by the correlation of the 
facts determined by the experiments of Rumford and 
Davy at the beginning of the century, those an- 
nounced by Joule and Thomson many years later, 
and the laws developed by Clausius, Rankine, and 
Thomson, at the middle of the century. But Watt 
had discovered, a hundred years ago, the facts which 
have since been found to set limits to the efficiency of 
the engine. Smeaton, in many respects the greatest 
mechanical engineer of his time, made practically 
useful application of the knowledge so acquired, and 
endeavored to secure immunity from these wastes by 
thoroughly philosophical methods. Clarke, a gener- 
ation ago, showed how the losses first detected by 
Watt sez a definite limit, under the conditions of 
familiar practice, to the gain to be secured by the ex- 
pansion of steam; and Cotterill, within a few years, 
has shown, by beautiful methods of treatment, their 
magnitude, and how these wastes take place. Hirn 
and Leloutre, in France, have similarly thrown light 
upon the phenomena of ‘ cylinder condensation,’ and 
De Freminville has suggested the method of remedy. 
Yet it is only now that we are beginning to see that 
the philosophy of heat-engines is not simply a thermo- 
dynamic theory, and that it involves problems in 
physics, and a study of the methods of conduction and 
transfer of heat, without doing work from point to 
point in the engine. We are only now learning how 
to apply the knowledge gained by Isherwood twenty 
years ago, and by Hirn and by Clarke still earlier, in 
solving the problem of maximum efficiency of the 
steam-engine. We have only now discovered that 
the ‘ curve of efficiency,’ as Prof. Thurston has called 
it, is not the curve of mean pressure for ‘ adiabatic’ 
expansion, as Rankine called it; for ‘isentropic’ ex- 
pansion, as Clausius would call it; but that it is a 
curve of very different form and location, and that 
it is variable with every physical condition affecting 
the working of the expanding fluid in the engine. 
We have only now learned that every heat-engine has 
a certain ‘ratio of expansion for maximum efficien- 
ey,’ which marks the limit to gain in economy by ex- 
pansion; which limit is fixed for each engine by the 
nature of the expansion, and the method and extent 
of wastes of heat. All the facts of this case were ap- 
parently as obvious, as easily detected and weighed in 


SCIENCE. 


237 


their influence upon the theory of heat-engines, years 
ago as to-day. Even the latest phase of the current 
discussion of efficiencies of heat-engines, that relat- 
ing to their commercial efficiency, would seem to have 
been as ready for development a generation ago, when 
first noted by Rankine, as to-day; yet what is now 
known as a simple and easily formulated theory has 
been several decades in growing into shape, notwith- 
standing that all the needed facts were known, or 
readily determinable, at the very beginning of the 
period marked by its evolution. It is only within a 
year or two that it has become possible to say that 
the theory of the steam-engine, as a case in applied 
mechanics, has become so complete that the engineer 
can safely rest upon it in the preparation of his de- 
signs, and in his calculations of power, economy, and 
commercial efficiency. 

Professor Thurston then referred to the knowledge 
now being collected as to the strength, elasticity, and 
enduring capacity of the materials used in construc- 
tion. But the slow progress of scientific development 
in matters relating to common practice in the useful 
arts is hardly less remarkable than the difficulty with 
which scientific principles, even when well estab- 
lished and well known among scientific and educated 
men, sink down into the minds of the masses. Per- 
haps no principle in the whole range of physical 
science is better established and more generally 
recognized than that which asserts the maximum 
efficiency of fluid in heat-engines to be a function 
simply of the temperatures of reception and rejec- 
tion of heat, and to be absolutely independent of the 
nature of the working-fluid. 

This was shown by Carnot sixty years ago, and 
has been considered one of the fundamental princi- 
ples of thermo-dynamics from that time to this. 
Nevertheless, so rarely is it comprehended by me- 
chanics, and so difficult is it for the average mind 
to accept this truth, that the most magnificent 
fallacies of the time are based upon assumptions 
in direct contradiction of it. The various new 
‘motors’ recently brought before the public with 
the claim of more than possible perfection have 
taken hundreds of thousands of dollars, within 
the past two or three years, from the pockets of 
credulous and greedy victims. It is not sufficient 
to declare the principle: the comparison of steam 
with ether, and of air or gas with carbon-disulphide 
or chloroform, must be made directly, and the results 
presented in exact figures, before the unfortunate 
investor, whose rapaciousness is too often such as to 
cause him to give ear to the swindler rather than 
to the well-informed and disinterested professional 
to whom he would ordinarily at once go for advice, 
can be induced to withdraw from the dangerous but 
seductive scheme. It is true that the principle does 
not as exactly apply to a comparison of efficiencies of 
machine, and that the vender of new motors usually 
seizes upon this point as his vantage-ground; but a 
careful comparison of the several fluids, both as to 
efficiency of fluid and efficiency of machine, through- 
out the whole range of temperatures and pressures 
found practicable in application, such as has recently 


238 


been made under Prof. Thurston’s direction, shows 
that the final deduction is substantially the same for 
all the usually attainable conditions of practice, and 
further, that, of all the available fluids, steam is 
fortunately the best. 

That the results of scientific investigation may be 
the more readily appreciated, it is necessary that the 
study of physical science should be more thorough 
in our schools. The stereotyped argument for the 
retention of the old system of education to the ex- 
clusion of the new, was, and is to-day, the assertion 
that the old system strengthened the intellect and 
broadened the views of the student, while the new 
subjects are merely useful; but the wisdom and the 
expediency of a modification of old ways, in this re- 
spect, is now rapidly becoming acknowledged, and 
the new education may be considered as fairly and 
safely introduced. Science will never, we may be 
sure, displace entirely the older departments of 
education; but science will henceforth take a place 
beside them as no less valuable for mental disci- 
pline. 

With science recognized as a respectable companion 
of the dead languages, we shall have better trained 
students, — students who will be better able to lead 
in the industries, and so aid material prosperity. As 
it is the duty of government to so regulate affairs that 
each man may have the power of improving his con- 
dition to the utmost, so will it be the duty of science 
to point out to government how it may direct its 
regulations to the greatest advantage of the individ- 
ual. Men of science, each in his own department, are 
the natural advisers of the legislator. Citizens and 
legislators are both entitled to claim this aid from 
those who have made the sciences of the several arts 
their special study, and from those who have devoted 
their lives to the study of the sciences of government, 
of social economy, and of ethics. 

Of all the many fields in which the men of science 
of our day are working, that which most nearly con- 
cerns us, and that which is of most essential impor- 
tance to the people of our time, is that department 
of applied science which is most closely related to 
the industries of the world,— mechanics. The de- 
velopment of new industries becomes as much a part 
of the work of science in the future as is the improve- 
ment of those now existing. The new industries 
must evidently be mainly skilled industries, and must 
afford employment to the more intelligent and more 
finely endowed of those to whom our modern systems 
of education are offering their best gifts. The enor- 
mous advancement of the intellectual side of life 
must inevitably, it would seem, result in the pro- 
duction of a race of men peculiarly adapted to such 
environment as science is rapidly producing. Thus 
accomplishing, under the guidance of science, such 
tasks as lie before him to accomplish, the ‘com- 
ing man,’ with his greater frontal development, his 
increased mental and nerve power, his growing en- 
durance and probably lengthening life, will be the 

greatest of the products of this scientific develop- 
ment, and the noblest of all these wonderful 
works. 


SCIENCE. 


a 


[Vou. IV., No. 84 


THE CRYSTALLINE ROCKS OF STAG 


NORTH-WEST.1 


UNTIL very recently, it has been the practice of 
geologists, almost without exception, to refer every 
crystalline rock in the north-west either to the 
Huronian or to the Laurentian. But when, on more 
careful examination, it is found that this nomencla- 
ture is imperfect, we are thrown into much difficulty 
and doubt. In order that some of the difficulties of 
the situation may be made clear, Professor Winchell 
proposed to review concisely the broad stratigraphic 
distinctions of the crystalline rocks that have lately 
been studied in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 

Omitting the igneous rocks, which in the form of 
dikes cut through the shales and sandstones of the 
cupriferous formation, and are interbedded with 
them in the form of overflows, we may concisely 
arrange the crystalline rocks, disregarding minor dif- 
ferences and collating only the broad stratigraphic 
distinctions, in the following manner, in descending 
order: 1°. Granite and gneiss with gabbro; its 
thickness is unknown, but certainly reaches several 
hundred feet. 2°. Mica schist; maximum thick- 
ness, five thousand feet. 3°. Carbonaceous and 
arenaceous black slates, and black mica _ schists; 
thickness, twenty-six hundred feet. 4°. Hydro-mica 
and magnesian schists; maximum thickness, forty- 
four hundred and fifty feet. 5°. Quartzite and 
marble; normal thickness, from four hundred to 
a thousand feet. 6°. Granite and syenite with horn- 
blendic schists; thickness unknown, but very great. 

These six great groups compose, so far as can be 
stated now, the crystalline rocks of the north-west. 
Their geographic relations to the non-crystalline rocks, 
if not their stratigraphic, have been so well ascertained 
that it can be stated confidently that they are all 
older than the cupriferous series of Lake Superior, 
and hence do not consist of, nor include, meta- 
morphosed sediments of Silurian, or any other age. 
The term ‘ Silurian’ here is understood to cover noth- 
ing below the base of the Trenton. F 

Examining these groups more closely, we find: 
1°. We have, beneath the red tilted shales and sand- 
stones, a great granite and gabbro group. The gab- 
bro is certainly eruptive, but the associated granite 
and gneiss are probably metamorphic. The gabbro 
does not always appear where the granite is present; 
but in other places these rocks are intricately mingled, 
although the gabbro can be considered in general as 
the underlying formation. 2°. Below this granite 
and gabbro group is a series of strata that may be 
designated by the general term ‘ mica schist group.’ 
This division is penetrated by veins and masses of 
red biotite-granite, which appear to be intrusive in 
somewhat the same manner as the red granite in the 
gabbro. These granite veins penetrate only through 
the overlying gabbro and this underlying mica schist. 


1 Abstract of an address to the section of geology and ge- | 
ography of the American association for the advancement of — 
science at Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. N. H. WINCHELL of the © 
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn., vice-president of — 
the section. , 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


They are wanting or comparatively rare throughout 
the rest of the crystalline rocks. 5°. The next lower 
grand division might be styled the ‘black mica slate 
group.’ This group contains much carbon, causing 
it to take the form of graphitic schists, in which the 
carbon sometimes amounts to over forty per cent. 
These schists are frequently quartzose and also fer- 
ruginous. Associated with these black mica slates, 
which often appear also as dark clay-slates, are actin- 
olitic schists; the whole being, in some places, inter- 
stratified with diorite. 4°. Underneath this is a 
very thick series of obscure hydro-micaceous and 
greenish magnesian schists, in which, along with 
gray quartzite and clay slates, occur the most im- 
portant deposits of hematitic iron-ore. This division 
of the crystalline rocks has numerous heavy beds of 
diorite. 5°. Below this series of soft schists is the 
great quartzite and marble group. The marble lies 
above the quartzite, and in the Menominee region 
has a minimum thickness of at least a thousand feet. 
This is a most persistent and well-marked horizon. 
In northern Minnesota, the great slate-conglomerate 
of Ogishke Muncie Lake, with a thickness exceed- 
ing six thousand feet, seems to represent the lower 
portion of the great quartzite of this group, and to 
be the equivalent of the lower slate-conglomerate of 
the ‘typical Huronian’ in Canada. 

Now, the difficulties of the situation arise when we 
east about to find names for these parts. What are 
the eastern representatives of these western groups, 
and by what designations shall they be known? 

We meet, at the outset, with the question, Is there 
a formation such as claimed by Emmons, — the Ta- 
conic? On this geologists are yet divided. Having 
given the subject very careful consideration, Professor 
Winchell was ready to state his very positive convic- 
tion that Dr. Emmons was essentially right, and that 
the Taconic group will have to be recognized by 
geologists, and adopted in the literature of American 
geology. 

In the first presentation of the Taconic system, Dr. 
Emmons extended it geographically too far east, and 
unfortunately chose a name for it which is appropri- 
ate only to a part of that eastward extension. Dr. 
Emmons’s claim, however, in all its essential points, 
remains intact. This consists in the existence of a 
series of sedimentary deposits, largely metamorphic, 
below the Potsdam sandstone, and separating the 
Potsdam from the crystalline rocks known as ‘ pri- 
mary’ in an orderly chronological scheme. It is not 
necessary to refer to the controversies that arose from 
the creation of the imaginary Quebec group, nor to 
characterize in deserved terms the attempt to bury 
the Taconic in the Quebec coffin. 

There may be reasons why the current literature 
of American geology is almost silent respecting the 
great work of Emmons, and why the Taconic is not 
known among the recognized geological formations. 
But we have nothing to do with these at this time. 
We have now only to say, that it seems necessary to 
admit, that when Dr. Emmons insisted on a great 
group of strata belonging to the age of the lower 
Cambrian, lying below the Potsdam sand-rock in 


SCIENCE. 


239 


New York, he had some foundation more substantial 
than imagination or mere hypothesis. 

If we examine the descriptions given by Dr. Em- 
mons of his Taconic system, we shall find that he 
makes the following broad stratigraphic distinctions: 
1°. His highest member is what he designates ‘ black 
slate,’ which he declares, in some cases plunges ap- 
parently beneath the ‘ancient gneiss,’ and contains a 
considerable amount of carbonaceous matter. 2°. 
Under the black slate his next grand distinction was 
the so-called Taconic slate, which he described as 
argillaceous, siliceous, and ‘ talcose;’ thickness about 
two thousand feet. 3°. Below the great mass of soft 
schists, he described a mass of five hundred feet of 
limestone, designated ‘Stockbridge limestone,’ which 
graduates downward into ‘talcose’ or magnesian 
sandstones and slates; the whole having a thickness 
of about seventeen hundred feet. 4°. Under this 
limestone is his ‘granular quartz’ rock, more or less 
interstratified with slates, and becoming, in some 
places, an immense conglomerate with a ‘chloritic 
paste.’ 5°. The ‘ancient gneiss,’ on which the Ta- 
conic system was said to lie unconformably. 

Now, it requires but a glance to perceive how clearly 
this order coincides with that which has been inde- 
pendently and laboriously worked out in the north- 
west. We have in both instances a ‘black slate,’ and 
below this in both cases is an immense series of soft 
hydro-mica and magnesian schists. These, again, are 
followed by crystalline limestone, or marble, which 
changes downwards to slate, and a hard sand-rock. 
Below this is the great bed of quartzite; which is, at 
the base, coarsely conglomeritic with masses of rock 
from the great underlying series of gneiss. 

We are now, however, confronted with another dif- 
ficulty. The geologists of Michigan and Wisconsin 
have set aside Dr. Emmons’s identification of the 
Menominee rocks with the Taconic, in 1846, and have 
called them-Huronian. It becomes necessary, there- 
fore, to ascertain of what the Huronian system con- 
Sists. 

The 18,000 feet of the Huronian system on the 
shores of Lake Huron include 900 feet of limestone, 
2,000 feet of ‘chloritic and epidotic slates,’ and 15,100 
feet of quartzite and conglomerate. Perhaps 5,000 
feet of this thickness may be considered intrusial. 
This will leave 12,000 feet, at least, for the aggregate 
thickness of quartzite and conglomerate, being 
nearly double that observed in the same horizon in 
northern Minnesota. It is plain to see, that, if there 
be any parallelism between these beds and the various 
groups made out in the north-west, the whole of 
these strata must be made the equivalent of group 5, 
or the quartzite and marble group. 

There is, therefore, a conflict between the Taconic 
and the Huronian, both in respect to the horizon 
which they are intended to cover, and in the hori- 
zon of rocks which they actually compass. The Hu- 
ronian, however, in its original and typical descrip- 
tion, can be parallelized with only the very lowest of 
the strata that were included in the typical and origi- 
nal Taconic; while the Taconic stretches upward at 
least as far as to include the fourth and third grand 


240 


groups made out in the north-west ; that is to say, 
the hydro-mica and magnesian schists, and the car- 
bonaceous and arenaceous black slates. 

This leaves two series of rocks untouched by the 
scope of either the Huronian or the Taconic, as these 
systems were at first defined; namely, the mica- 
schist group, and the granite and gneiss with gabbro 
group. In the term ‘ Montalban,’ proposed for these 
groups by Dr. Hunt, the two are united; and the con- 
stant distinctness which they seem to maintain is 
not recognized. The granite and gabbro group has 
affinities with the overlying cupriferous rocks, and 
perhaps, as Irving has suggested, should be consid- 
ered the base of that series; whereas the mica-schist 
group has, without exception, been assigned to the 
same system and age as the underlying groups. The 
granite and gabbro group has likewise been designated 
differently. ‘The gabbro has been called Laurentian, 
Labradorian, and Norian; and the granite and gneiss 
have received, under one of their modified conditions, 
the special designation Arvonian. Professor Win- 
chell thought he had already shown that the Arvo- 
nian rocks are interstratified with the cupriferous, 
and are modified sediments of that series. Instead 
of being near the bottom of the ‘ Huronian’ in the 
north-west, they overlie all the groups that have been 
assigned to the Huronian by Irving, and constitute a 
part of the great series of younger gneisses, which 
by Brooks has been marked as the ‘youngest Hu- 
ronian.’ 

It is evident, that at present it is an impossible un- 
dertaking, to assign the groups of the crystalline rocks 
of the north-west to any of the terranes that have been 
named farther east, without violating somebody’s sys- 
tem of nomenclature. Respecting the horizon known 
as ‘ Laurentian,’ there is an approach to unanimity 
and agreement. This, however, consists more in a 
tacit consent to style the lowest known rocks Lau- 
rentian, than in any agreement among geologists as 
to the nature and composition of the strata. The 
Taconic of Emmons has been generally ignored. 
original Huronian has grown from the dimensions of 
a single group (the quartzite and marble group), so 
as to include all the crystalline rocks lying above that 
group, spreading from the Laurentian to the un- 
changed sediments of the upper Cambrian. This 
has in some cases become so obviously wrong, and 
has included groups of rocks so plainly extra-Huro- 
nian, that a double and triple nomenclature has been 
applied to a part of these upper rocks. These new 
names, with the exception of the name Montalban, 
seem to be of value only as regional designations; the 
strata which they represent being igneous or meta- 
morphic, and hence liable to be wanting in some 
places, and to be non-crystalline in others. They fur- 
ther complicate the stratigraphic nomenclature, since 
they are probably only the locally modified lower 
parts of the New-York system. 

In conclusion, the chief points brought out in this 
discussion may be re-stated more concisely: 

1. The crystalline rocks of the north-west are com- 
prised under six well-marked, comprehensive groups. 

2. The Taconic of Emmons, so named in 1842, and 


SCIENCE. 


The, 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. 


more correctly defined in 1846, included three of those 
groups. 

3. The Huronian of Canada is the equivalent of 
the lowest of the Taconic groups, and the perfect par- 
allel of only the lowest of the groups in the north-west 
that have been designated Huronian. 


4. The uppermost of the groups in the north-west — 


is local in its existence and exceptional in its charac- 
ters, and has received, therefore, a variety of names. 

5. There are, therefore, confusion and conflict of 
authority in the application of names to the crystal- 
line rocks of the north-west. 


CATAGENESIS; OR, CREATION BY RET- 
ROGRADE METAMORPHOSIS OF EN- 
ERGY. 


THE general proposition, that life has preceded 
organization in the order of time, may be regarded as 
established. It follows necessarily from the fact, that 
the simple forms have, with few exceptions, pre- 
ceded the complex in the order of appearance on the 
earth. The history of the lowest and simplest ani- 
mals will never be known, on account of their perish- 
ability; but it is a safe inference from what is known, 
that the earliest forms of life were the rhizopods, 
whose organization is not even cellular, and includes 
no organs whatever. Yet these creatures are alive; 


and authors familiar with them agree that they dis- — 


play, among their vital qualities, evidences of some 
degree of sensibility. 

After recalling the proposition laid down years ago 
by Lamarck, regarding the effect on structure of the 
use and disuse of organs, the speaker explained kine- 
togenesis as the production of animal structures by 
animal movements; and archestheticism as the doc- 
trine that sensibility or consciousness has ever been 
one of the primary factors in the evolution of animal 
forms. The influence of motion on development is 
involved in Spencer’s theory of the origin of verte- 
brae by strains; and the speaker maintained that the 
various agencies mentioned by Lamarck as producing 
change are simply stimuli to motion. 

In the present address he proposed to pursue the 
question of the relation of sensibility to evolution, 
and to consider some of the consequences which it 
involves; though in the present early stage of the 
subject he could only point out the logical conclu- 
sions derivable from facts well established, rather 
than any experimental discoveries not already known. 
Those who object to the introduction of metaphysics 
into biology must consider that they cannot logically 
exclude the subject. Asin one sense a function of 
nervous tissue, mind is one of the functions of the 
body. Its phenomena are everywhere present in the 
animal kingdom. 


the science of mind from the field. 


1 Abstract of an address delivered before the section of biology 
of the American association for the advancement of science, at 


Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. E. D. Cops, of Philadelphia, — 


vice-president of the section. 


It is only want of familiarity with 
the subject which can induce a biologist to exclude _ 


; 
} 


= 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884. ] 


The hypothesis that consciousness has played a 
leading part in evolution would seem to be negatived 
by the well-known facts of reflex action, automatism, 
etce., where acts are often unconsciously performed, 
and often performed in direct opposition to present 
stimuli. But while it is well understood that these 
phenomena are functions of organized structure, it 
is believed that the habits which they represent were 
inaugurated through the immediate agency of con- 
sciousness. It is not believed that a designed act 
can have been performed for the first time without 
consciousness, on the part of the animal, of the want 
which the act was designed to relieve orsupply. We 
know, that, so soon as a movement of body or mind 
has been acquired by repetition, consciousness need 
no longer accompany the act. The act is said to be 
automatic when performed without exertion, either 
consciously or unconsciously; and in those functions 
now removed from the influence of the unconscious 
mind, such acts are called reflex. The origin of the 
acts is, however, believed to have been in conscious- 
ness, not only for the reasons above stated, but also 
from facts of still wider application. The hypothesis 
of archaestheticism, then, maintains that conscious- 
ness as well as life preceded organism, and has been 
the primum mobile in the creation of organic struc- 
ture. It will be possible to show that the true defini- 
tion of life is, energy directed by sensibility, or by a 
mechanism which has originated under the direction of 
sensibility. If this be true, the two statements, that 
life has preceded organism, and that consciousness 
has preceded organism, are co-equal expressions. 

Regarding, for the time being, the phenomena of 
life as energy primitively determined by conscious- 
ness, we may look more closely into the characteristics 
of this remarkable attribute. That consciousness, 
and therefore mind, is a property of matter, is a 
necessary truth, which to some minds seems difficult 
of acceptance. Clearly it is not one of the known 
so-called inorganic forces. Objects which are hot, 
or luminous, or sonorous, are not on that account 
conscious; so that consciousness is not a necessary 
condition of energy. On the other hand, in order to 
be conscious, bodies must possess a suitable temper- 
ature, and must be suitably nourished; so that ener- 
gy is a necessary condition of consciousness. For 
this reason some thinkers erroneously regard con- 
sciousness as a form or species of energy. We all 
understand the absurdity of such expressions as the 
equivalency of force and matter, or the conversion of 
matter into force. They are not, however, more 
absurd than the corresponding proposition more fre- 


-quently heard, that consciousness can be converted 


into energy, and vice versa. 

The energetic side of consciousness, however, may 
be readily perceived. Acts performed in conscious- 
ness involve a greater expenditure of energy than the 
Same acts unconsciously performed: the labor is di- 
rectly as the consciousness involved. The dynamic 
character of consciousness is also shown in its exclu- 
Siveness: two opposite emotions cannot occupy the 
mind at the same moment of time. But there is no 
fact with which we are more familiar than that 


SCIENCE. 


241 


consciousness in some way determines the direction 
of the energy which it characterizes. The stimuli 
which affect the movements of animals at first, only 
produce their results by transmission through the 
intermediation of consciousness. Without conscious- 
ness, education, habits, and designed movements 
would be impossible. So far as we know, the instinct 
of hunger, which is at the foundation of animal being, 
is a state of consciousness in all animals. 

On the other hand, as consciousness is an attribute 
of matter, it is of course subject to the laws of neces- 
sity to which matter and energy conform. It cannot 
cause two solid bodies to occupy the same space at 
the same time, make ten foot-pounds of energy out 
of five foot-pounds of energy, nor abolish time more 
than it can annihilate space. 

What is, then, the immediate action of conscious- 
ness in directing energy into one channel rather than 
another? Why, from a purely mechanical point of 
view, is the adductor muscle of the right side of the 
horse’s tail contracted to brush away the stinging fly 
from the right side of the horse’s body, rather than 
the left adductor muscle? The first crude thought 
is, that consciousness supplies another energy which 
turns aside the course of the energy required to pro- 
duce the muscular contraction; but consciousness, 
per se, is not itself a force (=energy). How, then, 
can 1t exercise energy ? 

The key to many weighty and mysterious phenom- 
ena lies in the explanation of the so-called voluntary 
movements of animals. The explanation can only be 
found in a simple acceptance of the fact, that energy 
can be conscious. If true, this is an ultimate fact, 
neither more nor less difficult to comprehend than the 
nature of energy or matter in their ultimate analyses. 
But how is such an hypothesis to be reconciled with 
the facts of nature, where consciousness plays a part 
so infinitesimally small? The explanation lies close 
at hand, and has already been referred to. nergy 
become automatic is no longer conscious, or is about 
to become unconscious. What the molecular condi- 
tions of consciousness are, is one of the problems of 
the future. One thing is certain: the organization of 
the mechanism of habits is its enemy. J¢ is clear 
that in animals, energy, on the loss of consciousness, 
undergoes a retrograde metamorphosis, as it does later 
in the history of organized beings on their death. 
This loss of consciousness is first succeeded by the 
so-called involuntary and automatic functions of 
animals. According to the law of catagenesis, the 
vegetative and other vital functions of animals and 
plants are a later product of the retrograde metamor- 
phosis of energy. With death, energy falls to the 
level of the polar tensions of chemism, and the reg- 
ular and symmetrical movements of molecules in the 
crystallization of its inorganic products. 

It has been already advanced, that the phenomena 
of growth-force, which are especially characteristic 
of living things, originated in the direction given to 
nutrition by consciousness and by the automatic 
movements derived from it. There remain, how- 
ever, some other phenomena which do not yield so 
readily to this analysis. These are, first, the conver- 


242 


sion by animals of dead into living protoplasm; 
second, the conversion of inorganic substances into 
protoplasm by plants; and, third, the manufacture of 
the so-called organic compounds from the inorganic 
by plants. It is also well known that living animal 
organisms act as producers, by conversion, of vari- 
ous kinds of inorganic energy, as heat, light, motion, 
ete. It is the uses to which these forces are put by 
the animal organism, that give them the stamp of 
organic life. We recognize the specific utility of the 
secretions of the glands, the adaptation of muscular 
motion to many uses. ‘The increase of heat to 
protect against depression of temperature, and the 
electricity as a defence against enemies, display 
unmistakably the same utility. We must not only 
believe that these functions of animals were origi- 
nally used by them, under stimulus, for their benefit, 
but, if life preceded organism, that the molar mech- 
ahism which does the work has developed as the 
result of the animal’s exertions under stimuli. This 
will especially apply to the mechanism for the pro- 
duction of motion and sound. Heat, light, chem- 
ism, and electricity doubtless result from molecular 
aptitudes inherent in the constitution of protoplasm. 
But the first and last production of even these phe- 
nomena is dependent on the motions of the animal 
in obtaining and assimilating nutrition; for without 
nutrition all energy would speedily cease. Now, the 
motion required for the obtaining of nutrition has 
its origin in the sensation of hunger. So, even for 
the first steps necessary to the production of inor- 
ganic forces in animals, we are brought back to a 
primitive consciousness. 

To regard consciousness as the primitive condition 
of energy, contemplates an order of evolution in 
large degree the reverse of the one which is ordina- 
rily entertained. The usual view is, that life is a 
derivative from inorganic energies, as a result of high 
or complex molecular organization, and that con- 
sciousness (= sensibility) is the ultimate outcome 
of the nervous or equivalent energy possessed by 
living bodies. The failure of the attempts to demon- 
strate spontaneous generation will prove, if contin- 
ued, fatal to this theory. Nevertheless, the order 
cannot be absolutely reversed. Such a proceeding is 
negatived by the facts of the necessary dependence 
of the animal kingdom on the vegetable, and the 


vegetable on the inorganic, for nutrition and conse-- 


quently for existence. So the animal organism could 
not have existed prior to the vegetable, nor the vege- 

table prior to the mineral. The explanation is found 
in the wide application of the ‘doctrine of the un- 
specialized.’ From this point of view, creation con- 
sists of the production of mechanism out of no 
mechanism, of different kinds of energy out of one 
kind of energy. The material basis of conscious- 
ness must, then, be a generalized substance which 
does not display the more automatic and the polar 
forms of energy. From a physical standpoint, proto- 
plasm is such a substance. 
weakness of chemical energy. The readiness with 
which it undergoes retrograde metamorphosis shows 
that it is not self-sustaining. Loew and Bokorny 


SCIENCE. 


Its instability indicates. 


|VoL. 1V., No. 84. 

4 
suggest, that ‘“‘the cause of the living movements in 
protoplasm is to be sought for in the intense atomic 
movements, and therefore easy metamorphosis, of 
its aldehyde groups of components;” the molecular 
movements becoming molar. The position now pre- — 
sented requires the reversal of the relations of these 
phenomena. Generalized matter must be supposed 
to be capable of more varied molecular movements 
than specialized matter; and it is believed that the 
most intense of all such movements are those of 
brain tissue in mental action, which are furthest 
removed of all from molar movements. From this 
point of view, when molar movements are derived 
from molecular movements, it is by a process of run- 
ning-down of energy, not of elevation; by an increase 
of the distance from mental energy, not an approxi- 
mation to it. 

The manner in which protoplasm is made at the 
present time is highly suggestive. The first piece 
of protoplasm had, however, no paternal protoplasm 
from which to derive its being. The protoplasm- 
producing energy must, therefore, have previously 
existed in some form of matter not protoplasm. In 
terms of the theory of catagenesis, the plant-life is 
a derivative of the primitive life, and it has retained 
enough of the primitive quality of self-maintenance 
to prevent it from running down into forms of energy 
which are below the life level; that is, such as are 
of the inorganic chemical type, or the crystalline 
physical type. 

If, then, some form of matter other than proto- 
plasm has been capable of sustaining the essential 
energy of life, it remains for future research to de- , 
tect it, and to ascertain whether it has long existed } 
as part of the earth’s material substance ornot. The 
heat of the earlier stages of our planet may have — 
forbidden its presence, or it may not. If it were 
excluded from the earth in its first stages, we may 
recognize the validity of Sir William Thomson’s sug- 
gestion, that the physical basis of life may have 
reached us from some other region of the cosmos by 
transportation on a meteorite. If protoplasm in any 
form were essential to the introduction of life on 
our planet, this hypothesis becomes a necessary truth. 

Granting the existence of living protoplasm on 
the earth, there is little doubt that we have some of 
its earliest forms still with us. From these simplest 
of living beings, both vegetable and animal kingdoms 
have been derived. But how was the distinction 
between the two lines of development, now so widely 
divergent, originally produced ? The process is not 
difficult to imagine. The original plastid dissolved 
the salts of the earth, and appropriated the gases of 
the atmosphere, and built for itself more protoplasm. 
Its energy was sufficient to overcome the chemism | 
that binds the molecules of nitrogen and hydrogen 
in ammonia, and of carbon and oxygen in carbonic 
dioxide. It apparently communicated to these mole-— 4 
cules its own method of being, and raised the type — 
of energy from the polar non-vital to the adaptive — 
vital by the process. But consciousness apparently 
early abandoned the vegetable line. Doubtless all 
the energies of vegetable protoplasm soon became 


ae ee 


Zl 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


automatic. The plants in general, in the persons of 

their protist ancestors, soon left a free-swimming 
life and became sessile. Their lives thus became 
parasitic, more automatic, and in one sense degen- 
erate. 

The animal line may have originated in this wise: 
Some individual protists, perhaps accidentally, de- 
voured some of their fellows. The easy nutrition 
which ensued was probably pleasurable, and once 
enjoyed was repeated, and soon became a habit. 
The excess of energy thus saved from the laborious 
process of making protoplasm was available as the 
vehicle of an extended consciousness. From that 
day to this, consciousness has abandoned few if any 
members of the animal kingdom. In many of them, 
it has specialized into more or less mind. Organiza- 
tion to subserve its needs has achieved a multifarious 
development. Evolution of living types is, then, a 
succession of elevation of platforms, on which suc- 
ceeding ones have built. The history of one horizon 
of life is that its own completion, but prepares the 
way fora higher one, furnishing the latter with con- 
ditions of a still farther development. 

lf the principles here announced be true, it is 
highly probable that all forms of energy have origi- 
nated in the process of running-down or specializa- 
tion from the primitive energy. One of the problems 
to be solved by the physicists of the present and 
future is that of a true genealogy of the different 
kinds of energy. In this connection a leading ques- 
tion will be the determination of the essential differ- 
ences between the different forms of energy, and the 
material conditions which cause the metamorphosis 
of one kind of energy into another. 

That the tendency of purely inorganic energy is to 
‘run down,’ is well known. Inorganic chemical 
activity constantly tends to make simpler compounds 
out of the more complex, and to end in a satisfaction 
of affinities which cannot be farther disturbed except 
by access of additional energy. In the field of the 
physical forces, we are met by the same phenomenon 
of running down. All inorganic energies or modes 
of motion tend to be ultimately converted into heat, 
aud heat is being steadily dissipated into space. 

The process of creation by the retrograde meta- 
morphosis of energy, or, what is the same thing, by 
the specialization of energy, may be called catagenesis. 
It may be denied, however, that this process results 
in a specialization of energy. The vital energies are 
often regarded as the most special, and the inorganic 
as the most simple. If we regard them, however, 
solely in the light of the essential nature of energy, 
i. €., power, we must see that the chemical and pbhysi- 
cal forces are most specialized. The range of each 
species is absolutely limited to one kind of effect, 
and their diversity from each other is total. How 
different this from the versatility of the vital energy! 
It seems to.dominate all forms of conversion of 
energy, by the mechanisms which it has, by evolu- 
tion, constructed. Thus, if the inorganic forces are 
the products of a primitive condition of energy which 
had the essential characteristics of vital energy, it 
has been by a process of specialization. As we have 


— 


SCIENCE. 


243 


seen, it is this specialization which is everywhere 
inconsistent with life. 

If we consider the relations of the different kinds 
of energy to each other and to consciousness, it is 
difficult to draw the line between conscious and 
unconscious states of energy. One reason is, that, 
although a given form of energy may be unconscious, 
consciousness may apprehend the action by perceiv- 
ing its results. The relations may be expressed as 
follows: — 

A. Designed (always molecular). 


I. Conscious. 
1. Involving effort . 


Lxamples. 


‘Voluntary ’ acts. 
2. Not involving effort es ee 
II. Unconscious. 

3. Involving mental process 
4. Not involving mental process. 
B. Not designed. 
I. Molecular. 


Unconscious automatic. 
Refiex. 


5. Electric. 

6. Chemical : aye : ; ars 

7 Physical, Crystallific and non-crystallific. 
II. Molar. 

8. Cosmic. 


The only strictly molar energies of the above list 
are the cosmical movements of the heavenly bodies. 
The others are molecular, although they give rise to 
molar movements, as those of the muscles, of mag- 
netism, etc. Some molar movements of organic be- 
ings are not, in their last phases, designed; as those 
produced by nervous diseases. _ 

The transition between the organic and the inor- 
ganic energies may be possibly found in the electric 
group. Its influence on life, and its resemblance to 
nerve-force, are well known. It also compels chemi- 
cal unions otherwise impracticable; thus resembling 
the protoplasm of plants, whose energy in actively 
resisting the disintegrating inorganic forces of nature 
is so well known. Perhaps this type of force is an 
early-born of the primitive energy, one which has 
not descended so far in the scale as the chemism 
which holds so large a part of nature in the embrace 
of death. 

Vibration is inseparable from our ideas of motion 
or energy, not excluding conscious energy. ‘There 
are reasons for supposing that in the latter type of 
activity the vibrations are the most rapid of all those 
characteristic of the forces. A centre of such vibra- 
tions in generalized matter would radiate them in 
all directions. With radiant divergence the wave- 
lengths would become longer, and their rate of move- 
ment slower. In the differing rates of vibrations, 
we may trace not only the different forms of energy, 
but diverse results in material aggregations. Such 
may have been the origin of the specialization of 
energy and of matter which we behold in nature. 

Such thoughts arise unbidden as a remote but still 
a legitimate induction from a study of the wonder- 
ful phenomenon of animal motion, —a phenomenon 
everywhere present, yet one which retreats, as we 
pursue it, into the dimness of the origin of things. 
And when we follow it to its fountain-head, we seem 
to have reached the origin of all energy, and it turns 
upon us, the king and master of the worlds. 


Pa) 


244 SCIENCE. 


MICROSCOPIC SCIENCE.! 


Pror. T. G. WoRMLEY delivered no formal address. 
He gave only a short discourse, in which he described 
the advantages and possibilities of two special appli- 
cations of the microscope: first, to the detection of 
very minute quantities of certain poisons, notably 
arsenic, by the examination of the sublimate; second, 
to the examination of blood stains. He described the 
limits within which identification of different ani- 
mals, and the recognition of human blood, is feasible; 
he denied that human blood can be absolutely iden- 
tified; he also stated that the result of prolonged 
experiments indicated that pure water is the best 
reagent for restoring the blood-corpuscles in a stain 
to their natural condition. 


WEAN TEN EE TET (ATES 


In studying the questions of his own origin and 
antiquity, man has been hindered by many prejudices 
and by many barriers of his own erection, the first 
and most formidable of which was the theological 
barrier of the Mosaic cosmogony. In process of 
time this was partially removed; but other barriers to 
free investigation arose, founded on the evidence col- 
lected by the very men who had done most to destroy 
the earlier obstacles. Cuvier declared that man, be- 
ing the last and highest of creation, could never have 
been contemporary with the extinct species of mam- 
mals found in the quaternary beds. Fora time all 
evidence to the contrary was treated with contempt; 
but Cuvier’s massive authority was finally over- 
thrown by Perthes, Schmerling, and others. 

No sooner had the Cuvierian barrier against qua- 
ternary man been demolished, than smaller barriers 
of precisely the same nature were erected against the 
tertiaries. Gaudry could not admit that the worked 
flints discovered by the Abbé Bourgeois in the mio- 
cene of Thenay were the remains of men; because he 
found it difficult to believe, that, while every other 
species of the miocene is now extinct, man alone 
should have remained unchanged. Professor Daw- 
kins in a similar line of argument assumes that man 
cannot be looked for until the lower animals now in 
existence made their appearance. In the eocene age 
there were none of the present living genera of pla- 
cental mammals, in the miocene none of the present 
living species; and it is most unlikely that man 
should appear at such a time. At this period the 
apes (Simiadae) haunting the forests of Europe were 
the most highly organized types. Moreover, if man 
were upon the earth in the miocene age, it is incredi- 
ble that he should not have become something else 
during those long ages in the course of which all the 


' Abstract of an address before the section of histology and 
microscopy of the American association for the advancement 
of science, at Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. T. G. WoRMLEY of 
the University of Pennsylvania, vice-president of the section. 

* Abstract of an address to the section of anthropology of the 
American association for the advancement of science, at Phila- 
delphia, Sept. 4, by Dr. Epwarp S. Morsg, of the Peabody 
academy of science, Salem, Mass., vice-president of the section. 


[Vox. IV.,; No. 84. 


miocene land mammalia have either assumed new 
forms or been exterminated. And for similar reasons 
Professor Dawkins says he cannot expect to find 
traces of man inthe pliocene. But such assumptions 
are obstructive: they not only put a check upon re- 
search. but they prevent the unbiased consideration 
of fresh evidence. 

These theories have been greatly strengthened by 
the idea that man has been evolved from the higher 
apes, and that his nearest relations among these. 
creatures are those which are supposed to have ap- 
peared lastin the sequence. Nevertheless, we find the 
evidences of man associated with extinct apes, and 
the gap between them is by no means closed in these 
earlier horizons. In the earliest remains of man 
thus far recognized, we do not have the most pro- 
nounced ape-like features, as we should have a right 
to expect if both have sprung from the same stem, 
and if man is limited to the quaternaries. All these 
forms are still man, with a fair brain-case; though 
the slight modifications toward an ape-like structure 
have the deepest significance in clearly indicating the 
direction from which he sprang. 

If paleontologists are right, the first anthropoid 
apes have been found in the middle eocene, and later 
still a more generalized form called Oreopithicus; and 
side by side with these are found chipped flints if we 
are to accept the authority of their discoverer Bour- 
geois and the opinion of Mortillet and others. If 
man existed then, — and on theoretical grounds there 
is no reason to believe that he did not exist, — we 
must look much farther back for the approach of 
these two groups. 

The earliest evidences of man must be sought in 
his remains, and not in his works; but the very con- 
ditions of life which characterized early man and his 
associates render the preservation of their remains 
a matter of extreme improbability. The herbivora 
in herds, seeking the shelter of watery places, would 
in dying become mired, and thus preserved in a 
matrix for the future explorer. Aquatic forms are in- 
finitely more abundant as fossils than land or aérial 
forms, — water-birds than land-birds. The arboreal 
ancestors of man, and the probable habits of man 
himself, would leave their bones to bleach in the field 
or forest, to decompose and disappear long before an 
entombment was possible. It was only when man 
acquired the art of sepulture, or sought refuge in 
caves, that the preservation of his remains became 
assured. Surface changes, however, have been so 
wide-spread and profound as to nearly obliterate all 
trace of these places, and when preserved the harvest 
from them has been of the most meagre description. 
Of nearly fifty caves examined by Schmerling in Bel- 
gium, only two or three contained human remains. 
Lund, who examined eight hundred caves in Brazil, 
found only six containing human remains. The 
grain of the Swiss lake-dwellers, and even the bread 
they made, have been preserved; but human bones | 
are of scanty occurrence. The Danish peat-beds 
have as yet yielded none, though stone implements 
and other objects are found there in abundance. 

Chief among the agencies in destroying the evi- 


a 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.| 


dences of man have been the glacial floods; and these, 
if the glacialists are right, have occurred, one during 
the earlier pliocene and the other at the beginning 
of the quaternary. In the gradual recedence of the 
glaciers, no less destructive agencies were at work in 
scooping out valleys, inundating immense areas, and 
covering broad tracts of land by their detritus. 

It would seem from many facts, that early man 
lived in the vicinity of water, either on the banks of 
rivers or along the coast-line; and it is just these 
regions which have been most profoundly modified 
since glacial days, and, indeed, in all times. 

Saporta suggested the idea that man, originating in 
the north, had been pushed southward by successive 
waves of people till the primitive wave was forced 


into the extremities of the southern continents, and 


that the remnants of this ancient wave are seen in 
the Tasmanians, Bushmen, and Fuegians. If so, the 
remains of primitive man are buried under paleo- 
chrystic ice. Far more probable would it be to as- 
sume an antarctic continent under genial conditions 
in which these primitive races lived, and whence suc- 
cessive waves emanated, becoming modified by their 
new surroundings as they receded from their point 
of origin. We should then assume the submergence 
of this region; leaving remnants of these low types in 
the Patagonians, Tasmanians, Bushmen, and others, 
and precisely where we might expect to find them. 
If either supposition is true, the earlier traces of these 
people are buried beyond recovery. The prejudices 
of man himself have also caused the loss of much 
precious material, or of opportunities which can 
never be regained, — ancient skeletons exhumed only 
to be promptly buried again; others encountered in 
excavation, and left undisturbed through super- 
Stitious fear. Even at the present time, while the 
collection and study of the remains of other fossil 
mammals go on unchallenged, the archeologist is 
beset by a class who repudiate his facts, look upon 
his evidences as deceptive or fraudulent, and mis- 
understand his aims. 

From what has been said, it is evident that the 
discovery of the remains of primitive man is highly 
improbable. Until this good fortune comes to us, as 
come it may, we must be content to reason from the 
known to the unknown. In regard to the physical 
characteristics of man, there is a manifest dispropor- 
tion between the changes he may have undergone, 
and the known change of other mammals since mio- 
cene days. For, while slight changes in man’s oste- 
ological structure have undoubtedly taken place, 
many mammals of huge form and great variety have 
become extinct, and others have been profoundly 
modified. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to 
believe, that, the moment the ancestors of man pos- 
sessed the power of banding together in communities, 
and of using weapons, they became capable of render- 
ing inoperative the very influences which were so 
active in modifying or exterminating their mammalian 
associates. How far these conditions were settled in 
the quaternary, may be seen from the fact, that while 
man could endure an arctic climate, and survived the 
glacial period, his anthropoid and more distant pithi- 


SCIENCE. 


245 


coid relations disappeared from Europe forever on its 
approach. 

The fact that man, and his near associates, have 
been regarded as structurally the highest forms of 
mammals, has led to the natural belief that they must 
have been last evolved. That man is pre-eminently 
the highest form intellectually, goes without the say- 
ing; but in regard to his physical characteristics it 
seems that sufficient importance has never been given 
to the generalizations of Cope, who shows that “‘ the 
mammals of the lower eocene exhibit a greater per- 
centage of types that walk on the soles of their feet, 
while the successive periods exhibit an increasing 
number of those that walk on. the toes, while the 
hoofed animals and carnivora of recent times nearly 
all have the heel high in the air. . . . Thus, in all 
generalized points, the limbs of man are those of a 
primitive type so common in the eocene. His struc- 
tural superiority consists solely in the complexity and 
size of the brain. A very important lesson is derived 
from these and kindred facts. The monkeys were 
anticipated in the greater fields of the world’s activity 
by more powerful rivals. The ancestors of the un- 
gulates held the fields and the swamps, and the car- 
nivora driven by hunger learned the arts and cruelties 
of the chase. The weaker ancestors of the quadru- 
mana, possessed neither speed, nor weapons of offence 
or defence; and nothing but an arboreal life was left 
them when they developed the prehensile powers of 
the feet. Their digestive system unspecialized, their 
food various, their life the price of ceaseless vigilance, 
no wonder that their inquisitiveness and wakefulness 
were stimulated and developed, which is the condition 
of progressive intelligence.’’ This explains on rational 
grounds why man has continued to persist for so long 
a time with physical characteristics so slightly modi- 
fied, while other forms were changing or becoming 
extinct. 

It has been shown that structurally he is related 
not only to the higher apes, but with numerous lower 
forms, and even with the lemuroids, remains of which 
have been found in the lower eocene of both con- 
tinents. If these structural affinities are valid, then 
we must look far beyond and below the present higher 
apes for the diverging branches of man’s ancestry. 

Another evidence of his antiquity is the early estab- 
lishment of well-marked types, which must have re- 
quired an enormous lapse of time to have become 
established. The various types of skulls are met 
with among the earliest traces of man. In the lake 
dwellings of Switzerland, Dr. His has discovered 
four different types of skulls. 

Professor Kollman, who has made an extensive 
study of the crania of both hemispheres, concludes 
that the sub-species of man became fixed in the 
pre-glacial period. Furthermore, the evidences go to 
show that early man had become sufficiently differen- 
tiated to acclimate himself to widely different regions 
of the earth’s surface, while the apes are still confined 
to the torrid zone. The remains of his feasts show 
that he had early become omnivorous. The most 
powerful argument in favor of tertiary man lies in 
the fact that his earliest remains are not confined to 


246 SCIENCE. 


\ 


any one region of the earth. The river-drift men 
are found impartially scattered from tropical India 
through Europe to North America. If their dis- 
tribution was by the northern approaches of the con- 
tinent, it must have been in pre-glacial times, because, 
as Dawkins shows, an ice-barrier must have spanned 
the great oceans in northern latitudes. 

It seems an almost fruitless speculation, to inquire 
into the manner of their dispersion, yet one is tempted 
to surmise that if they originated in the tropics, then 
submerged continents must again be restored to offer 
the necessary means for such a dispersal. If, on the 
other hand, their home was in the north or south 
temperate zone, and the distribution circumpolar 
(and this seems more probable), then we have another 
evidence of the wide separation which the race had 
acquired, at that early day, from its tropical relatives 
the apes. Whatever the facts may ultimately show, 
this unparalleled distribution of a people in the 
lowest stages of savagery proves beyond question that 
man must have pre-existed for an immense period of 
time; for, with the known fixity of low savage tribes, 
the time required to disperse this people over the whole 
earth can only be measured by geological centuries. 

The farther we penetrate into the past, and ascer- 
tain some definite horizon of man’s occurrence, other 
observers in widely different regions of the earth 
bring to light traces of man’s existence in equally 
low horizons. ‘The evidence of the remoteness of 
man’s existence in time and space is so vast, that, to 
borrow an astronomical term, no parallax has thus 
far been established by which we can even faintly 
approximate the distance of the horizon in which he 
first appeared. From this fact we are justified in the 
assumption that the progenitors of quaternary man, 
under different genera possibly, must be sought for 
in the tertiaries. 

Science will not gain by the erection of any theo- 
retical barriers against tertiary man, until such defi- 
nite forms’ are met with that shall reasonably settle 
the beds in which he first occurred. We know in 
what rocks it would be obviously absurd to look for 
his remains or the remains of anymammal. So long, 
however, as forms are found in the lowest beds of the 
tertiaries, having the remotest affinity to his order, 
we must not cease our scrutiny in scanning unbiased 
even the rocks of this horizon, for traces of that 
creature who, until within a few short years, was re- 
garded as some six thousand years old, and who, in 
despite of protest and prejudice, has asserted his 
claim to an antiquity so great, and a dispersion so 
profound, that thus far no tendency to a convergence 
of his earliest traces has been demonstrated. 


SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND SCIENTIFIC 
KNOWLEDGE IN COMMON AFFAIRS. 


Economic science and statistics can hardly do less 
than to promote the use of scientific methods, and 


1 Abstract of an address before the section of economic sci- 
ence and statistics of the American association for the advance- 
ment of science, at Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Gen. JoHN EATON, 
U.S. commissioner of education, Washington, vice-president of 
the section, 


ne To, ee a ae 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. 


disseminate scientific knowledge in common life. 
Science has had a hard struggle with ignorance. A 
host neither small nor amiable has been arrayed 
against it. What wonder, then, that it has first 
intrenched itself where the use of instruments of 
precision and the demonstrations of mathematics 
separated it from the critical issues of man’s every- 
day conduct? Nevertheless, history may in the re- 
mote future express surprise that in America, where 
the power and conduct of man are so important, 
science has so long neglected the rugged issues as- 
signed to this section. 

There is now no good reason why scientific men 
should neglect to apply scientific methods to the 
economy and statistics of every-day life. If mathe- 
matical principles and processes are applicable to the 
statics and dynamics of physics, why not also to the 
statics and dynamics of society? If useful in econo- 
mics, why not in personal and domestic life? True, 
in all questions of conduct, we must include man’s 
free action of will, and leave room for doubt or for 
alternatives or for contrary choice; yet how many 
questions of daily life are left to the merest conjec- 
ture, to superstition, or to the wild estimaginings, and 
how large a percentage of blunders might be avoided! 
We smile that a pagan commander moved his army 
by the flight of a crow or by the aspect of an animal’s 
entrails; but how many merchants sail their ships, 
and agriculturists plant or harvest, by the guesses of 
charlatan weather-prophets, or how many actions 
are determined by seeing the moon over the right 
shoulder, or by confidence in a horseshoe! Myriads. 
of groundless notions to-day affect the conduct of 
personal and public affairs. It is time for science to 
enter. Many a juggler would then lose his business, 
many a prejudice have to be given up. Pockets, 
policies, and politics are involved in the issue. The 
disposition to revel in the marvellous, to dally with 
uncertainties, and to treat all mystery as concealing 
the superhuman, would be disturbed. The phrases 
‘we guess,’ ‘ we reckon,’ are giving way to the phrases 
‘we will inquire,’ ‘we will try to know.’ 

Sir William Thompson has said, ‘‘ Accurate and 
minute measurement seems to the non-scientific 
imagination as a less lofty and dignified work than 
looking for something new;”’’ but he adds, “‘ Nearly all 
the grandest discoveries of science have been but the 
rewards of measurement and patient, long-continued 
labor in the minute shifting of numerical results.” 
Thus the methods of economic science are the same 
as those of other branches of science, while the latter 
also yield statistical results. 

It is unfortunate that scientific men aspire so 
exclusively to original research. We need men to 
couple love of science with love of mankind. Liv- 
ingstone desired to explore Africa for science, but as . 
much so for the civilization of benighted Africans. 
Is science for man, or man for science? Is not bene-_ 
fit to mankind the real measure of the good that is 
in science? : 

Doubtless Stephenson was more perplexed with the 
mood of the parliamentary committee than with the 
questions of improving his steam-engine. From a 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


member of that committee came the absurd question, 
‘Would it not be a bad fix if the engine should meet 
a cow on the track'?’ ‘Yes,’ said Stephenson, ‘it 
might be bad [for the coo.’ The dissemination of 
truth is as scientific as its discovery. Sometimes 
scientific men act as if truth could not be expressed in 
the vernacular, — indeed, as if it cannot be truth un- 
less dressed in their terminology. College men used 
to feel that their triennial would lose character if 
deprived of the dignity of Latin —though it was 
often bad Latin. All this foolishness is fast passing 
away. Already it is an honor to scientifically teach 
science, as well as to advance its domain. Still it is 
rarely met with, and far less understood than scien- 
tific research. Here is a great field for immediate 
occupancy. 

The scientific method of communicating truth 
recognizes the fact, that in early life man’s powers 
are shaped, and too often the bulk of his knowledge 
acquired. Hence its fundamental rule must be sim- 
plicity in the use of language, and in the presenta- 
tion of each truth in the concrete. This scientific 
method is needed even to preserve classic learning 
from disgrace and disuse. Adopted in the whole 
domain of scholastic instruction, it would bring new 
votaries to science, and new benefactors even to the 
support of pure science. A better taste for all kinds 
of literature would result. Low writing would be at 
a discount. Weshould thus cheapen scientific litera- 
ture, and increase museums for object-teaching. We 
may never destroy the taste for low and degrading 
prints by inveighing against them and thus advertis- 
ing them, but we may create a taste for valuable 
reading which will not be satisfied by the vile. This 
literature cannot be the same for all persons, but the 
scientific method should pervade it all. Morals 
would not be excluded, but enforced; the imagina- 
tion not neglected, but purified and elevated. The 
body of information could not exclude any truth 
of service to mankind. Every great subject would 
bring its contribution shaped to scientific methods 
aud adapted to all minds, —the earth as influenced 
by the sun and the starry world, its surface of land 
and water, of mountains and streams and valleys, of 
barren and productive soil, the plant life that dwells 
upon it, the animal life it supports, the circum- 
ambient atmosphere and its phenomena; and man, 
the scientific animal who makes all this ado, and for 
whom it is made, and to whom it is given to possess. 
The Adam of this period of scientific thought might 
call up his several sciences, and direct each to yield 
what it possesses for this correlation of economic 
thought, for human instruction, guidance, enjoyment, 
and betterment, for this evolution of science, for the 
greatest good of man by doing its utmost for the 
common things of daily life. Gravitation weighs 
alike the most volatile particle and the vastest of far- 
off stars. The laws of economic science are the same 
to the lowly as to the great man: by them he meas- 
ures the price of his salt, and the safeguards of his 
liberty. 

Towards this gathering-up, for man’s daily use, of 
all the lessons of nature, the progress of the race is 


SCIENCE. 


247 


tending. Steam, the telegraph, and the telephone 
focus all thought and action. We shall yet demand 
of every department of knowledge, ‘What good for 
man?’ Each science will have its body by itself, 
and yet fill numerous relations to every art, and yield 
its practical lessons to every man according to his 
understanding and preparation. Data thus correlated 
will meet the child,— nay, will guide the paternal in- 
fluence and action in its behalf. But now the child, 
in its greatest dependency, is met with the destruc- 
tive follies of ignorance. Neglect, mistakes, or down- 
right violations of nature’s laws, often consign him 
to the grave, or plant in him the seeds of permanent 
disorder. Physicians may relieve his colic, or cure 
his disease; but how rarely can they so direct the 
nursing and training as to assure health! If the im- 
pairment is mental, and we go to insane-asylums for 
advice, we learn what per cent of the cases under 
treatment could have been prevented, and efforts will 
be made to cure. But we want prevention, not cure. 
We want information upon questions of food, of 
raiment, of shelter, of air, of vocation, of occupa- 
tion; not for one man, or one class of men, but for 
all men in all conditions. 

The era of this diffusion of knowledge has already 
actually commenced. Men not engaged in scientific 
pursuits are gradually coming to feel the necessity of 
gathering, grouping, and generalizing the data which 
give them a clearer measure of health, comfort, 
pleasure, as well as the profit and loss involved. As 
balance-sheets are studied in business, so are ques- 
tions of finance, of taxation and public expenditure. 
Great operations, like those in corn, in coal, in cot- 
ton, in wool or silk, leather or lumber, in iron or 
gold or silver, and of all the great industries, — agri- 
cultural, mechanical, commercial, professional, — 
demand and have their collections of statistics, and 
their vast accumulations ready as contributions to 
economic science. But the correlation of all these 
and their actual results have not yet been reached. 
Nevertheless, money sees the profits of this wisdom, 
and is more willing to pay for it. Expert investiga- 
tors are in demand. Public action requires it. The 
idea of a republic in which all its citizens shall act 
patriotically and virtuously, from free choice of the 
right course and on their own knowledge, demands it. 
Napoleon I. said, ‘ Statistics mean the keeping of an 
exact account of a nation’s affairs, and without such 
an account there is no safety ;’ while Goethe declared, 
‘I do not know whether figures govern the world, 
but this I do know: they show how it is governed.’ 
America has accepted the responsibility of reporting 
its operations, and of disseminating information for 
the benefit of all the people. Boards of health, of 
charity, of education, and bureaus of statistics and 
labor, are demanded by state and nation. They are 
becoming potent in reducing to order the chaos of 
data so long without form and void. 

The character of the information demanded marks 
the progress of the age. During how many ages was 
the counting of men and the measure of their con- 
dition undertaken solely to prepare for war! Even 
our own colonial census was taken for this purpose. 


248 


The constitution of our fathers provided for rep- 
resentation in congress and in the electoral college 
according to population. This has led to vast re- 
sults. A magnificent world of data is now spread 
before us by the census. Every man, woman, and 
child, and their interests, enter into it, and it has its 
lesson for each in all their various capacities and 
relations; but not more than a hundred thousand 
can possess it, and few can master the whole of it. 
It would be too much to come annually, and there- 
fore cannot be frequent enough to meet every con- 
dition. Many statements should be annual. Our 
system of government affords an excellent opportu- 
nity to perfect a system of statistics parallel to the 
decennial census, and fitted to meet all demands. 

Publicists have said much of the importance of 
the town-meeting as found in New England. An 
important characteristic of it is the bringing of all 
questions of public taxation and expenditure and 
policy to the consideration of all the citizens. This 
attention of all the citizens to the details of muni- 
cipal action in large cities is impossible: therefore 
there are public reports and manifold statements. 
But should the town system of reports be every- 
where adopted, and these be followed by county and 
state summaries, the nation could group these so as 


SCIENCE. 


to give a variety of form and result sufficient for 
each according to his interest. The student and 
statesman would find them falling into appropriate 
classes, of sufficient frequency, and in connection 
with our decennial census of the nation would 
discover us in the very front rank with respect to 
knowledge of ourselves as a people. This is now 
done measurably for the subject of education. Each 
institution publishes its report or catalogue, most 
towns and cities their reports; many states gather 
up the data; and the national bureau, carefully 
avoiding improper complications, and solely for the 
purposes of information, issues an annual volume. 
The result is unique in the history of voluntary 
statistics. Were this system carried into every other 
great field, and the whole distilled into a single vol- 
ume, and should each nation do the same, we should 
see the beginning of a solid foundation for inter- 
nationalism, and the scientific method at last per- 
vading the world of thought. It would determine 
the most far-reaching generalizations, and have an 
effect upon common life not now possible. Child- 
hood would be ushered into new conditions, and 
alike the humblest and the highest would more 
easily find the truth. 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE MATHEMATICAL 
AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE SECTION. 


THE session of the British association in Montreal 
might be fairly designated as a ‘section A’ meet- 
ing, in view of the leading position in British science 
occupied by the representatives of that section, and 
the prominence which was accorded them and their 
section in the general meetings of the association. 
The retiring president of the association, who was to 
have been present, but was not, was a distinguished 
member of the section. His few duties were grace- 
fully performed by another distinguished member of 
the section, Sir William Thomson, who also presided 
over the sittings of the section during the meeting. 
As representing the retiring president he introduced 
his successor, the president for 1884, in the person of 
Lord Rayleigh, another of the ‘strong’ men of sec- 
tion A. Two of the three evening lectures were 
given by members of the section, on subjects con- 
nected with physics and astronomy. 

When it is remarked that the place of meeting 
offers no especial attractions to students of mathe- 
matical and physical science, it will be admitted that 
the roll of the section presented an unusual array of 
great names, including as it did such as Sir William 
Thomson, Lord Rayleigh, J. C. Adams, J. W. L. 
Glaisher, Henrici, Dewar, Preece, James Glaisher, 
Lodge, Rev. S. J. Perry, Osborne Reynolds, and 
many others. 

As might be easily inferred from a glance at the 


above list, a large majority of the papers presented 
had to do with physics rather than with astronomy or 
pure mathematics. By a judicious action of the 
sectional committee, and one worthy of imitation, 
the papers were very fairly ‘bunched’ by subjects so 
that one was not required to remain during the 
entire week in order to listen to the treatment of a 
particular topic. 

The first notable physical paper to be presented 


' was, of course, the address of Lord Rayleigh as 


president of the association. 

This address has already been placed before the 
readers of this journal, and no extended reference to 
it will be necessary. Although historical in the 
main, it was rich in valuable and timely suggestions 
such as could come only from one as thoroughly 
familiar with the topics referred to as its author. As 
a sample of these, may be quoted the remarks con- 
cerning the theory of the action of the telephone, 
which was declared to'be ‘‘ still in some respects ob- 
scure, as is shown by the comparative failure of the 
many attempts to improve .it;’’ and in considering 
some of the explanations that have been offered, 
Lord Rayleigh said, ‘‘ We do well to remember that 
molecular changes in solid masses are inaudible in 
themselves, and can only be manifested to our ears 


by the generation of a to-and-fro motion of the — 


external surface extending over a considerable area. 
If the surface of a solid remains undisturbed, our 


ears can tell us nothing of what goes on in the © 


interior.’’ 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. 


a 
q 
: 
; 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


The address of Sir William Thomson as presiding 
officer of section A must be carefully read and stud- 
ied to be appreciated. One or two of the ‘steps 
towards a kinetic theory of matter’ may be usefully 
referred to. The as yet unsurmounted difficulty in 
the kinetic theory of gases is the explanation of 
what actually takes place during a molecular collis- 
ion. It need hardly be said that physicists will not 
be satisfied until more or less of the obscurity sur- 
rounding this subject is dissipated. The mutual 
action at the moment of collision has been generally 
assumed to be repulsive by all who have written of 
or contributed to the kinetic theory. Sir William 
Thomson asks, May it not, after all, be attractive? 
Under certain conditions it seems that the appear- 
ance of repulsion may be the result of attraction. In 
general, two molecules approaching each other with a 
high velocity, assumed to be due to their attraction 
for each other, will approach obliquely, as the 
chances of a square ‘hit’ will be exceedingly small; 
they will then dash past each other in sharply con- 
cave curves around their centre of gravity, and fly 
asunder again, something, indeed, after the fashion 
of a comet passing around the sun. ‘‘ A careless on- 
looker,”’ says Sir William Thomson, ‘‘ might imagine 
they had repelled one another.’? The idea that this 
mutual action might be attractive rather than repul- 
sive had been in his mind for thirty-five years, but 
up to the preparation of this address he had never 
made any thing of it. 

But, after all, the molecules must be infinitely small 
in order that they may never come in actual contact, 
so that we cannot evade the consideration of the 
effects of these real impacts when they do occur. 
Concerning these impacts, but two views seem to be 
open to us; the one is to imagine the molecule to be 
a little elastic solid; the other, to conceive it to be a 
‘configuration of motion in a continuous all-pervad- 
ing liquid.’ It is hardly necessary to say, that, in 
the opinion of Sir William Thomson, the latter must 
be the final hypothesis upon which we may rest. 

But as a convenient intermediate station he sug- 
gested the conception of an elastic molecule, out of 
which we might not only construct a model of a gas, 
but, with some satisfaction, by linking these mole- 
cules together we might explain the elasticity of a 
solid. Ina paper presented to the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh in March, 1883, of which the title only 
had been published, he had shown how an elastic 
system may be constructed, composed entirely of 
suitably disposed masses in motion. A system of 
four gyrostatic masses connected together by links 
was shown to possess all of the properties of an ordi- 
nary elastic spring, although composed of matter in 
itself entirely devoid of elasticity. By properly link- 
ing great numbers of such gyrostatic systems together, 
a model of an elastic solid results. Such a hypo- 
thetical solid lends itself easily to the explanation 
of such effects as the rotation of the plane of vibra- 
tion of a wave transmitted through it, as in Fara- 
day’s celebrated experiment of the rotation of the 
plane of polarization of aray of light in a magnetic 
field. 


SCIENCE. 


249 


Sir William Thomson considered further the possi- 
bility of discarding entirely the postulate of rigidity 
in the materials under consideration, and showed how 
a hydrokinetic model of matter might be constructed 
in which all the effects of ‘action at a distance’ 
might take place. By means of this the model of a 
perfect gas might be produced, in which, however, 
there still exists the difficulty of explaining the case 
of actual impact of the particles. Some ingenious 
suggestions were made in the way of surmounting 
this difficulty ; and the whole address was enriched by 
the most delightful digressions on the part of the 
author, during which the manuscript was neglected, 
and the section was afforded the pleasure of following, 
as best it could, the great physicist in his involuntary 
excursions into this most interesting but little- 
explored domain of physical science. 

Lord Rayleigh, in his presidential address, had re- 
ferred at some length to recent investigations con- 
cerning the theory of lubricants; and the section was 
therefore in a favorable mood to listen to the first 
regular paper on the programme, which was a theo- 
retical consideration of that subject by Professor 
Osborne Reynolds. 

The hitherto unrecognized results obtained by Mr. 
Tower in his experiments were referred to, Mr. Rey- 
nolds undertaking to show that they were in strict 
accordance with our knowledge of the laws of motion 
of viscous fluids. Mr. Tower had found, that when 
the rotating journal with its box was immersed in a 
bath of the lubricant, the resistance was not more 
than one-tenth of its value in ordinary oiling, and that 
the journal was less likely to heat at higher than at 
lower speeds. By boring a hole through the top of 
the box, it was found that the oil was forced through 
with considerable velocity; and on attaching a press- 
ure gauge, as high as two hundred pounds per square 
inch was indicated. The oil appeared to be carried up 
by the motion of the journal, and to form a film upon 
which the box rested. Mr. Reynolds showed that 
there would necessarily result a difference of pressure 
on the two sides of the vertical line through the cen- 
tre of gravity in the thin space between the box and 
journal; the maximum being on one side or the other, 
according as the rotation is one way or the other. 
Mr. Tower had found, that if, after running the jour- 
nal for some time in one direction, a reversal were 
made, great heating would result. Owing to the 
difference of pressure above referred to, it was to be 
expected that this would occur; as, undoubtedly, the 
box and journal became adapted to each other fora 
certain direction of running, and when a reversal was 
made some time would elapse before a re-adaptation 
would be completed. This would explain why a new 
journal and box would always heat on first being run, 
however perfect they may be. Mr. Tower had lik- 
ened the operation to a stroking of the fibres of the 
metal in one way by one direction of revolution, and 
the reverse stroking at the early part of a reversed 
motion; but this was not the true explanation, as 
the resistance was evidently a shearing resistance, 
the sliding of one layer of oil over the other. Sir 
William Thomson, in commenting upon the paper, 


NA eee 
my . 


250 


called attention to the fact that one solid cannot 
slide over another without tearing. 

Professor Reynolds also presented an interesting 
paper on a method of illustrating the second law of 
thermo-dynamics by means of kinetic elasticity. If 
a long flexible cord or chain be suspended with a 
weight at the lower end, the weight may be lifted a 
considerable distance by communicating a vibratory 
motion in a horizontal] plane to the upper end of the 
chain. It then represents an absolutely reversible 
engine. If the weight, when at an elevated point, 
be removed from the chain, to straighten the chain 
out will require as great an expenditure of energy, 
not counting dissipation through friction, etc., as was 
consumed in raising the weight. It was shown that 
in this model the mean square of ,the velocity of the 
chain, multiplied by the weight per unit of length, 
corresponds to the heat in Carnot’s engine. Ancther 
form of the device consisted of two vertical cords to 
which a number of horizontal bars of wood were at- 
tached at equal distances. In discussing the paper, 
Professor Fitzgerald described a very pretty illus- 
tration of the same principle by means of a ‘ balanced 
governor,’ with a chain and weight attached in such 
a way as to be in equilibrium in all positions, the 
details of which are difficult to describe without 
the aid of a diagram. 

The subject of the relative vapor tensions of a 
body in the liquid and solid state at the same tem- 
perature was discussed in a paper by Professor Ram- 
say and Mr. Sydney Young. 

Professor James Thomson long ago pointed out 
that there must be a sudden change in the curve of 
vapor density of water at the point of solidification; 
and showed that this change was really to be detected 
in Regnault’s results, but that Regnault himself 
had not thought such a break to occur, and had 
‘smoothed’ his curve at this point; believing errors 
of observation to be sufficient to cover the discrep- 
ancies. 

Messrs. Ramsay and Young, by means of ingenious 
devices, had overcome some of the difficulties of the 
experimental investigation, and had experimented 
upon camphor, benzine, water, and several other sub- 
stances. The results were in accordance with the 
previously accepted views, and in the case of water 
were found to agree with those based upon Professor 
James Thomson’s formula. 

Radiation was the subject of two or three papers. 
Professor Dewar offered the methods and results of 
an investigation of the law of total radiation at high 
temperatures. The plan and arrangement of the ap- 
paratus for the research were ingenious and effective ; 
and Professor Dewar stated that he had just learned 
from Professor Newcomb, that he had some time be- 
fore devised and described an arrangement for the 
same purpose, identical in principle with that made 
use of in his own work. 

For relatively low temperatures, Professor Dewar 
made use of an iron vessel containing mercury, into 
which a thermometer-bulb was pushed. The radia- 
tion measured was that from one side of the vessel, 
which was made of exceedingly thin iron; and the 


SCIENCE. 


Xa a, A 


heat was received upon the face of a thermopile 
enclosed in a case properly screened, and arranged 
so that a steady current of water would be used to 
maintain constancy of temperature at one face. For 
these lower temperatures, the equation expressing the 
amount of radiation was of the ordinary parabolic 
form, the radiation being nearly proportional to the 
square of the temperature. The difficulty in dealing 
with high temperature is, that most substances un- 
dergo an alteration in the character of the surface 
when the temperature is very much raised. The 
arrangement finally adopted consisted essentially of a 
platinum air thermometer, the bulb of which was en- 
closed in a small furnace with a small opening through 
which the radiation took place. The walls of the 
platinum bulb were very thick, nearly a quarter of an 
inch in the actual experiment, and the bulb was con- 
nected with a mercury manometer for determining 
the pressure. Experiments were also made to deter- 
mine the radiation when the thermopile was protected 
by an iodine screen. The results were as follows, 
the numbers being in arbitrary units: — 


Radiation at 600° . . 15.5, screen used, 8. 
ae “700° . 1. LOO Pee Bete 78 0. 
8 ‘800°... . 29:0. eee eve TE OSS 
os “900° ..°° 342 ae oo 2S 
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The assumption was made, that the radiation was 
represented by some power of the temperature; and 
this power was found in the first case to be 3.4, and 
in the second 38.8, thus showing a tendency to ap- 
proach the fourth power; and attention was called to 
the fact that many of the results of Dulong and Petit 
were well represented by the equation R=at?. 

Mr. J. T. Bottomly offered a paper on the loss of 
heat by radiation and convection as affected by the 
dimensions of the cooling body, and on cooling ina 
vacuum ; which, on account of the absence of the au- 
thor, was read by Sir William Thomson. The paper 
was based on an extensive series of resistance meas- 
urements of copper wires under various conditions, 
accepting the well-known coefficient of increase of 
resistance of copper for increase of temperature. The 
conclusion was reached, that the emission power was 
greater for small wires than for large ones, and that it 
diminished with the pressure. 

It would be almost impossible to give a perfectly 
clear idea of Sir William Thomson’s paper on a 
gyrostatic working-model of the magnetic compass, 
without quoting the paper entire. What he proposes 
to accomplish may, however, be readily understood. 
At the last meeting of the association, at Southport, 
he had explained several methods for overcoming the 
difficulties which seemed to have defeated all previous 
attempts to realize Foucault’s ‘‘ beautiful idea of dis- 
covering with perfect definiteness the earth’s rota- 
tional motion by means of the gyroscope.’’ He had 
there shown that a gyrostat supported, without fric- 
tion, on a fixed vertical axis, with the axis of the 
fly-wheel approximately horizontal, will behave ex- 
actly as does a ‘magnetic compass,’ only with ref- 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. 


=- 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.| 


erence to the true or rotational north rather than the 
magnetic north. A method was there presented for 
sO mounting a gyrostat about such vertical axis as 
to reduce the friction to a minimum. The present 
paper was concerned principally in the presentation 
and discussion of another and simpler plan for real- 
izing the same idea. The plan consisted essentially 
in suspending a gyrostat, properly constructed, by 
means of a very long and very fine steel wire attached 
to a torsion-head, capable of being turned about a 
vertical axis, at the top. The gyrostat being sus- 
pended, by successive adjustments of the position of 
the torsion-head, a position is found in which the po- 
sition of the gyrostat, in relation to the torsion-head, 
shows that the wire is free from torsion. In this 
position the axis of the gyrostat will be in the true 
north-and-south line; and, if disturbed from this 
position, it will vibrate about it precisely as does 
an ordinary magnetic needle about the magnetic 
meridian. 

The author pointed out several difficulties in the 
way of the complete realization of the idea, and 
closed by suggesting some possible methods of 
mounting, in a simple way, a gyrostat free to move 
about an axis rigorously or very approximately verti- 
eal. Regardless of any practical results which may 
come from it, the suggestion of a gyrostatic compass 
is singularly interesting as an example of how motion 
may effectively take the place of a directing force, 
although only one of the many which Sir William 
Thomson has furnished. 

As was naturally to be expected, topics bearing 
upon the subject of electricity occupied a good share 
of the time of the section. Unfortunately one or 
two papers bearing upon this subject had been as- 
signed to the chemical section, and were presented 
contemporaneously with the electrical discussion in 
section A. The paper by Professor Frankland, on 
the chemical aspects of the storage of power, was 
one which many members of section A would have 
been delighted to hear. While it was being read, 
however, section A was engaged in an extremely 
interesting discussion of the question of the seat of 
the electromotive forces in the voltaic cell, which 
was opened by Professor Lodge. For the first time 
in the history of the association, the experiment was 
attempted, of assigning a definite topic for general 
discussion; and the success was such as doubtless to 
lead to a permanent establishment of the custom. 
The selection of Professor Lodge to open the discus- 
sion was extremely fortunate. He is not only a 
ready and clear expounder of his own views, but he 
was fortunate, as a leader in the discussion, in that 
those views were not those which are generally 
accepted as being orthodox. His opening paper was 
largely historical; in fact, too largely so in the opinion 
of many of his hearers. He traced the history of 
the discussion from the time of Volta, declaring that 
the only really great contributions to our knowledge 
of the subject were those of Volta in 1801 and of Sir 
William Thomson in 1851. Of late years the so- 
called contact theory had been generally accepted. 
This theory, as generally understood, Professor Lodge 


SCIENCE. 


251 


could no longer accept. He did not believe that two 
metals in air or water or dilute acid, but not in con- 
tact, are practically at the same potential; or that two 
metals in contact are at seriously different potentials, 
or that the contact force between a metal and a dia- 
lectric, or between a metal and an electrolyte, is 
smal]. He did believe that by far the greatest part 
of the electromotive force of a voltaic cell exists at 
the zine and liquid contact rather than at the zinc 
and copper contact, as generally supposed, although 
he believed that there was an electromotive force at 
the junction of every two substances. A summary 
of the argument may be briefly given as follows, 
which, as far as it goes, is in Professor Lodge’s own 
words: — 

Wherever a current gains or loses energy, there 
must be a seat of electromotive force; and converse- 
ly, wherever there is a seat of electromotive force, a 
current must lose or gain energy in passing it. 

A current gains no energy in crossing from copper 
to zinc, hence there is no appreciable electromotive 
force there. 

When a current blows from zinc to acid, the energy 
of the combination which occurs is by no means 
accounted for by the heat there generated, and the 
balance is gained by the current; hence at a zine 
acid junction there must be a considerable electro- 
motive force (say, at a maximum, 2.3 volts). 

A piece of zinc immersed in acid is therefore at a 
lower potential than the acid; though how much 
lower it is impossible to say, because no actual chem- 
ical action occurs. 

It was not to be expected that this statement of 
views, differing so greatly from those usually held, 
would be received without some protest, and particu- 
larly from Sir William Thomson, who has been re- 
garded as the chief exponent and expounder of the 
metallic-contact theory. Professor Lodge was per- 
fectly successful in inaugurating a discussion which 
was full of interest; although it can hardly be said to 
have contributed much to the discovery of a substan- 
tial basis of agreement, as he had evidently hoped. 
Sir William Thomson presented his own views at 
some length. The subject was one surrounded by 
great difficuities. He thought there could be no 
doubt as to a difference of potential at the zinc-copper 
junction, but the question of the electro-motive force 
of a voltaic cell might be separated from that of dif- 
ference of potential at the junctions. He fully agreed 
with Professor Lodge in his view of the seat of the 
‘working-forece’ in the cell. The ‘ working-force’ 
was essentially chemical force. Undoubtedly, in a 
certain sense, both the chemical and voltaic or con- 
tact views of the question were correct. 

Professor Rowland, on being called upon to express 
his opinion, with characteristic frankness declared 
that he knew nothing about it. Professor Willard 
Gibbs called attention to the fact that this was a case 
similar to several other well-known physical problems, 
in which an attempt to determine the exact point or 
place at which a force resides had not been rewarded 
with success. In such cases much depends upon the 
standpoint from which the subject is viewed, and it 


we 


202 


sometimes happened that each of several quite differ- 
ent explanations of a phenomenon might be perfectly 
correct. This proposition came nearer affording a 
‘substantial basis of agreement’ than any thing else; 
but it cannot be denied that the impression remained 
on the minds of many in the section, that the extreme 
views were nearly, if not quite, irreconcilable with 
each other. Among the interesting results of the 
discussion was the somewhat unexpected limitation 
put upon the generally accepted idea of the ‘ poten- 
tial of a body,’ by Sir William Thomson. This he 
defined to be the energy expended in bringing unit 
electricity from an infinite distance to a point in air 
extremely near the surface of the body. 

Lord Rayleigh described a galvanometer of twenty 
wires which he had constructed, by joining the wires 
in multiple are and also in series, so that the constant 
of one circuit was exactly ten times that of the other. 
The instrument was useful for the accurate standard- 
izing of ammeters for measuring currents of from 
ten to fifty amperes. Professor Shuster discussed the 
influence of magnetism on the discharge of electricity 
through gases. He had found that this influence was 
very different upon the discharge from large electrodes 
from those usually observed when small electrodes are 
used. The construction of an apparatus of peculiar 
form, with large electrodes, had enabled him to ob- 
tain many curious effects by the introduction, between 
the electrodes, of electro-magnets of various forms. 
He had also found that none of the usual Crooke’s 
effects are produced in mercury-vapor tubes, and this 
was connected in the theory of the operation with the 
fact that mercury was a monatomic substance. 

In the discussion of a paper by Lord Rayleigh on 
telephoning through a cable, Mr. W. H. Preece re- 
lated his experiences in telephoning the Dublin and 
Holyhead cable, a distance of sixty miles, which had 
been fairly successful; accurately heard conversation, 
however, could not be carried on beyond a distance 
of twenty-five miles. Other experiments had proved 
that it was at present impracticable to use under- 
ground wires in cities for distances of more than 
twelve miles. In every experiment telephonic circuits 
were made metallic. With an arrangement of double 
lines he said he had no difficulty in speaking through 
two hundred and forty miles on overground wires. 

The much-talked-of, and one might justly say the 
much-abused subject, of the connection of sun-spots 
with terrestrial phenomena, received considerable 
attention in a discussion which was opened by Prof. 
A. Schuster. It is generally agreed that sun-spots 
have a periodicity; the length of their period being 
somewhat irregular, varying, indeed, from about 
eight years to fifteen or sixteen years, but the mean 
from maximum to maximum being about eleven 
years. This period might be the resultant of several 
periods superposed; and Professor Balfour Stewart 
had pointed out the fact that the irregularity observed 
could be fairly well accounted for by supposing the 
superposition of two periods of about ten and a half 
and twelve years respectively. 

The first noticeable effect of this sun-spot cycle 
was the corresponding cycle in the daily variation 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., Nolmeae 


of the magnetic needle, —a relation which was also 
generally admitted. From maximum sun-spot area 
to minimum sun-spot area, the daily variation of the 
needle changes in the ratio of about three to two; 
and in at least two instances brief but violent dis- 
turbances in the sun had been known to be accom- 
panied, or at least followed closely, by similarly brief 
but marked disturbances of the magnetic needle. 
Such was undoubtedly the case in 1859, as observed 
by Carrington; and again in 1872, as observed by 
Professor Young. Professor Loomis has shown that 
there is an intimate relation between the sun-spot 
cycle and that of the aurora borealis; and, in fact, 
the practical agreement of those three cycles — the 
sun-spot, the magnetic, and that of the aurora — 
may now be considered as universally admitted. 
But although much time and great labor have been 
expended in this direction, it must be admitted that 
no other connection of solar disturbance as shown 
in sun-spots, with terrestrial phenomena, has been 
so completely proved as to command general con- 
fidence. 

The question of accounting for the magnetic in- 
fluence had been considered. Were the sun made of 
solid steel, and magnetized to saturation, it could not 
produce the effects upon the magnetic condition of 
the earth which are now justly attributed to it. 
Whether electricity is conducted in some way or other 
from the sun to the earth, is a question which cannot 
at present be answered, although it would be rash to 
affirm that the space between the sun and the earth 
does not contain enough matter to conduct electricity. 
It has been suggested, that variations in the amount 
of heat radiated from the sun might be shown to be 
an important factor; and some determinations of the 
total solar radiation have seemed to indicate that the 
total amount varied from time to time by as much as 
eight per cent. But the measurement of the sun’s 
radiation is surrounded by the greatest difficulties, 
on account of the unknown and possibly varying ab- 
sorption of the earth’s atmosphere. Professor Schu- 
ster was convinced that the only mode of attempting 
the solution of the problem lay in the direction 
of evading this disturbance by establishing observing 
stations on the highest accessible points; and he 
suggested the Himalaya Mountains as offering, on 
many accounts, the most suitable locality. As the 
question now stood, he believed he was correct in 
saying that we know nothing of the variation of the 
sun’s radiation. 

The question as to the possibility of investigating 
the problem, through observed temperature effects 
upon the surface of the earth, had naturally been 
considered. In spite of the difficulties surrounding 
the subject, there could be no doubt that several dif- 
ferent observers had proved that a connection existed 
between the sun-spot period and certain temperature 
effects upon the earth. Among these effects may be 
mentioned the agreement between this period and 
the best wine years on the Rhine; and also with the 
period of the increasing and decreasing number of 
cyclones upon the Indian Ocean. 

As to a similar period in mean atmospheric press- 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


ure, the evidence was very contradictory; but it may 
be safe to add two other coincidences which seem to 
be established: the number of small comets about 
the sun seems to vary through a period about in 
agreement with that of the sun-spots; and it has 
been shown, particularly in photographs secured by 
Professor Schuster himself, that the appearance of the 
solar corona depends in some way on the same cycle. 

Professor Schuster was followed by Mr. W. Lant 
Carpenter, who read a paper upon the same subject, 
prepared by Prof. B. Stewart and himself. It con- 
sisted, in the main, of a description of some very 
elegant methods which they had made use of in dis- 
cussing the temperature observations of Toronto and 
Kew, for the purpose of detecting short periods com- 
mon to solar and terrestrial phenomena. One of the 
results of this investigation was to show, that, in 
general, temperature phases make their appearance 
at Toronto eight days before they appear at Kew; 
while what might be called ‘magnetic declination 
range weather’ travels from Toronto to Kew-in 
about one and six-tenths days. 

The subject was further discussed by several mem- 
bers of the section, among whom was Rev. S. J. 
Perry, who took a very conservative view of the mat- 
ter, and declared that much research was demanded 
before any thing really definite would be known. 

The sun, at least as to its spectrum, received further 
attention from Professor Rowland and Rev. S. J. 
Perry, — the former exciting great interest in the sec- 
tion by an exhibition of several of his latest spectrum 
photographs, and a discussion of the remarkable 
advances in this direction which had followed, neces- 
sarily, the use of his diffraction gratings. Mr. Perry’s 
paper was a discussion of observations on the spot 
spectrum from D to B. 

Professor Carpmael described a new form of induc- 
tion inclinometer which he had devised, which was 
a modified form of Lloyd’s instrument, a bifilar sus- 
pension being substituted for an unifilar, and one or 
two other changes made. The instrument had only 
been in use a few weeks, but it promised to be of 
considerable value. 

The Earl of Rosse described his method and ma- 
chinery used for polishing specula, and with which 
he had completed at Parsonstown a three-foot and a 
six-foot speculum. He also described a device for 
securing electrical control of an equatorial driving- 
clock, which he had recently tried, and found to be 
very satisfactory. It was essentially a ‘see-saw’ 
escapement, with a piece of soft iron on an extension 
at one end, which moved between two electro-magnets, 
being held firmly by each, during a certain portion of 
the swing of the controlling pendulum. In this way, 
he had secured accuracy and certainty of control, 
even with crude apparatus. 

Mr. Perry, in speaking of the great importance of 
accurate contro] of an equatorial, now that the spec- 
troscope had come so to the front, said that it was 
interesting to know that Mr. Huggins, in producing 
some of the most perfect telescopic photographs that 
had yet been made, had not especially felt the need 
of a more perfect controlling device; since Mrs. Hug- 


. 


SCIENCE. 


253 


gins was constantly at his side to regulate the posi- 
tion of the instrument, and that his splendid results 
were largely due to her precision and patience. 

One of the most interesting and novel papers was 
that of Professor Douglass Archibald, describing his 
method of sending anemometers into the air by means 
of kites, and thus studying the velocity of the air at 
different heights. The carrying kite was seven feet 
in length; and this was raised and afterward some- 
what steadied by a smaller one about four feet long 
attached to it. The anemometers were arranged at 
different points along the line of the larger kite, so as 
to record the velocity at various heights, in some 
cases extending up as high as six hundred feet. 
Although the experiments thus far made were only 
preliminary in their character, some interesting re- 
sults had been obtained. The velocity increased with 
increased height, but at a diminishingrate. On 
being questioned, Professor Archibald declared that 
the most important thing about a kite was its tail. 
In his kite the tail was made up of cones of canvas 
arranged with their bases towards the wind, with the 
cord running along their axes. They were placed at 
a distance of three or four feet from each other, and 
six were used. Sir William Thomson said that after 
more than a century the kite was again being dedi- 
cated to science, first on one continent, and now on 
another. He was convinced that the device of Pro- 
fessor Archibald was sure to prove to be of great 
value in meteorological research. 

Professor Archibald made a brief reference to the 
work already accomplished by a committee, of which 
he was a member, known as the ‘ Krakatoa commit- 
tee.’ Their object was to determine, if possible, 
whether the sun-glows or remarkable sunsets of the 
past year could in any way be attributed to the 
general diffusion of dust from the eruption of that 
volcano. They had succeeded in collecting much 
information, which had not yet been examined; and 
he could only say that nothing had yet appeared 
which was inconsistent with the Krakatoa theory. 

Some further contributions to meteorology were 
made in a paper by Professor James Thomson on 
whirlwinds and waterspouts; in a note on internal 
earth temperature by Mr. H. S. Poole, in which the 
increase in temperature at Wolfville, N.S., was shown 
to be in fair agreement with other well-known deter- 
minations; and in a paper by Dr. H. Muirhead on 
the formation of mackerel sky. The latter was an 
extension of the explanation suggested many years 
ago by Sir William Thomson, by the introduction of 
a third stratum of moving air. The effect of one 
stratum moving over another, as Sir William Thom- 
son had suggested, would be to produce ‘waves’ in 
the air, which might result in long lines of cloud- 
forms. A third stratum, moving in a direction at or 
near aright angle to the first, would tend to break 
these lines up into small patches, thus producing the 
peculiar appearance known as the mackerel sky. 

Prof. Chandler Roberts interested the section great- 
ly in presenting the results of some experiments 
which he had carried out to show the diffusion of 
metals; the cases specially considered being the dif- 


254 SCIENCE. 


fusion of gold, silver, and platinum in lead. The 
rate of diffusion in these cases, and notably in the 
case of gold, seems to be enormously high compared 
with the rate of diffusion in liquids. 

Mr. W. J. Millar read a paper on iron and other 
metals in a liquid and solid state, which started a 
lively and entertaining discussion of the question of 
the expansion of iron on solidification. Mr. Millar 
contended that iron did not expand on solidification ; 
while Sir William Thomson, and other members of 
the section, protested that Mr. Millar’s own experi- 
ments proved conclusively that it did. 

The matter of the velocity of light of different col- 
ors was considered by Professor Michelson, and also by 
Professor George Forbes. Mr. Michelson explained, 
somewhat in detail, his method of determining the 
velocity of light, and gave the results of an investi- 
gation of the velocity of red and blue through a col- 
umn of carbon bisulphide about ten feet long. The 
velocity of the mean ray through this medium had 
been found to be about 1.75 times its value in air, 
which was somewhat higher than theory would indi- 
cate; but the difference was doubtless attributable to 
errors in experiment. A measurable difference be- 
tween the velocity of the red and that of the blue 
ray had been observed, agreeing very closely with 
that indicated by theory. Professor Forbes’s paper 
was a discussion of the observations by means of 
which he, in junction with Mr. Young, had shown, 
apparently, that there was a measurable difference be- 
tween the velocities of red and blue light in air. The 
paper was discussed by Sir William Thomson, Lord 
Rayleigh, Professor Newcomb, Professor Michelson, 
and several others; and the general opinion was quite 
decidedly against the view that such difference really 
existed. 

On the last day of the session, the section was di- 
vided; and a number of papers on pure mathematics 
occupied the attention of a sub-section. No report of 
these papers can be made, as the Science reporter 
found it impossible to organize a sub-section to follow 
the mathematicians. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 


THE session opened at noon, Aug. 28, with the 
president, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, in the chair. Dr. 
Perkins, the retiring president, sat on his right hand; 
and Drs. Wolcott Gibbs, Gladstone, and Frankland, 
on his left. The room was filled to overflowing; and 
the address was listened to with marked attention 
and interest, and the comments upon it were uni- 
form in their commendation. This is rather surpris- 
ing when we recall the present state of feeling in 
England which the efforts to found a superior insti- 
tution for technical instruction have aroused, but 
his views on chemical education are in conformity 
with those generally entertained in the United States. 
It will be seen by the papers presented at this session, 
that the particular phases of the recent advances in 
chemistry of which the president treated occupy 


* a Oa 


[Vou. IV., No. 84, 


at present the attention of many of the English 
chemists. 

The first paper read was by Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, at 
the request of the section, and was upon the complex 
inorganic acids. It consisted of a résumé of the 
magnificent work which he has done in the field 
which he has discovered and explored. 

It is impossible in the brief space at our command 
to do justice to this superb research ; which is destined 
to revolutionize many of our chemical conceptions, 
and in which has been shown the cumulative power 
of the molybdenum and tungsten oxides, the exist- 
ence of dominant and subdominant groups, and of 
different kinds of basicity prevailing within the same 
molecule, and of the production of isomerism by the 
orientation of the atoms. 

Mr. H. B. Dixon exhibited tables in which Bun- 
sen’s, Horstmann’s, and his own results on the effect 
of mass on the incomplete combustion of mixtures of 
carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and oxygen were com- 
pared; and the discrepancies were found to be due to 
differences in the temperature and pressure under 
which the experiments were conducted. Above four 
hundred millimetres, the pressure did not affect the 
results; and at temperatures between 60° and 140° 
constant results were also obtained. It is believed, 
that when the mixtures were exploded below 60°, the 
reaction was interfered with by the condensation of 
water on the sides of the tube. Further, it was found 
that mixtures of carbon monoxide and oxygen, in 
equivalent proportions, could not be exploded unless 
there were aqueous vapor, or some body containing 
hydrogen, present. With traces of hydrogen, hydro- 
chloric acid, hydrogen sulphide, or a hydrocarbon 
present, the mixture could be exploded. It is sup- 
posed that the steam is reduced by the carbon mon- 
oxide, and that the liberated hydrogen burns, and 
re-forms steam, which again acts on more carbon 
monoxide. By a series of alternate reductions, a 
few molecules of steam serve to carry oxygen to the 
carbon monoxide just as the oxide of nitrogen acts 
in the sulphuric-acid chamber. By putting a dry 
mixture of carbon disulphide and oxygen into a dry 
mixture of carbon monoxide and oxygen, the first 
could be inflamed, then by introducing a little water 
the carbon monoxide and oxygen could be exploded. 

Professors Liveing and Dewar read a paper on the 
spectral lines of the metals developed by exploding 
gases. Berthelot has recently investigated, by means 
of the chronograph, the rate of propagation of the 
explosion of mixtures of oxygen with hydrogen and 
other gases; and has found, that, with a mixture of 
hydrogen and oxygen in the proportion to form 
water, the explosion progresses along a tube at the 
rate of 2,841 metres per second, a number which is 
not far from the velocity of mean square for hydrogen 
particles, on the dynamic theory of gases, at a tem- 
perature of 2,000°. 

This velocity, though far short of the velocity 
of light, bears a ratio to it which cannot be called — 
insensible. It is, in fact, about yosoo0 part of it. 
Hence, if the explosion were advancing towards the 
eye, the waves of light would proceed from a series of . 


 — 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


particles lit up in succession at this rate. This would 
be equivalent to a shortening of the wave-length of 
light by about y5ss00 part; and, in the case of the 
yellow sodium lines, would produce a shift of a dis- 
tance of about +); of the space between the two 
lines. It would require an instrument of very high 
diffusive power and sharply defined lines to make 
such a displacement appreciable. With lines of 
longer wave-length, the displacement would be pro- 
portionately greater; while, if a receding explosion 
could be observed simultaneously with an advancing 
one, the relative shift would be doubled. In this 
way the two images of the red lithium line would be 
separated by about 3 of a unit of Angstrém’s scale, 
a distance about equal to that between the compo- 
nents of the less refrangible of the pair of E lines. 

The experiments were made first in a straight glass 
tube, and then in a U tube, which enabled them to 
observe the advancing and retreating wave. In these 
cases it was found that the calcium spectrum was pro- 
duced, owing to particles of the glass detached by the 
explosive reaction. The reversals showed too, that, in 
the wave of explosion, the gases do not reach their 
maximum temperatures all at once, but the front of 
the wave is cooler than the part which follows and 
absorbs some of its radiations, while the rear of the 
wave does not produce the same effect. 

Experiments were now made in iron tubes, and 
here the spectrum of iron was obtained from the 
particles detached from the tube. Altogether, sixty- 
eight lines of iron were identified, of which about 
forty lie in the ultra-violet between hydrogen and 
oxygen. Only one iron line above oxygen was defi- 
nitely seen, and that in only a few photographs. 
Since iron gave so many lines, linings of copper, 
lead, cadmium, zinc, aluminium, and tin were in- 
serted in the tube. Cadmium, aluminium, and tin 
gave no lines whatever; zinc gave only a doubtful 
impression; lead gave one visible line, and two in 
the ultra-violet; copper gave one visible line in the 
green, two in the ultra-violet, and occasionally a 
shaded band in the blue; cobalt and nickel gave a 
great many lines. Berthelot and Vielle having put 
the temperature produced by the explosion of hydro- 
gen and oxygen under a pressure of 9.8 atmospheres 
at 3,240°, the authors believe that they cannot be far 
wrong in assuming the temperature at about 3,0009, 
and that at this temperature such metals as iron, 
nickel, and cobalt are vaporous, and emit many char- 
acteristic rays, and that by far the greatest part of 
these rays lie between G and P. 

The discussion on the constitution of the elements 
was opened by Dr. Dewar; and after referring to the 
doctrine of continuity found in the essays of Grove, 
taught by Black, and held by Newton, and the views 
of Clerk Maxwell who said that the process by which 
atoms are formed cannot be known, since they are 
neither born nor do they die, he stated that our 
recent knowledge on the constitution of molecules 
was largely due to the studies of Deville upon disso- 
ciation, and that he was led to make these studies 
from the observation of Grove that a platinum bead 
heated in an oxyhydrogen flame would decompose 


SCIENCE. 


water when immersed in it. Experiments made by 
Dr. Dewar in this direction were described; and it was 
stated that chemical bodies are not fixed or unstable 
at certain fixed temperatures, but that there exists a 
relation between the pressure, temperature, and char- 
acter of the body, which determined its stability. De- 
ville held the change to be similar to a change in state 
of bodies; and, this relation being true, thermodynam- 
ics enable us to determine the amount of change 
for given conditions. The change of state in elemen- 
tary substances is not unlike a chemical change. 

The spectroscope has been used to study the con- 
stitution of molecules, and Roscoe has found that 
the allotropic forms of bodies give different spectra. 
Lockyer has attempted to show the evolution of the 
elementary bodies from hydrogen. His results have 
been criticised as having been due to the presence 
of impurities, but Lockyer disproved this. It has 
been said, too, that he did not use a spectroscope of 
sufficiently dispersive power. 

Prout’s hypothesis was next considered; and it was © 
shown that the most careful determinations of the 
atomic weights of nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, 


zine, and bismuth, by Stas and Marignac, yielded re- 


sults that were not simple multiples of hydrogen. 

In continuing the discussion, Dr. Gibbs said he was 
not sure that the accepted views of the molecular 
constitution of chemical compounds was the correct 
one. Taking common salt, for instance, it might in 
the solid state be composed of one hundred molecules 
of sodium and one hundred molecules of chlorine; 
when in solution it might be simpler; when in the 
gaseous form, simpler still; and when exposed to a 
vacuum, such as Mr. Crookes has produced, it might 
have the accepted constitution. He referred to the fact, 
that Professors Liveing and Dewar had found that 
cadmium, mercury, and zine gave no spectra at high 
temperatures. As these are all monatomic molecules, 
it might be that in this process we possessed a means 
for studying the constitution of the elementary mole- 
cules. Professor Liveing thought Dr. Gibbs’s sug- 
gestion concerning the action of the monatomic 
elements an improbable one, since aluminium and 
tin gave no lines under the same conditions. He 
said that many lines of iron suggested either a very 
complex constitution, or else that the substance we 
term iron is really formed of a number of elements 
which yet defy separation, and which have nearly 
similar atomic weights. We have an instance of 
such a case in the cerium group. The Dz line, for 
instance, may belong to an element more volatile 
than hydrogen. Sir Lyon Playfair pointed out, that 
when solid iodine was immersed in liquid sulphur- 
ous acid no action resulted; but if the iodine was in 
solution, and the sulphurous acid gaseous, they com- 
bined readily. He suggested the study of the tem- 
perature at which iodine or sulphur would combine 
with sulphurous acid. Dr. Tilden said we needed 
more extensive and accurate observations on the 
temperature at which chemical action—such, for 
instance, as the point of ignition—begins. Dr. 
Dewar stated that we have, in the result of the 
researches of Dr. Perkins in the magnetic rotation of 


296 SCIENCE. 


compounds in relation to their chemical composition, 
a means for determining molecular weights by optical 
methods. 

The reports of the committees on spectrum analy- 
sis and on chemical nomenclature will be published 
in full, in the annual report of the association. 

A paper was next read on some phenomena of solu- 
tion illustrated by the cases of sodium sulphate by 
William A. Tilden. In a recent paper in the Philoso- 
phical transactions, the author has favored the theory 
which ascribes solution, not to any combination, 
chemical or otherwise, of the solid with the solvent, 
but to liquefaction arising from the mechanical or 
kinetic action of the molecules of the liquid in which 
the solid is immersed. This theory is now being 
tested through a study of the thermal phenomena 
attending the solution of sodium sulphate. 


Crystallized sodium sulphate containing ten mole- 


cules of water melts at 33°-34°, At 34° or there- 
abouts it begins to show signs of dissociation. The 
Maximum point of solubility likewise is at this tem- 
perature. In consideration of these facts, Professor 
Tilden propounds the query: In what condition is 
the dissolved salt at temperatures above 33°? Is it 
in the form of the usual hydrate, or is it wholly 
or in part in the anhydrous state? The diminished 
solubility is believed to indicate progressive disso- 
ciation; but, this view being questioned, the heat of 
solutions at teinperatures above and below the critical 
temperature is being determined. The data given, 
although subject to some slight revision, show that at 
temperatures as high as 55° the thermal change is 
still positive, although a diminishing quantity; and 
hence, that the act of solution is still attended at 
these temperatures by a chemical combination be- 
tween the salt and a portion of the water. In this 
connection, Professor Tilden presented a modified 
form of calorimeter used in his experiments. 

W. W. J. Nicol next presented a theory of solution. 
The theory proposed is, that the solution of a salt 
in water is a consequence of the attraction of the 
molecules of water for a molecule of salt, exceeding 
the attraction of the molecules of salt for one an- 
other. It follows, then, that, as the number of dis- 
solved salt molecules increases, the attraction of the 
dissimilar molecules is more and more balanced by 
the attraction of the similar molecules: when these 
two forces are in equilibrium, saturation takes place. 
At the saturation point the force tending to keep in 
solution any single molecule of salt (attraction of 
dissimilar molecules) is balanced by the force tend- 
ing to produce separation of that molecule from the 
solution (attraction of similar molecules). Further, 
any external cause tending to alter the intensity of 
either of these two forces, or to modify both in un- 
equal degrees, disturbs the condition of equilibrium, 
and further solution or solidification ensues. The 
above theory is based on the molecular theory of 
liquids, and has many points in common with that 
of Dassios proposed in 1866. 

In putting this theory to the test of experiment, 
certain results followed which in such a brief note as 
this cannot be mentioned. 


Mr. Nicol lays stress upon the fact that he expresses- 
the value of a salt solution by n molecules (equiva- 
lents) of salt to one hundred molecules of water; and 
he holds that the experiments made on the continent. 
are valueless where they have been made by dissolv- 
ing one, two, or more molecules of salt in a litre of 
solution, since, as the molecular volumes of the salts. 
in solution vary, the solutions are not similar as sup-- 
posed. 

A paper followed on evaporation and dissociation,. 
by Professor William Ramsay, and Sydney Young. 
It having been suggested, that the closer proximity 
of molecules in the liquid and solid state may be due 
to the coalescing of two or more gaseous molecules,. 
to form a complex molecule, the authors hold that 
the work done in dissociating these complex mole- 
cules into single molecules is analogous to that ex- 
pended in converting a solid or liquid into gas, and 
that the same relations between the existing temper- 
ature and pressure would exist. The temperature of 
volatilization of a large number of solids was deter- 
mined by the ‘cage’ described by them before the 
Royal society, April, 1884. With bodies like phthalic 
and succinic acids, this relation was found to exist;: 
but with acetic acid little or no dissociation was dis- 
covered. Also a distinct difference was observed in 
the behavior of dissociating substances in the liquid 
and solid states when evaporating from a full surface.. 
So long as a substance is solid, the residue retains its 
original composition, but a liquid separates into its 
components: this amounts to a proof that a solid in 
volatilizing does not pass through the liquid state, 
and that so long as a substance remains solid it can- 
not dissociate. The results obtained lead the authors 
to provisionally doubt the existence of complex mo-. 
lecular groups in liquids. 

The object sought in Professor William Ramsay’s 
paper on molecular volumes was to ascertain whether 
the boiling-points of compounds, under equal press-- 
ures, really afford suitable points for a comparison of 
the molecular volumes. 
decisively show that in methyl, ethyl, propyl, iso- 
propyl, and isobutyl alcohols, and ether, the value of 
the group CH, is by no means constant: while at the 
boiling-points of the liquids at low pressures, the 
value is approximately constant, fluctuating between 
17.5 and 22, at high temperatures the difference 
becomes much more apparent, attaining at pressures. 
of 20,000 mm. (which was the highest measured) the 
greatest irregularity. 

Professors Goodwin and Marshall are studying the 
solubility of chlorine gas in solutions of metallic chlo-. 
rides; and finding that other experimenters have been 
observing the expansion of solutions made by dissoly- 
ing m molecules of the salt in m molecules of water, 


and that consequently these contain, when diluted, 


neither the same number of molecules of the salt nor 
of the water, they have arranged their experiments 


so that this ratio shall remain constant throughout 


the observations. 


Sir H. E. Roscoe, speaking in regard to the dia--__ 


mantiferous deposits of South Africa and the ash of 


the diamond, showed that silica and iron oxide form, 


[Vor. IV., No. 84. 


The experiments made 


: 


‘SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


constant constituents of thediamond. It is acurious 
fact, that when these yellow diamonds are heated out 
of contact with the air they lose their color, and re- 
main colorless so long as they are not exposed to the 
light: then they immediately regain it. 

A discussion on chemical changes in their rela- 
tion to micro-organisms was opened by Professor 
Frankland. He stated that contact action had been 
held to be of two kinds, — that where both of the bod- 
ies underwent a change, and that in which one of the 
bodies remained unchanged. The last was called 
catalytic action. The changes taking place in organ- 
ized bodies had been referred to the last class, but 
organic chemistry had proved them to belong to the 
first. In organized bodies, both analytical and syn- 
thetical changes take place; but in general the first 
take place in the bodies of animals, and the last in 
vegetables. This enables us to determine to which 
of the two kingdoms a body belongs, and judged by 
this criterion the microcosms belong to the animal 
kingdom. Soluble ferments, on the contrary, act by 
contact without giving of themselves. The changes 
which these soluble ferments produce were then 
shown in a series of tables; and it was seen that the 
resulting analytical reactions were usually quite sim- 
ple, but were attended by the evolution of heat. 
Referring to this point, it was suggested, that as allo- 
tropic and isomeric changes often convert potential 
into kinetic energy, it might be possible to maintain 
life through these changes. The reactions produced 
by the micro-organisms were next shown in a series 
of charts, together with illustrations of their forms. 
The reactions in these cases were far less simple; but 
in some instances, as with the Saccharomyces cere- 
visiae, it is a question how far the by-products are 
due to the action of the micro-organism. 'The power 
of these organisms to resist chemical substances gen- 
erally and high temperatures was shown, yet spongy 
iron quite destroyed them. It is of the utmost im- 
portance to discover some simple agent for destroying 
these bodies, which is harmless to man. 

In discussing this topic, Professor Roscoe pointed 
out the fact that one ferment produces only one re- 
action, and that this was probably true in those more 
complicated reactions which attend disease. Dr. 
Dallinger stated that he was able by slow stages to 
so change the environment of a micro-organism, that 
eventually it lived under conditions entirely unlike 
its natural ones, and that he had cultivated the most 
highly organized ones in solutions which contained 
no organic matter whatever. Dr. Dewar called atten- 
tion to the wonderful preservative power of hydrogen 
peroxide. One one-hundredth of one per cent will 
preserve urea indefinitely. It does not, however, 
preserve milk indefinitely, on account of the physical 
action of the milk globules, while it has no action 
whatever on the soluble ferments. He believes the 
heat evolved by the action of the ferments to be due 
to the hydration of the alcohol; and he pointed out 
that we have in bacteria the most delicate agent we 
now possess for detecting oxygen, and the most accu- 
rate for measuring light. 

Sir John Lawes and Dr. Gilbert presented a paper 


SCIENCE. 


207 


on some points in the composition of soils. This 
was a continuation of the paper presented to the 
American association two years ago; and it is sought 
to show that the view which has been maintained, 
that a soil is a laboratory and not a mine, is erroneous; 
for not only the facts adduced by the authors in this 
and other papers, but the whole history of agriculture 
so far as we know it, clearly show that a fertile soil 
is one which has accumulated within it the residue 
of ages of previous vegetation, and that it becomes 
less fertile as this residue is exhausted. The results 
of many analyses and experiments with the soils of 
Manitoba and other prairie lands were cited in evi- 
dence. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION 
GEOLOGY. 


IT is impossible, in the limited space at our dis- 
posal, to do any thing like justice to the large number 
of interesting papers presented to this section, and 
to the discussions called out by them. Moreover, 
coming prominently before the section as there did, 
such questions as glacial action, causes of the ice 
age, formation of the basins of the great lakes, the 
origin of coal, metamorphism, and the many ques- 
tions connected with the archean rocks, and when 
these questions were discussed by men like Dawson, 
Hall, Geikie, Newberry, Hunt, Bonney, and by many 
younger though no less earnest workers in geology, 
it is easier to imagine than to describe in detail the 
interest attached to such an occasion. 

The number of papers presented — fifty-one — was 
too large to admit of satisfactory discussion; and, 
even hurried over as they were, it was necessary for 
the section to meet again upon a fifth day, instead of 
completing its work in four sittings as was originally 
anticipated. Many of the topics presented were 
passed over so lightly as rather to discourage the 
presentation of papers containing the results of long 
and patient labor. Even the important questions 
treated of by Dr. Blanford in his opening address 
were lost sight of except as he occasionally called 
them to mind. 

While the discussions were sufficiently animated, 
—some of them perhaps even more so than was 
seemly,—the animation was due, to a considerable 
extent, to the tenacity with which each one held to 
his own theories, rather than to any considerable array 
of facts brought forward to sustain them. 

The section met in the lecture-room of the Redpath 
museum. A full audience heard the address of Dr. 
Blanford the chairman, and toward the close of its 
delivery Lord Lansdowne was one of the listeners. 

At the close of the address, in accordance with 
English usages, a vote of thanks to the speaker was 
proposed by Sir William Dawson, who commended 
Dr. Blanford’s presenting a subject so full of debata- 
ble matter as likely to excite the greatest interest and 
discussion. Seconding the motion, Dr. Selwyn, direc- 
tor of the Geological survey of Canada, referred to 
instances similar to those mentioned, which occur in 
Vancouver’s Island and in parts of Australia not re- 


OF 


258 


ferred to in the address by the chair. The general 
impression made by the address seemed to be that 
the problems presented were not only important ones, 
but too much so to admit of much discussion here, 
and that they can be solved only by a large amount 
of observation and field-work. 

The ten papers presented during the first day’s ses- 
sion, with one exception, related to the geology of 
the dominion. 

The paper of Mr. Gilpin upon gold-mining in Nova 
Scotia, that of Mr. Brown upon the apatite deposits 
of Quebec, and that of Mr. Merritt upon the locali- 
ties and output of economic minerals in Canada, 
were more or less statistical, aud, although important 
in themselves, did not admit of much discussion. 

A short paper by Mr. Frank Adams of the Geologi- 
cal survey of Canada, upon the occurrence of Nor- 
wegian ‘apatitbringer’ in Canada, and its associated 
minerals, although upon a subject mineralogical 
rather than geological, was a valuable contribution in 
itself, and drew forth an interesting discussion by 
Dr. G. "IT. Williams of Johns Hopkins University. 
Recent studies of optical anomalies seen in many 
minerals seem to show that not afew substances have 
different crystalline forms at different temperatures. 
One of these, pyroxene, has a tendency to pass into 
hornblende when the temperature is lowered. Na- 
ture may accomplish the same thing by pressure. 
Such changes have been observed by Dr. Williams in 
certain rocks in Maryland and New York, where 
schistose structure and these changes appear to be 
co-extensive. 

Mr. Honeyman’s paper upon the geology of Halifax 
Harbor was strongly dissented from by Dr. Selwyn, 
supported by Professor Hitchcock, who insisted that 
the rocks at that locality were lower Cambrian, and 
not archean as stated, except perhaps in isolated 
masses. 

The coal-fields of the dominion were treated of 
directly and indirectly by Mr. Bailey of the Canadian 
survey on the Acadian basin in American geology, 
Mr. Gilpin on the distinctive features of the Nova 
Seotian coal-field, and by Mr. Budden on the coals of 
Canada. 

The Acadian basin borders upon and includes the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 
Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, dipping 
on all sides toward the gulf. Within this great basin, 
the most important coal-fields are those of Cumber- 
land, Pictou, and Cape Breton. The beds are more 
or less folded; the axes of the folds are east-west; 
and, except where they have been complicated with 
older strata, there are no serious faults. Differences 
between districts within this great basin are probably 
due to local influences in the original basin, rather 
than to isolation. Attention was called by Dr. Sel- 
wyn to the contrast between this broken region and 
the less-disturbed country adjoining it to the west 
and north-west, which he considered was due to the 
limiting of the disturbances by the great St. Law- 
rence and Champlain fault. This fault is supposed 
to follow up the St. Lawrence River from somewhere 
in the gulf, to Quebec, where it leaves the stream, 


SCIENCE. 


and swings more strongly to the south, and passes 
down Lake Champlain to somewhere in the vicinity 
of the Hudson River. To the east of this great fault, 
the rocks are metamorphosed, folded and broken, 
while to the west they are but slightly disturbed, and 
dip at low angles. Besides the coal-fields occurring 
in the St. Lawrence basin, the two other localities 
within the dominion producing coal were referred 
to; one extending from the 97th parallel to the base 
of the Rocky Mountains, the other on Vancouver’s 
Island. Of the three fields, the first is in the carbon- 
iferous, while the last two belong to the secondary or 
tertiary formations. But little is known as yet of 
the coal of north-west British Columbia, while that. 
of Vancouver’s Island is said to be the best on the 
west coast. at 

Mr. Panton’s contribution upon the Silurian strata 
of Red River Valley, Manitoba, was of local interest, 
and referred to a structure that is not indicated upon 
the new geological map of the dominion, for want of 
sufficient information. The same material is already 
in the hands of the Canadian survey, and will appear 
in due time. 

The principal discussion of the first day’s meeting 
was called forth by Professor Claypole’s paper upon 
the crumpling of the earth’s crust as shown by a sec- 
tion across Huntingdon, Juniata, and Perry counties 
in Pennsylvania, a distance of sixty-five miles. The 
speaker showed that the folding of the strata along 
this line, and especially of those in Cumberland val- 
ley, has caused a shortening from an original length 
of about one hundred miles to the present sixty-five 
miles. Although Professor Claypole’s method of 
obtaining the original length of this line was a mathe- 
matical one, and though the folding of the Cumber- 
land-valley strata is a series of overturns, such an ex- 
tensive contraction of the earth’s crust was more than 
the section was prepared to accept without question. 
Doubt was expressed in regard to the trustworthiness 
of the data; while another member, in endeavoring 
to solve this very problem, basing his estimates upon 
Professor Lesley’s maps, had computed a contraction 
of eighteen miles over a part of the section where 
Professor Claypole had made out thirty-two. It was 
also suggested that the thinning of the beds by 
crushing in the folded parts had been left out of 
account. 

It was replied to these objections, that the data 
were as trustworthy as it was possible to obtain; that 
absolute accuracy was not claimed for the figures, 
for in such a case it was impossible; and that, at the 
least estimate, the eighteen miles remained to be 
accounted for over one part of the section line. The 
possible thinning of the beds had been left out of 
account, because, if such a thing had taken place in 
this instance, it was more than counterbalanced by 
the tangential pressure that caused the folding. 

The 29th was devoted to the discussion of phe- 
nomena relating to, and supposed to be the results of, 
glacial action. Professor Lewis spoke upon the mar- 
ginal kames of Pennsylvania as distinguished from 
the moraine; and Dr. Newberry followed with a short 
lecture upon the last phases in the evolution of the 


/ 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884. ] 


North American continent. He pointed out the evi- 
dences of a genial climate at the close of the miocene 
and pliocene, which were soon followed by the age of 
ice; traced the southern limit of the ice-sheet across 
the continent as far as it has been observed, and ex- 
pressed his belief in two glacial periods. 

These papers were discussed together. Professor 
James Geikie was uhable to draw any sharp line 
separating moraines and kames, for they merge into 
each other in such a manner that one cannot say 
where one leaves off and the other begins. Kames 
he regarded as partly morainic, and partly of subgla- 
cial origin; and he was in accord with Dr. Newberry in 
regard to the break in the glacial period. Sir William 
Dawson was inclined to think that water was largely 
instrumental in producing the work attributed to ice, 
and referred to the evidences in eastern North Amer- 
ica, of the warm interval during the ice age. Dr. 
Selwyn briefly proposed a possible explanation of the 
supposed power of ice to excavate, in solid rocks, 
basins like those of the great lakes. He referred to 
the profound decomposition of rocks observed in 
Australia and inthe gneiss of Brazil. In Australia 
this decomposition was sometimes two hundred and 
fifty feet deep; and he thought it possible that ice, 
entering such a region, would be able to make such 
basins as those of the great lakes. Professor Spencer, 
of the university of Missouri, contributed some of 
the results of his own work upon the subject of the 
origin of the basin of Lake Ontario, which led him 
to believe that this lake basin, at least, was not of 
glacial origin. Professor Hall of New York called 
attention to the fact that the axes of the lakes are 
along the lines of outcrop of the rocks, and that the 
basins are excavated in the softer material. 

Four other contributions, relating in one way or 
another to the glacial period, were read without 
much discussion; and the theories concerning the 
causes of the ice age were taken up. The Rev. Mr. 
Hill classed the theories as cosmical, terrestrial, and 
astronomical. The first class was not regarded as 
worthy of consideration, while terrestrial theories 
were as readily disposed of as being more or less un- 
satisfactory. Attention was directed especially to the 
theory of Dr. Croll, a combination of the precession 
and eccentricity theories. It was held that the part 
of Croll’s explanations regarding fogs, deflection of 
currents, and the like, would support any or all 
theories alike. His conclusion was, that the altera- 
tion of currents and winds seemed to be the most 
powerful causes thus far suggested. 

That part of Croll’s theory regarding the greater 
eccentricity of the earth’s orbit was attacked by Mr. 
W. F. Stanley in another paper. He could not con- 
ceive of the earth’s initial temperature having been 
lower, or of the sun’s heating power being less, and 
that therefore glaciation could not have depended 
upon such conditions. He regarded it as a local phe- 
nomenon, due to aérial and oceanic currents. 

There was no session on the 30th, the day being 
given over to excursions. ‘To the English geologists 
the occasion was a welcome one; and under the guid- 
ance of members of the geological survey of Can- 


“| 


SCIENCE. 


259 


ada, and of the local committee, they visited Ottawa, 
Ausable Chasm, Lake Memphremagog, Quebec, and 
various localities in the immediate vicinity of Mont- 
real, . 

The prominent questions coming before the section 
on the Ist were those regarding archaean rocks, 
Professor Bonney opened the question with a lengthy 
paper upon these rocks in England, and made some 
comparisons with those of Canada. Dr. T. Sterry 
Hunt followed, treating of the eozoic rocks of North 
America. The paper was a résumé of some of Dr. 
Hunt’s old work. As might have been expected, the 
very use of the word ‘eozoic’ was followed by some 
shaking of the head among the members; and, at the 
close of Dr. Hunt’s reading, the use of the word was 
criticised as taking for granted a question which is 
still in dispute. The writer held, however, that his 
use of the word did not depend solely upon whether 
the supposed Eozoon canadense were the remains of 
a living organism, but upon the evidences of organic 
life having come into existence at or about the geolo- 
gical age referred to. 

Professor Hall discussed the question at some 
length, and expressed the conviction that the solution 
of the problem lay in the study, not of large masses 
of rock, but in the study of junctures. 

Every one was interested to hear what Sir William 
Dawson would say upon this question. He appeared 
to speak with some hesitation, due doubtless to the 
opposition to his well-known theories. He had but 
little to say; urging as a reason, that he was but poorly 
qualified to discuss the question from the standpoint 
from which it was being viewed, —namely, that of a 
chemical geologist. He said that he had spent his 
time in trying to find fossils in these rocks, and had 
got but little thanks for his labor. He would not 
enter the question in regard to Eozoon here. A 
co-laborer has the whole matter in hand now, and 
will soon publish all that is known. Major Powell 
was called upon, but limited himself to saying that 
we were not much disturbed by the question in the 
States, but were limiting ourselves to mapping the 
regions covered by these archean rocks. 

The paper by Prof. J. D. Dana upon the southward 
ending of a great synclinal in the Taconic range was 
read by Professor Brewer, and elicited some very 
heated and severe protests on the part of Dr. Hunt. 
He insisted that the structure referred to was known 
twenty years ago, that the metamorphosis of sedi- 
mentary beds assumed by Professor Dana was unten- 
able, and that there was no vestige of a proof of such 
a thing. Professor Brewer replied in behalf of Pro- 
fessor Dana, that recent and thorough work had been 
done in the region referred to, and that nothing was 
stated upon assumption. Major Powell was astounded 
that Dr. Hunt should speak as he did, if the structure 
was as represented; and he called upon him to either 
give his reasons for such statements, or to retract 
them, for the only way to attack such a question was 
to attack the structure. Professor Hall opposed Dr. 
Hunt’s position, and vouched for the structure as rep- 
resented; and Dr. Selwyn spoke of the existence in 
British Columbia of crystalline rocks in the carbon- 


260 


iferous. Mr. Topley of the English survey then 
spoke of the general acceptance, by the various Euro- 
pean surveys, of the theory of the change of sedi- 
mentary to crystalline rocks; and here the discussion 
of the archean rocks ended. 

Members of the English survey exhibited maps col- 
ored so as to represent the solid geology; and others, 
of the same places showing the geology as it is actu- 
ally seen upon the surface, that is, including the 
drift. This latter was regarded as valuable in con- 
nection with questions of water supply. Doubt was 
expressed, however, about the value of such surface 
maps save for local and temporary purposes, and it 
was suggested that some method be devised by which 
it would be possible to represent both solid and sur- 
face geology upon the same sheet. 

The plan of Mr. Gilbert, of the U.S. geological 
survey, for a subject bibliography of North American 
geology, elicited some discussion. The section evi- 
dently felt a deeper interest in this paper than it was 
ready to express on so short a notice. 

A brief account of his work upon the Jurassie 
mammals of America was given by Professor Marsh. 
Six years ago no Jurassic mammal was known; but 
five years ago they were found in Wyoming, and from 
one pocket alone from three to four hundred individ- 
uals have been taken, representing eight genera and 
twenty species. 

Sir William Dawson spoke at some length upon the 
ancient land flora of the old and new world, calling 
attention to the striking correspondence found in 
countries widely separated. 

Two paleontological papers by Mr. G. F. Mathews 
were spoken of in high terms, especially by the Cana- 
dian geologists; and the hope was expressed, that if, 
as had been suggested, one of the Canadian papers 
should be published in full by the association, the 
one upon the primitive Conocoryphean should be 
selected. 

A paper by Prof. J. Milne, upon the earthquake 
phenomena in Japan, referred to the mechanical diffi- 
culties to be dealt with in his observations, and de- 
scribed a new earthquake house he has built upon 
large balls resting upon iron plates. Three hundred 
and eighty-seven earthquakes had been observed by 
him, eighty-seven per cent of which came from the 
sea. 

Sir William Dawson then went over the leading 
facts worked out by Dr. Hall in his forthcoming 
geology of Palestine. 

The last paper presented was by Mr. P. Hallett, 
and consisted of notes on Niagara Falls. For Ameri- 
can geologists they contained nothing new. 

It will be seen that nothing striking or new was 
presented to the section; indeed, some of the pro- 
ductions have been served up already a number of 
times and in various forms. But any thing different 
was hardly to be expected. The meeting was re- 
markable for bringing together workers in geology 
from every quarter of the globe. From Japan was 
Lyman, and a paper was read from Milne; from India 
were Blanford and Ball; from Australia were Blan- 
ford and Selwyn; from Africa was T. Rupert Jones; 


SCIENCE. 


from Palestine was Professor Bauerman, and a paper 


was read from Hull; from Brazil was Branner; from "- 
England, Scotland, and Ireland, were the various 


members from those countries; from the States were 
Hall, Newberry, Marsh, Powell, and many others; 


while the Canadian workers were represented by — 


Dawson, Selwyn, Whiteaves, and Adams. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION 
BIOLOGY. 


In opening the biological section Thursday, Aug. 
28, the president of that section, Prof. H. N. Moseley, 
delivered an address upon the physiology of deep-sea 
life. Well fitted as Professor Moseley is to discuss 
the subject of deep-sea life, on account of his long 
participation in its investigation during the voyage 
of the Challenger, his address was not only a criti- 
cal and discriminating review of some of the later 
results arrived at by other observers and experiment- 
ers, but was supplemented by many valuable state- 
ments and suggestions of his own. 

Mr. C. Spence Bate, of Plymouth, Eng., read a 
paper on the geographical distribution of the macru- 
rous Crustacea, which embodied many important 
notes on form, color, habits, and habitats of different 
genera of these animals. In allusion to points men- 
tioned by Mr. Bate, Professor Moseley said that 
deep-sea forms either had very large eyes or had no 
eyes, and that there must be a source of light in the 
deep sea; that source was phosphorescence, but its 
light must be very dim. ‘The guestion was still un- 
answered, whether the larvae of deep-sea crustacea 
were found at the surface, as are the larvae of other 
crustaceans, and had to descend two or three miles 
through the ocean to reach their feeding grounds as 
adults. 

Prof. W. J. Sollas, of Dublin, read a long paper 
on the origin of fresh-water faunas. The main diffi- 
culties in the way of most marine animals becoming 
inhabitants of fresh water were considered under 
three different heads: first, the time requisite for the 
animals to adapt themselves to the new medium; 
second, the greater severity of climate experienced 
by animals in fresh water than in salt water; and, 
third, the inability of marine animals with free- 
swimming larval stages to enter the mouths of fresh- 
water streams, or to breed in flowing streams if 
they gained access to them. In regard to climate, 
it is a fact that many marine forms become fresh- 
water ones as we approach the tropics. But severity 
of the climate of fresh water is not alone sufficient 
to account for the absence from it of many families 
well represented in marine faunas. Professor Sollas 
had prepared an extensive table, comparing by orders 
and by families the animals of fresh with those of 
salt water, and finds as a rule, with some exceptions, 


OF 


which he accounts for by peculiarities of life-history, — 
that fresh-water animals carry their ova in or about 


them during the earlier stages of development, or 
they develop by buds or statoblasts. Some marine 


: 
; 
q 


forms have passed from the ocean into marshes, and ~ 


; ‘ 
. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


thence into streams; while other forms, especially 
during earlier geological times, owe their transfer 
into fresh water to the changing of marine into 
lacustrine areas. Professor Sollas reviewed some of 
the relations which the origin of certain fresh-water 
forms have to geological periods and changes, and 
considered some of the causes of modification of 
form and of prolongation of embryonic life of marine 
animals. 

On the succeeding days a few-papers upon the geo- 
graphical distribution of animals were presented. 
Dr. G. E. Dobson pointed out that many of the most 
characteristic species of the chiropterous fauna of 
Australia have their nearest allies not in the Oriental 
but in the Ethiopian region, and instanced the pres- 
ence of species of certain genera of bats in Mada- 
gascar and Australia which were poorly or not at all 
represented in India. We are therefore obliged, for 
this and other reasons, to suppose, that, at a com- 
paratively recent period, a chain of islands connected 
Madagascar with Australia; the islands being suffi- 
ciently far apart to prevent the distribution of ter- 
restrial mammals, yet near enough to permit the 
occasional passage of flying species. Later, a tem- 
porary connection of a similar kind probably ex- 
tended between Madagascar and India. Treating 
geographical distribution of animals ina less general 
manner, was a paper by Mr. Howard Saunders on 
the geographical distribution of the Laridae (the gulls 
and terns), with special reference to Canadian 
species. 

As to the distribution of plants, Professor Asa Gray, 
in his remarks on the characteristic features of North- 
American vegetation, called attention to the resem- 
blances and the differences between the flora of North 
America and that of Europe, and to the causes of 
these resemblances and differences. The similarity 
of the trees of the Atlantic border to those of Europe 
was alluded to, and its cause discussed; and mention 
was made of the pleasure which the European botanist 
would experience in finding, in the new world, plants 
growing wild which are cultivated in the gardens of 
Europe. Among these are species of Rhododendron, 
Cypripedium, and Coreopsis. Turning to the differ- 
ences between the flora of Europe and America, the 
wealth of species of trees and shrubs in the latter 
country was illustrated by numerical comparisons of 
the species of oaks and of many other trees in Canada 
with those found in England. Besides the far more 
numerous kinds of leguminous trees, and the remark- 
able wealth in species of Compositae which is notice- 
able in America, there are many tropical plants which 
extend northward into the United States. Such are 
various trees, and Sarracenia, Passiflora, Tillandsia, 
and numerous other herbaceous plants. After dis- 
cussion of the part which the ice of the glacial period 
played in the distribution of plants over Europe and 
North America, Professor Gray reviewed the charac- 
teristics of the flora of the middle and western por- 
tions of North America. This paper was one of the 
few which the general committee voted to print in 
full in its proceedings. 

Remotely connected as it is with the question of 


a 


SCIENCE. 


261 


the distribution of trees in the United States, atten- 
tion may be called to the Jesup collection in the New- 
York museum of natural history, which was briefly 
described in a paper by Prof. A. S. Bickmore. This 
collection, besides illustrating the wood, bark, leaves, 
and other parts of the trees of the United States, by 
dried specimens or by figures, inside the museum, is 
supplemented by having the trees about the museum 
numbered to correspond with the specimens, so that 
immediate reference can be made to the museum by 
any one who wishes to learn more about a tree seen 
in the park. 

On the question of the affinities of different groups 
of animals, as shown by their anatomy or develop- 
ment, several papers of importance were read; but of 
the greatest value was the announcement made in a 
brief telegram from Professor Liversedge, in Aus- 
tralia, announcing that Mr. W. H. Caldwell, who is 
in Australia in order to study the development of 
some of the curious animals found there, had dis- 
covered that the Monotremata are oviparous, and 
that the egg is meroblastic. No statement was given 
in the telegram as to whether the facts were deter- 
mined as regards Ornithorhynchus or Echidna; but 
the main points of interest are the discovery of the 
oviparous habits of a mammal, and the meroblastic 
development of its egg, as in reptiles, since the eggs 
of mammals are regularly holoblastic. This shows 
that we must turn to the reptiles for the ancestors of 
the mammals. 

Prof. O. C. Marsh read a paper on the classification 
and affinities of dinosaurian reptiles. It was replete 
with facts derived from the large amount of material 
which has been accumulated within the last half- 
dozen years. Three orders were recognizable in the 
herbivorous, and one order in the carnivorous dino- 
saurs. In the carnivorous groups we have forms with 
greatly enlarged pelvis, and animals that sat down. 
One of them which was found the past year, Cerato- 
saurus, exhibits new characters for a dinosaur. The 
vertebrae are smooth in front and concave behind. 
The pelvis is made up of three codssified bones, as it 
is in birds, and not of separate bones as in Archae- 
opteryx and in other dinosaurs. Ceratosaurus also 
agreed with adult birds in having the three meta- 
tarsal bones coossified. ‘The dinosaurs are thus shown 
to be very closely related to birds; and, in answer to 
a question, Professor Marsh called attention to the 
correspondence between the double sternum of larger 
dinosaurs and the ossification of the sternum from 
two centres in young birds. i 

Prof. A. Milnes Marshall showed, in a paper on 
the mutual relation of the recent groups of echino- 
derms, that Carpenter was correct in regarding the 
central capsule with its radiating axial cords in 
Comatula as the central nervous system, while the 
subepithelial bands, which Ludwig and others have 
regarded to be the true nervous system, are, in reality, 
nervous in character, but of subordinate importance. 
Professor Marshall has proved these points by a series 
of conclusive experiments, which he conducted at 
Naples upon the living animals. In regard to the 
homologues of the parts of the nervous system of 


262 


erinoids in other echinoderms, Professor Marshall 
says, ‘“‘I consider that in crinoids the subepithelial 
bands most certainly are homologous with the radial 
or ambulacral nerves of a star-fish; and I consider 
that they represent a part of a continuous nerve- 
sheath which has retained permanently its primitive 
continuity with the epidermis. The axial cords, 
some of the branches of which can be traced into 
extremely close proximity with the subepithelial 
bands, I regard as portions of the antambulacral nerve- 
sheath which, like the radial cords of echinids, 
ophiurids, and holothurids, have lost the primitive 
position, and shifted into or through the dermis.”’ 

Mr. William Bateson, in a paper read by the sec- 
retary, upon the presence in the Enteropneusta of 
a structure comparable with the notochord of the 
Chordata, made some interesting comparisons in re- 
gard to the relative positions of the nervous system 
the digestive tract, and the supposed notochord in 
Balanoglossus and in vertebrates. He added further 
comparisons between this animal and the vertebrates, 
and between its larva ‘ Tornaria’ and the larvae of 
echinoderms. 

Among anatomical papers containing facts which 
have a less general bearing on theories of animal 
relationship may be mentioned, as of especial interest 
or importance, the following: Pson coer Moseley de- 
scribed the position and minute structure, as deter- 
mined from sections, of the eyes and other sense 
organs in the shells of the Chitonidae. The same 
gentleman showed that the arrangement of the feath- 
ers in groups of three each in the dodo had a close 
connection with the filoplumae, or thread-feathers, 
one of which is found at each side of the feathers 
of birds of the dove-family, near which the dodo is 
placed. Earlier in the development of the doves’ 
feathers, the filiplumae are larger, relative to the size 


SCIENCE. 


ite ee fs 


[VoL. IV., No. 34 


+, © 


of the other feathers; and this condition resembles 


still more the comic found in the dodo. Prof. R. 


Ramsey Wright described the histological structure of — 


certain sensory organs of the skin of the horned-pout 
(Amiurus), and discussed the function of the air-blad- 
der in the same fish, and the relation of its air-bladder 
to the auditory apparatus. Prof. J. Struthers, of 
Aberdeen, described the rudimentary hind limb of 
the hump-backed whale (Megaptera longimana), and 
compared its thigh-bone with the same bone in other 
cetaceans. In a hump-backed whale forty feet long; 
the thigh-bone was entirely cartilaginous, being on 
one side four inches, and on the other five and a half 
inches long. 

As a contribution to our knowledge of curious 
habits of plants, Prof. H. N. Moseley communicated 
some observations on the trapping of young fish by 
Utricularia vulgaris, a water-weed. After sketching 
and describing the bladders of this plant, which have 
been known for a long time to capture small crustacea, 
the speaker said that it had been lately discovered that 
these bladders also entrap young fishes. The fish, 
usually caught by the tail, is often, on account of its 
struggling, gradually drawn almost entirely into the 
bladder. 

At the beginning of the session on Friday the 29th, 
reports of several committees were presented, among 
them that on the Naples zoological station. In this 
report, after mention of the various undertakings of 
the station, and of the work accomplished by Mr. A. 
G. Bourne and by Prof. A. Milnes Marshall, the two 
late occupants of the British association table at the 
station, the committee recommended that the associa- 
tion renew its grant for the table, and increase the 
amount paid to a hundred pounds (instead of eighty 
and ninety pounds as in previous years). This rec- 
ommendation was adopted by the association. 


RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


Trenton natural-history society. 


Aug. 12.— Dr. C. C. Abbott continued his re- 
marks on the life-history of Scaphiopus solitarius, 
the spade-footed hermit-toad. The adult toads ap- 
peared in April, when they presumably did not 
deposit eggs, and in June, on the 26th of which 
month eggs were laid. These hatched by July 3, 
and six days later the tadpoles showed small hind- 
legs. In thirty-one days after laying the eggs, the 
young resembled the adults in all except size, and, 
when placed on wet sand, at once buried themselves. 
Before leaving the water, they tend to prey upon each 
other. —— Dr. A.C. Stokes remarked in reference 
to a captive Tarantula arenicola, that, having been 
deprived of building-materials, she erected a wall of 
earth and small pebbles, and on July 8 formed an 
irregular dome over the burrow, leaving a central 
opening, which she closed with web. July 28 she 


destroyed the dome, and emerged with her abdomen 
thickly covered with young spiders. Although the 
latter were presumably only ten days old, they were 
becoming venturesome. They swarmed over the 
mother; but, when trespassing on her face, they were 
swept off by a stroke of her leg, and allowed to run 
back to her body. Occasionally they climbed up the 
tube, and wandered about the surface. Formerly 
the mother was very timid, retreating into the bur- 
row when the observer arrived at a point twelve feet 
from the entrance; but, after the young appeared, 
she permitted the observer to approach and move 
about at pleasur». She also accepted food from the 
hand. She took 1 fly, and remained at the surface 
sucking its juices. The fly was removed from her 
mandibles by forceps, and a black ant offered; but it 
was thrown away as she throws away the excavated 


earth. A full account of the habits of this airs . 


will be found in Science, iv. 114. 


F 
= 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


Cincinnati society of natural history. 


Aug. 5.— Mr. U. P. James presented a paper on 
conodonts and fossil annelid jaws from the lower 
Silurian of south-western Ohio. The only annelid 
heretofore noticed from these rocks in Ohio is that 
described by Prof. G. B. Grinnell in Amer. journ. sc., 
September, 1877, under the name of Nereidavus vari- 
ans, and referred to the jaw apparatus of an annelid. 
Mr. James has discovered other forms which are 
similar in character. They occur as small, dark, 
shining objects, varied in form, and detached from 
each other, of a glossy black tint, though changed by 
weathering to a rusty red. They are composed of 
chitinous matter, and undergo no change in nitric 
acid. Mr. James has identified some of the forms 
with species described by Mr. G. J. Hinde. Cono- 
donts were first noticed by Pander, in 1856, and have 
been referred to as fish-teeth. Though their zoologi- 
cal relations cannot be finally determined until found 
in position, the best authorities agree in thinking 
them the lingual armature of large naked mollusks. 
Dr. Newberry has described conodonts from the Cleve- 
land shale of the Waverly group in Ohio, and Mr. 
Hinde figures forms from the Silurian of Canada, and 
Devonian of the United States. They are now identi- 
fied from the Cincinnati group of Ohio, some of the 
forms being identical with those from Canada and 
England. Mr. Charles Dury stated that he thought 
the Oswego and black bass (Micropterus dolemieu 
and M. nigricans) were but forms of one species. The 
black bass is always found in swift-running streams, 
while the Oswego bass inhabits sluggish waters, 
ponds, and lakes. The Oswego bass is of a much 
larger size, lighter color, and has a larger mouth, than 
the black bass: hence the name of the white or large- 
mouthed bass. Ross Lake, an artificial pond near 
Cincinnati of about forty acres, was stocked a few 
years ago with black bass. It now swarms with the 
other form. Though many specimens of M. dolemieu 
have been taken, not a single M. nigricans has been 
caught, as far as known. Other instances were cited 
in which the large-mouthed species had appeared in 
ponds which were stocked with the small-mouthed 
form. Mr. Dury concluded that the Oswego bass isa 
variety of the black species, due to a difference in 
habit and to a superabundance of food. Dr. W. A. 
Dun said that he had caught the large-mouthed 
species in the Kanawha River, under the falls, though 
he thought that Mr. Dury’s conclusion was in the 
main correct. Dr. D. S. Young agreed with Mr. 
Dury. He said, that, as far as color was concerned, 
he had observed that to vary with the season. The 
fish were of a lighter color in summer and in warm 
water than in winter and in cool water. He had caught 
the large-mouthed bass in rapid-flowing streams, 
under circumstances which showed that they had 
probably escaped from overflowed ponds or dams. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THE McGill university convocation conferred upon 
the following members of the British association, at 


_ 


SCIENCE. 


263 


its final meeting in Montreal, the honorary degree of 
LL.D.: Lord Rayleigh, the Governor-general of Can- 
ada, Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir William Thomson, Profes- 
sor Bonney, Professor Frankland, Captain Douglas 
Galton, A. G. Vernon Harcourt, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, 
Professor Blanford, Professor Moseley, General Le- 
froy, Sir Richard Temple, Sir Frederick Bramwell, 
Dr. E. B. Tylor; also upon the president of Toronto 
university, Professor Daniel Wilson, Professor Asa 
Gray of Harvard, and Professor James Hall, New 
York state geologist. 


— At the recent meeting of the British association 
in Montreal, the general committee appropriated to 
scientific purposes certain grants of money for the 
ensuing year, amounting in all to £1,515. In the 
department of mathematics and physics, the largest 
sum (£100) is devoted to the calculation of mathe- 
matical tables; £70 is to be used in the investigations 
on meteoric dust; synoptic charts of the Indian ocean 
and meteorological observations on Ben Nevis each 
receive £50; one-half this sum is devoted to mete- 
orological observations near Chepster; £20 is given 
for the study of solar radiation, and £10 for the 
reduction of tidal observations in the English chan- 
nel. In chemistry, £25 is devoted to vapor pressures 
and refractive indices of salt solutions, £20 to physi- 
cal constants of solutions, and £5 to chemical no- 
menclature. In geology, for voleanic phenomena of 
Vesuvius, £25; for the Raygill fissure, £15; for earth- 
quake phenomena of Japan, £75; for fossil Phyl- 
lopoda of the British paleozoic rocks, £25; for fossil 
plants of British tertiary and secondary beds, £50; 
for geological record, £50; for erosion of sea-coasts 
in England, £10; for circulation of underground 
waters in England, £10. In biology, fora table at 
the zoological station at Naples, £100; for a record 
of zoological literature, £100; for observations on 
the migration of birds, at light-houses and light-ships 
in England, £30; for an exploration of Kilimanjaro 
and the adjoining mountains of equatorial Africa, 
£25; for recent Polyzoa, £10; for the marine biologi- 
cal station at Granton, Scotland, £100; for marine 
biological stations on the coast of the United King- 
dom, £150. In geography, appropriations were made 
for the exploration of New Guinea by Mr. Forbes to 
the amount of £200; and the exploration of Mount 
Roraima, in Guiana, by im Thurn, £100. In the 
department of mechanics, £5 was devoted to patent 
legislation. In anthropoloyy, £50 is to be used for 
the investigation of characteristics, physical and 
otherwise, of the north-western tribes of Canada; 
and £10 for the study of the physical characteristics 
of races in the British isles. 


— The Annuaire of the bureau of longitudes of 
Paris for 1884 (p. 847) contains M. Janssen’s report 
on the French expedition to observe the total solar 
eclipse of 1883, May 6. The text of this report has 
been previously printed in the Comptes rendus: and 
it is referred to here principally to call attention to 
the photograph of the corona given on p. 852, which 
did not accompany the report in the first instance. 
This photograph was made with a camera, mounted 


264 


equatorially, which had an objective of eight inches 
aperture, and a focal length of about forty-seven 
inches. The exposure was over five minutes. 

The diameter of the sun is about three-eighths of 
an inch, and the coronal outline is in general quite 
thirty minutes from the sun’s limb. Streamers extend 
more than twice this distance from the limb. 

There is no great amount of detail in this picture, 
as was to be expected; and we shall look for the pub- 
lication of the photographs of shorter exposure with 
interest. 

One important fact is stated by M. Janssen; to wit, 
that, so far as his photographs have been examined, 
they show no trace of an intra-mercurial planet. 


— Mr. Cochery, the French minister of posts and 
telegraphs, according to the Science monthly, reports 
to the’ French academy of sciences, that there were 
in France, during the first half of the year 1883 (from 
the beginning of January to the end of June), the 
following strokes of lightning. In January there was 
a stroke injuring a man who carried an open um- 
brella with metal ribs. In February there were no 
strokes at all, In March there were four strokes, 
damaging unprotected buildings and a high oak-tree. 
In April there were only four strokes, injuring sev- 
eral persons, some poplar trees, a weathercock, a bell- 
tower, and an isolated building. In May there were 
twenty-eight strokes, killing two men, seven cattle, 
three horses, and injuring several persons and two 
horses, as well as numerous trees and houses. The 
trees were oaks, chestnuts, poplars; and several of 
the strokes attacked the chimneys of the houses. It 
is notable that a gilt wooden figure of Christ in front 
of the church of Bonsecours (Seine inférieure) was 
struck, although the church has a lightning-rod on 
it. During the month of June the total number of 
strokes largely increased; there being no less than a 
hundred and thirteen, or from three to four a day. 
The daily number varied during the month, but was, 
if any thing, larger at the end than at the beginning 
of the month. Seven men were killed. About forty 
persons — men, women, and children — were injured. 
Some seventy animals were killed, including fifty 
sheep and adog. Many trees, oaks, poplars, elms, firs, 
were struck. A common object struck is the bell of 
some church, the chimney of some house, or the 
weathercock of a barn. Some of the strokes were 
received by the lightning-rods of buildings, and did 
no harm, except, perhaps, fusing the point of the rod. 
On the other hand, several accidents to buildings, 
and in one case death to a horse, occurred within a 
comparatively short distance of a lightning-rod (from 
fifty to eighty metres). Isolated trees, and animals 
under them, appeared to have suffered most. Rain 
and hail accompanied most of the storms, 


— Mr. Frederick John Smith writes to the Electrical 
review as follows: — 


** Considerable trouble has been felt by those who are engaged 
in practical problems connected with secondary batteries, aris- 
ing from imperfections in the cells for holding the dilute acid, 
and also from the fact that the plates of a charged secondary bat- 
tery cannot be lifted out of the liquid, in order that any required 
area may be exposed to the action of the acid, without the rest 


SCIENCE. 


ae: a eee 


(J the reduced lead on the kathode plates being at once acted on 


by the oxygen of the air. To meet these difficulties, I have car- 
ried out the following methods: The cells are made of common 
pottery-ware about two centimetres thick. All sharp corners 
should be avoided in the moulding of the cells, because they do 
not stand the process of cooling well, while rounded corners 
seldom crack during cooling. These rough porous cells are 
warmed slowly in an oven, to such a temperature that paraffine- 
wax melts easily when rubbed against them. The cells, on be- 
ing removed from the oven, are partly filled with paraffine-wax : 
this is made to run well over the whole inner surface of the cell. 
As soon as the wax begins to set, it is poured out, and the cell is 


put away tocool. A cellso made stands acid well; and the dilute ~ 


acid does not creep up the sides of the cell, as it does in the 
common glazed cell. Another method, used at an earlier date 
than the one just mentioned, was to make deal boxes of the size 
required, and place inside them card-boxes (held out by sand), 
so that there was a space of about one centimetre between 
them. This space was filled with common paraffine-wax; then, 
the card-box being removed, a perfect lining of wax was left. 
This method is more costly than the last, but has the advantage of 
greater strength. The test of two years’ constant use has shown 
that both these forms of secondary battery cells are both prac- 
tical and lasting. When using a secondary battery in the labora- 
tory, it would sometimes be convenient to be able to expose only 
some part of the plates to the action of the dilute acid; but, as 
things now are, this cannot be done without the part of the plates 
which are lifted out being at once acted on by the oxygen of the 
air. To prevent this action taking place, the plates are drawn 
out of the liquid into the vapor of benzol (after several ex- 
periments with different gases, this appeared to answer well, and 
to be easily managed). By this means the injurious action men- 
tioned is prevented, and any required amount of surface of plate 
may be exposed to the action of the dilute acid.” 

— The Revue scientifique states, that, notwithstand- 
ing the ravages caused by the Phylloxera, France is 
the country which furnishes commerce with the great- 
est quantity of wine. 
millions of hectolitres produced by Europe in 1881, 
France furnished thirty-four millions; while the 
average from Italy, Spain, and Austrian Hungary 
was only from twenty to twenty-five millions, and 
that of Germany, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Rouma- 
nia, and Switzerland, varied from four millions in 
Portugal, to one million in Switzerland. At present 
France supplies its lack of harvest by importing wines 
which it again exports, doctored, and mixed with its 
own. It receives wines especially from Spain, Italy, 
Portugal, and Greece. It treats the settlings, the 
residuum of the native harvest, with sugar, alcohol, 
and water, and thus makes wines known as the 
‘second vat.’ It also makes wine of raisins received 
from neighboring high countries and from Syria. To 
the raisins, softened in water, sugar and alcohol are 
added, one kilogram of raisins yielding from three to 
four litres of a harmless wine. This manufacture is 
carried on especially at Marseilles, at Cette, at Bor- 
deaux, and at Bercy. The importation of raisins into 
France amounts to seventy thousand tons, represent- 
ing thirty eight million francs: these raisins give 
about three million hectolitres of wine. The wines 
of the second vat amount to about the same quan- 
tity. 

— Victor Giraud writes from Karema in good 


-health. He had spent a month on Lake Bangweolo, 


where several errors of the charts of Livingstone were 
corrected, among others the position of the Luapulu 
River, which really comes out of the south-west part 
of the lake, instead of the north-west. This part of 


Of the hundred and fifteen 


£4 


a 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


the work was undertaken with eight men, the remain- 
der of the caravan waiting for Giraud near Kazembe. 
Harassed by the natives, their boat was finally aban- 
doned near the cataract of Mombottuta. Atten days’ 
march they reached the chief of the Muaumi, who 
detained them in semi-captivity two months. Finally 
escaping, they crossed Itahua, and reached Tangan- 
yika and Karema by the 14th of February last. Gi- 
raud intended to remain there about a month, then to 
return to M’para, and attempt to reach Leopoldville 
by traversing Marungu and the Lualaba on about the 
6th parallel. 


— Bishop Levinhac has left Tabora, and is momen- 
tarily expected at Zanzibar. The stations under his 
supervision were flourishing at last accounts, as were 
those of the Péres du Saint-Esprit. 


— ‘ Bird nomenclature of the Chippewa Indians’ is 
the heading of an instructive linguistic article in- 
serted by W. W. Cooke in the July number of the 
Auk. The Ojibwé names of one hundred and twenty- 
six birds, most of them with their etymologies, are 
enumerated in this paper; and it may be safely said 
that only a naturalist can obtain the Indian equiva- 
lents of so many species with so much accuracy as 
we see it done by Cooke. These Indians give names 
to all winter residents, since at that time bird-life is 
so scarce that each one is accurately noticed; but of 
summer residents they know with distinctness only 
those hunted for food. 

As stated by Cooke, nearly one-half of the bird 
names given by Bishop Baraga in his celebrated 
Ojibwe dictionary have wrong definitions. If true, 
this will go to show, that, to take down correctly the 
Indian equivalents for objects of nature, the collector 
has to be a linguist and a naturalist at the same time; 
but it is by no means certain that the Indian names 
of birds and other animals do not sometimes shift 
from one object to another similar one. Ridgway, 
Cope, Gabb, and others have paid considerable atten- 
tion to the gathering of Indian terms of natural his- 
tory; and it is desirable that other naturalists follow 
their example, giving the etymology of each name, if 
traceable. 


— Many local names occurring along the Mosel 
and the Middle Rhine have, through their quaint and 
foreign sounds, proved attractive to historians and lin- 
guists. Hubert Marjan, their most recent investiga- 
tor, has just published the fourth instalment of his 
critical researches (Rheinische ortsnamen, 39 p.) on 
the subject, in which he follows the only true method 
to disclose the origin of names, which is the historic 
one. The early orthographies of names, as found in 
Roman authors and in the more ancient mediaeval 
parchments, necessarily come nearer to the original 
forms than the name-forms we use to-day: hence 
Marjan bases his conclusions upon the earlier forms, 
and in the majority of instances his results meet our 
approval. The most ancient topographic names of 
these parts are Celtic; but the names of Low-Latin 
and Romaiuce origin far exceed the Celtic ones in 
number, the German names being late additions. 
Thus Nehren is derived from nucaria (silva), ‘ walnut- 


= 


SCIENCE. 


265 


grove;’ Tholey from tilietum, ‘linden-grove;’ Kar- 
meten from carpinetum, ‘horn-beech grove;’ Zons 
from uncia, ‘agricultural field;? Ulpenich from UI- 
pius, a man’s name. In the mountainous tracts of 
the Hunsrick, Maifeld, and Eifel, our author dis- 
covers a considerable sprinkling of Slavic names, but 
neglects to follow up their etymons through all the 
eight or ten Slavic dialects known to us. The exist- 
ence of Slavic names in these western countries is 
explained by the historic fact, that, after a Gothic 
war, the emperor Constantinus settled three hundred 
thousand Sarmatae in various parts of the Roman 
dominions, a part of which can be historically traced 
to the Hunsrick and to the plateau of Langres in 
France (about A.D. 334). Prof. A. Bacmeister had 
previously (1870) attempted to trace local names of 
Bavaria and eastern Wirtemberg to a Slavic origin. 


— We reproduce from La Nature a cut illustrating 
an experiment which shows the pressure of the air 
most markedly. A thin strip of board is rested on 
the edge of a table, its inner end being covered by a 


sheet of paper, as shown. When arranged in this 
manner, it will be found that a sharp blow may be 
given the board, without effect, even if it would fall 
of its own weight without the paper. 


— At a meeting of the Royal astronomical society 
on June 138, Mr. Ranyard read a paper on the cause 
of blurred patches in instantaneous photographs of 
the sun. If the image of a bright star in a reflect- 
ing telescope is observed out of focus, ripples of light 
may be seen passing across the bright disk, which is 
really an image of the speculum, with the flat pro- 
jected on its centre. That these ripples are due to 
the unequal refraction of heated air-currents, Mr. 
Ranyard showed by placing a hot iron in the tube 
of the telescope, which increases the distinctness of 
the ripples, as well as the velocity with which they 
move across the image. In the image of a uniform 
bright disk, their effect is to give rise to areas of greater 
and less brightness, which float across the field as 
the heated air rises. This was proved by means of 
instantaneous photographs of the sun, taken with a 
heated iron in the mouth of the telescope, and when 
the sun was near to the heated roof of a house. 


266 


— An announcement is made in the English me- 
chanic, that oil-bearing strata exist in the neigh- 
borhood of Sibi, southern Afghanistan; and the 
government have determined to procure the neces- 
sary machinery for boring-operations, which, it is 
said, will be commenced next winter. 


— Mr. C. L. Prince of Crowborough has presented 
to the Royal astronomical society a great rarity in the 
shape of a copy of Sherburne’s poetical translation 
of Marcus Manilius, 1675. The volume is valuable 
for the extensive list of oriental astronomers it con- 
tains, and as an English translation of Manilius’s 
Astronomicon poeticon. Mr. Knobel said that for 
six years he had searched all the booksellers’ cata- 
logues without finding it. The library of the Royal 
observatory, Greenwich, came into possession of a 
copy by purchase four or five months ago, and it may 
seem not a little remarkable that two copies of so 
rare a work should come to light almost at the same 
time. 


—A full list of the papers at the International 
conference on education, in connection with the In- 
ternational health exhibition, appeared in Nature for 
July 10. 


— Number xiii. of the signal-service professional 
papers, recently issued, contains the results of an ex- 
tended investigation by Professor William Ferrel on 
the ‘ Temperature of the atmosphere and earth’s 
surface.’ This is Mr. Ferrel’s first memoir completed 
since his engagement under the chief signal-officer: 
it is characterized by the same comprehensive mathe- 
matical treatment of physical problems that marked 
the ‘ Meteorological researches’ which he undertook 
a few years ago for the coast-survey. The broad 
subject of meteorological temperature is arranged 
under four headings, — first, the relative distribution 
of solar radiation on the earth’s surface (the mean 
vertical intensity of solar radiation for one day at the 
top of the atmosphere is here tabulated for twenty- 
four epochs in the year, and for every ten degrees 
of latitude in the northern hemisphere); second, 
the conditions determining the relations between 
the intensities of solar radiation and the resulting 
temperatures, in which the diathermance of the 
atmosphere is considered; third, the general subject 
of actinometry, in which two series of experiments 
give the mean solar constant as 2.255 and 1.991, and 
from these, compared with others, the value 2.2 is 
taken as most probable (it is here concluded that 
stellar heat is insignificant, and that there is no sen- 
sible temperature of space; fourth, the distribution 
of temperature on the earth’s surface, and its varia- 
tions, where, among many conclusions, there may 
be mentioned the determination of —100° C. as the 
approximate mean temperature of the earth with- 
out an atmosphere; 0.213 as the share of dark heat 
radiated vertically from the earth’s surface, which 
escapes through the atmosphere into space; and the 
difference between mean equatorial and polar tem- 
peratures on a dry-land earth at considerably more 
than 115° C., ocean-currents being chiefly responsible 
for diminution of this extreme condition. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 84. 


— The English bark Churchstow, Capt. Adams, 
reports that in a voyage to Columbo, Ceylon, she fell 
in with large quantities of pumice-stone, Feb. 29, 
1884, in latitude 18° south, longitude 738° east. ‘The 
pumice-stone was partly covered with barnacles. 

—It seems that Mr. Cailletet has perfected his 
method for liquefying oxygen; since this body may 
be obtained in sufficiently large quantities to appear 
in the form of a colorless liquid, very volatile, and 
much resembling liquefied sulphurous acid. The 
author began by liquefying ethylene by the aid of 
solid carbonic acid and pressure. By means of this 
he liquefied formene; and, by the cold produced dur- 
ing the evaporization of the formene, oxygen was 
finally liquefied. 

— Nature states that the educational statistics of 
Japan for the past year show that the number of 
common schools throughout the country is 29,081, 
being an increase of 339 as compared with the preced- 
ing year; while the number of scholars is 3,004,137, 
an increase of 596,960; and the number of teachers is 
84,765, being an increase of 8,147. 

— Miss Amelia Edwards, the honorary secretary of 
the ‘Egypt exploration fund,’ has made a communi- 
cation in the Academy about the remains of the statue 
of Ramses II., found by Mr. Petrie at Tanis. These 
remains are of red granite. The statue of Ramses II., 
the contemporary of Moses, was overturned by one 
of his successors, Sheshank III. By an exact exami- 
nation and photography of all which was found, Mr. 
Petrie has come to the conclusion that the statue 
must have had a height of a hundred and fifteen feet, 
and thus exceeded all the monuments of that sort 
hitherto known. The great toe of the statue has a 
circumference of a foot and a half. 


— From a communication of Dr. S. Glasenapp, of 
the Imperial university at St. Petersburg, to the 
Russian newspapers, there are in Russia, as we learn 
from Nature, the following private observatories: one 
at Pervin, near Torjok, in the government of Tver, 
belonging to Gen. Maievsky; another at Bunakovka, 
in the government of Kharkoff, belonging to Prince 
Liven; and one at Odessa, belonging to Mr. Gildesheim. 
A Polish gentleman, Mr. Wuczihowski, is building a 
private observatory at Belkave, near Breslau; and a 
Russian gentleman, W. P. Engelhardt, has a fine ob- 
servatory at Dresden, equipped with an excellent 
twelve-inch refractor and a large spectroscope, as. 
well as a selection of the best physical instruments. — 


— Professor Milne of Japan, says the Athenaeum, 
has established in the lakashima coal-mine, near 
Nagasaki, an underground, or, as he prefers to call it,. 
a cetachthonic, observatory. Thiscolliery is worked 
for some considerable distance under the sea; and it 
is purposed to establish a regular system of observa- 
tions on temperature and pressure, and.on the tides, 
earth-tremors, and the escape of gas, carefully noting 
if any connection exists between them, and establish- 
ing a comparison between surface and subterranean 
phenomena. 

— An interesting statistical statement on the use: — 
of shorthand-writing has been issued by the U.S. — 


i 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1884.] 


bureau of education as the second of its series of 
circulars for 1884, accompanied by a bibliography of 
the subject so far as American and English authors 
are concerned, containing about fourteen hundred 
titles. More than as many German works are known, 
and publications are abundant in other countries. 
A comparative view of a hundred and twelve alpha- 


bets from 1602 to 1882 is given on a single sheet. | 


The use of shorthand has largely increased in the 
United States within the past five years. In Wash- 
ington the management of some of our scientific 
bureaus, on their present extended scale, would be 
almost impossible without it. Certainly the efficiency 
of bureau service is vastly increased by its use. 


— The April number of Memorie della Societa degli 
spettroscopisti italiani contains a paper by Dr. J. Hil- 
fiker, entitled ‘‘ Premiére étude sur les observations 
du diamétre du soleil faites & l’Observatoire de Neu- 
chatel de 1862 4 1883,’’ in which these observations 
are discussed with reference to a supposed variation 
in the apparent angular diaméter of the sun, due to 
or coincident with the periodicity of the solar spots. 
The evidence seems to point toward the coincidence 
of the lesser diameters with the epoch of maximum 
spottedness of the sun’s surface. 


— The rain-band spectroscope has a rival in the 
scintillation of the stars, as shown by the studies of 
Mr. Ch. Montigny (Bull. acad. roy. Belg., April, 1884). 
He finds that blue scintillations are more frequent 
on the approach of rain, and considers this the result 
of the greater quantity of water in the upper atmos- 
phere. On the basis of the recent continued diminu- 
tion of blue scintillations, the author ventures the 
prediction for Belgium, that the series of rainy years 
beginning with 1876 is now happily ended, and that 
a series of drier years is about to begin. The obser- 
vations are of value, but the extension of their con- 
clusions so far into the future does not seem justified. 


—P. Tacchini has recently issued two reports of his 
studies in connection with rainfall, — Nota sulla osser- 
yvazioni pluviometriche eseguite nelle stazioni forestali 
di Vallombrosa e di Cansiglio; Le febbri malariche 
e le meteore nella provincia di Roma: Roma, 1884. 
The first exhibits the results of rain-measures from 
1872 to 1880 in open fields and under trees. The 
- ratio of the latter to the former was from 0.74 to 0.64 
under fir-trees, and 0.76 under beech-trees, and the 
ratio of loss increased in months of less rainfall. 
These ratios are, however, open to variation; as they 
depend on only a single gauge for the beech-trees, 
and on but two for the fir-trees. 

The relation of malarial fevers to the weather in 
the province of Rome is a more extended study. A 
series of tables gives, first the number of cases of fever 
in the various parts of the province recorded for the 
third quarter of each of the twelve years from 1871 
to 1882; then the percentages of fever to population, 
showing an average annual ratio of 6.077 per cent, 
falling to minima of 2.93 in 1878, and 2.49 in 1882, 
and reaching a maximum of 11.42 in 1879. These 
figures are next compared with rainfall, cloudiness, 
temperature, and winds; and there is found a clear 


a 


SCIENCE. 


267 


correspondence between the fall of rain in March, 
April, and May, and the fevers of July, August, and 
September; an inverse relation between the cloudi- 
ness in June, July, and August, and the fevers 
of the third quarter; a minimum of fever with a 
maximum of sirocco winds; and certain indistinct 
relations of the other elements. All these results 
are well indicated in diagrams, as well as in tables. 
They give an increased value to the careful study of 
rainfall. 

— The Electrical review states that the Jabloch- 
koff electric candle, the pioneer of all arc-lighting 
on a practical scale, has ceased, after a period of more 
than five and a half years, to illuminate the Thames 
embankment, by reason of the termination of the 
contract with the Metropolitan board of works. The 
lights were put up in 1878 for a three-months’ trial: 
consequently the works were not of a permanent 
character. Yet the lights, with the exception of a few 
occasional mishaps, have given general satisfaction. 
No more exposed position could have been selected 
for such a trial, and the successful working of the 
system under the circumstances still further proves 
its value. It is an open secret that the price (one 
and a half pence per hour per lamp) paid for the 
lights resulted in a considerable loss to the company. 
From the recent address of Sir J. Bazalgette at the 
opening meeting of the Institution of civil engineers 
this season, it appears that twice the illuminating- 
power is obtained on the embankment from the Jab- 
lochkoff lights as could have been obtained from 
gas, if the same money were expended: in other 
words, the price should have been threepence per 
hour, as compared with the same light from gas. 

— According to the Revue scientifique, June 21, a 
distinguished officer of the French army has studied 
the recently discovered coal-beds in Algeria, and who 
gives interesting details in the following passage from 
a letter to the Geographical society of Paris: — 

It was at Bou-Saada, that I first heard of the 
coal reported to be found in Algeria. Coal is found 
all along the oued Bou-Saada, — a large river mean- 
dering through a country formed of almost vertical 
(80°) strata of reddish limestone. These strata lie 
parallel to the course of the river, so that it seems 
often to flow between two quite regular walls, whose 
summits are worn by the winter rains. This for- 
mation belongs, I believe, to the lower cretaceous. 
The traces of coal visible in the strongly eroded crop- 
pings which form the bed of the river are very slight 
(from .001 of a metre to .002 of a metre): they seem 
inseparable from the grayish-blue, sandy strata, 
which, at least in the exposed portions, are very small. 
This sandstone is hard and compact, often spangled 
with bright grains, which are, without doubt, iron 
pyrites. These are the first indications of the beds 
in question. 

Mr. Pinard, who devoted himself to an examina- 
tion of this bed, had shafts sunk at the places where 
he had determined the presence of croppings. There 
are three of these shafts, —two very near each other, 
3.5 kilometres from the oasis toward the south, on the 
left bank of the owed ; and the third isa half-kilometre 


268 


farther. At my visit all were filled with water, so 
that I could study only what had been removed from 
them. The excavations consisted of sandstone like 
that mentioned, and of large pieces of marne, black 
sandstone, foliated, and enclosing thin strata of coal, 
which in some places measured .01 of a metre in 
thickness. Rumors of the officers stationed at Bou- 
Saada state that pieces of rather hard coal have been 
taken from the shafts, and that the stratum encoun- 
tered was at times almost a metre thick. This coal, 
on breaking, is bright, compact, and of a good ap- 


pearance, burns well, with a beautiful flame, and 


gives a light, brilliant coke. 


— The Prussian minister of instruction has pub- 
lished an opinion on the overwork in schools through 
the medical deputation sent to him on the subject. 
The evil exists not only in the upper and middle 
classes of the high schools, but in the earlier school 
years. Itisstrongly reeommended that pupils should 
not be received into the elementary schools until the 
completion of their seventh year, and not into the 
gymnasial sexta until their tenth year. 


— The new German orthography, supposed to be 
more phonetic than the old, is to be made official 
next year in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. 


- — Two important geographical works are projected 
at St. Petersburg. One is, according to Professor 
Veniukoff, the preparation of a grand monograph on 
the physical geography of European Russia. Several 
members of the imperial geographical society have 
been constituted a cominittee to elaborate the project. 

The second is the preparation of a good general 
map of the same region, for the use of the public, to 
replace that issued by the society in 1863. The selec- 
tion of matters to be omitted or retained is to be 
made by specialists, and approved by an editorial 
commission. The execution will be in the highest 
style of cartography. 

The report on the unification of Russian geodetic 
and topographic work has been elaborated by the 
commission, and submitted to the general government 
for approval. 


— Revoil has returned to Zanzibar from his explo- 
rations among the Somalis. Although prevented by 
a state of things resulting from the disturbances in 
the Sudan from carrying out his original plans, he 
made good use of his forced sojourn at Guelidi and 
on the Benadir coast. He devoted his attention to 
the archeology and natural history of this region, and 
has brought back valuable collections and notes on 
the resources and productions of the country. 


— Ussagara mission station has been visited by fam- 
ine due to drought. The Rev. Bloyet writes, that, 
notwithstanding this, the people about the station 
are well disposed. 


— The work upon the canal between the gulfs of 
Corinth and Aegina is being energetically pushed, 
and another year will probably see it completed. 
Advantage will be taken of the vestiges of the canal 
begun by Nero. The trench will be a straight line, 
about six kilometres in length, including the basins 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou 1V., No. 


at either end, and _ crossed by two bridges. The 
greatest height of the ridge to be pierced is about — 


seventy metres. The completion of the canal will 
shorten the distance between the Adriatic ports and 


those of western Turkey, — Salonica, Constantinople, — 
Smyrna, etec., nearly two hundred miles, and for 


vessels from the Atlantic about half as much, beside 
enabling them to escape much dangerous navigation. 
The tariff will be fixed at one franc per ton for vessels 
from the Adriatic, and half a frane for others. The 
monthly movement of tonnage is at present about 


137,000 tons, mostly in small vessels, the local trade 


being extremely large. The contract for cutting the 
canal has been taken for about five million dollars, 
and there is no reason to suppose that this will be 
exceeded. 


— The important question of a port of embarkation 


in south-eastern Brazil for the region about the — 


lagoon or estuary known as Lagoa dos Patos has 


recently been discussed by the engineers Plazolles — 


and Sichel. On the borders of the lagoon are the 
important colonies of Porto Allegre, Rio Grande, and 
Pelotas. By steamers of light draught communica- 
tion is had with an extensive interior region contain- 
ing a large population. The entrance to the lagoon, 
however, is composed of a shallow passage obstructed 
by shifting sands, where the bad weather of a day 
may obliterate the effect of dredgings during several 
months. The peninsula, which extends between the 
lagoon and the Atlantic, has been supposed to be of 
a sandy or porous nature, unsuitable for permanent 
works. Recent investigations by the above-men- 
tioned gentlemen show, however, that this idea is 
erroneous, and that the foundation of the peninsula 
is a compact, hard clay, well suited for excavation. 
These engineers propose to select a favorable spot, 
where a large fresh-water lake exists, to dig out 
a small basin at the coast capable of containing 
several large vessels, and to connect it, by a canal 
deep enough to admit the largest ships, with the 
above-mentioned lake, which is to be dredged out to 
form an extensive basin or port. As the Lagoa dos 
Patos is too shallow to accommodate large ships, the 
freight is to be transferred, by a railway eighteen 
kilometres long, to the point where the light-draught 
vessels of the lagoon can be reached. ‘The projectors 
ask only an authorization to make and maintain the 
works without subsidy or guaranty. The Brazilian 
messenger states that it is now practically certain that 
this important work will be carried out, thereby giv- 
ing the colonists excellent facilities for commerce, 
the want of which has hitherto crippled the develop- 
ment of a rich and healthy region. 


— The government of the Argentine Confederation, 
in the hope of obtaining water by artesian borings, 


has ordered an investigation of the geology of the 


San Luis district. Water is generally found only at 
a depth of one hundred and eighty feet. Potable 
water is usually reached at that depth; but at Upper 
Pencoso only salt water was found, though at a 
height of fifteen hundred feet above the sea, while 
at Cuijades the water is hot, reaching 75° F, 


— © 


Soir. Nee. 


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

Tue Philadelphia meeting of the American 
association is credited with being the most suc- 
cessful up to this time. The total attendance 
was 1,249. Great Britain contributed 303 ; 
Pennsylvania, 246; New York, 161; Massa- 
chusetts, 87; District of Columbia, 84; New 
Jersey, 58; Ohio, 57; Connecticut, 32; and 
Virginia, 22. The membership was increased 
nearly twenty-five per cent, 515 new members 
being elected, and the number of members up 
to this meeting being 2,033. The number of 
papers read was larger than ever before; and 
itis to be hoped that the weeding-out of the 
trivial matters so often offered was carried to 
a greater extent than usual. There was a gen- 
eral feeling that there was too much going on. 
A large portion of the physicists were engaged 
as examiners at the electrical exhibition, and 
were, of course, interested in the meetings of 
the electrical conference. Somewhat less sci- 
ence, and somewhat more time to enjoy the 
junketing, would be more in accordance with 
the desires of many, if one may judge from 
the opinions expressed on the way home. A 
proposition to confine the reading of papers 
to the mornings would have met with many 
supporters. 


Tue International association, which has 
been so earnestly advocated by Dr. C. S. 
Minot, has now a more assured existence; 
thanks to the fund of twenty thousand dollars, 
which will be established through the liberality 
of Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson. Of this fund, 
five thousand dollars have already been paid 
to the association ; and five thousand more will 
be paid next year on condition of ten thousand 
being raised from other sources. The income 
from this fund is to be devoted to research. 
Not only did Mrs. Thompson give liberally 
to this new society, but also gave one thou- 

No. 85.—1884. 


a . 


sand dollars to the American association for 
the advancement of science, to be used in 
researches on light and heat. Mrs. Thompson 
takes great interest in the recent marvellous 
advances in the application of electricity and 
felt a desire to contribute, as far as lay in her 
power, to the advancement of our knowledge 
of the forces of nature. Appreciating the 
unity of energy, whether displayed as heat or 
light or electricity, Mrs. Thompson gave the 
money for researches as to the nature and 
sources of light and heat, in the hope that 
more may be learned of the connection which 
may exist between heat and light and elec- 
tricity. 


ConeRress passes laws to favor science and 
literature in importations; and the treasury 
officials, under the pretence of protecting the 
revenue, interpose vexatious requirements, 
which defeat the purpose of congress. Are 
the treasury officials so devoid of administra- 
tive skill that they cannot devise some way to 
further the end of congress, and protect the 
revenue at the same time? Have colleges, for 
instance, no rights under the laws which 
treasury officials are bound to respect? What 
is the use of congress giving colleges the right 
to import current periodicals, duty-free, if 
these protectors of the revenue cause delays 
and expense, to incur which were worse for 
the colleges than to pay duty? Under recent 
decisions of the treasury, each successive part 
of a periodical for a public institution must be 
made the matter of a distinct oath, involving 
time and money, and the passage and re-pas- 
sage of documents between the college and its 
agent, at the port of entry. If all the wits 
these treasury officials have spent in devising 
these vexations are not exhausted by the 
process, they may perhaps calculate what new 
endowments colleges will now need to help 
these officials protect the revenue! It is hard 
to contemn the witless. 


— 


270 


Amone the meetings which have just been 
held in Philadelphia, was a friendly and in- 
formal gathering of some of the contributors to 
Science. About thirty persons came together, 
and listened to some statements which were 
made on the part of the managers, and ex- 
pressed their views in respect to the position 
which this journal has taken and may take. 
The tone of the meeting was in all respects 
encouraging. A review which had been made 
of the subscription-list, by our publisher, shows 
that these pages now reach the chief scientific 
institutions and the chief scientific workers of 
the country. An effort will next be made to 
secure an extension of the circulation among 
other intelligent and educated classes. 


Our contributors were invited at this meet- 
ing, and are always invited, to bear in mind 
that not only Science as a journal, but science 
in higher and broader aspects, will be best pro- 
moted by enlisting the attention of the general 
reader to the results which are attained in all 
departments of knowledge. This can only be 
done if our friends will write as persons who 
are specially informed, to persons who are not 
specially informed, on the subjects treated in 
our columns. One of our most valued con- 
tributors says that the man who is eminent 
in one department may have only an ordi- 
nary knowledge of other subjects: the greatest 
astronomer may be a tyro in entomology; the 
best of chemists may have no conception of 
elliptic functions. Science in its articles should 
be readable throughout; and, if our friends 
will continue to help us, we shall soon reach 
suCCEeSS. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*x Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


Phosphorescence in the deep sea. 


The following paragraph by Dr. Studer,’ the natu- 

_ ralist of the Gazette, has probably escaped the notice of 
those who have lately written regarding the protective 
‘nature of the phosphorescence of pelagic animals. 
He closes a general description of phosphorescence in 
1 Ueber einige wissenschaftlicie ergebnisse der gazellen- 


expedition . . . Verhandlungen des zweiten deutschen geogra- 
phentages. Berlin, 1882. 


SCIENCE. 


_ Koreans as being a kind of gum from pine. 


“Cy en ee ae 


a 


[Vou. IV., No. | 


marine animals, and the probable nature of it, as 
follows: ‘Immer aber ist es ein von aussen kommen- 
der reiz, welcher das leuchten hervorbringt, so dass 
wir vielleicht die erscheinung als eine schutzvorrich- 
tung fiir das tier betrachten durfen.’ He further 
says, on the same page, ‘ Wir dirfen vielleicht anneh- 
men, dass es vorwiegend rote und orange strahlen 
sind, welche in diese tiefen gelangen (2-300 faden), 
dass die blauen und violetten schon vorher absorbiert 
und reflektirt werden. Daraus wurde sich dann die 
vorwiegend rote farbung der Crustaceen als eine 
schutzfarbung erklaren lassen, wie die vorwiegend 
blaue der am tage erscheinenden geschopfe.’ 

ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 

Newport, Sept. 12, 1884. 


Fish remains in North-American Silurian rocks. 


The Rev. W. S. Symonds seems somewhat disturbed _ 
by my letter of July 11. He apparently fears lest © 
the honor of yielding the earliest fish-remains should 
pass from England to North America, 

My note to Science was purposely made very short, 
but I was quite aware of the fact that a single speci- 
men of Scaphaspis Ludensis (not fish-remains) had 
been found in the lower Ludlow rocks. Mr. Symonds 
will excuse my reminding him that Sir C. Lyell men- 
tions this discovery by Mr. Lee at Leentwardine in 
1859. The statement may be found in his Elements 
for 1865: not having the book at hand, I cannot name 
the page. Professor Lankester also, in 1869, refers 
this species to the lower Ludlow. To have been un- 
acquainted with the fact would therefore be inex- 
cusable. 

Mr. Symonds will probably be surprised to learn 
that I am a native of the county (Herefordshire) in 
which he has himself done so much, excellent geo- 
logical and archeological work. I have been famil- 
iar from boyhood with much of the country which 
forms the ‘hunting-grounds’ of the Woolhope club, 
and visited some of them as lately as 1879. | 

As an abstract of my paper will shortly appear, I 
refrain from giving details at present. 

E. W. CLAYPOLE. 
B. A. A.S8., Montreal, Aug. 29, 


Korean curios. 


The article in Science, No. 82, entitled ‘ Korean cu- 
rios,’ contains some errors, excusable, however, when 
one considers the difficulty of speaking through two 
languages, and getting the information filtered back 
through the same channel. For these corrections, 
and the brief information embodied in them, I am 
indebted to one of the Korean embassy, Mr. Yu, who 
has been with me constantly for several months, and 
who now speaks very good English. 

The ring worn upon the thumb of Min Yong Ik 
(who, by the way, is not a prince, but a noble) is the 
Chinese thumb-ring worn in archery, by means of 
which the bowstring is drawn back. These rings are 
often very expensive. I was shown one in Canton 


valued at one hundred and fifty dollars, and some are ~ ‘ 


valued much higher. The Korean archery-ring for 
the thumb is nearly always of horn, and entirely dif- 
ferent in shape. 
The amber bead is not necessarily imported; as 
amber is found-in Korea, and is recognized by. the 
hey 
_regard the best and oldest, which is of light color, as — 
being three thousand years old, the darkest and poor- 
est as being one thousand years old. 
The button represented in Fig. 4 can only be worn 
by high officials. Officers of the first rank wear 


- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


quartz ones, while officers of the second and third 
rank wear gold ones. These buttons are secured to 
the customary band made of hair and not of velvet. 

The reason given for leaving the wife at home — 
namely, that her clothes would not. have stood the 
wear of the journey — was a polite excuse only. So- 
cial custom would have rendered it impossible for any 
_ of them to bring their wives with them. 

In regard to the extraordinary crystals, my inform- 
ant’s brother has seen the region where they occur, 
and says the wonders of it are beyond description. 
He describes it as bordering the shore for a distance, 
in one measurement, of fifteen miles. 

Mr. Kunz is quite right in regarding them as crys- 
tals of quartz; for Mr. Yu says they are white, and 
also like glass, and assume branching forms like trees, 
columns, etc., and tower at greater heights even than 
the dimensions given by Mr. Kunz. This region is 
on the eastern coast of Korea, and has never been 
visited by foreigners. The Chinese have in vain 
tried to get permission to visit this place. 

EDWARD S. MORSE. 


A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE 
ad ASSOCIATIONS. . 


To us on this side of the Atlantic, the op- 
portunity to profit by the contrast of the two 
association meetings just closed ought not to 
be lost ; and the desire to take advantage of it 
may justify a somewhat extended comparison 
of the two associations. 

Concerning what may be called the ‘ phys- 
ical features ’ of the two meetings, their rela- 
tion to each other may be readily seen by an 
inspection of the following statistics: At the 
Montreal meeting, the total registered attend- 
ance was 1,773, of which nearly half crossed 
the ocean, and about six hundred were classed 
as ‘old’ members. The total number regis- 
tered was somewhat below the average of the 
‘ past ten years, which was 1,889, not including 
last year’s meeting. The largest meeting ever 
held by the British association was at Manches- 
ter, in 1861, when the registry was 3,944; the 
smallest, in recent years, at Swansea, in 1880, 
the number being 899. The number of registered 
members at Philadelphia was 1,261, the great- 
est number ever on the rolls of the American 
association at one meeting. It is not unlikely 
that the excess of more than five hundred in 
the membership of the British association over 
that of the American is to be partially attrib- 
uted to the rule of the British association, which 
confines the privileges of attendance to members 


SCIENCE. 


271 


of one class or another ; while the policy of the 
American association has been to invite and 
to welcome all who are interested in the pro- 
ceedings, regardless of membership. 

At the Montreal meeting, the total number 
of papers read was 327. At Philadelphia, 304 
papers were read. ‘The number of papers on 
mathematical and physical science was ten 
greater in the American than in the British 
association. In the latter, however, the num- 
ber of physical papers was greatly in excess, as 
those concerning pure mathematics were dis- 
posed of by a sub-section in a single day. 

In addition to the regular papers, there were, 


in the various sections of the British associa- 


tion, more than fifty reports presented, coming 
from committees appointed at previous meet- 
ings for the con$ideration of special subjects. 
Of similar reports in the American association, 
it can hardly be said that there were any, such 
as were offered being mostly confined to a 
few words declaring ‘ progress,’ asking for 
continuation, and promising something in the 
future ; and even this much was only obtained 
after much labor on the part of the presiding 
officer. 

As to the general character of the meetings, 
it may be said that both were above the aver- 
age. Sir William Thomson declared, at the 
closing session of the British association, that 
it was one of the most satisfactory ever held ; 
and boti he and Lord Rayleigh declared that 
the meetings of section A were far above the 
average. 

It can be affirmed without boasting, that 
Americans (citizens of the United States) 
contributed in no small degree to insure this 
success. At least forty, or about one-eighth, 
of the entire number of papers read, came 
from them. They joined in several of the im- 
portant discussions, and generally with credit ; 
and some of them — Newcomb, Rowland, and 
possibly others — presided over sections at 
various times. It is well worthy of note, that, 
of the five papers recommended to be published 
in extenso, one was from Professor Gray, and 
another from Professor Thurston. 

The Philadelphia meeting of the American 


» i (1 
i 


272 


association was doubtless, all things consid- 
ered, the most successful yet held. The 
work done in sections was, in general, of a 
higher order than usual; and we are, in turn, 
indebted to the visiting members of the British 
association for valuable assistance in ‘ bring- 
ing up the average.’ Many of them presented 
papers, and took part in the discussions which 
now and then arose in various sections. 

The greatly inferior quantity, if not quality, 
of the work done by our special committees, is 
unquestionably due, to a great extent, to a 
fact already referred to in these pages. The 
committees of the British association are aided 
by grants of money, as much as $7,500 being 
allowed at the Montreal meeting. Could the 
committees of our association obtain such 
orants, their work would undoubtedly be vastly 
more satisfactory. Besides, being thus re- 
lieved from the purely mechanical drudgery of 
the work, the feeling of responsibility would 
be much greater, and each committee would 
recognize the necessity of justifying its exist- 
ence, and of showing that the money given 
as aid had been well invested. 

On the whole, it will be admitted that the 
British association does its work upon a higher 
plane than that occupied by the American. 
Its sectional work shows more that is really 
new and of lasting value, and less that is 
trifling ; although there has been a steady and 
healthful improvement in the character of the 
American association during several years 
past. It may be well to remark here, that 
there are at least a few of the ablest and best 
men in American science who have continued 
to exhibit no interest in the American associa- 
tion ; and that, if the association is not precisely 
what they believe it ought to be, the fault lies 
at their own doors. No others should or could 
be so influential in shaping its course and 
moulding its character. 

It may be well, however, to turn from the 
consideration of these graver differences be- 
tween the two associations, and notice briefly 
some of those distinctions which are more 
personal in their nature, between the members 
themselves. 


SCIENCE. 


~ [Vou. .IV., No. 85, 


Our English cousins certainly possess an_ 
enviable capacity for recognizing the amusing 
side of affairs. At Montreal one came to ex-— 
pect pleasant little outputs of the mildest 
humor in the midst of the profoundest scien- 
tific dissertations. Your formula might be torn 
to shreds by severe criticism, but your fun was 
welcomed without examination. 

In the matter of paying compliments, and 
moving thanks in an easy and graceful man- — 
ner, our English cousins have the advantage - 
of us. It is the almost universal custom for — 
the chairman of the section to thank the reader — 
of a paper, and often in elaborate terms. This — 
consumes a good deal of time, and it is a ques- . 
tion whether such wholesale compliment is © 
desirable. It was observed, however, that 
the distinguished and genial presiding officer 
of one of the sections made use of two quite 
different formulae for expressing his appreci- 
ation of the merits of the paper: in one case 
hoping ‘‘that the section would join him in 
thanking Professor for his interesting — 
and important communication upon this sub- 
ject ;’’ and in another, ‘‘ that the section would 
join him in thanking Professor for his 
communication upon this interesting and im- 
portant subject.’’ The importance of the 
proper arrangement of words was never shown 
to better advantage. 

The undemonstrative character of the Ameri- 
can as compared with the Englishman was 
exhibited in the public meetings of the two 
associations. The American association has 
seldom had so felicitous an address from a 
retiring president as that of Professor Young, 
and the probability that it was not generally © 
heard throughout the vast academy of music 
was the only excuse for the fact that its many — 
good points failed of that recognition which 
they so richly deserved. This failure was 
commented upon by an Englishman in a 
remark to the writer, that such an address 
would have been much more frequently ap- 
plauded in England. ‘‘We constantly inter- 
rupt a speaker to applaud him,’’ he said, ‘if 
for no other reason than to afford him a 
breathing-spell.’’ | 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


THE CARSON-CITY ICHNOLITES. 


Tue fossil footprints upon the layers of 
sandstone in the quarry at Carson City, in the 
state of Nevada, have excited much interest 
and discussion, not only by reason of the num- 
ber and grouping of animals represented, but 
especially because some of the tracks have a 
rough resemblance to such footprints as a man 
of great size might make in walking upon soft 
mud. Elaborate reports and memoirs have 
already appeared,’ regarding these tracks ; and 
in California and Nevada there has been, and 
continues to be, a great difference of opinion as 
to the origin of the tracks which resemble the 
imprints of human feet. ‘These tracks occur 
in a light, gray-colored, coarse sandstone for- 
mation, of the mammalian age of the tertiary, 
lying in nearly horizontal beds, with thin part- 
ings or layers of clay at intervals. ‘The sec- 
tion at one point directly above one of the 
series of tracks is as follows : — 


Sandy clay . 18 inches. 
SeamestOme . {. 2. . 4 feet. 
iw ee = ineh. 
Sandstone. . F : 16 feet. 
Fine clay ae 2 feet 2 inches. 
Coarse sandstone 10 rs 


Sandy clay, with tracks . . . 8 oe 
Sandstone . ce 18 to 24 oe 
Clay layer, with tracks 1to 2 a 
Sandstone below the quarry floor, 38 feet. 


The tracks represent at least ten different 
animals, as follows: Elephas, or the mam- 
moth; elk, or American reindeer; Bos, or 
buffalo; horse; wolf; tiger; peccary ; Mylo- 
don, or a giant sloth; the so-called ‘ Homo 
Nevadensis ;’ birds. 

Bones and teeth of the elephant and of the 
horse have also been found in the sandstone 
beds above the ichnolites. There are also 
casts of shells of Anodonta, and an abundance 
of casts of reeds and aquatic plants, directly 
overlying the layers of silt or mud on which 
the tracks are found. 

The sequence of events is plainly recorded 
in these beds. The floor of the quarry marks 
1 Footprints found at the Carson state prison. By H. W. 
HARKNESS, M.D. Proc. Cal. acad. sc., Aug. 7, 1882. 


On certain remarkable tracks found in the rocks of Carson 
fe: By JoserpH LECONTE. Pyvoc. Cal. acad. sc., Aug. 27, 


Prehistoric footprints in the sandstone quarry of the Nevada 
‘state prison. Description by CHARLES DRAYTON GIBBES, C.E., 
Sept. 4, 1882, to accompany diagrams of footprints. 

HARKNESS, Proc. Cal. acad. sc., August, 1883. 
in New- York evening post.) 
Tg C. MarsH, Amer. journ. sc., No. 152 [3] xxvi., August, 
The Carson footprints. Report of Professor GEORGE Da- 
gala president of the California academy of sciences, August, 


(Abstract 


Ichnolites of the Carson quarry. W. P. BLAKE. 


Trans. 
Conn. acad. arts and sciences, February, 1884. 


SCIENCE. 


273 


the close of a period of strong currents of 
water, depositing sand. A period of quiescence 
ensued, with the deposition of a fine clay or 
silt. This was drained of water, and became 
firm enough for animals to walk upon it and 
leave their tracks. This layer is separated 
from a second clayey layer by about eighteen 
inches of sand, marking an overflow and a 
second period of quiescence and drying-up. 
The tracks are most numerous and distinct 
upon this second layer. Immediately over it 
we find several inches in thickness of fine 
clayey sediment, penetrated by aquatic plants, 
with the remains of fresh-water shells, indicat- 
ing the existence of a shallow lake or lagoon 
for a considerable period. The overlying coarse 
sandstones show the influx of strong currents, 
bearing the sand and the bones of animals 
from some point beyond, and higher than the 
tracks. 

It is probable that these deposits were formed 
near the mouth of a comparatively large stream, 
subject to floods, and flowing into a shallow 
lake. Such conditions are not unlike those 
we now find all along the eastern base of the 
Sierra Nevada, where mountain torrents pour 
out into elevated valleys without outlet, and 
form broad lakes, which vary greatly in their 
extent at different seasons of the year. Dur- 
ing the season of the melting of the snows, 
the lakes cover a much greater area than in 
the dry season, when the rivers cease to flow, 
and the lake-water disappears by evaporation. 
Large areas of the shores of such lakes then 
become exposed, and are gradually dried. If, 
as in the case of the deposits under considera- 
tion, the upper clayey sediments are underlaid 
by coarse sandstone, the clay layer is rapidly 
dried by under-draining, and affords a firm 
footing for animals in search of water. This 
need of water may account for the number of 
animals which crowded together at this place. 
It is possible, also, that a warm spring existed 
there, as at the present time, drawing animals 
toward it from the surrounding deserts. 

The sandstone surface is distinctly marked 
by raindrop pits and by ripple or wave marks. 


Tracks of the mammoth or elephant. 


These appear as a series of circular depres- 
sions from three to six inches in depth, and 
averaging twenty inches in diameter. The 
most important series is forty feet long, and 
has ten distinct footprints. Most of these 
have a raised margin or border of clay in 
ridges, due to the great pressure and squeezing 
of the clay. 


direct lines. 


274 SCIENCE. 


The stride of the elephant which made the 
tracks here represented was about five feet 
eight inches, and the straddle three feet five 
inches, measuring from outside to outside. 


Tracks of man (so called), or mylodon (?) 


The long and curved tracks, which have 
excited the greatest degree of interest from 
their supposed human origin, extend in several 


1U feet. 


Fie. 1.— TRACKS OF THE ELEPHANT. 


different directions, but generally in straight 
The longest series has forty- 
four tracks, and is a hundred and twelve feet 
long. 

Another set of tracks is the most distinct 
of all, and is upon the upper layer of silt or 
clay, two feet above the general level of the 
quarry floor. A rubbing upon paper twenty- 
seven feet long, covers twelve tracks of this 
series, and shows the general form and the 
exact sequence and position of these tracks. 
The imprint on the paper being formed by 
rubbing with a graphite pad, it gives a more 
accurate idea of the shape of the tracks than 
any drawing made with hard, sharp outlines; 
for none of the outlines are sharply marked, 
but the depression gradually shades off into 
the generally plane surface. For this reason 
it is not easy to state definitely the exact size 


& -o «2. «ge a “— _@* 
&D >) Sa @B Sp EQ eS 
ere PD 
10 feet. 


Fie, 2.— TRACKS RESEMBLING THE IMPRINT OF HUMAN FEET. 
(From the plan by Gibbes.) 


of these tracks. They may be said to be 
generally from nineteen to twenty-one inches 
in length, and from six to nine inches in 
breadth. The form is curved, not greatly un- 
like the inner curve of the human foot. The 
amount of depression is irregular and trough- 


like, deepest at the centre, as if the greatest. 


pressure was exerted there ; in this respect dif- 
fering decidedly from the impress of a human 
foot, being without the heel and toe depres- 


a ; Po ane ‘= 
ne ‘ - 
ae é 


more abrupt depression at the supposed heel 
than at the other end. | 

In order to explain the great size of the 
tracks on the theory of their human origin, 
and, further, to explain a peculiarity in the form 
of some of them, it has been asserted that 
sandals were worn. This peculiarity consists 
in a flat, tabular surface or border, extending, 
like a terrace, from an inch to two or three 


or 


inches wide along the inner margin of the 
track. This is thought by some to be the 
impress of the sandal. The tracks having this 
peculiarity are shown of full size in figs. 1 to 
5, attached to the memoir of Dr. Harkness. 
While he is fully confident that these are the 
imprints of sandals, he points out a very sig- 
nificant fact, —‘‘ that the impression is upon 
the same plane in each of the diagrams, and 
that there is no indication of toe or pad or arch 
in any Of them “(pe 7). 

A critical examination of ne tracks hav- 
ing the partial border of a flat surface, showed 
that this flat margin marks a parting or divid- 
ing plane in the sediments along which the 
clay-like layers separated ; such portions, ap- 
parently, as were not crushed and broken 
through, being lifted off as the foot of the 
animal was raised and carried forward. 


The fact that it occurs irregularly, sometimes 
on one side of the track for a short distance, 
and sometimes on the other, and irregularly at 
the end, and is sometimes entirely absent, goes 
to show that it was not produced by a flat, 
rigid surface. Besides, we cannot conceive © 
of a flat sandal, such as would be required to a 
make a flat imprint, permitting the central part — 
of the track to be so greatly depressed. And 


a 


Z 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884. ] 


track, especially in a soft, muddy surface, tends 
to depress, and throw back the mud towards 
the centre of the track, whereas the conditions 
in these tracks are reversed. A longitudinal 
vertical section of one of these tracks would be 
nearly as in the diagram, the greatest depres- 
sion being in the middle. 


Zp (Qua =——<J =< = = 
sen) LLL Y) 
a Tha 


Fig. 3.— CROSS-SECTION OF IMPRESSION. 


The breadth of the track-way, or straddle, is 
the next great objection to the theory of human 
origin. ‘The whole breadth is from twenty- 
eight to thirty inches, whereas man requires, 
in walking, not over ten or twelve inches. If 
we take the ordinary stride of a man six feet 
high at twenty to twenty-four inches, the ratio 
of the breadth of space required in walking 
to this step is as ten or twelve to twenty 
or twenty-four. or 1: 2; while in the tracks 
before us the ratio is as twenty-eight to twenty- 
seven, the step, in fact, being less than the 
straddle. ‘This alone is fatal to the bipedal 
theory, and in favor of the quadrupedal; for 
upon the quadrupedal theory the length of step 
is fifty-six to sixty-two inches, and, the width 
being twenty-eight to thirty, the ratio of the 
width to the length is nearly as one to two. 

There are also evidences of a duplication of 
tracks made by the hind-feet overstepping the 
imprints of the fore-feet. This has been par- 
ticularly pointed out by Professor Davidson in 
his report. 

The tracks of this series all have the appear- 
ance of being made by an animal with short 
legs, for it is evident that there was a slid- 
ing in and out of the foot, particularly in the 
trough-shaped impressions of the lower horizon 
of clay. 

When first opened, these are always filled up 
with a compressed mass of clay and sand; and 
sometimes traces of a coarse, sedgy grass or 
vegetation are found, as if it had been pressed 
down under the foot into the clay. 

The opinion of Professor Marsh, that these 
tracks were formed by one of the edentates, is 
best in accord with the phenomena, and appears 
the more reasonable when we give due weight 
to the fact that some of these animals are be- 
lieved to have walked partly upon the side of 
the foot and leg, thus carrying their great claws 
in such a way that they left no imprint. 


Elk (7?) 


Of the supposed elk-tracks there are thirteen 
in sequence, each track from four to five inches 


SCIENCE. 


275 


long by three and one-half wide, average step 
eighty inches, and breadth of track thirteen 
inches. 

Deer. 


The series referred to the deer is twelve feet 
one inch in length, and includes ten tracks of 
an animal with a sharp-pointed hoof, triangular 
in form, measuring two inches by two and one- 
half inches. 


Birds. 


The bird-tracks are numerous, and are gen- 
erally about six inches in length and breadth, 
showing four toes, as in the figure. 

It is well to note that the intense interest 
attaching to the question of the human origin 
of some of the tracks has greatly overshad- 
owed the importance, geologically, of the whole 
series and the lessons to be learned from them. 
There has not been such an important dis- 
covery of fossil tracks since the unearthing of 
the fossil footprints in the sandstones of the 
Connecticut valley. These last were discov- 
ered in 1800, and served to stimulate and to 
foreshadow our knowledge of the forms of life 
between birds and lizards. The venerable Dr. 
Hitchcock, the author of ‘ Ichnology of New 
England,’ in contemplating the evidences of the 


Fie. 4. — BIRD-TRACK. 


so-called bird-tracks of the Connecticut valley, 
was led to exclaim, ‘‘ Indeed, some of the 
tracks of these narrow-toed bipeds have such a 
resemblance to the feet of some lizard, that I 
anticipate the discovery of front teeth.’’ 

He cites Owen as saying, before fossil foot- 
prints were known, that ‘‘ a single foot-mark of 


we 


276 


a cloven hoof indicates to the observer the 
forms of the teeth, of all the big bones, thighs, 
shoulders, and of the trunk of the body, of the 
animal which left the mark.’’? 


W. P. Buame, 
Mill Rock, New Haven. 


THE VIRULENCE OF CULTIVATED 
ANTHRAX VIRUS. 


Experimental studies on the artificial attenuation of the 

infectious properties of the bacillus of Anthrax by 

means of cultivation. By Dr. R. Kocu, Dr. 
GAFFkKyY, and Dr. LoEFFLER. 


Mittheilungen aus dem Kaiserlichen gesundheits-amte. 

Zweiter band. Berlin, 1884. (Extract from the 
_ publication of the imperial board of health of 

Germany.) 

PASTEUR’S announcement that the parasites 
of malignant Anthrax were capable of changing 
their characteristics when cultivated under cer- 
tain conditions, and that when thus modified 
they could be used for protective inoculation, 
aroused the greatest interest among investiga- 
tors. Such a statement could not be accepted 
without confirmation at the hands of other 
observers; and none were better fitted for 
this task than the Royal health commission of 
Germany, at the head of which stands Dr. 
Robert Koch. 

The experiments, which were instituted un- 
der his direction, have been carried on for two 
years, and have shown, that, although the ba- 
cilli could be rendered harmless, their protec- 
tive power was not so great ds was expected. 

The original communication of the French 
savant was not exact in the details by which 
the experiments were to be carried out, and 
Koch had to employ much time in preliminary 
studies. This cannot, however, be considered 
as lost, since many valuable facts have been 
obtained by it. 

According to Pasteur, if the cultivations were 
kept at a temperature constantly maintained 
between 42° and 43° C., the virulence gradu- 
ally decreased until the ninth day, when it was 
entirely lost. By removing a specimen on any 
day, and allowing it to germinate at a tempera- 
ture of 37° C., its activity at that stage could be 
perpetuated, and thus any degree of virulence 
that was required could be preserved. Two 
such cultures of different strength were used 
for protective inoculation, the weaker of which 
was called the premier, and the stronger the 
deuxiéme vaccin. 

Koch commenced his investigations in the 
following way. A mouse was injected with 


1 Proc. am. assoc. ad. sc., xiv. 146. 


SCIENCE. 


blood containing spores of the bacillus, which — 


had been kept five years, and was known to 
be of great virulence. 


The animal was killed at the end of twenty- 


four hours, and a minute quantity of the spleen 
was taken on the point of a platinum needle 
which had been sterilized by heat, and sown in 
a glass bulb containing twenty cubic centi- 
metres of chicken-bouillon neutralized with 
sodic carbonate. The bulb was then sealed, 
and placed at once in a constant-temperature 
apparatus, which was kept between 42° and 
43° C. 

Samples were taken daily, and tested upon 
animals ; but, contrary to the promised result, 
the growth was found to be as deadly for small 
animals on the ninth as on the first day. 
ther cultivation proved, however, that, in a 
period varying from eighteen to twenty-nine 
days, the infectious property was entirely lost, 
although the external appearance of the bacil- 
lus was unaltered. Thus far, Pasteur’s asser- 
tion was substantiated, except in regard to the 
length of time. A portion of this was taken, 
and allowed to grow at an ordinary tempera- 
ture for two years; and during this time there 
has been no evidence of a return of virulence, 
nor has the form changed. ‘These bacilli are 
as immovable as the active ones; their ends 
appear sharply truncated ; they form long fila- 
ments, in which are developed oval glancing 
spores. Vaccination with this entirely inac- 
tive form did not give immunity against inocu- 
lation with the virulent one. 

Those of a slight degree of force were next 
tried. At the end of twenty-four days a cul- 
ture was obtained which would kill mice, but 
not guinea-pigs or other small animals, but 
still did not render them safe. This particular 
form Koch speaks of as ‘ mouse anthrax.’ 

It was thought that perhaps this represented 
the second and the inactive form, the first vac- 
cination of Pasteur. Accordingly, a sheep 
was tried, but it succumbed to the malignant 
form as quickly as ever. It was next proposed 
to use three or more preventive inoculations ; 
and, accordingly, cultures from the fifteenth day 
were taken as the first, from the eleventh as the 
second, from the ninth as the third, and from 
the fifth as the fourth, and these were followed 
by the virulent form. In this manner seven 
sheep, seven rabbits, and eleven guinea-pigs 


were tried. At the end, all the rabbits and 
guinea-pigs, and five of the sheep, had died. 
In order to determine whether there might — 


not be some other difference, specimens of the 
vaccinating-material, as furnished by Pasteur 


through his agent, were purchased, and proved 


Fur- @ 


Pwr fe 2 


Zs 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


in regard to their power. ‘The first corre- 
sponded to the ‘ mouse anthrax ’ (that is, a cul- 
ture from the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth 
day), while the second vaccination corre- 
sponded to the ninth day. Six sheep were in- 
oculated with these ; and out of these, one died 
after inoculation with the malignant form. As 
a result, it can be stated, that, after the most 
eareful protective vaccination, an unconditional 
immunity against infective inoculation is not 
reached in all cases. Koch thinks that Pas- 
teur’s perfect success must be due to the fact 
that the malignant anthrax used by him was 
not so virulent as he himself employed. 

The cause of the diminution of virulence is 
regarded by Pasteur as due to the action of 
oxygen; by Koch, on the other hand, as due 
to the effects of temperature alone, even so 
small an amount as a few tenths of a degree 
C. causing a marked variation in the length of 
time required to render the bacillus perfectly 
harmless. Chauveau’s experiments also point 
in the same direction; for while it took from 
three to four weeks, at a temperature of 42.5” 
C., to reach the desired result, it could be at- 
tained in a few days at 43° C., and in a few 
hours at 47° C., while a few minutes sufficed 
if a temperature of from 50° to 53° was used. 
The lower, however, the temperature, the more 
surely is the attenuation preserved in later cul- 
tivations. When developed in the bodies of 
animals for several successive generations, 
Koch found that there was an occasional tend- 
ency, on the one hand, for a weaker form to 
become more powerful; and, on the other, for 
a stronger to become weaker. But, as a rule, 


the degree was preserved unaltered, as in ar- 


tificial cultures. 

The scientific fact that sheep could be ren- 
dered safe against inoculated anthrax was con- 
firmed by these experiments. The question 
then arises, How do the vaccinated animals 
conduct themselves against natural infection? 
As is well known, different kinds of animals 
differ in this respect. Cattle, for example, are 
very refractory to artificial inoculation, while 
they are very often attacked from a natural 
source. Pasteur regards the natural source of 
infection as much less liable to produce the 
disease than the artificial. His method of 
placing a number of vaccinated animals in a 
meadow, in which notorious cases had oc- 
curred, is capable of such great errors that 
it cannot be relied upon for scientific accu- 
racy. : H 
What is the most common way in which 
natural infection occurs? One method analo- 
gous to inoculation is from the bites and stings 


SCIENCE. 


Jar 


of insects, who leave, at the same time, spores 
of the bacillus, which may be attached to their 
bodies. Another is by the inoculation of 
scratches in the mouth, caused by sharp parti- 
cles of fodder. 

Koch believes, however, that the intestine 
itselfis the common place of entrance for the 
parasite, but only when in the condition of 
spores. 

To show this, a portion of the spleen of an 
animal who had died from anthrax was put 
inside a small ball of potato, and placed on the 
back part of the tongue of a sheep. In this 
way any danger of wounding the mucous 
membrane of the mouth was avoided. (Since 
spores are never formed within the body, by 
taking a portion of the organs, as above, it was 
known that it was the bacilli alone that were 
introduced.) Every experiment failed, even 
after enormous doses, and thus proved that the 
bacilli are destroyed in the stomach, and are 
therefore not in a condition to produce intes- 
tinal anthrax. When, however, the bacilli 
were allowed to produce spores, and these were 
given, every animal died. The examination af- 
ter death showed that the spores had developed 
in the intestinal tract, and the bacilli had in- 
vaded the body from these. It is therefore in 
the highest degree probable that the introduc- 
tion of spores with the food is the most common 
source of natural infection. The amount would 
never be so great at one time as was here used ; 
but, if smaller doses were repeatedly given, the 
picture of an ordinary epidemic could be nearly 
reproduced. 

Cattle could not be obtained for experiment ; 
but an examination made on a cow who had 
died from natural infection showed similar le- 
sions in the intestines to those found in the 
sheep. : 

Animals with a single stomach could not be 
infected in this way. . 

Finally the effects of protective inoculation 
were tried. ‘Ten sheep were taken: five of 
these were vaccinated with material obtained 
from Pasteur, of two different strengths; and 
five, according to Koch, with cultures of the 
fifteenth, eleventh, ninth, and fifth day. They 
were then fed with spores. As a result, two 
of the first series died, but none of the sec- 
ond. 

From these few yet unimpeachable experi- 
ments, Koch concludes, that, for a certain num- 
ber of animals, absolute immunity can be 
obtained; but he doubts whether a simple 
vaccination, with only two different degrees of 
attenuation of the virus, is sufficient to give 
perfect protection. 


278 


EISSLER’S MODERN HIGH EXPLOSIVES. 


The modern high explosives, nitroglycerine and dyna- 
mite: their manufacture, their use, and their appli- 
cation to mining and military engineering. By 
MANUEL ErssteR. New York, Wiley, 1884. 
11+ 395 p., illustr. 8°. 


In this work the author has sought to ac- 
quaint the engineer, the contractor, and the 
chemist with the composition and character- 
istics of the high explosives, and with their 
adaptation to certain purposes. He has been 
led to do this from ‘‘ the lack of authentic 
information on the subject, and the great in- 
crease in the use of these explosives ;’’ yet we 
find the book to be largely a compilation from 
such well-known works as those of Abbot, 
Drinker, Mowbray, and Berthelot, together 
with others not so well known, and from 
various chemical books. 

Such a compilation, if properly selected, 
digested, and arranged, would be highly credit- 
able, and, in the present state of the art, very 
useful; but unfortunately, while the fundamen- 
tal plan of Ejissler’s book is most excellent, it 
is badly carried out in detail, since subjects 
most closely connected are treated of in widely 
separated places, with a consequent loss of 
distinctness and consecutiveness, and the intro- 
duction of an annoying repetition and some- 
times of conflicting statements. Besides, from 
his custom of copying many of his authorities 
verbatim et literatim, he has introduced exam- 
ples of most of the many systems of nomen- 
clature known to chemistry. Add to this an 
obscure style, and the use of words and 
phrases such as ‘ chlor-metals,’ ‘ protoxide of 
azote,’ ‘ resting acids,’ ‘ parchemined paper,’ 
and the like, and we have a confusion which 
is most puzzling to the reader, even if he be a 
skilled chemist; while, if he be not, the use 
of a ‘trituration of soda for the determina- 
tion of nitric acid,’ of chloride of lime for 
use in a drying-tube, of ammonium as a test 
for the solubility of silver chloride, and the 
method described for the transmutation of a 
gas into a burette, may well seem unintelligi- 
ble. 

Throughout the work, the author has sought 
to give due credit to the various investigators 
whom he quotes ; yet we observe that in some 
instances he errs, as when he states that the 
experiments on explosive gelatine, which he 
describes, were made in France, when, in fact, 
they were made in Austria by Capt. Hess, the 
French account of them being simply a trans- 
lation of Hess’s paper by Paul Barbe. On 
the other hand, he erroneously credits Hess 


SCIENCE. 


pL WOLs TV., No, 85. 


with the application of the various methods — 
described for the quantitative analysis of nitro- 
glycerine mixtures. 

Many positive statements are made which 
may be questioned. Thus Eissler states that 
the explosions of the fulminates ‘‘ are very 
sharp from the extreme rapidity of their 
decomposition, but, from the small amount 
of gas given off, the force exercised is not 
very great; ’’ while Berthelot says, ‘* Calcula- 
tion will show that no other explosive known 
will give in contact an instantaneous pressure at 
all comparable to that of mercuric fulminate.”’ 
Again: Eissler asserts that ‘‘ nitro-compounds 
of cellulose with more than 41.89 % of NO, | 
contain nitric acid in the pores which is not ~ 
properly washed out.’’ This percentage cor- 
responds to the pentanitrocellulose, and the 
statement is probably based on Ecler’s re- 
searches in 1879; but Vicille, in 1882, found 
that thoroughly nitrated cellulose yielded 
44.27 %, corresponding to eleven atoms of 
NO, in the molecule. Other examples might 
be pointed out. 

The above criticisms apply principally to the 
first third of the book. In parts ii. and iii., 
which are devoted to the mode of use and ap- 
plications of the high explosives, the author 
appears more at home with his subject, which 
he presents in a clearer manner, and with 
greater precision of statement; and he has 
gathered material which must be of interest 
and use to the engineer and contractor. ‘The 
perusal of this portion will also interest the 
general reader; as few realize to how great an 
extent, and for what a variety of purposes,,.ex- 
plosive substances are used at the present 
day. Here he will learn that advantage is 
taken of the enormous potential energy of 
these bodies in the quarrying of stone; the 
mining of ores, coal, and oil; the driving of 
cuts and tunnels for roads; the deepening 
of our channels, and the removal of reefs and 
rocks from our harbors; the driving of pites ; 
the clearing of fields for agriculture, and the 
shaking-up of the soil to prepare it for vege- 
tation ; the destruction of icy barriers, and the 
breaking-up of large masses of metal to fit 
them for the melting-furnace. The climax 
seems to be reached in the statement, that, in 
some of the hydraulic gold-mines of California; 
it is an almost daily occurrence to fire blasts 
in which twenty, thirty, or even fifty thousand 
pounds of explosives are used in a single 
charge, — an amount exceeding that used in 
the blowing-up of Hell Gate. ‘Compared with — 
this, the amount used for purely military paa 
poses sinks into insignificance. 


-— ee” io 


. 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1864.] 


THE OHIO AGRICULTURAL EXPERI- 
MENT STATION. 


Second annual report of the Ohto agricultural ex- 
_ periment-station, for 1888. 
of the state legislature. Columbus, 
brothers, state printers, 1884. 207 p. 8°. 
Tue first impression made by this report is 

that of unusual industry in experimentation. 

A large amount of work has been done upon 

wheat and Indian corn, as was natural, con- 

sidering the location of the station. Quite 
extensive feeding- -experiments have been exe- 


Myers 


cuted; and a number of minor subjects have 


feceived more or less attention, such as obser- 
vations on garden-vegetables, fruits, weeds, 
and injurious insects, the testing of over five 
hundred samples of seeds as to their germina- 
tive power, experiments on cutting potatoes 
for seed, etc. 

Over forty pages are devoted to experiments 
upon wheat, and nearly as many to those upon 
Indian corn; such subjects being considered 
as the comparative value of varieties, thick and 
thin seeding, winter protection and spring cul- 
tivation of wheat, planting at different depths 
for corn, methods of culture, application of 
fertilizers, etc. Some interesting experiments 
in crossing different varieties of corn are also 
in progress. 

The feeding-experiments relate mainly to 
milk-production, though a few pig-feeding trials 
are added; showing that the same amount of 
food produces more rapid growth when the 
animals are protected from extreme cold,—a 
fact which has already been proved so often, 
and which is so fully in accord with all that 
we know of the effects of a low temperature 
on animals, that it would seem that it might 
now be accepted as established. 


SCIENCE. 


Printed by order | 


279 


The experiments presented in this report are 
so good, and represent so much labor, that 
one can but regret that they are not better. 
For example: the field-experiments on wheat 
and corn give evidence of care in planning and 
inexecution. They take up important subjects, 
and present much food for reflection to farmers ; 
but in all candor it must be said that they 
prove nothing. Passing over the question 
which is now being seriously asked by eminent 
authorities, whether field-trials are capable of 
yielding trustworthy results, it is certain, that, 
in order that they may do so, they must be 
executed with all the precautions which the 
experience of thirty years has suggested. It 
is not too much to say that these experiments 
are not thus distinguished, though they do, 
indeed, compare favorably with many others; 
and when we find, for example, the two un- 
manured plots of one series yielding respect- 
ively 40.2 and 70.4 bushels of corn per acre, we 
must conclude that the results of such trials 
are to be taken with some grains of allowance. 
The feeding-trials, too, while in many respects 
carefully conducted, have just enough elements 
of uncertainty — short periods, estimates of 
amount of hay eaten, estimates of composition 
of food, etc. — to give rise to the constant feel- 
ing that the results may be accidental. 

It is, of course, to be presumed that this 
station, like most others, has not the means 
to do all that its director would be glad to do; 
and a fair criticism should take into account 
the limitations under which such work must 
usually be done. At the same time, certain 
conditions are essential to the prosecution of 
scientific research ; and experiments made in 
disregard of them are no better because that 
disregard is enforced. 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
GEOGRAPHY. 


THE meetings of the section were held in the Mont- 
real gymnasium, which was sometimes crowded to 
overflowing, especially upon the appearance of Lieuts. 
Greely and Ray. 

The president’s address was listened to with marked 
attention. After the usual formalities were passed, 
the proceedings were opened by the president, who 
communicated a letter which he had received from 
Mr. Joseph Thomson, — recently returned from Afri- 
ca, —from which the following is extracted: ‘‘I shall 
have to tell about snow-clad mountains, grassy pla- 
teaux, and sterile plains, of picturesque isolated moun- 


tains, wonderfully preserved volcanic cones and craters 
in which the fiery forces might have been at Work the 
previous year, of the charming crater-lake Chala on 
the slopes of Kilima-njaro, the silvery sheets of Nai- 
vasha, Mtakuto, and Baringo, lying embosomed in a 
great valley-like depression formed by the dark and 
frowning mountains of Man and Lykipia. Not the 
least interesting subject will be that of the enormous 
volcanic mountains El Gon or Ligonyi. 

‘*The people themselves are more interesting and 
unique than their country. The Masai are in every 
respect a people by themselves. They have no re- 
semblance either to the true negroes or to the Galla 
and Somal who shut themin. They distinctly differ 
in their mode of life, their curious customs, forms 


280! 


of government, and religious ‘belief, not to speak of 
their curious language. 


of interest by astronomical observations, as well as 


the longitude of Baringo and Kwa-Sunda near the . 


Nyanza. The height of all main points has been 
determined by George’s barometer. 

‘My route was from Baringo to near the Nile, 
almost due west, returning somewhat farther north. 
Kavisondo does not extend so far south, not more 
than 20’ south. The north-east corner of the lake, 
as represented on the maps, must be cut off if my 
observations are correct.’’ A spirited discussion en- 
sued, in the course of which it appeared that Mr. 
Thomson had had some hairbreadth escapes, and 
had endured the extremity of hunger. Professor 
Ravenstein gave a description of the physical con- 
formation of equatorial Africa, and said that the 
Masai were no new race, but had been met with 
before. He instanced the Latooka of Sir Samuel 
Baker, and M’tésa, the chief of Uganda, and quon- 
dam convert of Stanley, as belonging to the same 
group. 

The president made a communication with regard 
to Mr. H. H. Johnson’s Kilima-njaro expedition, to 
the effect that he had been well received by the 
ruler of the district, ‘King Mandalla,’ and had been 
given every facility for the prosecution of his work 
of collecting specimens of natural history. 

Prof. E. G. Ravenstein, the recorder of the sec- 
tion, read an exceedingly interesting paper on certain 
maps and globes of Central Africa before the seven- 
teenth century, which exhibited a complicated river 
system and a congerie of lakes. It had been sup- 
posed by certain geographers of eminence, including 
Mr. Major, that the hydrographical features were 
derived from actual knowledge obtained by the Portu- 
guese, who had thus anticipated Livingstone, Cam- 
eron, and Stanley by a couple of centuries. But this 
was not a correct idea; as the learned Ludolfus— 
if he had carried out his intention of compiling a 
map of the whole of Africa—would have shown, 
and would thus have gained a place among cartog- 
raphers second only to Delisle and D’ Anville. 

In order to judge how far these ancient maps were 
based upon actual knowledge, or were merely con- 
jectural, it would be necessary to examine the rec- 
ords of early exploration; and, fortunately, we are 
now in a position to do this, as Luciano Cordeiro had 
brought to light several of the most ancient Portu- 
guese records. ; 

After a concise account of the explorations of the 
ancients, Mr. Ravenstein narrated, at some length, 
the exploration carried on by the Portuguese. He 
said that their knowledge of the coast districts was 
pretty full; and as early as the sixteenth century 
they had heard of the Makoko, the great chief of 
the Anteke, as well as of several tribes on the middle 
Kongo, of the Zambeze as far as Chicova, and of a 
considerable portion of Abyssinia. 
were mentioned by them, but in so vague a way that 
their identification with our modern lakes was impos- 
sible. Even the Nyassa seems to have been unknown 


SCIENCE. : 


I am happy to say that I~ 
have been able to determine the latitude of all points - 


Inland lakes . 


to them, although merchants from Sena navigated 
the Shiré; and an overland trade was undoubtedly 
carried on by the natives, for articles of Portuguese. 
manufacture actually reached Manica overland from 
Loanda. But no Portuguese had ever crossed the 
continent; as Gregorio Quadra and Balthazar Rebello 
de Aragao, who attempted to do so in 1520 and 1602, 
had failed at the very outset. 

With regard to the ancient maps, he stated that the, 


earliest among them were mere repetitions —so far 


as the interior was concerned —of Ptolemy. Later 
on, the remarkable information given by Fra Mauro 
on Abyssinia was embodied in them. Ruysch’s map 
(1508) is an illustration of Ptolemy; and if we took 
the more detailed maps of the period, — Pigafetta, 
illustrative of the ‘Congo,’ for instance, — and trans- 
ferred the names there found to their correct posi- 
tion, we should find that the interior of Africa was 
a blank. As an example, Barcena, Coloes (from 
Ptolemy), Zahaf, and Saphat were names all refer- 
ring to the great lake of Abyssinia, our Lake Tsana. 

It followed from this, that, up to the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, the Portuguese had no 
knowledge of the centre of Africa and of its great 
river-systems; although subsequently they had made 
certain discoveries which anticipated, in a measure, 
the information obtained by the heroes of modern 
African exploration. 


Mr. Trelawney Saunders described the remarkable 


journey of a trained native of India— Krishna, or 


A. K., as he is more commonly called — who pene- 
trated regions hitherto known to us only through — 


D’ Anville’s Atlas de la Chine, which contains maps 
of Tibet, derived from the surveys of Lama priests, 
made in continuation of the great Jesuit work, under 
the orders of the famous emperor Kuenten. It has 
been all along a most interesting feature of the re- 
searches of the native explorers in Tibet, that they 
have, in a remarkable degree, confirmed these Tibetian 
surveys, allowing some little differences easily rec- 
ognized. In the present case the explorer, leaving 
Prjevalski’s route at a point near the source of the 


Hoangho, struck a river, which, on placing a reduc- 


tion of his work upon a reduction of the Lama survey, 
on the same projection and scale, falls exactly, with- 
out any exaggeration, upon the course of the Murus. 
Ussu, or upper waters of the great river Yang-tse- 
Kiang. Nevertheless, the conclusions adopted in 
Calcutta make this river to be the Yalung, one of the 
great affluents of the Yang-tse-Kiang. | 

After some little discussion of a rather desultory 
nature, —in the course of which Mr. Gordon, an 


engineer who has travelled extensively in India, as- — 
serted that the country on the Bacco, where aboutsix . 
hundred inches of rain fall in a year, was the rainiest 


in the world, — Mr. Saunders described the first gen- 


| (Vor. IV) No. 83." 


} 
| 


eral census of India, which was taken on Feb. 17,1881. . 


The entire population enumerated was 253,891,821, : 
He. 3 
then compared various parts of this large population —* 


occupying an area of 1,382,624 square miles. 


with that of other countries chiefly European, and 


described the Indian house and its contents. This — 
census, which is embodied in twenty folio volumes, - 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


contains reports under the following heads: area of 
population; movement of population; religious clas- 
sification; proportion of sexes and religious divisions; 
condition of population; condition and age of popu- 
_ lation by religion and province; birthplaces, insanity, 
_deaf-mutes, occupations, languages, education, blind 
people, lepers, castes. The reports in general are not 
-merely a dry record of figures; but they abound with 
information of a most interesting character, concern- 
ing this grand division of the population of the world, 
which stands second only in number to its still vaster 
neighbor, the empire of China, It may be useful to 
add that an abstract of this census may be obtained 
_in three volumes. 

The president of the section, Sir J. Henry Lefroy, 
spoke of the value of the census, and enlarged upon 
the fact that it showed that there were nearly two 

million native Christians in India. In answer to a 
question, Mr. Saunders said that of this large popu- 
lation but 89,000 were natives of the United Kingdom. 

The next paper was on Mount Roraima in British 
Guiana, by Mr. E. F. im Thurn, for some time a magis- 
trate there, who proposes to examine the mountain 
_as closely as possible on every side, and to make the 
ascent, should circumstances permit. He intends, 
moreover, to examine and collect the flora and fauna 
of the country, and especially to investigate the con- 
dition of the little-known Arecoona Indians in whose 
district Roraima lies. 

In conclusion, the recorder of the section, Prof. E. 
G. Ravenstein, read an exceedingly suggestive paper 

_on the proper method of teaching young children the 
Tudiments of geography. He said that the time when 
teachers of geography confined themselves to teach- 
ing their pupils a barren list of localities was fortu- 
nately past, and the principles first enunciated by 
Pestalozzi and Frébel might be said to have taken 
_a fair hold. But still the geographical text-books 
were far too abundant in nomenclature, as distinct 
from an exposition of facts or an explanation of 
phenomena. Elementary geography should teach 
our children to understand the locality in which they 
live, to observe, and to think for themselves, instead 


of accepting the definitions presented to them; to — 


describe, further, their experiences in language of 
their own, instead of paraphrasing the language 
made use of by their teachers. This method com- 
pelled us to take our children out of. the school- 
room, and to bring them to the locality which it was 
desirable to describe. The lesson which followed 
would be really an object-lesson, which lessons based 
on a map or a picture or a model could not be. 
The children should be encouraged to observe the 
Same phenomenon repeatedly until they have ob- 
tained a clear conception of it. The children would 
then observe the fact under consideration once more, 
with such help as would be afforded by the teacher’s 
explanation; and to this would succeed a final con- 
sideration of the subject, within the schoolroom. 
The subjects of this elementary$study ought to in- 
clude the surface features of our earth, its vegeta- 
tion and fauna, and its inhabitants. Atmospheric 
phenomena, as well as the celestial bodies, in as far 


SCIENCE. 


281 


as their movements are visible from our earth, should 
also be included. He would include the elements of 
geology and of natural science generally, in so far as 
they would explain geographical phenomena; and, 
besides, he would seek an opportunity of expounding 
the principles of political economy and of statistics. 
The range was, therefore, a wide one. The subjects 
would differ according to the locality in which the 
school was placed, as during the earlier stages the 
children would be limited to subjects coming within 
their sphere of observation; and only at a more ad- 
vanced age, when the power of imagination had been 
developed, would they carry the young mind from 
things seen to things unseen. Thus a consideration 
of the St. Lawrence and its turgid tributary, the 
Ottawa, would carry them in course of time to the 
great lakes, and to the magnificent forests, which 
explain the color of the water of the rivers. The 
various phenomena would not at first be considered 
systematically, but as occasion arose. 

This paper was followed by an interesting discus- 


_sion; during which it was remarked, that the main 
difficulty in introducing such a method into the 


school boards of England was the examination 
system there in vogue; as it was necessary for 
teachers, if they wished to retain their places, to 
cram their pupils for the examination. May not 
some such vicious system be the cause of the gross 
ignorance on geographical subjects which prevails in 


our own country ? 


Mr. James Glaisher read a report of the com- 
mittee for promoting the survey of western Pales- 
tine. He first gave a brief history of the ‘ Palestine 
exploration fund,’ which was founded in 1865 with 
the object in general terms of obtaining from the 
Holy Land itself whatever facts might be gathered 
for the elucidation of the Bible. ‘The work was class- 
ified as follows: 1. Archeology —including excava- 
tions; 2. Manners and customs of the modern 
inhabitants; 3. Topography; 4. Geology; 5. Natural 
sciences, botany, zoology, etc. 

The first work undertaken was the excavation at 
Jerusalem, which occupied the years 1867-1870, and 
threw a flood of light upon the ancient city. In 1870- 
1871 a journey was made through the Desert of the 
exodus; and in the autumn of 1871 the survey, on the 
scale of an inch to a mile, of western Palestine, was 
begun. The work was carried on until 1875, when 
the party was attacked by the Arabs. In 1877 it was 
resumed; and in 1880 a map in twenty-six sheets was 
published, followed by a reduction of it on one-third 
scale in 1882. 

In 1882 the survey was extended to the east of the 
Jordan, but owing to the opposition of the natives was 
abandoned after only about five hundred square miles 
had been surveyed. The society is now waiting for 
the Sultan’s firman, without which Mr. Glaisher stated 
no alien is allowed to remain more than one month 
in the country, to go there with a camera, or to take 
away the smallest specimen. He then gave a short 
account of the results of the geological survey con- 


ducted by Professor Hull last winter, a full account 


of which is now in press. 


282 


Dr. J. B. Hurlbert said that by comparing the. 
climates of different portions of the two hemispheres, . 
— western coasts with western, eastern with eastern, 
and interior divisions with interior, —it was found | 


that vast areas in the new world possessed soils and 
climates similar to corresponding regions of the old. 
With regard to the coasts, this was due to the oceanic 
currents. As to interiors, they had warmer summers 
and colder winters than oceanic regions; and in the 


central part of North America, between the parallels - 


of 80° and 50° north latitude, there was but little rain 
in summer, and much snow in winter. 
drought was due not to the Rocky Mountains, as 
many had supposed, but to the prevalence of south- 
west winds. The operation of these winds was de- 
scribed in detail, and it was asserted that trees could 
not be induced to grow in that arid waste, and that 
the prairie once broken up could not be reset. The 
reverse of all this was true of the interior of Canada. 
He closed by remarking that climates have as power- 
ful an effect upon the human race as upon vegetables; 
and that, therefore, the people of this region of great 
summer drought would in time become like the Be- 
douin Arabs; while Canada would be the future great 
power on the continent. 

Dr. Hurlbert then read a paper on some peculiar 
storms. He began by saying that he did not believe 
in the existence of cyclones, although he admitted the 
existence of whirlwinds in the West Indies. But he 
thought that the hurricanes which swept our eastern 
coasts were due to a warm current of air, which, start- 
ing from the Gulf of Mexico, proceeded in a northerly 
and easterly direction, and, meeting with a cold at- 
mosphere, condensed. Into the vacuum thus formed, 
air poured from every side, and the storm swept on 
with ever-increasing violence. 

Dr. Ball said that he thought that Dr. Asa Gray 
would hardly agree with the learned gentleman’s de- 
ductions with regard to the future of vegetation in 
the region of summer drought, and reminded him 
that it often rained there when least expected, and 
hinted that averages of rainfall, etc., were likely to be 
misleading. He also asked him some questions as to 
the climate of the coast of California, to which no 
satisfactory explanation could be given. 

Mr. Trelawney Saunders then severely criticised 
the unscientific method pursued by the Dominion 
survey, borrowed from that of the United States sur- 
vey, which had been devised in times of geodetic 
darkness; and he advised a method of division of the 


land by meridians and parallels, which was shown — 


(the next day) by Mr. Leslie Russell of the Dominion 


survey to be precisely the method pursued by that. 


survey. As to Mr. Saunders’s criticisms on the lack 
of orographic information furnished by the maps of 


the survey, Mr. Russell replied that the differences in . 


elevation were so slight in the region now being sur- 
veyed, that it was impossible to show them by any 
ordinary means; and that, besides, it was necessary 
that the territory should be laid out into sections, 


townships, etc., as soon as possible, that settlers might © 
go there and take up land without fear of future liti- re 


gation as to boundaries and titles. 


SCIENCE. 


This summer . 


[Von IV, -No.- 83—.. 


On the fourth. day Lieut. P. H. Ray, U.S.A., after. . 
describing the objects of the circumpolar expedi-. . 
tions, gave an account of the explorations and obser- . 
vations undertaken by him at Point Barrow, Alaska. 
He said that the ground never thawed to a greater . 
depth than twelve inches; and that two years’ care- 
ful observation had satisfied. him that there is no 
open polar sea, from the fact that the temperature — 
of the sea-water is unvarying from the time the sea — 
closes in October until it opens in July, which could 


not well be the case if there were a large body of . 


warm water lying around the pole. Besides, the . 
atmospheric conditions were found to be such as. 
would not exist near a large body of open water. In 
addition, all discoverers had noticed, that, although a . 
current runs to the north, nevertheless the sea is 
filled with old ice, which he thought came from the . 
north, and this could not happen if there is an open . 
polar sea. In concluding he said, that, in laying out 
the work for the circumpolar expeditions, the mag- » 
netic pole had been neglected, which was a great mis- 
take; and he declared that he would willingly go 
there himself. 

The president of the section, in inthaga ets Lieut. - 
Greely, said that his party had helped to solve one of 
the most difficult geographical problems of the day, 
and that Lieut. Lockwood had reached the farthest. . 
north; that they had furnished data for determining . 
the compression of the polar axis, by observations. 
nearer the pole than any hitherto made; and that they | 
had brought home the pendulum used, that it might | 
be corrected at Washington. He thought that noth- . 
ing in the annals of scientific heroism exceeded the. . 
devotion of those hungry men in sticking to that 
ponderous piece of metal, Lieut. Greely’s paper — 


descriptive of the work of the expedition has been — 


extensively printed ;and there is no need of mentioning | 
here more than a few points which, indeed, were sup- _. 
plementary to the paper itself. He said that. at Fort 
Conger the ground thawed to a much greater depth - 
than at Point Barrow, namely, between twenty-nine 
and thirty-four inches; and that with regard toanopen — 
polar sea he believed in the existence of an open, but © 
not necessarily navigable, sea in that direction. He ©, 
said that he had only been at his station a, short time |. 


when it struck him that he could tell whether the .. 


tide was flowing or ebbing, by the temperature of 
the water; and by observations he found that when 


' the tide came from the north the water was warmer . 
than when it came from the south. The tide tray- — 


elled with great velocity; and most perfect observa- 


tions had been made at different points, in many cases — 


simultaneously, which would be published in due — 
season. ‘ 

Capt. Bedford Pim, in offering his congratulations | 
to the explorers upon their safe return, said that he 
was glad that Lieut. Greely agreed with him as to — 


the existence of a polynia in the vicinity of the pole, 


and he hoped that Lieut. Ray would be broughe tos, : 
their way of thinking. 


It seemed to be the opinion of all the apeakenedl that, id 
arctic exploration should be continued, and that it - 
- was especially important that the magnetic pole (of - 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


which Capt. Pim declared noone knows the position) 
should be visited, and a large number of accurate 
observations there taken. : 

A lunch was given to the two lieutenants in the 
afternoon, but nothing was then said of geographical 
importance. 

Mr. R. G. Haliburton said that he considered the 
saga of Eric the Red, describing the voyage of his 
son Leif to Vinland, a poetic version of Bjarne’s 
voyage reversed. Eric, driven from Norway, and 
afterwards from Iceland, discovered a dreary country, 
which he called Greenland, avowedly to attract emi- 
grants thither. Subsequently the land sighted by 
Bjarne, and visited and colonized by Eric’s family, 
was called by them, evidently for the same object, 
Vinland the Good. The length of the shortest day, 
the presence of Eskimos, the Norse maps, and geo- 
graphical notices, all show that Vinland could not 
have been south of the north-western part of New- 
foundland. 

Mr. Haliburton also said that recently discovered 
Portuguese documents prove that the next oldest 
colony in America was Terra nova, embracing Lab- 
rador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, which was 
explored by the Corte Reals in 1500-1502; and that 


commissions were regularly issued to them as govern- 


ors up to 1579. In 1521 a patent was issued to Fa- 
gundes of all the lands between the Spanish colonies 
and ‘the land of the Corte Reals.’ He had recently 
discovered, while in the Azores, that two Portuguese 
colonies sailed thence to Cape Breton in 1521 and 
1567, probably to St. Peters and Ingonische. The 
Spaniards, who annexed Portugal to Spain in 1580, 
sent a colony to Spanish Harbour (Sydney) between 
1580 and 1597. He added that Cape Race (Cabo raso 
— ‘bare cape’), the Bay of Fundy (Fonda—‘ deep’), 
and other Portuguese names, still tell of this ‘lost 
colony.’ 

The Rev. Abbé Laflamme then said, that the 
province of Quebee may be divided into two hydro- 
graphic basins, —that of the St. Lawrence, and that 
formed by the collection of lakes which fed the rivers 
flowing into Hudson’s Bay. The name of only one 
of these lakes was known, —lake Mistassimi. It was 
certain, however, that there were many others of 
great size in its vicinity and on the peninsula of 
Labrador. He declared that all the maps hitherto 
published of lake Mistassimi were inexact. One thing 
only was certain, and that was, that it was larger than 
lake Ontario. 

Professor W. Boyd Dawkins maintained that the 
former connection of North America with Green- 
land, Iceland, and north-western Europe is most 
conclusively proved by the distribution of the fossil 
plants and animals in the eocene and miocene ages. 
The tract of comparatively shallow water ranging 
from Greenland past Iceland to the Faroés and north- 
ern Scotland, and which isolates the deep waters of 
the Arctic sea from the depths of the Atlantic, formed 
the bridge across which the migration took place, the 
four-hundred-fathom line representing approximately 
the line of the ancient shores. The barrier became 


submerged towards the close of the miocene age;. 


SCIENCE. 


283 — 


and then, for the first time, the Arctic waters united 
with the Atlantic, and arctic shells gradually found | 
their way southwards into the area of the British 
isles. 

Mr. J. S. O’ Halloran then presented a memorandum 
with regard to Winnecke’s exploration of central Aus- 
tralia, with notes on the employment of camels, and 
some extracts from his journals. The reference to 
camels reminded Mr. Torrance that they were for- 
merly employed in British Columbia, but that the 
smell of the beasts so terrified horses that the govern 
ment ordered their use to be discontinued. 

The president of the section then made some re- 
marks about the poor attendance at some of the meet- 
ings, —at one time there were but four persons 
present, besides the officers and reporters, — which he 
attributed to the unfortunate position of the building 
in which the meetings were held; and the section was 
then adjourned. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 


THIS section has been in existence almost from the 
foundation of the British association, having been 
organized as a section of statistics in 1833: econom- 
ics were added in 1856. The range of topics con- 
sidered has been very wide, and has included such 
topics as population, mortality, emigration, labor, 
crime, punishments, debt, wealth, trade, coinage, 
banking, insurance, poor-laws, schools, libraries, sani- 
tary regulations, water-supply, pollutions of rivers, 
forestry, agriculture, stock-raising, imports and ex- 
ports. 

The section assembled at eleven o’clock on Thurs- 
day, .in Synod hall, several blocks distant from 
McGill college, where most of the sections were 
located, Nevertheless, about 140 persons were pres- 
ent to listen to the address of the sectional presi- 
dent, Sir Richard Temple, of London, upon the 
general statistics of the British empire.! It was no- 
ticeable that the applause occurred when reference 
was made to the superiority of Great Britain, and but 
once when comparisons showed the United States to 
be superior to the empire. A vote of thanks was pro- 
posed by Prof. J. Clark Murray,:of Montreal, and 
was supported by Mr. Edward Atkinson of Boston, 
who highly complimented Sir Richard Temple for his 
efforts in founding the school of British economical 
science. Professor Murray thought this section would 
be more interesting to Canada than any other; be- 
cause, 1° it was not so abstruse, and 2° it treated of 
matters of vital importance to Canadian voters. He 
hoped soon to see a chair of economic science in 
McGill college. 

Sir Richard Temple said he would accord the place 
of honor to the United States, and called on Mr. At- 
kinson to read the first paper, entitled ‘What makes 
the rate of wages.’ Mr. Atkinson said that the argu- 
ment of Mr. Henry George in his ‘ Progress and poy- 
erty,’ that the rich are growing richer, and the poor 
1 The address is printed in abstract in Science of Sept. 5, p. 214. 


284 


becoming poorer, as a whole, was not conclusive, and 
‘that the extraordinary circulation of the book in 
many languages showed how all-important was the 
question at this time. He therefore suggested, in 
reply, that, as it is generally conceded that somewhere 
and always there is enough and to spare, the question 
is only one of distribution, not of production. And 
yet distribution he held to be subsidiary to produc- 
tion, claiming that at no time should more be dis- 
tributed than was produced in that period. That 
distribution is to 1° taxes, 2° profit, 3° labor, —the 
last receiving all that the others leave, and being 
measured by wages. The true wage which is due to 
the laborer is food, fuel, shelter, and other means of 
subsistence. The vast majority of mankind are 
wage-receivers. What determines the rate of their 
wages in terms of money? High rates of wages are 
the natural and necessary result of low cost of produc- 
tion. Especially is this soin the United States, where 
the people are homogeneous, means of intercommu- 
nication ample, and where there is no artificial ob- 
struction to prevent commerce. Wages are therefore 
the consequence and remainder over after capital has 
received its profits. This remainder has been con- 
stantly increasing. This he illustrated by elaborate 
statistics, compiled from the books of two New Eng- 
land cotton-factories. The profits declined, having 
been 2.40 cents per yard in 1830; 1.18 in 1840; 1.11 in 
1850; .69 in 1860; .66 in 1870; .48 in 1880; .43 in 1883; 
and .41 in 1834. The average annual wage per opera- 
tor had increased at the above dates as follows: $164, 
$175, $190, $197, $240, $259, $287, and $290.1 Profits 
and wages together showed a constant increase due 
to increased efficiency and subdivision of labor, im- 
proved machinery, and a consequent lower cost of 
production. Capital alone made this possible. Van- 
derbilt was pronounced the greatest communist in 
the United States, in that, for every cent he saves 
from his railroads, he saves a dollar to the masses in 
the cost of transportation, and thus aids a low cost of 
production, which, in turn, gives a high rate of wages. 
Mr. Atkinson incidentally pointed out, as against the 
Malthusian theory, that as yet a field ten miles square 
would hold the population of the earth, while one 


twenty miles square would seat every person; and, 


that, but for the interdependence of nations, an enor- 
mous part of the products of our soil would rot as 
valueless. It is our duty to show the masses how, in 
the distribution, each may get his share; or, as Glad- 
stone has said, to weave the web of concord among 
the nations. 

The paper was discussed at length by Sir Richard 
Temple; J. B. Martin of London; Prof. H. S. Fox- 
well of St. John’s college, Cambridge; Mr. Swire 
Smith, of the Royal commission on education, Low- 
field, England; David Chadwick of London; and 
Cornelius Walford, the secretary of the Geographi- 
cal society, London. The general tenor of discus- 
sion was highly complimentary to the essayist. Mr. 
Martin thought labor and capital unavoidably in op- 
position, not to say antagonistic; and that the rate 
of wages would be determined by the margin exist. 

1 All figures are reduced to gold basis. 


SCIENCE. 


-is willing to confine himself *to for a living. That — 


ea Oe 
F ah Hy 


ing between the cost of wages and what the laborer 


margin which so attracts emigrants he found exces- 
sive on this continent, .and was totally at a loss to 
explain why it required ten cents to get his boots 
blacked in Montreal. a ‘i 
Professor Foxwell said that in Ricardo’s time capi- 
tal was the starting-point for discussion; now it is 
labor. Gen. F. A. Walker has done much, by his 
political economy, to influence thought in England. 
In the distribution in question, every thing depends — 
upon the equality of the bargainers. As laborers 
have become wiser, they have bargained for a better 
distribution. In the United States this has been 
potent. The diffusion of property as a reserve is a 
very important aid to bargainers. England much 
needs to educate its laborers, and secure a diffusion 
of property. Monopolies he had regarded with dis- 
trust, but is coming to think them desirable: they 
must, however, be under some public control and 
restraint. He pointed out that the rise in factory 
wages had been coincident with the rise of labor- 
unions, and doubted whether capitalists voluntarily 
raised the wages. Capital invested in factories was 
doubtless receiving a lower percentage of profit, but 
interest is also lower. Mr. Smith could see, in the 
facts presented, only Adam Smith’s law of supply 
and demand regulating rate of wages. Mr. Chad- 
wick demurred from the Smith doctrine. Disturbing 
elements have come in. By combination English 
laborers have forced higher wages, and the hours of 
labor per week from sixty in 1849 to fifty-six and one- 
half in 1884. Capitalists have always known their 
power: the laborers, only recently. Germans, French, 
and Swiss work sixty hours, solely because they do 
not realize their power, and combine for a reduction. 
Mr. Atkinson admitted that character, in the last, 
analysis, makes the rate of wages. He thought, that, 
although legislation had attempted in. Massachusetts 
to regulate hours of labor, the changes cited have. 
come about naturally, and regardless thereof. | ’ 
Three papers on savings banks followed. Mr. 
W. A. Douglass, of the Freehold and savings society 
of Toronto, gave the history and described the man- 
agement of loan and savings companies in Ontario. 
Starting in 1855, the number has reached 73, with 
assets of $79,500,008. Seven per cent is obtained in 
Ontario, and nine per cent in Manitoba, on good 
mortgages. Since 1874 the companies have obtained. 
some money from England, the amount so handled. 
amounting to $25,679,803.. Mr. Stephen Bourne re- 
marked upon the opportunity thus presented for 
England to invest surplus. funds, and of her duty to 
thus aid her colonies. Mr. Atkinson spoke of the 
800,000 accounts averaging $300 each, in Massachu- 
setts savings banks, and of the accumulations made 
by Irish laborers Mr. J. Cunningham Stewart, of 
Ottawa, sent a paper upon the history and progress — 
of post-office savings banks, which contained the — 
statistics of the subject from official sources. After 
sixteen years’ growth, Ontario has 57,296 depositors, ~ 
and Quebec 9,386. The deposits amount to $15,- — 
245,000, one-half of which is held in Montreal. and. — 


3 


SEPTEMBER 19, 18S4.] 


_ Quebec city. Mr. Thomas D. Tims also sent a 
_ paper on dominion savings banks. Vice-president 
Martin remarked upon these papers, deprecating the 
tendency of people to avoid making their own 
investments by intrusting them too much to such 
institutions. 

A paper on Irish emigration was read in behalf of 
Mr. James A. Tuke, the founder of Tuke’s emigra- 
tion bureau. This paper graphically pictured the 
abject condition in Connaught and many Irish coun- 
ties. Some 200,°00 families, or 1,000,000 persons, 
occupy small holdings never taxed as worth over 
$20 to $59, and consisting of from one to ten acres 
of bog-land. This at best yields not over nine 
months’ subsistence, leaving three months’ depend- 
ence on charity. The least evil for remedying this 
state of affairs was found in emigration to America. 
At an expenditure of $68,500 he has aided 9,482 to 
seek a better home in the new world. Of this money, 
220,000 was from the government, and the remain- 
der private gifts. Over seventy-seven per cent were 
the young and healthy, but too poor to obtain trans- 
portation money for themselves. Once located, how- 
ever, they have been industrious, and at once set to 
work to send back savings to their relatives, thus 
enabling them also to emigrate. Not less than 
$25,000 was so returned to Ireland in 1882 and 1883, 
one shop-keeper having cashed $1,000 of such drafts. 
Of the counties furnishing emigrants, seventeen per 
cent of the population was removed. The people 
were located in 165 different places, 148 in the United 
States, and 17 in Canada. Less than five per cent 
had ever uttered a complaint as to their new condi- 
tion. The paper was discussed by Mr. John Lowe, 
Department of agriculture at Ottawa, and by Major 
P. G. Craigie of London, both of whom had observed 
the good effects of Mr. Tuke’s work. The latter said, 
‘The Irishman will suceeed best out of Ireland.’ 

Mr. W. Westgarth, president of the Melbourne 
chamber of commerce, read a paper on the British 
Empire in North America and Australia. He made 
elaborate comparisons between Canada and Australia, 
and furnished valuable facts, especially concerning 
the latter. He admitted that a drought had swept 
away ten million sheep, but said they had sixty-six 
million left. The dominion exports of 1882 were 
valued at $97,671,000; the Australian, at $255,000,- 
000, chiefly consisting of wool and gold. Victoria 
has already exported £210,000,000 sterling in gold. 
The dominion has 9,000 miles of railway; Australia, 
7,000 miles. Dominion annual revenue, $36,000,000; 
Australian, $110,000,000. Dominion debt, $153,661,- 
000; Australian, $496,250,000. He urged the need of 
Closer ties between Great Britain and her colonies. 

On Friday, Vice-president Martin read a paper 
on media of exchange, or notes upon the precious 
metals, speaking of 1° the metals, 2° coin, 3° bank- 
notes, 4° instruments of credit. The discussion 
was participated in by Mr. Chadwick; Mr. Atkinson; 
Mr. Sidney Fisher, M.P.; Mr. Stephen Bourne of 
Wallington, Surrey; Hon. C. W. Fremantle, Master 
of the royal mint, London; and Dr. James Ed- 
munds of London. The latter spoke of small bank- 


SCIENCE. 


285 


notes as a most serious media of infection, the germs 
of cholera, small-pox, scarlet-fever, etc., being re- 
tained therein. Coin may be disinfected by heat. 


‘The paper and the discussion included such topics 


as the advantages and disadvantages of coin,, the 


supposed .gold depreciation since the opening of 
American and Australian mines, the dangers from 


inconvertible notes, the improbability of changes in 
the English sovereign, the proper method of meeting 
the expense of converting bullion into coin, the bless- 
ings of a good banking-system, with allusions to those 
of the United States, Russia, and other nations. 
Dr. Edmunds regarded the value of gold as depend- 
ent on so many variables, that its actual value cannot 
be ascertained. Mr. Atkinson thought gold had lost 
some of its purchasing power, and Mr. Martin thought 
it had steadily increased. _ . 

Mr. Michael G. Mulhall of London, author of the 
Dictionary of statistics, read a paper upon the debts 
of nations. The debts of the leading nations in 
1884 he reported in millions of dollars, as follows: 
France, 4,975; Great Britain, 3,780; Russia, 2,775; 
Austria, 2,540; Italy, 2,190; Germany, 1,670; Spain, 
1,650; United States, 1,525; Spanish America, 975; 
India, 800; Turkey, 740; Australia, 580; Egypt, 565; 
Portugal, 535; Holland, 420; Belgium, 390; Japan, 


_ 385; Canada, 190; Roumania, 135; South Africa, 


115; Norway and Sweden, 100; Greece, 90; Denmark, 
60; Servia, 20. Grand total, $27,155,000,000. From 
1848 to 1870, the annual increase averaged $99,000,000; 
from 1870 to 1884, $115,000,000. The increase, how- 
ever, has not kept pace with the increase of wealth. 
Of existing debts, sixty per cent stand for war ex- 
penditure, and forty per cent for improvements; but 
of debts incurred since 1848, fifty-five per cent was 
for peace, and forty-five per cent for war. The paper 
was discussed by Mr. Walford, Dr. Edmunds, and 
Mr. Atkinson. The contracting of war-debts was 
severely denounced; and, although the essayist re- 
garded debt as a convenient investment, as no injury 
to the working-classes, and as not to be feared, the 
tenor of criticism was decidedly adverse to these 
ideas. Mr. Atkinson especially criticised the bond- 
holder, if not also a producer, as a burden upon soci- 
ety. To ascertain what burden a national debt is, 
we should consider, not population, not accumulated 
wealth even, but the annual national product. Bur- 
den isinratioto net savings. A people which cannot 
save any thing from the current product is unbear- 
ably burdened by a public debt. How many laboring 
men in Europe, he asked, can save twelve pounds 
per year? The U.S. debt, he said, had been reduced 
from eighty-eight dollars per capita to twenty-five 
dollars per capita. He claimed that it reached 
$3,000,000,000 at the close of the war, although the 
official debt statements never showed somuch. There 
were outstanding and unaudited liabilities which 
made the difference. Before these had been adjusted, 
the debt had been reduced by a similar amount. He 
prophesied that the progress of this continent would 
compel Europe to disband her armies, and pay off 
her debts, in order to get upon a competing footing. 
A paper sent by Mr. J. McLennan, upon Canadian 


286 > 


finances, was discussed by Mr. Stephen Bourne, Mr. 
Hale of Montreal, Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Thomas White, 
and others. Some criticisms of Canadian tariff-laws 
and the sale of public lands were made by English- 
men, and replied to with spirit by Canadians. The 
latter usually professed to be free-traders, but de- 
fended the tariff, as required by very peculiar circum- 
stances, such as its proximity to the United States. 
The American theory of the subdivision of public 
lands was explained by Mr. Atkinson, who also illus- 
trated public subsidizing of railroad schemes by the 
history of the Hoosac tunnel. The interest on this 
debt would alone pay for transporting the bread of 
New England from the far west to Boston. 

Major P. G. Craigie, secretary of the Central 
chamber of agriculture, read a paper on agricultural 
production with special reference to the supply of 
meat. With an increase in the population of Great 
Britain since 1868 of 16%, there has been but 4% in- 
crease of cultivated area, 11% increase in cattle, and 
24% decrease insheep. Consequently the importation 
of meat has grown from 100,000 tons in 1868, to 316,000 
tons in 1876, and to 450,000 tons in 1883. The total 
consumption in 1868 he placed at 1,374,000 tons, or 100 
pounds per capita; in 1883, at 1,774,000 tons, or 112 
pounds per capita. The paper was discussed by Pro- 
fessor William H. Brewer of Yale college, Mr. Atkin- 
son, and others. Mr. Atkinson said he had tried in 
vain to ascertain the consumption of meat per capita 
in the United States. A year’s supply of meat and 
flour had been assumed to include three hundred 
pounds of the former and one barrel of the latter. 
To move this year’s supply from the west, its place 
of production, to Massachusetts, costs but one day’s 
labor, $1.25. He also spoke of the negro rations — 
three and a half pounds of bacon and one peck of 
corn meal—as producing a given amount of force 
at the smallest cost of any diet among any people of 
the earth, the cost being but seven cents per day. 
The reason is that the ‘hog and hominy’ are pecul- 
iarly adapted to each other for ready and perfect di- 
gestion. 

Professor John Prince Sheldon and Prof. W. 
Fream, of the Downton college of agriculture in 
Salisbury, read interesting papers upon British and 
Canadian agriculture, as did Prof. W. Brown upon 
Canadian agriculture. Papers by Gen. M. Laurie 
of London, John Carnegie, M.P., of Peterborough, 
Ont., and Sydney Fisher, M.P., had been prepared 
upon the agriculture of Nova Scotia, Ontario, and 
Quebec ; but there was not time to present them, 
the section having been in continuous session for six 
hours. Propositions to prevent the entrance of cattle- 
disease from the U. S. were repeatedly made and fa- 
vorably received. It was shown that the acreage in 
Great Britain devoted to wheat and corn is constant- 
ly decreasing, and that to grass and pasturage increas- 
ing. Farm-rents are declining, and must continue 
to decline. Railway charges there are exorbitant. 
Wheat can be brought across the ocean cheaper than 
from some counties by rail. Several gentlemen dis- 
cussed the papers. 


SCIENCE. 


- Treston, Eng., read a paper on factory acts.'° These’ — 


Peter Price, an English land- — 
are for the protection of women and children. Mrs. gil 


owner, uttered his astonishment at what he had seen © 


[Vou Ivy Ne & 


here: his best tenants are leaving him, and he canadel 
rebuke them. His estate of three hundred and fifty . 
acres is going into pasture, and he cannot get enough ” 
out of it to pay taxes. The thrift of Canadian agri-- 
culturists and the embarrassments of Great Britain 
were brought out in the most striking manner, much © 
to the satisfaction of Canadians, the amazement of ~ ' 
the British, and the amusement of Americans. 
On Monday a paper by Mr. Stephen Bourne was ~ 
read upon the interdependence of the several por- — 
tions of the British Empire. After presenting some — 
statistics, Mr. Bourne entered upon an exhortation ~ 
to the colonies to combine with the mother country 
in refusing to buy from nations which enforce pro- 
tection. ‘We should,’ said he, ‘teach the nations — 
that we have a world of our own.’ He would not 
answer protection with protection, but with absolute — 
cessation of trade with those who are not ‘fair- 
traders.’ Sir Richard Temple suggested that Eng- — 
land could not, so far as now known, get its long- _ 
staple cotton anywhere but from the United States, ~ 
a high-tariff nation. Mr. Chadwick denounced the 
proposition, and said the author dare not make it, 
were the section in session in the British isles. — 
‘This,’ he said, ‘would starve half our people and 
half our cattle’ The president felt called upon to 
defend freedom of speech, although not agreeing 
with the speaker. Amid much excitement the Cana- 
dians rushed to the defence of their tariff, and openly 
declared that if they must choose between such an 
alliance with Great Britain and one with the United 
States, they had much to gain and little to lose by © 
choosing the latter. Mr. Atkinson indicated the 
satisfaction which the United States might feel at 
such an arrangement. It would keep her products at 
home, glut the market, make labor much cheaper, 
and so reduce the cost of manufactured fabrics. She 
would then be able to compete in the world’s markets, 
as she cannot now with English manufacturers! Mr. 
Thomas G. Haliburton said the foreign trade of Eng- 
land was decreasing, and that at the present rate of. 
decrease but twenty years were needed to terminate ; 
it: hence the need of wise dealings with the colonies" a 
and foreign nations. Mr. Roswell Fisher of Montreal — 
said stich. a policy would not do for the dominion. _ 
‘We Canadians exist here on the sufferance of the — 
United States’ [loud shouts of No, No!]. Should ~ 
England retaliate upon the United States,.it could | 
crush Canada with a prohibitory tariff. But politi- 
cally and socially Canada was nearer the latter than 
the former. No number of ocean telegraphs and 
swift steamers can destroy American unity [great a 
excitement]. Sir Francis Hincks, a Canadian poli- — 
tician of fifty years’ experience, being loudly called 
for, said, ‘ Let well alone.’ Canada does not want 
representation in the British parliament and in army ~ 
tax-lists, nor is she interested in her Majesty’s foreign — 
policy. He emphasized American friendliness, and — 
the necessity of meeting the gg of the ‘United a 
States wisely. : 
Mr. R. W. Cooke Taylor, Ha eeeal of eae : 


; 
% 


acs aA io dal 


Z 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884. ] 


King and Mrs. Hallett discussed the paper, express- 


ing dissatisfaction with the act, and saying women. 


could take care of themselves. Mr. Robert C. Adams 
of Montreal read a paper on the phosphate indus- 
try of Canada. In 1883 it amounted to 17,500 tons. 
Phosphate lands have sold as high as $1,250 per.acre. 
Mr. Hughes, Mr. Martin, and Sir Richard Temple dis- 
cussed the paper. A valuable paper on. the fisheries 
of Canada, by Mr. L. Z. Joncas, was read by Mr. 
Thomas White, M.P.1. The paper was discussed by 
Mr. Cornelius Walford and Mr. C. W. Smiley of the 
U. S. fish-commission. Several forestry papers closed 
the sitting, — Professor Brown of Ontario, on the 
- application of scientific and practical arboriculture 
to Canada; Mr. J. P. Hughes, on the necessity of 
forest preservation; Mr. A. T. Drummond of Mont- 
real, on the distribution of Canadian trees; and Mr. 
F. B. Hough, on the future policy of the forest man- 
agement of the United States. Mr. Walford re- 
marked that forest culture in England pays four per 
cent profit, and in the United States seven per cent. 
Mr. Caruthers of the British museum also made re- 
marks. The anthropometric committee presented a 
printed report, including observations on eyesight 
by Mr. C. Roberts. This report contained valuable 
tables. On Tuesday Mr. Cornelius Walford spoke 
upon land and watercommunication. Mr. E. Wragge 
and Alexander McDougall presented a joint paper 
upon the same topic. A paper by Emile de Lave- 
leye, upon land laws, was read by thesecretary. Miss 
Maria Rye, Mrs. Burt, and Mrs. Joyce each read 
a paper on female emigration, C. Le Neve Foster 
read a paper on the relative dangers of coal and 
metal mining. Many of the papers were presented 
by the authors in printed form, and printed abstracts 
of many others were circulated. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
MECHANICAL SCIENCE. | 


THE mechanical science section of the British 
Association appears to be in a prosperous condition, 
aS was intimated, indeed, in the opening paragraph 
of the address of its president, Sir Frederick Bram- 
well: this is due, no doubt, to the fact that its scope 
is much wider than its nameimplies. The president’s 
address was instructive as well as witty; it was in the 
form of an apology for the practical character of the 
section, and exhibited in detail the interdependence 
between it and the others, showing it to be comple- 
mentary to them; but the distinguished author did 
not fail to scatter valuable suggestions throughout, 
and to indicate some lines of past and future prog- 
ress. The address, however, contains no carefully 
digested summary of engineering progress for the 
past year or up to the present time; and though many 
valuable papers, prepared by request, summarize prog- 


ress in particular directions, the general scientific. 


reader must seriously regret the fact. The various 
criticisms upon the hampering action of the govern- 


1 This paper will be ait lore in the U. §. fish-commission 
bulletin. 


SCIENCE. 


287 


ment toward engineering enterprises, such as electric 
lightning, the telephone, the Channel tunnel, brought 
out the strong feeling of the English members, that 
the government should confine itself to governing. 
The courtesy shown the president in the delivery and 
acceptance of his address was a pleasant feature: the 
presidents of the association and of the physical sec- 
tion, as well as the sectional vice-presidents and secre- 
taries, were upon the platform, and the former moved 
a vote of thanks. In doing so Lord Rayleigh com- 
mented upon the Channel tunnel and other govern- 
ment interference; and was followed by Vice-president 
Thurston, who seconded the motion, expressing the 
American sympathy with the obituary notice of Wil- 
liam Siemens, and cordially inviting the members to 
take part in Section D at Philadelphia. 

The multiplication of section officers is to be noted; 
there being no less than eight vice-presidents, four 
secretaries, and a large sectional committee, among 
whom appear the following gentlemen from the 
United States: Messrs. Coon, Emery, Hoadley, 
Leavitt, and Woodbury, and Professors Barker, Bell, 
Rogers, and Webb. 

Many of the papers read were ‘progress papers,’ 
containing masses of detail of little interest to the 
general reader. The importance and extent of some 
of them render it a matter of regret that they were 
not generally in print, and that they were presented 
in so hurried amanner. In many cases, an abstract 
setting forth the main features of the paper, and 
comparing and emphasizing the main facts, with 
illustrations and graphical representations of results, 
would be far more effective when time is limited; 
and though such abstracts involve labor, they are of 
great permanent value to the paper. 

The papers were classified as follows: First session, 
civil engineering; second, mechanical engineering; 
third, electrical papers; fourth, miscellaneous. Some 
of them were prepared by request to describe Ameri- 
can’ practice, and some attempt was made to are 
comparative English papers. 

Mr. B. Baker described the Forth Bridge. The ex- 
pected cost of this enormous structure is £1,600,000. 
Excluding the half-mile of approach viaducts, the 


bridge will be over a mile long, consisting of three 


cantilevers, each over 1,500 feet long, and two con- 
necting trusses of 350 feet each. Cantilevers stand 
on the two (Queensferry and Fife) banks, and one 
rests on the only island (Inchgarvie) midway; they 
are to be 340 feet high by 130 wide at their centres, 
tapering to 40 feet by 35 at their ends, where they 
sustain the ends of the connecting trusses. The 
material is steel, to be put together (after the English 
fashion) by riveting as each plate is placed in posi- 
tion. Work is now being done on the piers, and 
some steel is ready for the superstructure; nearly 
50,000 tons will be required. The bridge leaves two 
arched water-ways of 1,700 feet, with 150 feet clear 
central height at high water, and a half arch at each 
side. It was commenced about twenty months ago, 
and no difficulties are anticipated. Fourteen vessels, 
seventy-two steam and other cranes, and twenty- 
eight steam-engines, with numerous special machines, 


288 


are used in its construction. Each of the three main 
piers consists of four masonry columns, 70 feet in 
diameter, upon rock or hard clay bottom, centred at 
the corners of..a.rectangle:270/ X 120’. The deepest 
_ foundation .will be 70’ below low water, which makes 
., it 110/ high, allowing 20’ for the tide, and 20’ more 
. above high water. Add to this 340’, and we have 
' .450/ total height. There need only be added a cen- 
tral observing-tower or flagstaff to make it the high- 
-est structure in the world. Attention is called to the 
difference between English and other contractors: 
the former are ‘‘not much accustomed to pneumatic 
appliances, other than an ordinary diving-dress, and 
rarely resort to them.’’ No use has been made of 
pneitmatic apparatus already provided, but for the 
deepest piers compressed air will doubtless have to be 
‘used. The compression members of the bridge are 
‘tubes formed of bent steel plates riveted together. 
Compression joints are planed to fit, and forced 
together before riveting; and holes for rivets are 
drilled, not punched. The tension members are box- 
eirders riveted up. <A large number of experiments 
have been made to settle doubtful points, notably as 
to wind pressure, regarding which reliable data were 
wanting: in so large a bridge, the weight of trains is 
of little importance as compared with that of the 
structure and the pressure of the wind. As it must 
be a problem of some difficulty, to join the members 
of such a structure in a substantial and artistic man- 
ner, it is to be regretted that the details of the joints 
‘were not shown, and that no judgment can be 
formed of their merits. Altogether, though the pro- 
portions of the structure may not be pleasing, they 
cannot fail to be imposing; and the truss principle 
will hereby, as regards possible span, be placed for 
the first time abreast of the suspension cable. 

The discussion participated in by Messrs. Hanna- 
ford, Leavitt, Emery, and Webb, brought out the 
relatine costs per foot —£200, £160, and £75—for 
this, the Victoria, and the International bridges; the 
latter two having only a single track. Steel was 
stated to be cheaper than iron; and many questions 
were asked as to the constitution, properties, etc., of 
the steel used, to which there was no time for suit- 
able reply. 

A paper on the Severn Tunnel Railway, by J. C. 
Hawkshaw, naturally followed. This tunnel, com- 
menced in 1873, and nearly completed, is four and 
one-third miles long, and will save over two miles of 
ferriage. It is a twenty-five-feet hole, lined with vit- 
rified bricks made from the excavated material, and 
laidin Portland cement. It passes principally through 
marl and coal, full of fissures. At the lowest point 
its roof is forty-five feet below the river-bottom, over 
which flows the water sixty feet plus a tide of thirty- 
six feet. To reach this depth we have slopes of over 
one per one hundred. Much trouble has been caused 
by water. In one instance the wells for miles round 
were dried, and a river nearly disappeared ; at another, 
a sixteen-foot hole broke through the river-bottom ; 
in fact, there has been a succession of floodings and 
cavings-in, and the work is a monument of persever- 
ance. Pumps have been added until there are now 


SCIENCE. 


-appointed engineer in 1879, he lowered the whole t 
_ nel fifteen feet, necessitating a new driftway. 
driftways were commenced from several shafts; and 
-there are now twelve shafts about: fifteen feet diam- 


per minute. There have also been radical alterati 
of the original plan. When Sir John Hawkshaw was 


eter and from seventy to two hundred and twenty 
feet deep. Electric lights are now used, and com- 
pressed air has been employed for drilling and venti- 
lation, though now air is forced through the entire 
distance by an eighteen-feet-diameter fan. The cost 
of the work is not known, and it is difficult to believe © 
that much time and money might not have been saved — 
by employing, from the start, a properly planned pneu- — 
matic process; indeed, the extra fifteen feet depth of 
the tunnel below the river-bed would seem to be a © 
permanent disadvantage which might thus have been 
avoided. : 
Three railway papers followed. The first, by W. 
K. Muir, on single-track railways, was a condensed ~ 
statement of the construction and method of operat- 
ing a railway in America, where but a single track 
can be afforded. General plans of stations and cross- 
ings were given, and an infinite number of details 
alluded to as necessary to safety, comfort, and econ- 
omy. The numbering of the hours from one to twen- 
ty-four was advocated. Much was said upon modes 


-of signalling, and an improved signal-lamp described. 


It was claimed that white and red signals were suf- 
ficient, it being safer to exclude green. In the dis- 
cussion it appeared that an economy is effected by 
strengthening cars so that they can be loaded full: 
formerly grain was carried two anda half feet deep, 
now four is customary. The American method of 
making up a time-card was explained, where the trains 
are represented by threads stretched over a board 
ruled one way for time, and the other way for dis- 
tance. Mr. Preece spoke of the safety on railways: 
the safest place in England is supposed to be a first- 
class carriage between London and Edinburgh. The 
president advocated running trains by telegraph from 

a central station, there being absolute safety with but 
one train on the track at a time. This caused refer- 
ence to be made to a Paris incident, where-an un- — 
usually long train, going round a loop, ran into its ‘ 
own tail. Sir James Douglass spoke of the excellency — 
of American head-lights, and advocated a mechanical — 
signal-lamp to save time; to which was replied that — 
the American train-man was quick, and a wiggle or 
two of his lamp was enough. 

Mr. J. H. Wilson’s paper on Ajnmenieans permanent 
way referred more to the construction of the. line, 
forming therefore a complement to the last. The 
qualities of a perfect track are good surface and 
drainage, and straight or truly curved track, of ac- 
curate width, well fastened and with tight joints: 
American rails rest with broad flanges on wooden 
ties; while English rails are reversible, and rest in 
iron chairs, so that ties can be placed far apart. 
Wooden ties, being plenty here, should be laid onl 
two feet apart. Engines weigh from forty to : 
sixty tons. Detailed “specifications for rails, etc., a 


i 


‘ 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


cording to the best practice, are given: ninety per’ 


eent of the rails must be thirty feet long, and a test 
piece must be furnished from each charge of steel. 
These specifications, and the rules by which rails are 
temporarily or permanently rejected, are elaborate 
and exact, and must result in a uniformity of quality 
and composition leaving little to be desired. In track- 
laying, the rails must meet within ;'; inch in sum- 
mer, and =>; inch in winter. Considerable space is 
devoted to ties, ballast, switches, frogs, crossings; 
and attention is called to the importance of the 


block-system, Westinghouse air-brake, interlocking 


switches, etc. 

Mr. Vernon Smith’s paper on the Canadian Pacific 
railway described the construction of the same, and 
pointed out its advantages. British Columbia joined 
the confederation in 1871 on a pledge that such a 
railway should be completed by 1881, afterward ex- 
tended to 1891, seven hundred miles of it to be built 
by the government. The working season is about 
five months, and all supplies and men must be brought 
a great distance. Three gaps, of about four hundred 
miles each, now remaining, will be completed by next 
year. No existing railway has been built so quickly: 
every thing is completed at once, and in the most 


~ systematic manner; the longest delay has been one 


of three hours waiting for material. The road has 
been run at the rate of three or four miles per day, 
the maximum day’s work being six miles and three- 
eighths. Different modes of excavating were com- 
pared; nine thousand Chinese work on the Pacific 
end; Italians and Swedes excavate twenty-five cubic 
yards per man per day, with shovels, ete.; Ameri- 
caus, with scrapers, move sixty to a hundred yards; 
and an eight to ten horse grading has been tried. 
The precaution has been taken of raising the em- 
bankment to the snow-level. Telegraphic service is 
established at the same time, which requires an ad- 
ditional corps of a hundred and fifty men. Coal-beds 
exist at both ends of the line. Crossing the Rocky 
Mountains requires some grades of a hundred and 
sixteen feet to the mile; but the pass is three thousand 
feet lower than those farther south, and the rest of the 
line has easy grades. A degree of longitude on this 
line is eight miles shorter than on the Union Pacific, 
so that the route from England to Japan can be 
shortened a thousand miles. Reference was made to 
the proposed railway from the Pacific to Hudson’s 
Bay, which would be eighteen hundred miles shorter, 
but navigation is good only four months yearly, —a 
great difficulty also with the Canadian Pacific, unless 
it seeks a new outlet in Nova Scotia. This paper 
will appear in the transactions in extenso, and will be 
of great interest in England. Mr. Hannaford re- 
marked that the six and three-eighths miles per day 
finished road would, however, be received with an 
incredulous smile. 

On Friday eight papers were read on Mechanical 


engineering, and with true courtesy the visiting » 


American engineers were placed at the head of the 
list: in marked contrast, however, was the want of 
tact displayed in the reception of Mr. Hoadley’s val- 
uable paper on steam-engineering practice in the 


— 


SCIENCE. 


289 


United States, which was limited to so short a time 
as to amount to a virtual non-presentation. It is 
now in book form, and an abstract of the same may 
be expected at the Philadelphia meeting of the 
American association. 

~Professor Thurston’s paper on the theory of the 
steam-engine was a historical sketch, tracing from 
the earliest period to the present the progress of the 
mechanical theory of heat, and the science of thermo- 
dynamics and its applications, and the completion of 
the theory by the addition of a theory of avoidable 
losses. The labors of Rankine and of Clausius were 
considered as to their influence on the theory of the 
subject. It was pointed out that Carnot established a 
number of fundamental principles, and first produced 
a consistent theory of heat-engines, which was fur- 
ther perfected by Rankine and Clausius. The lim- 
itations in applying the thermo-dynamic theory were 
described, and shown to have been familiar to Watt 
and to Smeaton, and to have been experimentally 
examined by Tredgold, Clark, Isherwood, and Hirn, 
and studied by Cotterill. It was concluded that the 
history may be divided, as by Hirn, into three peri- 
ods: 1. Crude theory and incomplete experiment; 
2. Perfected thermo-dynamics and systematic ex- 
periment; 3. Complete theory and exact experiment 
directed toward the determination of wastes. Pro- 
fessor Thurston calls the last two periods those of the 
theory of the ideal and of the real steam-engine, and 
believes that a working theory of heat-engines will 
soon be completely constructed. The complete pa- 
per will soon be published. In the discussion it was 
agreed on all sides, that the thing needed to still 
further accord theory and practice is an experimental 
engine specially adapted to scientific investigation; 
and it is to be hoped that some of our American 
schools will take hold of the matter before it is done 
elsewhere. Experiments were also referred to, where 
a copious supply of oil had reduced cylinder conden- 
sation in a marked degree. 

Mr. E. D. Leavitt, jun., read a paper on pumping- 
machinery in America, largely statistical in its nature, 
in which he briefly sketched the most salient features 
in the development of the pumping-engine in the 
United States as applied to water-supply for cities 
and for mining purposes, giving particulars of the 
pumping-plant in all the principal water-works in 
North America. He called attention to the important 
work done in the development of pumping-machine- 
ry by the various hydraulic engineers of this coun- 
try. Attention was called to those recent improve- 
ments in pumping-plant which have brought about 
the present great economy in certain places, most 
notably those designed by Mr. George H. Corliss, 
and others by himself. Prominent among these im- 
provements have been compounding, higher steam 
pressures, and greater ratios of expansion. In con- 
clusion, he drew attention to considerations from an 
economic standpoint, which decide whether to use 
a cheap plant with no great economy of fuel, or an ° 
expensive one from which great economy may be 
expected; the deciding point being, whether the ex- 
tra cost of fuel for the cheaper plant will exceed the 


290 


‘interest. on the extra’ money invested in the ‘more 
expensive one. 

Mr. J. D. Barnett’s paper, on the anthracite- 
burning locomotive of America, showed that the 
cleanliness of this fuel was forcing it into use, not- 
withstanding that it requires a much larger grate- 
‘surface, and has an evaporating efficiency but 
three-quarters that of bituminous coal at market 
prices: however, where the railroad-companies own 
the mines, the market price is no basis for comparison. 
The anthracite is also heavier to carry, and burns the 
fire-boxes out twenty to forty per cent sooner. 

Messrs. A. McDonnell and J. A. F. Aspinwall, and 
W. Stroudley contributed representative papers on 
English locomotives. The weights of locomotives 
were given as from twenty-eight to thirty-nine tons, — 
much less than our own, but capable of great speed, 
which, however, is now equalled or excelled here. 
Improvements are rapidly forcing their way into 
English engines, which are now built in a limited 
number of classes, with interchangeable parts. 
Special tools are not used, however, to any extent in 
their construction, and but little attention is paid to 
elegance, or to the comfort of the engineer. Inside 
cylinders are mostly used; and on one road the driv- 
ing-wheels are in front, on the supposition that they 
keep the track better. 

Mr. D. Joy furnished a paper on his reversing and 
expansion valve gear. This is an arrangement of 
levers, etc., by which the valve motion is obtained 
from the connecting-rod instead of from the shaft. 
It is advantageously used on many locomotives, and 
has been applied also to marine engines. It makes 
the connections much shorter and lighter, and avoids 
the double eccentric. Many other advantages are 
also shown. 

Mr. J. H. Bartlett’s paper on heating buildings by 
steam from a central source is a most valuable résumé 
of the subject in pamphlet form. It shows, that, 
prior to 1876, large buildings and even blocks had 
been heated by steam from a central source; and in 
many cases steam had been successfully piped long 
distances. Mr. Holly then suggested the present 
district plan; and experiments were made which have 
led to aremarkable development of the system, which 
were described in detail. Drawings were given of 
Holly’s reducing-valve and regulator, and of his 
steam-meter; also a plan of the large district in op- 
eration in New York city. Estimates for a district 
of four hundred (also a thousand) dwellings, and two 
miles of main, during two hundred and forty days, 
were given; and the relative cost given of the in- 
dividual-furnace, individual-steam, and district sys- 
tems, — the latter with four hundred, also a thousand 
consumers, — was $113, $197, $64, $58. The econo- 
my of elevating the burning of coal into a distinct 
business must be evident to all; and there is no bet- 
ter distributer of heat than steam. To form an idea 
of the magnitude of the New York company’s . om 
tions, their plant should be inspected. 

On Monday, papers were read by Mr. W. Smith, on 
the light-house system of Canada; and by Sir J. 
Douglass, on improvements in coast-signals. These 


‘alll and referring mainly to the new Edda 2 
light-house. Among these were Winstanley’s (1696 - - 
1703, washed away), “Rudyerd’s (1706-1755, burned), 
Smeaton’s (1755 — 1882, removed to another site), — all 
of about the same height; and the new light-house - 
nearly twice the height (one hundred and thirty- 
three feet to lantern). Another drawing reproduced 
Smeaton’s drawing of his light-house with a wave 
rising fifty feet above it, and added another immense 
wave which broke over the lantern in 1881, through ~ 
which the moon was seen. Canada has nearly six — 
thousand miles of coast, with about five hundred — 
light-stations; and Mr. Smith referred to buoys to be 
placed below Quebec, with reservoirs of gas capable of 
maintaining a light for ninety hours. He remarked — 
also, that Canada was doing her best to compete with 
New York for the carrying trade of the west, by im- — 
proving her light-house system. Experiments are be- 
ing made by the British government on coast-signals, — 
some results of which were given. The electric light 
was found to have almost no fog-penetrating power, 
so that only by an immense multiplication of candle- 
power was it made equal to gas or oil in the worst 
weather. Its cheapness showed forcibly, however, 
in a statement that 22,000 times the light could now 
be had for the cost of the candles of Winstanley’s 
house. A heavy wave was instanced as carrying away 
a three-hundred-pound bell, a hundred and ten feet 
above high water. There would seem, however, to 
be no reason why, with a properly shaped rock to 
deflect it upward, a wave might not rise to an immense 
height. A new system of lights and fog-signals was 
explained by Sir James Douglass, in which signals 
are repeated every thirty seconds (instead of three to 
four minutes); this is more consistent with the pres- 
ent speed of vessels, — though, as Sir William Thom- 
son insisted, much too long a time: a signal should 
be capable of almost instant recognition. Only red 
and white lights are used in these ‘ flashing’ signals, 
and red but sparingly; the signals themselves oc- 
cupying about ten seconds, and being, in fact, the 
Morse alphabet with long and short flashes. The 
French and English governments are doing away 
with stationary and revolving lights, and introducing 
flashing ones. Fog-horns with reeds do not stay in 
order; and a steam siren is to be used, high and low 
notes being proposed instead of long and short blasts. 
Mr. W. H. Preece read three electrical papers, — 
The ‘watt’ and the horse-power; Secondary bat- 
teries; Domestic electric lighting. Secondary bat- 
teries are now an accomplished commercial fact in 
England, the old Faure accumulator being as good 
a form as any. Domestic electric lighting can now 
almost compete with gas, which costs in London 4 
three shillings per thousand. a 
Attention was called to the fact that there is no in- 
candescent lighting in Canada; and Sir W. Thom- 
son called attention to the water-power running to — 
waste in the Lachine rapids. A photographic gallery 
in Regent Street, London, was referred to, where the ~ 
electric light is used for the negative and for prin 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


ing, the pictures being delivered the same night. 
The dynamo is run by a gas-engine; and it was stated 
that more light could be thus had from gas, than by 
burning it directly. Sixteen feet of gas per hour will 
develop one horse-power. 

Dr. W. A. Traill had a paper on the Portrush and 
Giant’s Causeway electric tramway; and Mr. H. 
Smith, one on electric tramways. The former was 
accompanied by a working model. A review of pre- 
viously constructed roads was given, and the points 
of difference emphasized; and the commercial suc- 
cess of the road was announced. Owing to the 
interest created by this paper, and the first two, Pro- 
fessor —LThompson’s paper on dynamo-electric ma- 
chines was left over. 

Mr. C. J. H. Woodbury described the ‘automatic 
sprinkler’ system in an American mill, and referred 
to a slow-burning construction of the latter, where 
heavy beams, widely separated, support a three-inch 
planking, on which is laid the flooring of hard wood. 
A large number of sprinklers have been critically 
compared in the interest of the insurance companies; 
and the result of this work showed a record favorable 
to the value of the apparatus, as it had operated 
in one hundred and forty-one mill fires, without any 
instance of total failure except in two instances, 
where the water supply had been shut off from the 
system. The sprinklers were tested for sensitiveness 
by exposing them to a jet of steam instead of a fire, 
because the former is more regular in its action. The 


SCIENCE. 


291 


resistance of the soldered joints to shearing-stress was 


exceedingly variable, ranging from twenty-five hun- 
dred to seven thousand pounds per square inch. 

The first attempts to make sprinklers were devoted 
to endeavors to construct an arrangement for rigidly 
holding a valve to a seat; and, after these had proven 
failures, the method of soldering a cap over the 
sprinkler was next introduced. Later, Mr. F. Grin- 
nell solved the problem, by placing the valve in the 
centre of a flexible diaphragm; and the arrangement 
of the parts was such that the water-pressure kept 
the valve shut until the soldered joint leaked, and 
then this same pressure forced the sprinkler open. 

Professor Osborne Reynolds discussed the ‘ friction 
of journals.’ The report of a committee on lubrica- 
tion was referred to, and various methods of lubrica- 
tion discussed. ‘The method giving the best results 
is to let part of the shaft run in a bath of oil, which 
is then sucked in by the action of the shaft. With 
oil fed by a siphon or a plain hole, the friction is 
seven or eight times greater; and, in one experiment, 
the oil was forced out of the hole with over two hun- 
dred pounds pressure on a square inch. Professor 
Thurston was called upon, and gave his experience 
with lubricants, confirming the statements of the 
paper, and referring to a case in which he had used 
a pump to force oil to the journals. Evidently, if so 
much friction can be saved by copious and regular 
oiling, it might pay to supply journals systematically 
with oil under pressure. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY. 


THE first paper read in this section was by Prof. 
E. C. Pickering, upon the colors of the stars. The 
' need of exact photometric measurement of different 
parts of their spectra was first pointed out, and the 
author then described a very ingenious method of 
accomplishing this. In the telescope tube, a little 
beyond the focal plane, is a direct vision prism, so 
set as to give a spectrum extended in declination; 
and on the preceding side of this prism is placed a 
piece of plane glass, whose edges are so ground, that, 
when a small] portion of the following side of the 
cone of rays falls upon it, it gives a small white 
ghost, just preceding the spectrum and always oppo- 
site the same wave-length. In the focal plane is one 
of Professor Pritchard’s neutral-tint wedge photome- 
ters, and behind it a thin metal diaphragm with four 
long narrow slits parallel to the equatorial motion; 
so that, when the spectrum transits behind them, 
four little stars —a red, yellow, blue, and a violet — 
shine through these slits, and the time of the disap- 
pearance of each, as they move towards the thicker 
edge of the wedge, measures its brightness. From 
these times may be deduced the magnitude and color 
curve of the star. To fix the same wave-lengths for 


each observation, the little white ghost is adjusted 
upon one of two parallel wires, which project out be- 


yond the preceding side of the diaphragm. Fora suc- 


ceeding transit, the ghost is adjusted upon the other 
wire, half a slit-interval distant, and thus eight points 
of the spectrum are photometrically measured. Pro- 
fessor Young, of Princeton, spoke very highly of the 
ingenuity and effectiveness of the device, especially 
for the systematic measurement of a large number of 
stars. He pointed out, however, what might be a 
source of error; viz., the different sensitiveness of 
different observers’ eyes to different colors, so that 
they would probably observe the times of disappear- 
ance of the four colored stars relatively ,slightly dif- 
ferent. 

The next paper, by Professor Daniel Kirkwood, 
discussed the question whether the so-called ‘tempo- 
rary stars’ may be variables of long period, referring 
to the sometimes-claimed identity of the temporary 
stars of 945 and 1264 with the well-known ‘Tycho 
Brahe’s star, which blazed forth in Cassiopeia in 
1572, and whose position is pretty closely known from 
his measures. The conclusion reached was, that on 
account of the sudden apparition of the temporary 
stars, the short duration of their brightness, and the 
extraordinary length of their supposed periods, they 
should be considered as distinct from variables. 


292 


Professor Mansfield Merriman, the. author of the 


well-known treatise on ‘Least squares,’ proposed a_ 
criterion for the rejection of doubtful observations, — 
founded upon Hagen’s demonstration of the law of — 


frequency of error, which was simpler than Pierce’s 
or Chauvenet’s. It involves, however, a determina- 
tion of what is the unit of increment between errors 
of different sizes, a thing difficult to determine in 
very many cases. Professor Harkness, of the Naval 
observatory, thought that in the case of a criterion for 
the rejection of doubtful observations, — upon which 
the most eminent mathematicians disagreed, — prac- 
tically every one was a law unto himself. He noted 
the rather doubtful method of taking a large number 
of shots on a target-board as a good illustration of 
the law of frequency of error, especially in any such 
case as that of long-distance shooting, where, on ac- 
count of the varying character of the wind, the skil- 
ful marksman will frequently change his rifle-sights 
an amount corresponding to twenty or thirty feet on 
the target, and yet make a complete series of bull’s- 
eyes, or very close to it. Professor Rogers, of the 
Harvard college observatory, expressed his disbelief 
in the efficacy of least squares to tell the truth, illus- 
trating it by several cases. For rejecting discordant 
observations, he referred’to the late Professor Win- 
lock’s method of determining the personal habit and 
accuracy of each observer as a means of getting an 
empirical criterion. He closed with an expression of 
the opinion that the method of least squares was a 
method of ‘covering a multitude of sins.’ Professor 
Pickering said that we must have some criterion, and 
every one would practically use one of some kind. 
He referred to his plan of using ‘ average deviation ’ 
as easier to compute than ‘ probable error,’ and con- 
sidered five times the average deviation a good limit 
for the rejection of discordant results. Professor 
Stone, of the University of Virginia, referred to the 
very common case of only three, four, or five observa- 
tions of a star, where the data are not sufficient to 
apply any criterion, and to the advisability, when it 
was possible, of making more observations to settle 
the question. Another speaker referred to the im- 
portance of a special search for systematic abnormal 
errors. Professor Rogers referred to the uncertainty 
of trusting to the impressions upon one’s senses, and 
said that in nine cases out of ten, where he thought 
he had observed a transit over a particular wire too 
early or too late, it would come out just the other 
way. Professor Hough, director of the Dearborn ob- 
servatory, thought an observer generally incapable of 
judging or weighting his observations according to 
hisimpressions. In the case of uncertain conditions, 


like an:unsteady atmosphere, he thought it best to | 


quit work and wait for better. Professor Frisby, of 
the Naval observatory, emphasized the danger of re- 
jecting observations, or forming any arbitrary limit 
for this purpose. ‘Professor Langley, director of the 
Allegheny observatory, hoped that further experience 
would be given’ upon this question of trusting one’s 
own impressions in rejecting or weighting observa- 


tions, aS it was an exceedingly interesting and im-. 
Professor Merriman, the author of the. 


portant one. 


SCIENCE. 


ae 
‘ [Vox. IV., Se 


paper, referred to the importance of eliminating all 
sources of systematic errors so far as possible, and of 3 
separation into groups, for separate discussion, in 
order to discover such errors. Professor Rogers re- — 
ferred to the various values of the solar parallax 

which had been deduced in one way or another by 

least squares, and another speaker referred to the 

hidden sources of error which least squares could not 

deal with. Professor Paul, assistant astronomer at 
the Naval observatory, said the method of least — 
squares was hardly receiving fair treatment in the 

discussion, and thought the difficulty was that half or 
three-quarters of those who used the method failed to ~ 
bear in mind the theory on which it rested: that it 

only applied to purely accidental errors; whereas in 

more than half the cases it is actually applied to 

errors distributed round a point which is continually 

moving or jumping, due to systematic sources of 

error or sudden disturbance, and that no attempt is 
made to discover and eliminate these systematic or 

sudden-jumping errors, but least squares is applied 

indiscriminately to the whole, with a sort of blind 

faith that it will bring good results out of poor ob- 

servations, and make it all right somehow. He said 

that, intelligently applied, the method not only gave 
the most probable result, but furnished the only 

measure of the exactness of the observations so far 

as accidental errors were concerned, and at the same 

time the most effective method of discovering these 

hidden sources of systematic error. Professor Stone 

illustrated this by the case of combining many series 

of comet-observations, made at different observa- 

tories, into one orbit, without attempting to discover 

any systematic errors in the series of the different 

observers. The discussion was closed by Professor 

Eddy with remarks upon the necessity of some cri- 

terion dependent upon the results themselves, and 

independent of the observer’s arbitrary judgment. 

Professor Pickering then read another paper upon 
systematic errors in stellar magnitudes, showing, 
without any question, that the magnitudes of all 
the star-catalogues from that of Ptolemy down to the 
great work of Argelander in the Durchmusterung — 
all depending upon eye estimates — are systematically 
affected by being in, or close to, the Milky Way; they 
all being estimated too faint, and the error amount- ; 
ing to about half a magnitude in the Milky Way 
itself. ‘This arises from the brightness of the back- 
ground upon which the star is viewed. In the Har- 
vard photometry measures, this source of error is 
avoided; since, in the comparison of each star with 
the pole-star, the two fields are superposed, and their 
added brightness affects both stars alike. 

Prof. M. W. Harrington, director of the Ann Arbor 
observatory, read a paper upon the asteroid ring. — 
He showed that the representative average orbit 
would be an ellipse of small eccentricity, with cera 
major axis equal to about 2.7 times that of the earth, 
and inclined to the plane of the ecliptic about 1°; — 
and that, in the progressive discovery of these small 
bodies, the average mean distance had gradually i 
creased, but now seemed to have reached its li 


ed ee eh oe Tis - 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


oids have the same reflecting power as Vesta, Pro- 
fessor Harrington reaches the conclusion that the 
volume of Vesta is about -?- that of all these 230 
bodies put together, and that Vesta and Ceres to- 
gether form almost one-half the total volume. 

_ Professor Rogers of the Harvard college observatory 
then read two papers. The first one, upon the mag- 
nitude of the errors which may be introduced in the 
reduction of an observed system of stellar co-ordi- 
nates to an assumed normal system by graphic meth- 
ods, showed a great amount of laborious research, 
and was a good illustration of the vast amount of 
monotonous work necessary in the present stage of 
astronomical observation in order to reach the highest 
degree of accuracy attainable by the search for and 
elimination of minute systematic errors. His next 
paper was upon the original graduation of the Har- 
vard college meridian circle in situ. This described 
a method of turning a meridian circle through any 


desired constant are up to about 30° without any . 


dependence upon the circle and reading microscopes, 
effected by means of an arm swinging between fixed 
stops, and clamping to a circular ring on the axis by 
an electro-magnetic clamp. With this Professor Ro- 
gers claimed to be able to set off a constant arc through 
as many as five thousand successive movements of 
the clamping arm. The ingenious method suggested 
and carried out by Mr. George B. Clark, of the firm 
of Alvan Clark & Sons, of grinding the clamping 
circle to a perfect circular form while the telescope 
Was swung round in its Y’s, was fully described, and 
also Professor Rogers’s method of arresting the mo- 
mentum of the telescope at the stops by water-buffer 
plungers. The great advantage of thus being able to 
set off a constant arc independent of the circle and 
Microscopes was pointed out, with especial reference 
to the investigation of division errors and flexure of 
circle, and also to the division of the circle itself in 
situ ; 1.e., mounted on its axis and turning on its 
pivots. Professor Young called attention to the 
necessity of guarding against expansion and contrac- 
tion of the bar holding the stops, due to radiation 
from the observer’s body. 

Mr. S. C. Chandler, jun., of the Harvard college 
observatory, gave the results of observations and ex- 
periments with an ‘almucantar’ of four inches aper- 
ture, a new instrument devised by Mr. Chandler, 
which seems to be of remarkable accuracy, and 
promises to furnish an entirely new and independent 
method of attacking some of the most important 
problems in exact observational astronomy. ‘The in- 
strument consists of a telescope and vertical setting- 
circle, which can be clamped at any zenith-distance, 
and is supported on a rectangular base which floats 
in a rectangular trough of mercury, the whole turn- 
ing round a vertical axis so as to observe in any 
azimuth; these observations being simply the times 
of transit of any heavenly body over a system of 
horizontal wires in the field. The observations thus 
far have been entirely upon stars, and all at the 
apparent zenith-distance of the pole. After some 
very small periodic variations in the zenith-distance 
pointing had been traced to changes of temperature, 


~~ 


SCIENCE. 


293 


and had been removed by sawing through the wooden 
bottom of the mercury trough, the instrument showed 
an astonishing constancy in this zenith-distance 
pointing, extending over weeks at a time, and far 
exceeding the constancy of the corrections to the 
best fundamental instruments of our observatories. 

A paper was read by Mr. Chandler, upon the colors 
of variable stars. Showing, first, that most of the 
variables were red, he described some fairly satis- 
factory methods which he had used to measure the 
degree of redness of all the periodic variables; and 
then, plotting a series of points whose abscissae 
represented the length of the periods, and ordinates 
the degree of redness, their agreement with a curve 
making a very decided angle with the axis of abscis- 
sae brought out without question the remarkable 
law, that, the redder the star, the longer is its period 
of variability. In discussing any theory of variable 
stars, Mr. Chandler pointed out that Zollner was the 
only one who had thus far taken into account two 
laws already known: viz., 1° that they are generally 
red; 2° that they increase in brightness much more 
rapidly than they decrease ; and now, in any further 
theory, this new third law must have a place, viz., 
that, the redder they are, the longer is their period. 

Monday’s session opened with a paper by Dr. R. 
S. Ball, astronomer royal of Ireland, upon the 
ruled cubic surface known as the cylindroid, whose 
equation is 

CGE =e OF) Phere] == 


Mr. W. S. Auchincloss of Philadelphia exhibited 
a balancing-machine for finding the centre of gravity 
of any number of different weights distributed along 
a line, which seemed to be of excellent construction, 
extremely easy and rapid in manipulation, and quite 
sensitive. In connection with a time-scale of three 
hundred and sixty-five days at one side, it was shown 
how rapidly acomplicated system of business accounts 
could be settled, and how it could be applied to various 
engineering problems. 

The next paper was by Prof. J. H. Gore, of the 
U S. geological survey, upon the geodetic work of 
the U. S. coast and geodetic survey. This was a 
long paper, much of it devoted to a historical résumé 
of geodetic work in all countries. The points of 
principal interest brought out were the great advan- 
tages possessed by the United States in its vast ex- 
tent of territory, for determining the figure of the 
earth; and the work already done along the coasts, 
and along a chain of triangles from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, was shown on a map. The great accu- 
racy attained, especially in base-measurement, was 
noted, and the great improvements made in apparatus 
and instruments of the survey. Especially was the 
importance insisted on of a scientific body like the 
American association supporting in every way the in- 
tegrity and unity of this great work. In answer to 
questions, Professor Gore stated that the most recent 
improvements in the base-measuring apparatus were 
the determination of the coefficients of expansion 
for every degree of temperature to which they would 
be exposed; and he expressed his belief that results 


294 


more accurate still would be attained by immersing 
them in melting ice, so as to keep them at a constant 
temperature when in actual use. 

The next paper was by Mr. J. N. Stockwell of 
Cleveland, upon an analysis of the formula for the 
moon’s latitude as affected by the figure of the earth. 
In this Mr. Stockwell claimed that Laplace’s formula 
for expressing this was wrong; the question turning 
- upon an approximate integration of a differential 
equation, which he claimed to show was wrong by 
separating into two terms a single one which ex- 
pressed the difference of two effects, which, thus 
evaluated separately, became either indeterminate or 
of an impossible amount. 

Prof. J. C. Adams of Cambridge, England, made 
some comments upon Mr. Stockwell’s paper, the au- 
dience eagerly crowding forward that they might lose 
none of the interesting discussion. Professor Adams 
spoke in high terms of the general work which Mr. 
Stockwell had done in the difficult subject of the 
Junar theory; but, from such conclusions and methods 
as those brought forward in this particular case, he 
said he must express his total dissent. He then, in 
the simple yet forcible manner of a master of mathe- 
matical analysis, pointed out that this equation was, 
to begin with, only an approximation; that, before it 
could be treated at all as a rigorous one, many other 
small terms must be included; that, further, its inte- 
gration was only an approximation; and that in this 
case, any separation into terms, which, on a certain 
approximate assumption, became either indetermi- 
nate or very large, was of no value as a test of the 
equation; that, in the case of oculating elements re- 
ferred to by Mr. Stockwell, these in no sense repre- 
sented an average orbit, but only an instantaneous 
state of ever-varying elements; and that any integra- 
tion proceeding on the first hypothesis, over a long 
period, would introduce an error increasing with the 
time which would swallow up entirely the perturba- 
tions sought. The celebrated astronomer, than whom 
neither England nor the whole continent of Europe 
could have sent one more competent to advise, then 
closed with a few remarks pregnant with suggestion 
to workers in the lunar theory, upon the general 
methods to be followed in these long and difficult 
solutions by approximations. Hearty applause fol- 
lowed; and the animated discussion was brought to 
a good-natured close, Mr. Stockwell still unconvinced, 
hoping that when Professor Adams had given more 
attention to this particular point, he would come to 
think the same of it as himself; and Professor Adams 
(amid much laughter) hoping that day would never 
come. 

In Tuesday’s session, Professor Ormond Stone, 
director of the Leander McCormick observatory of 
the University of Virginia, gave an elaborate descrip- 
tion of that observatory now approaching completion, 
and to be devoted entirely to original research. The 
telescope, which will soon be mounted, is the twin 
in size of the Washington twenty-six incb, and like 
it in most of its details, except the driving-clock, 
which is like that of the Princeton twenty-three inch, 
with an auxiliary control by an outside clock, and 


SCIENCE. 


we Wy nr 


that it has Burnham’s micrometer illumination. The 
observatory has a permanent fund of seventy-six 

thousand dollars as a beginning; and eighteen thou- — 
sand dollars have been expended in observatory build- — 
ings, and eight thousand dollars for the house of the 
director. Situated eight hundred and fifty feet above 
the sea, and on a hill three hundred feet above sur- 
roundings, the main building, circular in shape, is 
surmounted by a hemispherical dome forty-five feet in 
diameter. ‘The brick walls have a hollow air-space, 
with inward ventilation at bottom and outward at top. 
Mr. Warner, the builder of the dome, gave an inter- 
esting description of the ingenious method of adjust- 
ing the conical surfaces of the bearing-wheels, so that 
they would, without guidance, follow the exact cireum- 
ference of the tracks; and then of the adjustment of 
the guide-wheels, so that the axis of this cone should 
be exactly normal to the circular track. The frame- 
work of the dome consists of thirty-six light steel 
girders, the two central parallel ones allowing an 
opening six feet wide. The covering is of galvanized 
iron, each piece fitted in situ, and the strength of the 
frame is designed to stand a wind-pressure of a hun- 
dred pounds per square foot. There are three equal 
openings with independent shutters, the first extend- 
ing to the horizon, the second beyond the zenith, and 
the third so far that its centre is opposite the division 
between the first and second. The shutters are in 
double-halves, opening on horizontal tracks, and con- 
nected by endless chain with compulsory parallel 
motion of the ends. The dome weighs twelve tons 
and a half, and the live-ring one ton and a half; and 
a tangential pressure of about forty pounds, or eight 
pounds on the endless rope, suffices to start it. If 
this ease of motion continues as the dome grows old, 
it is certainly a remarkable piece of engineering work. 

In the discussion which followed, Professor Hough 
said that he should prefer the old style of single open- 
ing extending beyond the zenith. Professor Stone 
could not agree with him, the greater extent of open- 
ing making it less probable that the dome would have 
to be moved so far in turning from star to star, and 
at the same time furnishing better ventilation, and 
the opportunity for cross-bracing adding strength to 
the dome. He stated that he should first take up the 
re-measurement of all the double stars of less than 2” 
distance between 0° and —30°. 

Father Perry, the director of the observatory at 
Stonyhurst, Eng., gave the result of late researches 
on the solar surface, with special reference to evanes- 
cent spots. No abstract can give any idea of the 
wide range of interesting topics covered in this paper. 
The multitude of ever-changing details to be observed 
on the sun, and the careful record of these which is 
kept at the Stonyhurst observatory, furnished the 
material for a paper replete throughout with new and 
important details, to which nothing but a publication — 
in full can do any justice whatever; and it is to be — 
hoped that the association will soon give the public — 
the opportunity to read it in this way. aS 

On Wednesday, Mr. Lewis Swift, director of the — 
Warner observatory at Rochester, N.Y., read a pa 


. 
‘ 
“) 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


of search for new nebulae, and of simply recording 
their approximate positions by pointing with unillu- 
minated cross-wires in the eye-piece, and reading off 
the circles of the instrument, recording with this a 
description of the appearance of the nebula. His 
reason for making no attempt to determine accurate 
positions was that it would require illuminated mi- 
crometer-wires, and a great deal of time devoted to 
measurement with neighboring stars, besides much 
time lost in letting the eye become sensitive again for 
further search or examination after the light was re- 
moved; he stating that his eye was practically ‘ nebu- 
la blind’ for at least four minutes after being neara 
light. Since, however, the most of these nebulae are 
probably too faint to bear any illumination at all, and 
must therefore be observed for position with ring or 
bar-micrometer, much of this reason loses its force; 
for in this case there would be no loss of time on 
account of light, and if in this way Mr. Swift could 
connect each of these new nebulae to some neighbor- 
ing star with the help of chronograph or an assist- 
_ ant at clock or chronometer, and also re-observe the 
known nebulae in the same way, the value of the 
work would be almost immeasurably increased com- 
pared with the little additional time and labor neces- 
sary forits accomplishment. As it is, though no one 
will deny the value of a catalogue of even the ap- 
proximate positions and descriptions of very faint 
nebulae, as a contribution to our knowledge of their 
number and distribution, and as an aid in comet- 
seeking or identification, yet it is fairly open to the 
criticism, that, to be what it should be in the present 
state of astronomical observation, it must all be gone 
over again for determinations of accurate positions. 
One very interesting statement of Mr. Swift, to the 
effect that there had not been a first-rate clear sky 
since the red glows appeared a year ago following the 
Krakatoa explosions, bears out the general experience 
of workers in other observatories, especially those 
who try to see stars near the sun in the daytime. 

An interesting discussion arose as to the much-dis- 
puted existence of the nebula round the star Merope 
in the Pleiades; the general drift of it being that the 
nebula no doubt existed, but in order to see it a clear 
sky was necessary, and a very low power and large 
field, so that the nebula might be contrasted with 
darker portions of the same field; that a large tele- 
scope was not necessary, in fact the smaller the bet- 
ter, provided the optical qualities were relatively as 
good. Mr. Swift said he could always see it under 
favorable conditions; and Mr. E. E. Barnard of Nash- 
ville, Tenn., the discoverer of the latest comet, said 
that before he knew of its existence at all, he picked 
it up as a supposed comet. 

On Thursday Professor Adams of Cambridge, Eng., 
read a paper upon the general expression for the 
value of the obliquity of the ecliptic at any given 
time, taking into account terms of the second order. 
The difficulties of obtaining a formula for this quan- 
tity, on account of the many varying elements upon 
which it depends, were clearly explained by a dia- 
gram, and the results given of an approximation car- 
ried much further than ever attempted heretofore. 


SCIENCE. 


3 


295 


Professor Harkness, in paying a high compliment 
to the celebrated mathematician and astronomer for 
these laborious and valuable researches, also ex- 
pressed a wish that some of the n-dimensional-space 
mathematicians would follow the example of Profes- 
sor Adams, and apply some of their superfluous en- 
ergy to the unsolved problems in the solar system, 
which have some direct practical bearing. 

Professor Newcomb, in remarking upon the mass 
of the moon used in this problem, expressed the 
opinion that this could be obtained most accurately 
by observations of the sun, in determining the an- 
gular value of the radius of the small circle described 
by the earth about the common centre of gravity of 
earth and moon, since this, in his opinion, seemed to 
be the only constant which could be determined by 
observation absolutely free from systematic errors, 
and hence was capable of an indefinite degree of 
accuracy by accumulated observations; and he asked 
Professor Adams’s opinion on this point. 

The latter replied, that he thought the quantity 
too small for certain accurate determination, almost 
beyond what could be actually seen by the eye in the 
instruinents used. 

Professor Newcomb admitted, in the case of ab- 
solute determinations, the general impossibility of 
attempting to measure what cannot be seen; but, in 
the case of differential or relative determinations in 
which there was no supposed possibility of constant 
or systematic errors, he advanced the theory, which 
he had thought of elaborating more fully at some 
time, that such determinations might be carried by 
accumulated observations to a sure degree of accu- 
racy far beyond what can be seen or measured by 
the eye absolutely. 

Professor Adams hoped he would more fully elab- 
orate and publish this idea, since there was in it an 
element well worth careful consideration. 

Professor Harkness doubted the sufficient accuracy 
of meridian observations of the sun, on account of 
the distortions produced by letting the sun shine full 
into the instrument; and spoke of the difficulties in 
the transit-of-Venus observations from this cause. 

Professor Newcomb replied that he would have to 
show that this would be periodic with reference to 
the moon’s quarters in order to affect this constant 
systematically. 

Professor Adams then presented another note upon 
Newton’s theory of atmospheric refraction, and on 
his methed of finding the motion of the moon’s 
apogee. He described in an exceedingly interesting 
manner how some unpublished manuscripts of the 
great geometer had lately come into his hands at 
Cambridge, which contained later work than is pub- 
lished in the Principia. Space will not allow a de- 
scription of the methods which these papers show 
that Newton employed in attacking, and remarkably 
successfully too, some of the problems which still 
trouble astronomers to-day. Photographs of these 
papers were exhibited, showing his wonderful neat- 
ness and precise methods in computation. It was 
something of a novelty to those gathered on this 
occasion, to hold in their hands the facsimiles of the 


296 
handwriting and computations of this intellectual 
giant, whose works will for all time be the greatest 
wonder to him who studies them the most. 

With the hearty thanks of the section to Professor 
Adams for his exceedingly interesting communica- 
tions, it was then adjourned. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
PAV SICS: 


THE meeting of the American association was one 
of unusual interest and importance to the members 
of section B. This is to be attributed not only to the 
unusually large attendance of American physicists, 
but also to the presence of a number of distinguished 
members of the British association, who have con- 
tributed to the success of the meetings not only by 
presenting papers, but by entering freely into the dis- 
cussions. In particular the section was fortunate in 
having the presence of Sir William Thomson, to whom 
more than to any one else we owe the successful op- 
eration of the great ocean cables, and who stands with 
Helmholtz first among living physicists. Whenever 
he entered any of the discussions, all were benefited 
by the clearness and suggestiveness of his remarks. 

Among the members of the British association who 
were present, may also be mentioned Professor Fitz- 
gerald of the University of Dublin, Professor Silvanus 
P. Thompson, Mr. W. H. Preece, superintendent of 
the English postal telegraph, Professor Forbes, and 
Professor Schuster of the Cavendish laboratory. 

Among American physicists there were Professors 
Trowbridge, Rowland, Barker, Mendenhall, Hall, 
Hastings, Bell, Anthony, Brackett, Rogers, Picker- 
ing, Cross, and many others. The section was organ- 
ized on Thursday, Sept. 4, and the opening address 
delivered by the vice-president, Professor Trowbridge. 
The time devoted to the reading and discussion of 
papers was unfortunately much infringed upon by the 
Electrical conference: yet, considering this serious 
interruption, the number of interesting discussions 
was unusually large. 

It is not to be expected that the elaborate investiga- 
tion of the relation of the yard to the metre, such as 
was the subject of a paper by Professor William A. 
Rogers, will be of very general interest. Yet to the 
physicist such a comparison, conducted by one who 
has had the long experience of Professor Rogers, is of 
the highest importance in giving accuracy to determi- 
nations of length. Professor Rogers has given his life 
to perfecting the construction and testing of standards 
of length, and the result of this his latest investiga- 
tion is that the metre is 39.37027 inches in length. 
One of the most important physical measurements is 
that of the wave-length of light of any given degree of 
refrangibility, and this determination is best made by 
means of the diffraction grating. On account of the 
extensive use of the magnificent gratings constructed 
by Professor Rowland for this purpose, Professor 
Rogers instituted an investigation to determine the 
coefficient of expansion of the speculum-metal used 


SCIENCE. 


% 


[Vou. IV., No. 


‘in the construction of these gratings. He also noted 


that from its homogeneity, fineness of grain, and non- 
liability to tarnish, this speculum-metal is peculiarly 

suitable for constructing fine scales, though its ex- 

treme brittleness is an objection to its use for large 

scales. Professor Rowland stated that he proposed to 

construct scales on his ruling-engine which would en- 

able the physicist at any time, by purely optical means, 

and without knowing the coefficient of expansion 

of the metal or its temperature, to obtain the value of 

the length of the scale in terms of the wave-length 

of any given ray of light. ‘These scales were simply to 

be straight pieces of speculum-metal ruled with lines — 
just as an ordinary grating, except that the length of 
the lines is to be only about one centimetre, every 
one-hundredth line being somewhat longer than its 
neighbors: the whole ruled strip is to be one deci- 
metre in length. From the manner of ruling, it will 
be easy to count the whole number of lines in the 
length of the strip, and then by a simple use of the 
scale as a grating in asuitable spectrometer the whole 
length may be immediately found at any time in terms 
of any specified wave-length of light. 

In some forms of telephones and in the microphone, 
the action depends on the change in resistance of a 
small carbon button on being subjected to pressure. 
There has been much discussion as to whether this 
diminution of the resistance with pressure is due to a 
change in the resistance of the carbon itself, or simply 
to the better contact made between the carbon and 
the metallic conductor when the pressure is applied. 
Professor Mendenhall has carried out some experi- 
ments to determine the question; and one of his 
methods of experimenting — that with the hard car- 
bons — appears to point conclusively in favor of the 
theory that the resistance of the carbon itself is 
altered by pressure. The experiments made by him 
on soft carbon are open to criticism, though they also 
point to the change taking place in the carbon. Pro- 
fessor Mendenhall finds that the resistance is not 
simply proportional to the pressure, and thinks that 
by increasing the pressure a point of maximum con- 
ductivity would be reached where there would be no 
change in resistance for a small change in pressure. 

Prof. A. Graham Bell, the inventor of the tele- — 
phone, read a paper giving a possible method of 
communication between ships at sea. The simple 
experiment that illustrates the method which he 
proposed is as follows: Take a basin of water, intro- 
duce into it, at two widely separated points, the two 
terminals of a battery-circuit which contains an in- 
terrupter, making and breaking the circuit very rap- 
idly. Now at two other points touch the water with 
the terminals of a circuit containing a telephone. 
A sound will be heard, except when the two tele- 
phone terminals touch the water at points where the 
potential is the same. In this way the equipotential 
lines can easily be picked out. Now, to apply this 
to the case of a ship at sea: Suppose one ship to be 
provided with a dynamo-machine generating a pow- 
erful current, and let one terminal enter the water 
at the prow of the ship, and the other be carefully 
insulated, except at its end, and be trailed behind 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884.] 


the ship, making connection with the sea at a con- 
siderable distance from the vessel; and suppose the 
current be rapidly made and broken by an inter- 
rupter: then the observer on a second vessel provided 
with similar terminal conductors to the first, but 
having a telephone instead of a dynamo, will be able 
to detect the presence of the other vessel even at a 
considerable distance; and by suitable modifications 
the direction of the other vessel may be found. This 
conception Professor Bell has actually tried on the 
Potomac River with two small boats, and found that 
at a mile and a quarter, the farthest distance experi- 
mented upon, the sound due to the action of the 
interrupter in one boat was distinctly audible in the 
other. The experiment did not succeed quite so well 
in salt water. 

Professor Trowbridge then mentioned a method 
which he had suggested some years ago for telegraph- 
ing across the ocean without a cable; the method 
having been suggested more for its interest, than 
with any idea of its ever being put in practice. A 
conductor is supposed to be laid from Labrador to 
Patagonia, ending in the ocean at those points, and 
passing through New York, where a dynamo-machine 
is supposed to be included in the circuit. In Europe 
a line is to extend from the north of Scotland to the 
south of Spain, making connections with the ocean 
at those points: and in this circuit is to be included a 
telephone. Then any change in the Strength of the 
current in the American line would produce a corre- 
sponding change in current in the European line; 
and thus signals could be transmitted. Mr. Preece, 
of the English postal telegraph, then gave an account 
of how such a system had actually been put into 
practice in telegraphing between the Isle of Wight 
and Southampton during a suspension in the action 
of the regular cable communication. The instru- 
ments used were a telephone in one circuit, and in the 
other about twenty-five Leclanché cells and an inter- 
rupter. The sound could then be heard distinctly; 
and so communication was kept up until the cable 
was again in working-order. Of the two lines used 
in this case, one extended from the sea at the end of 
the island near Hurst castle, through the length of the 
island, and entered the sea again at Rye; while the 
line on the mainland ran from Hurst castle, where 
it was connected with the sea, through Southampton 
to Portsmouth, where it again entered the sea. The 
distance between the two terminals at Hurst castle 
was about one mile, while that between the termi- 
nals at Portsmouth and Rye amounted to six miles. 

A few years ago Mr. E. H. Hall, then a student at 
the Johns Hopkins university, taking a thin strip of 
gold-leaf through which a current of electricity was 
passing, and joining the two terminals of a very 
sensitive galvanometer to two points in the gold-leaf, 
one on one edge, and the other on the other, choos- 
ing the points so exactly opposite that there was no 
current through the galvanometer, found that on 
placing the poles of a powerful electro-magnet, one 
above and the other below the strip of gold-leaf, he 
obtained a current through the galvanometer, thus 
indicating that there was a change in the electric 


, 


SCIENCE. 


297 


potential, due to the action of the magnet. Mr. Hall 
explains this change by supposing the rotation of 
the equipotential lines in the conductor about the 
lines of magnetic force. This explanation has been 
brought into question by Mr. Shelford Bidwell, who 
attempts to explain the action thus: The magnetic 
force acting on the conductor carrying the current 
would cause the conductor to be moved sideways, 
were it free to move; but, since it is held by clamps 
at the ends, the magnetic force acting upon it brings 
it into a state of strain, one edge being compressed 
and the other stretched; and Mr. Bidwell supposes 
the whole Hall effect to be due to thermal actions 
taking place in consequence of this unsymmetrical 
state of strain. Professor Hall, who is now at Har- 
vard, has made some careful experiments to test this 
explanation of Mr. Bidwell. He used not only gold- 
leaf, but strips of steel, tinfoil, and other metals, and 
clamped them sometimes at both ends, sometimes in 
the middle, and sometimes only at one end; and in 
all cases the .action was the same, with the same 
metal, irrespective of the manner of clamping. This 
was strong evidence against Mr. Bidwell’s position. 
Sir William Thomson suggested, as a further test, to 
bring about the state of strain, which Mr. Bidwell 
supposes to be the primary cause of the action, by 
purely mechanical means, bringing pressure to bear 
on one side or the other, and seeing whether the 
action obtained is at all commensurate with the ac- 
tion found by Mr. Hall. 

Professor Hall then discussed an experiment by 
which Mr. Bidwell had obtained a reversal of the 
effect; and showed that the reversal was only appar- 
ent, and that when carefully examined the results 
of Mr. Bidwell’s experiment were best satisfied by 
the theory of the rotation of the equipotential sur- 
faces about the lines of magnetic force. Sir William 
Thomson spoke of the discovery of Mr. Hall as being 
the most important made since the time of Faraday. 
He favored Mr. Hall’s explanation; though he con- 
siders Mr. Bidwell’s suggestion as very important, 
and thinks that it will very likely be found that both 
the Hall effect and thermal effects have a common 
cause, rather than that one is to be taken to explain 
the other. He showed also that the mathematical 
examination of the subject indicates three relations 
to be investigated, —first, the relation of thermal 
force to the surfaces of equal rate of variation of 
temperature; second, the relation of electric current 
to the equipotential surfaces; third, the relation of 
the thermal flow to isothermal surfaces. The second 
of these is that investigated by Mr. Hall, who has 
found that under the conditions mentioned the lines 
of flow are not perpendicular to the equipotential 
surfaces. There remains, therefore, ‘work for two 
more Halls,’ in either proving or disproving the ex- 
istence of the analogous actions in these other two 
cases. Sir William Thomson also suggested the fol- 
lowing exceedingly interesting mechanical illustra- 
tion or analogue of Hall’s effect. Let us be living 
upon a table which rotates uniformly forever. A 
narrow Circular canal is upon this table, concentric 
with the axis of rotation of the table, and nearly 


, 


298 


full of water. After a while the water will acquire 
the same velocity of rotation as the table, and will 
come to a State of equilibrium. The outer edge of 
the water in the canal will then stand a little higher 
than the inner edge. Let us now apply a little 
motive force to the water, and by means of a pump 
cause it to flow in the canal in the same direction in 
which the table is already rotating: it is evident that 
it will stand higher on the outer edge, and lower on 
the inner edge of the canal, than before. But, should 
we cause it to flowin the opposite direction to the 
motion of the table, it will stand lower on the outer 
edge, and higher on the inner edge, than in its posi- 
tion of equilibrium. 

The experiment made by Mr. Shelford Bidwell 
may also be illustrated by putting a partition in the 
canal suo as to divide it into two circular concentric 
troughs, and making a little opening in the partition 
at some point; then taking two points near the open- 
ing in the partition, one in one trough and one in 
the other, if they are very close to the partition, the 
point in the outer trough will be at a lower level than 
that in the inner one; but if they are not close to the 
partition, but one is taken close to the outer edge of 
the outer trough and the other close to the inner 
edge of the inner trough, then the point in the 
outer trough will be at a higher level than that in 
the inner trough, though the difference in level will 
be only about half of what it would have been had 
there been no partition separating the canal into two 
troughs. Professor Forbes called attention to the 
fact that the classification of the metals according to 
their thermo-electric qualities gives not only exactly 
the same division into positive and negative, but that 
the very order obtained in that way corresponds to 
that obtained by classifying according to the Hall 
effect, except possibly in the case of aluminium. 

Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson read a paper on the 
government of dynamo-machines. It is a subject of 
considerable importance from the practical point of 
view, and Professor Thompson has given a great deal 
of thought to it. After reviewing and criticising the 
methods used by Marcel Desprez and Ayrton and 
Perry, he proposed a method devised by himself, and 
which he has successfully employed. It was what he 
calls a dynamometric method, since it is based on the 
employment of a transmitting dynamometer as a gov- 
ernor. In this way the governing action is made pro- 
portional to the rate of work. Professor Thompson’s 
very simple device is to have resistance-coils so placed 
in the pulley of the transmitting dynamometer, which 
is fixed to the shaft, that as the rate of work varies, 
and the movable pulley of the dynamometer changes 
its position with reference to the fixed pulley, resist- 
ance will be added to or taken from the circuit; thus 
modifying the current, and bringing about the re- 
quired government. 

An interesting paper was also read by Professor 
Wead, in which he gave the results of some experi- 
ments made on the energy absorbed by organ-pipes in 
producing sound. Among other hinges. he showed 
that reeds are very much more efficient than pipes, 
giving far louder sound with less expenditure of 


SCIENCE. 


energy. He also showed that the results of his 
experiments, on the energy absorbed by pipes of simi- 
lar shape but different pitch, confirm the practical 
rule adopted by organ-builders in increasing the pro- 
portional diameter of the pipes as the pitch increases, — 
so as to maintain equal loudness. Professor Wead — 
finds, that for a rise in pitch of sixteen semitones, 
one-half the energy is required in order to give a 
scale of sensibly equal loudness. q 
Professor Loudon read a very interesting paper, 
giving simple geometrical constructions for deter- 
mining the cardinal points of a thick lens or a system 
of thick lenses. It is to be hoped that he may pues , 
lish his paper in full. ‘ 
Many other papers were read of more or less in- i 
terest, but those given are the most important. , 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


IT may be well to call attention once more to the 
course of eighteen lectures by Sir William Thomson, 
on molecular dynamics, at the Johns Hopkins univer- 
sity in October. Professors and students of physics 
are invited to attend. 


— The following persons were elected officers of the 
American association for the advancement of science 
for the ensuing year: President, H. A. Newton of 
New Haven, Conn.; permanent secretary, F. W. Put- 
nam of Cambridge (office, Salem, Mass.); general 
secretary, Charles Sedgwick Minot of Boston, Mass. ; 
assistant general secretary, Charles C. Abbott of 
Trenton, N.J.; treasurer, William Lilly of Mauch 
Chunk. Section A, mathematics and astronomy, J. 
M. Van Vleck of Middletown, Conn., vice-president; 
E. W. Hyde of Cincinnati, O., secretary. Section B, 
physics, C. F. Brackett of Princeton, N.J., vice-pres- 
ident; A. A. Michelson of Cleveland, O., secretary. 
Section C, chemistry, W. R. Nichols of Boston, Mass., 
vice-president; F. P. Dunnington, University of Vir- 


ginia, Va., secretary. Section D, mechanical science, * 
J. Burkitt Webb of Ithaca, N. Y., vice-president; 

C. J. H. Woodbury of Boston, secretary. Section HE, 
geology and geography, Edward Orton of Columbus, ~ 
O., vice-president; H. Carvill Lewis of Germantown, 


Penn., secretary. Section F, biology, Burt G. Wilder 
of Ithaca, N.Y., vice-president; M. C. Fernald of 
Orono, Me., secretary. Section G, histology and mi- 
croscopy, S. H. Gage of Ithaca, N.Y., vice-president; 
W. H. Walmsley of Philadelphia, Penn., secretary. 
Section H, anthropology, W. H. Dall of Washington, 
D.C., vice-president; Erminnie A. Smith of Jersey 
City, N.J., secretary. Section I, economic science 
and statistics, Edward Atkinson of Boston, Mass., 
vice-president; J. W. Chickering of Washington, 
D.C., secretary. 


— The next meeting of the British association will — 
be held at Aberdeen. ta 


— It was suggested by Capt. Bedford Pim, at Phila- a 
delphia, that the 1886 meeting of the American asso-— 
ciation should be held in London. It is understood 
that there is no constitutional obstacle in the way of — 
the association meeting outside of America; and it 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1884. ] 


is possible that through the efforts of Capt. Bedford 
Pim an invitation may be received from the. city of 
London. 

—Dr. Dobell, in writing to the London Times, 
directs attention to a method of destroying cholera 
and typhoid germs, in drinking-water, by passing 
through it an electric current, and thereby exposing 
it to the influence of nascent oxygen, by which means 
the water would be dezymotized. This suggestion 
of Dr. Dobell’s seems to have been forestalled by the 
construction of a filter invented by Dr. Stephen H. 
Emmons, which is now on view at the offices of the 
Economic electric company in London. The filter 
consists of an earthenware vessel, in which are placed 
porous cells containing carbon plates, the spaces be- 
tween the plates and the cells being partially filled 
with animal charcoal. The plates are coupled up 
with the positive pole of a Leclanché battery or of 
one of the company’s own chromozone batteries. 
Alternating with the porous cells are other carbon 
plates, which are coupled up with the negative pole 
of the battery. The water is supplied into the porous 
cells, and passes through the charcoal to the exterior 
of the cells, and is drawn off by a tap in the usual 
way. It is claimed, that by this means, the water 
being submitted to the influence of the evolved nas- 
cent oxygen, as suggested by Dr. Dobell, the materies 
morbi of typhoid, cholera, and similar diseases are 
destroyed, and that an end is put to the dreaded 
danger of, ‘death in the pot.’ 


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— The 7th of last August was signalized in France 
by three balloon ascensions. Gaston Tissandier and 
Georges Masson, the editor and publisher of La 
nature, made an ascent from Paris (a diagram of the 
course of which we reproduce from that journal), 
which occupied three hours and twenty minutes. 
While they were in the air, Shoste crossed for a sec- 
ond time the English channel; starting alone from 
Boulogne at 7 Pp. M., and descending at 9.50 P.M. at 


oy: 


SCIENCE. 


virhso 


Solel 
gduSolel | 


299 


New Romney. In the evening, Hervé made an ascen- 
sion at Paris in a balloon provided with some aéro- 
nautic apparatus constructed on a new system. 


—Among the diamonds reserved from the ap- 
proaching sale of the crown jewels of France is the 
Regent, so-called, which is retained on account of its 
mineralogical rarity, its perfect shape, its limpid 


color, great size, and fame. According to La nature, 
from which we take the accompanying illustration 
representing its exact size, itis the largest brilliant 
known. | j 


— In lecturing at the Health exhibition, on cholera 
and its prevention, Mr. de Chaumont expressed his 
opinion, that, ‘‘in regard to disinfectants, there 
is but one true disinfectant; viz., fire. The 
majority of so-called disinfectants are simply 
deodorants. The idea that tobacco-smoke or 
the odor of camphor is destructive of conta- 
gion is still extensively held, though it is 
simply absurd. A true disinfectant is a sub- 
stance that will kill the germ or living particle 
in which the contagious principle resides, or 
through which it is conveyed.”’ 

On the other hand, Mr. de Cyon, at a séance 
of the Académie des sciences on July 21, recom- 
mended as a prophylactic against cholera, bo- 
racic acid, or a solution of borax, to be applied 
to all the external mucous membranes, and 
about six grains of borax to be taken with the 
food and drink every twenty-four hours. 

— At a meeting of the Association of public 
Sanitary inspectors in London, on Aug. 11, 
Mr. Edwin Chadwick read a paper on prepara- 
tions for meeting the cholera, giving his ex- 
periences of the action of the board of health 
in the visitation of 1848-49. It would be in 
accordance, he thought, with the previous 
advances of the disease in periodic bounds upon 
Europe, that it should sooner or later again visit 
England. The practice of quarantine he considered 
useless and mischievous. The last decade had shown 
a reduction of the sickness and death-rate by nearly 
three-quarters of a million, and a saving of some 
four millions of money, incontestably from the re- 
duction of the foul-air diseases operated upon by the 
services of the sanitary inspectors. 


300 


— Among the celebrities at the Medical congress at 
Copenhagen were Virchow, Pasteur, Lister, Volk- 
mann, Esmarch, Spencer Wells. Pasteur’s address 
on the prophylactic inoculation for hydrophobia was 
the sensation of the congress. In professional cir- 
cles there are still many sceptics, and Pasteur still 
hesitates to try his experiments on man. The French 
committee appointed by Mr. Falieres are watching 
his experiments in Paris. Pasteur believes in the 


existence of special microbes of the disease, but - 


has not discovered any as yet. Professor Andeli of 
Rome spoke on the causes of malaria: the primary 
cause he considered to be subterranean water, and 
the subsidence of the top soil. In conjunction with 
the necessary draining, he recommended as a remedy 
a careful use of arsenic, with the treatment with 
quinine. Professor Verneuil of Paris continued the 
subject on the same lines. At the third sitting, Sir 
William Gull spoke on the formation of an interna- 
tional institute for the study of diseases; and his 
resolution was passed, forming the following inter- 
national committee for the purpose: for Germany, 
Ewald and Bernhard; France, Bouchard, Levine; 
Great Britain, William Gull, Humphrey, and Mac 
Cormac; with Professor Owen as general secretary. 
On the 15th, Professor Virchow spoke on ‘ Metapla- 
sia;’ and on the 16th the congress closed with Pro- 
fessor Panum’s address on ‘ The food of healthy and 
unhealthy men.’ The next congress will be held at 
Washington, in 1887. Professor Virchow’s closing 
address was received with immense applause. 


— On June 30, in Bremen, a technical commission 
met to discuss the export of German coal. The ques- 
tion whether a German coal-export company should 
be formed was answered in the affirmative; but a pre- 
liminary committee of inquiry was elected to report 
on the capabilities of foreign markets, to study their 
relative positions, and to make representations to 
the Prussian minister of railways as to tariff regula- 
tions and the improvement of loading and unloading 
arrangements at the harbors. 


The August number of the Kansas City review 
of science and industry contains an enthusiastic arti- 
cle on meteorological discoveries, by Isaac P. Noyes 
of Washington, in which the weather-map is extolled 
as the basis of progress in meteorology. While 
inany will agree with the writer, that the daily maps 
of the weather are of great value, it seems that 
he places too great importance on the ‘highs’ and 
‘lows,’ as he terms barometric elevations and de- 
pressions in accordance with what may be styled sig- 
nal-service slang; and that he gives too little credit 
to what was known before the advent of weather- 
maps. The following quotation illustrates Mr. Noyes’s 
low opinion of earlier studies: ‘‘ Until we had this 
wonderful weather-map, we had little or no concep- 
tion of the meteorological phenomena of the world. 
For example, the tornado. The old ‘physical geog- 
raphy’ system had various names for this violent 
phenomenon, such as cyclone, hurricane, and tornado, 
and undertook to draw a line between them, giving 
certain characteristics to one which it did not give to 


SCIENCE. 


MOY 


the other. The map reveals the fact that they are 
all one and the same, and that they proceed from > 
‘low’” (p. 202). But this opinion is certainly open 
to criticism; for if any fact is well proved by the 
weather-maps, it is that tornadoes are essentially dif- 
ferent from cyclones, instead of being one and the 
same with them. A somewhat broader and more 
careful study of the old system, as well as of the 
newer weather-maps, might again suggest amend- 
ments to such assertions as these: ‘*‘ The violent wind- 
storm we call tornado or cyclone when it occurs will 
always be in the track of ‘low,’ and generally at an 
acute angle thereto”’ (p. 202); ‘‘The cause of low 
barometer we ascribe to concentrated heat”’ (p. 198). 
The confusion of terms and error of statement in 
the first of these extracts, and the vagueness of ex- 
planation in the second, are especially unfortunatetin 
an article seemingly intended for popular instruction. 


— We reproduce from Science et nature a”picture 
of the statue of the Marquis Claude de Jouffroy, 
executed by Charles Gautier, erected at Besancon, 
France, and inaugurated last month. De Jouffroy 
was the first to make a serious attempt to.apply steam 
to navigation after Papin’s experiments inj1707. 
De Jouffroy’s first experiments were madejon the 
Seine in 1775, and the Doubs in 1776, and afterwards 


more successfully on the Saéne at Lyons in 1780. ¥f 
a 


SCIENCE. 


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue historical method is now applied to the 
solution of so many questions of every-day 
life, formerly studied in the light of philosophy, 
that the formation of an American historical 
association really marks the opening of a 
new era in the history of scientific research. 
Henceforth historical students, like other sci- 
entific men, will have an opportunity to make 
themselves known, without awaiting the tardy 
recognition of a publisher. It is for the future 
to show whether the high standard already set 
up can be maintained; but, assuredly, there 
is no reason why the meetings of the associa- 
tion should not be the chosen place for the 
best students to make known the results of 
their labors. 


In 1872 Professor Asa Gray relinquished to 
younger hands all instruction in botany in 
Harvard university, in order that he might 
give his time to the completion of the ‘ Flora 
of North America.’ Notwithstanding the 
many serious encroachments which have been 
made upon his time by the demands of the 
herbarium, by the voluminous contributions to 
_ the proceedings of the American academy, by 
his editorial work in connection with the Ameri- 
can journal of science, by the revision of his 
text-book, and by his very extensive corre- 
spondence, he has carried a second volume of 
his great treatise through the press. It seems 
proper for us, in connection with the review of 
this volume in another part of this number, to 
remind our readers of the forcible and yet 
pathetic appeal which Professor Gray has 
more than once made in behalf of an exemp- 
tion for himself and Mr. Sereno Watson from 
the time-consuming task of answering notes of 
inquiry respecting the more common plants of 

our flora. Thanks to botanical activity at 
| No. 86. —1384. 


various places throughout the country, begin- 
ners can have their questions well answered by 
local societies, while more advanced students 
can now easily confer together in regard to the 
more difficult points. By such sifting as this 
would bring about, the number of questions 
which should properly be referred to the her- 
barium would be surprisingly diminished. It 
must seem plain to every one of our readers, 
upon reflection, that it cannot be discourteous, 
in the officers of our larger collections which 
are now being utilized in the preparation of 
works of reference, to quietly ignore those let- 
ters which ought never to reach them. 


‘WE owe our readers a word of explanation, 
which we make this week, apropos of the long 
letter of reclamation on another page. It is 
the aim of Science to express just and impar- 
tial criticisms whenever they are called for, and 
it is our intention to continue the pursuit of 
this aim. We regret extremely if any one 
believes that we are animated by any unjust 
prejudices against American work; but it is 
evidently our duty to be, if any thing, more 
outspoken in regard to American than to for- 
eign scientific labor. In writing of our own 
country, we do not wish to let false pride sub- 
stitute laudation for justice, neither do we wish 
to praise any thing merely because it is from 
abroad. It is a heavy accusation which our 
correspondent makes against us, and we hope 
our readers will acquit us. Dr. Salmon’s as- 
sertion that American work on Microbia in- 
cludes some of the best researches on the 
subject does not coincide with the opinion of 
competent and uninterested judges. We must 
therefore still adhere to the judgment we have 
expressed as to the relative value of American 
contributions to the knowledge of micro-organ- 
isms. If Dr. Salmon’s own work is recognized 
hereafter to have the value which he assigns to 
it, we shall be very happy to acknowledge the 


302 


change of opinion on the part of those in 
whose decisions on the matter we have full 
confidence. 


Ir is quite impossible for congress, when it 
grants an immunity to colleges in the importa- 
tion of printed matter duty-free, to set forth in 
detail the administrative processes which are 
necessary to secure its purpose. Congress acts 
on the assumption that the executive depart- 
ments of government have wisdom enough in so 
ordering details, that the purpose of congress 
shall be adhered to, and that education shall 
have the advantages the people, through them, 
have decreed. Everybody but an executive 
routinist, whose perceptions are dwarfed by 
his habit, sees a higher claim in the spirit than 
in the letter of a law. It were a libel on bar- 
barism to stigmatize as barbaric the recent 
decision of the treasury, which requires twelve 
oaths a year and attendant time and money 
for a monthly periodical to secure a free entry. 
Let us commend to the astute revenue-officials 
the story of Poor Richard and the barrel of salt 
beef, when a single grace over the whole could 
save for twelve-months’ dinners a considerable 
fraction of the time allotted to the poor dwell- 
ers of the globe. Further let them remember 
graces at dinner do not cost notary’s and jus- 
tice’s fees. 


LETTERS TO THE, EDITOR. 


* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’ sname is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


The Ohio earthquake. 


A slight earthquake was felt here at 2 h. 43 m. this 
afternoon. Hanging lamps were made to vibrate, 
and at one of the public-school buildings a panic 
oecurred among the children. The shock was not 
noticed by those who were busily employed at the 
time. No attempt was made to measure its direction 
or force. E. T. NELSON. 

Delaware, Ohio, Sept. 19. 


The steep slopes of the western loess. 


In Mr. Macfarlane’s paper on the formation of 
cafions and precipices (Science for Aug. 1), there is 
a discussion of the cause of the steepness and perma- 

nence of the slopes in the loess region of the west. 
The fact is certainly a striking one. But Mr. Macfar- 
lane’s explanation, likening it to ‘a well-built piece of 
miniature natural earth masonry well bound together,’ 
scarcely does justice to the subject. For, in the first 


SCIENCE. 


place, the steep slopes recur in the typical loess, even” a 
after it has been moved and worked over; especially — 


after it has lain for a few years, so that a slight. 
‘binding-together ’ of the particles by calcic carbon- 


ate is renewed. In the second place, the form of the 


loess particles is, as arule, not flattened, but round- 
ish; as can readily be seen, when the sediments from 
a mechanical analysis of the material are examined. 


But this general roundness of the particles is accom- — 


panied by an extreme roughness of surface, precisely 
such as is seen on the large scale in the “loess pup- 
pets’ themselves. The entire mass, in fact, consists 
of small calcareous secretions, with rough concre- 
tionary surface, intermingled with a comparatively 
small proportion of fine. dust and clay (see Amer. 
journ. 8c.,n.8., Vil. 10); and, when treated with dilute 
acid, the whole frequently becomes altogether im- 
palpable. These rough concretionary sand-grains 
naturally can move only with great friction in the 
mass; and the latter being, moreover, very porous, 
absorbing instantly even a copious shower, there is 
little opportunity for washing away. Aside from 
these purely physical causes, the rapid formation of 
a tissue of cryptogamic fibrils and gummy matter 


(mostly moss prothallia) on the fertile material, soon — 


binds the surface, and imparts additional stability. 


E. W. Hi1LGaRp. 
Berkeley, Cal., Aug. 20. 


An open polar sea. 


In an article in the New-York Herald of Sept. 10, 
Joseph W. Cremin, A.M., comments upon some re- 
marks made by me before the British association at 
Montreal, in regard to the theory of an open polar 
sea. 
belief that there is such a sea, but fails to put forward 
any facts in support of his theory. And in view of 


the fact that so far we have found nothing but ice — 


along the southern border of this unknown region, 
it is fair to presume that the ice-cap extends over the 


pole, unless facts can be brought forward to prove ~ 


to the contrary. 
Now, the facts that have convinced me that there 
is no permanent open water are these: 1°. Migratory 


birds do not pass into this region beyond the highest. - 


known land; and there is a decrease of animal life as 
you go north, both in the sea and on the land. Also 
the annual mean temperature falls as you approach 
the pole. 2°. The ancient ice which is being con- 
stantly displaced by the new ice that forms in the 
cracks opened by tides and gales is constantly coming’ 
down from the higher latitudes. If there were an 
open sea to the north, would this be the case? It. 
naturally yields toward the side of the least resist- 
ance. 38°. The water in the Arctic Ocean stands at. 
a temperature of +29° F. from October until June, 
with a range of less than .8 of 1°. Off the northern 
coast of North America, the currents are variable; 
and if there were an open sea, which must necessarily 
be a warm sea, around the pole, we should have a 
variable temperature in the sea-water. 4°. There is. 
less than 1,300 miles of this unexplored region on a. 
line drawn from Lockwood’s highest, over the pole, | 
to North-east cape, Siberia. 
sea of warm water in this comparatively small space, — 
we should have in the region surrounding it a meteor- 
ological condition which does not exist. We should 
have a vast amount of precipitation during the 


winter, with cloudy weather; instead of thecleardry — 


weather, with frequent calms, that we do experience. — 
And the amount of precipitation decreases as you go. 
north. 


The difference in temperature between the flood” | 


Mr. Cremin agrees with Lieut. Greely in the | 


Now, if there were a — 


i ake 
ae ere— ar 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


and ebb tide, noticed by Lieut. Greely, I think is 
explained by the fact, that, to the south of Robeson 
Channel, the sound is kept open more or less by a 
strong current, and the water so exposed loses more 
of its latent heat in the winter than that to the north 
where it is protected by the ice-cap; and as the differ- 
ence was only about .2 of 1°, it may be there is a differ- 
ence of density. As to Mr. Cremin’s theory that the 
flattening of the earth at the poles brings the outer 
crust nearer to the internal fires of the earth, I can 
only say that I know it to be a fact that the surface in- 
dications within the arctic circle do not bear him out 
in histheory. As it is a well-known fact that the 
earth north of the arctic circle is perpetually frozen 
to a great depth, and as the earth probably cooled 
from the surface, it is fair to presume that it at least 
cooled as fast at the poles as at the equator; and I 
think that a residence of-a year or two will convince 
any reasonable man that the crust is tolerably thick 
up there, if extreme cold has any thing to do with it. 
Ps. RAY. 
Washington, Sept. 13. 


Discrediting American science. 


On p. 48 of the current volume of Science you 
take occasion to say, — 

“Work of value upon the subject of micro-organ- 
isms is not done in this country, nor will it be until 
some such encouragement is offered to investigators 
as is the case in France and Germany. This kind of 
research requires the rare combination of many forms 
of training, added to a critical, analytical, and judicial 
mind. These we can have; but until the facilities 
for work are offered, until the necessity for personal 
sacrifice and self-denial is done away with, we can 
hope for no better work in the future than has been 
done in the past: in other words, what is first needed 

*in order to place our own investigations upon an 
equality with those of the two countries mentioned 
above, is a thoroughly equipped, fully endowed labo- 
ratory, with a strong corps of well-trained and sala- 
ried officials.”’ 

Now, while you doubtless had in mind, when pen- 
ning this paragraph, the great desirability of more 
systematic investigation in this country of those 
plagues of mankind which annually cut short so 
many valuable lives, I cannot allow this sweeping 
and unjust assertion to pass unnoticed, and to stand 
as a disparagement to American science and a 
reproach to American investigators. Whether you 
realize it or not, it is nevertheless a fact, that the 
patient student of micro-organisms in this country 
has been laboring under the enormous disadvantage 
that his work, however valuable it may be, is discred- 
ited at home, and unnoticed abroad, while the most 
absurd generalizations of the European worker are 
received with approval there, and enthusiasm here. 

Sternberg has worked for years on intermittent 
fever, tuberculosis, septicaemia, yellow-fever, germi- 
cides and allied subjects; and, beyond his own writings 
and the reviews of his books, what is there in Ameri- 
can literature to show that such a man has existed ? 
About the time that Pasteur announced the discovery 
of his now celebrated ‘new disease’ produced by 
inoculating rabbits with the saliva of a child dead of 
hydrophobia, Sternberg demonstrated the virulence 
of normal human saliva when rabbits were inoculated 
with it. He also demonstrated beyond question that 
this was due to a micrococcus which might be culti- 
vated to the eighth culture without losing its viru- 
lence, and even showed that an immunity might be 


1 Bulletin of National board of health, April 30, 1881. 


SCIENCE. 


303 


granted by protective inoculation.! Both had been 
working at the same time with the same organism, 
and had reached substantially the same result. Pas- 
teur’s work was published as something remarkable 
the world over; while Sternberg’s— well, we must 
admit it received some credit abroad, even if it fell 
flat at home. Again: Sternberg’s tests of germicides 
are, perhaps, the most extensive and satisfactory in- 
vestigations in this line that have ever been made. 
He was certainly one of the first who attempted to 
obtain exact results by allowing a disinfectant of a 
given strength to act on a particular disease-germ for 
a given length of time, and then tested his results 
by cultivation and inoculation experiments. And 
surely his experiments and results in photographing 
micro-organisms cannot be set down as entirely value- 
less.? 

A short time ago the rather absurd speculations of 
Tyndall, in regard to the nature of the immunity 
from contagious diseases which is conferred by a pre- 
vious attack, attracted wide-spread attention both in 
Europe and America. Tyndall’s views were based 
upon the theories of Pasteur; and these, in turn, 
rested upon a very narrow basis of experimentation 
with fowl-cholera, which, at the time they were put 
forth, were far-fetched, and now are antiquated. 
Pasteur is a chemist, and Tyndall a physicist; and 
neither has any adequate conception of the fact that 
there are processes going on in the animal body which 
both cheinistry and physics are incompetent to explain. 
Pasteur’s chemical explanation of the mystery of im- 
munity — that it was the exhaustion from the body of 
something necessary for the nutrition of the virulent 
germ; something that, once exhausted, was not again 
replaced —hail a great fascination for the great 
English physicist, and he received it with childlike 
trust. What objection could there be, indeed, from 
his stand-point, to the view that a living body may be 
compared in every respect with the test-tube and the 
flask with which he is in the habit of experimenting 
in his laboratory ? And when a Frenchman and an 
Englishman unite in pressing so plausible a theory, 
we surely could hardly expect from past experience 
that the American scientific editor would pay much 
attention to the vulgar home worker, no matter how 
striking his experiments, or how conclusive his demon- 
strations. I trust, however, you will pardon me for 
calling your attention to the fact that more than two 
years ago I demonstrated that immunity was only 
relative, and never absolute; that the most susceptible 
individual possessed a certain degree of immunity 
which can be accurately measured; and that all 
degrees of immunity may be overcome by a sufficient 
increase in the dose of virus. The immunity of the 
animal body, then, in no sense resembles the exhausted 
cultivation-liquid in the flasks of Pasteur and Tyndall, 
which no increase in the amount of virulent material 
added can ever induce to support the development 
of new generations of the microbe; and the honor of 
demonstrating this radical difference is due to Ametri- 
can investigations. 

I went farther than this, however, and showed that 
this theory of our European friends was absolutely 
untenable; because broth made with distilled water 
from the flesh of an animal that had been granted 
a very complete immunity was just as favorable a 
medium for the growth of the virus as that made from 


1 Bacteria. By Dr. ANTOINE MAGNIN and GEORGE M. 
STERNBERG, M.D., F.R.M.S. New York, William Wood & Co., 
1884. pp. 355-376. 

2 Ibid., pp. 209-235. 
23, 1881. 

3 Photo-micrographs, ete. By GEORGE M. STERNBERG, M.D. 
New York, William Wood & Co., 1884. 


National board of health bulletin, July 


304: 


susceptible animals; and that such virus lost nothing 
in virulence by being grown in such a medium.! I 
will not trouble you with the theory of immunity 
which I developed from these experiments. Like 
other American work, it may have-no value; but it 
may interest you to know that an able German writer 
in the last number of Virchow’s Archiv has pro- 
pounded a theory, which, in its most important points, 
is identical with my own. 

In 1880 Mr. Chauveau published some observations 
and experiments which indicated that even a very 
virulent virus of a fatal disease might be made to 
produce a mild attack, if the dose administered was 
sufficiently small. About the same time I demon- 
strated by more numerous and direct experiments 
that this was true; but I went beyond this, and have 
the incontestible priority of demonstrating, — 

1. That a certain number of the most virulent and 
fatal germs may be introduced into the most suscep- 
tible body without producing the least appreciable 
effect ; 2 

2. That by increasing this number slightly, but still 
using a relatively small dose, germs which ordinarily 
multiplied throughout the whole body, and produced 
a constitutional disease, may be compelled to multiply 
locally, and cause only an insignificant local lesion 
without constitutional symptoms; ? 

3. That this local multiplication confers an im- 
munity upon the whole body; # 

4, That the immunity produced by a single inocu- 
lation with this diluted virus equals that produced by 
two inoculations with Pasteur’s attenuated virus.® 

Again: when Pasteur announced his discovery of 
the method of attenuating the virus of fowl-cholera, 
he coupled it with the theory that this attenuation 
was due to the action of atmospheric oxygen; and, 
although the evidence in favor of this theory was 
neither direct nor abundant, what there was of it came 
direct from Paris, and this was sufficient to secure 
it universal attention and unqualified indorsement 
at the hands of scientific editors. A few experiments 
led me to conclude, however, that this theory was 
incorrect, that the attenuation could be secured in 
the absence of oxygen as well as in its presence, and 
’ that it was really due to loss of vitality, the result of 
keeping the germs for a considerable time under un- 
favorable conditions of life.® 

It is true that these conclusions did not receive 
the least notice, favorable or unfavorable, either at 
home or abroad; but, as they have since been estab- 
lished beyond question by the elaborate researches of 
Chauveau and others, I am inclined to think that 
the fault was neither with me nor my experiments, 
but that it is confined to the fact of the work being 
done by an American, and on American soil. 

I need no more than call your attention here to 
the fact that I demonstrated which one of the several 
germs that had been described as peculiar to swine- 
plague was the actual cause of the disease, and that 
this was more than a year before the same experi- 
ments were duplicated by Pasteur and his assistants, 
who, nevertheless, succeeded in bearing off the honors 
that belonged to the American discoverer. This 
subject was placed before your readers in sufficient 
detail in a recent number of Science.’ 

In regard to the peculiarities of the germ of fowl- 


1 Department of agriculture, Annual report, 1881 and 1882, ; 


pp. 283-300. 
2 Department of agriculture, Annual report, 1883, p. 48. 
3 Tbid., 1881 and 1882, pp. 285-288; also 1883, pp. 44-49. 
4 [bid., 1881 and 1882, p. 288. 
5 Jbid., 1881 and 1882, p. 288. 
6 Jbid., 1881 and 1882, pp. 2838, 284, 
7 Science, iii. p. 155. 


SCIENCE. 


a wer) le 


[Von. IV., No. 8 


cholera, and the exact effect of disinfectants and vari- 
ous conditions of existence upon it, you will find in © 
my reports the record of nearly one hundred and 
fifty experiments which it has seemed to me might 
have a little, though possibly a very slight, value from 
the light which they throw upon the germ-theory in 
general, and especially upon that group of diseases 
caused by organisms which do not form spores.1 

The admirers of Koch are ever on the alert for an. 
opportunity to enlarge upon the perfection of his 
apparatus and the security of his processes. They 
forget, however, that the most satisfactory work 
which he ever did, that which raised him from an 
obscure physician to be an acknowledged scientific 
authority, was accomplished with an apparatus so 
primitive and imperfect, that, were any one to use it 
to-day, it would only create ridicule and contempt. 
I refer to his cultivations of the bacillus anthracis in 
unsterilized liquid on ordinary microscopic slides, 
placed over wet sand in a soup-plate to prevent evap- 
oration, covered with a plate of glass, and warmed 
over an oil-lamp. His disciples can, perhaps, afford 
to criticise imperfect apparatus now; but it may not 
be out of place to remind them, that, if their master’s 
first work had been rejected on this account, he 
would probably still be an unknown physician in an 
obscure German hamlet. Xi 

After all, what is there in Koch’s method of culti- 
vation on the surface of solid media that makes it 
preferable, or even equal, for general purposes, to 
cultivation in liquids? Is any scientific man at this 
day so ignorant as to believe that the intermittent 
heating of blood-serum for half a dozen times to 137° 
F. (58° C.) is sufficient to safely sterilize it??2 Is it 
not an incontestible fact that cultivations on solid 
substances cannot be made, examined, and repro- 
duced, without exposing a large surface to contact 
with unsterilized air and the countless germs which 
it contains ? 

It is not my desire, however, to detract in any way 
from the well-earned reputation of Dr. Koch and Mr, 
Pasteur (there is no danger that they will ever re- 
ceive too much honor); but, when American science 
is sneered at and rejected because of alleged imper- 
fections, one can scarcely avoid calling attention to 
the fact that Europeans also are fallible, and their 
methods not beyond criticism. 

You do not seem to be aware, Mr. Editor, of the 
fact that appropriations for the investigation of 
the contagious diseases of animals have been made 
on a liberal scale for the past six years, and that a 
considerable part of this money has been used in the 
study of micro-organisms. ‘The results of these in- 
vestigations have been so satisfactory to the people . 
at large and to congress, that a permanent bureau 
was established at the last session, a part of the 
duties of which is to continue this line of research. 
I have had a laboratory and an experiment-station 
under my direction in Washington for more than a 
year. And while I am willing to admit fallibility 
and imperfections, if one can judge from scientific 
articles and from the reports of those who have vis- 
ited the laboratories of Koch and Pasteur, I see no 
reason why we should fear a comparison of our labo- 
ratory, apparatus, and methods, with those in use on 
the other side of the water. ; 

It is true that the enormous development of our 
animal industries brings up a multitude of inquiries 
foreign to the subject of micro-organisms, which 

1 Department of agriculture, Annual report, 1880. Jbdid., 1881 
and 1882, pp. 272-306. Jbid., 1883, pp. 44-52. 

2 Les organismes vivantes de l’atmosphére (P, MIQUEL, Paris, 


1883), footnote, pp. 154,155. Department of agriculture, Annual 
report, 1881 and 1882, p. 264. ; 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


divides the time of the director, and distracts his at- 
tention; but we are endeavoring to overcome these 
difficulties by a division of labor; and when the new 
bureau is fairly organized, and running smoothly, we 
hope, if not to satisfy all, at least to keep adding to 
our knowledge of animal contagia until we are able 
to combat them successfully. 

A few weeks ago, in a review of the last report of 
the department of agriculture (Science, iii. pp. 689, 
690), you took occasion, while speaking very kindly of 
the work that had been done, to intimate that the 
proposed investigations for the discovery and supply 
of vaccine to be used in preventing contagious dis- 
eases were uncalled for and useless; the argument 
being that the profession could be relied upon to pre- 
pare and apply such vaccines if they were of sufficient 
value. 

In reaching this conclusion, you evidently left out 
of consideration the most important elements of the 
problem. In the first place, we have but a mere 
handful of veterinarians in the whole country, and 
these mostly located in cities where they are of little 
use in treating the diseases of meat-producing ani- 
mals: in other words, the stock-raisers of the country 
are practically beyond private veterinary assistance, 
and will remain so for years to come. In the second 
place, there are not more than two or three veterina- 
rians in the country who have had the training, or, 
indeed, who have any conception of the processes, 
necessary for the study and cultivation of the group 
of organisms to which the disease-germs belong. 
You admit more than this in the editorial to which I 
referred in the first part of this communication. In 
the third place, there is nowhere in this world a single 
man who can tell the exact conditions under which 
the germs of the diseases that are most dangerous in 
this country must be cultivated so that they will be 
safe as vaccines, and at the same time capable of con- 
ferring a certain immunity. This must be worked 
out by long and costly experiments; and surely no 
individual is likely to be found who will attempt so 
difficult and dangerous a service at his own expense. 
In the fourth place, you will observe that even those 
medicines of which the processes of manufacture are 
tolerably well known (such as quinia and nitrite of 
amyl, for instance) are produced by chemists, — spe- 
cialists, —and not by the medical profession. How 

-much more necessary would it be, then, for specialists 
to control such delicate manipulations and compli- 
cated apparatus as are required in the reproduction of 
uncontaminated germs, especially when these are to 
be held at a given point in the scale of virulence. But 
how can you ask our people to depend upon such 

- specialists in one number, and within:a month or two 
assure them that there is no one in the country who is 
doing work of value in this direction? If you turn 

your eyes to Germany, you will see Koch, as a govern- 
ment official, using national appropriations to study 
the organisms which produce the diseases of men and 
animals. Turn to France, and you see Pasteur, also 
by the help of the government, endeavoring to dis- 
cover methods for the production of vaccines that 
may be used to prevent animal diseases. Do you see 
the unassisted veterinary profession in either country 
accomplishing any thing in this direction, though 
they vastly excel ours both in numbers and education? 
Why, then, should not the officials of our government 
do the same kind of work, and strive to attain the 
same ends? And, if supplying vaccines to our farm- 

. ers should prove the most economical and satisfac- 
tory means of fighting certain contagious diseases, 

why should not the agricultural department furnish 
such vaccines ? 


SCIENCE. 


305 


Finally, if you are right in your supposition that 
‘‘there must be some misconception lurking in the 
minds of the department officials, if they really sup- 
pose that the veterinary profession is necessarily in- 
competent to deal with a problem because, forsooth, 
the known methods of solving it happen to be delicate 
and expensive,’’ I would like to ask how it happens 
that the animal plagues of this country are increasing 
their ravages from year to year without an effort, on 
the part of the veterinary profession, to hold them in 
check? If ‘an ordinary citizen’ supposes that our 
future is likely to be different from our past in this 
respect, he certainly shows a surprising ignorance of 
the methods that have been found necessary in every 
country where any success has been achieved. 

Is it not our duty to accept great national prob- 
lems as they actually exist, rather than in the shape 
they are pictured by the distorted imagination of the 
editorial philosopher, who comes in contact with germ- 
diseases in books and periodicals, but never sees 


_them on the farm and the ranch, where their ravages 


amount to millions and tens of millions of dollars 
annually ? 

In closing, permit me to express my personal dis- 
appointment at the course which the editor of Science 
has decided to adopt in regard to this branch of our 
home work. It was expected that this pericdical 
would be a true representative of American science, 
defending its conquests, and encouraging its workers 
to renewed exertions. With certain departments it 
has not failed to do this; but with others, as I trust 
I have shown in this communication, its only effect 
has been to discourage and discredit when honest and 
successful work was being accomplished; and in say- 
ing this, I know I am not alone in my opinion, for a 
number of wellzknown scientific men have recently 
expressed to me the same idea. 

If, Mr. Editor, this communication is open to the 
charge of egotism and garrulousness, I hope it will not 
be forgotten that the American investigator who is 
overburdened with modesty stands but a poor chance 
in the struggle for existence with the conditions of 
environment so decidedly against him. 

D. E. SALMON. 


[We have but to repeat, that ‘‘ work of value upon 
the subject of micro-organisms is not done in this 
country.” If all work upon micro-organisms that 
any observer chooses to publish—the result of un- 
skilled labor —is of value, then we have doubtless cast 
an unwarranted slur upon American investigators. 
If, on the other hand, only that work is of value in 
this field which is the result of untiring industry, 
long training, and judicial criticism, then our remark 
was just. Tobe of value, such work must be complete 
in all its details; and the relationship between a bac- 
terium and a pathological process must be established 
beyond a reasonable doubt, provided the methods are 
correct, and there has been no error of observation. 
It remains to be seen whether American work of 
permanent value in this branch of research will not 
receive the same hearty recognition from our co- 
workers abroad as it has in all other branches where 
our excellence has deserved acknowledgment. In 
conclusion, we wish to state that we do not care for 
controversy, nor did we intend to exciteit. It was our 
belief, that, on the whole, we have not yet thorough- 
ly mastered all the requirements necessary for this 
most delicate branch of investigation, and that a re- 
minder of that fact would do no harm. We sympa- 
thize with unrecognized merit, but would console it 
with the reflection that Aucun chemin de fleurs ne 
conduit & la gloire. — Ep. | . 


Ly 


306 


THE WORK OF OCTAVE HALLAUER. 


Tue distinguished physicist and engineer, G. 
A. Hirn, sends to the writer from his sick-bed, 
where he has been lying, as his amanuensis 
pathetically writes, ‘malade depuis plus d’un 
mois,’ a biographical sketch of his hardly less 
distinguished and talented assistant, Octave 
Hallauer. This paper was read before the So- 
ciété industrielle de Mulhouse on the 30th of 
January last. Mr. Hallauer died on the dth 
of December, of typhoid-fever. He was born 
at Metz, Jan. 21, 1842, was educated there, 
and received the degree of bachelor of science 
in 1860. He continued his studies in mathe- 
matics, and entered the technical school at 
Mulhouse at the age of twenty, making a spe- 
cialty of applied mechanics. He became, at his 


oraduation, an ‘ apprentice-engineer’ at Bit-. 


schwiller, in the establishment of Stehelin, and 
afterward joined Leloutre, the agent of the 
house of Grafenstaden, as his aid and secre- 
tary, at Mulhouse. Later, he became the 
assistant engineer of the Association des pro- 
priétaires d’appareils 4 vapeur, and afterward, 
January, 1875, the engineer of the Messrs. 
Hartmann. 

During the Franco-German war, Hallauer 
served with the French as a lieutenant, and 
fought in the armies of the Loire, of Orleans, 
and other sections of the French army of de- 
fence. He was present in the deadly fight at 
Villersexel, and, after the defeat of the army, 
took his forces across the Jura Mountains, and 
retired to Lyons, where he arrived, sick and 
exhausted, with the portion of his command 
thus saved. Recovering his health, he re- 
sumed, at the close of the war, his professional 
work. 

During the campaign, and at intervals, as 
opportunities offered, Hallauer frequently va- 
ried the more serious work which came to him, 
by the practice of an accomplishment in which 
he excelled, —that of the painter. His sketch- 
book was filled with studies of the beautiful 
scenery of the district in which occurred the 
operations in which he was engaged. 

The long series of experiments upon the 
steam-engine in which Hallauer engaged, and 
which have made him famous, were commenced 
in 1868. The history of the development of 
the theory of the steam-engine (which now, 
thanks to the investigations of such men as Hal- 
lauer, is at last likely to become soon satisfac- 
torily complete) may be divided, according to 
Hirn, into three distinct periods: 1°. That in 
which it was assumed that the heat entering the 
motor simply traversed the system, unchanged 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 8¢ 


in amount, and acting only by its ‘ head,’ as in 
the case of falling water, finally reached the 
condenser without “loss in quantity, — simply 
lowered in temperature, and hence, in head 
available for purposes of impulsion; 2°. That 
in which it became recognized, that, in addition 
to the necessary depression of temperature, 
there is always, also, an actual loss of heat by 
transformation into mechanical energy; 3°. 
The experimental period, — that in which it at 
last became known that the heat supplied to the 
engine, in addition to these two changes, be- 
comes seriously modified in its availability by its 
interaction with the walls of the steam-cylin- 
der; which surfaces take up heat from the en- 
tering steam, and transfer it to the exhaust side 
without deriving from it useful effect. 

The first period dates from before the time 
of Carnot. The second period was opened in 
1852 by the labors of Clausius and of Rankine. 
The third period has only been entered upon 
within a few years past, the experiments of 
Hirn and Hallauer having furnished a very im- 
portant part of the basis for the new treatment 
of the subject. The writer would distinguish 
these two later periods as those of the ‘ ideal’ 
and of the ‘ real,’ in the theory of the steam- 
engine. Clausius and Rankine, and other writ- 
ers on the theory of heat-engines, have usually 
taken no cognizance of the expenditures of 
steam, other than those involved in the thermo- 
dynamic relations of energy, and ignore the usu- 
ally greater demand for steam to supply wastes 
of heat in the steam-cylinder by the processes 
now familiar to every engineer, as invariably oc- 
curring in every heat-engine, — those caused by 
‘cylinder-condensation’ and leakage. The lat- 
ter can be prevented: the former may be ame- 
liorated, but can never be wholly prevented, 
and will probably rarely, if ever, be reduced to 
such an extent that it may be neglected in the 
theory of the engine. It usually takes place 
to such an extent as to render the values of 
efficiency of fluid, and of engine, and of esti- 
mated ‘duty,’ obtained by the purely thermo- 
dynamic treatment, far from correct, and often 
very absurd. This fact has in many cases in- 
duced practically expert engineers to regard 
the current works on thermodynamics as de- 
void of value and practical interest, forgetting 
that the correct statement and application of 
one set of natural laws never can be valueless, 


even when, as here, other laws may be impli- 


cated in the same set of phenomena; which 
may be equally essential to a complete and 


correct theory, and which laws may be less” 


well determined, and their operation less pre- 
cisely understood. The first essential step 


i 
> 
. 
; 
3 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


having been taken, it becomes a duty, not to 
ignore that, but to seek the knowledge needed 
before the next step can be taken. In this de- 
partment also, as in others, the theorist has 
often failed to realize, that, although his math- 
ematically de- 
duced conclu- 
sions indisput- 
ably follow 
from his as- 


SCIENCE. 


307 


give us more precise, though perhaps less con- 
venient, expressions. The results so attained 
accord very satisfactorily with experience. 
This last period in the history of the theory 
of heat-engines has been inaugurated by the 
very valuable 
labors in Great 
Britain of Pro- 
fessor Cotter- 
ill, who seems 


sumed prem- 
ises, the latter 
may be, never- 
theless, so far 
different from 
the conditions 
of actual work 
as to render 
‘his deductions 
practically val- 
ueless and ab- 
surd. 

The last- 
mentioned of 
the two classes 
of phenomena 
are now  be- 
coming well 
recognized as 
essential ele- 
ments in the 
action of all 
heat-engines, 
and it will not 


to have been 
the first author 
to take up the 
new phase of 
the subject 
with the in- 
tention of mak- 
ing practically 
useful applica- 
tion of existing 
knowledge ; 
and, on _ the 
continent of 
Europe, by 


the  interest- 
ing, if some- 
what warm, 


discussion of 
the defects of 
the theory of 
the second 
period, be- 
tween Messrs. 
Hirn and Hal- 


be long before 
investigators 
now at work 


lauer, on the 
one hand, and 
Professor Zeu- 


will bring into | ner, on the 
view all the ee other: ane 
facts needed also, in this 


in the task of 
tracing out the 
laws  control- 
ling this meth- 
od of expendi- 
ture of heat; 
and its intro- 
duction into 
the theory of 
the steam- 
engine will promptly follow. The writer has 
already endeavored to frame a closely ap- 
proximate theory of the steam-engine on this 
basis, using the facts already known, and 
taking expressions for this method of waste 
which experiments already made indicate to 
be tolerably exact; sufficiently so to permit 
their use in design until further research shall 


country, by 
the attempt to 
rationalize the 
accepted  the- 
ory to which 
allusion is 

made above. 
The experi- 
ments upon 
which we are 
to-day dependent in this work of revolutioniz- 
ing the theory of heat-engines, and which have 
revealed the limitations to which the economical 
application of heat as a motor in the steam and 
other heat engines is subject, began with James 
Watt, who a hundred and twenty years ago, by 
his investigation of the action of steam in the 
cylinder of the Newcomen engine, revealed 


» vigil 


308 SCIENCE. 


the fact and the importance of that waste by 
cylinder-condensation which is only to-day 
becoming recognized as an essential element 
in the theory of the ‘ real’ steam-engine of the 
engineer, as distinguished from the ‘ideal’ 
engine of the authors of the theory of thermo- 
dynamics, and which is recognized as im- 


peratively demanding consideration, if that 


theory is to be made of practical use in engi- 
neering. Watt’s discovery of this ‘ cylinder- 
condensation’ led him to the invention of his 
separate condenser, and of the long-neglected 
but now familiar steam-jacket, —an attachment 
which was, for many years, only seen upon the 
Watt or Cornish engine, and was almost never 
used elsewhere. It has now come in with the 
compound engine, and is familiar to every 
engineer. Watt also found that this action 
placed an early limit to the gain derivable by 
expansion. 

The work of Watt in the systematic experi- 
mental study of the steam-engine was not 
taken up by his successors in the profession 
until about the beginning of the present half- 
century, or a little later, when Hirn in France, 
and Isherwood and the navy department in 
this country, began the work which has now 
become classic. Defective as some of this ear- 
lier work may be by some regarded, it was of 
inestimable value ; and Hirn, and his assistant 
and colleague, Hallauer, will never be forgot- 
ten as prominent among the pioneers in this 
all-important line of research: Mr. D. K. 
Clarke of Great Britain, one of the first of the 
new race of engineers, interested alike in the- 
ory and in experiment, familiar alike with 
the science and the practice of engineering, 
must be placed beside these investigators as 
having persistently called attention to the loss 
of energy revealed by them, and by his own 
investigation of the wastes occurring in the 
steam-cylinder of the locomotive. This work 
began, in his case, as long ago as 1855. 

Hallauer was one of the first to recognize, 
and frankly to admit, the defects of the ‘ideal’ 
treatment of the theory of the steam-engine, 
and was as prompt in his acceptance of the 
inevitable as was his preceptor. As Hirn says, 
breaking away from the old system, his prog- 
ress was rapid and satisfactory. Seizing with 
avidity experimentally determined facts, he 
held fast to the knowledge thus acquired, and 
demanded that theory should precisely conform 
to fact. His work upon the compound en- 
gine was especially fruitful; and his knowledge 


of theory, and his skill in its application, ren- 


dered his work at once available. He studied 
also the data given him by Widmann, relative 


to the performance of marine engines, and de- 
duced, from his examination of the phenomena ~ 
here revealed, the proper methods of increasing — 
their efficiency. Uniting, in arare degree, the 
practical sense with the intellectual cast of mind 
of the scientific man, he was able to make his 
work immediately and most effectively useful. 

Referring to his personal character, Hirn de- 
scribes him as possessing the most admirable 
qualities. Kindly, affectionate, modest, and 
yet intellectually great, Hallauer united with 
these prepossessing characteristics the most 
irrepressible energy and mental force. The 
last words in the eulogy by his friend Hirn 
are those of personal regard and of deepest 
affection. 

Hallauer wrote many papers,’ the first being 
an account of the method adopted by Hirn for 
determining the quality of steam by means of 
the calorimeter. The greater number were 
descriptive of his experimental investigations. 
He was an honorary member of the Société 
industrielle de Mulhouse, and of the American 
society of mechanical engineers, and was a 
member of the Société des ingénieurs civils de 
Paris. The writer wishes to add to the eulogy 
of Hirn, if it be possible to so add to it, this 
tribute of kind remembrance of one who, even 
were he not so distinguished a colleague in the 
professional fraternities, would none the less 
demand the most earnest expression an ade 
ration, esteem, and respect. 


Ropert H. TaHasnbee 


THE SYNOPTICAL FLORA OF NORTH 
AMERICA. 


THe second portion of Professor Gray’s — 
‘ Synoptical flora of North America’ has ap- — 
peared, six years after the publication of the 
first part, which contained the gamopetalous 
orders following Compositae. The present in- 
stalment of this important work —the most 
important contribution (with the exception, 
perhaps, of the Genera plantarum of Bentham 
and Hooker) made in late years to systematic 
botany — treats of the plants of North America 
(exclusive of Mexico) belonging to the families 
which precede those elaborated in the previous 
volume, which took up the ‘ Flora’ where it — 
was left more than forty years ago, at the end 
of the second volume of Torrey and Gray's 
‘Flora.’ The present publication is devoted 
to an elaboration of the families (Caprifoliaceae 
to Compositae) embraced in the second volume 


1 Published by Gauthier-Villars, Paris. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


of the old ‘ Flora,’ and is therefore in a certain 
sense a new edition of that work, although 
entirely recast and rewritten. 

The present volume is of special importance 

and value. Its publication has long, been 
looked for with impatience, and its pages will 
be examined with the deepest interest by all 
students of American botany. It contains the 
mature views of the most acute and profound 
student of the great and difficult order of 
Compositae, to which not less than one-eighth 
of all the flowering plants of North America 
must be referred, — an order, as represented 
on this continent, to the comprehension of 
which he has given his best efforts.and un- 
flagging industry for more than half a century, 
and which, it is safe to predict, no other bota- 
nist would ever have been able to so elucidate. 
The plants, belonging to 5 families, 274 genera, 
and 1,767 species, are characterized in this 
volume, which contains, exclusive of its very 
full index, 446 pages, of which all but about 
90 are devoted to Compositae, with 237 genera 
and 1,610 species. 
_ A brief and necessarily imperfect comparison 
of the families here elaborated, as represented 
in this country at the present time, with what 
was known of them when the*second volume 
of Torrey and Gray’s ‘ Flora’ appeared, be- 
tween 1841 and 1843, will show the extent and 
character of the work which has occupied 
Professor Gray of late years, and the impor- 
tance of the service which he has performed, 
as well as the zealand industry of the botanical 
travellers and explorers who have long been 
busy, under his general direction, in all parts 
of the country. 

Adoxa, transferred from Araliaceae, now 
appears, represented by its single widely dis- 
tributed species, among Caprifoliaceae. Ad- 
ditions to Sambucus are S. melanocarpa (of 
the northern Rocky Mountains) and S. Mexi- 
cana (a Mexican species of the boundary and 
of southern California). The Texas station, 
near San Antonio, of this tree, is not given. 
In Viburnum, V. densiflorum—a_ southern 
species, as Professor Gray remarks, too near 
VY. aurifolium —is admitted. Symphoricarpus, 
a North-American genus, is increased by a new, 
long-flowered section with three species, of the 
south-western mountains: Lonicera conjugialis 
of the Sierra forests of California, and L. 
Utahensis of the northern Rocky Mountains 
and Utah, are additions to that genus which 
shows besides many important changes in the 
rank and position of various species. Impor- 
tant changes appear in Rubiaceae. Loganieae, 
which appeared in the old ‘ Flora’ as a tribe 


SCIENCE. 


309 


of this order, is now placed as a family be- 
tween Asclepiadaceae and Gentianaceae, in 
the preceding volume. JBorreria is reduced to 
Spermacoce ; and Hedyotis is split up among 
Houstonia, Oldenlandia, and Pentodon. Be- 
sides these changes, eight genera not in the 
old ‘ Flora’ are represented by plants, mostly 
of West-Indian or Mexican origin, which recent 
explorations have brought to light in southern 
Florida and along the Mexican boundary. 
Kelloggia, a monotypical genus of the Pacific 
slope, commemorates the botanical labors and 
zeal of Dr. Albert Kellogg, one of the early 
explorers of California botany. The large 
genus Galium is increased from eighteen to 
thirty-seven species. 

In Valerianaceae, Plectritis and Fedia are 
merged in Valerianella, while the species of 
Valeriana are increased from six to eight. 

The extension and changes in Compositae 
during the last forty years, as was to have been 
expected in a family so largely represented in 
our flora. and of such wide and general distri- 
bution, far exceed, in number and importance, 
the changes in the smaller orders alluded to 
above. 

This order, as represented in North America 
at the time of the publication of the old 
‘Flora,’ was grouped in eight tribes: in the 
new elaboration, representatives of eleven 
tribes appear. It now contains representatives 
of 237 genera and 1,610 species; while forty 
years ago there were, within the limits of the 
region embraced by Torrey and Gray’s publi- 
cation, only 199 genera and 1,011 species. Of 
the large genera, Aster, which Dr. Gray re- 
marks ‘‘is far the most difficult of our genera, 
both from the settlement of the names of the 
species and from their limitation, in respect to 
which little satisfaction has been obtained as 
the result of long and repeated studies,’’ heads 
the list with 124 species, — seven less than the 
author’s elaboration of this genus for the old © 
‘Flora.’ 

This diminution of species is due to the fact 
that several of the Linnaean species have been 
dropped, from one cause or another, and be- 
cause Aster, largely a genus of eastern America, 
has not received many additions through west- 
ern explorations. ‘The same remarks are true, 
too, of Solidago, our second largest genus of 
Compositae, now represented in our flora by 
74 species, although not less than 94 were 
admitted in the old ‘Flora.’ Some species 
have been dropped entirely, and others reduced 
to varieties; while few new additions to the 
genus have been made. LErigeron, on the con- 
trary, has been nearly doubled, increasing from 


310 


40 to 71 species. Bigelovia, which fifty years 
ago had a single representative in the Atlantic 
states, now, as extended, contains 19 species, 
with its centre of distribution beyond the 
Rocky Mountains ; whence, of late years, have 
come, of course, the principal additions to our 
flora. Similar comparisons might be made in- 
definitely between the composition of our flora 
as now understood and that of the earlier part 
of the century, were such comparisons neces- 
sary to illustrate the importance of the work 
under consideration, or to impress upon our 
readers the sense of our obligations to its au- 
thor. Were it necessary or proper to say any 
thing at this time in regard to the part played 
by Professor Gray in the development of bo- 
tanical science in this country, it would only 
be necessary to point to the fact, that, of the 
North-American Compositae as enumerated in 
this volume, more than 600 species and 80 
genera have been characterized and enrolled by 
him since the publication of his previous study 
of the order. ‘Twenty-eight species are first 
described in this volume. 

The present volume, like its predecessor, 
will be found a model of comprehensive ar- 
rangement, and neat, concise, and clear expres- 
sion. Unlike its predecessor, it bears upon the 
titlepage, in addition to the names of Professor 
Gray’s New-York, London, and Leipzig pub- 
lishers, ‘‘ Published by the Smithsonian insti- 
tution, Washington,’’ where copies, no doubt, 
can be obtained, as well as from the author at 
Cambridge. 


THE LANGUAGES OF AFRICA. 


A sketch of the modern languages of Africa; ac- 
companied by a language-map. By RosBerr 
NEEDHAM CusT. London, Triibner, 1883. 2 
vols. 16+4+566 p. 8°. 


Tue Caucasus is styled in the east, from the 
variety of idioms spoken by the many tribes 
that are harbored in its recesses, the ‘ Mountain 
of languages.’ This variety, remarkable as it 
is, becomes insignificant when compared with 
that which exists in Africa, which might well 
be called the ‘ Continent of languages.’ Inthese 
volumes of Mr. Cust, we read of no less than 
five hundred and ninety-one distinct idioms, of 
which four hundred and thirty-eight are classed 
as languages, and a hundred and fifty-three as 
- dialects. And even this does not complete the 
list; for there are several unexplored regions, 
of whose tribes and languages nothing certain 
is known. ' 

A closer scrutiny, however, lessens the mar- 


SCIENCE. 


vel materially. 10 
less than two hundred and nee: -eight belong : 
to that portion of the continent which lies south — 
of the equator. All these idioms, as is well 
known, compose only two linguistic stocks, — 
the great Bantu family, which occupies the 
whole of the wide territory explored by Living- — 
stone and Stanley ; and the Hottentot-Bushman 
family, comprising the tribes of dwarfish people 
who seem to have been the aboriginal inhabit- 
ants of South Africa. The Bantu nations now 
speak, according to Mr. Cust, two hundred 
and twenty-three languages and dialects. But 
as philologists have no doubt that all the 
idioms of the Indo-European stock are the off- 
spring of a primitive mother-tongue, which was 
at one time spoken by a single tribe, and earlier 
still by a single household, so we may feel as- — 
sured that all the languages of the Bantu family __ 
have their origin in the speech of a single clan. 
There was reason to hope that in Mr. Cust’s 
elaborate work we should find this process 
of reduction continued, and the vast variety of 
African tongues brought into the manageable 


_compass of a comparatively few linguistic 


stocks. This expectation, unfortunately, is 
not fulfilled. Mr. Cust has chosen to adopt. 
the classification of the eminent ethnologist, 
Prof. F. Muller, who arranges the languages 
(or, more properly speaking, the tribes) of 
Africa in six main divisions, — Semitic, Hamit- 
ic, Nuba-Fulah, Negro, Bantu, and Hottentot- 
Bushman. This arrangement, however, was 
proposed by the distinguished Viennese pro- 
fessor, not for linguistic, but mainly for eth- 
nological, or rather anthropological, reasons. 
Only three of these divisions — the Semitic, the 
Bantu, and the Hottentot-Bushman — are true 
families. The other three divisions are styled 
by Mr. Cust, ‘ groups,?,—a word which in 
comparative philology has, at least as here 
employed, no scientific meaning whatever. 
The connection of the tribes composing these 
groups is not even geographical: it depends. 
merely upon some physical resemblances ; and 
these, it may be affirmed, are not nearly so 
strong as those which exist between the Hun-. 
garians, the Germans, and the Basques, whom 
no philologist would think of classing together. 
In fact, the word ‘ group ’ in this case is simply, 
as Mr. Cust frankly admits, a confession of 
ignorance. 

The ignorance which is thus confésadilia is, On 
the author’s part, to a large extent voluntary. — 
With the immense mass of linguistic materials | 
which he has collected, and which far surpasses — 
all that earlier inquirers have been able to ac- 
cumulate, nothing would have been more easy — 


= 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884. ] 


than by a simple collation of vocabularies — 
aided, where practicable, by grammatical com- 
parisons — to ascertain the relationship of the 
various idioms, and to reduce them into the fami- 
lies to which they belong. It is probable enough 
that some isolated languages would be found, like 
the Basque in Europe and the Khasi in farther 
India, whose kinship could not at present be 
determined; and, of course, the ‘language- 
map’ would show many vacancies: but these 
are imperfections which belong to the earlier 
stages of all investigations. In spite of such 
drawbacks, a scientific classification could have 
been made, which would have gone far to bring 
this linguistic chaos into order, and would have 
thrown a flood of light upon African ethnology. 
But while regretting these deficiencies in Mr. 
Cust’s work, we must be thankful for what we 
have gained from him, which is not a little. 
In these two volumes we have a clear and read- 
able account of the present state of African 
philology, and a complete list of the tribes and 
languages of the continent, so far as they are 
now known, with interesting details concern- 
ing many of them. The names of all the 
authors who have written on the subject, and 
the titles of their productions, are given with 
commendable fulness and precision. * The work 
displays great industry and conscientious ac- 
curacy. The extensive ‘ language-map,’ which 
has evidently been prepared with much care, 
aids materially in illustrating the text, and is 
in itself a most valuable contribution to philo- 
logical science. In spite of the defects which 
have been indicated, Mr. Cust’s treatise must 
be pronounced to be by far the best work which 
we possess on the subject to which it is de- 
voted. Scholars who pursue this important 
branch of linguistic study will find in these 
attractive volumes a highly useful, and indeed 
almost indispensable, guide. Pier PEL. 


MINOR BOOK NOTICES. 


The development theory: a brief statement for general 


readers. By JosepH Y. BERGEN, jun., and 
Fanny D. Bercen. Boston, Lee § Shepard, 
1884. 74+240p. 24°. 


No better evidence of the present general 
interest in biology could be wanted than is 
afforded by the growing demand for popular 
books on evolution. ‘The latest of these is a 
little treatise of two hundred and forty pages, 
by Mr. and Mrs. Bergen, in which, to be sure, 
not munch is original, except the form in which 
the facts are presented, and a few of the exam- 
ples cited, as the authors confess; but a read- 


SCIENCE. 


311 


ing of their book shows that they have given 
a good deal of thought to the presentation of 
the chief arguments upon which the modern 
development theory rests, with so few techni- 
calities as to render it comprehensible to even 
young readers. With so many books of a 
similar character already in circulation, only 
the test of time can show whether this latest 
one meets, as the authors intended, a real need. 
So far as one not wholly unfamiliar with the 
subject can judge, the story is well and simply 
told. 


Calcul des temps de pose et tables photometriques. 
Par LEON VIDAL. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1884. 
114 p. 16°. 

Turis little book is made up very largely of 
tables, whose object is to enable the photog- 
rapher, when supplied with a particular form 
of photometer, to give the correct exposure 
to his plate under all circumstances. The 
book is apparently written largely for ama- 
teurs in landscape-photography ; but whether 
they will in general be willing to trouble them- 
selves to procure such a photometer, and carry 
round the tables with them to consult whenever 
they wish to take a picture, in preference to 
relying on their judgment, is perhaps ques- 
tionable. The photometer employed is similar 
to that used by carbon-printers, depending on 
the exposure of sensitized silver-paper, and the 
noting of the tint obtained after a definite time. 
The author refers to the application of the in- 
strument to the case of enlargement, where it 
would seem to be more useful than when tak- 
ing the original negative. There is one serious 
objection to its employment for the latter pur- 
pose, however, which our author seems to have 
overlooked. ‘This is, that the exposure for a 
given landscape does not depend wholly on 
the total amount of light coming from it. If 
the background is the important portion, a 
certain definite exposure will be given. If, on 
the other hand, it is the foreground that is of 
interest, the same view may require two or 
even three times the exposure under the same 
conditions. 


Leiddraad bij het onderwijzen en anleeren der dier- 
kunde. Woor Dr. Jutius MacLrop. Alge- 
meene dierkunde. Met eene titelplaat en 61 
door den schrijver gegraaverde figuren. Gent, 
18335) Tol p.. 12°. 

Tue author of this little school-book has 
written it in the Dutch language, in the patriotic 
belief that dierkunde, or zodlogy, may be 
taught in that tongue, which can supply all 
the necessary terms. The volume is really a 


312 


protest against the custom in Belgium of using 
so many French text-books. He carefully 
avoids all except real Dutch words: so we 
have borstpijp (‘ thoracic duct ’) , twschenwerve- 
lig (‘intervertebral’), etc., all of which are 
gathered into an alphabetical list at the end of 
the volume, where their French equivalents are 
also given. 

The book is devoted almost exclusively to 
the anatomy and physiology of man as illus- 
trating the general principles of animal life. 
The author’s presentation of the rudiments of 
his science is excellent; but his illustrations, 


white lines on a black ground, are neither very 


clear nor always accurate. 


ASSOCIATION OF OFFICIAL AGRICUL- 
TURAL CHEMISTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 


AT a meeting held in Philadelphia, Sept. 8, to con- 
sider the formation of a sub-section of agricultural 
chemistry of the American association, it was deemed 
inadvisable to apply to the standing committee; but a 
committee was selected to report a plan for the forma- 
tion of an association of chemists who are engaged in 
the analysis of commercial fertilizers. 

The committee’s report, which was adopted, recom- 
mended that the Association of official chemists of 
the United States should be organized. To member- 
ship in this society, chemists of departments of agri- 
culture, state agricultural societies, and boards of 
official control, are eligible; and each of these organi- 
zations is entitled to one vote, through its properly 
accredited* representative, in all matters upon which 
the society may ballot. All chemists are invited to 
attend the meetings, and take part in the discussions, 
without the right to vote. The affairs of the asso- 
ciation are managed by an executive committee of 
five, including a president, vice-president, and secre- 
tary (who acts as treasurer). There are also three 
standing committees, on the determination of phos- 
phoric acid, nitrogen, and potash. They will dis- 
tribute samples for comparative work, and report the 
results at the annual meeting, which takes place on 
the first Tuesday in September of each year, or at 
any special meetings which may be called. 

After the acceptance of the constitution, the fol- 
lowing officers were elected: President, Prof. S. W. 
Johnson of Connecticut; vice-president, Prof. H. C. 
White of Georgia; secretary and treasurer, Dr. C. W. 
Dabney, jun., of North Carolina; members of the 
executive committee, Dr. E. H. Jenkins of Connecti- 
cut, Dr. H. W. Wiley of Washington. The presiding 
officer then appointed the following members of the 
standing committees: On phosphoric acid, Dr. E. H. 
Jenkins of Connecticut, Dr. H. C. White of Georgia, 
Dr. W. C. Stubbs of Alabama; on nitrogen, Mr. P. E. 
Chazal of South Carolina, Dr. A. T. Neale of New 
Jersey, Prof. J. A. Myers of Mississippi; on potash, 
Dr. H. W. Wiley of Washington, Mr. J. W. Gascoyne 


SCIENCE. 


TN ie (a ol 2 Nb 


[Vou rey Ne 


of Virginia, Mr. Clifford Richardson of Washing- — 
ton. ax 

It was voted to adopt provisionally the Atlanta 
method for the determination of the various forms of 
phosphoric acid, involving the use of the usual neutral 
citrate solution at a temperature of 65° C. for a half- 
hour. The recommendations of Dr. Jenkins in re- 
gard to potash estimation were accepted; and Mr. 
P. E. Chazal of Columbia, 8.C., was directed to have 
the proceedings and methods of the association 
printed for distribution among those who are in- 
terested in the subject. : 


THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIA-~ 
TION. 


In response to a call issued by Gen. Eaton and 
F. B. Sanborn of the Social science association, and 
by Professors Adams of Ann Arbor, Tyler of Cornell, 
and Dr. H. B. Adams of Baltimore, about twenty 
writers, students, and teachers of history in this 
country met at the United States hotel, Saratoga, on 
the morning of Sept. 9, and decided to form an in- 
dependent organization for the advancement of the ) 
scientific study of history on this continent. Among 
others present at this and later sessions, were Presi- 
dent White of Cornell; Charles Deane, LL.D., of | 
Cambridge; Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard 
university; General Walker of the Massachusetts 
institute of technology; William B. Weeden of 
Providence; Clarence W. Bowen of the New-York 
Independent ; Professors C. K. Adams of Ann Arbor, 
Tyler, Crane, and Tuttle of Cornell, Austin Scott of 
Rutgers, Emerton of Harvard; Associate-professor 
H. B. Adams of Johns Hopkins; Dr. Channing and 
Dr. Francke of Harvard. Justin Winsor was elected 
temporary president, with Dr. H. B. Adams secretary. 

In the afternoon President White of Cornell de- 
livered the opening address in Putnam hall. He 
advocated a broader treatment of historical topics 
than is at present followed. Not that he undervalued 4 
the work of the specialist; but he thought that a [ 
view of the historical work now going on in the 
world showed the necessity of connecting critical 
analysis, on the one hand, with a synthesis of results 
on the other. Instruction in history, which is grow- 
ing of more importance every day, should include 
both methods. He severely criticised Herbert Spen- 
cer’s theory of historical study as confounding a 
mere search for statistics with the real study of the 
forces of civilization. 

Professor C. K. Adams read a long paper, written 
by one of his pupils, in which the actions of several 
western states with regard to the lands which the 
nation had given them for purposes of collegiate 
education were most justly denounced. 

Wednesday morning another session was held, at _ 
which a constitution was adopted, and permanent 
officers elected: Andrew D. White, president; Justin — 
Winsor and C. K. Adams, vice-presidents; H. B. 
Adams, secretary; and C. W. Bowen, treasurer. The — 
affairs of the association were confided to the care of 
an executive council consisting of the above ex officio, 


-— 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


and Charles Deane, Moses Coit Tyler, W. B. Weeden, 
and Ephraim Emerton. . 

Dr. Edward Channing of Harvard college then read 
a paper in which he maintained that the early set- 
tlers of the English North-American colonies did not 
leave behind them the experience in the management 
of local affairs which they had inherited from their 
ancestors, and which formed one of the most precious 
inheritances of the English race; but that they 
brought such experience to this country, and there 
applied it so far as the peculiar conditions of their 
environment would permit. He further said, that he 
thought the English common-law parish of 1600 was 
the most important connecting link between the 
institutions of the English race in their two homes; 
and he gave some examples of this connection. Dr. 
Charles Deane gave the pith of the argument ad- 
vanced by Judge Aldrich, at a recent meeting of the 
Antiquarian society, that the New-England town 
system was but a legislative creation. Dr. H. B. 
Adams said that in his opinion there was not one 
institution of early New England which did not have 
its analogue in the institutions of old England, and 
he thought that the author of the paper under discus- 
sion had found the connecting link. Judge Cham- 
berlain of the Boston public library endeavored to 
show that the two theories were not inconsistent, 
and likened the experience that the New-England 
fathers had brought with them to a grain of English 
wheat, which when planted in our soil reproduced 
its kind so far as circumstances would permit. Presi- 
dent White, in closing the discussion, remarked that 
he considered the paper an example of the union 
of the analytic and synthetic methods which he had 
advocated. 

Mr. C, H. Levermore of Johns Hopkins then read 
an able essay on the founders of New Haven, — John 
Davenport and Theophilus Eaton,— who had strength- 
ened class distinctions at the outset in their colony, 
and had created a ruling caste of Brahmins. 

Prof. T. M. Crane of Cornell described some new 
sources of mediaeval history which he has recently 
opened up. He thought the field would be an attrac- 
tive one, both from the large amount of new material, 
and also from the new methods applied to old mate- 
rial such as local traditions, popular songs, and folk- 
tales, which often contained details not to be found 
in written history. A still more curious source was 
the collections of stories with which the preachers of 
that time enkKvened their sermons; each in itself of 
little value, but forming, en bloc, invaluable material 
for the historian. This new method of study would 
re-act most favorably upon the study of our own his- 
tory, and encourage the collection of local traditions, 
folk-songs, and tales; of which an excellent beginning 
has been made in Allen’s Slave songs of the South, 
and Newell’s Songs and games of American children. 
President White spoke of the importance of Profes- 
sor Crane’s work, and then introduced Dr. Francke 
of Harvard college; who described the founding and 
progress of the Monumenta Germaniae, with which 
he had been associated for two years. Justin Winsor 
closed the session with an account of the Narrative 


SCIENCE. 313 


and critical history of America that he is now edit- 
ing, and of which two volumes are already printed 
although not published. 

At a public session in the afternoon, Professor 
Tyler of Cornell presented a rather commonplace and 
eulogistic paper upon the influence of Thomas Paine 
on the declaration of independence; and Professor 
Austin Scott—formerly associated with George 
Bancroft — read an essay on the constitutional de- 
velopment of the United States. The intense heat 
interfered with the author’s delivery, and also with 
the taking of notes; but it may be said that the 
author maintained that what he termed the federa- 
tive principle was the key to our constitutional his- 
tory, and he traced its action with great care and 
detail through the succéssive periods of our national 
growth. It is to be hoped that Mr. Scott will still 
further elaborate and publish his paper, which 
showed considerable ability and thought. 


NOTES ON THE ELECTRICAL CON- 
FERENCE. 


THE Electrical conference, called together by the 
commission appointed by the president of the United 
States, met in Philadelphia on Monday, Sept. 8, and 
continued its sessions throughout the week. The 
first meetings were held in the lecture-hall of the 
Electrical exhibition; but on account of the bad 
acoustic properties of that room, the sessions after 
Tuesday took place in the hall of the Franklin in- 
stitute. 

About one hundred and seventy-five delegates were 
invited by this commission to be present, and con- 
stitute the conference. Of these the greater number 
were American investigators and electricians, but 
a number of foreign conferrees were also included. 
Of these it should be mentioned, that there were 
present Sir William Thomson, who was also vice- 
president of the conference; Professor Fitzgerald of 
the University of Dublin; Professor Oliver Lodge of 
Liverpool; Mr. W. H. Preece of the English postal 
telegraph; Professor Arthur Schuster of Manchester ; 
and Professor Silvanus P. Thompson of University 
college, Bristol. 

The conference was designed to be representative 
of all interested in progress in electrical knowledge; 
and so not only were those present who are more 
concerned with the purely theoretical questions in- 
volved, but also those especially occupied in develop- 
ing applications of electricity. 

Prof. Simon Newcomb, on behalf of the commis- 
sion, opened the conference in a brief address of wel- 
come, and also stated the objects for which the con- 
ference had been called. He was followed by the 
president of the conference, Prof. Henry A. Row- 
land, who delivered a carefully prepared and very 
interesting address, in which were discussed, among 
other things, the interdependence of applied and 
pure science, some of the questions still open in 
electrical science, and the need of more careful train- 
ing in the theory of electricity in technical schools. 


314 


+ 
Sir William Thomson then made a short address, 
after which the conference adjourned to meet on 
Tuesday, when the regular discussions were begun. 

The object of the conference was to take authorita- 
tive action respecting the electrical standards recom- 
mended by the international convention; to consider 
the advisability of recommending the establishment 
by the government of a bureau of physical standards; 
to consider what could be done by the U.S. signal- 
service, with the co-operation of the various telegraph 
and telephone companies, towards increasing our 
knowledge of atmospheric electricity and earth-cur- 
rents; and to discuss subjects in which the knowledge 
possessed by those acquainted with the theory of 
electricity could be brought to the aid of those en- 
gaged in the applications of the science. The senti- 
ment of the conference was in favor of adopting the 
electrical standards recommended by the interna- 
tional convention which met at Paris last April; but, 
as considerable difference of opinion exists as to the 
best standard of light to be adopted, the whole sub- 
ject of the electrical standards was referred to a com- 
mittee which is to report to the commission within 
three months. In the discussion of the adoption of 
the legal ohm, as defined by the Paris convention as 
the resistance of a column of pure mercury at zero 
degrees centigrade, of one square millimetre cross- 
section and one hundred and six centimetres in 
length, it was brought out that the results obtained 
in the experiments which have been carried on du- 
ring the past year under Professor Rowland’s direc- 
tion, give very nearly 106.28 centimetres as the length 
of the column of mercury which represents the true 
ohm. 

The subject of the best methods of extending our 
knowledge.of atmospheric electricity and earth-cur- 
rents, and any possible relation that may exist between 
them and the weather, was introduced by Professor 
Abbe of the signal-service. He represented the im- 
portance of the subject, and that by using suitable 
methods, and by the co-operation of the various tele- 
phone and telegraph companies, much valuable in- 
formation might be obtained, and without interfering 
with the regular work of the lines employed. Sir 
William Thomson called attention to the fact, that in 
the study of earth-currents the quantity to be meas- 
ured is the difference of potential between the points 
of observation. By such measurements the distri- 
bution of potential at any time over the country exam- 
ined may be mapped and studied. 

The question of the establishment of a bureau of 
physical standards was introduced by Professor Snyder, 
who pointed out the advantages which would result 
from having physical standards preserved and verified 
under government supervision. Work which is now 
being done by different observers all over the country, 
and in a way which is often necessarily incomplete 
from the lack of funds, could thus be done at a 
central laboratory, more cheaply, effectively, and accu- 
rately; and thus the physicists now engaged in these 
laborious determinations and comparisons would be 
free to occupy themselves with investigations looking 
to the discovery of new truth. In the discussion 


SCIENCE. 


ale eee Phe eae 


[VoL. IV., Nao. 8 


which followed, Professor Rogers of Cambridge, 
Mass., urged that the bureau should engage in auxil- 
iary research, and showed how this was necessary for 
the accurate establishment of units. Lieut. Allen of 
the signal-service read a paper giving an account of the 
success that had attended the work of that depart- 
ment in obtaining accurate standards for thermome- 


_ try and barometry. Professor Hilgard, superintendent 


of the U.S. coast-survey, was not in favor of such a 
bureau, on the ground that it would discourage pri- 
vate research, and that the present bureau of weights 
and measures met every requirement. Professor 
Simon Newcomb spoke in favor of the proposed bu- 
reau; and Sir William Thomson not only favored the 
idea, but thought that instraments of the accuracy 
required by such a bureau for its work would soon 
be devised and constructed, and the time was there- 
fore ripe for such action to be taken. Finally the - 
conference adopted a resolution to the effect that it. 
deemed it of national importance that Congress should 
fix standards of electrical measures, and establish a 
bureau charged with the duty of examining and veri- 
fying instruments for electrical and other physical 
measurements. The commission was urged to bring 
the matter before congress; and it was left with them 
to decide upon the manner of the carrying-out of the 
idea, whether by a special bureau, or by enlarging 
the powers and duties of existing departments. 
Among the discussions that occupied the attention 
of the conference, perhaps the most interesting one 
was that opened by Prof. Henry A. Rowland, upon 
the theory of the dynamo-electric machine. Professor 
Rowland maintained, that, neglecting the question 
of strength and rigidity and other such mechanical 
reasons, a Single magnetic circuit is better than a 
double one: meaning, by a single magnetic circuit, 
such a one as would be obtained by placing the 
armature between the poles of an ordinary horse- 
shoe magnet; and by a double magnetic circuit, one of 
the form obtained by putting two horseshoe magnets 
end to end with their similar poles together, and put- 
ting the armature between the compound north and 
south poles thus formed. In the single circuit the 
lines of force, after passing through the armature, can 
only return in one way through the magnet; in the. 
double circuit, however, the lines of force can return 
by passing around either through one magnet or the 
other. Professor Rowland is of the opinion that there 
is far more leakage of the lines of force in the case 
of the double circuit than in the case of the single; 
and therefore, other things being equal, the single 
circuit is the better form. ‘This is, however, a ques- 
tion that should be investigated by experiment. Both 
forms of dynamo should be carefully examined to 
determine the amount of leakage at every point. 
Such an investigation would be very important. 
Professor Rowland also advocated the use of magnets 
of cylindrical section, rather than flat or oval magnets, 
on the ground that the least amount of wire would 
then be used to produce the required magnetization of 
agiven mass of iron. Professor Silvanus P. Thomson ° 
differed on this point, and preferred iron cores of 


oval section; giving as his reason, that he had found 


Zz 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


by actual experiment that the central part of an iron 
core was not nearly so powerfully magnetized as the 
outer part. Professor Rowland called attention to 
the fact that Professor Thompson’s experiments had 
been made with short straight iron magnets, where 
the resistance of the air to the magnetic lines of force 
came in as the most important factor, and therefore 
had led Professor Thompson into error; but that 
since in the dynamo the only air-spaces are those 
between the armature and the pole pieces, it closely 
resembles a ring magnet, where the magnetic circuit 
is completed in the iron itself, and therefore, as in the 
ring magnet, the iron in the centre of the core of 
the magnets of the dynamo is quite as important as 
that on the outside. 

Professor Fitzgerald of Dublin showed that the 
~ loss due to self-induction in the armature is propor- 
tional to the linear velocity and length of the coils. 

Professor Silvanus P. Thompson of Bristol called 
attention to the fact, that, whenever a coil is short-cir- 
cuited, there is a real loss of energy in heat; and there- 
fore it is bad to set two brushes, one a little ahead 
of the other, to reduce sparking, for this prolongs 
the time during which the single coils are short-cir- 
euited. He also noticed that since self-induction is 
increased in proportion to the increase in the velocity 
of the armature, or to the increase in the number of 
turns of wire which it contains, higher electro-motive 
force is to be best obtained by strengthening the mag- 
netic field. The speaker then referred to the great 
importance of using the best soft iron in the field- 
magnets, instead of cast iron; stating that an English 
maker had nearly doubled the capacity of a machine 
by substituting for its old cast-iron magnets and pole- 
pieces new ones made of best forged iron. Professor 
Thompson even went so far as to say, that, in his 
opinion, it was important that the grain of the iron 
should run in the same direction as the lines of mag- 
netic force. The speaker also objected to the use of 
large masses of iron in the magnets, on the ground 
that the great time required for such masses to come 
to their full degree of magnetization interfered with 
their government. Professor Elihu Thomson, on 
the other hand, stated that when the iron masses 
were small, the extra current from the machine had 
so high an electro-motive force as to make trouble, 
and, when the machine was used for arc-lights, even 
caused a sort of vibration in their intensity. 

Prof. F. E. Nipher of Washington University, St. 
Louis, opened the discussion of the electrical trans- 
mission of energy by a discussion of the case of two 
dynamos, one being used as a generator, and one as 
amotor. Heshowed that the performance of such a 
System could be advantageously studied by a series 
of three surfaces; in each surface two of the variables 
being the speeds of the two machines, and the third 
variable being in the three surfaces respectively, the 
work supplied to the generator, the work done by 
the motor, and the efficiency of the system as indi- 
cated by the ratio of these two quantities of work. 

The question of storage-batteries was discussed at 
considerable length. Mr. W. H. Preece of London 
opened by a paper upon the subject, giving his expe- 


SCIENCE. 


315 


rience in the use of cells of the Planté form. He 
has these cells in his house; using electricity not only 
for lighting, but in many other ways. The cells are 
charged for two hours every day by a dynamo ma- 
chine; but he hopes, when the cells are in a little 
better condition than now, to have to charge them 
only once a week. Each cell is made up of twelve 
sheets of lead about a foot square, and separated by 
thin sheets of hard rubber punched full of holes; 
the alternate plates are joined together, thus forming 
two sets of six plates each. Professor Dewar of 
Cambridge, England, gave an account of the chemis- 
try of the storage-cell, which was of very great inter- 
est. There was considerable general discussion upon 
the subject of the storage-battery, and there still 
seems to be much to be cleared up in regard to its 
action. The chemical actions are by no means 
simple. 

The subject of long-distance telephony and the 
difficulties that attend it was introduced by Mr. T. D. 
Lockwood, who in a long and interesting paper gave 
the results of a great deal of experience with long 
telephone lines. Some interesting points were brought 
out. The noises on telephone-lines arise not only 
from electro-static and electro-dynamic induction, 
but also from earth-currents and atmospheric elec- 
tricity, imperfect contacts, and leakage from other 
lines. Long lines are, of course, more subject to 
these troubles than short ones; and lines running 
north and south are more subject to disturbance than 
those running east and west. Sometimes one end of 
a line will be noisy and the other quiet, as between 
Chicago and Milwaukee, where the Chicago end is 
very quiet, but the Milwaukee terminal is very noisy. 
Lines subject to pretty uniform leakage are less noisy 
than well-insulated ones; perhaps, for this reason, 
lines near the sea are quieter than those inland. 
Lines on high or mountainous land are subject to 
periodic storms, the noises being most intense at cer- 
tain hours of the day. Lines constructed of wire of 
high conductivity are less noisy than those of greater 
resistance. Lines of small wire, thus having less 
electro-static capacity, are less noisy than lines of 
large wire. A good method of treating a noisy line 
is to provide a metallic return-circuit, hung parallel 
to the first, and similarly to it. Many of the sources 
of disturbance will thus be gotten rid of. In case of 
a long air-line, ending in a short underground cable, 
the person at the end of the cable can make himself 
heard at the other end of the line, but the man at 
the end of the long line can not make himself heard. 
For short lines, less than two miles in length, cables 
of insulated wire covered with tinfoil, this covering 
being grounded, are useful, and get rid of some 
sources of disturbance; but, on account of the large 
capacity of such a line, the retardation is very great. 

Professor Fitzgerald, who was expecting to give an 
abstract of the paper read by Lord Rayleigh before 
the British association, on the subject of long-dis- 
tance telephony, had been obliged to leaye, so no 
complete presentation of Lord Rayleigh’s results 
could be obtained: but Professor Rowland made a 
brief statement of the nature of the problem, that 


316 


the passage of the wave-current propagating the tele- 
phonic action was exactly similar to the sinking of 
the heat-waves into the earth, treated by Fourier; 
and by reasoning from the nature of that wave propa- 
gation he concluded that the sound of a deep bass 
voice could be heard farther than that of a high- 
pitched voice. Mr. Lockwood said that experience 
in ocean-cable telegraphy confirmed this. Professor 
Carhart stated that Lord Rayleigh had from similar 
considerations calculated the farthest distance at 
which telephonic communication could be main- 
tained in such a cable as the Atlantic cable, and 
gives the extreme limit as twenty miles. This is 
fully confirmed by experience, according to the testi- 
mony of Messrs. Preece and Lockwood. 

Capt. O. E. Michaelis, of the Frankford arsenal, 
read a paper in which he recommended the study of 
the ‘structural metals,’ iron, copper, brass, etc., by 
electrical or magnetic methods, with a view to ascer- 
taining whether some such methods could not be de- 
vised that should detect weaknesses not otherwise 
to be discovered. 

A short discussion then took place, on the measure- 
ment of large currents, in which there was nothing 
particulary interesting brought out. 

Professor Rowland then took up the subject of 
lightning protection, and gave a short development 
of Maxwell’s suggestion that the house should be 
placed in a metallic cage. A house in a complete 
metallic cage, one enclosing it below as well as above, 
would be completely protected if the wires of the 
cage were sufficiently good conductors. This fact 
leads to the following considerations. Lightning- 
rods should run down the four corners of the house 
and across the angles of the roof, joining at the top, 
thus forming the: skeleton of a cage. If rods are 
also run down the middle of the sides of the house, 
or if, in a long building, two or three equidistant 
rods are run down the sides and connected with the 


SCIENCE. 


(Vou. IV., No. 86. 


rods running across the roof, so much the better. 


These rods must be well grounded, otherwise they oD 
are of no use at all, and may be worse than useless; _ 


for, suppose the gas-pipes running through the house 
have good earth connections, the lightning will be 
likely to leap from the rods to the gas-pipes, and so 
cause destruction. The rods down the sides should 


therefore be connected by rods running across under 


the building, as well as by those over the roof; and 
the gas and water pipes, as well as all large masses of 
metal in the building, should be connected with the 
rods by good conductors. It is, of course, necessary 
that the rods should be of good conducting material, 
—solid, not hollow. As it is important that the zoel 
should have a large cross-section, the twisted forms 
with large surface and very little mass of metal are 
not good, as there is no use in the twisting, and the 
most important thing is that there should be plenty 
of metal to conduct. There is not the slightest 
necessity for insulating a lightning-rod: the safety 
of a building depends only on its being easier for the 
lightning to go around it than to go through it. Of 
course, from the cage of rods above described, small 
rods bearing points are to rise at different points on 
the roof. How high these should be, or how close 
together, is not very well determined. It is con- 
sidered by some, that a rod protects the space in- 
cluded in the cone whose height is that of the rod, 
and the radius of whose base is also equal to the 
length of the rod. Others think that a space is 
protected equal to the cone whose height is that 
of the rod, and whose base has a radius of twice that 
amount. 

The time for adjournment having come, the con- 
ference adjourned, subject to the call of the chair- 
man, Professor Rowland, who is also president of the 
commission. 

It is possible that there may be another session in 
Philadelphia about the close of November. 


BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 


THE admirable survey of the progress of anthro- 
pological science, comprised in the address made by 
Dr. Tylor as president of the section, was listened to 
with great satisfaction by the members. In this as- 
sociation, as in the American, anthropology has been 
late in finding the recognition which its importance 
as a science deserves. Heretofore it has been treated 
as a department of the biological section. As the 
communications have gradually taken a wider range, 
and become more numerous, it was found that this 
subordinate status was inconvenient. At the present 
meeting, anthropology for the first time takes the 
rank of a section, and with a fortunate choice of 
officers, — the vice-presidents being Professors Boyd 
Dawkins and Dr. Daniel Wilson, and the secretaries 


Messrs. G. W. Bloxam (recorder), Rev. J. Campbell, 
Walter Hurst, and J. M. P. Lemoine. 

Among the papers which attracted most attention 
may be ranked that of Professor Boyd Dawkins, on 
the range of the Eskimo in space and time. In this 
paper Professor Dawkins again urged with much in- 
genuity and force his well-known opinions as to the 
probability that the Eskimos are the survivors of the 
prehistoric race known in Europe as the ‘ cave- 
dwellers.’ The. Eskimos are found along the Arctic 
Ocean, from Labrador and Greenland to the west 
coast, and thence extending into Asia. Everywhere 
they appear to be a receding race, gradually retreat- 
ing northward as they are pressed by stronger and. 
more warlike tribes, —in America by the Indians, in 
Asia by the Mongols. The researches of Mr. Dall 
had produced evidence that they formerly dwelt on — 
the west coast of America, far south of their present — 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1834.] 


limit. In Asia some linguistic evidence, in Professor 
Dawkins’s opinion, showed an intercourse or inter- 
mingling between them and the Mongols, at points 
far to the south-west of their present abode. He did 
not consider that the mere fact that they spoke an 
agglutinative language could be regarded as evi- 
dence that they were akin to the Indians. In ap- 
pearance, character, and customs, they were a distinct 
race; and there was a strong antipathy between them 
and the Indians, resulting in frequent hostilities. In 
fact, a wide belt of debatable land was always left 
between the two races. In Asia their relations with 
their southern neighbors were more pacific. 

In dealing with the range of the Eskimos in time, 
we pass from the historic ground into the domain of 
geology. We have to go back to the ‘cave-men,’ as 
they are styled, whose traces are found not only in 
caves, but along the course of rivers and in other 
localities. They dressed in skins, and wore long 
gloves. They were skilled in the use of the needle, 
which was made of bone. They wore necklaces; 
they painted their faces. They manufactured skin- 
scrapers, harpoons, lance-heads, and other imple- 
ments, of stone and bone. They were manifestly a 
race of hunters and fishermen, of a rather superior 
type. They were also artists of no mean skill, as a 
sketch of a reindeer and the outline of the head of 
an elephant (of both of which copies were exhibited) 
fully testified. Of human remains belonging to this 
race, there was unfortunately an almost entire lack. 
Professor Dawkins did not believe that any of the 
skeletons or crania usually referred to this people 
really belonged to them. There was every reason to 
think that they did not bury their dead, but left them 
to be devoured by the wild beasts, and especially the 
hyenas which then abounded in southern Europe. 

This and all the other characteristics of the cave- 
dwellers are precisely those of the Eskimos of the 
present day. ‘They are hunters and fishermen, wear- 
ing skin dresses with long gloves, are highly artistic 
in their tastes, and do not bury their dead. If the 
question is asked, how they came to emigrate to 
America, it must be remembered that the same ques- 
tion applied to the mammoth which they hunted. 
Remains of this animal are found in great abun- 
dance from western Europe across northern Asia, and 
thence throughout North America. They had, of 
course, passed over at atime when the two continents 
were united at what is now Bering Strait. When 
the mammoth, and the animals which were contem- 
porary with it, migrated in this direction, the cave- 
men who hunted them would naturally go with them. 
In all probability there was a period when people of 
this race were scattered over a wide region of the 
earth extending from western Europe to northern 
America. 

In the discussion which followed, Prof. T. Rupert 
Jones expressed the opinion that the skeletons found 
in the caves and other localities where the implements 
of the cave-dwellers have been discovered belonged 
to this race; and if so, they were a tall people, of 
a bodily structure very different from that of the 
Eskimo. Dr. Wilson remarked that the hostility be- 


SCIENCE. 


317 


tween the Eskimos and the Indians adjoining them 
is no greater than that which often exists elsewhere 
between two tribes of Indians; as, for example, be- 
tween the Sioux and the Chippewas, where it is 
always found necessary to keep a wide space of un- 
inhabited land between them. As to the similarity 
of implements and usages, that is common between 
barbarous races whose condition and surroundings are 
similar. The fact that the Eskimos do not bury their 
dead is readily accounted for by the climate, which 
would usually make burial impossible. Professor 
Dawkins, in reply, insisted that there was no evi- 
dence that the skeletons mentioned by Professor 
Jones belonged to the cave-men. He believed them 
to be intrusive burials. As to the similarity of im- 
plements, it must be remembered that in the present 
case the resemblance extended far beyond a few rude 
stone or bone tools and weapons, and included the 
element of artistic faculty and products. The result 
of the discussion appeared to be, that the paper, while 
admitted to be highly valuable as a contribution to 
our knowledge of the subject, left the opinions on 
the different sides as widely apart as before. 

Mr. F. W. Putnam gave a most interesting account 
of his examination of a group of mounds in Hamilton 
county, O., made on behalf of the Peabody museum 
at Cambridge. Discoveries were made which seem to 
far exceed in interest and impoftance any thing which 
has before been learned concerning the builders cf 
these mounds. As this search will be the subject 
of a much more elaborate paper, which will be read 
before the American association, a summary of it 
would be out of place here. All that need be said is 
that the facts detailed by Mr. Putnam seem to show 
a more complex social life, more abundant and varied 
artistic products, and a higher status altogether, than 
can be deemed consistent with the views of those who 
hold that these mound-builders were merely the an- 
cestors of our present Indians, and in the same stage 
of culture. 

An important communication by Major Powell, on 
the classification of American languages, was illus- 
trated by an ethnographic map, comprising the greater 
part of America north of Mexico, with some vacancies 
where the affinities of the tribes are considered by 
him to be not fully determined. The number of dis- 
tinct linguistic stocks in this region is quite large; 
and as they have been studied by many investigators, 
some confusion has arisen from the variety of names 
given to them. Major Powell proposed to adopt 
a system of nomenclature based on certain definite 
rules. One of these rules is to adopt the name given to 
each stock by the author who had first written about 
it. He would not, however, go back for this purpose 
beyond the year 1836, the date of the publication of 
Gallatin’s ‘Synopsis of the Indian tribes,’ which 
might be deemed the first scientific work on American 
ethnology. Another rule would be to discard all 
double names, that is, all designations formed by the 
union of two names, such as Huron-Iroquois, or 
Aigonkin-Lenape. Finally, to distinguish the name 
of a linguistic stock or family from that of a language 
or dialect included in it, the former or ‘ stock’ designa- 


318 
tion should always terminatein ‘an.’ Thus we should 
have Eskimoan, Shoshoneean, Algonkian, Iroquoian, 
Pawneean, and the like, as the names of the different 
stocks. He was decidedly of the opinion that no 
mode of classifying the Indian tribes other than by 
their languages would be found satisfactory. The 
physical differences are certainly not sufficient. The 
arts are no criterion, as they are readily adopted by 
one race from another. Institutions are more perma- 
nent; but still in some cases they are adopted, and 
they do not sufficiently distinguish the races. Myth- 
ologies are more distinctive; and, indeed, it will gen- 
erally be found that tribes speaking languages of one 
stock have similar mythological beliefs. There are 
in North America about eighty linguistic stocks, and 
as many mythologies. The investigation and classi- 
fication of these stocks and of the languages included 
in them is an important part of the work which is 
now engaging the attention of the U. S. ethnological 
bureau. 

In the discussion which followed Major Powell’s 
communication, it was suggested that the establish- 
ment of a complete ethnological nomenclature was 
properly the work of an international commission, 
such as had been found necessary in geology and in 
electrical science. It would be a very suitable work 
for a committee of the anthropological section in the 
International association for the advancement of 
science which seems likely to be formed. Professor 


Max Miller, it was mentioned, had proposed for sub- ’ 


families or groups the termination in ic, as Indic, 
Persic, Tataric, Ugric. These and other suggestions 
could be considered by an international committee, 
whose conclusions would probably be generally adopt- 
ed, and thus the confusion and uncertainty of names 
which now cause much perplexity would be removed. 
This suggestion was received by the section with indi- 
cations of general approval. 

Mr. C. A. Hirschfelder’s paper on anthropological 
discoveries in Canada gave much very interesting in- 
formation. His investigations have been quite exten- 
sive, including the opening of over three hundred 
Indian graves and mounds. The large number of In- 
dian wares and relics found in these excavations now 
form an important part of the collections of the Cana- 
dian ethnological museum at Ottawa. A description 
of the vast Huron ossuaries, or bone-pits, was given, 
fully corroborating the accounts of the Jesuit mission- 
aries, The earthworks of Canada are much more 
numerous and important than has been generally sup- 
posed. Most of these are considered by Mr. Hirsch- 
felder to be the work of the Hurons and other tribes 
known to us; but one, of evidently very ancient date 
and peculiar character, he is inclined to ascribe to the 
mound-builders of the Ohio valley, or a race akin to 
them, as it bears a strong resemblance to the works 
constructed by that people. It is situated on an ele- 
vated ridge in the county of Elgin, a short distance 
north of Lake Erie, and has much the appearance of 
having been a stronghold in a hostile country. It 
comprises about eight acres, the dimensions being 
four hundred and twenty-eight by three hundred and 
twenty-five feet. A double wall, separated by a ditch 


SCIENCE. 


twenty feet wide and five feet deep, forms the de- 7 


fence. The outer wall is thirty feet thick, and has 
on the inside a ledge where a row of men could lie at 
full length concealed from observation. 
rangements show that the fortress was intended to 
have a strong garrison, and to be prepared to meet a 
large assailing force. The numerous burials and 
weapons in the vicinity seem evidences of a protracted 
warfare carried on around it. The antiquity of this 
singular fort is shown by the size of the trees. The 
largest of these is over eleven feet in circumference, 
and must have been nearly four hundred years old, 
Various indications seem to show that the defenders 
were finally conquered by overwhelming numbers. 
A natural conjecture would be, that the mound- 
builders had planted this outlying fortress in a con- 
quered territory north of Lake Huron, whence they 
were finally expelled by the native tribes. Mr. 
Hirschfelder’s paper contained much other informa- 
tion of great interest. . 

A very valuable paper on the Huron-Iroquois as a 
typical race of American aborigines was read by Dr. 
Daniel Wilson, evincing the wide research and care- 
ful induction characteristic of the writer. The num- 
ber and extent of the Huron-Iroquois nations were 
described, with the characteristics which distinguished 
them from other Indian tribes. The people whom 
Cartier found at Quebec and Montreal were evidently 
of this race, and the evidence tended to show. that 
they were of the Huron division of the race. The 
crania of the Huron-Iroquois people, like those of the 
northern Indians generally, were long and well de- 
veloped. The contrast between their skulls and the 
nearly globular crania of the Ohio mound-builders 
was striking. The latter people were evidently very 
numerous and well-organized, though they had not 
attained an advanced degree of civilization. After 
examining all the evidence on the subject, the con- 
clusion to which he had been brought was, that the 
mound-builders were a people of a not very high 
type, who were under the control of rulers of superior 
energy, a sort of Brahminical class, by whose direc- 
tion their remarkable engineering works were con- 
structed. 

In a subsequent paper Dr. Wilson described a skull 
from the loess of Podbaba, near Prague; and one 
found in alluvium at Kankakee, Ill., along with the 
tooth of a mastodon. He compared the former with 
the famous Neanderthal skull, termed pithicoid by 
Huxley, and showed that there was in certain points 
a striking resemblance, and yet there was no evidence 
in the former of deficiency of brain, and probably 
would not be in the latter if we had the whole of it. 
The Kankakee skull, though found under circum- 
stances which seem to indicate for it as great antiquity 
as that of the Neanderthal and Podbaba crania, is a 
well-formed Indian skull of the usual type. Thereis, 


however, no clear evidence that its contiguity to the 


mastodon’s tooth was not the result of accident. It 


can only be said that they were found near together, — 
and that the discoloration is about the same in both. | 
Dr. Wilson is, however, inclined to believe that the | 
mastodon existed to a later time on this than on the — 


All the ar- 


. 
~ 
a 


al 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


eastern continent, and not improbably man will be 
found to be contemporaneous with it. 

Major Powell gave an account of the peculiar mar- 
riage laws of the American aborigines, prefaced by 
some general considerations on the motives which 
had led to the establishment of theselaws. These he 
traced mainly to the desire of preserving peace, which 
was a marked characteristic of the domestic legisla- 
tion of the Indians. This was illustrated in their 
burial customs, in disposing of the effects of the 
deceased, and in other usages. As one of the main 
causes of dispute among barbarous tribes is for the 
possession of women, it was natural that their laws 
should be specially strict on this point. The manner 
in which marriages are regulated for this object, and 
especially the influence of the clan system, were clear- 
ly pointed out. As the paper is understood to be a 
summary of the contents of a large work, which will 
shortly be published in full, further details need not 
be added here. The clear and judicious views pro- 
pounded were highly commended by Dr. Tylor. 

An entertaining paper, on the customs and lan- 
guages of the Iroquois, was read by Mrs. E. A. Smith. 
The peculiarly descriptive force of the names given 
by the Iroquois to the animals and other common ob- 
jects surrounding them was shown by many curious 
examples. The word for rattlesnake means ‘he 
squirms;’ for rabbit, ‘two little ers together ;’ for 
goose, ‘it breaks its voice.’ Tears are ‘eye-juice;’ 
sugar is ‘tree-juice.’ This is a mode of word-forma- 
tion common in other Indian languages. Mrs. Smith 
affirmed that the missionaries and all other authori- 
ties who have heretofore written on the Iroquois 
languages were mistaken in their views as to the gen- 
ders and pronouns of these languages, — a hazardous 
assertion. The conclusions of educated French and 
English missionaries, who have spent many years 
among the Indians, and speak their language fluently, 
can be properly controverted only by one who has 
given the same amount of time and attention to the 
study. 

An elaborate and extremely interesting paper by 
Mr. F. H. Cushing, on the development of industrial 
and ornamental art among the Zufiis of New Mexico, 
illustrated by many pictorial designs, attracted much 
attention. It is impossible in the limited space at 
command to give even a summary of the contents of 
_ this valuable communication. An outline of the rea- 
soning is all that can be attempted. Mr. Cushing 
finds reason to believe that the civilization of the 
Zufiis is purely indigenous. When they first entered 
on their existence in the little oases of the desert 
which they made their home, they were in a very low 
Stage of barbarism; out of which they gradually 
raised themselves by a slow but steady course of self- 
development. The stages of this progress were set 
forth with much ingenuity and clearness. Their res- 
idences rose gradually, from the brush-covered wig- 
wam to the small building of lava-stone, either isolated 
hear a spring, or fastened for security to the shelf of 
a cliff; and thence to the huge, many-storied stone 
barrack, which is both cliff and dwelling in one. In 
like manner their earliest vessels of gourds, when in- 


SCIENCE. 


319 


cased in wicker-work for the convenience of trans- 
portation, gave the first idea of a basket or wicker 
tray. The basket was lined with clay to retain the 
food which was boiled in it; and from this custom, 
the knowledge of pottery took its rise. The first 
ornamentation of their pottery was derived from the 
imitation of wicker-work. Afterwards other ele- 
ments of a pictorial nature came in. The gradual 
progress of these improvements was traced by Mr. 
Cushing with a care and minuteness which leave no 
doubt of the correctness of his theory. We thus 
learn the interesting truth, that civilization and art, 
of no mean type, may spring up among a rude people, 
without external impulse, in a few centuries ; for 
Zufii culture and art are evidently not many centu- 
ries old. The notions which some anthropologists 
have entertained, that many thousands of years are 
needed before a savage people can emerge into civili- 
zation, — which the Zuiiis are just touching, — are 
dispelled by Mr. Cushing’s discoveries. In tracing 
the course of this progress, good use is made of lin- 
guistics, by resorting to the original meaning of the 
names given by the natives to the various objects 
under consideration. The name of the object is 
found, in many cases, to give the clew to its origin. 

A remarkable paper on the races of the Jews 
was received from Dr. A. Neubauer, now residing in 
England, who was described by the president as one 
of the most distinguished rabbinical scholars of Eu- 
rope. Dr. Neubauer’s essay aimed to controvert the 
common idea that the Jews differ from most other 
nations or races in the special characteristic of their 
purity from foreign intermixture. So far is this from 
being the case, that, as was shown by much evi- 
dence drawn from the Scriptures and other histor- 
ical sources, the Jews have always been inclined to 
foreign marriages. Moreover, the number of prose- 
lytes to Judaism from the surrounding races has been 
very great. Few races, in fact, have undergone more 
intermixture with other stocks. The physical and 
moral differences between the communities of Jews 
in various parts of the world are very great indeed; 
and these are accounted for partly by their inter- 
marriage with other races, and partly by the influences 
of their environment. ‘To come to a thoroughly sci- 
entific conclusion as to the Jewish physique, about 
which many erroneous ideas are entertained, careful 
admeasurements are necessary. Dr. Neubauer sug- 
gested that when such admeasurements are made, 
the right point to begin at would be Jerusalem. The 
paper made a strong impression, and the president 
expressed his full concurrence in Dr. Neubauer’s 
views. 

An account of the habits and customs of the Innu- 
its or Eskimos of the western shore of North America 
and of Point Barrow, the extreme north-west portion 
of the continent, was read by Lieut. P. H. Ray, and 
contained many facts and conclusions of much inter- 
est. He gave his reasons for believing that the Es- 
kimos had occupied the far north of America from 
a remote period. Among other facts, he mentioned 
that snow-goggles, such as are used at present, had 
been dug up twenty-eight feet below the surface of 


320 


the ground. The Eskimos are, in his opinion, a people 
of the ice, and from time immemorial had lived along 
the ice-border, advancing and retreating with it, but 
never residing far from it. All their habits of life 
were formed from this contiguity. He considered 


them to be a race distinct from the Indians, not 


merely in language, but also in physical traits and in 
character. They had brown hair and eyes: a black- 
eyed Eskimo was hardly ever seen. Their complexion 
was a clear brown, through which the play of color 
could be plainly observed. They were naturally a 
peaceful people, and he had never known a quarrel 
among them. Though very superstitious, they could 
not be properly said to have any religion. They had 
no conception of a future existence. They did not 
bury their dead, because the climate made this usually 
impossible. They merely conveyed the corpse to a 
distance from the village, and left it to be devoured 
by the dogs. That, they said, was the end of the 
man. Still they had ideas about a superior being 
who had created man and other animals; and they 
also believed in an evil spirit, who was to be propi- 
tiated, or rather menaced, into compliance with their 
desires. 

A paper on the nature and origin of wampum, by 
Mr. H. Hale, described this article as shell-money, 
differing from the East Indian cowries as coined 
money differs from bullion. It consists of circular 
disks or cylinders, made from various kinds of sea- 
shells, polished to smoothness, and strung upon 
strings. These served as currency among the North- 
American Indians, and for a time among the colo- 
nists. Strings and belts of wampum were also much 
employed in the ceremonial usages of the Indians, 
and as mnemonic records. The use of this money 
was traced across the continent to California; thence 
to the Micronesian groups in the North Pacific, 
where it is universal; and thence to China, where 
in early times, according to the native authorities, 
the money was made of tortoise-shell disks or slips 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., N 0. 


strung on strings. The modern Chinese copper — 
money, known to Europeans as ‘cash,’ is made in 

imitation of this tortoise-shell currency, and is strung 

in like manner. It is also much used in ceremonial” 
observances, like the American wampum,. The mode 

in which the use of this form of money may have 

spread from Eastern Asia to America is shown by the 

fact that several Japanese junks have been wrecked 

on the west coast of this continent during the present 

century, and their crews have been rescued by the 

Indians. The Micronesians have also large sailing- 

vessels, in which they frequently make long voyages, 

and are often driven by storms to great distances out 

of their course. From one or other of these sources 

the Californian Indians may have easily learned such 

a simple art as that of making and using shell beads 

for money; and this art was one likely to spread to 

the other tribes among whom it was found. 

In the long and interesting discussion which en- 
sued, the views proposed in the paper were generally 
approved. Professor Boyd Dawkins suggested for 
consideration the question whether all money might 
not have originated in the exchange of ornament. 
A doubt having been expressed, whether the shell- 
money was among the Indians a real currency, that 
is, ‘a measure of value,’ several facts and authorities 
were cited on that point. Mr. Cushing stated that 
it was a currency among the Zufiis, and had a definite 
value. Dr. Tylor mentioned the decisive fact, that 
among the Melanesians, who nearly adjoin the people 
of Micronesia, the shell-money is in use, and is em- 
ployed in true banker fashion. A native who lends 
nine strings of this money expects to receive back 
ten strings from the borrower at the end of a month. 
To gain this interest, it must be used in common as 
a medium of exchange, which it could not be if it 
were not a measure of value. 

Some other valuable papers were read; and this, 
the first session of section H, must be deemed to 
have been a particularly satisfactory one. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION: 1OF 
CHEMISTRY. 


Dr. SPRINGER of Cincinnati exhibited and de- 
scribed some improvements in torsion scales and bal- 
ances. These instruments are constructed with steel 
bands or wires, upon the twisting or torsion of which 
they depend for their action. Professor Caldwell in- 
quired whether balances for chemists were made upon 
this principle, and their cost compared with ordinary 
knife-edge balances. Dr. Springer said that the very 
first one made was sent to Prof. F. W. Clarke at 
Cincinnati, and used by him for chemical analysis. 
Professor Clarke said that its use by him was very 
satisfactory. The adjustments were not easily dis- 
turbed, which was a very important matter; and it 
was as sensitive as a good knife-edge balance. 


A paper on the chemistry of roller-milling was 
read by Mr. Clifford Richardson. The author stated 
that with ordinary milling the north-western hard 
winter wheat gave a dark-colored flour. This diffi- 
culty is entirely overcome by using steel or porcelain 
rolls run at different speeds. The results of a large 
number of analyses of the products of roller-milling 
were presented in a series of tables. The ash, oil, 
fibre, and albuminoids increase towards the outside 
of the grain. In true bran there is no gluten, the 
gluten cells being scattered through the interior of — 
the grain. All the experiments were made on hard — 
Minnesota spring wheat. Eastern wheat does not — 
work well with roller-milling, the flour being dark- _ 


_colored. 


Dr. A. A. Julien read the report of progress by the — 
committee on indexes of the literature of chemical — 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884,] 


elements, appointed in 1882. There have been com- 
pleted up to the present time, Ozone, by Professor 
Leeds; Peroxide of hydrogen, by the same author; 
The speed of chemical action, by Professor Warder; 
Glucose, by Dr. E. J. Hallock; The action of heat on 
metallic salts, by Professor Prescott; and about six 
others are in progress. The co-operation of the 
Smithsonian institution had been solicited by the 
committees, in order to reach foreign chemists. The 
section unanimously indorsed the action of the com- 
mittee in the steps already taken. 

Prof. C. E. Munroe read a paper on examination 
of the methods proposed for rendering the lighter 
petroleum oils inexplosive. The author used alum 
and ammonic chloride, and found they were both 
insoluble in the oil, and inactive. Camphor also was 
used; and this reduced the flash-test, but made a 
more explosive mixture with air than the vapor of 
the original oil. 

Professor Atwater read a paper on the chemistry 
of fish. Flounder is the least nutritive of fishes; 
while the salmon, when fat, is the most nutritive. 
Oysters. have least nutritive matter among the inver- 
tebrates; and northern oysters are more nutritive 
than those from the south. The flesh of fish con- 
tains less fat and more water than that of vertebrates. 
Digestive ferments act upon the flesh of fish in the 
same way as upon that of the vertebrates, about 
ninety-eight per cent of the albuminoids being 
digested in both cases. As ordinarily found, fish 
gives from five to twenty per cent of edible matter. 
A member of the British association asked if the 
integument of the fishes had been examined. Pro- 
fessor Atwater replied that he had confined his atten- 
tion to the muscular tissues. 

Prof. F. P. Dunnington exhibited and described 
a new form of gas regulator, depending upon the 
expansion and contraction of a confined portion of 
air acting upon a column of mercury. 

Professor Stewart made some remarks upon a new 
process of manufacturing leather, by which the de- 
pilitated hides are treated with sulphurous-acid gas 
in closed vessels, the process being completed in 
about twelve hours, producing a soft pliable leather. 

A discussion on valence was opened by Prof. F. 
W. Clarke. He remarked that it was especially use- 
ful in organic chemistry in explaining isomerism and 
in synthesis. It was also useful in mineralogy; and 
he mentioned as examples of isomerism the three 
minerals kyanite, andalusite, and fibrolite, giving a 
structural formula for each. He then took up the 
questions of variable valence, invariable valence, and 
maximum valence, as points that might be discussed. 
He remarked, further, that valence was an attempt 
to explain the arrangement of the atoms in a mole- 
cule; and spoke of the drawback of being obliged to 
represent them on a plane surface, space of three 
dimensions being much nearer the true state of 
affairs. Prof. B. Silliman remarked that the last 
statement of Professor Clarke was the key to the 
whole difficulty about valence. A plane surface is 
insufficient to explain the facts. He testified to the 
great utility of valence, and spoke of the chaotic con- 


SCIENCE, 


321 


dition of organic chemistry before this question of 
valence was appreciated. It was a working hypothe- 
sis, a scaffold about a building, but not the building. 
Hypothesis is not always the truth. Prof. W. Ram- 
sey, of the British association, said that the difficul- 
ties about valence could be traced to Lavoisier, who 
worked upon stable compounds as oxides and chlo- 
rides. He also thought that a study of the heat of 
formation of many compounds would be a key to the 
valence of the elements; and said that the difficulties 
of conceiving of the motions of the atoms were well 
illustrated in Sir William Thomson’s effort to explain 
them in complicated vortex evolutions. Mr. A. H. 
Allen, of the British association, called attention to 
the failure of chemists to recognize the value of the 
work of John Newlands, in the periodic classification 
of the elements usually ascribed to Mendeljeff. Pro- 
fessor Greene remarked that it was best to consider the 
cause of valence. Professor Ira Remsen testified to 
the utility of valence. He remarked that there were 
two ways of teaching: one by giving all the principal 
theories first, and the other giving the facts and then 
the theories, — which latter he considered the best 
method. He had come to the conclusion that valence 
should never be mentioned until all the important 
properties of a compound are known. In regard to 
its value to young students, he thought its use was 
dangerous until they fully understood its meaning. 
He believed that the value of valence had been mag- 
nified, and that it was better to study the reactions of 
compounds, and the methods for their synthesis, and 
the manner of breaking up. Mr. A. H. Allen, of the 
British association, said that many formulae that 
showed the structure of compounds according to the 
valence of the elements do not give any idea of the 
true constitution of these compounds as ascertained 
from a knowledge of their properties. He gave, as 
examples of his meaning, potassic dichromate and 
fuming sulphuric acid. Professor Dewar, of the 
Royal institution, London, maintained that the 
graphical method and structural formulae were most 
useful, but they are often presented in a way that 
shows an incomplete knowledge of the ideas of the 
person who devised the formula. He remarked that 
the text-books contained too many pictures of graph- 
ical formulae, and that he considered it better to 
follow the historical method for developing theory. 
Professor Atwater thought that some idea of valence 
should be given at the beginning, as it assisted the 
student’s memory. Prof. W. Ramsey, of the British 
association, said that he was satisfied of the utility of 
making the student perform experiments that brought 
out facts to illustrate the theory of valence, and thus 
understand its meaning from his own work. Pro- 
fessor Caldwell said that he could not get along with 
students in chemical analysis who had not obtained 
some idea of the theory of valence. Professor Rem- 
sen thought that the theory of valence might do some 
good as an assistance to the memory; but such as- 
sistance was of doubtful value, and too empirical. 
Prof. J. W. Langley, vice-president, said that valence, 
or chemism, may be a force emanating from the atom, 
or it may be a force outside the atom; it is static, or 


322 


dynamic, and a knowledge of it was more a physical 
than a chemical problem. From the educational 
view he thought it better to use the theory of valence 
in connection with the history of the thgories con- 
cerning atoms and molecules. As a farther step the 
language and figures of magnetism might be used. 

The paper on the optical methods of estimating 
sugar in milk, by Dr. H. W. Wiley, showed the great 
importance which must be attached to the influence 
of albumen on the specific rotary power of milk- 
sugar. The author prefers to use an acid solution of 
mercuric nitrate in precipitating albumen, for an ex- 
cess fails to dissolve the precipitate. Professor Jen- 
kins finds, that on adding sulphate of copper and the 
potassic hydrate the separation of albumen is very 
complete. 

A discussion on the educational methods in labora- 
tory practice and in the illustration of chemical lec- 
tures was opened by Professor Remsen, who remarked 
that in Germany the student does not go into the 
laboratory until he understands re-actions, while in 
England and the United States he is placed there at 
the beginning of the course. Professor Remsen 
follows an order of instruction in which the student 
first becomes acquainted with apparatus and methods 
of manipulation. He next makes gases, and repeats 
lecture experiments. He then experiments on oxida- 
tion and reduction. Next follows the quantitative 
analysis of air. Then come alkilimetry and acidim- 
etry, with success. This practical work and the 
lectures occur simultaneously, and by the time the 
lecturer has reached the metallic elements the stu- 
dents are ready to take up test-tube re-actions with 
profit. During the first year the student should only 
just begin analysis. After the general properties of 
the metals are known, let the student devise methods 
of separation. The course of instruction in our 
colleges, Professor Remsen regards as too short, and 
superficial. Lecture-experiments should never be 
made forshow. Aesthetics and,chemistry are entire- 
ly distinct. Professor Atwater said that chemistry is 
taught now, as arule, after the student has acquired 
the methods of the classics and has never been taught 
to observe facts. Chemists must show that their 
science will give what is called ‘liberal culture,’ or it 
will not find a place in our educational institutions. 
Present methods are not doing this, as they fail to 
make the student think for himself. 

Prof. W. O. Atwater read a paper on the assimila- 
tion of atmospheric nitrogen by plants. Experiments 
were made on pease grown in washed sea-sand, sup- 
plied with proper nutritive solutions. The pease 
acquired from thirty-eight to fifty per cent more 
nitrogen than they contained originally, and than 
had been supplied as nutriment. The above result, 
Professor Langley remarked, is important, as it is 
contrary to generally received ideas. 

Dr. Springer next read a paper on fermentation 
without combined nitrogen, in which he showed that 
the ferment found on the stems of tobacco-plants, 
and which decomposes nitrates, on being applied to 
starch and sugar gives rise to butyric acid, and ap- 
pears to prove that we can have life without proto- 


Si 


SCIENCE. 


_ leading engineers and architects will give it their 


plasm. After a discussion upon fermentation, a 
motion was carried that a committee of the section 
should petition Congress to afford facilities for the — 
study of fermentation. Dr. Springer, Professor 
Wiley, Mr. Clifford Richardson, Professor Remsen, 
and Professor Clarke constitute this committee. 

Professor Dewar of the Royal institution read a 
paper on the density of solid carbonic acid. The 
solid acid was obtained by compressing carbonic acid | 
snow by a hydraulic press. The specific gravity was 
found to be from 1.58 to 1.60 of the solid acid. Some 
little discussion resulted, by which it was brought out 
that the curves obtained from a study of the critical 
points of gases may explain some facts in regard to 
dissociation, as there are many cases where the theory 
of dissociation and experiment do not agree. The 
pressure necessary to produce the solid carbonic acid _ 
is about one and a half tons. | 

Professor Munroe described some experiments 
which tended toward the establishing of a law of — 
deliquescence. The temperature and shape of the 
vessel were not taken into account. 

The composition of human milk, by Prof. A. R. 
Leeds, was found, on using every precaution, to be? 
albuminoids varying from .5 to 4.25 per cent, lactose 
from 4.1 to 7.8 per cent, and the fat from 1.7 to 7.6 
per cent. The appearance and specific gravity of the 
milk never indicated its composition. Improvements 
in apparatus for rapid gas analysis by Dr. Arthur H. 
Elliott consisted in reducing the length of the tubes. 
by enlarging the upper portion of them into bulbs, 
and in substituting a solution of bromine in potassic 
bromide for the liquid element to absorb illuminants. 
Mr. A. H. Allen, in his communication on oils, said 
that shark and fish oils are often unsaponifiable, and 
hence are not fatty ethers. He believes them to con- 
tain cholesterine ,like cod-liver oil. The fixed oils can 
be separated into groups, but we know no process 
for separating a mixture of lard and cotton-seed oil. 

These communications closed the sessions of by far 
the most successful meeting of section C for many 
years. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 


OwING to previous unfavorable conditions, this was 
practically the first meeting of the new section (D) of 
mechanical science. Notwithstanding the great heat,. 
the small and inconvenient auditorium, and the fact 
that the electrical exhibition deprived the section of 
much local support, the meeting was a greater suc- 
cess than had been expected, and warrants the antici- 
pation that this will shortly become one of the leading’ 
sections of the association as it is in the British 
association. The attendance was large, and includ-. 
ed many prominent English visitors, who furnished ~ 
papers, and took part in the discussions. In order to: — 
indicate more definitely the scope of the section, it 
has been proposed to extend its title to ‘mechanical 
science and engineering;’ and it is hoped that our 


~~ 


active support by presenting before it papers embody-- 


' SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


ing the progress of their work from scientific stand- 
points. Besides appointing a committee of invitation 
to increase the interest and attendance for the next 
meeting, two special committees were appointed to 
work up the subjects, ‘The best method of teaching 
mechanical engineering,’ and ‘The use and value of 
accurate standards, screws, surfaces, gauges, etc., and 
of systematic drawings, in the modern machine-shop.’ 

On Friday, Mr. J. C. Hoadley read by request his 
excellent résumé of steam-engine practice in the 
United States; reviewing the different classes of en- 
gines, and giving figures to show their economy, with 
other important facts. Mr. Hoadley classifies engines 
as follows: large compound engines for pumping, 
ete., rolling-mill engines, saw-mill engines, marine 
engines, locomotives, hoisting-engines, steam-cranes, 
steam-pumps, portable engines, etc., and engines for 
electric lighting. This would seem to be an enu- 
meration, rather than a classification, of different 
types of engines. The paper contains, in compact 
form, information as to all the prominent engines, 
and forms a valuable addition to steam-engine litera- 
ture. It will be printed in full in the Transactions. 

The subject for the day was then introduced by a 
paper on the training for mechanical engineers, by 
Prof. G. I. Alden of Worcester, Mass., in which one 
phase of the subject was presented. Professor Alden 
urged the importance of practical as well as scientific 
attainments, and claimed that the shop for manual 
instruction should not be such an institution as would 
be developed by or out of the school, but should bring 
with it not only the methods but the business of an 
actual productive machine-shop, the work being done 
for the market. Itis to be regretted that other promi- 
nent gentlemen expected to furnish papers were pre- 
vented from attending. 

The discussion commenced with so much interest, 
that an extra session was devoted to it, when the 
various phases of the question were brought out. A 
starting-point was thus formed which should enable 
the committee to secure a more complete, important, 
and decisive discussion next year. Messrs. Rigg, 
Kent, etc., and Professors Woodward, Robinson, 
Wood, Thompson, Higgins, Carr, etc., and Webb, 
joined in the discussion; and the latter called at- 
tention to the necessity of distinguishing between 
machine-shop practice and experiments in the me- 
chanical laboratory, and pointed out three existing 
and natural kinds of schools: 1°. manual training 
schools, where the manual exercises are for discip- 
line only; 2°. schools for master-machinists, superin- 
tendents, etc., as at Chalons-sur-Marne, where the 
course is seven hours daily, for three years, in the 
shop, with such instruction in mathematics, draught- 
ing, etc., as can be added thereto; 3°. schools for 
mechanical engineers (as the Ecole centrale), where 
theoretical training predominates, and where there is 
either no shop-practice, or only such as is specialized 
and organized so as to give, in the limited time avail- 
able, the maximum intellectual and manual grasp of 
machine-shop methods. 

On Monday Prof. W. A. Rogers read a paper on a 
new method of producing screws of standard length 


SCIENCE. 


and uniform pitch; and Mr. J. A. Brashear, a paper 
on the production of optical surfaces: the subject 
for the day being the value of accurate screws, sur- 
faces, etc., in the machine-shop. Professor Rogers 
has developed a method by which practically perfect 
screws can be cheaply made, and Mr. Brashear has 
succeeded in making perfectly flat surfaces of larger 
size than usual. Professor Rogers’s method of mak- 
ing a screw presupposes a correctly graduated scale 
over which a microscope attached to the lathe-carriage 
moves, The error in the movement of the carriage 
is thus made visible, and can be neutralized by means 
of a stout micrometer screw, which varies slightly the 
position of the cutting-tool on the carriage. By this 
means the screw is cut so nearly true that the remain- 
ing inequalities are easily ground out by means of a 
long nut cut into four pieces, which can be put to- 
gether in different ways so as to make the errors in 
the nut oppose those of the screw. Professor Rogers 
pointed out the way for further improvements, and 
hoped that some way would be found for the detec- 
tion of errors extending over long distances, by means 
of gratings ruled by the screw. The subject of the 
proper use and preservation of such perfect screws in 
the machine-shop was also touched upon by Mr. 
Pickering, who has found means in his own practice 
of distributing the work as equally as possible over 
the whole leading screw of a lathe in order to keep it 
from wearing unequally. This whole subject will 
come up next year for discussion, and the paper was 
deemed of such importance as to warrant its publica- 
tion in fullin the Transactions. Mr. Brashear’s paper 
is also to appear in,full. The discussion of these 
papers, engaged in by many prominent physicists and 
engineers, was highly interesting. It opened by a 
criticism from one of our English friends, who ex- 
pected to find every thing in the United States done 
by machinery, and was disappointed to find that these 
flat surfaces (or slightly curved, when needed so for 
lenses, etc.) were produced by polishing, much in the 
old manner; and it was claimed that the correct form 
should first be produced by machinery, and the polish 
put on subsequently. The telescope of Mr. Bessemer 
was alluded to as an instance where such work would 
be done by machinery. Several gentlemen followed, 
and spoke of the difference between ordinary work 
which might thus be produced, and the extremely ac- 
curate forms required for astronomical purposes pro- 
duced by Mr. Bessemer. Professor Harkness described 
his measurements of the ‘transit of Venus’ plane 
mirrors down to hundred-thousandths of an inch, and 
showed that work was done in the United States to a 
degree of accuracy not perhaps appreciated in Europe. 
Mr. Brashear closed the discussion by a complete de- 
fence of his methods. He claimed that the degree of 
accuracy of his work was such, that, after a surface 
was polished, he could, by a few suitably lengthened 
strokes of the polisher, make it parabolic, elliptic, 
or any thing he wished, and that his principal diffi- 
culty was that the finest polishing powders cut too 
fast, so that to shape first and polish afterward was 
meaningless: then, growing eloquent, he ventured, 
for reasons which he explained, to predict that Mr. 


324 


Bessemer’s telescope never would be completed in 
the intended manner, and this opinion was evidently 
shared by many gentlemen present. 


On Tuesday Sir Frederick Bramwell explained 


the method employed to warm the Third Middlesex- 
county lunatic-asylum at Banstead, Eng., where a 
circulation of warm water is produced by centrifugal 
‘pumps, which maintain two parallel mains in a rela- 
tively plus and minus condition. The discussion 
was a comparison of warm water and steam for heat- 
ing purposes; and the former was shown to have 
various advantages over steam, where the expense of 
the plant is not considered. 

Mr. J. C. Hoadley’s paper on driven wells fol- 
lowed, and was a description of a series of experi- 
ments to determine the way in which water moves 
toward a well from which it is pumped. Driven 
were shown to obey the same law as open wells; 
which is, that the water simply runs down hill, tow- 
ard the well, its flow being more or less obstructed 
by its percolation through the soil, so that its surface 
forms a slope more or less steep, i.e., an ‘ obstructed 
hydraulic slope.’ This is only what was to have 
been expected, but it is interesting to have it proved 
experimentally. In the discussion, a fresh-water 
well was instanced, bored on the sea-beach, in which 
the water rose and fell with the tide; the weight of 
the latter depressing the underlying and separating 
strata. 

Mr. W. A. Traill not being present, Dr. Fitzgerald 
of Trinity college, Dublin, described the Giants’ 
Causeway and Portrush electric tramway. A work- 
ing model of the same is to be placed in the electrical 
exhibition. Water-power is used for this line, which 
is six miles long, the American turbine used being 
a mile beyond the end; so that the maximum distance 
over which the electricity is carried is seven miles. 
The rails carry only the return current; there being 
a third rail, on two-feet-high posts at the side of the 
track, for the direct current. Two springs rub along 
on this rail to connect it with the dynamo in the car: 
these being placed as far apart as possible, an opening 
less than their distance apart can be passed without 
breaking the current. The railway, however, runs 
along a cliff by the sea, so that there are but few 
openings. The road, though new, is represented as 
acomplete success. The line is quite hilly, the maxi- 
mum incline being one in twenty-eight; crossing- 
places are all arranged on an incline, so that the car 
running down can give up the third rail to the other, 
and go on by gravity. The electrical arrangements 
were planned by William Siemens, his death occur- 
ring just as he had seen the whole thing in success- 
ful operation. It is interesting to note, that the 
current itself has been used to telegraph to the next 
car, ordering it to stop. The current is governed by 
a man in charge of the turbine, who regulates the 
water to the work: this reminds us of the suggestion 
of Professor Thompson at the Montreal meeting, that 
the fireman should be able to completely regulate an 
electric-light plant by his firing. Running expenses 
by horse-power, steam-power, and by the turbines, are 
found to be in the proportion 10:7:3; so that, where 


SCIENCE. 


-electric lighting. 


Rte 
} 


[Vor Tym No 


water-power can be obtained, an immense saving can — 
be effected by the arrangements here used. Dr. Preece 
followed, and described Mr. Holroyd Smith’s im- 
provements in electric railways. Mr. Smith employs 
much the same arrangement as on our cable lines, 
using, however, in place of the cable, a pair of fixed 
electrical conductors, between which runs a shuttle; 
the current is taken off by it, and brought up to the 
car through the groove, thus placing the electric con- 
ductors under ground, as they evidently should be. 
Other minor details were described, otherwise the 
line is essentially. the same as that previously de- 
scribed. 

Mr. A. Stirling then followed with a paper in 
which the economy of the electric light was made 
the subject of calculations based on the author’s 
experience. It was stated, that at present, for light- 
ing a compact block, the incandescent light could be 
considered as no more expensive than gas at $1.69 
per thousand. Mr. Preece opened the discussion by 
a criticism on the theoretical character of the calcu- 
lations given, claiming that no dependence could be 
placed on such statements, and went on to give his 
own experience, which, however, appeared to fairly 
sustain Mr. Stirling’s figures. He stated that he 
had experimentally lighted three miles of streets in 
London (Wimbledon), and that it was not a success; 
the turning-point seeming to be the price of gas, $2.25 
in New-York city, but only one-third that price in 
London. Mr. Preece described his own establishment, 
where, by means of a gas-engine in the garden, the 
house is lighted in the most convenient fashion (in- 
cluding a doll’s house of fourrooms). He stated also, 
that the same quantity of gas gave more light when 
thus indirectly used, than could be got from it by 
burning it in the best gas-burners: this is readily to 
be believed, the gas furnished by gas-companies be- 
ing much better adapted for producing heat than 
light. It is to be hoped that the time will soon come 
when the present gas mains and pipes will be em- 
ployed to distribute gas for heating-purposes alone. 
Instances were given where the amount manufac- 
tured had been increased, or the quality of the goods 
improved, over ten per cent, by the introduction of 
Mr. Preece explained the superi- 
ority of this light, by saying that while in the are 
light a candle-power was obtained by the expenditure 
of but one watt of energy, or by the incandescent 
light two and a half watts, gas required the equiva- 
lent of sixty-two, and candles of ninety-seven watts, 
for every candle-power produced. The great stum- 
bling-block in universal electric lighting was shown to 
be the enormous cost of the mains for conveying the 
electricity over long distances. At the afternoon 
session, Mr. Crampton exhibited a piece recently cut 
out in repairing the first submarine cable ever con- 
structed, and which he laid under the English Chan- 
nel over thirty years ago. ‘The model was then sent 
to the historical collection of the electrical exhibition — 
as a donation to the Franklin institute. Mr. J. Dil- — 
lon read two papers describing his method of regu-— 
lating floods and an automatic method of sounding 
the bottoms of shallow rivers. ‘The first depends on © 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884. | 


“was discussed. 


sluices which are automatically opened and shut by 
large floats; and the second consists principally of an 
arm dragging along on the bottom, and taking various 
angles according to the depth of the river. Prof. 
J. B. Johnson’s paper on Three problems in river 
physics was devoted to a discussion of the transpor- 
tation of sediment, and the formation and removal 
of sandbars; the flow of water in natural channels; 
and the relation of levees to great floods, and to the 
low-water navigation of rivers. Sediment was dis- 
tinguished as either continuously or discontinuously 
in suspension, or as rolled along the bottom; and the 
action of the second sort in the formation of bars 
It was also shown, that the third 
kind produces sand-reefs on the bottom which move 
along perhaps ten to thirty feet per day: they are 
sometimes fifteen feet high, and succeed each other 
at intervals of some three hundred feet. For the 


-flow of water, the old formulae were shown to be 


worthless; but the author did not make the mistake 
of giving new ones. Levees were discussed, and their 
use discountenanced; waste weirs into side outlets 
being recommended. This paper will be printed in 
full. Mr. O. Smith’s paper on topography of ma- 
chines referred to more exact and systematic meth- 
ods in drawing and speaking of machines and parts 
thereof, and should have been discussed on Monday. 
On Thursday, Mr. Arthur Rigg discussed the advan- 
tages of trip and eccentric gears, and a somewhat 
lengthy discussion ensued. It appeared that the 


.American practice of employing simple valve-gearing 


in small quick-speed engines was approved of, though 
giving a somewhat inferior card to that of a trip-gear 
engine. Three other papers — ‘ The strength of cast 
iron,’ W. J. Millar; ‘Experiments on belting,’ G. 
Lanza; ‘Steam-engine tests,’ C. H. Peabody — were, 
in the absence of the authors, presented by Professors 


Wood and Webb; and the session concluded with an 


interesting talk by vice-president R. H. Thurston, on 
the development of the philosophy of heat-engines. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPAY. 


Ir will be readily admitted by all who were in 
attendance upon any of its proceedings, that the 
sessions of section E of the Philadelphia meeting of 
the American association possessed, both as regards 
the numbers present and the character of the papers 
presented, a very unusual interest. As a special 


feature, might perhaps be mentioned the large amount . 


of attention devoted to those most difficult of geo- 
logical problems relating to prefossiliferous strata 


-and the origin of the crystalline schists, — questions 


which not only in the meetings of the association, 
but in the world generally, seem year by year to 
be claiming an ever-increasing share of geologists’ 


‘thought and study. 


This tendency was well marked by the opening 
address of the vice-president of the section, Prof. 
N. H. Winchell, on the crystalline rocks of the north- 
west, a paper which needs no notice here, as we have 


SCIENCE. 


325 


~ 


already printed an abstract, and which according to 
the usages of the section admitted of no discussion. 

The real business of the section was commenced 
on Friday morning, the day succeeding its organiza- 
tion, by the reading of a paper, by Prof. S. G. Wil- 
liams of Cornell university, on the gypsum deposits 
of Cayuga county, N.Y. He maintained, on paleonto- 
logical evidence, that these beds were members of the 
lower Helderberg formation, instead of belonging, as 
might have been expected, to the Salina period. A 
section illustrating their occurrence was discussed, 
and four distinct reasons given for considering their 
origin to be due to the action of sulphur-springs on 
beds of impure limestone. 

“A paper by Prof. E. Orton of Columbus followed, 
in which he showed how the remarkable symmetry 
and order pervading the lower coal measures in west- 
ern Pennsylvania and Ohio extend across the Ohio 
River into Kentucky. Sections in both Pennsylvania 
and Ohio were carefully analyzed, and especial stress 
laid upon the importance of certain thin limestone 
beds accompanying the coal measures as reliable geo- 
logical guides. Credit was given to Professor Cran- 
dall for having first shown that the sequence of beds 
was the same on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River 
as it wasin Ohio. An interesting discussion followed 
this paper, between Professors Lesley and Orton; the 
former affirming that no traces can now be found of 
what were the shores of the original coal basin, and 
that no elevations or depressions accompanied the 
deposits of coal-seams, while the latter maintained 
that the evidences of the old shore-line, especially in 
Ohio, were very manifest. 

Prof. F. D. Chester read an account, of the geologi- 
cal survey of the state of Delaware, upon which he 
has for some time been engaged. He exhibited an 
unpublished map defining the small areas occupied 
by Laurentian and Cambro-silurian rocks in the north- 
ern part of the state; but naturally devoted most of 
his attention to the more important clays, sands, and 
marls, which represent the cretaceous, tertiary, and 
quaternary formations. 

The vice-president of the section, Professor Win- 
chell, followed with a description of a salt-well situ- 
ated at Humboldt, Minn. The brine, although now 
to be found principally in rocks of Devonian or Silu- 
rian age, he considers to have originated in overlying 
strata, probably carboniferous. 

Professor Orton, in a paper on the distribution of 
petroleum and inflammable gas in Ohio, showed that 
while scarcely a formation in the whole state was 
altogether free from them, their presence in really 
valuable quantities was confined to the subcarbon- 
iferous, and even here to two members of this series, 
—the Waverly conglomerate and Berea grit. These 
strata alone satisfy the necessary conditions of pro- 
ductive ‘oil sands,’ i.e., porous layers of sandstone 
or conglomerate sealed up between impervious layers 
of shale. As closely connected with the petroleum 
deposits of Ohio were mentioned the salt-wells, which 
yield an abundance of brine derived from the same 
‘oil sands.’ This brine is remarkable for the amount 
of bromine it contains, the production here — one 


326 


pound of bromine for every barrel of salt — being 
greater than anywhere else in the world. The in- 
flammable, high-pressure gas accompanying the salt 
brine, especially in the Waverley conglomerate or 
Logan group, is largely employed as well in forcing 
the brine to the surface as in evaporating it. A lively 
discussion regarding the origin of petroleum fol- 
lowed this paper; in the course of which both Pro- 
fessor Newberry and Professor Orton held that it 
owed its existence to the slow distillation of the 
organic remains originally contained in the enclosing 
shales, the ‘sands’ themselves being remarkably free 
from organic remains, and acting merely as reser- 
voirs. 

No paper presented to the section was greeted with 
more interest or closer attention than that by Prof. 
J. E. Hilgard, director of the U.S. coast-survey, on 
the relative level of the Gulf of Mexico and the 
Atlantic Ocean, with remarks on the Gulf Stream 
and deep-sea temperatures. Inasmuch as we hope 
soon to give this most valuable communication to the 
readers of Science, only its two most essential points 
need be mentioned here. These are: 1° The discov- 
ery by a most careful series of levels, run from Sandy 
Hook and the mouth of the Mississippi River to St. 
Louis, that the Atlantic Ocean at the former point 
is 40 inches lower than the Gulf of Mexico at the 
latter point; and, 2° That ocean-water at all depths 
exceeding one thousand fathoms possesses a temper- 
ature of nearly 35° F., because this is the temperature 
consistent with its greatest density. Should the 
water become either cooler or warmer, it must ex- 
pand; this it cannot do on account of the super- 
incumbent pressure. 

Monday was the day which it was proposed, accord- 
ing to the suggestion of the sectional committee, to 
set apart for papers and discussions relating to the 
crystalline rocks; but events seemed to demonstrate 
the apparent impossibility of especially devoting any 
fixed time to this or any other subject. It is to be 
regretted that a more definite topical arrangement of 
papers cannot be introduced into the programme by 
the committee, and even more deeply is it to be de- 
plored that what little trace of such an arrangement 
may appear is entirely obliterated by the failure of 
authors to respond when their papers are announced. 
Surely a programme carefully arranged according to 
subjects, and strictly adhered to, would do much to 
expedite the discussions and increase the interest of 
the whole section. 

The first paper read was one postponed from Friday 
by Prof. E. W. Claypole, on some fish remains re- 
cently discovered in the Silurian rocks of Pennsyl- 
vania. Small fluted spines and oval shields were 
exhibited closely resembling certain fish remains from 
the Ludlow rocks of England, which for fifty years 
past have been recognized as the oldest known traces 
of vertebrate life on the globe. The studies of Hux- 
ley and Lankester were quoted as proving the true 
ichthyic character of these fossils; and the differ- 
ences between the European and American speci- 
mens, based on a microscopic examination, were 
noted. The horizon in which the Pennsylvanian 


SCIENCE. 


“ee ae) a Ae cen 
te | ; i 


oe 


[Vou. IV., No 


specimens were found was considerably below the 
water-line group (equivalent to the lower Ludlow of 
England), so that we may safely conclude that these ~ 
are the oldest vertebrate remains yet discovered. 


Prof. A. S. Ewing then presented some calculations 
regarding the rate of chemical erosion of Appalach- 
ian limestones, based on observations in the Nittany 
valley. 
Ashburner remarked, seem capable of any general 
application, since erosion is so very unequal in differ- 
ent areas. ' 

A general discussion upon the subject of maps 
and map-making was introduced by Prof. George H. 


Cook’s admirable paper on the geological survey of © 


New Jersey. After giving a short account of the 
work accomplished by the two earlier surveys of the 
state, the results secured by the existing one, which 
has been under its present management since its 
organization in 1864, were recounted. A large geo- 
logical wall-map of the entire state was produced in 
1868, and there were exhibited the three completed 
sheets of the new and much larger topographical 
map (scale, a mile to an inch) now in progress. This 
will finally contain seventeen sheets, and, to judge 
from what has already appeared, will be a model of 
accuracy and beauty. The necessity of devoting the 
small annual appropriation almost exclusively to 
topographical work has heretofore hindered the study 
of the geology, but the recent assumption of the 
former by the U. S. geological survey will now leave 
this fund free for strictly geological investigations. 
The practical use of the survey was illustrated in the 
success of the artesian borings, advised by the state 
geologist, on the Atlantic coast. 

Remarks on the New-Jersey maps were then made 
by Mr. Trelawney Saunders, Major Powell, and oth- 
ers. A preliminary geological wall-map of the United 
States, colored as far as reliable data could be ob- 
tained, together with another of the states of New 
York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, compiled from 
the work of Hall, Lesley, and Cook, was exhibited 
by the U. S. geological survey, and discussed, at the 
request of Major Powell, especially by those gentle- 
men present who had aided in their compilation. 

Professor Henry S. Williams of Cornell university, 
in a paper on the influence of geographical and 
physical conditions in modifying fossil faunas, intro- 
duced the exceedingly important subject of the 
extent to which paleontological evidence is to be 
regarded as an absolute guide in correlating strata in 
different regions. This, as is well known, was the 
subject of the address delivered before the geological 
section of the British association in Montreal by its 
president, Professor Blanford, and, as may readiiy be 
imagined in view of the many eminent paleontolo- 
gists present in Philadelphia, excited a lively discus- 


sion, the interest in which continued until the final — 
Professor Williams ex- — 
plained a series of sections, principally in Chemung ~ 


adjournment of the section. 


and Catskill rocks, taken from a number of localities 
across New-York state, and deduced from them abun- 
dance of proof that faunas in Devonian times, as at 


present, changed not only geologically in sequence 


These are interesting, but do not, as Mr. 


1 20 SPpainad 


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Per 


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£ 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


of time, but also geographically according to the 
areas of their distribution. The influences which 
brought about a change in the character of the sedi- 
ments deposited, also manifested themselves in alter- 
ing the forms of the organisms inhabiting these 
sediments. | 

Mr. Ashburner said that the gradual creeping up- 
ward of fossil forms characteristic of one horizon into 
overlying strata was well borne out in western Penn- 
sylvania. In the oil regions, Chemung forms are 
often met with in a well-defined Catskill fauna. 
Professor Claypole considered a gradual transition 


between two formations as quite the rule, and pro-. 


posed to call beds of this character between the two 
horizons especially under discussion, ‘ Catskill-Che- 
mung.’ To such a designation Professor James Hall 
strongly objected; maintaining that each formation 
was quite distinct, and that, while there might be an 
alternation or even commingling of beds belonging 
to both, no such indiscriminate mixture of typical 
forms as that described by Professors Williams and 
Claypole was possible. He would hardly be willing 
to admit the occurrence side by side at that horizon 
of Spirifer disjuncta and Spirifer mesostrialis, to 
which allusion had been made. ‘Two papers by Pro- 
fessor Hall may be mentioned here, since they bear 
directly on this discussion, although they were not 
read until two days later. In the first of these, on 
the intimate relations of the Chemung and Waverley 
groups in north-west Pennsylvania and south-west 
New York, it was shown that the apparent commin- 
gling of the Chemung and Catskill faunas is due to 
the fact that the sea-bottom gradually approached the 
surface, and thus locally gave rise to dry land. The 
gray Chemung, rocks contain a marine fauna; while 
the red Catskill beds carry almost altogether land 
and fresh-water forms, although some Chemung ani- 
mals survived for a time under the altered condi- 
tions. These alternations sometimes extend through 
three hundred feet. The second of Professor Hall’s 
communications described the recent discovery in 
considerable numbers of the Eurypteridae, a family 
especially characteristic of Silurian rocks, in carbon- 
iferous beds. These widely separated occurrences 
are connected by a single known specimen of Euryp- 
terus from the Chemung formation. 

The first of a series of papers relating to the crys- 
talline rocks was read by Professor Roland D. Irving 
of Madison, Wis. It treated of metamorphism in the 
Huronian of the north-west; although, according to 
the author, such metamorphism can scarcely be said 
to exist at all. The terms metamorphism and Hu- 
ronian were first defined, and then the rocks consid- 
ered as belonging to this formation in the vicinity of 
Lake Superior were classified in five categories. 
These were : 1° quartzites and graywackes; 2° basic 
Massive rocks; 3° acid massive rocks; 4° cherts and 
limestones; and 5° hornblende, mica, and chlorite- 
schists. Each of these categories was then considered 
in succession, and shown not to be metamorphic in 
the sense of being sedimentary material re-crystal- 
lized in situ. 

Prof. C. H. Hitchcock next presented thirteen 


SCIENCE. 


327 


sections across the states of Vermont and New 
Hampshire. These were constructed to show the 
anticlinal structure of the Vermont gneiss, which 
their author now considers to be established beyond 
doubt. The gneiss has the same lithological charac- 
ter as that occurring in the White Mountains, where 
it is of Laurentian age. As is well known, the 
structure of Vermont has generally been regarded as 
synclinal; and if the conclusions of Professor Hitch- 
cock prove correct, they certainly have a most impor- 
tant bearing upon the much-discussed problems of 
New-England geology. If, as he asserts, the Ver- 
mont gneisses underlie the Huronian schists, which 
extend in a V-shaped area from Canada southward 
along the border between Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire, then they must be the oldest rocks of the 
region, instead of metamorphosed Silurian or Cam- 
brian sediments, as they are at present more generally 
considered. 

No more important contribution has ever been 
made to the vexed question of metamorphism and 
the origin of the crystalline schists than the recently 
published work of Dr. Johannes Lehmann, now 
professor in the university of Breslau, entitled ‘ Un- 
tersuchungen tber die entstehung der altkrystallinen 
schiefergesteine,’ Bonn, 1884. This elegantly printed 
book is accompanied by a superb atlas of photo- 
graphic plates most satisfactorily illustrating rock 
structures, and was brought to the notice of the 
association by Dr. George H. Williams of the Johns 
Hopkins university, who proceeded briefly to review 
its contents. ‘The most important point brought 
out by Lehmann is the influence of pressure in the 
metamorphism of rocks. The great orographic 
forces which have crumpled the strata have also 
greatly changed their original form, rendering sedi- 
ments crystalline and compact, while they developed 
in homogeneous eruptive masses a schistose or even 
banded structure. Thus bedding in crystalline rocks 
is not to be regarded as necessarily a sign of sedimen- 
tation, nor is the lithological character of a rock any | 
definite criterion of its age. Professors Carvill Lewis 
and Hitchcock remarked that these ideas agreed 
perfectly with what they had observed in the highly 
crystalline areas which they had particularly studied ; 
and Dr. Williams gave an account of an eruptive 
mass near Baltimore, in which both changes in 
mineralogical composition, and the development of 
a schistose structure, had been accomplished by 
pressure. 

Professor Alexis Julien of New York communi- 
cated the results of a very extended study of the 
Eozoon canadense from nearly all the localities where 
it has thus far been found, adding other localities of 
his own discovery. The result of his investigations 
led him to decide in favor of the inorganic nature of 
the so-called fossil, although his ideas in regard to 
the mode of its formation differ considerably from 
any heretofore advanced. He noticed as universal 
in all localities, that the calcium and magnesium 
carbonates were very unequally distributed in the 
eozoonal limestones; and, that there was a large 
development of pyroxene where the dolomite was 


= 


328 


least abundant. He moreover observed the constant 
tendency on the part of pyroxene to be arranged in 
layers alternating with either calcite or apatite, as 
well as abundant evidence that pyroxene passed by 
hydration into serpentine, a process which could be 
seen in every stage at any of the localities visited. 
From these data it was assumed that siliceous waters, 
permeating limestones originally evenly dolomitic, 
would cause the local development of pyroxene by 
the change of the magnesium carbonate into the cor- 
responding silicate. Were it the case, as so often 
occurs, that this pyroxene was developed in layers, 
its subsequent alteration to serpentine or loganite 
would readily account for all the appearances’ exhib- 
ited by the eozoon, without the necessity of appeal- 
ing to organic agencies. 

The Tuesday afternoon session of the section*was 
almost exclusively devoted to geographical papers 
and djscussions. These had hitherto scarcely re- 
ceived their due share of attention; but now proved, 
owing to the presence of several distinguished mem- 
bers of the British association, of unusual interest. 
Sir James Douglass was called to the chair, while 
Capt. Bedford Pim, R.N., presented a paper on the 
geographical and commercial advantages of the Nic- 
aragua route across Central America. Capt. Pim is 
especially fitted to speak upon this subject, on ac- 
count of long experience and the much careful study 
which he has devoted to the different plans which 
have been proposed for inter-oceanic communication. 
He exhibited a section surveyed under his direction, 
between the years 1863 and 1867, across Nicaragua, 
and explained how a canal could be constructed at 
comparatively sma]] expense, for the transference of 
ships raised upon pontoons drawing only from four 
to-eight feet of water. The principal objection to 
Mr. de Lesseps’s canal across Panama was not, he 
thought, the practical difficulties of construction, — 
although these were very great, — but the almost con- 
stant, and long-continued calms prevailing on the 
Bay of Panama. He himself had once been becalmed 
there for eleven months. This paper elicited numer- 
ous questions and remarks from various members of 
the section, among them a somewhat extended com- 
munication by Rear-adiniral Ammen, who had served 
as a member of the commission appointed by the 
U.S. government to inquire into the relative merits 


of the various routes proposed for securing a passage - 


for ships across Central America. 

Mr. Ashburner, of the second geological survey of 
Pennsylvania, then proceeded to give a brief account 
of the work accomplished during the past ten years, 
the period of the survey’s existence, as well as of its 
future aims and plans. He was succeeded by Mr. 
Trelawney Saunders of London, who has been so 
active in prosecuting the recent survey of Palestine 
under the auspices of the Palestine exploration fund. 
His first paper contained an-account of a remarkable 
journey over an entirely unknown portion of Tibet, 
Mongolia, and the frontiers of India and China, by 
Kreshna, a native surveyor trained under the trigo- 
nometrical survey of India. This was only accom- 
plished after four years of unparalleled hardship, but 


SCIENCE. 


an extended biographical notice of the late Professor 


‘tory of an area undergoing gradual elevation through 


has made most important additions to the geograph- 
ical knowledge of Asia. Mr. Saunders’s second paper 
related to the geography of Palestine, in connection 
with which the great map of the survey was exhibited. 
Several exceedingly interesting-points were explained, 
where the geographical researches had succeeded in 
definitely locating sites of biblical events, as well as 
shed much light upon many heretofore doubtful and 
difficult allusions in the sacred writings. a 

The proceedings of Wednesday were introduced b y 


Arnold Guyot, by his assistant, Mr. William Libbey, 
jun., of Princeton. Mr. Libbey’s paper will appear 
in full in the Journal of the American geographical 
society of New York. Mr. William M. Davis of 
Cambridge gave some valuable hints as to geo- 
graphic classification, based upon the study of plains, 
plateaus, and their derivatives. He traced the his- 


a regular course of development, likening it to the’ 
successive phases in the life of an organism. His 
remarks, which laid special stress upon the educa- 
tional value of such studies, were admirably illus-— 
trated by a series of paper models showing different 
stages of development in the history of a plateau. 

Professor, H. Carvill Lewis of Philadelphia de-— 
scribed a narrow tr ap dyke, which he had succeeded 
in tracing continuously across south-eastern Penn- 
sylvania for upwards of ninety miles through Bucks, 
Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester counties. The 
dyke, which is generally only visible as a line of 
bowlders, has been apparently faulted in several 
places; one great fault of several thousand feet up- 
throw being coincident with a large lateral displace- 
ment of both trap and the adjoining strata. Another 
important fault in the triassic formation was also 
mentioned, whereby the entire thickness of this for- 
mation is exhibited. The trap dyke is distinct lith- 
ologically from other dykes, and does not mark a 
fault, although passing through the Laurentian, ~ 
Cambrian and Triassic formations. 

Professor Persifor Fraser, from a study of a point 
in the archean-paleozoic contact-line in south-eastern — 
Pennsylvania near Gulf Mills, concluded that the 
hydro-mica schists which outcrop there were older 
than the accompanying limestones, and hence not 


to be considered as metamorphosed Silurian strata. — 


Professor Carvill Lewis could not agree with these _ 
conclusions regarding the structure of this locality; — 
although Professor James Geikie of Scotland, who had — 
recently visited the spot in company with Professor 
Fraser, expressed himself as entirely convinced of 
the correctness of the latter’s views. 

Papers relating to glacial phenomena, which had 
been so abundant at the Minneapolis meeting, were 
but scantily represented in Philadelphia. Mr. J. " 


| 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


Owing to the intense heat which had prevailed 
throughout the entire meeting, there was but a com- 
paratively small attendance upon the final session of 
section E on Thursday morning. 

of those down on the programme for papers had 
already left town; and almost the only communica- 
tions of real interest which appeared were those of 

Professors Julien. and Bolton, regarding the results 
of their examination of various sands. Starting 
some time since with a study of the so-ca led ‘mu- 
sical sands’ occurring on the Manchester beach, they 
have been gradually led to extend their researches to 
sonorous sands from many other localities, both 
American and foreign; and finally to include within 
them a study of all ocean, lake, and river sands, 
whether sonorous or not. So far from being rarities, 
as they were considered some years ago, sonorous 
beach-sands are found to have an exceedingly wide 
distribution. Already seventy-four American and 
thirteen foreign localities are known, and the number 
is constantly increasing. The loudest sound may be 
produced by suddenly bringing together two divided 
portions of the sand enclosed in a bag. When sud- 
denly compressed between the hands, musical notes 
are emitted, the pitch rising as the quantity is di- 
minished. The conditions of sonorousness, Professor 
Julien considers to be perfect dryness, uniformity of 
grain ranging from 0.3 to 0.5 mm. in diameter, and 
freedom from dust. Any sand satisfying these condi- 
tions, no matter what be its nature, he thinks may 
be musical. Sonorous sands, when wet, generally 
become quicksands. 
large number of sands of all kinds showed that a 


great variety of minerals participated in their compo-. 


sition. No such thing as a pure quartz sand was 
discovered. 
In place of the regular session Thursday afternoon, 


the section was treated to an excursion over the . 


Reading railroad, under the guidance of Professor H. 
Carvill Lewis. Various points where different for- 
Mations occur were visited, and the complications of 
the local geology about Philadelphia were explained 
as far as understood. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THE semi-annual scientific session of the National 
academy of sciences will be held in the court-house, 
Newport, R.I., Oct. 14, 1884, at 11 o’clock, A.M. 


— An interesting study of the bed of the Delaware 
River has just been published by the U.S. coast-sur- 
vey. It is the report of Henry Mitchell on the meth- 
ods which have been followed, and the results which 
have been reached, in recent surveys of what is 
termed ‘ the estuary of the Delaware,’ from Philadel- 
phia toa point fifty-two miles below. He uses the term 
“estuary ;’ because farther down the stream, there 
is a submerged delta, with numerous channels, ‘ not 


unlike the passes of the Mississippi, or more like those - 


of the Ganges after its issue upon the Bay of Bengal.’ 
The laborious character of this survey may be under- 
stood by the statement that seven hundred and thirty- 


SCIENCE. 


A large proportion 


The microscopic study of a 


329 


four cross-sections have been measured, with widths 
varying from one to five miles, and including many 
thousand soundings. Professor Mitchell speaks in 
terms of high praise of the skill with which this work 
was performed by Mr. J. A. Sullivan of the coast- 
survey. The point of greatest physical importance 
is that of the mean depth of the estuary, the bed of 
which varies so little that the generalized result is 
best expressed by a horizontal straight line. The 
fluctuations are chiefly due to inequalities in the 
nature of the soil, The grand mean of all the sound-: 
ings is 18.64 feet. ‘The brief report of Mr. Mitchell 
includes many interesting comments upon the forma- 
tion of an estuary, to which we can only make this 
brief allusion. 


— Besides those whose names we previously pub- 
lished, the following gentlemen signed the request 
to the British and American associations, to consider 
the formation of an international congress. The list 
is striking as revealing the great extent of the inter- 
est felt in the undertaking. The names referred to 
are: George J. Brush, James D. Dana, James Hall, 
J. E. Hilgard, J. S. Newberry, @hatles Ae Young. 
Charles E. Bessey, William J. Beal, Edward S. Morse, 
William A. Rogers, Robert H. Thurston, John Trow- 
bridge, J. Burkitt Webb, N. Hi avinchell, De Volson 
Wood, Charles C. Abbott, William Ashburner, W. O. 
Atwater, N. L. Britton, Robert Brown, jun., W. H. 
Chandler, Alvan G. Clarke, E. W. Claypole, Joseph 
Cummings, George Davidson, A. E. Dolbear, Louis 
Elsberg, S. F. Emmons, J. Fletcher, 8S. A. Forbes, 
Simon H. Gage, James T. Gardiner, 8. A. Gold- 
schmidt, William H. Greene, Horatio Hale, William 
B. Hazen, Angelo Heilprin, S. W. Holman, Horace 
C. Hovey, Alexis A. Julien, Joseph Leconte, J. 
Loudon, N. T. Lupton, George McCloskie, B. Pick- 
man Mann, H. N. Martin, Alfred M. Mayer, T. C. 
Mendenhall, William H. Niles, James Edward Oli- 
ver, Edward Orton, Richard Owen A. S. Packard, 
D. P. Penhallow, W. H. Pickering, William Ei Pie 
Edmund Baynes Reed, Ira Remsen, John D. Runkle, 
I. C. Russell, William ‘Saunders, B. Silliman, Eugene 
A. Smith, Francis H. Smith, Q. C. Smith, M. B. 
Snyder, Ormond Stone, W. Hudson Stephens, Albert 
H. Tuttle, Warren Upham, Lester F. Ward, M. E. 
Wadsworth, Charles D. Walcott, Leonard Waldo, 
Robert B. Warder, Sereno Watson, Charles Whittle- 
sey, Burt G. Wilder, Alexander Winchell, Henry S. 
Williams, Jacob L. Wortman, Arthur W. Wright, E. 
L. Youmans, Joseph Zentmayer. 


— Dr. Edward Channing received in 1888 the Top-. 
pan prize of Harvard university, and the essay which 
won this distinction has just been printed as one of 
the Johns Hopkins university studies in history. The 
theme was the town and county government in the 
English colonies of North America. The author is 
led to compare the Massachusetts system of local 
government with that of Virginia, and to show that 
both are survivals of the English common-law parish 
of 1600. The essay concludes with a tabulated state- 
ment of local government in England, Massachusetts, 
and Virginia; by glancing at which, ‘the reader may 


330 


quickly comprehend the diversity of usage proceeding 
from the same stock. 


— The new steering apparatus for balloons invented 
by the two French officers of engineers, Capt. Renard 
and Capt. Krebs, is attracting considerable attention 
in warlike Europe. The experiments, for which 
Gambetta during his short lease of power obtained 
a grant of 100,000 francs, have been conducted for six 
years past in the forest of Meudon with the greatest 
secrecy. The two officers have admittedly been 
guided in their studies by the earlier labors of Mr. 
Duprey de Lome in 1870-72. The conditions laid 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 86. 


four hours. Of their’‘first trip, the inventors made 
the following report: — 

‘On Aug. 9, at four P.M., with the wind almost 
calm, the aérostat, with little ascensional power, rose 
slowly to the height of the surrounding uplands. 
The machine was put in motion; and soon the aéro- 
stat increased its speed, obeying the slightest move- 
ment of its rudder.. The route was first held north 
and south, toward, Chatillon and Verriéres, above 
the road from Choisy to Versailles; and, in order not 
to become entangled among the trees, the direction 
was changed to Versailles. Above Villacoublay, we 
were about four kilometres from Chalais; and, per- 


ST 


——oo ooo 


Te 


( 


Hes 


down by the inventors .themselves were stability of 
passage obtained by the cigar-shaped form of the bal- 
loon and the arrangement of the rudder, diminution 
of the resistance of the air by the choice of dimen- 
sions, and realization of a speed capable of resist- 
ing the winds generally prevalent in France. Capt. 
Renard undertook the more strictly scientific part of 
the work, and Capt. Krebs the rest. The former 
invented the new electric pile of exceptional light- 
ness and power; and the latter constructed the 
screw and the rudder, and the apparatus for the 
electric motor. The balloon is formed in the shape 
of a cigar, pointed at both extremities; a net hangs 
from it, containing seats for two aéronauts, a direct- 
ing apparatus, and a rudder. It is stated that the 
force is obtained by a series of electric accumulators 
of ten horse-power, which may be operative during 


nt 


fectly satisfied with the behavior of the balloon, we 
decided to return and to descend at Chalais, notwith- 
standing the narrow space allowed by the trees. The 
balloon was successfully turned to the right, the rud- 
der making a small angle (about eleven degrees). 
The diameter of the circle described was about three 
hundred metres; the dome of the Invalides, taken 
as the point of direction, was a little to the right of 
Chalais. After arriving above this point, the bal- 
loon was easily turned to the left; and soon it was 
hovering three hundred metres above its point of 
departure. It was necessary to work the machine’ 
backward and forward, in order to bring the balloon 
aboverthe place chosen for the descent. At thirty — 
metres above the ground, a rope dropped from the Q 
balloon was seized, and the aérostat was brought. — 
down in the very meadow whence it had set off. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.] 


Several times during the trip, the balloon underwent 
oscillations of from two to three degrees, resembling 
pitching; these oscillations were attributed either to 


ar 4 
\7 aly 
e 


AL 
Fr a j 
if 


! 


Route 
; ae Vero, 
CF Salles 5 : 
MORIEUSe. "84 Choise WS 


irregularities in the shape, or to currents of local air 
rising vertically.”’ The balloon is 50.42 metres long, 
and 8.40 metres in diameter. The course taken, 
shown in accompanying map, was 17.6 kilometres 
long, and was finished in twenty-three minutes. 


— We learn from the New-York branch Hydro- 
graphic office, that the bark Stillwater, Capt. Gou- 
dey, from Manilla to New York, passed through 
vast quantities of floating pumice from May 3 to 
25 last, on its course from the Straits of Sunda until 
off Madagascar. From the 3d to the 8th (when in 
lat. 11° 49’ S., long. 95° E.), the pumice was very 
plentiful, with many large pieces; from the 10th to 
the 20th, in less quantity, with smaller pieces; from 
the’ 20th to the 25th, it was seen only occasionally, 
floating in long streaks with the wind. The pieces, 
up to six or seven inches in diameter, were covered 
with barnacles, by the weight of which Capt. Goudey 
thought it would eventually sink. 


— There is hardly any subject in geographical bib- 
liography so interesting to American scholars as the 
bibliography of Ptolemy’s geography; and no one is 
better qualified than Mr. Justin Winsor to treat of it. 
His annotated lists of original and augmented text 
and translations have recently been published as Bul- 
letin No. 18 of the library of Harvard university. In 
addition to the titles, a description is given of every 
edition which is mentioned, with references to bibliog- 
raphers’ and sales catalogues, and with indicatjons of 
the American libraries where copies may be found. 
American collectors have been diligent in their quest 
for Ptolemies, so much light is thrown by them 


SCIENCE. 


331 


on the cartographic development of the new world. 
The recent dispersion of the library of Henry C. 
Murphy has tended to the enrichment of many other 
libraries. Mr. Winsor mentions that President White 
of Cornell university has lately added several early 
editions to his collection. Mr. Winsor’s critical notes 
are full of important and recondite lore, and deserve 
a much more careful résumé and discussion than our 
columns can afford. 


— One feature of the year in Europe is the super- 
abundance of insect life. The roses have been 
fairly eaten away with green-fly (aphis); cockroaches 
abound, and swarms of dragon-flies are reported in 
Silesia; on the morning of July 1 the sky is said to 
have been darkened by them at Ratibor, and on the 
2d the same appearance was observed for half an 
hour at Reichenbach, and along the North Sea coast 
for five miles inland the same thing has occurred. 


— The twenty-fifth general meeting of the German 
engineers society will be held at Mannheim in Sep- 
tember, when the most interesting public works, 
private manufacturing establishments, etc., will be 
visited by the members. A special committee will 
report-on the law of industrial protection (patent 
law, registration of trade-marks, etc.), another will 
report on steam-boilers and engines, and another on 
the practical education of young engineers. Among 
the papers to be read is one by Professor Hermann 
on the graphical treatment of the mechanical theory 
of heat, another by Mr. L. Post onthe industry of 
Mannheim and surroundings. ‘This society has now 
fifty-one hundred members, and has twenty-nine 
branches in various districts. 


— The death of Prof. J. C. Schioedte, a prominent 
entomologist, and editor of the Naturhistorisk tids- 
skrift, at Copenhagen, at the age of sixty-nine, is 
announced. 

— About ten years ago Mr. Krupp of Essen bor- 
rowed £1,500,000 to be repaid in yearly instalments 
extending to 1897; arrangements have just been 
made, however, for repaying within a short time the 
whole of the sum still remaining undischarged. 
These great steel-works, which are now in full opera- 
tion, employ 19,000 work-people in the various 
departments. 


— The results of Dr. Muller’s investigations on the 
absorption of gases by steel, published in the Journal 
of the Society of German engineers, have been thus 
summarized in the Ironmonger: ‘‘ The gas liberated 
from steel in the liquid state before solidification is 
chiefly carbonic oxide. The rising of steel, and con- 
sequently the formation of blow-holes, is attributed 
to hydrogen and nitrogen, and to a small extent to 
carbonic oxide.”’ 


— A new perfect-combustion stove for domestic 
use has been invented by Mr. Henry Thompson, of 
Canonbury, England. Externally it resembles the 
ordinary register-stove, but in its internal construc- 
tion it widely differs from it. A recess at the back 
of the Thompson stove is filled with coal at starting; 
and behind the coal is a vertical hinged plate, which 


_ 


\- 


332. 


is so arranged as always to exert a gentle pressure 
on the coal and the body of the fire, tending to push 
the coal forward toward the bars. A slight stirring 
of the fire causes it to be loosened, and the fuel to 
be pressed forward to the front to replenish the fire. 
When the coal has been consumed, the vertical plate 
is pushed back, and a fresh charge of coal inserted. 
It will thus be seen that the coal at the back is un- 
dergoing a process of coking before being pushed 
forward. ‘The gases evolved from it, instead of pass- 
ing up the chimney and into the air in the form of 
_ solid carbon, are carried downwards by the draught 
- produced by an ingenious but simple arrangement at 
the back of the stove, and are delivered beneath the 
erate. At this point they are drawn upwards through 
the incandescent fire, in which every particle of smoke 
is consumed. The waste products of combustion 
pass up the chimney in the usual way, but without 
the usual attendant results of smoke and soot. 


— A lady, who requests that her name may not be 
divulged, has offered the University of Heidelberg 
the sum of 100,000 marks if women are admitted to 
the lecturés; but the senate refused. 


— Sibiriakoff’s steamers, the Obi and Nordenskiold, 
were to leave Arckangel on the 20th of June for the 
Petshora and Yenisei respectively. 


— The Padas, Lawas, and Limbang Rivers of 
north-west Borneo have been visited by Consul-gen- 
eral Leijs. They lie between the Brunei district and 
the territory of the North Borneo company. They 
have been visited by but very few Europeans, and 
only in recent years. The Limbang appears to be 
navigable for river-steamers about one hundred and 
thirty miles, the Padas for one hundred, and the 
Lawas for only thirty miles. In the interior, on the 
banks of the two former, is a relatively dense popu- 
lation, occupying a flat country with many sago palms. 
The country on the banks of the Lawas is attractive, 
well wooded, hilly, but sparsely populated. 


—Sir Erasmus Wilson, the great authority on skin- 
diseases, was buried in the village churchyard of 
Swanscombe in Kent, on Aug. 13. He was no less 
celebrated for his many deeds of philanthropy than 
for his knowledge of his profession, though his re- 
moval of the Egyptian obelisk Cleopatra’s Needle to 
the Thames embankment was the latest thing that 
brought his name into public notice. It has been 
stated that the College of surgeons will receive a 
hundred and eighty thousand pounds as his residuary 
legatees; the Royal medical benevolent college, the 
Medical benevolent fund, and the Royal sea-bathing 
infirmary, Margate, will receive five thousand pounds 
each. 


— The aérolus water-spray ventilator, which was 
fixed eighteen months ago in the physicians’ consult- 
ing-room of the London hospital, has given such satis- 
faction to the medical staff, that another installation 
of the aérolus system in the throat consulting-room 
has been resolved on. The new University of North 
Wales, at Bangor, has also adopted the system. 


SCIENCE. 


provisional orders granted by the board of trade for — 
electric lighting in London wiil be revoked at once, © 
and unless renewed before the 15th of October, or by | 
that time utilized, nearly all of the remainder will be — 
revoked; so that for the present there is little likeli- 
hood of London’s being illuminated by the electric — 
light. 


— A cable message to Harvard college observatory, 
from Dr. A. Krueger, at Kiel, anounces the discovery 
of a bright comet, on September 17, by Wolf (prob- 
ably Dr. Wolf, of the Zurich observatory). An obser- 
vation was secured at Strasburg, on the 20th, as fol- 
lows: September 20.4467, Greenwich mean time. 
R. A. 21h., 15m., 22.38. Decl. +-22° 22’ 547) aul 
motion in R. A., +20s., in declination +26’. 


— The difficulty of soldering aluminium has been 
one of the principal bars to its usefulness. Mr. Bour- 
bouze has recently communicated to the French | 
Academie des sciences a process which obviates this 
difficulty. He uses alloys of zinc and tin, or prefer- 
ably of tin, bismuth, and aluminium, which, he 
says, take upon the surface of aluminium as ordinary 
solder does upon other metals. He, therefore, coats 
the aluminium with these, and any other metal with 
tin; and then the surfaces may be soldered as usual. 
For objects which are to be worked after joining, he _ 
uses a Solder of forty-five parts tin, and ten alumin- 
ium, which will stand hammering and turning. For 
ordinary joints, less aluminium isrequired. The pro- ° 
cess is effected with the common soldering-iron, but. 
nothing is said as to the use of any flux. 


— A light earthquake shock, lasting ten or fifteen 
seconds, was felt about 2.14 standard time through 
Ohio and the adjoining parts of Pennsylvania, Onta- 
rio, Michigan, and Indiana. There was no serious — 
damage caused by it; but buildings were shaken, 
glassware was broken, furniture moved, dishes fell 
from shelves, and the people in some places ran out 
of their houses. The strength of the shock would 
thus seem to be about the same as that of Aug. 10 
about New Jersey. Although the Mississippi and 
Ohio valleys are generally accounted free from earth- 
quakes, the following list from Professor Rockwooqd’s _ 
notes in the American journal of science includes a 
number from that region: In 1881 there were shocks — 
in Indiana on April 20 and May 27, and in Ohio on> 
Aug. 29. In 1882, in Illinois on July 20; a general 
shock through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Ken- 
tucky, on Sept. 27; and again, feebler, at midnight of 
Oct. 14 and 15, over a similar area; and in Illinois on ° 
Oct. 22 and Nov. 14. In 1883, about Cairo, IIl., on 
Jan. 11; through Indiana, Lllinois, and lower Michi- 
gan, on Feb. 4; and about Cairo on April 12 and — 
July 6. 7 

In the newspaper reports of the earthquake of 
Aug. 10, it was often incorrectly stated that the shock 
was felt in Wilmington, N.C. This was a mistake — 
for Wilmington, Del. The few reports of buildings 
overthr6éwn, and many of the accounts of overturned — 
chimneys, were also incorrect. Special inquiry shows — 
the first reports to have been exaggerated as usual. 


Sere NGL. 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue reports of agricultural experiment-sta- 
tions, experimental farms, and similar institu- 
tions, form a class of literature which is rapidly 
increasing in volume, and which, while it con- 
tains very much that is (at least from a scien- 
‘tifie stand-point) simply trash, also contains 
much that is of scientific value. In calling 
attention to a very prevalent fault of such 
publications, we would not be understood as 
calling in question their usefulness for the pur- 
poses for which they are intended, and still 
less as lacking in appreciation of the valuable 
scientific results which many of them contain 
—usually, it must be confessed, rather spar- 
ingly. The fault to which we refer is not one 
of matter, but of form. It is the lack of any 
intelligent discussion of the results of experi- 
ments ; and it makes itself felt most severely, 
precisely in the cases in which those results 
are most important scientifically. 


What would be thought of an astronomer, 
who, after observing an eclipse, or a transit of 
Venus, should present as his report, simply a 
memorandum of the observations taken, with- 
out reducing or discussing them? Yet sub- 
stantially this is what we find in very many 
agricultural reports. The experiments have 
been planned with more or less intelligence and 
care, and executed with more or less of pains- 
taking accuracy, according to circumstances ; 
but there the experimenter has stopped, appar- 
ently forgetting or ignoring that his work is 
only half done. ‘The experiment planned and 
executed, there still remains the task of com- 
bining and testing the results, so as to detect 
their fallacies, and bring out what they really 
teach ; in other words, the task of discussion. 


That the task of discussion is so often neg- 
No. 87.— 1884. 


lected may be due to several causes. Often 
it is apparent from the tone of the report, that 
the author has feared the reproach of being a 
‘theorist,’ and has rather ostentatiously con- 
fined himself to a bare statement of facts ob- 
served. Vague and undisciplined theorizing, 
and hasty generalizations, are, of course, to be 
avoided; but these are something very differ- 
ent from sober study and discussion. Facts 
are good, especially when they teach princi- 
ples; but he who will have nothing but facts 
confines himself to the husks of investigation. 
In other cases one can scarcely avoid the im- 
pression that the writer has been too indolent 
to discuss his results; and in some instances 
the suspicion is even suggested that he has 
been overcome by their complexity or unex- 
pectedness. | 


But, from whatever cause originating, the 
prevailing fashion of presenting experimental 
work is to be reprobated. An author has no 
right to require that his readers make that 
eritical comparison of results which he is too 
indolent or too incompetent to undertake him- 
self; nor to thrust upon the unscientific public, 
to whom such reports as we are speaking of are 
mainly addressed, crude and superficial conclu- 
sions as the results of scientific investigations. 
Indeed, it is to this latter class that the practice 
is likely to prove most pernicious. The trained 
scientific man can readily detect the absence 
of critical discussion, even though he may not 
feel called upon to supply the lack; but the 
unscientific reader, who has had no training 
of this sort, is very likely to accept whatever 
conclusions his author draws, however inade- 
quate, as expressing the sum of truth upon 
that subject, or to stand bewildered before a 
mass of details, with no clear idea of what 
they prove. 


We submit that in neither case is the experi- 
menter fulfilling his duty to his constituents. 


fh 


ae 


BBE: 


When the public funds are to be expended in 
scientific investigation, the public has a right 
to demand that the work be put into the hands 
of those who are not only industrious experi- 
menters, but who are able and willing to test 
critically the results of their own experiments, 
and present to the’ public only results which 
have endured such testing. 


WueEn the president of the geographical sec- 
tion of the British association declared that 
the Portuguese ‘ lost colony,’ as described by 
Mr. Haliburton, ‘ was something quite new to 
geographers,’ he doubtless failed to recall that 
in 1881 Bettencourt (Descobrimentos . . 
do Portugueses, pp. 132-1385) printed the 
grant to Fagundes of March 13, 1521, which 
is also contained in Do Canto’s Memoria his- 
torica, p. 90. The whole subject of the dis- 
coveries of Fagundes is taken up by those 
authors, and also by Henry Harrisse in his 
Cabots, pp. 275-277 (Paris, 1882), and in 
his Corte-Real, p. 144 and 171 (Paris, 1883). 
General Lefroy also failed to remember that 
Ernesto do Canto, the learned antiquary of S. 
Miguel, one of the Azores — to whom Harrisse 
acknowledges his indebtedness — discovered 
among the manuscripts of the Torre do ‘Tombo 
a carta of the 4th May, 1567, relating to the 
second lost Portuguese colony mentioned by 
Mr. Haliburton. This document is in Do 
Canto’s Memoria historica entitled Os Corte- 
Reaes, p. 161 (S. Miguel, 1883) ; and also in 
the appendix to Harrisse’s Corte-Real, p. 235, 
where it is stated that it was communicated by 
Mr. Do Canto. These three books, and others 
which we have no space to mention at this 
time, contain documents going to show that 
those expeditions actually sailed, and also con- 
tain the commissions and confirmations granted 
the Corte-Reals, their contemporaries and suc- 
cessors, at various times. 


Tue occurrence of two light but wide-spread 
earthquakes within two months in our usual- 
ly quiet eastern states awakens attention to 
the absence of any organized attempt to ob- 


,' 


SCIENCE. a 


, 


serve them. The chief difficulty in such an — 


attempt would doubtless be the discourage- 
ment of waiting through a considerable time 
without shocks to observe; but this time is not 
so long as many would suppose, as may be 
seen by looking over Rockwood’s earthquake 
lists. The only systematic work now under- 
taken consists in the collection of accidental 
records by Professor Rockwood and some few 
other students of the question, and the report- 
ing of ordinary non-instrumental observations 
from the signal-service stations. This small 
beginning could be greatly improved if the 


U.S. geological survey could lend a hand by — 


providing simple seismometers for a moderate 
number of stations; and would be still further 
advanced if observers and students of this 
branch of physical geography would resolve 
themselves into an earthquake-club, unembar- 
rassed by formal regulations, chiefly with the 
object of becoming known to one another, and 
thus insuring the proper collection and colla- 
tion of their observations. We should be glad 
to have correspondence on this subject. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


Classification of the Mollusca. 


In the instructive comments on the ‘ classification 
of the Mollusca’ by Messrs. Dall and Lankester, 
apropos of Professor Ray Lankester’s article ‘ Mol- 
lusca’ in the 
points are raised concerning which I should be pleased 
to be better informed. 

In the original review by Mr. Dall (Science, iii. 
730), it is remarked that ‘no single instance of a cal- 
cified jaw among recent Mollusca occurs;’ and in his 
reply that gentleman adds, that he ‘‘ should be grate- 
ful to Professor Lankester for the name of any recent 
mollusk having a shelly or even partially ‘ calcified ’ 
jaw ’’ (Science, iv. 148). I have long been under the 
impression that the Nautilidae furnished such an in- 
stance. Woodward expressed the belief of malacolo- 
gists in his statement, that, ‘‘in the recent Nautilus, 
the mandibles are horny, but calcified to a consider- 
able extent ;’’ and Professor Lankester (op. cit. p. 667) 
says that in the cephalopods (‘Siphonopoda’) ‘‘ the 


jaws have the form of a pair of powerful beaks, either — 


horny or calcified (Nautilus).’’ Is there any reason to 


doubt or dispute the correctness of such and similar — 


statements ? a 
In my ‘Arrangement of the families of mollusks’ 
(1871), I admitted as orders of Acephala (otherwise 
Conchifera, or Lipocephala) the Dimyaria, Heteromy- 
aria, and Monomyaria, but under mental protest. I 


‘Encyclopedia Britannica,’ several — 


4 
" 
. 
M7 
‘ 


OcTOBER 3, 1884.] 


was aware of the apparent exceptions signalized by 
Mr. Dall, and could add extinct forms referred to the 
Pteriidae or Aviculidae, as well as the Muelleriidae 
retained among the Dimyaria. The Monomyaria 
seemed to me, however, to be a natural ‘ genetic’ 
group, and the Muelleriidae were bimusculose in 
youth, and their monomyarian characteristics in the 
adult appeared to bea peculiar teleological adaptation. 
Tam still disposed to believe that the Monomyaria con- 
stitute a natural group, although Mr. Dall has good 
reasons for thinking that, ‘‘in fact, there does not at 
present seem to be any good basis for ordinal divis- 
ions in the Lipocephala.’’ What Mr. Dall designates 
as ‘the remarkable characters of the group of Met- 
arrhiptae’ seemed to me to furnish as good a basis 
for an ‘order’ as any of those that have been used for 
that purpose: consequently I gave the name as an 
ordinal designation in 1871. 

But the question whether certain groups are of 
ordinal or minor value is of less moment than the 
natural subdivision of the class. If the myological 
peculiarities are not the best criteria, what are? 

A view that has had some currency, that the Mo- 
nomyaria are inferior forms of Acephala, is negatived 
by both embryological and paleontological evidence. 
The testimony of both is conclusive that the Mono- 
myaria are derivatives from Dimyaria. 

Is it certain that the shell of the Polyplacophora 
(Chitons) is the exact homologue of the shells of the 
typical Gastropods? Iam acquainted with what has 
been published of the embryology of the group, but 
am left in doubt both as to facts and interpretations. 
At any rate, it is certain that the old views of a close 
relation between the Polyplacophora and the doco- 
glossate Gastropoda had very little morphological 
basis. 

My gratitude for the excellent article of Professor 
Lankester impels me to cordially indorse the encomi- 
ums of Mr. Dall, while I concur with the critic as to 
the family arrangement. 

Professor Lankester has sometimes been misled, 
too, by not remembering that the same objects may 
be called by different names: for instance, he has 
referred to the ‘ Rachiglossa (1.1.1, or 1),’ a gastro- 
pod named ‘ Pyrula, Lam. (fig. 38),’ but the figure 
represents a type belonging to the ‘ Tenioglossa 
(3. 1. 3),’ and repeated thereunder as one of the 


‘family 4, Doliide,’ under the name ‘ Ficula.’ As 


my eyes light on neighboring names, I may add 
that the ‘ Pediculariidae’ and ‘Ovulum’ do not 
fulfil the conditions of the ‘Siphonochlamyda,’ — 
“shell always spiral:’ they do not have true spires. 
Professor Lankester has been deceived by false 
guides. Such lapses are, however, of a kind inevi- 
table in a general work; for it is impossible for one 
man to verify every statement. THEO. GILL. 


A fasting pig. 


Iy a recent flood (June 26) that visited this neigh- 
borhood, Mr. John Aughenbaugh of West Manchester 
township had five hogs carried away by the water. 
On Aug. 7 one of them was found under a large 
heap of driftwood about a mile from the home of 
Mr. Aughenbaugh. The animal had been securely 
imprisoned by the timber, and had not eaten any 
thing for forty-two days. Although very consid- 
erably emaciated when released from its prison, it 
appeared to have no trouble in emptying a crock of 
thick milk that was offered it. It has since been 
doing well, and no doubt will soon recover all it lost 
in flesh. ee eae 


York, Penn. 


SCIENCE. 


A WIDER USE FOR THE LIBRARIES OF 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 


To those who are obliged to use the libraries 
of our smaller colleges, it is often a source of 
vexation to find that the books one is referred 
to are wanting. ‘The resources of the colleges 
are limited, and the amount of money which can 
be expended for the purchase of new books 
small, and that small amount often devoted, 
according to the wishes of the donor, to the 
class of books least needed. <A case in point 
occurred lately, where a college professor of 
mathematics was asked to write a short account 
of the life of Todhunter; and he felt obliged 
to say that he would be glad to undertake the 
article, but could not before he had visited the 
libraries of either New York or Boston, which 
he hoped to be able to do during his next 
vacation. 

This constant lacking of just the books one 
needs for his work is most hampering. It is 
not the Century, or the Harper, or the latest 
novel, or the new book of travel, which 
cannot be had (these find their way into all the 
odd corners), but it is the specialist’s books, 
a volume of the transactions of some learned 
society, a scientific journal, or the modern 
treatises on thermo-dynamics, on electricity, 
or on biology, which are needed, and which 
can be found only in a very few of our libraries 
in the necessary profusion. 

A few such libraries have now been collected 
by our older scientific societies and our larger 
colleges. The books of the college libraries 
are for a specific purpose, and find abundant 
use at the hands of the students and professors. 
With the societies the matter stands differently. 
It cannot be denied that one of the original 
objects of the establishment of these societies 
was, that, by the publication of their own 
‘ proceedings,’ they might, by exchange, gather 
a collection of books which could not, in the 
then comparatively poor state of the country, 
be gathered in any other way, and which were 
to be for the use of the members, and such 
favored friends as they might designate. 

It has so happened that these societies were 
established by the small knots of scientific 


336 


men gathered about our larger colleges. These 
colleges have developed, and their libraries 
have grown more and more valuable; so that 
the professors no longer find it necessary to 
go to their academy for books. At the same 
time the machinery of their long-established 
organization has grown more effective; and, 
while many of the members no longer need 
their society collection of books, the number 
and value of those added to the shelves each 
year are constantly increasing. The result 
is, that in some of our larger cities there 
are accumulating very considerable libraries 
of special works which are scarcely used, as 
they are duplicated at some neighboring col- 
lege about which those employing such books 
live. 

It is, of course, with regret that one enters 
such a library, if library it may be called, and 


sees the new books which are not called for by 


the former clientage of the collection, but 
which would eagerly be asked for if the circle 
of favored outsiders were widened so as to 
include all properly vouched-for persons who 
might live within one, two, or three hundred 
miles, or even more, and who would be willing 
to pay a small annual fee to defray the expense 
of sending books to them by mail or express, 
and for the extra wear, and danger of loss. It 
is true that such books as could not be readily 
replaced in case of loss would necessarily be 
retained from such a wide-spread circulation ; 
but these would be only the older volumes of 
the various series, and such books as are very 
generally kept from such extra risks. 

The expense of mailing would be consider- 
able; it would average, on volumes of the size 
of a bound volume of the American journal 
of science, about sixteen cents each way. ‘To 
this must be added the cost of handling, and 
some slight charge for the privilege of use. 
Altogether, the expense of taking out, say, 
forty books of this class in the course of the 
year would be in the neighborhood of ten to 
fifteen dollars, —a charge which could be 
reduced very materially by sending for the 
books a number at a time, so that they might 
be forwarded to advantage by express; the 


SCIENCE. 


‘amount named above being the maximum if 


each book were mailed separately. 

That the expense of using a library through 
the mails would mount up very rapidly is eyi- 
dent ; but the facts remain, that there are large 
libraries of books solely on matters of interest 
to scientific men, and of vital interest to such 


men, and that these libraries exist in com- © 


munities where by duplication they no longer 
have their former use. It is highly desirable 
that the books should be put to use; and their 
owners would probably be glad to arrange 
some plan by which the scheme of extending 
the circulation through the mails could be made 
practicable. It would be of great advantage 
in perfecting plans, if those who might be bene- 
fited would come forward and state their 
position. 


THE COLOR-SENSE IN FISHES. 


In his recent volume on ‘ Mental evolution in 
animals,’? Mr. Romanes remarks, ‘‘ As further 
proof that a well-developed sense of color oc- 
curs in fish, I may remark, that the elaborate 
care with which anglers dress their flies, and 
select this and that combination of tints for 
this and that locality, time of day, etc., shows 
that those who are practically acquainted with 
the habits of trout, salmon, and other fresh- 
water fish, regard the presence of a color-sense 
in them as axiomatic.’’ As one ‘ practically 
acquainted ’ with some sixty species of fresh- 
water fishes, representing a dozen or more dis- 
tinct groups, I am reminded, by the above 
quotation, of many occurrences witnessed dur- 
ing my rambles about the Delaware River, or 
its tributary creeks, that have a bearing upon 
the subject. Besides recognizing the differ- 
ences in insects by their colors, have fishes 
any knowledge of the fact that their own colors 
may or may not be protective? Are they aware 
that it depends upon themselves, whether these 
colors shall be a safeguard, or a source of 
danger? That we are warranted in giving an 
affirmative reply, is shown, I think, by their 
habits, and particularly by the fact that to 
a certain extent they have the color of their 
bodies under their control. 

Relatively speaking, the fishes of the Del- 
aware River and its tributaries may be classi-— 
fied, in regard to their habits, as diurnal and 


1 Mental evolution in animals, pe GEORGE J.'ROMANES. 
New York, Appleton, 1884. 411 p. 12°. 


[VoL. IV., No. si. 


OCTOBER 3, 1884. ] 


nocturnal. It might almost be said that there 
are no ‘ fixed’ habits. I have found marked 
variations in every one of the most charac- 
teristic habits of our birds; and can see no 
reason why the same degrees of variability 
should not likewise obtain among mammals, 
reptiles, and fishes. In considering fishes as 
either nocturnal or diurnal, I mean that they 
are so to about the extent that owls are; i.e., 
ranging from species as diurnal as hawks to 
those that are nocturnal, or, properly speak- 
ing, crepuscular. How often we hear the 
phrase, ‘ as blind as a bat’! yet these mam- 
mals are not averse to daylight, and only shun 
the glare of noonday. In shady woods they 
are often found insect-hunting by day; and 
fly just as freely, and range abroad as gen- 
erally, on cloudy days, as during the gloaming 
throughout midsummer. 


SCIENCE. 


\' we N 
ww eS 


337 


etheostomoids, is always to be found, when not 
in motion, resting upon the bottoms of streams ; 
and I have never found these fishes in localities 
where their color did not closely resemble the 
sand, mud, or pebbles upon which they rested. 
I have tested them in this matter in the follow- 
ing manner. Finding a spot in a small stream 
where many of these fishes congregated, I 
placed a large number of white-porcelain plates 
in the stream on a level with the surrounding 
sand. On disturbing the ‘ darters,’ I found 
that they invariably settled between these 
plates, and never on them; and this after the 
dishes had been several days in position. 
Finally the currents covered the plates with a 


thin coating of sand, and then occasionally a 


‘ darter ’ would come to rest upon one of the 
plates. The motion of his fins in so doing 
usually displaced the sand, and exposed the 


MuD-MINNOW (Umbra limi). 


Several years ago, when studying our fishes 
with reference to detecting supposed traces of 
voice possessed by them, I concluded that the 
nocturnal, dull-colored species had the power 
of uttering certain sounds, especially during 
the breeding-season; while the diurnal fishes 
were apparently voiceless, and were dependent 
upon their gaudy coloration as a sexual attrac- 
tion. More recent observations have led me 
a step farther, and I am convinced that the 
colors of many species continue to play an 
important part in the struggle for existerice 
throughout the interim from one breeding- 
season to the next. It must be remembered 
that fishes, when undisturbed by man’s pres- 
ence, are very different from the frightened 
animals that rush hither and thither in the 
most reckless manner when startled by his 
sudden appearance. We have only to take a 
favorable position, and, ourselves unseen, to 
gaze patiently into their accustomed haunts, 
to realize what animated, cunning, and mentally 
well-developed creatures fishes really are. 

That curious group known as ‘darters,’ or 


white surface beneath: if so, the fish darted 
off, and settled between the plates or beyond 
them. It is evident, I think, that protection 
through their color must be quite essential to 
them ; more so in the matter of procuring their 
food, perhaps, than as a safeguard against the 
attacks of enemies. 

The mud-minnow (Umbra limi) depends very 
largely upon insects and smaller fishes for food, 
and the question of color is a prominent one in 
its life history. This fish frequently assumes 
what we may call an ‘ inanimate’ position, and, 
with a variety of colors streaking and spotting 
its sides, has much the appearance of a bit of 
dead grass, a twig, or a caddis-worm. Often 
such unnatural positions will be retained for 
many minutes, or until some object suitable for 
food comes within reach, when it darts at and 
seizes it with the rapidity and certainty of a 
pike. Now, in all such cases, there is great 
and constant changing of color. Often the 
tints deepen until the fish appears to be inky- 
black, then pale until, from above, we can 
scarcely detect the fish. Such changes, of 


338 


course, are very significant, and can only be 
explained as being serviceable to the fishes in 
rendering them inconspicuous, both to their 
enemies and to the wandering animal-life on 
which they prey. In precisely what way the 
extreme variations from very dark to pale are 
serviceable, is not yet known, so far as I am 
aware; but the fact itself can scarcely be used 
to the disadvantage of the main proposition, 
that the color and its changeableness are of 
benefit to the fish, and are under the animal’s 
control. 


BANDED SUN-FISH (Mesogonistius chaetodon). 


During the early spring, when the vigor of 
these fishes is at its maximum, the coloration is 
more pronounced in every particular; and the 
continual changing from dark to light, and vice 
versa, aS seen in connection with its other 
habits, shows plainly that it is as much under 
control as are the folding and spreading of a 
peacock’s tail. 

The cyprinoids, or ‘ shiners,’ known collec- 
tively as minnows, roach, and dace, so many 
species of which are conspicuously colored at 
least at one time of the year, are all essential- 
ly diurnal in habit. Their bright colors, as a 
sexual attraction, are essential to their welfare, 
but are, at the same time, detrimental to their 
safety. Have we any reason for believing that 
these fishes seek to avoid exposure to enemies 
when thus arrayed in extra-conspicuous dress? 


SCIENCE. 


a 


[Vou. IV., No. 

at 
I think we have, in the fact that usually they 
deposit their ova and milt in rapid waters. — 
Waters with a constantly rippling and troubled 
surface certainly protect them from such ene- 
mies as the kingfisher, fish-eating mammals, 
and probably from frogs and snakes. By draw- 
ing a seine through turbulent water at the 
foot of a mill-dam, I have frequently found 
scores of splendidly colored cyprinoids; and 
finally, very soon after spawning, all these 
extra tints fade out utterly, and the fishes 
return to their accustomed haunts. These facts 


ee 


a ne ee 2 a oe a ee 


certainly seem to indicate that they are aware 
of the disadvantage of unusually bright colors, 
which, notwithstanding, are essential to the 
perpetuation of their kind. 

The common banded sunfish (Mesogonistius 
chaetodon), a silvery-white species, has a re- 
markable control over the color of the black 
vertical bands that ordinarily form so conspicu- 
ous a feature of the fish. At times when the 
water is rather clear, and the amount of vege- — 
tation not abundant, this sunfish will fade out, — 
and show such ashen, faintly streaked sides, — 
that it might almost pass for a dead leaf; but 
roused to action by the approach of other fishes, 
or the finding of food, the dull sides glisten 
like polished metal, and the faint bands be- 
come as black as ebony. Certainly these grea 
and sudden changes are not involuntary. ‘The 


~ e 


, i 


OCTOBER 3, 1884.] . 


cannot be likened to blushing, but are evidently 
under the fish’s control, and are intelligently 
used to its advantage. 

The bony gar (Lepidosteus osseus) is an- 
other fish having decided control over the col- 
oration of its scales. When this fish is at rest, 
the scales are pale blue, with a pink margin ; 
and about the head and gill-covers there is a 
variety of brilliant hues. At times all these 
colors will suddenly disappear, and the fish has 
much more the appearance of a water-soaked 
stick than of a living animal. Unfortunately 
I have had too few opportunities for observing 
this species to determine the reasons for these 
changes ; but it is evident that they are under 
the control of the fish, and therefore advan- 
tageous. 

The common pike (Esox reticulatus) also 
exhibits a variation of coloring, under different 
circumstances, and suggests the same facts that 


SCIENCE. 


339 


have already been stated with regard to other 
species. 

When the chief aim of biological science 
seemed to be the naming and describing of 
‘species,’ it was found that no description of 
the color of a fish, unless very unusual and 
marked, was at all satisfactory. Considering 
the subject of color, as I have in this article, 
the cause is very evident. 

In an early number of Science, I offered 
many reasons for believing that fishes were 
very far from spending as joyless, machine-like 
an existence as has been supposed. Those 
reasons I supplement with the results of studies 
of their habits, with reference to their brilliant 
tints and sombre hues, and am in accord with 
Mr. Romanes when he states that we are jus- 
tified in regarding ‘the presence of a color- 
sense in them as axiomatic.’ 

CHaArLes C. ABBorrT. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
BIOLOGY. 


A LARGE number of papers (forty-three in all) were 
presented before the section of biology, but we regret 
that in our limited space we can give merely the 
briefest outlines. The first we may mention was a 
paper by Mr. H. G. Beyer, on the influence of oxy- 
genated and unoxygenated blood, as well as of blood 
in various degrees of dilution, on the isolated heart of 
the frog and terrapin. The paper aimed to prove that 
it is not concentrated mammalian blood which pro- 
duces the greatest amount of work done in either 
the heart of the frog or that of the terrapin, but a 
certain degree of dilution is necessary. ‘There is no 
exception in the constant, stimulating influence in 
oxygenated blood, and none in the depressing effect 
of non-oxygenated blood. 

Dr. C. S. Minot read a paper on biological prob- 
lems. The author opposed the trinomial system, and 
considered the present mode of determining species 
entirely unscientific, and thought that the species 
should be based on a statistical study of all the vari- 
ations that are known to occur. Individuals are not 
always homologous. The only fixed units are, 1° 
cells; 2° the whole series of generations of cells from 
a single ovum, — acell-cycle. An individual may be 
almost any fractional part of a cell-cycle. Roughly 
speaking, the higher the organism, the fewer the 
number of individuals it comprises. The author 
considered the ovum to be homologous with the en- 
cysted protozoon, the zona radiator being equivalent 
to the capsule or cyst of the protozoon, and the con- 
tents also homologous. 

In a paper by Lillie J. Martin on a botanical study 
of the mitegall found on the petiole of Juglans nigra, 


_ (Pantolestes) is bunodont. 


known as Erineum anomalum Schw., a general sur- 


“vey of the gall was given, as to position, number, 


general appearance, etc. This was followed by a 
description and comparison of the microscopical ap- 
pearance of the gall and normal petiole, concluding 
with the supposition that the mite entered at an early 
period in the life of the petiole, and the growth of 
the gall was from within outward. 

A paper by Prof. B. G. Wilder, on the relative 
position of the cerebrum and the cerebellum in an- 
thropoid apes, was illustrated by photographs, and a 
preparation of a chimpanzee’s brain; conclusively 
settling the much-disputed point, as to whether the 
cerebrum extended over the cerebellum or not, as 
the cerebrum was seen to extend at least a milli- 
metre over the cerebellum. 

Mr. E. D. Cope, in a paper on the phylogeny of the 
artiodactyle Mammalia derived from American fossils, 
considered the derivation of the seledont dentition 
from the bunodont as established from a mechanical 
point of view. The oldest American artiodactyl 
The modification pro- 
ceeded as in other ruminant lines by the co-ossifica- 
tion of the bones of the legs and feet. The peculiar 
structure of the carpus in the Oreodontidae shows 
them to be, without doubt, the ancestors of the Tra- 
gulina. The following table represents the present 
views of the author on this subject. 


Tritubercular Bunodontia (Pantolestidae). 


Selenodontia. Quadritubercular Bunodontia. 
Hyopotamidae. Oreodontidae. Poébrotheriidae 
| | 
(?) Pecora. Tragulina. Tylopoda. 


cme Tet 


d40. 


In a paper on the torsion of leaves, Prof. W. J. 
Beal stated that he had studied the torsion of leaves 
produced by the effects of sunlight. Those twisting 
with the sun are two species of Typha, one species of 
Sparganium, Acorus, Tritallaria imperialis, and Lia- 
tris. Those twisting against the sun are two species 
of Allium, Iris, Gladiolus, oats, andSetaria. Twisting 
both ways are Allium cernuum, Phleum, Bromus, 
barley, Clawson wheat, Panicum, and Zizania. Cy- 
peraceae, Setaria verticillata, S. viridis, and S. italica 
do not twist at all. 

Mr. L. F. Ward read a paper on the fossil flora of 
the globe; treating the subject from historical, geo- 
logical, and botanical standpoints. 

The two oldest known species (Oldhamia) have 
been found in the Cambrian of Ireland. From the 
lower Silurian, 44 species are known, being chiefly 
marine algae; upper Silurian, 13 species. The ferns 
predominate among the 188 species known to the 
Devonian. In the Permo-carboniferous, nearly 2 000 
species have been made out, while in the trias 67 are 
known. In the Rhetic, an advance seems to have 
been made, which increases to the odlite where 419 
species have been found. The upper Jurassic and 
lower cretaceous are sparingly supplied with vegetal 
remains. The Cenomanian of Atam, Greenland, 
and the Dakota group of Kansas and Nebraska, give 
500 species. The Turonian again is almost destitute. 


Senomanian yields 350 species, while the Laramie , 


group of western United States gives 333 species; 
the tertiary eocene, 800; oligocene, a somewhat 
larger number, while the miocene gives more than 
3,000; the pliocene gives only 150 species. . 

The first type is that of the Florideae, marine algae. 
Ferns, Equisetineae and Lycopodineae, appear in the 
lower Silurian. The Devonian of Canada and Brazil 
shows us the first appearance of the rhizocarps, while 
the monocotyledons first appear in the carboniferous. 
The dicotyledons have their first known representa- 
tive in the Urogonian of Kome, Greenland. All the 
leading types of vegetation are introduced without 
going later down the geological scale than the middle 
cretaceous. Marine algae predominate in the Cam- 
brian and early Silurian. Ferns flourish in the 
Permian; Equisetineae and Lycopodineae, in the car- 
boniferous; Cycadaceae, in the lias or odlite; the 
Coniferae, in the Wealden; monocotyledons, in the 
eocene;: monochlamydeous dicotyledons, in the ceno- 
manian; polypetalous dicotyledons, in the miocene; 
and the gamopetalous dicotyledons, in the present 
living flora of the globe. Cellular cryptogams of 
some kind lived in the Laurentian, and account for 
the graphite beds there found. Ferns, Equisetineae 
and Lycopodineae, commenced in the lower Silurian, 
and had their maximum in the _ carboniferous. 
Cycadaceae have their origin in the Devonian, while 
the maximum is in the middle Jurassic. The Silu- 
rian shows the first Coniferae, which reach their 
maximum in the cretaceous, and then decline. 
Monocotyledons begin in the lower carboniferous, 
and have their maximum in the tertiary. Dicotyle- 
dons commence in the lower Jura, and the maximum 
is in the present age. 


SCIENCE. 


In a paper on fertility in hybridization, Mr. R. B. 


Roosevelt cited cases of hybridism between. species 
of Salmonidae, and between Alosa sapidissima and 
the striped bass. In many cases hybridism greatly 
improves the species. He proved by an extensive 
practical knowledge, that hybridism in fish at least by 
no means necessarily implies sterility. i 

Mr. H. F. Osborne presented observations on the 
amphibian brain, containing results of microscopic 


study upon the frog, Menobranchus, Menopoma, and 


Amphiuma. His method of study was by making 
series of sections, in three different planes. The 
relative position of gray and white matter was the 
same as that found in the spinal cord of these and 
other vertebrates. The course of the principal 


nerve-bundles extending from the medulla forward | 


to the hemispheres was described, showing the 
course of the transverse commissures, and a com- 
missure hitherto overlooked in the roof of the third 
ventricle was pointed out. This demonstrated that 
each brain segment had its own dorsal commissure. 
The differences of the cerebellum in the Anura and 
Urodela were pointed out, and the resemblances of 
the latter to the mammalian brain were dwelt upon. 
The pia blood-vessels are all sent in upon the ante- 
rior face of the pituitary body. The pineal elements 
were shown to consist of certain very inconspicuous 
foldings of the epithelium of the roof of the third 


ventricle, which have been generally overlooked. 


These foldings represent what remains of the stalk 
of the pineal gland. 

Mr. S. Garman’s paper on Chlamydoselachus, the 
frilled shark, treated of the internal anatomy of this 
peculiar shark. The nearest forms are Notidanidae, 
Hexanthus,. and Heptanchus. Hind and fore brain 
resemble that of foetal sharks; the cartilage is soft; 
the lateral line is open as in foetal sharks, and con- 
tinued to the end of the tail. The pelvis is twice as 
long as broad: the nearest resemblance to this is seen 
in the foetal Heptanchus. 

The next paper was by Mr. E. D. Cope, on the mam- 
malian affinities of saurians of the Permian epoch, 
and referred to the detection of mammalian resem- 
blance between Theromorpha and reptiles of the 
Permian epoch. Resemblances in the pelvic and 
scapular arch were pointed out. The quadrate bone 
was discussed, referring to the theory of Albrecht. 
The genus Clepsydrops shows that it has the mam- 
malian number of bones in its tarsus, and the resem- 


. blance was nearest to that found in the Platypus 


anatinus. ; 

Dr. C. H. Merriam gave a paper on the hood of the 
hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) ; describing it as an 
inflatable proboscis overhanging the mouth, and ex- 
tending posteriorly to a point behind the two eyes, 
lined with nasal mucous mmbrane, and divided 
longitudinally by two cartilages. It is not noticeable 
until the male has reached its fourth year. 


In a paper on some points in the development of | 


pelagic teleostean eggs, Mr. G. Brook, jun., first con- 
sidered non-pelagic eggs; instancing those of trout, 
in which the hypoblast originates as an involution of 


the lower layer upon itself, the space between’ the 


. 


»s 


- 


OCTOBER 3, 1884.] . 


layers being quite distinct. In pelagic eggs the pro- 
cess is quite different. Sections of the eggs of Trachi- 
nus vipara at this stage show that the parablast of 
Klein, the intermediate layer of American authors, is 
made up of a large number of free cells, and nuclei 
are absorbed from the yolk, which contribute to a very 
great extent to build up the hypoblast. In this case, 
there is no true invagination. In Motella mustella 
the origin of the hypoblast is similar to that of 
Trachinus; but the resulting cells, instead of being 
quite similar to the original ones as usual in teleos- 
tean eggs, are very much larger, and hexagonal, so 
that they cannot be derived directly from the lower 
layer of cells. The author sustained the views of 
Ryder as regards the segmentation cavity in pelagic 
eges. He also holds that there is no circulation in 
pelagic embryos before hatching. 

Mr. G. Macloskie, in his paper on the dynamics of 
the insect crust, commenced with a general descrip- 
tion of the chitinous skeleton with its in- and out- 
growths, etc. The tracheae have spiral crenulations, 
which have been hitherto misunderstood and sup- 
posed to be threads; these tracheae transmit gases 
directly to the tissues, and the blood is not used for 
this purpose. The tracheae are not directly controlled 
by muscles; their action depending on the successive 
production of a partial vacuum, and condensation of 
air around them. 

Prof. A. Hyatt read a paper on the larval theory 
of the origin of tissue, stating that the building-up of 
the tissues of the metazoa is due to a quick and 
rapid division of cells. Minot’s theory that the ori- 
gin of the sexes is due to the difference in cell ele- 
ments was supported. The author considered the 
planula a more primitive form than the gastrula. In 
another paper Professor Hyatt presented objections 
to some commonly accepted views of heredity; assert- 
ing that heredity has no need of the gemmule hy- 
pothesis or pangenesis, but that it can be equally well 
understood upon the supposition that the nuclei of 
cells are the immediate agents of the transmission of 
characteristics. The author presented the case of a 
man in Maine who resembled the mother on one side 
of his body, and his father on the other side, as an 
illustration of his theory; and he contested the posi- 
tion of Professor Brooks as regards heredity. In a 
paper on the structure and affinities of Beatricea, the 
same author stated that this fossil has had many posi- 
tions assigned to it in almost all the groups of the 
Invertebrata, though he himself now thought it a for- 
aminifer. Thin sections were examined, the struc- 
ture being found to consist of cells joined by a stolon. 

Dr. C. S. Minot presented a paper on the skin of 
insects. The skin consists of three layers, — exter- 


‘Nally the cuticula, overlying an epithelium, which lies 


in turn on a sheet of connective tissue; the epithe- 
lium, homoiogous with the epithelium of other ani- 
mals, and which should be so called instead of hy- 
podermis; and dermis, which name should be applied 
to the connective tissue, as it is the homologue of 
that of vertebrates. The cuticula of caterpillars has 
not yet been fully described: it consists of two layers, 
a thick one and a thin one. 


SCIENCE. 


341 


In a communication on the development of Limu- 
lus, Mr. J. S. Kingsley stated that his account begins 
after the formation of the blastoderm. At this time 
there is a single layer of cells surrounding the yolk, 
in which are scattered nuclei. The mesoblast arises 
as a single sheet on the ventral surface. Its cells come 
largely from the blastoderm, but some arise from 
the yolk nuclei. The mesoblast soon forms two lon- 
gitudinal layers, one on each side in the neighbor- 
hood of the limbs. The cvelom is formed by a split- 
ting of the mesoblast, and at first consists of a series 
of metameric cavities extending into the limbs. The 
supraoesophageal ganglion arises by an invagination of 
the epiblast. The heart arises as two tubes in the 
somatophore, which later unite. The mesenteron 
does not appear until after hatching. The amnion 
of Packard is the first larval cuticle, and bears a 
resemblance to the amnion of the tracheata. <A sec- 
ond cuticle is formed and moulted before hatching. 
The eyes appear on the dorsal surface at the same 
time that the limbs appear on the ventral. In these 
characters Limulus agrees essentially with the trache- 


-ata, and has nothing in common with crustacea. 


Prof. B. G. Wilder, in a paper entitled, ‘Do the 
cerebellum and oblongata represent two encephalic 
segments, or only one?’ remarked that most writers 
had considered two segments to exist. The cephalad 
of these segments is held to include the cerebellum, 
together with the portion of the ‘ brain-stem’ imme- 
diately connected therewith and the latter part of the 
oblongata. The only writers that have admitted of 
a single segment caudad of the mesen are Balfour, 
A. M. Marshall, Owen, and Spitzka. The views of 
Spitzka were then discussed; concluding with the 
opinion that sufficient evidence to settle the question 
was wanting. 

Dr. J. A. Ryder presented a paper on the morphol- 
ogy and evolution of the tail of osseous fishes. The 
caudal fin of fishes is developed in the same way as 
the other median or unpaired fins, from a median 
fin-fold. After the protocercal stage of the larva is 
passed, a lower caudal lobe grows out, which is proba- 
bly the homologue of a second anal fin. ‘The hypoth- 
eses which grow out of a consideration of the facts 
of the development of the tails of fishes, are the fol- 
lowing: 1. Whenever heterocercality manifests itself, 
there is a more or less extensive degeneration of the 
caudal end of the chordal axis, which began to be 
somewhat manifest far back in the phylum in such 
forms as Holocephali, Dipnoi, and crossopterygians. 
2. With the outgrowth of the lower lobes (second anal) 
the energy of growth tended to push the tip of the 
chorda upward; the lobe itself arising, probably in 
consequence of the localization of the energy of 
growth and the deposit of organic material at the 
point according to the demands of use and effort. 
5. Local use and effort, acting as constant stimuli of 
local growth, carried the heterocercal condition and 
its accompanying modification of degeneration and 
reduction still farther, as is shown by a study of the 
homologous elements in the tails of fishes; while 
use and effort would also continue to augment hetero- 
cercality, until the inferior and superior lobes were 


349 . 


about of the same length and area, when the morpho- 
logical characters of the caudal fin would become 
approximately stable for any one species, as may be 
shown by measurements of a simple mechanical illus- 
tration, in which the interaction and composition of 
the forces which are brought into action are demon- 
strated. 4. The mechanical demonstration alluded 
to above, taken together with the fact that the primi- 
tive or ancestral form of the tail, which is typified 
by a temporary condition in fish larvae, when the 
myosomata are rudimentary, but still symmetrical, 
amounts almost to a demonstration of the principles 
first laid down by Lamarck, then elaborated by Spen- 
cer, and more recently applied to special cases by the 
author and Professor Cope. 

In acommunication on growth and death, Dr. C. 8. 
Minot gave the results of ten thousand measurements 
of weight of growing guinea-pigs and other animals 
from birth to maturity. The rate of growth was 
found to steadily diminish from birth onward ; so that 
the loss of power begins at once, and continues until 
death. The common views of death were discussed, 
and the current conceptions of animal individuality 
were attacked. The author then referred to the 
bearing of our present knowledge of senescence upon 
the theory of life, and the relation of life to a mate- 
rial substratum. 

A paper on the osteology of Oreodon was read by 
Mr. W. B. Scott, in which this genus was said to 
belong to the Artiodactyla, although there are some 
strong resemblances to the Suidae. Vertebrae are ru- 
minant, markedly in the case of the axis. Thoracic 
vertebrae have long prominent spines, and small 
bodies slightly amphicoelous. Lumbars, probably 
five in number, are heavy, with short spines and 
broad flat transverse processes. Sacrum contains 
two vertebrae which touch the ileum. The tail is 
long and slender, and the legs proportionally long. 
There are a short head and short metapodials, giving 
the animal a wolf-like appearance. The radius and 
ulna are distinct. The carpus consists of eight bones, 
including the pisiform. There are short unanky- 
losed metacarpals. The ungual phalanges are long 
and pointed, as in Hyopotamus. A rudimentary 
pollex is present, this being the only artiodactyl with 
one. 

Mr. J. Struthers, in a paper on finger-muscles in 
Megaptera longimana, and in other whales, records 
rudimentary flexor and extensor muscles in these 
animals, and shows that they are more or less used, 
as the muscular fibres are red and not degenerated. 

Dr. G. M. Sternberg described his experimental 
research relating to the etiology of tuberculosis. The 
author repeated the inoculation experiments of Koch, 
with similar results. The experiments of Formad 
to induce tuberculosis in rabbits by introducing into 
the cavity of the abdomen finely powdered inor- 
ganic material, have also been repeated with entirely 
negative results. The author held that Koch’s bacil- 
lus was an essential factor in the etiology of tuber- 
culosis. 

Dr. C. E. Bessey, in a paper on the adventitious 
inflorescence of Cuscuta glomerata, stated that the 


i‘ 


SCIENCE. 


examination of young plants shows that the inflo- 
rescence is developed from numerous crowded ad- — 
ventitious buds, and not by the repeated branching © 
of axillary flowering branches as commonly stated. 

In a paper on the hitherto unknown mode of ovi- 
position in the Carabidae, Prof. C. V. Riley records 
habits of Chlaenius impunctifrons, traced from the 
egg up. The eggs are laid singly in cells made of 
mud or clay, on the under surface of leaves. 

Mrs. A. B. Blackwell read a paper on the compara- 
tive longevity of the sexes. The study was exhaus- 
tive, and made on statistics from all parts of the 
world; and the greater longevity of woman over man 
was established. In old countries the females pre- 
ponderate, while males lead in newly settled ones. 
Up to eighteen years the males are in excess of the 
females: later the females predominate. . 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF ~— 
HISTOLOGY AND MICROSCOPY. 


THE attendance at this section was very small, 
partly because the other sections drew away not only 
many members, but many papers also; partly too, we 
imagine, because the American society of microsco- 
pists had held its annual meeting a short time previ- 
ously. The future of this section is somewhat uncer- 
tain, especially because many of the members are 
unwilling to have their histological papers withdrawn 
from the section of biology. The abolition of the 
section was much discussed, not only among the 
members interested, but also in the section itself. 
As the number of communications and the attend- 
ance were both of the smallest, the feeling against 
the continuance of the section, with its separate or- 
ganization and equal rank with the sections of phys- 
ics, biology, geology, etc., became very decided with 
many of those most interested. Finally, Dr. C. S. 
Minot announced in general session, that he should 
bring up a motion to amend the constitution so that 
section G shall be abolished. This amendment will 
come up for consideration at the next meeting of the 
association. 

Alexis A. Julien read a paper on an immersion 
apparatus for the determination of the temperature 
of the critical point in the fluid cavities of minerals. — 
The extensive occurrence of carbon dioxide in min- 
erals renders the determination of its critical point 
important; yet with the forms of apparatus hitherto 
described for this use, there have been sources of 
serious error. The author described a new device - 
for raising a thin section of a mineral, mounted on a 
glass slide, to an accurately determinable temperature 
upon the stage of the microscope. ‘The arrangement — 
consists of a thin walled box heated by conduction 
from a taper through the copper plate which forms its 
bottom, and which projects beyond the stage. The 
thermometer has a scale ranging from 22° to 45° C.5 
each degree on the scale being two centimetres in 
length, and divided into tenths. The bore and length 
are so arranged as to bring that part of the scale near 
30° on a level with the eye at the eye-piece, in order 


- 


~ 


OCTOBER 3, 1884.] 


to facilitate quick readings without moving the head. 
The box serves as a water-bath in which any objective 
from one-half to one-tenth may be immersed without 
serious loss to the objective’s optical capacity. The 
critical point of the fluid may be readily determined 
in ten minutes by both the disappearance and re- 
appearance of the bubble within a twentieth of a 
degree. For further details the author referred to 
his earlier paper upon an apparatus for this purpose. 

Dr. Theobald Smith presented an account of Sal- 
mon’s culture-tubes; but as it has not yet been 
revised by Dr. Salmon, we postpone notice of it. 

Prof. Henry F. Osborn’s paper upon a microscopic 
method of studying the amphibian brain was valua- 
ble. The brain is hardened in ‘ Miiller’s fluid,’ the 
ventricles being fully injected. After the usual alco- 
holic treatment, the brain is placed for one week in 
a carmine solution, then for twenty-four hours in 
acetic acid. The embedding mass is prepared by 
shaking the contents of an egg with three drops of 
glycerine. After soaking in this mass, the brain is 
placed in position, and hardened in the vapor of boil- 
ing eighty-per-cent alcoho]. The mass is then placed 
for one week in absolute alcohol. Section is made 
under alcohol with a Jung’s microtome. The sec- 
tions on the slide are arranged, covered with old- 
fashioned blotting-paper (cigarette-paper was sug- 
gested as better by Dr. C.S. Minot), and treated with 
alcohol and oil of cloves through the paper, a device 
which may prove convenient in many cases. 

Dr. H. G. Beyer reported one of his observations 
made during his still uncompleted researches on Lin- 
gula. In his abstract he says, ‘‘One of the points 
that I should like to demonstrate from one of my 
sections is a probable communication of the so-called 
segmental tubes with one of the diverticula (liver) of 
the alimentary canal of the animal, by means of a 
convoluted tubule;’’ certainly an important observa- 
tion if verified. 

Dr. R. H. Ward described a couple of neat contriv- 
ances, — one, a new illuminating arrangement called 
the iris illuminator; the other, a long-armed lens- 
holder. Prof. William A. Rogers gave a description 
of the various steps by which a centimetre or an inch 
may be produced from a standard metre or a stand- 
ard yard respectively. 

The remaining papers contained almost no new 
original matter, but were chiefly accounts of methods 
or apparatus well known to professional workers. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 


THuRSDAY forenoon was occupied by the general 
meeting, leaving only time for the organization of 
the sections. In the afternoon the address of the 
vice-president, Prof. E. S. Morse, was delivered to a 
very attentive and interested audience. As we have 
already given this address in abstract, no analysis 
need be added here. 

The real work of the section began on Friday morn- 
ing, with a paper by Rey. S. D. Peet, upon emblematic 
mounds, their uses and purposes. The author, hav- 


SCIENCE. 


343 


ing carefully studied many of the mounds, has reached 
the conclusion that from them much may be learned 
as to the symbolism of the people who made them, 
and through this of the people themselves. He 
thinks that certain animal forms were used for specific 
localities. For example, turtle mounds were placed 
upon high ground where a lookout would be stationed ; 
eagle mounds, near bluffs; panther mounds stood 
guard over village sites. He believes that the mounds 
indicate the totems of the tribe which made them. 
The paper was illustrated by charts, and was followed 
by an extended discussion. Many of the archeolo- 
gists present were evidently unable to identify some 
of Mr. Peet’s mounds, as represented in his diagrams, 
with known animals, so confidently as he did; and 
some of the outlines seemed quite unlike those of any 
animal, though of most the animal form was evident. 
The discussion soon turned upon symbolism in gen- 
eral. Mr. La Fléche, an Omaha Indian, and mem- 
ber of the section, spoke of some of the symbols 
common among his people. Dr. Syle of China re- 
ferred to similar symbols common among the Japan- 
ese and Chinese, and noticed the very remarkable 
resemblance which existed between current symbols 
in eastern Asia and western America. Dr. E. B. 
Tylor spoke of the totem system as wide spread, 
being found not only in North America, but as well 
in South America, Micronesia, and among the hill 
tribes of India. 

Then came a paper by Miss A. C. Fletcher, upon 
child-life among the Omahas. It was such an account 
as only one who had lived among the people, and 
with hearty sympathy entered into their daily lives, 
could have given; and the earnest, clear, tender treat- 
ment of the subject was most delightful. We were 
told how, when ten days old, the child received a 
sacred name given with impressive ceremonies; how 
its cradle was prepared, and how lovingly the little 
one was tended, often by father as well as mother. 
This cradle is a flat board, to which the child, laid on 
its back, is swathed; the bandages for girls being dif- 
ferent from those used for boys. Because of this 
treatment, most Indians exhibit a peculiar flattening 
of the occiput. The child is not kept constantly on 
the board, but at times is allowed to kick about at 
will; and after the sixth month it is rarely used, a 
hammock then taking its place. The crying of the 
child seems very unpleasant to them, and if it occur 
they use every means to quiet it. When the child is 
three years old, the solemn ceremony of cutting its 
hair generally takes place, though all the children do 
not receive this. Before this, the hair is allowed to 
grow. At this time, if the parents desire, a new 
name may be given to the child. Each gens has its 
own style according to which the hair is cut. The 
home life of Omaha children was shown to be pleas- 
ant and joyous, and the child is very much attached 
to it. ‘Toys, games, and story-telling abound. After 
early childhood has passed, various duties are assigned 
to the children, — to the boys, the care of the ponies, 
the use of the bow and arrow, etc.; to the girls, the 
care of younger children, and later tilling the ground, 
dressing skins, and cooking, and until a girl is profi- 


d44 


cient in all these things. she is not regarded as fit for 
marriage, which occurs when she is about twenty. 
At the conclusion of the paper, which Dr. Tylor 
called ‘most tantalizing,’ many questions were asked, 
and ‘in response to these many additional facts were 
given. That great respect for woman prevailed 
among the Omahas, was emphatically asserted by 
Miss Fletcher. Articles of taboo were common; each 
gens having a certain group of objects which must 
not, Ol. any account, be touched. Dreams play a 
very important part in an Indian’s life: to him, 
dreams are as real as any part of the actual world 
about him. Mrs. Smith, spoke of a custom among 
the Iroquois, of placing near the mouth of the dead 
baby when buried a cloth saturated with the moth- 
er’s milk. Friday afternoon’s reading began with a 
paper by Miss F. E. Babbitt, describing certain very 
rude quartz objects found in situ in undisturbed 
gravel-banks in central Minnesota. Dr. Abbott, in 
connection with this paper, described and exhibited 
some of the objects found by him in the Trenton 
gravels. In the next paper, Rev. S. D. Peet endeav- 
ored to show the importance of a study of the 
architecture of prehistoric nations as a means of dis- 
covering their degree of civilization, and subdividing 
the stages of progress. 

A much-neglected and yet not unimportant depart- 
ment of ethnology was brought before the section in 
a paper by Mr. A. W. Butler, on local weather-lore, in 
which he presented a collection of sayings respecting 
the weather, current in southern Indiana, excluding 
all that are of more wide-spread use. The last paper 
of the afternoon, by Mr. A. E. Douglass, described 
in a very complete manner some of the mounds of 
the Atlantic coast of Florida which the author had 
explored. Both shell and earth mounds are found 
quite evenly distributed along the coast from the 
mouth of the St. John’s River to the southern part 
of Lake North. The shell mounds are for the most 
part situated upon narrow strips of land which sepa- 
rate the numerous lagoons from the sea. Some are 
of great size: one shell ridge is eight miles long; and 
one mound, which covered three acres, was made up 
entirely of the little shells of Donax variabilis. 
These large mounds were constructed at different 
times. The earth mounds occur inland. Two of 
the mounds are composed wholly of bits of rock; and 
one large mound has, three feet below the surface, a 
pavement of stone which extends entirely across it. 
Implements and other objects are often found in the 
mounds of the St. John’s River, but not in the more 
southern mounds. Mr. Douglass’s account was quite 
detailed, and a very interesting and valuable addition 
to our knowledge of the subject. 

On Monday morning the section first listened to a 
paper by Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, on disputed points 
concerning Iroquois pronouns. She spoke of the 
peculiar difficulties which arose from the manner in 
which the pronouns were used in Iroquois, — some of 
them being arbitrarily used; different words some- 
times requiring unlike pronouns for the same person 
and number; and there were other peculiarities 
which had misled students of the language. Another 


i 


SCIENCE. 


difficulty and source of error was found in the use of 
gender. 
ders, a noble and an ignoble; while the author had 
found three, as in English. Some of the pronouns, 
as that of the third person, answering to our ‘he, she, 
it,’ are always incorporated; while others, as indeter- 
minate pronouns, are always expressed independently. 
The grammar of Pere Marcoux was criticised by the 
author, and certain errors pointed out. Dr. Tylor 
remarked, in connection with this paper, upon the 
importance of studying the treatment of gender in 
any savage language with great care. Not all peoples 
recognize the division of living or other objects into 
male, female, and neuter. The Zulus have many 
classes, or genera, into one or another of which any 
given object falls; but they do not make any distinc- 
tion of male and female. Miss Fletcher said that 
among the Sioux the same pronoun was used for 
both sexes, the gender being determined by the con- 
text. 

A very long and extremely interesting account was 
then given by Mr. F. W. Putnam, of the explorations 
which he and Dr. Metz had carried on under the aus- 
pices of the Peabody museum at Cambridge. These 
investigations had been chiefly devoted to the study 
of a group of mounds near Madisonville, Ind., known 
as the Turner group. The very careful manner in 
which the exploration of the mounds had been car- 
ried on —the earth taken away and examined shov- 
elful by shovelful— was shown, and the results of 
the work enumerated and illustrated by diagrams 
and photographs in great number. Neither time, 
labor, nor money had been spared in the prosecution 
of the work; and as a result one of the most remark- 
able series of objects ever discovered in America had 
been obtained, and also many new facts respecting the 
structure of the mounds themselves. For example, 
it was found that in stratified mounds the layers were 
always horizontal, not, as usually represented, curved. 
Singular ash-pits, masses of burned clay, layers of 
stones, and other features were mentioned and illus- 
trated. Among the objects taken from the largest 
mound of the group were the following, some of 
them never found before in the mounds: shell beads, 
disks, and rings, which were obtained in thousands; 
cones cut from alligator-teeth; ornaments cut from 
plates of buffalo-horn, mica, and native copper; ob- 
jects of native silver, and even gold, and meteoric 
iron; pearls, most of them pierced, and injured by 
heat (not less than fifty thousand of these were found) ; 
small stone dishes beautifully carved to represent 
some animal form; and last, and perhaps most impor- 
tant, terra-cotta figurines of exceedingly artistic form, 
and strangely Egyptian in character. These objects, 
it should be noted, are all of an ornamental character: 
no other sort was found in this mound. A brief 


paper by Miss C. A. Studley described some of the 


crania from this mound, and others near it. 


In the next paper, Dr. P. R. Hoy showed how — 


grooved stone axes and similar implements could be 


manufactured by the use of a common hammer- — 


stone, and showed specimens that had been so ma 
by a friend. The specimens, which Dr. Hoy asserted 


ry 


The early writers recognized but two gen- — 


se - 


- 


OcTOBER 3, 1884. ] 


were made without great labor, were certainly dan- 
gerous counterfeits, such as might readily be passed 
off asgenuine. Mr. Putnam remarked, after Dr. Hoy 
had finished, that many counterfeits were now manu- 
factured, and that they might be found in almost 
every large collection, and he had knowledge of one 
shipment of two thousand of these frauds to England. 

Following this was a paper by Major Powell, on the 
mythology of the Wintuns, a people living in the 
Sacramento valley. Many curious myths collected 
among this people by the author were given, but an 
abstract of such a paper is hardly possible. A few 
of the beliefs of this tribe may, however, be given. 
They believe in three worlds, and that each has its 
peculiar class of inhabitants. The sky is smoke. 
(Other — and the majority of —Indians believe that 
it is ice, as snow and hail show, and rain is the same 
melted; while a few think it quartz crystal.) Moun- 
tains were made by the burrowing of the mole-god. 
Light and darkness are maiden goddesses. Rocks 
and other inanimate things were once living, and 
some rocks now live and speak; and this is the Win- 
tun explanation of echoes. Whirlwinds are little 
spirits seeking water to drink. Diseases are caused 
by mythical animals. The ‘tar baby’ of the negroes 
of the south appears in some form in the mythology 
of not less than fifty tribes of Indians; and other 
bits of negro folk-lore are also found among the 
Indians, from whom the slaves must have obtained 
them. Dr. W. H. Dall then read a paper on the use 
of labrets, its title being ‘ The geographical distribu- 
tion of labretifery.’ He described labrets of differ- 
ent sorts, and the mode in which they were worn. 
The extent of the custom over the continent was also 
noticed, and the fact that it is less prevalent now 
than formerly. The great size of some of the lab- 
rets worn was mentioned. 

Tuesday morning marked an epoch in the history 
of the section, because of the very thrilling and vivid 
account and exhibition of the sacred pipes of friend- 
ship used by the Omahas. The pipes themselves 
are held in such reverence by the Indians, that they 
are never allowed to leave the tribe, and those 
shown the audience were the first ever taken away; 
and the ceremonies described and illustrated had 
never before been presented to an audience of white 
men. Moreover, it was extremely interesting to 
hear a full-blooded Indian explaining in clear, well- 
chosen sentences, some of the most sacred mys- 
teries of his tribe to an audience of anthropologists. 
Mr. La Fléche first described the pipes, and how they 
were made, — the stem of ash, seven spans long, dec- 
orated with certain feathers of the owl, woodpecker, 
eagle, and duck, and with hair from the breast of the 
rabbit, and streamers of horse-hair dyed red. The 
stem was painted green, and grooved by narrow 
Straight grooves; and, when the two pipes are in 
place, they rest upon a wildcat-skin at one end, 
while the other is supported by a crotched stick, and 
under them are two gourd rattles which are shaken 
in accompaniment to the song, or chant, sung when 
the pipes are taken up and waved to and fro as they 
are during the ceremony. After Mr. La Fléche had 


SCIENCE. 


345 


given his paper, Miss Fletcher continued the ac- 
count, showing how strong the tie of friendship 
formed in the presence of the pipes is, — stronger 
even than ties of blood; and that in their presence 
no anger or ill-will could have place, but all must be 
peace and harmony. She spoke of the miraculous 
power attributed to the pipes by the Indians. The 
stem was of ash, because that and the cedar were the 
two sacred trees; the ash being associated with that 
which is good, and the cedar with that which is bad. 
With deep pathos she described the ceremony which 
took place when the pipes were given to her to bring 
away, and explained that it was only because of their 
profound gratitude to her for securing their lands to 
them from the government, that this mark of their 
great confidence and esteem was bestowed upon her 
by the Omahas. No account can justly describe the 
character of this joint paper. It was constantly illus- 
trated by reference to the sacred objects exhibited, 
and afforded those who heard it a most vivid and 
intensely interesting insight into the hidden mys- 
teries of Indian life and character. 

Following this was a very instructive paper by 
Prof. E. S. Morse, giving some of the results of ex- 
tended interviews with a Korean. Many interesting 
facts respecting this little-known people were given. 
The author spoke of the great filial obedience and 
devotion of the sons, the secluded position of women, 
the system of serfs; the law forbidding all except 
the king from decorating the exterior of their houses, 
or having any other than rectangular openings for 
doors or windows. The bride and groom never see 
each other before marriage. There is a general tend- 
ency to indolence. Strangely, a horse-shoe is a sign 
of good luck. Their games are numerous, and some of 
them intricate. Many of the superstitions of the 
Koreans were given. 

After this, Dr. Tylor spoke upon North-American 
races and civilization. He alluded to the wonderful 
resemblance of our North-American tribes to Mon- 
golian peoples, —a resemblance suggesting at once, 
not an indigenous origin for the Indian tribes, but 
a migration from Asia across Bering Strait. The 
greatest objection to this view is found in the very 
great diversity in the languages of the American 
nations. This leads to an examination of the evi- 
dences of the antiquity of man upon this continent; 
for, unless we can prove an antiquity sufficiently 
remote to allow time for the strange diversity of 
tongues to have occurred, our perplexity is great. 
While there is this diversity of language, there is 
great similarity in the social condition. The matri- 
archal system (descent, etc., through the mother, not 
the father) is universally prevalent. 

A most thoughtful and able paper was then- read 
by Major Powell, on three culture periods, — say- 
agery, barbarism, and civilization. The evolution of 
man was dwelt upon very earnestly by the speaker. 
He very emphatically, and almost indignantly, ex- 
pressed his belief that man’s evolution never is nor 
can be a struggle for existence. Man does not change 
with change of environment; he changes, and adapts 
his environment to himself. The struggle has been 


346 SCIENCE. 


removed from man to his activities. Man progresses, 
not by struggling for existence, but by means of his 
pursuit of happiness. Animals live each for itself: 
man cannot live for himself alone. When animals 
were domesticated, a great step in advance was taken. 
By this means, and by the introduction of agriculture, 
the gens was broken up, and the matriarchal system 
changed to a patriarchal. Another great step was 
taken when metallurgical processes were discovered; 
then civilization was reached. Owing to the lateness 
of the hour, Major Powell omitted a large part of his 
most interesting paper. Speaking, as he did, with 
the earnestness of intense conviction, he bore his 
audience from argument to argument in a masterly 
manner; and many warm expressions of approval 
were bestowed upon the author. 

The opening paper on Wednesday morning, by 
Mrs. Erminnie Smith, discussed in a very original 
manner the formation of Iroquois words. She very 
pertinently called attention to the fact, that most 
students of Iroquois had contented themselves with 
collating lists of words, while the more thorough and 
useful method would involve a search for roots by 
analyzing words; and the author had proceeded in 
this way, and as aresult made many curious discov- 
eries. Certain errors in dictionaries of the language 
were pointed out. The Tuscarora language, she 
thinks, affords a key to the dialects of the other six 
nations. Examples illustrating the formation and 
origin of many words were given. The literal mean- 
ing of many words in common use is very curious: 
for example, tears are, literally, eye-juice; whiskey, 
deformed water; agony, he eats up his life; a bank 
isa money-farm, — the principal is the mother, and the 
interest the baby. Birds are often named from their 
note, other animals from some physical peculiarity. 

Following this was a long and most instructive 
paper by Dr. A. Graham Bell, upon a race of deaf- 
mutes in North America. Mr. Bell first called atten- 
tion to the increasing prevalence of deaf-mutes in the 
United States. He showed that the increase of deaf- 
mutes was very much greater relatively than that of 
other classes. In order to open his argument, he 
asked the question, ‘How can we in the most sci- 
entific manner establish a race of deaf-mutes?’ In 
answer to this question, he showed that no more 
efficient means for the formation of such a race could 
be set in action than just those which, from the best 
of motives, philanthropy had used and was still using 
for the benefit (?) of these unfortunate people. The 
system of secluding deaf-mutes, so that they asso- 
ciated only with each other; teaching them a special 
language, so that they learn to think, not in English, 
but in a language as distinct from it as French or Ger- 
man, and thus lose largely their use of English, and 
cannot express themselves well in written English, — 
all this he strongly deprecated. He spoke of erroneous 
ideas respecting the deaf and dumb, which are more 
or less prevalent. In the education of deaf-mutes, 
Mr. Bell would follow a different course from that 
usually pursued. He would have this class of chil- 
dren educated in the constant company of children 
who can hear and speak, not reciting in the same 


- 


classes, except in map-drawing and such subjects, 
but in rooms by themselves, and yet mingling with 
other children as much as possible. He would have — 
deaf children learn to understand what was said to 
them, by watching the motion of the lips. He would, 
so far as might properly be done, discourage inter-— 
marriage between deaf-mutes. He would have all 
deaf-mutes taught articulation; for, only by making ~ 
the attempt, can it be known who can and who 
cannot speak. Professor Gordon of the Deaf-mute 
college in Washington spoke at some length upon the 
subject of Dr. Bell’s paper, agreeing with the author — 
in many important points, but disagreeing with him 
in others. He thought the deaf-mutes less isolated, 
and the danger of forming an increasing race very 
much less, than did Professor Bell. He also strongly 
advocated the use of the sign language, at least in ~ 
elementary classes: when older, the vernacular may 
well be used. 

The first paper of the afternoon was by Rev. S. D. 
Peet, upon tribal and clan lines recognized among the 
emblematic mounds. Following this was a descrip- 
tion of a hitherto undescribed sacrificial stone at San 
Juan Teotihuacan, by Mr. A. W. Butler. This is five 
feet anda half square at the top, and six feet high, very 
elegantly carved, the bulk of the stone being occupied 
by a gigantic human head. The closing papers were 
by Prof. E. S. Morse, who added still further to the — 
already great mass of information which he has given 
us respecting the Japanese. The first paper, on arch- 
ery in Japan, gave accounts of methods of arrow 
release and the use of the bow, giving many inter- 
esting facts. In his second paper, on the use of the 
plough in Japan, Professor Horse showed some of 
the forms of plough seen in Japan, and the manner 
in which they were used. 

Thus closed a meeting which all the members of 
the section agreed had been one of the most success- 
ful ever held. The papers were, many of them, of 
great weight and permanent value, and must forma 
part of the standard literature of American ethnology ~ 
and archeology. The discussions were especially 
notable because of the presence of eminent English 
anthropologists, as Dr. Tylor, Dr. Syle, and others, 
who freely took part, and added their store of facts 
and enthusiasm. Not only were professional anthro- 
pologists greatly delighted and stimulated by the 
series of meetings; but the large audiences which, in 
spite of the very great heat, daily gathered in the 
room assigned to section H, showed quite conclusive- 
ly that some, at least, of the papers were of general 
interest. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF — 
ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 


THE section met in the hall of the Historical so- 
ciety of Pennsylvania, Thursday morning, Sept. 4. 
Gen. John Eaton, commissioner of education, was 
vice-president; and Charles W. Smiley of the U. 8. 
fish-commission, secretary. On and after Mon 
Hon. Lewis H. Steiner of Frederick City, Md., a 


OCTOBER 5, 1884. ] 


ealled away. The address of Gen. Eaton upon scien- 
tific methods and scientific knowledge in common 
affairs was well received by an audience of about 
fifty persons. Some of the more interesting papers 
were the following: — 

Prof. E. B. Elliott read a paper on the credit of the 
United-States Government, and presented tables and 
formulas. He said that the credit of the government 
had been continually increasing, as shown by the 
reduced rate of interest required; the rate of in- 
terest realized to investors in the four and a half per 
cents having been but about 2.7 per cent during the 
past four months. 

Miss Alice C. Fletcher of the Peabody museum 
presented a paper on lands in severalty to Indians, 
illustrated by experiences with the Omaha tribe. 
She spoke of the Indians’ ideas of land and property; 
of the agriculture of the Omahas, their reservation, 
their uneasiness upon the land tenure of Indians, 
and the desirability of securing to them land in 
severalty. The Indian question was discussed by 
Dr. Steiner, Mr. Spencer Borden, Mr. T. B. Browning, 
and others. 

Mr. J. B. Martin of London read a paper upon the 
future of the United States; this, being from an 
English point of view, was very interesting. He 
called attention to the rapidity with which the public 
lands are being taken up, and to the rapid increase 
in population, which he thinks will soon reach sev- 
enty-five millions. How shall this population be fed ? 
With the lands all taken up, and with cultivation 
brought up to a par with the improved agriculture of 
England, he estimated the surplus to suffice for thirty- 
five millions. The development of American agri- 
culture will have to depend on foreign markets for 
its products; and, as the experience of England and 
America has been that food-supply is regulative of 
population, it may be assumed that Great Britain 
will long supply a market for cheap American food- 
products. But, meanwhile, the urban population is 
growing relatively to the country population; and 
this fact may be expected to exercise a retarding 
influence on the development of agriculture. The 
condition of the public debt was remarked upon as 
without parallel elsewhere. The debt charge has 
decreased to one-fifth the public revenue, while that 
of Great Britain is one-third the total revenue. With 
a debt entirely manageable, and with charges for 
naval and military purposes merely nominal, the 
nation will be able to develop itself under the most 
favorable conditions ever witnessed in the world. 
But the opportunity for capitalists to invest in public 
bonds failing, and the exceedingly low rate of in- 
terest, he regarded as ominous, and as likely to pro- 
duce low wages, low prices generally, cheaper raw 
material, cheaper production, and close competition. 


The impossibility of spending the national revenue — 


will cause a reduction of customs duties. With in- 
crease of population, and diffusion of wealth, the 
accumulation of individual fortunes will become 
more difficult, ‘corners’ less frequent, and time be 
found for literature, science, and art. He anticipates 
a gradual federation of state rights, increased inter- 


SCIENCE. 


B47 


communication, perpetual shifting of population from 
state to state,—all tending to a complete amalga- 
mation in one federal republic. 

Mr. Thomas Hampson of the bureau of education 
read a paper on the apprenticeship question and 
industrial schools. He maintained that the appren- 
ticeship system does not provide an adequate supply 
of workmen, and that it cannotsbe modified so as to 
aco so. He, therefore, would substitute scientific for 
literary studies in the common schools, and establish 
manual-labor schools everywhere. Mr. C. M. Wood- 
ward, principal of the St. Louis manual training- 
school, gave a full account of that institution, which 
had been exceedingly useful thus far. Mr. Spencer 
Borden, owner of a bleachery at Fall River, Mass., 
encouraged the proposition; saying that he had be- 
come dependent upon foreigners for foremen of his 
factory, much against his wishes. The discussion 
showed much sympathy with the plan, though very 
little for labor-industrial schools, the latter tending 
to speculation upon the work of the pupils. 

Professor W. O. Atwater of Wesleyan university 
read a paper on percentages and costs of nutrients in 
foods, which elicited great interest. Of the different 
nutrients, protein is physiologically the most impor- 
tant, as it is pecuniarily the most expensive. Among 
the animal foods, those which rank as delicacies are 
the costliest. ‘The protein in oysters costs from two 
to three dollars, and in salmon nearly six dollars, per 
pound; in beef, mutton, and pork, it varies from 108 
to 48 cents; in shad, blue-fish, haddock, and halibut, 
about the same; while in cod and mackerel, it ranges 
from 67 to as low as 33 cents per pound. Salt cod 
and salt mackerel are nearly always, fresh cod and 
mackerel often, and even the choicer fish as blue-fish 
and shad, when abundant, cheaper sources of protein 
than any but the inferior kinds of meat. With the 
larger proportions of both refuse and water, the pro- 
portions of nutrients, though variable, are usually 
much less than in meats. Thus a sample of flounder 
contained 67 per cent of refuse, 28 of water, and only 
5 per cent of nutritive substance; while the salmon 
averaged 23, the salt cod 22, and the salt mackerel 36, 
per cent of nutrients. ‘The nutrients in meats ranged 
from 30 per cent in beef to 46 in mutton and 874 in 
very fat pork. Canned fish compare very favorably 
with meats. Vegetable foods have generally less water 
and more nutrients than animal foods. Ordinary 
flour, meal, etc., contain from 85 to 90 per cent or 
more of nutritive material; but the nutritive value is 
not proportional to the quantity of nutrients, because 
the vegetable foods consist mostly of carbo-hydrates, 
starch, sugar, cellulose, etce., of inferior nutritive 
effect, and because their protein is less digestible 
than that of animal foods. Potatoes contain a large 
amount of water and extremely little protein or fats. 

Prof. J. W. Chickering, jun., and Prof. J. C. Gordon 
of the National deaf-mute college, Washington, read 
papers upon the condition of deaf-mutes and deaf- 
mute instruction. Deaf-mutes average 1 in 1,500 of 
the world’s population. In the United States there 
were 33,878 reported by the last census. Over 15,000 
have received an education, and are engaged in the 


348 SCIENCE. 


ordinary pursuits of life, 12,000 are of school age, 


- and from 1,000 to 2,000 are uneducated adults. There . 


are fifty-eight schools and one college, for this class, 
in this country. The usefulness of the educated and 
the pitiful condition of the uneducated were described 
by Professor Chickering. Professor Gordon main- 
tained, in opposition to the views of Dr. A. Graham 
Bell, that the complete education of those born deaf 
demands social knowledge, special training, and 
special methods which are not possible in common 
schools; while the literal co-education of those born 
deaf, with hearing children, is an admitted impossi- 
bility. Deaf children prepared by special instruction 
to join regular classes in common schools without 
detriment to themselves, or to their classmates, do 
not need common-school instruction, having incident- 
ally accomplished the work of the common school in 
gaining this mastery of language. The advantages 
of association with hearing children in the public 
schools are largely illusory, the environment being 
substantially the same as that of all deaf children 
before leaving their families to enter special institu- 
tions. Parents and public-school teachers can readily 
qualify themselves to render valuable help to deaf- 
mutes by beginning their education, and supplying, 
as far as possible, the training corresponding to the 
material education of infants and the earlier part 
of the work of kindergarten and infant schools. No 
satisfactory plan has ever been found for supplying 
deaf classes, in public schools, with teachers having 
the special fitness, knowledge, and training requisite 
for the satisfactory education of those born deaf. 
Special institutions remain a necessity for the great 
majority of deaf children; and they show superior 
results with the greatest economy of time, money, 
and men, irrespective of method, system, or devices 
of instruction. 

Mr. William Kent of New York read a paper on 
irregularity in railroad-building as a chief cause of 
recent business depressions, which he supported with 
statistics and diagrams. He proved some remarkable 
coincidences during four periods from 1860 to 1883, 
1869 to 1873 and 1879 to 1885 having been periods of 
great activity in railroad-building. The paper was 
discussed by Mr. Loren Blodget of Philadelphia, Mr. 
James H. Kellogg of Troy, N.Y., Mr. J. R. Dodge, 
and Mr. E. T. Peters. It was not generally conceded 
that cause and effect had been proven. Mr. Blodget 
referred to similar irregularities in English rates of 
interest, and Mr. Dodge to similar irregularities in 
cereals produced. In 1873 and 1874 these fell off six 
hundred millions of bushels, and the price rose from 
forty to sixty-four cents. 

Mr. P. H. Dudley described his dynagraph and 
track-inspection car, and many members visited the 
car at West Philadelphia. This is one of the great- 
est of the many recent inventions for the safety of 
the travelling public. 

Mr. L. A. Smith of Washington pointed out the 
advantages of great expositions to consist in 19°. 
stimulating the development of material resources, 


2°. the introduction of profitable industries, 3° the. 


improvement of manufactures, 4°. the increase of 


i 


Bad 5 


trade, 5°. the founding of institutions, 6°. the social 
development of the people, 7°. advancement of sci-_ 
ence, and 8°. the promotion of technical education. — 
Don Arturo de Marcoartu of Madrid spoke upon 
the commercial relations of the United States with 
Spain and her colonies. He showed the meagreness 
of the present trade, and urged the importance of a 
treaty which should increase it. A line of steamers 
from Vigo or Lisbon to Boston or Baltimore is needed. — 
The Umbria could make the voyage in six days. He © 
desires to see the tariffs arranged so as to allow the 
exportation all over the Spanish territory of the 
American cereals, bread, coal, wood, cattle, and meats, — 
and ‘some other products wanted by the Spanish col- 
onies; and to allow at the same time, on the other — 
hand, the importation into the American union of — 
wines, spirits, molasses, sugar, fruits, salt, and other — 
Spanish products required in the United States. 4 
Mr. George F. Kunz of Tiffany & Co. read a valu- — 
able paper on the American pearl, describing its form, 
color, lustre, and giving a list of the important ‘ finds.’ 
He sGsonavel the yield from 1881 to 18 at $17,500 
worth. 4 
Dr. Charles Warren, statistician of the U. S, bu- 
reau of education, read a paper on the learned pro- 
fessions and the public, 1870-1880. Deriving the 
number of persons engaged in law, medicine, and 
divinity, from the occupation tables of the census, he 
showed that the rate of increase for each profession — 
during the decade was much greater than the rate of 
increase in the general population. He commented 
upon the marked increase in the number of clergy- 
men of foreign birth, and the great increase in law- 
yers, particularly in states situated north of the ~ 
Potomac and Ohio rivers. Admitting that the num- — 
ber of clergymen is within the control of the sects 
purely, and not subject to legal interference, he 
observed that there is precedent for considering law- 
yers as officers of the state, and eminent propriety in 
making physicians also unpaid state officers. When 
this is done, the qualifications will be under state — 
control, and indirectly the supply can be limited to 
actual needs. In 1880 he believes there was a surplus 
of sixty-four thousand in these three professions, and ~ 
that decisive measures should be taken to remedy it. 
Mr. Smiley of the U.S. fish-commission illustrated 
what is doing by the government in fish-culture, by — 
presenting tables illustrative of the California salmon- 
work. An average of 2,500,000 young were deposited _ 
in the McCloud River from 1873 to 1883. The average - 
annual catch has increased, since propagation began, — 
by 4,391,882 pounds. This increase is worth, as it © 
comes from the water, $313,700 annually. The an- — 
nual cost of propagation is $3, 600, leaving a net profit — 
of $310,100 annually. | 
The sessions were all well attended ; the number of 
persons in attendance frequently reaching fifty, and 
on a few occasions seventy-five. The popular char-_ 
acter of the subjects induced this, and also induced — 
the local press to give of this section much fuller 
ports than it gave of any other. The section h 
improved very materially since its. “organization: 
Montreal in 1882. ; 


ee ae Te ee ee 


Set Ne EL. 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1884. 


‘COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

THE ancient geographers drew their prime 
meridian through the Island of Ferro. They 
have been followed by the geographers of Ger- 
many and eastern Europe; while the French 
reckon their time from the meridian of Paris, 
and use that meridian in their maps; and the 
English, Americans, and Dutch recognize the 
meridian of Greenwich as that of zero longi- 
tude. With all these prime meridians, and 
others not so much used, there naturally arises 
considerable confusion in comparing maps 
made on the different systems ; and especially 
is this the case in navigation, where the reduc- 
tion from one system of meridians to another 
has to be made by men who little enjoy extra 
figuring.. The idea of a universal prime meridi- 
an belongs to France ; and as long ago as 1632, 
at the suggestion of Richelieu, Louis XIII. 
issued a decree recognizing that of Ferro. 
But later, to gratify the pride of Louis XIV., 
France returned to the meridian of Paris. 
That some meridian may be universally recog- 
nized as the zero meridian, an international 
conference on a common prime meridian was 
invited to meet in Washington. 


The serious business of the conference was 
commenced last week Thursday by the dis- 
cussion of a resolution presented by Mr. 


Rutherford, that the meridian of Greenwich | 


should be recommended for the common use 
of all nations. So far as the views of the con- 
ferees were developed in the debate, it does 
not seem that serious opposition will be made 
to this proposal on the part of any nation but 
France. The French conferees have made a 
vigorous opposition to a decision in favor of 
any particular meridian, evidently desiring to 
keep the question open as long as possible. 
It is reported that they take this ground in 
pursuance of positive instructions from their 
No. 88, —1884. 


government not to agree to the meridian of 
Greenwich. The conference adjourned on 
Thursday until Monday of this week, when 
the discussion was resumed. Commander 
Sampson of the U.S. naval observatory, Pro- 
fessor Rutherford, the author of the resolution, 
Professor Abbe of the U.S. signal-service, 
Professor Adams, and Lieut.-Gen. Strachey of 
Great Britain, favored the resolution, and Mr. 
Janssen of France opposed it. Mr. Janssen 
argued in favor of the adoption of what he 
called ‘a neutral meridian.’ He suggested that 
the international prime meridian should run 
either through Bering Strait or one of the 
Azores. Without action, the conference ad- 
journed, subject to the call of the chairman. 
We can hardly share the view, which has 
found expression in the public prints, that the 
failure of France to accede to the decision will 
render the results of the conference nugatory. 
If all other nations adopt a common meridian, 
France will suffer much more by having one 
for her own exclusive use than any other na- 
tions will suffer by her action. The use of 
French maps, charts, books, etc., will be ren- 
dered inconvenient to others, and their circu- 
lation will thus be interfered with. 


Str Wittiam THomson’s course of lectures 
at Johns Hopkins university has opened with 
every prospect of being a brilliant success. 
It would be difficult to find a case in which a 
lecturer on so abstruse a subject was greeted 
with so large and appreciative an audience as 
was collected in Baltimore to hear our distin- 
guished visitor. It comprised not only the 
advanced students at the university, but pro- 
fessors from various parts of the country, 
including even the far north-west, who had 
left their stations to hear the latest thoughts 
of mathematical science on the subjects of 
the constitution of matter and the ethereal 
medium. The subject of the first part of the 
course is the undulatory theory of light, the 


300 


difficulties of which the lecturer did not at- 
tempt to conceal. It is, however, expected 
that the lectures will cover the ground of 
molecular physics in general, including the 
theory of vortex atoms, of which the lecturer 
himself, is, perhaps more than any one else, 
the originator. 


Ar the last session of congress, provision 
was made for an electrical commission, to be 
appointed by the president, and seventy-five 
hundred dollars appropriated for the work of 
the commission. The commission was ap- 
pointed, numbering among its members some 
of the best electricians of our country. It 
was generally expected that the commission 
would make some electrical experiments or 
tests pertaining to dynamos and secondary 
batteries. We believe such was the intention 
of the commission; but the Franklin institute 
of Philadelphia announced its determination 
to conduct experiments upon both these sub- 
jects, and the commission probably deem it 
inexpedient to make experiments in similar 
lines. We would suggest, that there are other 
subjects of as great or greater general public 
interest, upon which experiments might be ad- 
vantageously made. We refer to underground 
wires and induction. These are interesting 
scientific questions, and of vital importance to 
both public and private interests. ‘There are 
many patents for the laying of underground 
wires and for the prevention of induction. It 
is peculiarly proper that the merits of these 
different inventions should be investigated by a 
commission of scientific electricians, as a great 
difference of opinion exists between city cor- 
porations, and the telegraph, electric-light, 
and telephone companies, as to the use of such 
wires ; the former requiring that all wires should 
be run underground, the latter contending that 
there is no means now known for the success- 
ful use of underground wires extending any 
considerable distance. The questions of in- 
duction and ‘leakage’ are also most impor- 
tant, as every one knows who has listened to a 


telephone connected with one of our large oe 


exchanges. 


SCIENCE. 


MicroscopicaL science has been completely — 
revolutionized by a series of inventions, which 


have followed one another by such slow grad- 
uation, that the result is far more noticeable 
than the progress of the advance,— we see 
the change, but not the changing. Thirty 
years ago, there was little to do about a micro- 
scopical preparation. The object was placed 
under the microscope, and looked at. 
nique, little was known beyond squeezing the 
object between slide and cover-glass to make 
it thin, giving a dose of acetic acid, and mount- 
ing in Canada balsam. To-day a vast variety 


of methods are in use, the gradual accumu- — 


lation of the experience and experiments of 
numerous workers. The most delicate and 
fugitive phases of organization’ can now be 
caught and fixed; the softest and the hardest 
materials can be made to yield sections of 
the extremest thinness and consequent trans- 
parency ; dyes are skilfully used so that the 
pattern ‘of colors shows the distribution of 
parts of different constitution, and that which 
it is desired to see is marked out from its 
surroundings. Perfected microtomes, working 
automatically and driven by mechanical power, 
are made to cut an entire object into sections 
as thin as two thousand or three thousand 
to an inch, and keep every section in its proper 
place in the series. Indeed, the present per- 
fection of the art of preparing objects for 
microscopical examination was unlooked for, a 
generation ago. Nevertheless, the progress 
here has been equalled by that in the micro- 
scope itself: the cameras and illuminating ap- 
paratus, the application of the spectroscope, 
of photographic and measuring devices, and 
of the electric light, etc., have immensely 
increased the efficiency of the modern instru- 
ment. Yet there is another improvement 
greater than any of these, —the introduction 
of oil immersion objectives. 


testify. 


we 


Of tech- — 


Although the — 

progress we have hinted at has been enormous, 
it still continues more rapid than ever, as the — 4 
well-filled pages of the new microscopical jour- _ 
nal, referred to in our notes this week, amply — 
Nothing is more remarkable than the — 
rate of scientific progress to-day: men seem 4 


ee ee a 


- 


OcroBER 10, 1884. | 


in a fair way to be more amazed at their own 
intellectual production than at any thing that 
has yet happened in human history. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*x Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


The Hall effect. 


In your account of the proceedings of the section 
of physics, at the Philadelphia meeting of the Ameri- 
can association, occurs the passage: ‘‘ He [Mr. Hall] 
used not only gold-leaf, but strips of steel, tinfoil, 
and other metals, and clamped them sometimes at 
both ends, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes 
only at one end; and in all cases the action was the 
same, with the same metal, irrespective of the clamp- 
ing.”’ 

This statement is not accurate. I have subjected 
soft steel only to the test here described, and I did 
not with this metal try the experiment of clamping 
it at one end only. 

Again, it is not quite accurate to say that Mr. Bid- 
well attributes the action under discussion, to ‘‘ one 
edge {of the metal strip] being compressed and the 
other stretched.’’ One can best understand Mr. Bid- 
well’s explanation by examining the illustrations ac- 
companying his article in the Philosophical magazine 
for April, 1884. EK. H. HALL. 

Cambridge, Sept. 20. 


Iroquois pronouns. 


Allow me to correct the entire misconception of 
my Montreal paper by your reporter of the anthropo- 
logical section. I did not affirm that the ‘‘ mission- 
aries and all other authorities who have heretofore 
written on the Iroquois languages were mistaken,’’ 
ete On the contrary, I proved that my conclusions 
concerning the existence of an it, and the non-exist- 
ence of on, were correct by quoting the ‘ exceptions’ 
and so-called ‘idioms’ resorted to by the French mis- 
sionaries to sustain their adaptation of the language 
to the French form of two genders, etc. This ad- 
aptation, which simplified the study for the young 
priests, I affirmed would be folly for us to follow 
when writing upon Iroquois construction for English 
students. I proved my position by numerous ex- 
amples from the best native authority, from those 
who understood English or French as well as myself. 
I might remark here that such authority presents a 
vast contrast to that which the pioneer missionary 
could obtain, and greatly facilitates investigation. I 
could refer your reporter to ‘ vocabularies’ by long- 
resident missionaries which to-day are worthless from 
this fact. As to the ‘ English missionaries’ referred 
to, I know of none who have contributed to Iroquois 
grammar. 

I mentioned Rev. Ashur Wright, an American, as 
recognizing three genders; also Hon. Lewis Morgan, 
author of the ‘ League of the Iroquois.’ 

Upon so-called ‘ hazardous assertions’ depends the 
march of science, and I venture to re-assert, ‘if still 
moves.’ ERMINNIE A. SMITH. 

Jersey City, Oct. 1. 


Classification of Mollusca. 


In Professor Gill’s instructive comment on mollus- 
can classification, he unintentionally misquotes me. 
The review in question said that no single instance of 


tion. 


SCIENCE. 351 


a calcified jaw ‘ occurs to us,’ the two words in italics 
(omitted by Professor Gill) making all the difference 
between a positive assertion and a provisional one. 
The Nautilus, as Owen, Lankester, and others state, 
has been regarded as having a calcified jaw; and Iam 
quite confident that it is the single instance known 
among recent mollusks. However, there is reason to 
believe that the expression of Owen was used in a 
less precise sense than has been suppcsed by later 
writers, and that the calcification, if actually present, 
is at most partial, and perhaps a mere individual 
trait. In the only specimen of Nautilus I have had 
the good fortune to be able to examine, the visible 
parts of the jaw were wholly free from any calcifica- 
Whether the portions embedded in the mus- 
cular tissue, or otherwise hidden from view, may have 
been calcified, could not be determined, the specimen 
being held too precious to dissect. ‘The composition 
of the jaw of Spirula is entirely like that of ordi- 
nary cuttles, as far as the eye could determine; and 
it is evidently desirable that we should have further 
investigation in regard to that of Nautilus. 

In regard to the Acephala, it does not seem to me 
necessary that they should be ordinarily divided, un- 
less good ordinal characters can be found; and, if the 
characters now used are imperfect, there is no reason 
tor retaining the divisions founded on them, except 
in a provisional sense. 

I fully agree with Professor Gill, that the present 
Dimyaria are not derived from the present Mono- 
myaria; but whether both may not have had a 
monomyarian ancestor, it is still too early to decide, 
as it is (in a less degree) about the exact homologies 
of the shell glands in Chitons and ordinary gastro- 
pods, whose common characters seem to me largely 
adaptive. 

It may be added, that while, so far as we know, 
Ovulum has a purely involute shell, Pedicularia, in 
its early stages, resembles_a small Erato with a dis- 
tinct spire. WH DALE. 

U.S. national museum, Oct. 4. 


The primitive Conocoryphean. 


Your notice of Mr. G. F. Matthews’s paper, read 
before the British association, though complimentary, 
gave no idea of the contents. Part of this commu- 
nication was of exceptional importance. All accu- 
rate histories of the development of single animals 
are now thought well of ; but Mr. Matthews has 
traced not only the transformations of the larval, but 
the characteristics of the adult period, and the trans- 
formations of old age. This author has also added 
the general history of the evolution of some of the 
most ancient groups of the trilobites, and shown that 
the changes they pass through correspond with the 
changes which the individuals of one of the groups, 
the Ctenocephalus Matthewsi, passed through during 
its growth. Opportunities for doing this sort of work 
are rare, and the men who do it still rarer. 

ALPHEUS HYATT. 


[It was impossible for us, in the brief space at com- 
mand, in reporting promptly two scientific meetings 
of a week each in quick succession, to do justice to 
any paper. Many were altogether omitted. — Ep.] 


Book-postage in the United States. 


In reference to your remarks on the expense of 
using libraries through the mails, allow me to point 
out that this expense is in America exactly double 
what it is, and has been for many years, in England. 
and even in Canada. The English and Canadian 


302 


rate of book-postage is one cent for four ounces: the 
American rate is one cent for two ounces. Surely 
there can be no good reason for such a restriction on 
the diffusion of literature in this country. Distant 
subscribers to circulating libraries and book-elubs in 
England are regularly supplied through the mails. 
Why cannot we have similar facilities here ? 


A. MELVILLE BELL. 
Washington, D.C. 


Systematic earthquake observation. 


It will give me pleasure to join in any such sys- 
tematic effort to secure the observation of earth- 
quakes as is proposed in Science, iv. 334, and to 
provide, so far as practicable, for establishing seis- 
mometers, and making observations at this observa- 
tory. EDWARD C. PICKERING. 


Harvard college observatory, 
Cambridge, Oct. 4. 


Abnormal form of Trillium grandiflorum. 


Early in June, 1883, I found at North Ferrisburg, 
Vt., a curious specimen of ‘Trillium grandiflorum, — 
a species given to monstrosities, as every botanist 
knows. In this instance the petals were twenty-one 
in number, and pale green, edged with purple-pink, 
in color. I removed the plant to my garden; and in 
1884 it displayed a blossom with eighteen petals and 
six sepals. The petals were deeper in color than 
before, and their general hue was pink rather than 
green. At neither time were there any traces of 
organs of fructification. HENRY BALDWIN. 


Charlotte, Vt., Oct. 3. 


GEORGE BENTHAM. 


GrorcE Benruam died at his house in Lon- 
don on the 10th of September, —a few days 
before the completion of his eighty-fourth year. 
The event is in the course of nature. His 
scientific life came to a close in the spring of 
the preceding year, when he laid down his pen 
upon the completion of the ‘Genera planta- 
rum.’ His work finished, the wearied veteran 
succumbed to the bodily infirmities of age, yet 
still with mind essentially unimpaired, and has 
now gone to rest. His earliest publication 
bears the date of 1826, fifty-eight years ago. 
The first part of his classical monograph of the 
Labiatae was issued in 1832; and hardly a 
year of the subsequent half-century has passed 
without some botanical contribution from his 
hand. At the age of sixty, when most men _ 
seek retirement from service, he courageously 
entered upon his most formidable labors, — the 
‘Flora Australiensis,’ in which he was assisted 
by Von Miller in Australia; and the ‘ Genera 
plantarum,’ with Sir Joseph Hooker for his 


& 


SCIENCE. 


colleague, —and he lived to complete them — 
both. Fortunately, he was able to devote all 
his time and powers to his favorite studies ; and 
he steadily did so without distracting haste — 
and without delaying intermission, for his short 
annual holidays were themselves usually made 
subservient to botanical investigation.  Al- 
though he shunned official engagements and all 
time-consuming avocations, he did not refuse 
to bear his part of the burden in the administra- 
tion of scientific affairs. When young, he was 
for ten years honorary secretary of the London 
horticultural society, with Lindley for under- 
secretary, in the most active and flourishing 
days of that institution. Later, he held for 
thirteen years the presidency of the Linnean — 
society. In both situations he gave himself 
with characteristic thoroughness to his duties; _ 
he also brought to them a business tact, and a 
shrewdness of judgment and power of admin- 
istration, which his very retiring habits would 
not lead one to expect. His annual addresses 
from the chair of the Linnean society, always 
pertinent to the time and the occasion, are 
models both in thought and in statement, and 
are of permanent value. 

Mr. Bentham came of a notable stock. He 
was the nephew (and heir) of Jeremy Ben- 
tham; his father, Gen. Sir Samuel Bentham, 
was a naval engineer of remarkable talents ; 
and his mother, if we mistake not, was a 
daughter of Dr. Fothergill. Some years of 
his boyhood were passed in Russia; the re- 
mainder of his youth in France, where his ~ 
earliest botanical production was written and — 
published. On his return to England he en- 
tered at Lincoln’s Inn, and was admitted to 
the bar. About this time, to please his uncle, 
who had discerned his ability, he wrote a 
small and now very rare book upon logic, in 
which was first introduced the quantification 
of the predicate. But he soon returned to his 
early love, and devoted himself to phaenoga- — 
mous systematic botany, in which, since his — 
compeers, Brown, the elder Hooker, and Lind- — 
ley have passed away, he has been facile prin- i 
ceps. His remarkable gift for languages, near y: 
every European tongue being at his comm: 


OCTOBER 10, 1884.] 


was a great help: so, also, his independent but 
moderate fortune, free from family demands ; 
for he-was childless, and survived his wife. Of 
a philosophical temperament, and quite exempt 
from personal ambition, he might have been 
expected to take life casily ; but nobdlesse oblige 
ruled his spirit, and he gave himself with unre- 
mitting and most 
disinterested de- 
votion to his cho- 
sen line of work 
from boyhood to 
old age. He 
never seemed to 
select, easy or 
congenial work, 
as he might have 
done, but rather 
took upon him- 
self the harder 
tasks. What- 
ever he put his 
hand to was 
done faithfully ; 
and, large as 
were his under- 
takings, he had 
the rare merit 
and good fortune 
of having com- 
pleted all that 
he undertook. 
Hardly ever had 
a naturalist 
such a well- 
rounded life. 
Thirty years . 

ago he gave 

to Kew his herbarium and library; and there, 
though living in London, he set up his study, 
in near association with his colleague and 
dearest friend, the director, in an apartment 
which will seem desolate enough now that he 
is gone. There he might be found at his work 
from ten to four o’clock during five or six days 
of every week ‘ with the regularity of a bank- 
clerk.’ Neither biographical details nor an 
analysis of the work of Mr. Bentham are here 


SCIENCE. 


353 


attempted. These may be deferred to another 
occasion. But this simple tribute to a revered 
memory ought not to close without a word 
which may bring the reader nearer to the man. 
It might be thought that because Bentham was 
unusually reserved, and averse to popularity, he 
was of a cold and unsympathetic nature. It was 
not so. Rather, 
it was shyness, 
and a desire to 
save his time, 
that kept him 
aloof, and gave 
him an air of 
dryness. He 
was fond of the 
society of his 
intimate friends 
when the work 
of the day was 
over; and his 
attachments, if 
not numerous, 
were warm and 
true. All who 
really knew him 
will remember 
him as one of 
the most kindly, 
sweet- tempered, 
and generous- 
hearted of men. 

The accompa- 
nying likeness, 
from one of the 
few photographs 
which were ever 
taken of him, 
at about the age of 

AGG. 


represents Mr. Bentham 


fourscore. 


EDUCATION AT THE INTERNATIONAL 
HEALTH EXHIBITION, LONDON. 


As a member of the general committee of 
this exhibition, as well as of the chief educa- 
tional jury thereat, the present writer has been 
requested by the conductors of Science to give 
some account of the educational exhibits on 


O04 


view there (several of which will, at its closing, 
be despatched to the New Orleans exhibition) ; 
as well as of the international conference on 
education, — the first ever held, — which was 
opened on Monday, Aug. 4. 

The present exhibition (called the ‘ Health- 
eries ’) is on the site of the ‘ Fisheries’ of last 
year; but more than two acres of additional 
buildings have had to be constructed for it, 
and portions of the Royal Albert hall, as well 


as of the newly erected City and guilds of 


London institute, have been pressed into the 
service also, mainly to afford room for some 
of the educational exhibits. It is probably 
not too much to say, that no such elaborate and 
extensive collection of educational appliances, 
methods, and results has ever been brought 
together before ; notwithstanding the fact, that, 
the primary object of the whole exhibition 
being to elucidate the conditions of health, it 
was considered expedient to attach to the prin- 
cipal display, mainly such objects and appli- 
ances as had a special relation to healthful 
school life. This limitation, however, has been 
interpreted somewhat liberally ; and the result 
is a collection in which can be studied and 
compared the educational systems in primary, 
general, and technical education as practised 
in the British Islands, France, and Belgium, 
and to a less extent in Germany, Sweden, 
Switzerland, the United States, and Canada. 
At a meeting of the jurors held early in June, 
at which the Prince of Wales presided, the 
eminent surgeon Sir James Paget delivered an 
admirable address on ‘ National health and 
work,’ in the course of which he estimated (as 
the result of carefully compiled statistics) 
that the annual loss to the English nation from 
sickness, four-fifths of which was preventable, 
amounted to the work that twenty million men 
would do in a week. He also pointed out the 
close relations between education and health, 
and closed with a very eloquent aspiration for 
the creation of a sound public opinion that 
physical health, just as intellectual superiority 
and martial prowess, was a thing to be striven 
after. 

The exhibition itself has been a very great 
success ; the attendance having been about one- 
third more than at the Fisheries, and aver- 
aging about one hundred and forty thousand 
visitors per week. The musical attractions 
have been great, as well as those of the illumina- 
tions of the grounds and buildings. The elec- 
tric-lighting display is on a much larger scale 
than on any previous occasion, many thousands 
of incandescent and hundreds of are lamps 


being employed ; and the perfect steadiness of 


s 


SCIENCE. 


[Vor. IV., No. 88. 


the latter exceeds any thing that has yet been 
seen. At the weekly Wednesday-evening 

fetes the effects obtained by the illumination 

of fountains by electric lights in various ways 

(a prominent one being the total reflection of 
a beam of light within a jet of water, on 

the principle of the well-known lecture exper- 

iment) are exceptionally beautiful, and per- 

haps can best be compared to showers of 
various-colored gems. 

The educational portion of the exhibition 
was opened by the Prince of Wales, about the 
middle of June ; and its contents form the sub- 
ject of a closely printed catalogue of several — 
hundred pages, some of which are filled with — 
admirable summaries and digests of the work 
accomplished by various educational organi- 
zations, — such, for example, as those of the ~ 
ministers of public instruction in France and 
Belgium, both of which governments have or- 
ganized elaborate collective exhibitions show- 
ing the methods and results of their primary 
and secondary education. Education in France 
has lately made most rapid advances; for the 
money which no previous government could 
obtain for popular education, the parliament 
of the third republic, definitely consolidated 
in 1877, has not feared to demand of the state, 
notwithstanding the pressure of taxes from the 
foreign and civil wars of 1870. In 1882-83 
there were 5,432,151 pupils, and 129,657 
teachers (of whom only 21,781 were uncertifi- 
cated), in primary schools in France; and the 
general outlay of the state for primary educa- 
tion in that year amounted to very nearly $20,- 
000,000. In March, 1882, laws were passed 
which rendered obligatory, 1°. the teaching of 
the elementary physical sciences in primary 
schools, 2°. the performance therein of a cer- 
tain amount of manual work. Accordingly 
we find exhibited by the French minister of 
public instruction the authorized collections. 
of objects and apparatus used in this teaching, 
as well as models of simple and cheap appara- 
tus such as could be fabricated by the pupils. 
themselves. ‘The second law has called into — 
existence the ‘Ecole normale de travail ma- — 
nuel,’ a school probably unique, in which the — 
whole instruction is gratuitous, admission be- 
ing by competitive examination ; and its course — 
comprises the systematic teaching of carpen- 
try, the use of the lathe, the chemical and — 
physical laboratory, the smith’s forge, and the 
engineer’s shop. The handicraft work of pu-— 
pils in many of the French primary schools, 
as well as in several technical schools, is very 
remarkable ; while in the department of 
cultural industry, the work of schools at Li 


“a 
r 


. 


OcTOBER 10, 1884.] 


and also at Beauvais, is much to be com- 
mended and worthy of imitation. In the Bel- 
gian court, the systematic methods and good 
gradation of the school work are very remarka- 
ble; and very great prominence is given to the 
objective method of teaching in almost every 
subject. The technological and other school 
museums (notably that at Verviers) the con- 
tents of which are collected by the pupils, 
deserve especial notice, as also the whole appa- 
ratus for handicraft teaching. 

The collective exhibit of the Institute of the 
brothers of the christian schools (which will be 
sent en masse to New Orleans) is one of the 
most remarkable and interesting in the whole 
E:lucational exhibition. Founded in Paris in 
1680 by the venerable Dr. J. B. de la Salle, 
the institute has now nearly 12,000 brothers, 
distributed over 13 countries, directing 1,200 
schools with an attendance of about 330,000 
boys. Following everywhere the same general 
methods of teaching, they modify their details 
according to the requirements of the country 
in which they are ; for example, in their United- 
States schools, every boy is taught, 1°. short- 
hand writing, 2°. the Morse alphabet, 3°. the 
use of the type-writer. ‘The results of their 
teaching, as exhibited in ‘ sworn’ performances 
of their pupils, in some instances excelled any 
thing known to the jury of experts who re- 
ported thereon. One of their specialties is 
their system of models, maps, etc., for teach- 
ing geography : they were the first hypsometri- 
cal maps published in French, or, for school 
use, in any language ; and they are intended to 
give, by a suitable arrangement of colors, clear 
notions of the real configuration of the earth’s 
surface. The objective and demonstrative 
methods of teaching are slowly finding their 
way into English schools, especially the ‘ board- 
schools’ of Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, ete. 
But it may perhaps be permitted to the writer 
to say, as the result of a very close examina- 
tion (extending over more than a week con- 
tinuously) of the exhibits relating to primary 
education in various countries, that one impor- 
tant lesson to be learnt from the comparison 
of continental methods of instruction with 
English (and, so far as his knowledge extends, 
the same remark applies to America) is the 
great advantage afforded by that objective sys- 
tem, and by the adoption of that systematic 
order and method in all subjects of instruction, 
literary or otherwise, to which the name scien- 
tific, in the highest and best sense of the term, 
is applicable. This system is really a continu- 
ation of nature’s method of instruction, and 
should be commenced in the earliest: years. 


SCIENCE. 355 


The late Dr. Whewell, in congratulating a 
friend, famous for his knowledge and ability, 
on the birth of a son, remarked, ‘ Young as he 
is, he will learn more than you in the next 
twelve months!’ Accordingly we find in this 
exhibition, that the increased attention now 
being devoted to the whole subject of infant 
training, and the enlarged sympathy and inter- 
est with which the best modern teachers are 
studying the methods of Frébel (some of the 
developments of which are at the basis of all 
so-called technical training), have justified the 
appropriation of a very considerable space to 
illustrations of the methods and results of the 
kindergarten system. 

The limits at our disposal permit of no more 
than a reference to the appliances and results 
of technical schools, and of elementary art- 
instruction, nor to special methods and appa- 
ratus used in educating the blind and the deaf 
and dumb, nor to exhibits which illustrate such 
important subjects as every thing relating to 
the structural arrangements of school-build-— 
ings, school-kitchens, sanitaria, school-infirm- 
aries, and lastly, though by no means least in 
importance, the gymnastic and other appara- 
tus for physical training in schools. An allu- 
sion may be perhaps expected to the contro- 
versy now going on in England about overwork 
in schools. Probably the best answer to the 
alleged overwork is the fact, given on the au- 
thority of Sir Lyon Playfair, that, in the ten 
years succeeding the passing of the compul- 
sory-education act, the health of children be- 
tween five and fourteen years of age was 
thirty-three per cent better (as evidenced by 
the death-rate) than in the previous ten years ; 
while the health of children under five years 
old only improved five per cent in the same 
period. Investigation has shown that almost 
every case of over-strain occurs in poor dis- 
tricts (both in town and country), where the 
children are underfed, a piece of bread being 
often their only midday meal. 

It has been the aim of the writer, to draw 
attention to the growing recognition of the 
importance of objective methods of teaching. 
This may almost be said to have been the key- 
note of the International conference on educa- 
tion (Aug. 4 to 9 inclusive), which the presi- 
dent, Lord Reay, the rector of the University 
of St. Andrews, struck in his opening address. 
In a very able and scholarly discourse, he tray- 
ersed a very wide educational area; but the 
point which drew forth the greatest applause 
was the expression, in regard to primary edu- 
cation, of his hope that the reign of the three 
R’s (reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic) 


396 


would speedily be replaced by that of the three 
D’s, — drill, drawing, and (a)droitness. At 
the close, Mr. J. R. Lowell, the American 
minister, speaking as an ex-professor of Har- 
vard, moved a vote of thanks; which was 
seconded (in French) by Mr. Buisson, director 
of primary education in France. Mr. Auguste 
Couvreur of Belgium supported the motion; 
thanking also Lord Carlingford and Mr. Mun- 
della, the English government representatives 
of the education department, for their presence 
there that day. ‘There were about fifty foreign 
delegates from twelve countries (including 
Japan and Brazil), attending this conference, 
the proceedings of which will be published in 
the course of the autumn. The conference, 
after being opened by Lord Reay, divided it- 
self into four sections, which sat simultaneous- 
ly from ten to one and from two to five for five 
days; and we conclude this article with a list 
of some of the more important subjects on 
which papers were read and discussed. 1°. 
The conditions of healthy education; 2°. In- 
fant training and teaching; 3°. Technical 
teaching of all kinds (by Professor Woodward, 
St. Louis, U.S.A., among others); 4°. The 
methods of teaching the different branches of 
physical and natural science in elementary and 
other schools; 5°. The teaching of music; 
6°, Museums, libraries, etc.; 7°. Training of 
teachers; 8°. Inspection and examination of 
schools; 9°. Organization of elementary edu- 
cation; 10°. Organization of intermediate and 
higher education; 11°. Organization of uni- 
versity education; 12°. On the teaching of 
agricultural science. 

Wititram Lantr CARPENTER. 


RAILWAY-SIGNALS AT THE ELEC- 
TRICAL EXHIBITION. 


AMONG the interesting features of the Electrical 
exhibition are the different systems of automatic 
electric railway-signals, designed to render collisions 
and wrecks impossible. One system, already in quite 
extensive use, is there illustrated in its application to 
the running of trains on the block system, on both 
single and double tracks, to the approaches of a 
crossing of two roads at the same grade, and to va- 
rious combinations of switches and signals, whereby 
a signal cannot be set so as to ‘clear’ a train until the 
switch has first been turned in the proper direction, 
and by this very motion has automatically unlocked 
the signal-lever. If through any obstruction or 
failure in the connections the switch is not thrown 
clear over to its proper position, the automatic elec- 
tric unlocking action will not respond, and the sig- 
nal cannot be turned to let the train proceed. The 


SCIENCE. 


>» 


application to a crossing of two roads at grade is very 
ingenious. The four’'approaches are guarded by 
switches, always left open when not in use; so that a — 
runaway locomotive, or other destructive intruder, — 
would be switched round upon a side curve, out of 
harm’s way, as far as the crossing is concerned; and — 
the signals are locked fast at ‘danger’ as long as 
these switches are open. Upon the approach of a 
train from any of the four directions, it announces 
itself in the signal-house while still at a considerable 
distance; and then, if the crossing is clear, and there 
is no previous announcement from either of the other 
three directions, the signal-man in his lookout-house 
turns a lever, which, by pneumatic action, closes the ~ 
switch for the approaching train. This same lever- — 
motion locks all the other switches open; so that the 
man could not, if he would, let any other train ap- — 
proach the crossing till this one had passed. If the — 
switch closes safely, an automatic electric circuit un- 
locks the danger-signal lever for this one switch. The 
man then turns it, and then clears the track for the 
oncoming train, which can thus pass safely without 
stopping. If trains approach, meanwhile, from other 
directions, the danger-signals and open switches — 
which the signal-man himself cannot unlock till the 
train has passed the switch beyond the crossing, and 
automatically unlocked them — prevent any other 
train from getting to the crossing. 

In running upon the block system, it is so arranged 
that a train entering upon each section, automati- 
cally closes there a green warning-signal and a red 
danger-signal for any following train. As it leaves 
the section, it automatically signals back, and opens 
the red danger-signal, but leaves the green warning- 
signal till it has left the next section, two blocks 
ahead. The action of a train, then, in leaving one 
section and entering on another, is to set the two 
signals there, and to signal back one block to open 
the red signal, and two blocks to open the green. 
The engineer of a following train, upon seeing a 
green signal, will know that a train is somewhere 
on the section next but one abead of him, and will 
run cautiously; and if, upon reaching the next sig- 
nal, he finds both the green and the red, he must 
stop till the train ahead has opened the red one. 
Upon a single-track road a similar set of signals is 
given, on the other side of the track, for two blocks 
ahead as well as behind the train. The automatic 
train-signals are all given through pairs of insulated 
rails, across which any pair of car-wheels will close 
an electric circuit; and they are so arranged, that, if 
the battery fails, the signal goes to danger through 
the action of gravity, and so remains till the trouble 
is remedied. This system depends principally, for 
safety, upon the watchfulness and certainty of the © 
engineer in reading the signals correctly. 

Another company exhibits a system which in some — 
respects is superior to this in avoiding the danger from — 
sleepy or inattentive engineers, or from the difficulty — 
of reading the signals in stormy or foggy weather, and — 
the trouble from batteries giving out or getting weak. 
Each locomotive carries its own battery in the shé 
of a dynamo, driven constantly by a small steam-« 


-* 


OcTOBER 10, 1884.] 


gine, whether the locomotive is at rest or running. 
One pole of the dynamo is connected to the locomo- 
tive, and the other to the tender, which is electrically 
insulated from the former except through this connec- 
tion; and the circuit is normally completed through 
the rails on which the wheels of both are resting or 
running. In this circuit, within reach of the engi- 
neer, is a pair of coils whose armature is tightly held 
as long as the circuit is closed; but, when it is broken, 
the armature is drawn away, and opens the valve of a 
shrill whistle; and it stays away, though the circuit 
may close again and the whistle continues sounding, 
until the engineer reaches out and presses the arma- 
ture up to the coils again, thus compelling his atten- 
tion and voluntary action to stop the whistle. At 
any point or series of points in the line, where it is 
desired to signal to or from the approaching train, 
pairs of rails are inserted, electrically insulated from 
each other; so that, during the instant while the loco- 
motive-wheels are on one pair and the tender-wheels 
on the other, the circuit will be broken and the alarm- 
whistle set going, unless these rails are otherwise con- 
nected. 

They are thus connected by wires leading from the 
pairs of such rails ahead to any desired points, — to 
signal-stations, to switches, to drawbridges, to cul- 
verts, or bridges, or any part of the track or road- 


bed liable to be washed away or rendered dangerous. 


Thus, so long as the signal-man does not open this 
circuit, so long as the switch or drawbridge is not 
open, and the culvert, bridge, and road-bed are safe, 
the circuit keeps closed through these loops, the engi- 
neer gets no signal, and he runs on with confidence. 
But if any thing is wrong ahead, or if the man in the 
signal-tower wishes to signal the oncoming engineer, 
these loops will be open, the circuit will be broken, 
and the whistle set going till the engineer voluntarily 
stops it. Moreover, the instantaneous current sent 
from the dynamo over these loops when closed can 
signal the approach of a train, from as far as desired, 
to the signal-man at a crossing, to the train-despatch- 
er, to the switch or bridge tender: in fact, to any points 
from one end of the line to the other the continuous 
flashes of this dynamo-current can be made a perfect 
tell-tale of the progress of the train. Moreover, these 
same currents can be made to lock switches and draw- 
bridges ahead of the approaching train from pairs of 
rails preceding the danger-signal ones; and the engi- 
neer can thus confidently approach such places at 
full speed, knowing that no careless or confused 
switchman or bridge-tender or evil-disposed train- 
wrecker can have thrown these open after he has 
passed the locking signal-rails, and then, from an- 


other pair of rails beyond, the dynamo unlocks them. 


after the train has passed. A signal on the throttle- 
valve lever warns the engineer if he attempts to run 
out of the round-house without starting up the dyna- 
mo, and any subsequent failure in the dynamo also, 
of course, blows the warning-whistle till it is set right. 
This system, in which each locomotive is its own un- 
failing battery, has certainly important advantages, 
especially in compelling the attention and voluntary 
action of the engineer whenever danger is ahead. 


SCIENCE. 


207 


THE COMMITTEE REPORTS OF THE 
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 


ALTHOUGH several committees were discharged 
last year for making no report, there were no less 
than eleven to be called on at the session on Monday 
morning. Of these, six made no response whatever: 
others, only a verbal and partial statement. The 
following reports are of general interest: — 

Dr. E. B. Elliott of Washington, the chairman of 
the committee on the registration of births, deaths, 
and marriages, said that this committee was created 
many years ago to petition the United States con- 
gress for the establishment of a system of registra- 
tion of births, deaths, and marriages. Since many 
states have established systems of registration of 
their own, the committee has petitioned, not for a 
separate system, but for the co-operation of the gen- 
eral government in securing uniformity aud efficiency 
in the several state systems. 

The first report of the committee on stellar magni- 
tudes (Proc. Amer. assoc., xxx. p. 1) included a 
plan for the determination of standards for stars 
fainter than the tenth magnitude. Twenty-four 
bright equatorial stars were chosen; and the stand- 
ards were to be selected from the regions following 
them from two to six minutes of time, and not dif- 
fering in declination from the leading stars by more 
than five minutes of are. The second report pre- 
sented this year consists of charts of all the stars 
visible with the fifteen-inch telescope used at the 
Harvard college observatory, in all but three of the 
regions from which the standards are to be selected. 
These observations have been verified by the fifteen- 
inch telescope of the Washburn observatory. The 
report was referred to the publication committee. 

The committee to confer with committees of for- 
eign associations for the advancement of science, 
with reference to an international convention of sci- 
entific associations, reported that they had succeeded 


in conferring with a like committee from the British 


association. 

A motion to have the committee discharged, as it 
had completed its task, having been made, Prof. H. 
Carvill Lewis of Philadelphia asked whether the 
committee might not continue to be efficient in ex- 
tending courtesies from our own association to kin- 
dred foreign associations. Many gentlemen felt that 
some steps should be taken whereby members of our 
association going to England may become members 
of the British association while there, and a like 
courtesy be extended to members of the British asso- 
ciation while in America. He therefore suggested 
that the action on the motion to discharge the com- 
mittee be deferred for the present, in the expectation 
that arrangements would be made for the holding of 
joint meetings by the two great associations. 

Mr. Trelawney Saunders of London, Eng., said he 
should like to respond in a few words to the kindly 
sentiments that had been expressed from the plat- 
form. As an Englishman, he said that he was 
delighted to hear the sentiment—a general senti- 
ment, he thought, or it would not have been ex- 


-anists than usual. 


= aot oO? te 
A i 
une 


398 SCIENCE. 


pressed here — which had been uttered. ‘‘ You came 
from us,”’ said Mr. Saunders: ‘‘if you return to us, 
you will meet a welcome which has in it as much 
warmth as that which you have accorded to us. 
Upon all occasions, whether they be international 
or inter-scientific, I assure you that the American 
people, particularly the English-speaking American 
people, will find a cordial greeting on the part of any 
Englishman to whom they appeal.’’ 

The chair announced that the motion to discharge 
the committee had been withdrawn. 

The only other response to the call for reports was 
made by Professor Young of the committee in rela- 
tion to duty on scientific books. He said that the 
committee had prepared, and, he believed, had pre- 
sented to congress, a bill on the subject stated, which 
had failed to reach congressional attention. 


THE BOTANICAL CLUB OF THE AMERI- 
CAN ASSOCIATION. 


THE meeting of the American association last year 
at Minneapolis attracted a larger attendance of bot- 
Without much consultation, a 
meeting of those interested in botany was called, a 
president and a secretary were chosen, and discus- 
sions, short communications, and papers upon bo- 
tanical subjects, listened to. The Botanical club was 
thus inaugurated; and before the close of the session 
it was decided to do what was possible to secure a 
larger attendance of botanists at the next gathering 
in Philadelphia. 

Although during the interim the prospect of a good 
attendance at the Philadelphia meeting had been 
fair, the most sanguine were surprised to find, that, 
as early as Monday preceding the opening, a number 
of botanists had arrived in the city; and by the fol- 
lowing day a larger gathering could have been assem- 
bled than the total attendance at Minneapolis. 

The first meeting of the club, of which several 
were held between Friday and Wednesday, was re- 
sponded to by an attendance of about thirty, — a little 
below the average attendance for the subsequent 
meetings. Prof. W. J. Beal of Lansing, Mich., the 
president, took the chair; and Prof. J. C. Arthur of 
Geneva, N.Y., was appointed secretary to fill the 
vacancy caused by the absence of Professor Coulter. 
A paper by Dr. N. L. Britton of New York, on the 
composition and distribution of the flora of New 
Jersey, was read. The surface-features of the state 
were given, and the corresponding vegetation de- 
scribed. The work of cataloguing the plants is being 
done under the supervision of the State geological 
survey. The list at present has reached the very 
large total of nearly fifty-five hundred. 

Prof. C. R. Barnes of La Fayette, Ind., spoke of 
the course of the fibro-vascular bundles in the leaf- 
branches of Pinus sylvestris. The two needle-leaves 
at the end of each short lateral axis contain each a 
paired bundle. The question at issue was whether 
this structure represented one or a pair of bundles, 
or whether it might not be a segment of the fibro- 


‘for, when cross-fertilization is not effected, self-fertil- 


[Vou. IV., No. 88 


vascular ring of the stem. A study of the e 
stages shows that the first change in the stem is to — 
divide the fibro-vascular ring into halves at right 
angles to the plane of the leaves; and subsequently — 
these divide again, sending one branch of each to 
each leaf. The paper led to much discussion by Pro- 
fessors Buckhout, Macloskie, and others. 

Dr. Bessey of Ames, Io., described the opening 
of the flowers of Desmodium sessilifolium. They | 
expand partially in the usual manner, then remain 
stationary till a particular sensitive spot at the base 
of the vexillum is touched by an insect, when the 
wings and keel descend with a jerk, the stamens are 
released, and the insect dusted with pollen. 

Professor Mackloskie of Princeton, N.J., described 
the method of cross-fertilization of Geranium macu- 
latum by bumblebees. Professor Dudley of Ithaca, 
N.Y., spoke of the torsion of stems of Eleocharis 
rostellata, and also on the protogynous character of 
some species of Myriophyllum. Mr. William H. 
Seaman of Washington, D.C., advocated the use of 
rather thick oblique sections in studying the struc- _ 
ture of the fibro-vascular bundle,—a method that 
called forth a very strong protest. 

Professor W. J. Beal gave a paper concerning the 
manner in which certain seeds bury themselves be- 
neath the soil, which was discussed by Professors 
Bessey, Rothrock, and others. A paper by Prof. W. 
R. Lazenby of Columbus, O., on the prolificacy of 
certain weedy plants, embraced careful estimates of 
the average number of seeds produced by individual 
plants among various kinds of weeds. Dr. J. T. 
Rothrock of Philadelphia addressed the club on some 
phases of microscopic work, alluding particularly to 
micro-photography, its importance to the investiga- 
tor, and the ease of execution. 

Dr. Asa Gray called attention to the interesting 
discovery of Mr. Meehan regarding the mode of ex- 
posing the pollen in the common sunflower. He had 
found, that, contrary to the teachings of the text- 
books, the pistil and stamens develop together until 
reaching full length, when the filaments rapidly 
shorten, and the anther tube is retracted, exposing 
the style covered with pollen, the further changes 
being the same as usually stated. This Mr. Meehan 
construed to be a device for self-fertilization; while 
Dr. Gray showed, that, although bees carried pollen 
from one flower to another of the same head, they 
also carried it from head to head, which constituted 
crossing in the fullest sense. An interesting discus- 
sion followed, in which Professor Beal suggested that 
an excellent experiment would be to cover up the 
heads, and ascertain if any fertile seeds were pro- 
duced. Dr. Gray thought it very likely there would ; 


ization often takes place. Mrs. Wolcott had proved 
this to be so; for, in covering up the flowers to keep 
birds away, she found that plenty of seeds were formed. — 
Dr. George Vasey of Washington gave some notes — 
on the vegetation of the arid plains; which was fol-— 
lowed by observations on the curvature of stems of 
conifers, by Dr. Bessey, in which he noted the bend— 
ing of stems one, two, and even three years old. __ 


Zz 


OcToBER 10, 18384.] 


Mr. Thomas Meehan discussed the relationship of 
Helianthus annuus and H. lenticularis; showing that 
there was a constant difference in the form of the 
corollas, the former being campanulate, and the lat- 
ter tubular. The two are treated as one species in 
Gray’s ‘Synoptic flora of North America;’ the one 
being considered a cultivated form of the other, —a 
view from which the speaker dissented. Mr. Meehan 
then spoke upon the fertilization of composites; con- 
cluding that the arrangements were such as to favor 
self-fertilization, which is opposed to the generally 
accepted view. 

Prof. L. M. Underwood of Syracuse, N.Y., gave 
some Statistics concerning the North-American He- 
paticae. Of the two hundred and thirty-one species 
found north of Mexico, a hundred and twenty are 
peculiar to America : fully one-half the latter are not 
represented in any publicor private herbarium in this 
country. 

In a paper on the nature of gumming, or gummosis, 
in fruit-trees, Prof. J. C. Arthur detailed experi- 
ments from which the conclusion had been reached, 
that it was due to a de-organization of the cell-walls 
of the tree through the influence of some fungus, 
but not necessarily of a specific one. It had been 
produced experimentally by the bacteria of pear- 
blight and by Monilia fructigenum, the fruit-rot 
fungus; although the most common cause is doubt- 
less the Coryneum, first described by Oudemans in 
Hedwigia. 


At the final meeting the committee on postal mat- _ 
This committee was ap- © 


ters then gave its report. 
pointed at Minneapolis to inquire into the various 
obstructions which the postal authorities throw in 
the way of exchanging specimens of dried plants. 
The efforts of the committee had been directed 
toward securing the passage of specimens bearing 
the customary written label at fourth-class rates of 
postage. The decision of the postmaster-general was 
read, stating that the present law could not be con- 
strued to permit the passage of specimens with writ- 
ten labels except at letter-rates, but expressing a 
willingness to bring the matter, at the proper time, 
to the attention of congress, the Canadian authori- 
ties, and the congress of the Universal postal union. 
Some discussion followed; and a motion was carried 
to continue the committee, and also instructing the 
president and secretary of the club to draft resolu- 
tions to be presented to the section of biology in 
order to still further promote the objects in view. 
These resolutions were acted upon by the biological 
section on the following day. Dr. Bessey was chosen 
president, and Professor Arthur secretary, for the 
next year. 

Besides the reading of papers, the club took several 
excursions. On Saturday they went to the pine-bar- 
rens of New Jersey, about fifty participating. On 
Monday a party visited the ballast-grounds during 
the morning, and upon their return inspected the 
library and herbarium of Mr. I. C. Martindale of 
Camden, N.J. In the evening of the same day the 
Botanical section of the Philadelphia academy of 
sciences entertained the club, the Torrey botanical 


SCIENCE. 


359 


club of New-York City, and other invited guests, at 
the rooms of the academy. About three hundred 
were present, and a thoroughly enjoyable time expe- 
rienced. On the afternoon of Tuesday the club and 
its friends, in all about eighty, made an excursion to 
the Bartram gardens, one of the most interesting his- 
torical spots to botanists in this country; and the 
club then adjourned. 

In reviewing the attendance of botanists at Phila- 
delphia, and the work of the Botanical club, there is 
much reason for congratulation. About a hundred 
entered their names on the register of the club as 
botanists, or about eight per cent of the total attend- 
ance, one-half of whom are widely known for their 
attainments in the science. There was no lack of 
interesting papers and free discussion. Besides the 
important measures already referred to, the club was 
instrumental in securing the appointment of a per- 
manent committee of the Association to encourage 
researches on the health and diseases of plants. But, 
above all, the augmented facilities for intercourse 
and acquaintanceship, and the impulse imparted to 
individual workers, through the influence of the club, 
are a sufficient raison d’étre, and a promise of useful- 
ness for the future. 


PSYCHICAL RESEARCH IN AMERICA. 


A MEETING was held in Boston, on Sept. 23, to 
consider the advisability of forming an American 
society for psychical research. Prof. W. F. Barrett, 
vice-president of the English society, was present, 
and gave an account of the work they are doing in 
England in the investigation of ‘mind-reading’ and 
the so-called spiritualistic phenomena, which last 
they always find to fail when the medium is securely 
bound. As one good result of the English society’s 
work, it was stated that there had been a decrease in 
the activity of the society of spiritualists in London. 
It was the sense of the meeting, that if any thing 
could be done in this country to check the growth 
of the belief in the supernatural powers of ‘ mediums,’ 
and to show what is the true explanation of such 
phenomena as ‘mind-reading’ and mesmerism, it 
would be a work which should enlist the assistance of 
American scientific men. Professor Barrett showed, 
that, in the case of ‘ mind-reading,’ most of the results 
pointed to an unconscious guidance on the part of 
the person whose mind was being read, but there 
were residual cases he would not so explain. It was 
the opinion of those present, that the collecting of 
the stories of fulfilled dreams and anxieties would be 
fruitless, but that there were many questions of a 
physiological nature which should be investigated, 
and no longer be allowed to go unanswered or ig- 
nored. A committee was appointed to consider the 
whole matter of the formation of a society, or in 
what way it may seem best to undertake the work; 
and, at a meeting held last week, steps were taken 
for the formation of a society in America, of which 
we hope soon to report the complete organization. 


360 


THE HOTEL DES NEUCHATELOIS, AND 
WHAT BECAME OF IT. 


AT a recent féte of the Swiss Alpine club, a de- 
spatch was received from Mr. Forel in regard to the 
names which he has found on the Aar glacier. Mr. 
Forel gave to the Gazelte de Lausanne the following 
information on the subject. He recalled the scien- 
tific zeal of Agassiz and his friends in Neuchatel, 
and their studies, extending from 1840 to 1846, of the 
glacier near Grimsel. These enthusiastic naturalists 
stationed themselves at the very centre of the glacier 
at the junction of its sources,—the Lauteraar and 
the Finsteraar, at the foot of the rocky promontory 
known as the Abschwung. They found on the mid- 
dle moraine a block of micaceous schist, supported 
by other rocks, and forming a natural shelter, which 


they completed by other dry walls of rocks. They 
thus possessed a rustic cabin, which they named the 
Hotel des Neuchatelois; and there they lived three 
seasons, illustrious in the annals of science. From 
1840 to 1848 the Hotel was the rendezvous of all 
interested in the theory of glaciers. But unfortu- 
nately the block began to break up. As early as 1841 
there were numerous fissures; and in 1844 it was 
broken into two pieces; since then, the frost has 
divided it into a thousand pieces. It is this débris, 
still of considerable size, which Mr. Forel has found. 
The highest block still bears inscriptions in red lead, 
unfortunately most of them illegible. He could only 
decipher the date ‘1842,’ written three times, and 
the name ‘ Vogt’ (at present professor at Geneva). 
Twenty-five metres lower, toward the valley, is the 
stone discovered by Mr. Ritter of Leipzig, which bears 
the inscription in large capitals, still easily read, 
““Stengell (engineer, pupil of Osterwald), 1844; Otz 


SCIENCE. 


™~ 7 Ree ‘ 


(Von. IV., No. 8 


(engineer at Neuchatel), 1845; Ch. Martins (professor 
at Montpellier) ;’’ and several illegible letters. This 
block also bears the inscription ‘ No. 2;’ for in 1842, — 
Agassiz had a number of remarkable rocks marked ' 
with numbers, the arrangement of which he intrusted 
to his friend Wild, the geodesist of the expedition. 
The block of the Hétel was marked as No. 2. The 
third block is fifty-five metres lower, and bears the 
inscriptions, ‘Solioz Auguste 1842,’ ‘ Lieutenant 
Guntren,’ and several words which Mr. Forel did not 
understand. Mr. Forel calls attention to the fact 
that the course traversed by the blocks since the 
determination of their position by Agassiz has been 
about fifty-five metres a year. 

We add an illustration of the rock as it appeared 
in 1840-42, reduced from a plate in Dollfus’s Maté- 
riaux pour T étude des g glaciers. 


THE INHABITANTS OF THE PUNJAB. — 


Outlines of Punjdb ethnography: being extracts from 
the Punjdb census of 1881, treating of religion, 
language, and caste. By Denzin Cuaries JELF 
Ispetson, of her Majesty’s Bengal civil service. 
Calcutta, Government, 1883. 4°. 


Tuis is an imperial quarto of about 375 
pages, made up of portions of the census re- 
port, as indicated in the title, using no less than 
eight enumerations of pages in combining the 
stereoty pe plates selected. There is a “good 
table of contents, but no general index. “ 

The Punjab has irregular boundaries; but — 
it may be roughly indicated as that part of — 
Hindostan north of the parallel of Delhi 


a 


OcroBER 10, 1884.] 


which it includes. Kashmir, controlled by 
England, is not included in the report. 

The Punjab, with its feudatory states, covers 
an area of 142,449 square miles, with a popu- 
lation of 22,712,120. One-fourth of the Mus- 
alman, one-twentieth of the Hindu, and eleven- 
twelfths of tlhe Sikh subjects of England, and 
one-eleventh of the total population of the 
Indian empire, are in the Punjab. This region 
was in the path of all the early migrations and 
expeditions into the Indian peninsula, and 
presents a fruitful field for the students of his- 
tory, of languages, and of sociology. 

Here are found the primitive forms of reli- 
gion and of social customs, in near proximity 
to recent growths and modifications, while the 
intermediate steps are well represented. The 
early growth of property in land is well illus- 
trated in the western part, while village com- 
munities are represented as typically perfect in 
the eastern part. 

Abstract 1 includes the rainfall by tracts ; 
and in notes appended, the general condition 
of the people, and the liability to famine, are 
indicated. The rainfall ranges from a mini- 
mum of an inch in the thinly populated west- 
ern grazing-plains, toa maximum of a hundred 
and twenty-six inches in the Himalayan tract, 
where the moisture of the winds is precipitated 
by the mountains. A portion of the plains 


east of the meridian of Lahore (near 74°) © 


yields good crops without irrigation, but is 
liable to disastrous failures that do not befall 
irrigated lands. It is the granary of the Pun- 
jab, and has flourishing trade and manufac- 
tures. 

Mr. Ibbetson says that all books with which 
he is acquainted 


**fail utterly and entirely in conveying to the reader 
the faintest idea of the religions which they describe, 
as actually practised by their million followers in the 
villages of the country. The books on Hinduism, 
for instance, describe Hin2uism as it ought to be, 
Hinduism as it was, perhaps Hinduism as it now is 
among the Pandits and educated Brahmans of the 
holy cities; but they do not describe Hinduism as it 
A in the daily life of the great mass of the popula- 
ion, 


Recognizing his own knowledge as defective, 
he aims to point out where the esoteric doc- 
trines may be found described for the various 
faiths in their purity, and, with these as a basis, 
to show how little they appear in the daily be- 
lief and practice of the Punjdb peasant, and 
to indicate what that belief and that practice 
are. 

The Musalmans are about one-half of the 
population ; the Hindus, about three-sevenths ; 
the Sikhs, about one-thirteenth ; Jains, 42,678 ; 


SCIENCE. 


361 


Christians, 33,699; Buddhists, 3,251; and 
others in small numbers. ‘The classifications 
of religions are unsatisfactory, in part from 
the unwillingness of the better part of those 
who profess a religion to acknowledge as of 
their creed the degraded classes who profess 
it, and partly from the difficulty of defining 
Hinduism in particular. No one is a Sikh by 
birth. Professed Christians, Jains, and Buddh- 
ists have a measurably defined position. Ma- 
hometanism approximates distinctiveness, but 
Hinduism is confusing. It is regarded as the 
outcome and expression of the character of 
its followers, rather than as an element in- 
fluencing that character. In this census the 
Hindu was regarded as the normal faith of 
those not otherwise classified. 

‘¢ Socially, the characteristic of the Hindu is 
quiet, contented thrift.’’ The Sikhs are more 
independent, brave, and manly than the Hin- 
dus. The Punjab villager, converted to Ma- 
hometanism, is invariably filled with false pride 
and conceit, and tends to become extravagant, 
unthrifty, and discontented. 

There are few large towns in the Punjab, 
and any attempt to identify the subdivisions 
by reference to a general map would be unsat- 
isfactory. 7 

Caste is very fully treated, and will be no- 
ticed at another time. 

Brahmanism is given as the distinguishing 
feature of Hinduism, which early degenerated 
from a religion into a ‘‘ sacerdotalism with 
Brahmans as its Levites, the vitality of which 
is preserved by the social institution of caste, 
and which may include all shades and diversi- 
ties of religion native to India as distinct 
from the foreign importations of Christianity 
and Islam, and from the later outgrowths of 
Buddhism, . . . Sikhism, . . . and Jainism.”’ 
The dead are worshipped. Superstitious ob- 
servances are general. On the western fron- 
tier, Hindus are Jax in ceremonial and caste 
observances. Hindu sects are innumerable, 
and liable to be returned as religions. 

Sikhism is given as founded by Baba Nanak 
A.D. 1469-1539. Nanak did not attack the 
teachings of others, but added something high- 
er, teaching that salvation came through 
repentance and a pure and righteous life. 
During his life, gentleness was predominant 
among his followers; but some of his succes- 
sors becoming involved in politics, a Mahom- 
etan persecution arose against them, and a spirit 
of revenge was roused, emphasizing a martial 
spirit, especially under a guru, or leader, known 
as Govind Singh, A.D. 1675-1708. Among 
the formalities of the Sikhs was a baptismal 


362 SCIENCE. 


initiation, and a communion with consecrated 
cakes of sugar, flour, and butter; while caste 
distinctions were positively condemned. 

It is only an exaggeration to say, that ‘ the 
language changes every ten miles:’ but two- 
thirds of the people speak some form of Pun- 
jabi; one-fifth, some form of Hindi; one eley- 
enth, Sindhi. 

Abstract 63 shows that from 1875 to 1880, 
inclusive, fifty-six hundred and ten books were 
published in the Punjéb, only two hundred and 
twenty-seven of which were in English. This 
suggests what an extensive literature j is yet to 
be] brought to the knowledge of western schol- 
ars. An incidental reference indicates that 
Punjab pupils learn the multiplication table to 
one hundred times one hundred. 

The migrations and changes by which pres- 
ent conditions have been reached are treated 
in considerable detail. 

This volume is a part of the record of the 
second effort to gain a complete census of the 
British dependencies throughout the world, — 
the first, indeed, which approximated full suc- 
cess. Its treatment of ethnic religions and 
social facts adds greatly to the available ma- 
terial for western sociologists. Mr. Ibbetson 
thinks the whole of the types of primitive 
superstitions in Tylor’s ‘ Primitive culture,’ so 
laboriously gathered from forgotten records, 
could be illustrated in current customs of Pun- 
jab villages. In the omitted chapters there 
seems to have been an abstract of the popula- 
tion of all India, not easily restored by one 
on this side of the globe from diverse provin- 
cial reports. Abstract 45 gives the number of 
those in each ten thousand of the people 
professing each leading religion for each prov- 
ince of India, and other abstracts give kin- 
dred ratios to which one is desirous to add 
particulars. No summary shows the number 
of castes, nor are marriage statistics given. 
While superstitions are detailed for days ‘under 
English names, we look in vain for a hint of 
the origin of the Indian Sunday. ‘The com- 
plete report would make good some lack in 
this volume. The text, however, was pre- 
pared under great pressure for time, and there 
is a mass of material in official hands not util- 
ized. There is such an amount of new infor- 
mation furnished, that defects of indexing or 
of arrangement are secondary, eyen when the 
printer sets a couple of pages wrong side up, 
and arranges tables so that one must often 
turn the book up side down to read sub-titles. 
There is, unfortunately, no uniformity in the 
spelling of oriental words by English officials. 
Among peculiar spellings here are Quran (the 


i 


[Vor. IV., No. 88. 


sacred book of Islam), Musalman, Mughal or 
Mongol, Shekh, and Fagir. ¥ 


IIE Ne AND NATURAL-HISTORY 
SURVEY OF CANADA. 


Reports of progress for 1880-82. Atrrep R. C. 
SELWYN, director. Montreal, Dawson, 1883. 
About 200 p., 12 pl., 9 maps. 89°. 

Ts volume is one of the reports of prog- 
ress of the Canada survey. Like all such 
preliminary reports of survey work, it is of a 
varied and somewhat scrappy nature. A re- 
port of progress must, in order to justify its — 
name, have some of the valuable, if not divert- 
ing, qualities of a log-book. 

There is no record of any final or definitely — 
finished work in this account of varied and 
important labors. This absence of completed 
work in any part of the vast field of study 
before the survey will be apt to increase the 
friction which it now encounters. There is 
much to say in favor of the reconnoissance 
system, when a survey is charged with the 
exploration of such an imperial wilderness as 
the Dominion of Canada. Special considera- 
tions may, and often will, determine the elab- 
orate study of particular districts; but the 
principal work should be, at least for years, the 
rapid study of the areal geology of the country, 
including the outlines of its commercial prob- 
lems. This reconnoissance work seems fairly 
well carried on by the Canada survey. The 
reports lack the beauty of finish of the United- 
States publications; still, they represent the 
labor of devoted men, who are wrestling with 
bad food, swamps, and black flies for the most 
of their days in the field. 

The first forty-five pages of this volume are 
occupied by the general report of the director. 
We note in it, that the notorious weather- 
prophet, Mr. Venner, who for many years was 
employed by the geological survey, had sev- 
ered his connection with it. There is a good 
deal of tedious, and little valuable, detail in 
this synopsis of the survey work. Next we 
have a brief account of the system of geologi- 
cal nomenclature and map-coloring used by — 
the survey. The system of coloring is con- 
venient and sufficiently graphic; in ‘he nomen- — 
clature, the author feels the need of the divis- 
ion Cambro- Silurian, a term that is now pretty — 
well fixed in the science. The third paper, 
also by the director of the survey, is entitled 
‘Notes on the geology of the south-eastern 
portion of the Province of Quebec.’ T 
interesting region contains the gold-bearing 


a a ee ee ie eo ee 


OcroBER 10, 1884. | 


gravels of the Chaudiere valley, which are 
among the few profitable placer grounds of east- 
ern America. Although but a cursory exami- 
nation, this study suggests many interesting 
points for future inquiry. Appended to this 
report are some notes on the microscopic 
structure of certain rocks of the Quebec 
group, by Mr. F. D. Adams. They seem to 
be careful studies ; but, there being no figures 
of the sections from which the microscopic 
researches were made, they suggest little com- 
ment. 

The first of the assistants’ reports is that 
of Dr. G. M. Dawson, on the geology of the 
Bow and Belly river region, north-west terri- 
tory. It contains a very interesting account 
of the coals of the Laramie epoch, which are of 
exceeding value to the north-western region. 
Although in its nature a preliminary report, it 
contains a large amount of valuable detailed 
information concerning these coals. Although 
essentially lignites, they are superior to the 
most of such deposits now in use in Europe. 
This report is illustrated by several rather 
coarse lithographs, showing interesting aspects 
of this district. 

The next report is one by Dr. Robert Dell, 
on the geology of the basin of Moose River 
and Lake of the Woods, with two heliotypes 
of scenery. and two maps. This report is of 
a very preliminary nature. In its nine pages 
of text, only enough is given to show that 
the region is full of interesting problems. 
The accompanying maps show the general 
distribution of the Laurentian and Huronian 
rocks, but the information is only a matter of 
outlines. It has, however, a special economic 
interest, as it indicates a possibly new gold- 
field, and, what is perhaps of more importance, 
a prospect of extensive apatite deposits in this 
district. Appended to the report is a cata- 
logue of plants and of coleopterous insects, 
the latter by the late Dr. LeConte. Next 
there are two considerable reports by Mr. R. 
W. Ellis, on the geology of northern and east- 
ern New Brunswick, and the north side of 
the Bay of Chaleurs, and on the geology of the 
Gaspé peninsula. Both these reports concern 
very interesting regions, which have previously 
been described in a general way. In them a 
great many contributions are given to the 
general structural, as well as the economical 
geology, of these districts. There are inter- 
esting lists of fossils from the several members 
of the paleozoic series. We miss the detailed 
sections which are obtainable in this country, 
which would have greatly added to the value 
of the report. 


SCIENCE. 


363 


Next there is a report on some of the mines 
of the Province of Quebec, by Charles W. 
Willemott. Kxcept the apatite mines of the 
Gatineau district, these deposits do not seem 
to have much value. For the apatite deposit, 
there seems to be a large future. Accounts 
of the several mines are extremely brief, and 
have not much economic or scientific value. 
The volume ends with a report of Mr. G. 
Christian Hoffman, entitled ‘‘ Chemical contri- 
butions to the geological survey of Canada, 
from the laboratory of the survey.’’ It con- 
sists of about fifty determinations of various 
substances of presumed economic or scientific 
interest, with various remarks as to their value 
in the arts, only one of them of general inter- 
est; viz., a careful analysis of the mineral 
smarskite, newly found in Canada. ‘This 
branch of the work of the survey has been 
put out of gear by the removal of the labora- 
tory from Montreal to Ottawa. As a whole, 
these reports, covering as they do the work of 
three years, are rather disappointing. ‘The 
survey has an annual grant of sixty thousand 
dollars. Much is to be allowed for the diffi- 
culties arising from the size and complications 
of the field with which it deals; still, it seems 
as if more in the way of definite economic 
and scientific results should be attained with 
this liberal expenditure. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


WE take the following ‘editorial note’ from the 
September number of the American meteorological 
journal as suggesting a simple plan of work in which 
many non-professional observers might contribute a 
willing share toward the solution of important prob- 
lems: ‘‘Is it not worth while to consider whether 
the deficiency of observations on local storms, which 
makes the determination of their action doubtful, 
could not be remedied by appointing special days on 
which hourly or bi-hourly observations should be 
taken, with additional records at still more frequent 
intervals when any change in the condition of the air 
required it? These special days might be on certain 
pre-arranged dates, ‘term days,’ so called, when the 
records would gather up any thing that happened to 
come along in the passage of the weather; but they 
would better serve the purpose here in view if they 
were really specially appointed by the signal-service 
officers only a day or two before their date. It is evi- 
dent enough from an inspection of Finley’s maps, and 
from a brief study of summer thunder-storms, that 
the southern side or south-eastern quadrant of our 
passing cyclones contains the greatest share of local 
disturbances. Let the plan be published in advance 
by circulars and newspaper paragraphs; and then, if, 
while a cyclone was still beyond the Rocky Moun- 


— » r NPP) eee aes ae 


364 


tains, the day of its arrival over the upper lakes could 
be foretold, there might be thirty to sixty hours tele- 
graphic notice given of the appointment of such a 
day for special observation over the whole region east 
of the Mississippi. The notice should properly take 
a somewhat striking form, so as to excite an interest 
in the attempt among persons who would ordinarily 
let the weather-changes pass by unnoticed; the news- 


papers and railroads could be in nearly all cases 
counted upon to aid in spreading the news of the 
appointment; and even if the general records gave 
only the direction and estimated force of the winds, 
and beginning and ending of rainfall, two or three 
special days of observation in June or July might 
produce a wonderful fund of material for study.” 


— Among the recently discovered petroleum-wells 
at Bakou, Russia, was one which for four or five days 
after opening threw a stream of oil into the air to a 
height of forty feet. 


i: 


SCIENCE. 


The natives were so impressed — 


that they built a temple especially for the veneration — 
of the well. The wiser speculator has expended his — 
energies in building a railroad from Bakou to Batoum 
on the Black Sea, and contemplates the construction 
of a canal fifty miles long, by which a river of oil 
may flow from the Caspian to the Black Sea. We re- 
produce from Science et nature an illustration show- 
ing the fountain of oil, copied from a photograph. 


— Lieut. Stoney, U.S.N., commanding the U.S. 
exploring schooner Ounalaska, has been heard from 
under date of July 6, when he had reached latitude 
66° 4’ north, and longitude 168° 15’ west. Upon 
leaving St. Michaels, Lieut. Stoney stood north along 
the American coast until June 27, when ice was 
encountered fifteen miles to the northward of Sledge 
Island, in latitude 64° 22’ north, longitude 166° 25” 
west. After several unsuccessful attempts to pene- 
trate the ice, which proved to be very heavy at this 
point, the Ounalaska was headed to the southward 
until clear water was reached, when the ice to the 
westward was skirted just to the north of St. Law- 
rence Islands, and St. Lawrence Bay was reached 
June 30. Learning that Kotzebue Sound was closed, 
Lieut. Stoney anchored, and waited for the ice to ; 
commence moving, and, after a four-days’ gale from 
the south, he ran over and anchored under East 
Cape, where he remained, to take advantage of the 
first opening of Ho1:him Inlet, when the exploration 
of Putnam River would be continued. 


— The Italian papers announce what appears to be 
an important discovery just made in Sicily. Petro- 
leum has been ‘struck’ in the province of Palermo. 
A grotto in the flank of a mountain was pierced, and 
in twenty-four hours seventy pints were collected. 
The crude oil is said to be of very high quality, and 
is so limpid that it may be used with little or no 
refinement. The borings are being pushed forward 
very rapidly, and their results are looked forward to 
with no little interest. Hitherto, we believe, Italy 
has produced no mineral oil; and if, as seems likely, 
the new springs should prove productive on a large 
scale, the kingdom will possess an entirely new and 
important source of wealth. It should be added, that 
the present discovery is the result of a number of 
repeated but hitherto unsuccessful searches after 
petroleum. 


— It has been announced at the hygienic congress 
held in August at the Hague, that the prize of two 
thousand franes, offered by the London society for 
the prevention of blindness, is awarded to Professor 
Ernest Fochs of Liége. The next hygienic congress 
will be held in Vienna. 


— An interesting collection of antiquities from 
Cyprus is now on view in London. It includes — 
beautiful specimens of ancient glass, some remains ~ 
of pottery, a bronze mirror with a piece of the origi- 
nal cloth it was wrapped in, and some ancient armor. © _ 
There are also some silk and cotton fabrics, such as — 
are still made at Cyprus, some of which are both 
cheap and pretty. They are made on the simple — 
hand-looms which are still used by the Cypriotes as — 
in days of old. 


cially at South Kensington. 


. 


OcTOBER 10, 1884.] 


—Dr. Ferd. Lowl, of the German university at 
Prag, has just completed a valuable résumé of obser- 
yations and theories on the making of valleys (Ueber 
thalbildung, Dominicus, Prag, 1884, 136 p., with 
many cuts), that should prove of special value to 
American students of physical geology and geogra- 
phy. It will serve well as a guide to the German lit- 
erature on the subject. The contrast is well brought 
out between the older theory that referred the begin- 
ning of valleys to splits and cracks in the earth’s 
crust, and the newer that regards them as chiefly 
independent of these guides; and numerous exam- 
ples are mentioned to show, that valleys are not only 
formed in unbroken rocks, but also, that, where the 
rocks are greatly faulted, the valleys run almost inde- 
pendent of the fault-lines. The origin of cross-val- 
leys, on which the author had written previously 
(Science, i. 325), is again discussed, and carried to a 
conélusion adverse to that reached by Powell, Tietze, 
and Medlicott. The views of Rutimeyer and Stein, 
as to the revelation of old base-levels in the terraced 
slopes of Alpine valleys, are disputed chiefly because 
direct elevatory movement, by which the base-level is 
changed, is not any longer to be admitted in modern 
geology; and the cafions of the Colorado are referred 
chiefly to climatic conditions. While we cannot ac- 
cept these conclusions, the book deserves careful 
study. 


— The recent visit of Dr. C. V. Riley to Europe, on 
a mission from the Agricultural department, is noticed 
in a recent number of Nature, which says that during 
his two months’ sojourn in Europe he has twice been 
on the continent, and has visited correspondents and 
acquaintances both there and in England, examining 
the insect collections in various museums, and espe- 
He speaks favorably of 
the lasting influence for good which the International 
forestry exhibition at Edinburgh will have, and of 
the Serrel serigraph, — an American invention, which 
has of late years been perfected in Lyons, and which 
he thinks is destined to revolutionize silk-reeling and 
profoundly influence silk-culture, which is just now 
attracting unusual attention in America. He was 
also much interested with the investigations into the 
life-habits of the Aphididae that are being carried on 
by Jules Lichtenstein at Montpellier, and with the 
thoroughness with which the French authorities en- 
courage experimental research in advanced agricul- 
ture. He received a warm welcome at Montpellier, 
whither he went at the invitation of the French 
minister of agriculture to explain some new methods 
of dealing with the Phylloxera, and where he found 
his own recommendations of previous years so fully 
carried out. He was also surprised at the very ex- 
tensive and successful experiments with American 
vines carried on at Pageset, near Nimes. At a meet- 
ing of the Société d’agriculture d’Hérault, held on 
June 30, he read a paper entitled ‘‘Quelques mots 
sur les insecticides aux Etats-Unis, et proposition 
dun nouveau reméde,”’ which appears in full, with 
an account of the discussion, etc., in Le Messager 
agricole for July 10, 1884. The ‘new’ remedy is 
kerosene emulsion, which has been successfully used, 


SCIENCE. 


365 


especially against Coccidae, in the United States. Its 
application against the Phylloxera is recommended 
in much the same manner as is used with regard to 
sulpho-carbonate of potassium. ‘The proportions rec- 
ommended are three hundred or four hundred grams 
of the emulsion in forty litres of water. 


— A new feature in the German market is Caucasian 
petroleum. The first sixteen wagon-loads of petro- 
leum by the Marienburg-Mlawbraer railway recently 
crossed the German frontier, and sixty more are to 
follow. The German-Russian naphtha-import com- 
pany has acquired land on the frontier at Illowo, and 
here three reservoirs holding seventy-five wagon-loads 
each are set up; from these reservoirs the petroleum 
is to be pumped by steam-power into the German 
wagons. 


— The mineral wealth of the Weser hills is becom- 
ing more clearly recognized in Germany. Ironstone 
beds have recently been found in several places, which 
seem to be connected and to form one long vein. 


— Efforts to cultivate the tea-plant are now being 
made in several parts of Europe. In France, on the 
lower Loire, the plants have been extensively set; but 
it is still a question whether the leaves will retain 
their characteristic aroma on a foreign soil. In Sicily 
the plants set three years ago at Messina are strong 
and healthy, and have flourished in leaf and seed. 
Russia has also made the attempt, the first planting 
being at ten versts from Aleschbri on the Dnieper, 
and proving satisfactory; and plants have also been 
sent from Odessa to Suchum. In Germany the Sile- 
sian committee of agriculture have received seed and | 
directions from Profe-sor Goppert of Breslau, with a 
recommendation to attempt their cultivation. 


— The second part of the Zeitschrift fiir wissen- 
schaftliche mikroskopie, ete., confirms our favorable 
opinion formed by the examination of the first num- 
ber of the new journal, and we think the publication 
will soon become indispensable to active workers with 
the microscope. Microscopy is no longer the simple 
undertaking of a few years ago, but an art, manifold 
and elaborate in both its principles and its methods. 
Indeed, no one can be in the front rank of discovery 
in those fields where the microscope is the essential 
instrument of investigation, unless acquainted with 
the most recent advances of microscopical technique. 
The new Zeitschrift will be valuable, because it is to 
be the central repertorium for gathering and render- 
ing accessible the improvements of the microscopist’s 
art. We praise the periodical in question, because 
it does well what it undertakes to do. 

We have to notice also another new journal, the 
Recueil zoologique suisse, comprising, according to 
title-page, ‘‘’embryologie, l’anatomie et l’histologie 
compareées, la physiologie, l’éthnologie, la classification 
des animaux vivant ou fossiles.”’ It is edited by Dr. 
Hermann Fol, with the collaboration of a number of 
his compatriots. It appears in parts of from a hun- 
dred to a hundred and fifty pages each, at irregular 
intervals. Four will form a volume of five or six 
hundred pages, with from twenty to twenty-five plates, 
in octavo. It is expected that the volumes will 


. 
| 


366 


be annual. The journal is published by H. Georg 
at Geneva. The price of the first volume has been 
fixed at twenty-five francs, but will be raised to forty 
francs as soon as completed. ‘Three parts of the first 
volume have already appeared, and show by the char- 
acter of their contents that the Recueil ranks from 
the start with the best of the zoological journals. 
Part third contains papers by Schiff on lymphatic 
hearts, Fol on a human embryo of 5.6 millimetres, 
Keller on Medusae, Sabatier on the cells of the follicle 
of tunicates, Flesch on a parasite of the horse, and 
Bedot on the central organ of Vellela. The plates 
and the typography are both excellent. 


— Dr. C. C. Parry is now in England, examining 


the methods used in the care of European herbaria, 
and studying his favorite genera of plants as repre- 
sented in the botanical storehouse at Kew. 


— The hitherto rare shells, Helix facta and Binneia 
notabilis, have recently been found abundant on the 
voleanic island of Guadaloupe, off the Lower Cali- 
fornian coast, byG. W. Dunn. The curious Binneia, 
with a body much larger than its shell, envelops 
itself in aestivating in a case of material similar to 
the hibernacula of other land shells. The fauna 
and flora of this isolated island are largely southern 
Californian, rather than Mexican. Its beautiful cy- 
press has been found near San Diego, its pine is 
Californian, while its palm is of a peculiar Lower 
Californian genus that extends to near the United- 
States boundary. 


— The piece of the Calais-Dover cable shown by 
Mr. Crampton at the meeting of section D of the 
American association (see p. 324) was part of the 
cable laid thirty years ago, but was cut from the cable 
in 1859. 


— Botanical collectors are active this season in 
developing the flora of unexplored portions of the 
south-west; paying especial attention to the rich 
fields of Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora in old 
Mexico. The dry, desert fields of 1883 have been 
blossoming like the rose, and offering them unex- 
celled facilities. 

— Baron Nordenskidld has prepared for publica- 
tion a volume containing all the results of his arctic 
work up to the present time; and an English transla- 
tion of it will probably be published in the course of 
the present year. The rumor has been revived in 
the English papers, that his next important enter- 
prise will be an expedition to the south pole; and it 
is certain that the question of the feasibility of such 
an exploit has been brought under his notice. Dr. 
Oscar Dickson has, however, informed his scientific 
friends in London, that he will have nothing to do 
with an antarctic expedition; but they are of opin- 
ion that he may reconsider his determination. 

— A work on Lapland and the Lapps, similar in 
character to Mr. du Chaillu’s ‘ Land of the midnight 
sun,’ has been prepared by Dr. Trombolt, a Swedish 
savant, who some time ago visited that region to 
watch the aurora borealis. Dr. Trombolt lived in the 
closest intimacy with the Lapps; and the results of 
his observations, scientific and social, are about to be 


SCIENCE. 


~~ 


Ce ee a 


* re 
a 


given both to the Swedish and to the English public, 
a translation of the work having been prepared by 
a Swedish gentleman resident in England, who is 
familiar with English. 


— The French northern railway company has be- 
gun experiments on motive-power generated by elec- 
tricity, at the Chapelle station. The company has 
established an electric lift with two Siemens electro- 
magnetic machines; one for elevating the weight, and 
the other for moving the machinery alongside the 
railway. ‘ . 

— Mr. G. F. Harrington, J. P., of Ryde, Isle of 
Wight, has tried a method of sewer-ventilation, by 
means of shafts placed at intervals of about five hun- 
dred feet, which are connected with the sewers, and 
carried up the sides of the adjoining houses. While 
one shaft conducts air into the sewer, the other car- 
ries it away. ‘The in-draught shaft is surmounted by 
a cowl, which is so designed as to have its face 
constantly presented to the wind, and through this a 
stream of air is said to be always passing into the 
sewer; the return-shaft being open ata good height. 


— Unfavorable reports have been received of the 
expedition of the Italian traveller Bianchi. He in- 
tended to work a direct. way from Abyssinia to the 
Red Sea; but on reaching Mehallé at the end of March 
he was deserted by his escort, and obliged to return. 
After re-organizing his caravan he reached Danakil- 
land on April 30, and has since been reported as 
stopped between Lale and Zula by want of water; but. 
the Italian government has received contradictions of 
this report from Aden and Assab. 


—Dr. Richardson’s experiments for the painless. 
extinction of animal life have been brought to a suc- 


cessful termination. The electric shock did not prove . 


sufficiently safe, so Dr. Richardson sought for an 
anaesthetic agent which would make death rapid as. 
well as painless. He successively experimented with 
nitrous and carbonic oxides, ether, chloroform, coal-- 
gas combined with chloroform, all of which more or 
less fulfilled their end. The results have been very 
satisfactory, as carried out at the London home for 
lost dogs, where a,chamber was charged with carbonic 
oxide, the gas having been previously passed over a 
porous surface, from which it took up vapor con- 
taining chloroform. Into this chamber was intro- 
duced a cage containing the dogs, which in a very 
short time passed from life to death in a profound 
sleep, without evincing the slightest pain or con— 
sciousness. Dr. Richardson has also administered 
the same narcotizing agent to sheep, so as to allow of 
their being killed in a perfectly painless manner; and 
he hopes that before long there will not be an abat-. 
toir in England without facilities for employing the: 
system. 


— The Society of the red cross has instituted some: 
experiments with the electric light as an aid in the 
search for wounded on the field. An exhibition of 
the experiment was made during the recent meeting 
of the society at Geneva, but proved a disappoint- 


ment to the spectators on account of the full moon, ~ 


which was shining at the time. 


[Vou. IV.; Mer 88. 


+ 
Pa 
e 


a stab 


tee. NG. 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


WE publish this week a chart of the circum- 
polar regions, showing the thirteen northern 
stations selected by the international commis- 
sion for simultaneous observation in magnetic 
and meteorological phenomena, together with 
a brief statement of the work done at each. 
That fifteen arctic expeditions, comprising not 
less than two hundred men in all, should be 
sent out and return without loss of life attribu- 
table to the peculiar climate or conditions of 
the arctic regions, except in the one case where 
succor had not been provided as directed and 
expected, offers a suggestive lesson to those 
who, without examining the subject, are in- 
veighing against the dangers of arctic research. 


As the outcome of sexual selection, blue 
eyes are to disappear, at least from Europe. 
So predicts Mr. Alphonse de Candolle, in his 
paper on heredity in the color of the eyes 
in the human species, recently published in the 
Archives des sciences. In investigating the 
subject of heredity, it 6ccurred to De Candolle 
that the color of the iris offered the best out- 
ward and visible sign. It is conspicuous ; it 
cannot be masked by artifice ; after early child- 
hood it does not vary with age, as does the 
color of the hair; and the character is, on the 
whole, distinct. For, according to him, there 
are only two sorts, — black, or rather brown 
eyes, and blue; gray eyes being reckoned as 
mere varieties of the blue. From the work- 
ing-up of the statistics, in part from series 
of observations made for the purpose, it ap- 
pears, that, when both parents have eyes of 
the same color, 88.4 % of the children follow 
their parents in this feature; and, of the 
11.6 % of children born with eyes of other than 
the parental color, a part must be attributed 


to atavism, that is, to intermittent heredity. 
No. 89. — 1884. 


But the curious fact comes out, that more 
females than males have black or brown eyes, 
in the proportion, say, of 49 to 45 or of 41 to 39. 
Next it appears, that, with different-colored 
eyes in the two parents, 53.9 % of the progeny 
followed the fathers in being dark-eyed, and 
55.9% followed their mothers in being dark- 
eyed. An increase of 5% of dark-eyed in 
each generation of discolorous unions must 
tell heavily in the course of time. It would 
seem, that, unless specially bred by concolor- 
ous marriages, blue-eyed belles will be scarce 
in the millennium. 

Apropos of the Bernhard Maimon collec- 
tion of oriental antiquities, and of the Wolfe 
expedition to Chaldaea, it is instructive to 
note the growth of interest in Semitic study in 
America. The Semitic summer schools, under 
the inspiration of Dr. Harper and his co-labor- 
ers, attract from a hundred to a hundred and 
fifty students each year, chiefly, of course, for 
the study of Hebrew. The fact that Hebrew 
has been studied almost exclusively by candi- 
dates for the ministry has caused the language 
to be regarded as having only theological sig- 
nificance, and has obscured its scientific value. 
In some American institutions a change has 
taken place. At Harvard and at Johns Hop- 
kins universities the chief interest in Semitic 
studies is intended to be a scientific interest. 
Tt is still true that most students who elect 
Hebrew expect to become ministers, but this 
is not the case with the kindred languages. 


Tue remarks made in the Electrical confer- 
ence at Philadelphia by Mr. Preece, the super- 
intendent of the British postal telegraph and 
telephone system, upon storage-batteries, were 
especially interesting, both from his account 
of his successful use of the original Planté 
form in lighting his own residence, and from 
the refreshing frankness of his introductory 
remarks, in which he stated that there had 


368 | SCIENCE. 


been more lying about storage-batteries in gen- 
eral, during the last few years, than about any 
other commercial scheme before the public. 
Thus far, these batteries do not appear very 
prominently in this country. In view of the 
novelty and importance of the subject, both 
scientifically and commercially, it is to be 
hoped that the competing systems may be sub- 
mitted to thorough tests by the boards of ex- 
aminers of electrical exhibitions. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


Minerals near Philadelphia. 


PERMIT me to call Philadelphia mineralogists’ at- 
tention to a new locality for garnets and green musco- 
vite. The garnets are found in a small quarry of 
taleose rock, about one mile below Lafayette station, 
on the Pennsylvania and Susquehanna valley rail- 
road. The quarry is a short distance below the soap- 
stone quarry, and on the edge of asmallstream. The 
garnets are very fine in color and shape. Green mus- 
covite occurs plentifully a few hundred feet below the 
garnets in the side of the raflway-cut. 

JOSEPH T. MEEHAN. 
Philadelphia, Oct. 6. 


The Delaware estuary. 


In your notice (No. 86) of the ‘Estuary of the Del- 
aware,’ you erred in the authority for the surveys. 
The hydrography upon which the study was based 
was executed by H. L. Marindin, Lieut. H. B. Mans- 
field, and Lieut. E. B. Thomas, assistants in the coast 
and geodetic survey. J. A. SULLIVAN. 

Boston, Sept. 27. 


[We thank our correspondent for calling our atten- 
tion to what was an accidental omission in our notice 
of the recent report of the coast-survey study of the 
‘Estuary of the Delaware.’ — ED. | 


American pearls. 


I beg leave to ask the assistance of the readers of 
Science in gaining information regarding the finding 
of American pearls in either fresh or salt water; also 
the weight, color, lustre, and value of the same, with 
the name of the mollusk in which they were found, 
and date of finding. 

A preliminary paper on this subject was read at 
the Philadelphia meeting of the American association. 
The paper will be published in full by the U.S. fish- 
commission. Due credit will be given for any in- 
formation. GEORGE F. KUNZ. 


With Tiffany & Co., New York, Oct. 6. : 


A wider use for scientific libraries. 


I noticed in the last number of Science a propo- 
sition to render the libraries of the various scientific 
societies more useful by circulating the books some- 
what by mail, among persons located in small towns. 

If those having charge of those libraries knew what 


a blessed boon such an arrangement would be toa 
man situated as I have been for a few years, 1 am 


sure they would heartily second the proposition. Col- — 


leges are often located in small towns, and are very 


poorly supplied with the means for scientific study — 
Professors in such institutions — 


or investigation. 
would be delighted with any arrangement, not in- 
volving very great expense, which would give them 
access in any way during term-time to a good scien- 
tific library. Would not some such arrangement as 
this be a wise one ?— Require a person wishing for 
the privilege of taking books from the library to give 
bond for a sum sufficient to meet all possible liabili- 
ties, and charge to his account all the actual expenses 
incident to packing and mailing or expressing books 
to him, and also any books not returned. Charge 
him, also, a small annual fee for the use of the books. 
In that case, he would pay only the actual expenses, 
and for the use of the books. 

I earnestly hope our scientific societies may con- 
sider this question, and give to those of us who are 
isolated from the rest of the world, in small colleges 
and small towns, the benefit of the wealth of learn- 
ing idly hoarded up in their libraries. 

W. Z. BENNETT. 


Wooster, Wayne county, O., 
Oct. T. ; 


Systematic earthquake observation. 


The mention of my name in several recent articles 
in your columns and elsewhere may excuse the seem- 
ing egotism of the proposal which is the object of this 

etter. 

I am much interested in the recent suggestions 
of Science looking toward the closer intercourse of 
those who are interested in practical seismology. 
We have not in the United States, at least in the 
eastern part, any such promising field for observa- 
tional work as that occupied by the Seismological 
society of Japan; and thenumber of persons at pres- 
ent interested in the study is not large, perhaps too 
small to make advisable the formal organization of a 
seismological society. But my records, kept now fora 
dozen years, make it quite evident that earthquakes, 
even on the Atlantic seaboard, are by no means such 
infrequent phenomena as is generally supposed; and 
I am convinced that systematic instrumental obser- 
vation would largely increase the number by the de- 
tection of minor shocks and tremors which now pass 
entirely unrecognized and unsuspected. 

As to the second point, also, it is quite probable 
there may be more persons interested in the subject, 
and willing to do some work for it, than are known to 
me. In the effort to find out the number and the 
names of such persons, I am quite willing to serve 
as the medium of communication for the present; 
and I would therefore venture to suggest that all 
such persons communicate with me, either through 
your columns or by mail directly, with the view of 
ascertaining whether we are sufficiently numerous to 
make concerted observational work possible and de- 
sirable. C. G. RockWwoop, jun. 

Princeton, N.J., Oct. 10. 


The prime meridian. 


Permit me to add to your remarks in No. 88 of 


Science, concerning the present confusion resulting - 


from too many initial meridians, a few facts from a _ 


recent German periodical. The ‘nautical almanacs’ 


published by England, Germany, France, and the — 
United States, refer, in part at least, to the meridians 


re 


OcrToBER 17, 1884.] 


_ of Greenwich, Berlin, Paris, and Washington, respec- 
tively. 

In German geographical maps the meridian of Ferro 
is used, for the most part, while this meridian does 
not pass through the island of Ferro at all. The 
so-called meridian of Ferro is assumed to be exactly 
20° west from Paris, while the island is only 17° 50’ 
west from Paris. 

The new topographical maps of the Prussian land- 
survey are based on the assumption that the Berlin 
observatory is 31° 3’ 41.25” east from Ferro meridian, 
while more recent telegraphic determinations place 
the Berlin meridian 11° 3’ 27.9” from Paris. 

It is to be hoped that the result of the conference 
will not be a new international meridian, inconven- 
ient at first for all nations alike. 


HoRACE ANDREWS. 
Albany, N.Y., Oct. 11. 


PSYCHICAL RESEARCH IN AMERICA. 


THE adjective ‘ psychical’ has come, through 
the use made of it by the English Society for 
psychical research, to be the label for a special 
class or group of phenomena, which to the 
unthinking are outright marvellous, even awe- 
some, and to the thoughtful, either interesting 
or incredible, aecording to the individual men- 
tal cast. A few English scientific men believed 
that behind all the jugglery and deception of 
spiritualism there lurked a foundation of real- 
ity, perhaps grossly misinterpreted, but still of 
reality. That belief led to the formation of the 
active society named above, the work of which 
has already been noticed in Science (iv. 40). 

The evidence published by this society goes 
to show that there are a number of more or 
less rare psychological effects which are most 
singular, and so unlike what the orthodox psy- 
chology of the day admits, that no explanation 
of them can yet be offered. The effects are 
mysterious not only as to their cause, but also 
as to their nature. One of them, hypnotism, 
was still scoffed at by the sensible until within 
a few years, but is now by common consent 
admitted even into the society of the best 
phenomena. Another of them, thought-trans- 
ference, is still begging for a general acknowl- 
edgment of its good standing, for there are 
those who avow their own wisdom through the 
announcement of an unreasoned disbelief in 
the transmission of thought from one person 
to another by any except the ordinary chan- 
nels: if the transmission appear to occur, it 


SCIENCE. 


369 


is to be explained by some trickery, — so say 
these persons, and they have done with the 
matter. Now, among others of less preju- 
diced opinion are a number of American 
scientific men of acknowledged ability and 
unquestioned integrity, who maintain that the 
evidence in regard to this and other psychical 
phenomena cannot be thus set aside by a vague 
general accusation, but calls for further and 
more rigid investigation. 

Prompted by the enthusiasm and suggestions 
of Prof. W. F. Barrett, one of the most active 
members of the English society, and supported 
by their conviction of the serious nature and 
value of psychical inquiries, the gentlemen 
alluded to above have decided to form an 
American psychical society to promote syste- 
matic study of the obscure and abnormal facts 
alleged to exist by trustworthy observers. 

They join in this enterprise cautiously, hay- 
ing previously satisfied themselves that the tes- 
timony is so good that it must be received as 
raising a series of problems, to settle which 
would be interesting and important. The 
occurrence of thought-transference is naturally 
met at first by sober minds with incredulity ; 
but, now the evidence on the subject is pub- 
lished, mere incredulity no longer suffices: 
either to prove or to disprove the reality of the 
transference would be equally desirable. If it 
be an error, it should be unmasked: if it be a 
reality, the discovery must appear to us momen- 
tous. In any case, there is a plain and inter- 
esting scientific duty to be performed. 

Psychical research is distasteful to some 
persons ; for it touches upon spiritualism, and 
to them seems akin to it. Now, spiritualism 
is an evil in the world, —in America it is a 
subtle and stupendous evil; a secret and un- 
acknowledged poison in many minds, a con- 
fessed disease in others, —a disease which is 
sometimes more repulsive to the untainted 
than leprosy. Spiritualism has two supports, 
— the first trickery and deceit, the second the 
obscurity and inexplicableness of certain psy- 
chological processes and states. It is rational 
to hope that the first support without the second 
would soon lose its influence. The strength 


- 


310 


of spiritualism is protected by the utter mystery 
which screens certain mental and nervous con- 
ditions from the light of explanation. As of: 
others, so the basis also of this superstition is, 
in one word, ignorance. 

To those gifted with a clearer intelligence 
and purer moral sense, there is a moral duty in 
one aspect of the proposed studies. A hope 
that psychical research may liberate us from a 
baneful superstition is a stimulus to inaugurate 
the work of the American society ; yet a scien- 
tific man cannot calculate all the after-effects 
of his labor, but must toil for the truth with 
blind devotion. It will be the endeavor of 
the new society to ascertain the truth in re- 
gard to the alleged psychical phenomena, by 
means of experiments of unquestionable ac- 
curacy, conducted with unprejudiced inde- 
pendence: it will try to steer safely between 
the Scylla of scofting and the Charybdis of 
charlatan spiritualism. 

The names of the present leaders of the 
movement in America are a sufficient guaranty 
that the investigations will be thorough and 
serious: we shall await their outcome with 
oreat interest, and we hope, meanwhile, that the 
society will receive liberal public support and 
encouragement. 


THE INTERNATIONAL POLAR STA- 
LION S. 


Now that the result of the arctic sojourn of 
the various parties is determined, so far as 
concerns the safety of their personnel, and the 
manner in which they were able to carry out 
the programme of the international commission, 
it may be interesting for the readers of Science 
to briefly review the whole topic. Including 
Finland, ten countries participated in the work ; 
namely, Germany, the United States, Den- 
mark, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Russia, the 
Netherlands, Russian Finland, and France. 
Fifteen primary stations were contemplated, 
of which two in the southern, and twelve in 
the northern, hemisphere were successfully 
established, all of which, it is believed, carried 
out the observations prescribed by the com- 
mission. The several stations were as fol- 
lows : — 

1. Discovery Harbor, Lady Franklin Bay, 
established by the United States. The party 


SCIENCE. 


consisted of Lieut. A. W. Greely, U.S.A., " 


assisted by Lieuts. Kislingbury and Lockwood ; 


astronomer Edward Israel; Octave Pavy, 


M.D., surgeon; two Eskimo hunters; four 
signal-corps observers, and fourteen petty 
officers and enlisted men. ‘This expedition 
left St. John’s, Newfoundland, July 7, 1881; 
arrived at Disco, July 17, and at their station, 
which was named Fort Conger, Aug. 12. The 
position of the station is approximately latitude 
81° 20’, longitude 64° 58’ west of Greenwich. 
The Proteus, after landing the party and stores, 
sailed on her return about Aug. 26. Efforts 
were made to reach this station in 1882 by a 
party on the steamer Neptune, and in 1883 
by one on the Proteus, but both failed in the 
attempt; nor was a suitably large supply of 
provisions landed for the support of a retreat- 
ing party when opportunity offered. Aug. 9, 
1883, the observations having been carried on 


successfully, the party in good condition re- . 


treated to the vicinity of Cape Sabine, find- 
ing an insufficient supply of provisions and 
no rescuing party. The melancholy result 
need not be recapitulated. Lieut. Greely and 
six men, one of whom afterward died, were 
rescued June 22, 1884, by the relief expedition 
under Capt. W.S. Schley, U.S.N., in the ships 
Thetis and Bear. ‘The remainder perished 
of want and exposure, except one man shot for 
theft and mutiny, and one Eskimo accidentally 


drowned. ‘The exact state of the records of — 


this expedition has not been made public; but 
it is believed that the international programme 
was carried out, while a large amount of valu- 
able geographical knowledge was attained. 

2. Kingava Fiord, Cumberland Inlet, in lat- 
itude 66° 36’, longitude 67° 13’ west of Green- 
wich, established by the German government. 
This expedition, commanded by Dr. W. 
Giese, sailed from Hamburg, June 27, 1882, 
and arrived at its destination, Aug. 12; the 


vessel returning Sept. 8, the regular work of - 


the station having begun the previous day, and 
all the observations in good running order by 
Sept. 15. The expedition returned to Ger- 
many in August, 1883, having carried out the 
international programme, and obtained valu- 
able ethnological information in regard to the 
Eskimos, without mishap or serious illness of 
any of the party. 

3. Nain, Labrador, in latitude 56° 30’, lon- 


gitude 62° 0’ west of Greenwich, established — 


under direction of Dr. R. Koch by the German 
government. 
7, 1882, arriving in Labrador, Aug. 10. Five 
auxiliary stations were established by the 
co-operation of the Moravian missionaries, and 


[Vor. IV., No. 89. 


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OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


the full programme carried out at the Nain 
observatory. This station is too far south to 
be indicated on our chart. 

4. Godthaab, Greenland, in latitude 64° 
12’, and longitude 51° 42’ west of Greenwich, 
established by the Danish government under 
direction of Adjunct Paulsen of the Meteor- 
ological institute. The party, consisting of 
six persons, left Copenhagen, May 17, 1882, 
arriving at Godthaab, Aug. 1. It carried out 
its work with success according to the pro- 
gramme. 

). Fort Rae, on the northern arm of Great 
Slave Lake, in latitude 62° 38’, longitude 115° 
25’ west of Greenwich, was established by the 
co-operation of Great Britain and Canada, 
under the auspices of the London meteoro- 
logical office. The party commanded by 
Capt. Dawson left London, May 11, 1882, and 
arrived at its destination in August. It car- 
ried the international work to a_ successful 
conclusion, and returned to civilization safely 
in September, 1883. 

6. Point Barrow, Alaska. The station at 
Uglaamie, a short distance from the Point, in 
latitude 71° 18’, and longitude 156° 40’ west 
of Greenwich, was established by the United 
States under the auspices of the Army signal- 
office. It was commanded by Lieut. P. H. 
Ray, U.S.A., and left San Francisco, July 18, 
1881, arriving at its destination, Sept. 8. Ob- 
servations began Oct. 17, but the full series 
did not commence until Dec. 1. They were 
carried on with unimportant interruptions until 
Aug. 27, 1885, when the party returned safely 
to San Francisco, having carried out the 
programme, and obtained valuable observations 
on the natural history and geography of the 
region. 

7. Jan Mayen Island, at Marie Muss Bay, 
in latitude 71° 0’, longitude 8° 36’ west of 
Greenwich. This expedition was sent out from 
Austria at the expense and under the supervis- 
ion of Count Wilczek, and was commanded by 
Licut. Wohlgemuth of the Austrian navy. It 
left Tromsé, June 20, 1882, and was safely 
landed on the island of Jan Mayen by July 18. 
Observations were begun Aug. 1, and carried 
out with fidelity and success. They were 
reached by Aug. 3, 1883, and arrived at Vienna 
on the 22d, having enjoyed perfect health dur- 
ing their absence, and amassed rich collections 
of photographs, and of the fauna and flora, 
etc. 

%. Cape Thordsen, Spitzbergen, in latitude 
78° 30’, longitude 15° 30’ east of Greenwich, 
was selected by the Swedish expedition, Mossel 
Bay being closed byice. The expenses of this 


SCIENCE. - 571 


expedition, under the auspices of the Academy 
of sciences, were defrayed by Mr. O. Smith, a 
Swedish merchant. It comprised six men, 
commanded by Mr. Eckholm, who began 
observations Aug. 23, 1882, and returned 
Aug. 28 the following year to Troms6, having 
carried out the programme without loss or ac- 
cident. 

9. Bossekop, Norway, in latitude 69° 54’, 
longitude 23° 0’ east of Greenwich. This sta- 
tion, directed by Mr. Steen with four assistants, 
was established by the Norwegian government 
under the supervision of the Meteorological 
office. Observations were carried on during 
the year beginning Aug. 1, 1882. 

10. Sodankyla, Finland, in latitude 67° 24’, 
and longitude 26° 36’ east of Greenwich. This 
station was occupied under the auspices of the 
Finnish scientific society, at the expense of 
the government, by a party of four observers 
commanded by Mr. Biese. Observations were 
carried on from the middle of August, 1882. 
This station, like the preceding, being situated 
on the Scandinavian mainland, the position 
lacked that element of danger inseparable from 
the navigation of icy seas. 

11. Karmakuli station, Moller Bay, Novaia 
Zemlia. This station, in latitude 72° 30’, lon- 
gitude 53° 0’ east of Greenwich, was estab- 
lished by Russia under the auspices of the 
Imperial geographical society, and commanded 
by Lieut. Andreieff. The international work 
was carried on, as well as geographical re- 
searches. One man died at this station, owing 
to an amputation of a limb consequent upon 
an accidental fracture. With the above excep- 
tion, this party returned safely in September, 
1883. 

12. Sagastir Island, Lena delta, at the west 
mouth of the Lena, in latitude 73° 0’, and longi- 
tude 124° 42’ east of Greenwich, was the sec- 
ond Russian station. The party under Lieut. 
Jurgens left St. Petersburg in December, 1881, 
but did not arrive at its post until the midsum- 
mer following. The international programme 
work was begun in September, 1882; and at 
the end of the year, all having gone well, the 
party volunteered for a second year’s observa- 
tions, which should now be about completed. 
News from the party may be expected in a 
few months. 

13. Dickson Haven, on the north coast of 
Siberia, near the Yenisei mouth, was to have 
been occupied by the Dutch expedition, com- 
manded by Professor Snellen of the Meteor- 
ological institute, which sailed on the Varna 
in the summer of 1882. The expedition was 
beset near Waigat Strait, and was unable to 


—— Os hn og 


372 


reach its destination. Observations, except 
for magnetism, were carried on throughout 
their stay. The Varna was nipped by the ice, 
Dec. 24, 1882, but did not sink until the fol- 
lowing summer, when the crew and party took 
refuge on the Dimfna, also beset near by, and 
later were taken off by the steamer Obi, and 
reached Hammerfest, Sept. 3, 1883. This was 
the only expedition which failed to reach the 
vicinity of the station selected before sailing. 

14. In the southern hemisphere, France sent 
a large party, under Lieut. Courcelle Seneuil, 
to Orange Harbor, near Cape Horn, in south 
latitude 55° 48’, longitude 67° 30’ west of 
Greenwich. Its arrival, successful operations, 
and return without loss, have already been 
chronicled in Science. 

15. Lastly, the German government estab- 
lished on South Georgia, in south latitude 54°, 
and west longitude 37°, a station under the 
direction of Dr. C. Schrader. This expedi- 
tion landed Aug. 21, 1882, and observations 
were begun early in the following month. It 
was safely embarked again in the autumn of 
1883, without serious accident of any sort, 
and with the required series of observations, 
beside large collections in every branch of 
science. 

Beside these extraordinary stations, of 
whose doings brevity obliges us to give only 
the barest intimations, nearly all the observa- 
tories for magnetism and meteorology in the 
United States and Europe endeavored to co- 
operate in the work. 


PSYCHIC FORCE, 


ALTHouGH it may be regarded as doubtful 
whether the society for the investigation of 
psychic force, proposed at the recent meeting 
of the American association, will result in any 
new discoveries, yet the philosophy of the sub- 
ject is of sufficient interest to merit general 
consideration. ‘The first and greatest obstacle 
we meet with in such investigations is the ab- 
sence of clear ideas of what it is we are to look 
for, and how we are to distinguish between real 
relations of cause and effect and mere chance 
coincidences. ‘The state of mind of the com- 
munity at large is also unfavorable to the at- 
tainment of any result. If we take out of it 
two classes holding quite opposite views, —the 
one comprising those who look upon the sub- 
ject with that sentiment of credulity and wonder 
which is fatal to all scientific accuracy ; and 
the other, those who think it all nonsense, and 
unworthy the attention of common-sense peo- 


SCIENCE. 


ple, —we shall have but few left for patient 


research. 

If, however, this remnant is going to investi- 
gate the subject in a scientific spirit, they are 
entitled to all the light that can be thrown upon 
it. We begin by warning them against a kind 
of inquiry which can lead to absolutely no con- 
clusion. We refer to such inquiries as those 
made in the following extract in the New- York 
Nation of Aug. 28, 1884:— 


Thought-transference, apparitions, etc. 


‘‘The Society for psychical research will be grate- 
ful for any good evidence bearing on such phenomena. 
as thought-reading, clairvoyance, presentiments, and 
dreams, noted at the time of occurrence, and after- 
wards confirmed ; unexplained disturbances in places 
supposed to be haunted; apparitions at the moment 
of death or otherwise; and of such other abnormal 
events as may seem to fall under somewhat the same 
categories.”’ 


It would be difficult for the society to put 
forth any thing better fitted than this advertise- 
ment to lower the estimation in which their 
work is held by common-sense people. Let us 
make a little calculation showing how often co- 
incidences of the kind sought for must really 
occur in our country. Numerical exactness in 
our data cannot, of course, be reached: all we 
can do is to make rough estimates which shall 
not be unreasonably far from the probable truth. 
Any physician, we apprehend, will consider it 
quite within the bounds of probability that one 
per cent of the population of the country are 
subject to remarkably vivid dreams, illusions, 
visions, etc. This will make half a million 
such people in the United States. Each of 
these persons may be supposed to have fifty 
friends or relations, of whom one per annum 
dies. If they are subject to a dream or vision 
once a week, there is one chance out of seven 
that they have one on the same day that the 
friend dies. Let us suppose that it takes a 
combination of eight separate and independent 
points of resemblance, between the vision and 
the circumstances attending the death of the 
friend, to constitute a remarkable coincidence, 
and that each of these has a probability of one- 
half. We shall have, in one case out of two 
hundred and fifty-six, a remarkable combina- 
tion of coincidences. Putting these results 
together, we may infer, that, as a matter of 
fact, some case of extraordinary coincidence 


between the circumstances of death, and the — 


dream or vision by a friend of the dying per- 


son, does occur somewhere in the country 


nearly every day in the year. ‘Thus, what the 
Psychical society will find, will be what we 


know must exist as the result of chance coinci- 


[VoL. IV., No. 89. “ 


. 
w 
a 
s 
* 


a 


OCTOBER 17, 1884.] 


dence. The search after haunted houses is of a 
different kind, but the result must be equally in- 
conclusive: all that can be discovered is cases 
in which the cause of some apparently singular 
phenomena happened to be undiscoverable. 
The idea seemingly entertained by the psy- 
chists — that the residuum, after they have elim- 
inated all cases in which the natural causes 
could be found, must be genuine — has no logi- 
cal foundation. One can hardly lie on his bed 
awake an hour after midnight without hearing 
some sound the cause of which it is beyond his 
power to guess ; and we do not see any essen- 
tial distanction between this case and that of a 
haunted house. 

The general question at issue is, whether there 
is any such process as what the psychists very 
happily denominate ‘telepathy,’ which may 
be defined as feeling at a distance without the 
intervention of any physical agent. And just 
here we have the real point at issue between 
them and those people ‘ of the earth, earthy,’ 
who think their work is all nonsense. The real 
questions are two in number, — 

First, Can the mind be influenced by things 
external to itself in any other way than by such 
things acting physically upon the nervous sys- 
tem? Second, Can the mind, by any act of the 
will, produce any effect outside of itself, except 
through the agency of the organs of motion of 
the body itself acting according to physical 
laws? 

The two questions may, perhaps, be com- 
bined into one by inquiring whether it is possi- 
ble that mind can affect mind otherwise than by 
some physical connection between the nervous 
systems with which the two minds are associ- 
ated. ‘That there is a natural tendency to be- 
lieve in the possibility of the so-called telepathy 
is, no doubt, well known to all who have con- 
sidered the subject. The frequently expressed 
view that the mesmerizer influences his subject 
_ by the mere act of his will, and especially the 
readiness with which this view is received, may 
be cited as an example. But it is none the 
less true that the longer we live, the more evi- 
dence we see that there is no such action. It 
is true that this evidence is negative, and so 
may always lack something of being conclu- 
Sive; yet the more closely we look into the 
case, the less foundation we can see for any 
positive belief in telepathy. We must remem- 
ber that the physical connection through which 
one mind affects another may be of the most 
delicate kind ; may, in fact, nearly evade all 
investigation. The slightest look, an unappre- 
ciable motion of the muscles of the mouth or 
eyes, made perceptible through the light which 


SCIENCE. 


375 


is reflected to the eye of the second person, 
constitute a physical connection. Now, since 
in the operations of mesmerism the subject is 
always within easy sight or hearing of the oper- 
ator, there is always room for the action of a 
physical cause between the two through the 
intervention of light or sound. Telepathy be- 
tween the two could be proved only by finding 
that the subject was affected by the mesmerizer 
when the latter was not within sight or hearing 
or knowledge of the former. 

The Society for psychical research has pub- 
lished in its proceedings very detailed accounts 
of a number of investigations undertaken by 
its committees and members, some of which 
are very striking. Thereport of the committee 
on haunted houses, however, can hardly be 
regarded by lookers-on as any thing better than 
very scientific children’s ghost-stories. The 
extraordinary cases of events or accidents 
happening to one person being reproduced in 
the imaginations or visions of others at a dis- 
tance, are nothing more than recitals of what 
we know, from the theory of probabilities, 
must be very frequent occurrences. A fea- 
ture of these coincidences which ought not 
to have escaped the notice of the society is, 
that they have no feature in common by which 
they can be traced to the action of a general 
cause, and do not even tend to show that there 
are particular persons who possess the faculty 
of being influenced by telepathy. A very 
striking case is that which most of our readers 
may have seen, in which a lady awoke under 
the impression that she had received a blow in 
the mouth at the very time when her husband, 
a mile or two away, actually did receive such 
a blow. Now, if this lady had repeatedly felt 
her husband’s impressions in this way, or if it 
could be shown that a blow in the mouth or 
on any other part of the person often makes 
itself felt by telepathy, the case would be better 
worth inquiring into; but there is no common 
feature of this kind in the cases as reported, 
and they thus fail to supply good evidence that 
they are any thing more than mere chance coin- 
cidences. 

The only case that looks at all strong in 
favor of telepathy is that in which one person 
is made to draw figures similar to those thought 
of by another in his neighborhood. If any of 
the members of our home society can succeed 
in making this mechanism work, they will have 
something of great interest to show the critical 
observer. But we apprehend that the incred- 
ulous will, under almost any circumstances, 
require stronger evidence than any which he 
has any prospect of getting, to make him 


374 


believe that there is no physical cause in action 
by which the subject has an inkling of the 
drawings he is to make, or an indication 
whether he is going right or wrong. This in- 
credulous tendency will be greatly strengthened 
if the assistance of spiritualistic performers is 
called in. S. NEwcooms. 


RADIANT MATTER IN AN EDISON 
LAMP. 


In the Edison exhibit at the Electrical exhi- 
bition was shown a phenomenon that deserves 
careful investigation at the hands of physicists. 
Midway between the two wires which carry the 
current to the carbon filament of an ordinary 
incandescent lamp, a third wire is inserted, 
which terminates in a thin strip of platinum 
extending up midway between the branches of 
the loop with its faces turned towards them, 
and ending about half an inch below the crown 
of the loop. When the lamp was in action at 
its ordinary state of incandescence, if a circuit 
was closed through a galvanometer between 
the insulated terminal of the platinum strip 
and either terminal of the carbon filament, it 
showed a current flowing across the vacuum 
of the lamp, between the platinum and the car- 
bon, in opposite directions, according to which 
pole of the carbon was connected, but much 
stronger — forty times stronger — when the 
platinum was connected to the positive pole of 
the incandescent carbon; this through a gal- 
vanometer of about twenty ohms resistance. 
Moreover, this current was increased when the 
current through the lamp was increased, so as 
to heat it much beyond its normal temperature. 

After the lamp has been in use for some 
time, the stronger, positive-platinum, current 
becomes weaker, and finally changes direction. 
By letting the lamp rest, the experiment may 
be repeated. The same currents were obtained 
through the glass when either terminal of the 
carbon was joined to a small piece of platinum 
stuck anywhere on the outside of the lamp; 
the same effects were also obtained when the 
bulb was drawn out into a long tube and the 
connection made at its end, and when this 
tube was packed in ice to cool it down; but 
when the tube was bent round into a loop, no 
current was obtained, probably from the cut- 
ting-off of rectilinear radiation from the car- 
bon. 

It would seem as if here were a field for 
extending Crookes’s experiments on radiation. 
H. M. Pauw 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 89. 


THE AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS 
UNION. : 


Tue second congress of the American ornitholo- 
gists’ union was held in the American museum of 
natural history in New York, Sept. 30 and two fol- 
lowing days. Dr. Philip Lutley Sclater, Mr. Howard 
Saunders, and the Rev. E. P. Knubley, of the British 
ornithologists’ union, were present, and took part in 
the proceedings. A large number of new members 
were elected. ; 

The report of the committee on the revision of the 
nomenclature and classification of North-American 
birds was presented by Dr. Elliott Coues. The work 
of the committee had been divided; Messrs. Ridgway, 
Brewster, and Henshaw being charged with determin- 
ing the status of species and sub-species, while Mr. 
Allen and Dr. Coues were to formulate the canons — 
of nomenclature and classification. Dr. Coues read 
at length the report of this last sub-committee, the 
reading occupying about an hour and a half, after - 
which Mr. Ridgway presented the report of the other 
sub-committee, which emphatically and unanimously 
indorsed the employment of trinomials for the desig- 
nation of sub-species. 

The report of the committee on bird-migration was 
presented by Dr. C. Hart Merriam. This committee 
had been very industrious, and had been greatly 
helped by the public press; so that, by the distribution 
of nearly six thousand circulars, the committee finally 
secured nearly seven hundred observers, in addition 
to the keepers of lights. The observers are distrib- 
uted as follows: Mississippi valley district (Prof. W. 
W. Cooke, superintendent), 170; New-England dis- 
trict (John H. Sage, superintendent), 142; Atlantic 
district (Dr. A. K. Fisher, superintendent), 121; 
Middle-eastern district (Dr. J. M. Wheaton, super- 
intendent), 90; Quebec and the maritime provinces 
(Montague Chamberlain, superintendent), 56; district 
of Ontario (Thomas MclIlwraith, superintendent), 
38; Pacific district (L. Belding, superintendent), 30; 
Rocky Mountain district (Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, 
superintendent), 14; Manitoba (Prof. W. W. Cooke, 
superintendent), 10; British Columbia (John Fan- 
nin, superintendent), 5 ; North-west territories (Er- 
nest E. T. Seton, superintendent), 5 ; Newfoundland 
(James P. Howley, superintendent), returns not yet 
received. Migration-stations now exist in every state 
and territory in the union, excepting Delaware and 
Nevada. 

The committee was fortunate in obtaining the co- 
operation of the Department of marine and fisheries of 
Canada, and of the Lighthouse board of the United 
States. By this means it secured the free distribu- 
tion of upwards of twelve hundred sets of schedules 
and circulars to the keepers of lighthouses, light- 
ships, and beacons, in the United States and British 
North America. : 

The returns thus far received from observers were 
exceedingly voluminous and of great value; they 
were so extensive, indeed, that it was utterly impossi- 
ble for the committee to elaborate them without con- 
siderable pecuniary aid. 


a 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


In order to show the union the character and ex- 
tent of the labors of the committee, the chairman had 
requested the superintendents of all districts east of 
the Rocky Mountains to prepare reports upon five 
common, well-known, and widely distributed birds, — 
the robin, catbird, Baltimore oriole, purple martin, 
and nighthawk; and these reports were presented for 
examination. 

The chairman called attention to the action of the 
International ornithologists’ congress held in Vienna 
last April, stating that he had been instructed (in 
common with the delegates from other countries) to 
represent the cause of the committee to the national 
government, begging it ‘‘to further to the utmost the 
organizing of migration-stations,’’ and ‘‘ to appro- 
priate a sufficient sum for the support of these sta- 
tions and for the publication of annual reports of the 
observations made.’’ The council was instructed to 
memorialize the U.S. congress, and the parliament 
of Canada, in behalf of the work of the committee on 
bird-migration. 

The report of the committee on the eligibility or 
ineligibility of the European house-sparrow in Amer- 
ica was presented by Dr. J. B. Holder. Dr. Holder 
said that a circular of inquiry had been printed, and 
about a thousand copies circulated in Canada and the 
United States. Particular pains had been taken to 
secure evidence from those who advocated the cause 
of the sparrow. A large number of returns had been 
received, and the evidence for and against the natu- 
ralized exotic had been carefully sifted and summa- 
rized. The result overwhelmingly demonstrated that 
the sum of its injurious qualities far exceeds and 
cancels the sum of its beneficial qualities: in other 
words, it was the verdict of the committee that the 
European house-sparrow is not an eligible bird in 
North America. The union sustained the decision 
of the committee. 


The report of the committee on faunal areas was | 


presented by Mr. J. A. Allen. Mr. Allen said, that, 
for the purposes of the committee, North America 
had been divided into several districts, each of 
which had been placed in charge of a member of the 
committee, as follows: arctic and British America 
and the northern tier of states bordering the Great 
Lakes, from New York to Minnesota inclusive, were 
being worked by Dr. C. Hart Merriam; Canada 
south of the St. Lawrence, and New England, by 
Mr. Arthur P. Chadbourne ; the eastern and middle 
states from New Jersey to Florida, and west to the 
Mississippi River, by Dr. A. K. Fisher; the Rocky 
Mountain region, by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns; and the 
Pacific region, by Mr. L. Belding. It was the plan of 
the committee to collate and tabulate the required 
data from all published sources, to avail itself in 
like manner of the material contained in the returns 
of the observers of bird-migration, to illustrate the 
facts thus obtained by colored maps showing the sum- 
mer and winter range of each species, and to gen- 
eralize the final results and place the same before the 
union, accompanied by colored charts, showing, with 
_ 48 much precision as possible, the exact limits of the 
several faunal areas in North America. 


SCIENCE. 


37d 


Dr. P. L. Sclater said he was glad to know that 
North America, which he knew as a nearctic region, 
was being worked in so thorough a manner by so 
competent a committee, and that the results obtained 
could not fail to be of great interest and value. 

The matter of the wholesale slaughter of our native 
birds for millinery and other purposes was brought 
forcibly before the union by Mr. Brewster, and a 
committee was appointed for the protection of North- 
American birds and their eggs against wanton and 
indiscriminate destruction. 

Dr. Leonhard Stejneger exhibited a stuffed speci- 
men of a willow grouse from Newfoundland, which 
he regarded as a new geographical race, differing 
from the continental form chiefly in the possession 
of more or less black upon its primaries. Mr. Brew- 
ster said that he had recently examined nearly one 
hundred and fifty specimens of ptarmigan from New- 
foundland, and had observed the peculiarities pointed 
out, but did not consider them constant. He was in- 
clined to regard the characters mentioned as seasonal, 
and possibly to some extent individual. Dr. Stejne- 
ger replied that this coloration of the wing-feathers 
could not possibly be seasonal, as they (the prima- 
ries) were moulted but once a year. Dr. Merriam 
stated, that, during a recent visit to Newfoundland, he 
had examined a very large number of willow grouse 
in the flesh, and was still engaged in investigating 
the change of color in this species. His studies led 
him to disagree with Dr. Stejneger’s last statement. 
Dr. Merriam was convinced that the change in color 
in individual feathers did take place both independ- 
ent of and coincident with the mouit. Mr. D. G. 
Elliot agreed with Dr. Merriam in considering the 
change of color of individual feathers an established 
fact. An animated discussion followed, and was par- 
ticipated in by many members. 

In response to a call from the president, Dr. P. L. 
Sclater said he hoped the members of the union 
would excuse him if he offended the feelings of any 
one by the remarks he was about to make. It had 
grieved him much to find in this country three large 
and valuable collections of birds which were not un- - 
der the care of paid, working ornithologists. One of 
these is in Boston, one in New York, and the third 
in Philadelphia. Each contains what all ornitholo- 
gists admit to be most valuable typical specimens. 
A grave responsibility rests upon the possessors of 
types of species, and the loss or injury of such speci- 
mens is a great and irreparable loss to science. The 
collection of the Boston society of natural history 
(known as the LaFrenaye collection) has been much 
damaged by neglect;.and the entire collection ought 
now to be catalogued, and so arranged as to render 
any particular specimen readily accessible. In the 
American museum of natural history in New York 
are the types of the celebrated Maximilian collec- 
tion, and many other specimens of exceeding great 
value. A large number of these have never been 
properly identified, and some of them are missing 
and have doubtless been destroyed by insect pests. 
The value of others has been lost through neglect, 
by the displacement of labels, and by the omission of 


376 


proper measures for their preservation. The same 
remarks would, in a general way, apply to the collec- 
tions of the Philadelphia academy of natural science. 
It is sad to find no paid ornithologists in charge of 
these exceedingly valuable collections, and he begged 
to suggest that the union could undertake no worthi- 
er task than to impress upon the proper authorities 
the urgent necessity of immediate action in this 
matter. 

The officers of the union were re-elected as follows: 
president, J. A. Allen, Cambridge ; vice-presidents, 
Dr. Elliott Coues and Robert Ridgway, Washington ; 
secretary and treasurer, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Locust 
Grove, New York. 


THE MERIDIAN CONFERENCE. 


THE International conference for fixing upon a 
meridian to be employed as a common zero of longi- 
tude met at Washington, Oct. 1, in the diplomatic 
hall of the State department. Forty delegates were 
present from twenty-five nations. Of these, sixteen 
were represented, wholly or in part, by members 
of the diplomatic or consular service; and, as the 
State department took charge of the affair, the pro- 
ceedings have been surrounded with much of the 
secrecy of that office. As a consequence, the ques- 
tions involved have been very little discussed from 
the stand-point of scientific or commercial conven- 
ience, but the time has been mostly taken up with 
potitical diplomacy and sentiment. 

The representatives of this country were Rear- 
Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers, Messrs. L. M. Rutherford 
and W. F. Allen, Commander W. T. Sampson, and 
Professor Cleveland Abbe ; and, at the first meeting 
of the conference, Admiral Rodgers was elected pres- 
ident. In his opening address he referred to the wide 
extent of this country in longitude, but said there 
was no desire to urge the choice of a prime meridian 
within its borders. The rest of the session was oc- 
cupied in discussing proposed methods of conducting 
the conference, etc. 

At the next meeting, on Oct. 2, Lieut.-Gen. Stra- 
chey of Great Britain, Mr. Janssen (director of the 
observatory at Meudon, France), and Dr. Cruls (di- 
rector of the Rio Janeiro observatory) were elected 
secretaries. 

Commander Sampson then introduced a resolution 
to invite the superintendents of the American ephem- 
eris and of the Coast and geodetic surveys (Professor 
Newcomb and Dr. Hilgard), Professor A. Hall, Dr. 
Valentiner (directorgof the Karlsruhe observatory), 
and Sir William Thomson, to attend the meetings. 
A long discussion arose as to whether these persons 
were to take part in the proceedings, the French del- 
egates opposing any such proposition. The resolu- 
tion was finally passed as it stood; and Commander 
Sampson then introduced another, that the gentle- 
men who had just been invited to attend the meet- 
ings of the conference be permitted to take part 
in the discussion of all scientific questions. The 


SCIENCE. 


French delegates again strongly objected to allow- 
ing any private individuals, however eminent, who — 
were not authorized by their respective governments, 
to influence the decisions of the conference. After 
considerable discussion, the motion was lost, eight 
to thirteen, each nation having one vote. 

Gen. eaacnee then introduced, as a substitute, 
that the president be authorized, with the concur- 
rence of the delegates, to request an expression of 
the opinions of the gentlemen invited to attend the 
conference on any subject on which their opinion 
might be likely to be valuable; and this was adopted 
without debate. 

Commander Sampson then introduced a resolution 
that the meetings of the conference be open to inter- 
ested visitors. This, after objection on the part of 
the French delegates, was lost by a vote of seven 
to fourteen. 

Mr. Rutherford, in order to give direction and pre- 
cision to the work, then submitted a resolution that 
the conference propose to the governments repre- 
sented the adoption, as a standard meridian, of that 
of Greenwich, passing through the centre of the 
transit instrument at the observatory of Greenwich. 

The two French delegates made extended remarks 
opposing such a direct resolution, stating that this 
conference had no authority definitely to adopt any 
meridian; that it should not be influenced by the de- 
cisions of the geodetic conference last year at Rome, 
since that was purely a meeting of scientific men on a 
technical matter, while this conference was more in- 
ternational in its character, and should examine the 
thing from a political stand-point, Mr. Janssen even 
going so far as to express the opinion that it should 
confine its deliberations to the question as to whether 
a common zero meridian were desirable. 

Gen. Strachey said we could not ignore the work 
of the geodetic conference at Rome; that, composed 
of some of the most eminent scientific men of all 
countries, who had fully discussed all these questions, 
its decisions must carry weight; that while this con- 
ference had no authority to enforce its decisions, yet 
it should make them as complete and definite as 
possible. 

Mr. Rutherford said, that a discussion as to whether 
it were advisable to adopt a common zero meridian or 
not was a waste of time; that it was taken for granted 
by our government in issuing the invitations, and by 
the others in accepting them, but, out of deference 
to the wishes of the French delegates, he withdrew 
the resolution temporarily. Another was then offered 
by Commander Sampson, stating the desirability of 
adopting a universal meridian, and it was unani- 
mously agreed to. Mr. Rutherford then renewed his 
original resolution for the adoption of the Greenwich 
meridian, and Mr. Janssen reiterated his objections 
to it. 

A discussion followed as to the powers of the con- 
ference, and the intentions of this government in call- 
ing it. Mr. Rutherford referred to the language of 
the secretary of state in the invitations, saying that 
each government was invited ‘‘ with a view to learn- 
ing whether its appreciation of the benefits to accrue 


\ 


zl 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


to the intimate intercourse of civilized peoples from 
the consideration and adoption of the suggested com- 
mon standard of time so far coincides with that of 
this government as to lead it to accept an invitation 
to participate in an international conference,”’ etc., 
and said that they were here to fix upon that meridian; 
that the delegates must have studied the matter be- 
fore coming here; and that no one would be likely 
to come unless he knew, or thought he knew, some- 
thing about the matter. 

Most of the delegates then stated that they had 
no power to bind or pledge their governments, but 
only to recommend to them the decisions of the con- 
ference. 

Mr. Fleming, one of the English delegates, called 
the attention of the conference to the act of congress 
which called them together; viz., — 

** That the president of the United States be author- 
ized and requested to extend ... an invitation to 
appoint delegates . . . for the purpose of fixing upon 
a meridian,” etc., and said that the word ‘ recom- 
mend ’ was not used at all. 

There being, apparently, considerable doubt as to 
just what they were there for, the conference ad- 
journed over for four days to get further light on 
the subject. 

At the third meeting, on Oct. 6, the pending reso- 
lution of Mr. Rutherford was so modified as to define 
the meridian of Greenwich as a standard meridian 
Jor longitudes ; and it was then temporarily withdrawn 
to give an opportunity for the French delegates to 
introduce a resolution providing for a prime meridian 
having a character of absolute neutrality, cutting no 
great continent. 

Gen. Strachey said that the conference at Rome had 
concluded that a prime meridian must pass through 
an observatory of the first order; and only those of 
Berlin, Paris, Greenwich, and Washington fulfilled 
this condition. 

Commander Sampson summarized the many points 
necessary and desirable in a prime meridian; and, on 
the side of convenience and economy, he made the 
strong point, that seventy per cent of all the shipping 
afloat now use the Greenwich meridian, and that the 
cost of the plates now engraved for charts reckoning 
from Greenwich was seventy-five per cent of all the 
world’s charts. To adopt any other meridian would 
necessitate changing all these, which cost about ten 
million dollars. 

Mr. Rutherford said that the Paris observatory 
must soon be moved out of the city, and only senti- 
ment kept it where it was; while Greenwich observa- 
tory was in an isolated park, secure from injurious 
encroachment. 

Mr. Janssen defended the proposed neutral meri- 
dian, saying, that, if that principle were rejected, it 
would be useless for him to continue the discussion. 
He went into a long defence of the plan, historical, 
sentimental, and patriotic; giving the history of the 
Isle of Ferro as a zero of longitudes, the great work 
of the French in early days in astronomy, navigation, 
and chart-making, and how many valuable charts they 
now possessed, etc. The only point worth combating 


SCIENCE. 


377 


was the statement that the needs of the common 
prime meridian were limited to geography or hy- 
drography alone, and were entirely distinct from the 
meridians for astronomy, geodesy, and topography, 
which were local national affairs, and might just as 
well have separate and independent meridians; in 
this ignoring the principal objects of the conference. 

Professor Adams of Cambridge, England, said that 
Mr. Janssen’s argument seemed to be a defence of the 
Paris meridian rather than of a neutral meridian, and 
to be based simply on motives of sentiment and pa- 
triotism; that the question of convenience and least 
change from present status was not touched upon. 
Besides, why talk of a neutral meridian ? They were 
not belligerents, but were all neutral, as scientific 
men, or men looking for the greatest good to the 
whole world, should be. If an entirely new meridian 
be chosen, an observatory must be set up on it, and 
connected carefully by telegraph with others, and all 
existing longitudes changed. 

Mr. Janssen tried to insist upon the distinction 
between astronomical and geographical longitudes, 
and that such a high degree of accuracy was not 
needed in the latter. 

Professor Adams showed that they must, in any 
case, depend upon astronomical observations; that 
even geodetic observations of high accuracy cannot 
determine great differences of longitude exactly, on 
account of the irregular figure of the earth. 

In accordance with a previous resolution, Professor 
Newcomb, the superintendent of the American ephem- 
eris, was invited to give his views on the question. 
He said it would be impossible to select a meridian 
absolutely neutral in Mr. Janssen’s sense, as it must 
be on land, with an observatory upon it connected by 
telegraph with others. He referred to the impossibil- 
ity of connecting every newly determined longitude 
directly with the principal meridian, but said that 
each country or each region must have its secondary 
meridian and observatory to connect to, and then the 
whole system would receive systematic correction as 
the accuracy of determining the longitude of this 
secondary observatory was increased. He agreed 
with Professor Adams that the proposals of the 
French delegates were based purely on sentiment, 
and that he should answer them just as the former 
had done. 

Gen. Strachey said that longitude was longitude, 
and as a geographer he must repudiate the idea of 
first-class longitudes for astronomical purposes and 
second or third rate geographical longitudes. 

At the session of the conference on last Monday 
the question of a prime meridian was finally settled. 
Mr. Fleming, the British delegate from Canada, op- 
posed the pending resolution of Mr. Janssen for an ab- 
solutely neutral meridian, because it would only add 
another to those already used, and advocated that of 
Greenwich on account of the overwhelming prepon- 
derance in its present use over any other; while Dr. 
Cruls of Brazil favored the neutral meridian. The 
resolution was put to vote, and lost by alarge majority. 

The original resolution to adopt Greenwich was 
then introduced. Mr. Allen presented a resolution of 


378 


the Railway convention, held in Philadelphia, Oct. 9, 
and reciting the importance to railroads of retaining 
this meridian. The resolution to adopt Greenwich 
was then passed with only one dissenting vote, that 
of San Domingo, France and Brazil not voting. 

Mr. Rutherford then introduced a resolution to 
count longitudes in two directions from Greenwich 
up to 180°, east longitude being plus, and west minus. 
This was favored by the delegates from Great Britain 
and Russia, and opposed by Commander Sampson, 
the latter advocating the plan of counting only in 
one direction, from 0° to 360°, as simpler. This plan 
was also favored by the delegate from Sweden, Count 
Lewenhaupt, who moved to adopt the fourth resolu- 
tion of the Roman conference, counting longitude 
continuously through the whole 360°. Pending 
further discussion, the conference adjourned till 
Tuesday at one o’clock. On Tuesday the discussion 
was continued, and the resolution offered by Mr. 
Rutherford passed by a small majority. 


SEMITIC NOTES. 


AN interesting collection of oriental antiquities 
has been brought to this country by Mr. Bernhard 
Maimon. The collection consists of bronzes, lamps, 
manuscripts, seals, and an Assyrian barrel-cylinder 
with inscription. Mr. Maimon offered it for sale at 
one thousand dollars, but, finding no purchaser for 
the whole, he leaves the seals and cylinder in the 
Metropolitan museum in New York, and has sold 
the other objects to Professor Marquand of Prince- 
ton, N.J. 

Information dated London, Sept. 28, has been 
received, that Dr. W. H. Ward, the leader of the 
Wolfe expedition to Chaldaea, would set out the fol- 
lowing week for Constantinople. Here he hopes to 
be joined by Dr. Sterrett, who has returned to Con- 
stantinople from his extensive tour in Asia Minor. 
From Constantinople the party will perhaps go by 
Alexandretta, Aleppo, and Mosul, reaching Bagdad 
toward the close of November. The months of De- 
cember, January, and February are those most favor- 
able for a visit to Chaldaea; and the Wolfe party 
expects during this time to accomplish its task. 
During his stay in London, preparatory to his trip 
to Chaldaea, Dr. Ward spent his time in the British 
museum, studying the Assyrian antiquities, and 
specially acquainting himself with those which are 
forged. Cylinders are so valuable, that a flourishing 
business is done in forgeries by some of the enterpris- 
ing orientals; but the practical eye can always detect 
traces of the forgery. Usually a mould is made from 
a genuine cylinder, and the forgery is cast in this 
mould. The joining of the two halves of the cast 
cannot be successfully concealed. 

Mr. J. R. Jewett, who graduated at Harvard 
last year, is now in Beyrout, Syria, engaged in the 
study of modern Arabic. His favorite studies during 
his last two college-years were the Semitic languages. 

D. G. Lyon. 


SCIENCE. 


4 ee eee oe 4 J 


TURNER’S SAMOA. 


Samoa a hundred years ago, and long before, to- 
gether with notes on the cults and customs of twenty- 
three other islands in the Pacific. By GEORGE 
TurRNER, LL.D., of the London missionary so- 
ciety; with a preface by E. B. Tyzor, F.R.S. 
London, Macmillan, 1884, 16+395 p. 12°. 


Tus work was prepared under very excep- 
tionable circumstances favorable to its value 
and accuracy. The author published, in 1861, a 
volume entitled ‘ Nineteen years in Polynesia,’ 
which was chiefly directed to narrate the intro- 
duction of Christianity into, and the missionary 
work in, the group of volcanic islands in Cen- 
tral Polynesia, long known as Navigator’s 
Islands, but correctly called Samoa. In the 
present volume he abandons the missionary 
style, as well as its subject, and gives the 
result of his miscellaneous researches for up- 
wards of forty years. He has clearly ap- 
prehended the desiderata in the presentation 
of the results of ethnological research: i.e., he 
has confined himself almost exclusively to the 
detail of facts, classified so as to assist stu- 
dents, but has left to specialists all promulga- 
tion or advocacy of theories. The result is 
that very few works are of greater value in as- 
sisting the study of comparative ethnology, or 
in the solution of problems in physiology, 
mythology, history, and philology. 

The volume, being a repertory of an immense 
number of details in all branches of anthro- 
pology, affords little opportunity for such quo- 
tation as would give any true idea of its value. 
It must rather be regarded as a brief encyclo- 
pedia of the various titles to which the sociolo- 
gist, the linguist, the student of folk-lore, the 
physiologist, and indeed all persons interested 
in the several divisions of anthropology, can 
turn with profit. The mythic traditions and 
the folk-lore constitute, to the general reader, 
perhaps the most attractive part of the work. 
In this connection it may be proper to offer a 
slight criticism. 

In the cosmical genealogy, an early charac- 
ter is called ‘ Valevalenoa,’ or, as translated, 
‘Space.’ This deity had a long-legged seat ; 
and, after a time, ‘ Cloudy Heavens’ brought 
forth a head, which fell from the heavens. 
‘Space’ set it up on his high stool, and said 
to it, ‘ Be a son, be a second with me on the 
earth.’ Space started back, for all of a sud- 
den the body of a man-child was added to the 
head. The child was sensible, and inquired 
who his father was. Space replied, ‘* Your 
father is yonder in the east, yonder in the west, 
yonder towards the sea, yonder in the land, 


a 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


yonder above, and yonder below.’’ Then the 
boy said, ‘‘I have found my name: call me 
‘All the sides of heaven.’’’ The point for 
criticism is, that, while the name the boy be- 
stowed upon himself is strictly in accordance 
with the philosophic status which the Samoan 
(as well described by the author) had reached, 
the name or title ‘ Space’ is wholly inappro- 
priate to that status. 

What may be the proper translation of the 
native word ‘ Valevalenoa,’ or whether it can 
be translated, it is not possible for us to deter- 
mine; but it does seem clear that the meta- 
physical conception of ‘ space’ could not have 
been made by the Samoans. 

The genealogical table of the divinity gives 
‘Tangaloa, the explorer of lands,’ as his father, 
and the ‘ Queen of earth’ as his mother; and 
‘ Tangaloa, the explorer of lands,’ was the pro- 
geny of ‘ Tangaloa, the dweller of lands,’ as 
his father, and ‘Cloudy Heavens’ as_ his 
mother; also the parents of ‘ Tangaloa, the 
dweller of lands,’ were ‘ Cloudless Heavens ’ 
for father, and the ‘ Kighth Heavens’ for 
mother. After that amount of definiteness, 
it would not be probable that in an attempt to 
commence from the first of all, Leai (noth- 
ing), and arriving at what might be called the 
practical account of the earth itself, and its 
deities, one would be constantly encountered 
with the conception of ‘ Space’ as the progeny 
of the foregoing. It is true, that, from a meta- 
physical point of view, space might as well 
proceed out of nothing, as nothing out of 
space ; but with the intermediaries mentioned, 
it would not be in accordance with the gen- 
eral lines of savage cosmogony to have started 
with nothing, and through a respectably elabo- 
rate family tree to have arrived at practically 
the point of departure. 

An instance of light is thrown upon a prob- 
lem which has for some time occupied physiolo- 
gists. We refer to the subject of prehistoric 
trephining as explained by an account of the 
manner in which headache was cured, confirm- 
ing the theory of Dr. Fletcher in his address 
before the anthropological society of Washing- 
ton in 18381, that the prehistoric trephining 
was to relieve disease of the brain. The 
operation was to let out the pain at the crown 
of the head by the following surgery. The 
scalp was slipped up and folded over, and the 
cranial bone scraped with a fine-edged shell 
until the dura mater was reached. Very little 
blood was allowed to escape. In some cases 
the scraped aperture was covered over with 
a thin piece of cocoanut-shell; in other in- 
stances the incised scalp was simply replaced. 


SCIENCE, 


379 


This is perhaps. the first instance in which 
savage trephiners have been caught in the act 
with operations on the scale of a custom. The 
cure was death to some, but most of the cases 
recovered. To such an extent was this remedy 
for headache carried on, that sharp-pointed 
clubs were specially made for the purpose of 
striking that known weak part of the crown 
of the head, causing instant death. 

The precise operation of trephining has not 
been found to be practised among the tribes of 
North America; but they very generally scari- 
fied and wounded parts of the body where pain 
was seated, or supposed so to be. Their phi- 
losophy of pain was, that it was an evil spirit 
which they must let out. The early writers, 
who believed in the benefits of phlebotomy 
more than is now the fashion, gave much credit 
to the Indians for this practice. It was one 
of the proofs of their advance in medical and 
surgical science. It is suggested that the cus- 
tom of cutting the breast, arms, and some 
other parts of the body, at the mourning cere- 
monies, may have originated in the idea of 
letting grief, the pain of sorrow, out of the 
mourner. 

The principles of the taboo are made very 
clear and expressive by the tale of the devices 
by which property was protected. For in- 
stance, to protect the bread-fruits, the owner 
would plait some cocoanut leaflets in the form 
of a sea-pike, and suspend it from one or more 
of the trees which he wished to protect. The 
thief would be frightened from touching the 
tree; expecting, the next time he went to 
the sea, a sea-pike would dart up, and mor- 
tally wound him. Another of the instances is 
the cross-stick taboo, a piece of any sort of 
stick suspended horizontally from the tree, 
expressing the imprecation of the owner that 
any thief touching it might have a disease run- 
ning right across his body and remaining fixed 
there until he died. This is recommended as 
a contribution to the literature on the mysti- 
cisms of the cross. ‘ 

The interesting subject of tattoo marks is 
also dwelt on with more than usual information. 
Reference is made to the mistake of Behrens 
in describing the natives of Samoa in his nar- 
rative of 1772, when he stated that ‘‘ they were 
clothed from the waist downward with fringes 
and a kind of silken stuff, artificially wrought.’’ 
A nearer inspection would have shown him 
that the fringes were a bunch of red leaves 
glistening with cocoanut-oil; and the kind of 
silken stuff, the elaborate tattooing. An inter- 
esting point is the worship of the octopus. 
or cuttle-fish, which may be compared with its 


380 


frequent appearance in the tattoo marks and 
religious customs of the Haida and other In- 
dians of the north-west coast of America. 

The author, not confining himself to the group 
of the Samoan islands in his forty years’ expe- 
rience, made notes upon the cults and customs 
of twenty-three other islands in the Pacific 
Ocean, which are published in this volume. 
Among these, with reference to the island Nu- 
kufetau, is found a singular reversal of the 
premium on families given by Roman law, and 
the merit generally attributed, in communities 
untaught by Malthus, to the production of nu- 
merous offspring. Infanticide there was the 
law of the land. Only one child was allowed 
to a family. Under special circumstances, 
and by paying a fine,a second might be al- 
lowed to live. 

On the whole, and in general terms, without 
further attempt at quotation, the volume can 
be strongly recommended as being illustrative 
of the stage of ethnic life comprehended in it, 
and as almost above criticism. 


THE HOME RAMBLES OF AN AMERICAN 
NATURALIST. 


A naturalist’s rambles about home. By C. C. ABBorr. 
New York, Appleton, 1884. 485 p. 12°. 


Ir is not often that one can sit down and 
become so absorbed in a book that he ceases to 
be critical. It is in this condition that we lay 
down Dr. Abbott’s charming volume. We do 
not know whether some of his statements need 
qualifying or not. We do know, however, that 
the author is an accurate observer, and, further- 
more, that he lives amid the scenes and expe- 
riences so graphically described. The three 
beeches, woodshed, fences, etc., do exist, and 
belong to Dr. Abbott’s homestead. The author 
has been known to the reading public for many 
years by his articles in the Popular science 
monthly, American naturalist, and Science. 
He is more widely known by his being the first 
to discover paleolithic implements in North 
America, and as the author of the work entitled 
‘ Primitive industry.’ 

The present book is, as the title indicates, 
the rambles of a naturalist about home. The 
sights and scenes are so well depicted with pen 
that illustrations are not needed, and the 
author has had the good sense not to attempt 
them. Nothing but a sensitive-plate, timed to 
the fraction of a second, would be of any use in 
such service. Speaking of a white weasel, he 
says, ‘It fell into the hands of a taxidermist, 
and was lost to science.’ Such a fate often 


SCIENCE. 


awaits the exploits he describes when they fall 
into the hands of an artist. 3 

Many new and interesting facts are given 
concerning the habits of wild animals, and at 
the same time he corrects a host of erroneous — 
observations that have gone unchallenged for — 
many years, because no one competent for the 
work has given the time and patience neces- 
sary to the study. His glimpses of wildcats, 
and the fight between a turtle and mink, are 
curious experiences, and his observations of 
the skunk are extremely interesting. He al- 
ludes to the peculiar power of the skunk as 
causing an ‘atmospheric disturbance’! The 
rapidity with which a skunk burrows in the 
ground is quite a new fact. He shows how 
untrustworthy most weather-lore is, as based 
on the habits of animals, though he admits that 
chipmunks appear to foresee the occurrence of 
a cold rain twenty-four hours in advance. He 
also shows — it seems to us conclusively — 
that the opossum does not ‘ play possum,’ and 
that its supposed power of feigning death is 
the result of paralysis from fear. 

He believes that the gambols and antics and 
various curious behaviors of animals are evi- 
dences of play and fun, as in children, and that 
in no other way can such behavior be ex- 
plained. Even among fishes has he observed 
movements that must be referable to the same 
desire. We can commend the book most hear- 
tily to all lovers of nature. It is a book to 
be put into the hands of every boy, and we 
should like to see it adopted in our schools as 
an occasional reading-book. 


THE LIFE OF ELLEN WATSON. 
A record of Ellen Watson. Arranged and edited 
by AnnéaA Bucktanp. London, Macmillan, 


1884. 64279 p. 8°. 


ELLEN Warson’s claim to remembrance does 
not rest upon what she did, but upon the 
promise she gave of what she might have done 
had her life been longer. At the age of twenty 
she entered University college as the first 
woman-student in mathematics and physics. 
Professor Clifford soon formed a very high 
opinion of her mathematical ability, and be- 
lieved that she possessed a rare faculty for 
original work. In the examination which was 
held at the end of the year, he was careful 
not to allow his judgment to be influenced by 
the fact of her youth and sex; and the most 
strict examination of her papers gave her the 
highest number of marks gained by any of the 
class, and placed her in the position of first 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


mathematical student for that year in Univer- 
sity college. She was awarded the principal 
prize in applied mathematics and mechanics, 
and the Mayer de Rothschild exhibition; and 
Professor Clifford said, at the meeting for the 
distribution of prizes, that a few more students 
like Miss Watson would certainly raise Uni- 
versity college to a status surpassing that of 
institutions twenty times as rich, and which 
had been two hundred years longer in exist- 
ence. Praise like this from Professor Clifford 
would have been remarkable if it had followed 
years of preparation under such skilful train- 
ing as English tutors know how to give. Ellen 
Watson had not only carried on her studies by 
herself, but she had been from the age of six- 
teen the governess, the playfellow, the nurse, 
of a large family of younger brothers and sis- 
ters. In order to get a little uninterrupted 
time for the study of quaternions and the cal- 
culus of variations, she had been obliged to 
form the plan of going to bed with the children, 
and getting up at four o’clock in the morning 
to begin her day’s work. Such success, under 
such circumstances, gives reason to believe, 
that. if she had lived, she would have been one 
of the most remarkable women of her time. 
Her disease was consumption; and it does not 
appear that her death, at the age of twenty- 
four, was hastened by overwork. No less 
remarkable than her intellectual ability were 
the sweetness and elevation of her character. 
Her later correspondence shows a lofty aspira- 
tion, a passion for some high undertaking for 
the good of the world which her early death 
prevented her from entering upon. Great 
minds of either sex are not so common that 
one can feel less than profound regret that one 
more has been extinguished without great work 
accomplished. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THE parental relation of the large cyclonic areas 
of low pressure that frequently pass over our coun- 
try, and which might well be called simply cyclones, 
to the tornadoes that are formed in them, has lately 
been discussed by W. M. Davis in the American me- 
teorological journal for August; and by H. A. Hazen 
in the same, and in the American journal of science 
for September. The former gives a graphic illustra- 
tion of about one hundred tornadoes that occurred 
last spring, according to Lieut. Finley’s maps; the 
latter gives a tabular statement of a number of tor- 
nadoes of earlier years. The results agree in show- 
ing the close limitation of tornadoes to a district 
south-south-east of cyclone centres, as has already 
been pointed out in these notes; but the authors 
differ as to the theoretical meaning of this limitation. 


SCIENCE. 381 


— Professor Simon Newcomb, LL.D., superintend- 
ent of the U. S. nautical almanac, has been ap- 
pointed professor of mathematics and astronomy in 
the Johns Hopkins university. 


— The comet discovered by Wolf at Heidelberg, on 
Sept. 17, proves to belong to the interesting family of 
periodical comets, according to the calculations made 
at the Harvard college observatory by Mr. S. C. 
Chandler, jun., and Mr. Wendell. An attempt was 
made to compute an orbit from observations, Sept. 
20, Oct. 1, and Oct. 11; but it was found that they 
could not be represented within several minutes of 
are on the assumption of parabolic motion. The 
parabola obtained was, perihelion passage, 1884, 
Nov. 14, 23,309, Greenwich mean time; perihelion 
from node, 170° 40’ 86”.0, 1884.0; node, 197° 16’ 24”.3, 
1884.0; inclination, 34° 0’ 46”.8, 1884.0; log. peri- 
helion distance, 0.273507; which gave the deviation 
of the middle place(C — O), AAcosB = + 7 35”.8, 
AB = +4’ 40’.5. These residuals could not be sen- 
sibly reduced by varying the ratio of the extreme 
curtate distances. Accordingly an orbit was com- 
puted without any assumption as to the form, with 
the following result: perihelion passage, 1884, Nov. 
17, 71,070, Greenwich mean time; perihelion from 
node, 172° 36’ 40”.5; node, 206° 27’ 36”.5; inclination, 
25° 10’ 54.3; log. perihelion distance, 0.196049; mean 
distance, 3.53638; eccentricity, 0.555885. The cor- 
responding period is 2,429 days, or about 6.65 years. 

This comet accordingly appears to belong to the 
group of the Faye-Moller comet, 1857, iv., and 1874, 
iv., all of which have general features of resemblance, 
There is no evidence of any known previous appear- 
ance of this comet. If, indeed, the period above 
given is not considerably in error, it would be visible 
from the earth only at every third return to perihelion, 
or once in twenty years. 

— Dr. Charles Rau, curator of antiquities in the 
U.S. national museum, Washington, D.C., is about to 
publish, under the auspices of the Smithsonian insti- 
tution, a most valuable and interesting work entitled 
‘Prehistoric fishing in Europe and North America.’ 
This work will form No. 509 of ‘Smithsonian contri- 
butions to knowledge,’ and consists of about 350 
pages quarto. The book is illustrated with four 
hundred and five cuts from drawings by Mr. Trill, 
being either copies of already published designs, or 
correct representations of objects specially drawn for 
this work, the majority of the latter being specimens 
belonging to the U.S. national museum. As regards 
America, objects termed ‘ prehistoric’ include such 
as are found in mounds and other ancient burial- 
places, on and below the ground, or in caves, shell- 
heaps, etc.; in fact, to use Dr. Rau’s words, ‘all 
articles of aboriginal workmanship, that cannot with 
certainty be ascribed to any of the tribes which are 
still in existence, or have become extinct within his- 
torical times, or, to speak more distinctly, within the 
recollection of the white successors of the Indians.”’ 

This book is divided into two parts: part i. Europe; 
part ii. North America. Part i. is divided into three 
sections: 1°. Paleolithic age, 2°. Neolithic age, 3°, 
Bronze age. In part i., Europe, a short characteri- 


Re lil 
.ve 


382 


zation of the three ages is presented, followed by a 
minute description of the fishing-implements peculiar 
to each period. Special attention is given to the fish- 
ing-articles found in the paleolithic caves of France 
and other countries. In the neolithic age, the artifi- 
cial shell deposits of Denmark and of the other lake- 
dwellings of Europe are especially noticed. In the 
bronze age are considered the fishing-implements 
from the lake-settlements of Europe, and also those 
forms of implements not found in lake-dwellings. In 
part ii, North America, the subject is discussed 
under the following chief headings: (a) fishing-im- 
plements and utensils, (b) boats and appurtenances, 
(c) prehistoric structures connected with fishing, (d) 
representations of fishes, aquatic mammals, etc.; and 
(e) artificial shell-heaps. Then follow extracts from 
various writings of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eigh- 
teenth, and nineteenth centuries, in. which reference 
is made to aboriginal fishing in North America; the 
work closing with notices of fishing-implements 
and fish representations discovered south of Mexico. 
Plate proof of this work has already been furnished 
to the author, and it is probable that in a few weeks 
this book will be within the reach of archeologists 
and others. 


— Capt. James Mercer has been placed at the head 
of the department of civil and military engineering 
at West Point in place of Prof. Junius B. Wheeler, 
retired. . 

— The navy department has ordered Assistant 
Engineer Goold H. Bull, U.S.N., to Philadelphia, as 
professor of engineering at the University of Penn- 
sylvania. 

— The work of establishing cold-wave flag-stations 
is being carried on under the supervision of First 
Lieut. Dunwoody, acting signal-officer. He has sent 
out over eight thousand circulars to postmasters in 
the cold-wave sections, answers to which are being 
received daily; and there is every reason to think 
that within two months the flag system will be in 
working order. The warnings regarding cold waves 
will be transmitted by telegraph to the sixteen signal- 
corps printing-stations in the north, east, and west, 
whence copies of the Farmer’s bulletin will be sent 
out to the different stations in the vicinity of each 
printing-office; and the postmaster receiving the 
warning will hoist his flag, thus giving notice to 
his neighbors of the near approach of a cold snap. 
These flags are not to be hauled down until twenty- 
four hours after the postmaster receives notice through 
the Bulletin, and then only in case he does not receive 
a second warning. 

— Prof. J. W. Mallet of the University of Virginia 
has accepted the position of professor of chemistry 
in the Jefferson medical college, Philadelphia, which 
has been recently held by Prof. Robert E. Rogers. 

— William C. Day, Ph.D., formerly of St. John’s 
college, Maryland, has been appointed professor of 
chemistry and physics at Nashville university, Ten- 
nessee. | 

— The geological maps of America are excellently 
catalogued by J. and J. B. Marcou in their ‘ Mapoteca 


SCIENCE. 


geologica Americana,’ just issued as a bulletin of the — 
U.S. geological survey. They reach the surprising — 
number of 924; including, however, under distinct — 
numbers, all re-issues. The annotations are brief but 
valuable; and the whole is prefixed by a very interest- 
ing account of the progress of geological cartography, 
which is of permanent value. An excellent index 
completes a most serviceable publication. 


— Abram S. Hall, Ph.D., a graduate of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, is appointed professor of chemistry 
and physics at St. John’s college, Annapolis, Md. 


— There is an error in the reports of the commit- 
tees of the American association, in our last issue, 
which needs correcting. The statements concerning 
the committee on an international convention refer, 
not to that committee, but to the committee on the 
interchange of courtesies between the American and 
British associations for the advancement of science. 


— Mr. J. Dickie of Leeds is exhibiting his recently 
patented invention of an aqua-aérial or wave-ship, 
which is supposed to be capable of making the chan- 
nel passage in twenty minutes, or of running to New 
York and back in six days. The aqua-aérial ship 
presents a different section at different parts of its 
length; but it may be described as a broad, flat vessel 
with water-tight chambers all round it, and a series 
of three inclined planes forming the bottom. The 
air-ducts are of the usual shape on deck, but spread 
out so as to occupy one-half the breadth of the vessel 
at the point where they reach the bottom. They are 
situated just at the commencement of the inclined 
planes, and as two are placed side by side there are 
four altogether. ‘The object of these ducts is to ren- 
der each plane independent of the others; and thus 
all are supposed to assist in lifting the vessel out of 
the water, as it were, and to facilitate its passage 
over the surface. The bows curve downwards from 
about the deck level, and merge into the front of the 
first plane of the bottom; while the water-tight com- 
partments at the sides of the vessel are formed into 
a sort of platform at the stern, by means of which 
eddy-making is to be avoided. The air-ducts have 
another office to perform; for, by means of self-acting 
valves, any tendency to roll is said to be immediately 
counteracted by the air-ducts on the rising side of 
the vessel closing automatically, thus creating a 
vacuum on that side, while the greater pressure ex- 
erted on the water on the other side will tend to re- 
store it to the normal level. The inventor maintains. 
that the power required to keep up the speed will 
decrease with the increase of the vessel’s rate of pro- 
gression, ‘the only thing necessary being a high 
speed of engines.’ Unfortunately for sea-sick people, 
we have as yet had no practical proof of the merits. 
of the ‘ aqua-aérial vessel.’ 


—A cable despatch was received Oct. 15, at Har- 
vard college observatory, from Kiel, Germany, an- 
nouncing the discovery of another asteroid by Palisa. 
Its position was as follows: Oct. 14, 4033; right 
ascension, 2 18™ 26.3°; declination, north 13° 47”; 
daily motion, west 56”, south 6’. It is of the 13th 
magnitude. . 


pee Neer. 


eee VPN TO Wo. 60, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1884. 


THE DISCUSSION 


ON STORAGE-BATTERIES BEFORE THE ELECTRICAL 


CONFERENCE IN PHILADELPHIA. 


THE sudden outburst of interest in secondary 
batteries at the time the Faure battery was first in- 
troduced in England led to some unfortunate -results 
in the shape of bankrupt electric companies. The 
first hope was that sufficient electricity to do most 
of the household work, and give all needed light, 
would be left at one’s dooreach morning. The idea of 
‘bottled electricity’ was a taking one with the public, 
especially as it was introduced with the best of in- 
dorsements; but the secondary battery has not proved 
to be such a boon as was expected. In view of this 
great public interest, the discussion on the subject 
by many of the leading electricians of England and 
America at the electrical conference was of especial 
importance. This discussion shows, as well as any 
thing can, the present state of opinion among those 
most capable of judging of the secondary battery. 
The discussion was opened by Mr. W. H. Preece. 

Professor W. H. PrREeEcE, London, England. —I 
have been called upon somewhat unexpectedly to 
open a discussion on this question of storage-bat- 
teries; and I regret very much that I have no notes 
with me to refer to, and that I shall have to trust a 
good deal to my memory. As I am not possessed 
of a poor memory, I don’t think I should develop 
any serious error, although Mr. Edison himself has 
declared that this question of storage-batteries has 
developed the most remarkable power of man’s latent 
capacity for lying. [Laughter.] 

I very much agree with Mr. Edison’s definition, 
for I think there has been more lying and more 
swindling and more rascality done over this ques- 
tion of storage-batteries than over any other depart- 
ment of electrical science. Now, storage-batteries 
have been very improperly called storage-batteries, 
and I very much prefer to call them secondary bat- 
teries. It is quite true that this subject of storage- 
batteries is one upon which there is a good deal of 
misconception, which has arisen from the introduc- 
tion of the word ‘storage.’ Now, these secondary 
batteries have been before the world for over twenty 
years; and all the physicists who go to Paris almost 
invariably meet with Planté himself, the father of 
this instrument. For the past twenty years, nearly, 
it has been one of my great pleasures, when I visited 
Paris, to pay a visit to Mr. Planté, who has shown 
me, as he always shows everybody who sees him, 
the progress that he has made. Mr. Camille 


Faure, conceived the notion of coating the plates of 
lead with the oxide of lead. These secondary bat- 
teries had not attracted much attention, although 
Plaaté’s papers deserve the most careful considera- 
tion from all electricians; but Mr. Faure found that 
by coating the positive plate of the secondary cell 
with a layer of minium,—red oxide of lead, —he 
considerably hastened the production of the plate. 
Planté simply depended upon the electrolytic action 
of the current in peroxidizing his plate. This is an 
operation that sometimes involves months. Faure’s 
battery fell into the hands of a man who put for- 
ward one of the most diabolical schemes that Paris 
has ever produced. A man by the name of Phillippart 
placarded all Paris with the most outrageous notices 
of what this great battery was going to do. Batteries 
were to be distributed, like milk and ice, at our doors; 
so that motor power could be obtained and used in our 
houses, and light could be obtained from them. The 
result was, that a considerable sensation was created, 
and an attempt was made to bring out an official swin- 
dle; but it did not succeed. Another gentleman was 
associated with him by the name of Mari. They be- 
came associated in London with a gentleman who 
holds a very high position, and occupies in the finan- 
cial world a very important place indeed, as the head 
of the great firm of Mathie, Johnson, & Co., who are 
large metallurgists. Mr. Sellon joined himself with 
a Mr. Voleckmar. They brought out a compound 
battery; and a company was formed in London to 
develop this scheme, and a great deal of money was 
collected, but all of it has been lost. Mr. Volekmar 
himself succeeded in playing his part of a plunderer 
sufficiently to ride about London in a manner indicat- 
ing a person of great wealth. The fate of this man 
was sad indeed, for his body was found in the Seine 
with a bullet through the forehead. Now, two or 
three other men had been working at this idea, — Mr. 
Tribe and Professor Bridgeton. They approached the 
matter in a truly scientific spirit; and the result 
has been, that Mr. Tribe has brought out a form of 
secondary cell, although it is not yet in the market, 
that is a great improvement upon any thing that 
has ever been brought out before. But all these 
persons have been working silently upon this subject, 
and have gone back to Planté’s original work, and 
they have followed Planté’s original methods. The 
batteries that I am going to speak about are hollow, 


| hay: 
t 


384 


and the modification of Planté’s simple lead cells; the 
simple cell being two plates placed in a dilute sul- 
phuric acid, one plate oxidized, and the other plate 
pure. Now, as regards the uses, I have made a great 
many experiments with these secondary batteries; 
and first I will speak of the experiments made of 
their use in telegraphy. Some time ago the idea was 
mooted that a considerable economy might be effected 
in the working telegraph if dynamos were used for 
that purpose. The dynamo-machines are used by the 
Western union company, and they employ them for 
their circuits; but they are not used in England, and 
we have failed to use them for a very obvious reason, 
which is simply this, that in England we do not work 
with ‘closed circuits.’ We work our instruments 
with rapid reversals; our automatic system, which 
is so very extensive, sometimes giving us the result 
of the transmission of three hundred words per 
minute, with very rapid reversals. of very minute 
currents. It is absolutely essential that these currents 
should be uniform in their character. Now, the cur- 
rents produced by the dynamo-machines are not 
uniform. If a telephone be inserted in a secondary 
circuit, you will invariably find that you can hear 
sounds which are indicative of variations of the cur- 
rent, and these variations are fatal to a fast speed of 
working. But when you use a dynamo, and utilize 
the current of the dynamo in preparing a secondary 
battery, you then get a means by which you can pro- 
duce currents of absolute uniformity. The second- 
ary-battery current flows out absolutely uniform. 
And, again, it has the great advantage of giving you 
a battery with a very low resistance. The electro- 
motive force of an ordinary cell is as low as two 
volts. You may take it as a rule to be two volts. 
Its internal resistance may be made whatever you like. 
Now, I had three series of cells made, one set being 
Dr. Tribe’s, and another Planté’s: and from each 
of these sets — there were eight cells to each set — 
from each of these sets forty circuits were worked; 
that is, each battery had forty distinct and separate 
circuits, so that practically we had a hundred and 
twenty circuits running from these three secondary 
batteries. Although all worked for about three 
months, I think the exact time was ninety-six days, 
all these circuits worked uniformly and perfectly, 
gave no trouble that would necessitate even the glan- 
cing at them during this whole period of three 
months, and without any attention; when suddenly 
one failed, and immediately afterward another failed, 
and then the third failed. They were charged up 
again, and then they went on for another three 
months. And they have behaved as well as one could 
possibly wish; so much so, that one of the first duties 
that I wish to discharge, on my return to England, 
will be to arrange for a large supply of these second- 
ary cells, and a further use on a large scale at our bat- 
tery for the post-office. We have in use, at the general 
post-office in London, six hundred and fifty circuits 
centralizing there; and we are now utilizing about 
twenty-two thousand cells. I think it more than 
likely we shall be able to work the whole with proba- 
bly not more than five thousand cells. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 89. — 


Now, as regards electric lighting. I have already 
used secondary batteries for electric lighting: I have 
used them in the post-office, and I have used them 
for my own house. My house is in a portion of the 
country through which no lines pass for the purpose 
of electric lighting, and they cannot be found within - 
a reasonable distance: so, if I wanted to light my house 
by electricity, I must be dependent on my own supply 
of electricity. I light my house by gas: but I burn 
my gas in my garden, and I extract from it that which 
I want, namely, light; and I discharge into the air of 
my garden that which I do not want, namely, poison. 
My gas is employed in working a small gas-engine of 
two-horse power. It is the gas-engine which works a 
small Gramme dynamo, which, when worked at its full 
power, gives me forty-two volts and fifty-two amperes. 
These fifty-two amperes are directed into seventeen 
cells. The cells are Planté’s original cells. The plates 
themselves are two feet square, and in each cell there 
are twelve of these little lead plates. The lead plates 
are made up of four thin sheets of lead, each sheet be- 
ing about one thirty-second of an inch thick; and they 
are perforated in squares regularly all over, and these 
four thin plates are tied together—they are almost 
woven together— they are tied together with thick 
worsted. They are arranged in pairs; six on one side 
forming one pole, and six on the other side forming 
the other pole. They are placed inside of an ordinary 
pitch-pine box, and the insulation of the cell is main- 
tained by a thin India-rubber bag which envelops it. 
It is a loose India-rubber bag of about the same shape, 
and, when the plates are put in, it forces the India- 
rubber out, and the bag takes the exact form of the 
cell, and it makes the cell thoroughly water tight and 
thoroughly electricity tight. I have seventeen of 
these cells, all arranged in a series; and my engine, 
which generates these currents, and charges this bat- 
tery, isinmy garden. My gardener has the gas-engine 
under his charge. He is an ordinarily intelligent 
gardener. When he comes on duty in the morning, 
he lights the gas in the gas-engine, and starts the 
dynamo which charges my battery; and when he goes 
away to his dinner, after the engine has been work- 
ing for three or four hours, the battery is prepared. I 
go home in the evening: I have got a store of elec- 
tricity. I have every room in my house fitted up. I 
have at my bedside a most charming little light, with 
no smoking, and no trouble with a wick, and no heat, 
—a mellow light by merely turning onmytap. I have 
the softest and most delicious light you can conceive 
of, thrown upon my paper or thrown upon my book. 
I have had this going on for four months, and I have 
never had any bother, except on one occasion, when 
the gardener put his foot on the wrong place, and the 
engine came down upon his foot, crushing his toes. 

I have a strong impression, that, for all isolated 
places similar to mine, the storage-battery is an essen-. 
tial thing, and I think that some one is bound to work 
out this question. Several are now pegging away at 
it. Sir William Thomson spent much time in inves-— 
tigating this subject, and has given it a great deal of 
attention, but has not succeeded, simply because you 
can use a Planté cell untrammelled by any patent. It 


Z 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


is at your disposal, and nobody will interfere with 
you. If anybody else chooses to follow my example, 
I think they can do precisely the same thing. But 
there are, after all, one or two other uses for second- 
ary batteries. Now, I have been very luxurious and 
very extravagant in carrying out this arrangement. 
For instance: I have a little daughter who has a very 
pretty doll-house. Her doll-house consists of six 
rooms; and each room is well furnished, and well 
populated with charming little dolls. It is, of course, 
necessary that each room should be supplied with a 
charming little electric light: so each room is sup- 
plied with this light. Then, I havea cigarette-lighter, 
consisting of a piece of platinum which can be ren- 
dered red-hot by the secondary battery. The diffi- 
culty in doing that sort of thing with the usual mode 
of distribution is that you want the benefit of cutting 
off a portion of your current. I interrupt a current, 
flowing, say, six-tenths of an ampere, by putting 
into the circuit, by a switch, a secondary cell, that di- 
minishes the light, and sets up a counter-electro- 
motive force of two volts for the time being. While 
tha: cell is in the circuit, your light is alittle dim; but 
when I take from the poles of that secondary circuit 
two wires in connection with a piece of platinum wire, 
then the current passes through the platinum; and 
this current is due to the two volts from the second- 
ary cell. This piece of platinum wire is heated up 
with a current quite sufficient for the purpose, with 
only two volts. 

Now, there is another field in which satisfactory 
experiments have been made with secondary cells, 
and that is, in lighting up trains of cars by electricity. 
This has been done on one of our railways between 
London and Brighton. The railway company has 
been for some months past lighting up one of its 
express trains with secondary batteries. The dyna- 
mo is worked by the motion of the wheel, and the 
dynamo charges the battery during the time that 
the train is working, and the battery is being charged 
during the whole of that time, and the current is being 
extracted from the battery; so that you havea light in 
your carriages which is perfectly steady, and quite in- 
dependent of the motion of the train. And that 
leads me to a point which I omitted, and which led 
me to work so hard at secondary batteries; and that 
is, that a secondary battery renders the current pro- 
duced by the inconstant engine and the inconstant 
dynamo perfectly steady. 

It is a difficult thing to say, that, in making an 
appliance of any kind, we have reachied absolute per- 
fection; but I can say this, that, when you have a 
secondary battery inserted in the electric-light circuit 
as a shunt (p. 388), it renders your current perfectly 
uniform, and your light is as near perfection as it 
ean be. Supposing that your lamp requires fifty 
volts, then you will require twenty-five cells; and I 
should think myself that it would be quite possible 
to make cells for this purpose that ought not to cost 
more than five shillings a cell. You put twenty-five 
of these in cells: the first current that goes through, 
simply charges the lead plates ; one is coated with 
oxide, and the other is clear; and you get a counter- 


SCIENCE. 385 


electromotive force of fifty volts. The consequence 
is, no current whatever passes through the second- 
ary cell unless it has once been raised to fifty volts. 
The whole current goes through your lamp unless 
there is flickering of the engine. Then, if there is 
flickering of the engine, the energy that is stored up 
in the battery passing through the lamps makes the 
light uniform, and in that way you get the storage 
effect by the use of the secondary battery. 

There are certain defects that have developed them- 
selves in these batteries, that have been gradually 
cured. The great defect in all secondary batteries is 
due to buckling, —a fact due to the formation of 
peroxide upon the plate. You will find your lead 
plate will buckle up into all kinds of positions, and 
the two plates will come into contact. This difficulty 
I have sought to overcome by supporting the two 
plates by means of a plate made of paraffine-wood; 
but the most effective arrangement that I have tried 
is ebonite. This ebonite is furnished, stamped out 
to the proper size, and is very light and very thin, 
though quite equal to preventing all buckling. 

Secondary cells have not been in use long enough 
to enable us to determine how long they will last. I 
have had them in use for four months, with a sign of 
but little disintegration of the positive plate. I 
think that the plates will have to be renewed only 
about once in every two years. Those that I have in 
use were re-charged at the end of four months. 

The charm of the whole thing is such, and its cost 
is so trifling, that I shall keep it in my house; and I 
am quite sure that all those who have worked in the 
same direction in regard to this matter of electric 
lighting will never give it up. The electric light it- 
self has some sort of a charm about it. Objection 
is made to the cost of introducing it; but I have 
protested often and often against the comparison 
that is drawn between the cost of gas and the cost 
of electricity. The two things are not to be com- 
pared. When we indulge in luxuries, we don’t com- 
pare the cost of the luxuries with other things. If 
you want fine 1834 port, you don’t compare its price 
with that of ordinary claret. If you want to in- 
dulgein a fine pheasant, you don’t compare it with 
the old cock that crowed before Peter. So, when 
you have a delightful luxury like electricity, you 
don’t want to compare its cost with that of gas or 
sperm-candles, or any other mode by which life is 
shortened and ultimately destroyed. Here we have 
something that in the out-of-the-way houses tends 
to lengthen life and to satisfy us, giving us some- 
thing cool and delicious; and I say, all comparisons 
with gas are utterly ridiculous. In reference to 
these enterprising light-companies, they will soon 
bring electricity to our doors; and we will all take it. 
When people can get electricity at their doors, and 
can get it without much cost, as indeed they can, 
they will certainly have it. So I look upon the days 
of gas as being numbered; but gas is a most impor- 
tant power, and its uses are just in their infancy. 
The days of gas as a distributer of power and heat 
are coming. At the same time, electricity is going to 
supply light such as we want. 


386 


There are many facts connected with the working 
that I should have liked to give you. I should have 
liked to give you the efficiency. I have made care- 
ful experiments as to the efficiency of the storage 
up to the present time. The cost is certainly within 
the reach of every man in this room. Every single 
man in this room can afford the comfort which this 
light will give him; and an electric plant will enable 
him to live four or five years longer in this world 
than he would without the electric light. 

Prof. W. H. HARKNESS. — I was very much pleased 
and gratified at hearing Mr. Preece’s remark as to 
the use of secondary batteries. After all that has 
been said on both sides, it is gratifying to find that 
we have a certain and valuable method of lighting 
which is effective and economical. I wish also to 


add my testimony on one or two points which Mr. - 


Preece has mentioned, and that is, to the courtesy 
uniformly shown by Mr. Planté to any one who visits 
him at his laboratory. I had the pleasure, with some 
friends, of visiting his laboratory, witnessing many 
experiments made with a large number of secondary- 
battery cells. As we all very well know, his invention 
has resulted in the adoption, not only of those second- 
ary cells, but also of the cells themselves. The use to 
which he has put them, however, has led to many 
absolutely new experiments, so far as I know. It is 
also a point of interest to know, as probably some 
of you do know, that Planté himself tried a method, 
many years ago, of covering the plates with minium. 
If Professor Barker were here, he would bear witness 
to the fact that Planté has used both; that he tried 
the same thing several years ago, and found that it 
was not so effective as a battery of his own plates by 
the method adopted, which, though necessarily slow, 
probably resulted in a better form of cell. So it is 
gratifying to know, from the experiments of Professor 
Preece, that we are advancing, so far as new experi- 
ments are concerned, and that we are finally going 
back to the original form devised by Planté. 

There may be one reason worth mentioning. We 
are all well aware of the careful and interesting 
experiments referred to by Mr. Bright, on the chem- 
istry of the secondary battery. These experiments 
show us that there is a greater or less formation 
of the lead sulphate in connection with the cell 
adopted; and that also shows us why the electro- 
motive force, having run down, after a period of rest, 
is recovered to a certain extent. A great many 
points have been cleared up that were certainly quite 
enigmatical before. Now, some experiments, and I 
think some of those that have been published by 
Professor Barker, go to show, that, in the Planté 
cell as formed by Planté, — by a rather slow and tedi- 
ous process, but by the method of Planté, —there is 
at least a small amount of lead sulphate produced. 
I take it that the giving-out of the cell is due. to 
the formation of sulphate; so that, if these cells are 
formed by the rules laid down by Planté, they will 
have a tolerably long life. Now, just one word with 
regard to the cost. You will remember that a year 
or so ago Professor Langley showed, I think beyond 
any question, that the percentage of the radiant 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou IV., No. 89%. 


energy from an Argand gas-burner that is effective 
in producing illumination is less than one per cent. 
It certainly is a very curious result. It is less than 
one per cent, and there is little doubt about the 
energy which goes up through the chimney. 

Mr. N. S. Ke1rH. — Planté was evidently far ahead 
of his time. He produced what is to-day found to be 
of vast practical importance. In 1860 or 1861, about 
the time of his published experiments, there was no 
electric lighting; certainly none as it exists to-day. 
There were then electric-lighting men who were far 
ahead of their time; but it is only within the past 
four years, we may say, that we have had any possible 
application of the secondary battery. I am led very 
forcibly to consider this point, because in 1878, during 
the experiment I was then carrying on in the elec- 
trolysis of lead, and in collateral experiments which 
relate to the chemical action of lead in various sol- 
vents and in various electrolyses, I was led to make a 
secondary battery after having made one of Planté’s. 
I made one by coating the plates with peroxide of lead 
by electro-deposition— not peroxide of lead formed 
from the substance of the plate itself, as by Planté; 
not by coating the lead plate with oxide of lead, or 
peroxide of lead, as the case may be, from external 
sources; but by coating it by deposition from a solu- 
tion of lead in which the plates were immersed. I 
took two hundred and forty cast pieces of lead plate, 
each one foot square. I divided them into ten cells, 
making twenty-four plates of each cell, twelve of 
which were positive, and twelve negative. By using 
a suitable solution of lead (a sub-acetate of lead in 
nitrate of sodium), and by treating that with a cur- 
rent of electricity, I produced decomposition of the 
solution, deposition of peroxide on the positive plate, 
and at the same time metallic lead was deposited upon 
the negative plate in a very finely divided and crys- 
talline state. Some hydrogen is also deposited with 
the lead, — an equivalent to the oxygen that is depos- 
ited in chemical combination with the lead upon the 
positive plate. These plates, after pressing the me- 
tallic lead so as to cause it to cohere and adhere to 
the plate, were taken from this solution and immersed 
in sulphuric acid, and gave a very satisfactory sec- 
ondary battery indeed. At that time (in May, 1878) 
I ran a dynamo as an electric motor with this bat- 
tery, and I effected some chemical and electrolytic 
decompositions in a solution of sulphate of copper, 
and did some other things which were then the only 
possible commercial applications of secondary bat- 
teries. Since that time, electric lighting by incan- 
descence has come to the front, and we find the great 
use of secondary batteries which has been so forcibly 
set forth by Professor Preece. At that time we did 
not have telegraphy by the dynamo; but we had teleg- 
raphy by the use of the primary batteries with which 
we are all so familiar. I have since that time carried 
on a considerable number of experiments relating to 
secondary batteries. The whole subject is an electro- 
chemical one. There is a chemical decomposition of 
the solution by the passage of a current of electricity. 
There is a decomposition of the water of the elec- 
trolyte either primarily or secondarily. Oxygen goes 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


to one plate, hydrogen to the other. For anew exper- 
iment | have taken solutions which suffer decompo- 
sition without delivering free hydrogen and oxygen. 
I have taken, for instance, solutions of the sub-salts 
of lead. A current causes decomposition, and a depo- 
sition upon one plate of peroxide of lead, and, upon 
the other, of metallic lead. For instance: I have taken, 
for one plate, a plate of carbon, and, for the other, a 
plate of lead. A solution of a low sub-salt of lead 
was used as an electrolyte. By passing a current of 
electricity through it, the action is to raise the sub- 
salt to a proto-salt. This takes energy, which is 
absorbed by the chemical action. Then the charge 
of electricity is returned until the peroxide of lead 
has again entered the solutions, and the lead has also 
entered into the solution. The action of the char- 
ging current of electricity is to raise the electrolyte to 
an acid condition; but the charging action is stopped 
before that point is reached, because the end would 
be defeated in passing it. I am also carrying on 
some experiments in the way of storage for elec- 
tricity or in the use of secondary batteries. I can 
hardly give particulars, except this: the idea is to 
preserve the integrity of the plate—of the inside 
plate — for an indefinite length of time, say, as long 
as may be practically worth while. So far, after 
some months’ use, I have been able to oxidize the 
plate to the desired depth (say, one-sixteenth of an 
inch), and preserve a backing of metallic lead. Under 
this change, if my theory and practice be correct, I 
will not be obliged to replace, asin the present known 
storage-batteries, the oxide plate. 

Prof. CHARLES H. KoyLEe.—I should like to say 
something in reference to the theory of the secondary 
battery. There are no substances which, placed in 
juxtaposition in a secondary battery, will give the 
electromotive force that the peroxide of lead, and 
the lead of the Planté cell, laid opposite to each 
other, will. It remains as it was in 1859, when 
Planté experimented and wrote. I have experiment- 
ed upon other substances; and, although my experi- 
ence has not been exactly useless, it has been the 
next thing to it. 

The necessities of the plate, then, are the only 
difficulties to be considered. They are three, and 
they are very simple ones. First, the plate made must 
be a conductor of electricity, and that leaves us the 
metals. The plate, in the second place, must resist 
the ordinary action of sulphuric acid: that leaves 
us lead and four or five expensive metals, — platinum, 
and so on, aud gold and carbon. Our list is very 
much reduced, as we have practically, for this pur- 
pose, only carbon, as the expense of the other metals 
is too great to allow them to be used extensively for 
commercial purposes. 

Now, when we get the third and last condition, — 
and that is, that the plate must resist both electro- 
lytic action and the oxidizing action of the current, — 
lead will resist the electrolytic action of the current 
moderately well. But the oxidizing action of the 
plate reduces the lead to a peroxide in a very short 
time. That leaves us only one thing for a secondary 
battery of the future, —carbon. 


SCIENCE. 


387 


I think there is no way of upsetting that very short 
argument. I should be very glad to know if there is, 
Now, then, the manufacturer of the carbon plates 
called good, makes plates which shall contain a very 
large amount of the substance, because the capacity 
of the storage-battery depends entirely upon the 
amount of lead and peroxide of lead which you can 
put upon these plates. They are the substances that 
you will have to depend upon for your electricity. 
Of course it is not necessary to say that they will 
answer the purpose: they are the substances in which 
the chemical action takes place. 

Now, it is possible to take carbon and to manu- 
facture carbon plates by the ordinary method. Take 
ground charcoal, ground gas-carbon, ground flint, 
and mix gas-tar with it, or molasses, or any hydro- 
carbon. This is put into a press and the shape is 
given to it; and then it is put into a closed furnace 
and carbonized, so as to drive off the gas, and leave 
the carbon free. Those plates are pretty good for 
ordinary primary batteries; but when your lead con- 
tains a lot of little holes, very much as the Jead now 
in use does, the plate is very apt to disintegrate. 
There is such an enormous amount of surface ex- 
posed, that the action of the cell is apt to disin- 
tegrate the plate, and the metal will scale off. A 
better way to make the plate is then to be considered. 
There is a method of making these plates which is 
very much liked,—a method in use by the U.S. 
lighting company in the manufacture of carbon for 
their incandescent lamps; that is, to take celluloid 
and put it through some chemical operation which 
deprives it of a part of its gum, thereby leaving a sub- 
stance very easily carbonized. That substance may 
be cut into any shape of plates desired. You can 
make some of these plates thick, and some thin, and 
you will always have a good plate. It is not very 
strong, but it is a good plate. Another method, 
which I myself have used, I have found to work very 
well, and I shall have more to say about it in the 
course of afew minutes, At present I can only tell 
you the general method. I take gas-tar and put it 
in a closed furnace, and drive out the gas, and so 
get rid of the ordinary illuminating-gas, the heavier 
gas, which is condensed as it passes through the tubes. 
The constitution of the coal-tar depends, first, upon 
the constitution of the coal; in the second place, 
upon the temperature at which the gas is driven out. 
The object is to get out the lighter parts of the coal- 
tar. Coal-tar is a very composite substance. The 
physical qualities of coal-tar vary very much, accord- 
ing to the temperature at which the gases were 
originally driven out, and, again, according to the 
temperature at which evaporation is carried on. It 
requires months of experiments, as I have already 
said, before one can determine what is needed. This 
coal-tar, when it is thus taken and evaporated, and 
brought down to a requisite consistency, which is a 
matter of experience, is taken and put into a box 
prepared for the purpose, and put in an oven which 
is closed. The tops of these vessels are covered with 
sand, and one thing and another, in the ordinary way, 
to prevent the presence of air; then the heat is 


388 


turned on; and gradually this stuff begins to boil. 
You cannot take up this evaporated mass and tell 
what will be its quality, until it has been evapo- 
rated. Then, formulating these three things, you can 
tell what temperature you want to use under this tar 
in a boiling state. Then I have devised a process of 
quite suddenly increasing the heat. This is done by 
means of a double oven, one part being heated mod- 
erately, and the other to quite a high degree of heat. 
When the tar no longer boils, it is suddenly carbon- 
ized. You then have to make your plate. I take 
this substance and cut it. It is true, it is carbon, 
and it is pretty hard, and there is difficulty in cutting 
it: so I have devised another method to free myself 
of the trouble of cutting the plates, and that is, to 
prepare the plates of a proper size. This is a process 
which I developed last winter. The method of man- 
ufacturing which I have described is susceptible of 
considerable uniformity. The character of these 
plates is porous, and they are of considerable value 
in a secondary battery. 

Planté, of course, is the great originator of second- 
ary batteries of modern times. You can take a Planté 
cell, and you can get forty per cent from it if it is 
properly charged. A fair battery will return proper 
work up to ninety per cent. It does not always do 
it. It has to be carefully charged, and it will return, 
under careful circumstances, ninety per cent. 

Mr. FRANK J. SPRAGUE. — Ninety per cent of the 
form: is that what the speaker has told us? I should 
like to know what part of the circuit he uses. Does 
it include the battery ? 

Mr. Koyue. — Including the battery, of course. 

Professor ForsBEs. —I merely wish to draw atten- 
tion to this very point. The difficulty about manu- 
facturing those plates is to get them of a proper 
length. We should know exactly what we are deal- 
ing with. The action is exactly, of course, as it has 
been described. 

I want to show to you how the equations come out, 
because they are very interesting in showing the 
regularity of the secondary battery upon the bright- 
ness of the lamps. 


A 
aT PPI 
: 


Let E, be the electromotive force of the dynamo, 
R, the resistance of it; E, the electromotive force of 
the secondary battery, R, its resistance: R3; we will 
call the resistance of the electric lamps in the circuit. 
That will represent the resistance of the lights which 
come into play. This is given by a well-known law. 
Perhaps that is the simplest way to take it. Let us 
call the potential at the point A, e,, and that at the 
point B, e:. These are the two points where all the 


SCIENCE. 


[Von. IV., No. 89. 


three circuits unite, and e, and é, are the potentials 
at those points. Suppose that e, is greater than e., 
then the current circulating in each of these three 


circuits can be put down immediately in terms of the — 


quantities which are there shown, involving the two 
unknown quantities e,;, e,; the current which is 
circulating in the partial circuit of the dynamo 
always taking the direction of the current as positive 
when the current flows from e; to eg. The current 


in this part of the circuit will be me — Ci, 

1 
R, being the resistance of this circuit. Cy, is obtained 
from C, by replacing #, and R, by H, and Ry respec- 
tively, and similarly for C’; (R3 being the resistance of 
the lamp-circuit). Finally, we have the equation that 
the sum of all these equals zero; that is to say, the 
total current which passes through any one point is 
equal to zero, which is a well-known law. We have, 
therefore, the sum of: these currents (C,; + Cz + C3) 
equal to zero. 

Now, this (e; — ez) is in reality the unknown quan- 
tity. It is a difference of potentials. It is the single 
unknown quantity of thisequation. The result which 
we arrive at on working out this equation is, that 
—, Ey Bo teh 
Gi Ep = ° 

Ten, aigelve 
mula, and probably is well known, and has important 
applications here. The application especially is to 
finding the current which flows through the lamp- 
circuit. The current C3, which is the current flow- 
H,R,+ ELR,, 
R3(R, + Re)’ 
that is, the final value of the current which is pass- 
ing through the resistance of the lamp-circuit. 

Now, here is a remarkable thing, — that, however 
much the irregularity of the dynamo-machine may 
be, the current is found to be very steady in the lamp- 
circuit when we use the secondary battery in that 
position. The reason of that is, the secondary bat- 
teries which we are in the habit of using have an 
extremely small resistance; and, whenever we use 
secondary batteries, you will understand that we 
use an infinitesimally small resistance, compared with 
the resistance of the battery or the resistance of any 
such lamp-circuit. 

If, then, we take the resistance of the secondary bat- 


This is a very useful for- 


ing through the lamps, is equal to 


tery to be zero, our equation simply gives us, C3 = z ? 
with the other quantities cut out; that is to say, the 
current is exactly the same as if this dynamo was not 
working at all, and as if we had a battery of infinitesi- 
mal resistance, with this electromotive force of EH» 
working through these series of lamp-circuits. 
AsI am here, I may as well make a few remarks 
upon another point in connection with these second- 
ary batteries. Of course, the great difficulty we 
have had in the past times was, in the first place, 
that we used thin plates, and they buckled. This has 
been the most serious objection that we have had. 
And it is very satisfactory to hear from Mr. Preece 
that he found that he practically gets over the buc- 
kling of the Faure cell and Volckmar battery. The 


i 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


force generated in these plates, tending to buckling, 
is something enormous. 

I do not think any ordinary separator of material 
which he speaks of would be sufficient to prevent the 
buckling of a Volekmar accumulator; for the force 
generated in these plates, tending to buckle them, is 
something enormous, and no ordinary separator would 
be able to resist this. If such resistance were offered 
to them, I think they would break. The reason why 
he has succeeded in getting rid of this buckling is 
because he has reverted to what is evidently the most 
scientific, and which will ultimately be found to be 
the most probable, form, that of the old voltaic bat- 
tery. The objection to the Faure cell was the want 
of perfect symmetry in the plates, tending to make 
them buckle, and want of homogeneity in the sur- 
face, which tended to introduce local action. And 
that is the one great defect which has been pointed 
out some time ago, which I think most people recog- 
nize now in all these Faure cells and Volckmar bat- 
teries. 

I wish Mr. Preece would give us some further in- 
formation about the length of life of these cells; be- 
cause although he has them in his charming house, 
and although they last only four months, does not 
everybody who will call want to obtain some more 
definite information? and I think there must be some 
gentleman here who can give us more information 
about the life of these batteries. 
the larger form of Planté battery, the improved type 
of batteries, which I believe were tried generally with 
nitric acid in order to render them more powerful, 
have been generally used with lead, but only within 
the last year or two, and therefore their absolute life 
is not determined; but I believe it is perfectly con- 
ceded that these voltaic batteries as they have been 
prepared with lead, and as Mr. Preece has them in 
his own establishment in his own private house, are 
the longest-lived batteries,—far longer lived than 
any artificial batteries such as the Faure cell and the 
Volckmar. 

Mr. F. C. VAN Dycx. —I do hope the people will 
not be discouraged in working in the line of other 
batteries besides the old one. I think there are cases 
in which the battery is sure to have a long life, and 
sure to keep itself charged without loss for a great 
length of time. 

There are many uses for such a battery as that; 
and my own work satisfies me that the zinc alkaline 
and copper battery will fill a considerable want; 
for instance, running the magnetic apparatus in ob- 
servatories, and work of that kind. I have made a 
small battery of that kind, using a spiral of copper 
above, and amalgamated zinc below, so as to avoid 
the falling-down of the deposit of zine upon the cop- 
per, thereby amalgamating the copper, and render- 
ing it far less efficient. Although the electromotive 
force is only ninety-seven and ninety-eight hundredths 
of a volt, still we found by actual trial that charging 
the battery and letting it stand, then letting it run 
down and taking the readings at the time, and then 
letting it stand for two or three months — we found 
there was not enough difference in the readings to 


SCIENCE. 


As a matter of fact, — 


389 


show the slightest loss; the battery had retained its 
charge, so far as we could find out by the means at 
our command, perfectly for two months; which I 
think is a good showing. Long ago I found, in using 
a battery, that I had to be very particular about the 
electromotive force to be used in charging it. Ihave 
not finished my experiments so as to state precisely 
the electromotive force, but it is somewhere between 
a Daniell anda Grove. If you charge a cell of that 
kind with a Grove cell, you will find that the copper 
strip will be altogether dissolved by alkaline solution, 
forming the cuprate of soda or potash, according to 
the alkaline used. Then that breaks up in the form 
of oxide of copper. But, if you are particular about 
not running beyond the Daniell, there is no such dif- 
ficulty experienced. 

I want to say a word on the carbon question. I 
am interested to know whether anybody has succeeded 
in producing oxygen on carbon to any considerable 
extent without disintegrating it. I have had great 
difficulty, in my experiments with the secondary bat- 
tery, in getting oxygen on my carbon plate, and 
depositing the oxide of lead. I have found, if I suc- 
ceed in bringing forward the oxygen in the slightest 
degree, it leads to the disintegration of the carbon 
by means of the oxygen. Hydrogen does not do it 
at all. Now, if we place a carbon disk with a plati- 
num disk in an ordinary Volckmar battery, we will 
soon discover how long that carbon will last. The 
oxygen seems to have the power of forming an accu- 
mulation in the pores, and crowding out the carbon, 
more than the hydrogen does. I dislike to have any 
thing to do with the lead-battery mentioned. I think 
that this matter of the copper-battery is worthy of 
passing mention, because I can see those cases arise 
in which we should like to have a battery that we 
could charge, and know we could depend upon, and 
that would not lose its charge even after two months. 
I am positive that anybody who tried it would be 
pleased with the properties of the copper-battery 
made in the usual way, with amalgamated zinc alkali, 
either soda or potash. Preference should be given 
to soda on account of its being so much cheaper. 
The method should be to use the Planté battery with 
chlorate of sodium in it. I think the tendency of 
the copper to dissolve, and to break up into cuprate 
forms, is not any greater when the soda is used. 

Mr. Koy.Le. —I just wish to inquire of Professor 
Van Dyck how his carbon is made: it makes consid- 
erable difference. I should like to know the manner 
in which the carbon plates are formed. If they 
are formed by the ordinary method for use in the 
primary batteries, the carbon being made out of coal- 
tar carbonized, they are very brittle, and disinte- 
grate in the battery; but if formed in the manner 
I speak of, from coal-tar, pure and simple, so that 
they seem to form a very much more homogeneous 
mass, there is not only a striking, but a permanent 
difference of the plates. 

Professor VAN Dyck. —I will state that I use the 
commercial carbon simply. 

Mr. KoyxLe. — Another word. I think that there 
is a great deal of difference between the secondary 


390 


battery composed of carbon plates and one composed 
of lead plates. I do not see myself the reason for 
an expression of the opinion that the Planté bat- 
tery is decidedly more scientific than any other bat- 
teries composed of a plate of polarizing substance 
distinct from a plate of lead. It is easy to construct 
a Faure battery that will last forever, if you only 
make the plates largeenough. Lead hassome weight, 
as is well known; and, when you are going to make 
a Planté battery of sufficient size to last any length 
of time, you will have to make a secondary battery 
of enormous weight. For any other purpose than 
putting it down in the cellar to stay, the weight is a 
great factor. I think that a lead plate a foot square, 
the ordinary size, will weigh something in the vicinity 
of six pounds, — I do not guarantee that exactly, but 
I believe it is in the neighborhood of six pounds, — 
and a square of carbon plate of the same size weighs 
about three-fourths of a pound. Now, a battery 
made of eleven plates of lead of this size gives you 
something like sixty or seventy pounds. If you want 
to use electromotive force, as in some cases you do, 
of a hundred volts, you have a great weight: it would 
be fifty of those cells, of sixty pounds each, which 
would give you about three thousand pounds; and 
that is altogether apart from the weight of the elec- 
trolyte and the box. Carbon plates will make a dif- 
ference of about twenty per cent, and the carbon 
plate has the advantage of always remaining intact. 
It will not disintegrate, and will remain permanent 
as long as the box will, or any thing else about it. 

Mr. Evtau Taompson. —I should like to havea 
method which will tell whether the plates will disin- 
tegrate or not. Consider the plates that received the 
deposition of peroxide of lead. Suppose we were to 
select one particle of oxide which has been formed 
from the surface of the lead: what will be the elec- 
tro-chemical conditions of that particle? Evidently 
the peroxide itself is in an electro-negative condition, 
far more so than the lead plate: consequently it will 
set up an open circuit, and distribute its oxygen more 
or less to the surrounding lead, and thereby eat into 
the lead deeper and deeper, destroying the life of the 
battery in time. It would seem, from this considera- 
tion alone, that the lead-battery is certainly limited 
in its life. 

Let us take the case of the carbon plates. Has it 
yet been proved that carbon is stable in the presence 
of peroxide of lead, in contact? Perhaps this may 
disintegrate the carbon, and oxidize it into oxide of 
carbon, and at the same time reduce the peroxide 
of lead to the teroxide of lead (PbO;). 

We have here two different substances, one highly 
electro-negative; and the carbon, perhaps, may be 
inert, and then it may be different in electromotive 
force ever so slightly, and we will have a local circuit 
which will take oxygen from the peroxide of lead, 
and oxidize the carbon. If we wish to make a test 
of that, let us take a massive piece of peroxide of 
lead and a specimen of the carbon which is to be 
tested, and place them in an electrolytic liquid (for 
instance, dilute sulphuric acid), and see whether 
we have a difference of electromotive force between 


SCIENCE. 


Pere a eae eee 


[Vor. IV., No. 89. 


those two substances, putting in the circuit some 
means of testing a feeble current. If there is no 
such difference, the stability of carbon in contact 
with the peroxide of lead would be established. It 
may be, also, that the states in which carbon is 
known to exist may control the matter to some de- 
gree. It is well known, that if we take a stick of 
carbon, and put a current through it of a sufficient 
degree to almost vaporize the carbon, it undergoes a 
certain change of condition into the graphitic variety, 
and, in fact, it takes a plastic form, as I have often 
observed. You can take this carbon and use it, or 
any portion of it, to write with as you would write 
with a lead-pencil: whether it would be suitable in 
that form is another question. 

Professor JAMES DEWAR. — There is one point I 
have noticed that is of practical use in reference to 
secondary batteries, and that is as to the inequalities in 
the various styles of batteries. I have had an expe- 
rience of six months with one form of storage-bat- 
tery, —the commercial battery as it is now in use on 
alamp-circuit. As it is arranged, it is used for light- 
ing forty incandescent lamps. We have only ten or 
twelve of these lamps in use at any one time: con- 
sequently the demand on the battery is not very 
great; and hence, in charging the battery, we find 
with a twenty-ampére current, which is the cur- 
rent used in charging them, that instead of having 
to charge the battery all day, as I believe would have 
to be done in case the whole forty lamps were to be 
used, we charge for two hours in the morning, or 
until the cells give off gas from the plates, when we 
consider the charging as completed. I believe, after 
three weeks’ use of this battery, that some four or 
five of the cells that were to serve in the first place 
became feebler than usual; that is, the lamps were 
not up to their usual standard of power. The next 
morning it was found that certain of these cells, 
four or five of the twenty-one that formed the bat- 
tery, were much lower in their electromotive force 
than the other cells of the battery; that is to say, 
if the mean of the electromotive force was 1.85 volts, 
they were down to less than one volt. It was 
thought, in the first place, these cells might, per- 
haps, become exhausted by short circuits; but, from 
very close examination, there were revealed no short 
circuits in the cells; and, furthermore, when the 
charging current was put on again, those cells were 
the first of the whole battery to give evidence of 
being charged. In other words, it would seem as if 
the storage capacity, if I may use that expression 
with regard to those cells—the storage capacity of 
these particular cells had been diminished in some 
simple way. 

Now, we restored those cells by a process, — 
the process which we were instructed to use in the 
first place. <A battery was first set up; that is to say, 
a prolonged charging of the whole body, — a charging 
of some twenty hours with a current of twenty am- 
peres, and then a discharging of the whole battery on - 
a fixed resistance, which was about equal to the ulti- 
mate resistance (say, eight-tenths of an ohm); then > 
a charge of twenty hours with a twenty-ampeére cur- 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


rent, and again a discharging the battery for three or 
four hours on this fixed resistance; then a re-charging 
for twenty hours; and at the end of that time the 
battery was in good condition again, and those par- 
ticular cells which we had found had given out before 
did not give out again for several days; but in every 
case, I think, where that process has been repeated 
three or four times, it finally took about three weeks 
for these batteries to give out. I don’t remember ex- 
actly now whether the same cells are involved, but I 
think that out of the five or six cells, four were in- 
volved every time. We occasionally find another cell 
going in the same way, and I think it is a question 
of time when all the cells will probably behave in the 
same way: otherwise the cells which are good, and 
which have not given any trouble, are good cells; and 
there is no doubt about the resistance of the whole 
battery. The electromotive force is very constant, 
with the exception which I mentioned, and the light 
is very satisfactory. But I am not at all sure that 
Mr. Preece has found a solution of the light in ques- 
tion by means of the secondary battery. It is to be 
hoped that he has. My experience rather indicates 
that we have not got a storage-battery, or a secondary 
battery, which will be a practical instrument. 

Mr. PREECE. —I should like to reply to some of 
the observations that have been made; and, in the 
first place, I should like to corroborate what has 
been said about the percentage that the storage-bat- 
tery would utilize in shape of light. 

Very recently Professor Dewar was kind enough to 
make a calculation for me that brought out a very 
interesting result, and the result was this. I wanted 
to know the relative proportion of energy expended 
in different modes of artificial illumination. I want- 
ed to know how much was expended in the sperm- 
candle to give one-candle light, and how much in a 
gas-flame, and how much in electric lamps. The 
result of Professor Dewar’s calculation was to show 
that in a sperm-candle for one-candle light we ex- 
pend ninety-seven watts. The experiment with gas 
showed, that, for every candle given out, sixty-two 
watts were consumed. Now, I have been experi- 
menting with various incandescent lamps; and one 
lamp gave a result showing that it was possible to 
obtain one candle for two watts and half. Still with 
arc-illumination — use of arc-lights, such as are used 
in the street—we get a candle for each watt ex- 
pended; and in the arc-lamp, when bereft of the 
hideous structure put around them to destroy or 
reduce their light, and we get all the light emitted, 
we shall probably get a candle for each half-watt. 
lf we can get one candle for the expenditure of one 
watt, and we do expend ninety-seven watts in the 
process, it is clear that ninety-six watts must have 
been wasted, as it were, in that effect. 

There is another point that arises out of this, to 
which I want particularly to call your attention; 
although I am afraid I am going to get into a subject 
in which, if introduced, many of you may set me down 
as very heterodox. My doctrine is simply this, — 
that I believe the days of the arc-light are numbered, 
and that all the lights in the future will be furnished 


SCIENCE. 


391 


by the incandescent lights. My reason for saying 
that is simply this, — that, up to the present time, in 
the incandescent lamp such as we have, the light is 
produced by the expenditure of from four to five 
watts per candle. Improvements, and very rapid im- 
provements, are being made in the form of the carbon 
filaments. We are now using lamps in England that 
give us light with an expenditure of only two watts 
and a half per candle. If improvement goes on at 
this rate, [am quite certain that before another decade 
we shall have incandescent light that will give us 
one candle for each watt. When that is the case, 
then the incandescent lamp will be used in place of 
the are. The are requires constant personal super- 
vision. It requires mechanism to keep it in order. 
It only lasts a short time, whereas the incandescent 
requires no attention whatever after it is put up; 
and its life is very considerable indeed. In London, 
lamps can now be obtained whose life is guaran- 
teed to bea thousand hours. I believe on this side 
of the water they are guaranteed to a certain extent, 
I do not know what; but if we can get incandescent 
lamps giving a light at the expenditure of a watt per 
candle, and whose life will be over a hundred hours, 
then it will be a case of good-by to the arc-lamps. 

There was one other point that I did not mention 
in regard to my battery; and that was, I am using 
only seventeen cells. I am using only thirty volt 
lamps, and I use them for security, first, because it 
gives me very few cells to keep in order; and, sec- 
ondly, because the electromotive force is so low that 
there is not the slightest fear of shock, and conse- 
quently there is not the least fear of fire due to a 
short circuit or imperfect action in any of the insu- 
lation. In isolated houses, the lower you can reduce 
the electromotive force, the safer it will be. 

Now, with regard to carbon: I am sorry to say that 
I differ altogether from the view that has been 
expressed, that carbon is likely to replace lead for 
secondary batteries. Carbons do disintegrate with us 
in London to a very large extent in the present form 
of battery. I had the bi-chromate battery: the bat- 
tery we principally use is a bi-chromate battery. In 
that battery the carbons do not last more than twelve 
months. They do disintegrate: they tumble to pieces, 
they become quite soft and spongy; and it is quite 
impossible to use any form of carbon, — moulded 
carbon; and we are obliged to use cut carbons, as the 
moulded carbons would not last more than two or 
three months. While the cut carbon does not last 
more than twelve months, the lead in the secondary 
batteries would last more than twelve months. I 
said that I did not agree with the remark that was 
made, the statement that it lasted only four months: 
I think it will last more than twelve months. I know 
of houses where they have been in use for more than 
twelve months, and I am quite satisfied that the 
lead used in the one I have described will have a 
durability of more than twelve months. I shall not 
be the least surprised if it lasts for two or three 
years. 

Now, I look upon the employment of the second- 
ary battery for starting the gas-engine as simply 


i ll 


392 


barbarous. I say this because I believe that the 
whole —I should not say the whole, but the greater 
portion — of the causes that have brought the second- 
ary batteries into such ill repute are due to the vari- 
ous barbarous practices that have been adopted by 
those who have been using secondary batteries. And 
these practices have been indulged in without the per- 
son knowing the injury they were doing to the battery. 
The practice has been to dash in a piece of metal in 
order to see the sparks, and then to say what splendid 
order the battery was in. A more iniquitous or sin- 
ful practice could not be adopted. It is just like a 
doctor cutting off a man’s forehead to examine his 
tongue. Such a practice as that has given the poor 
battery a straight blow between the eyes, which it 
will struggle with for days. Any practice that con- 
stantly calls into action the force of the battery on 
such a Short circuit is simply barbarous, and tends 
to destroy the battery more than any thing else. I 
test every cell of my battery every morning with a 
galvanometer of a hundred ohms resistance. The 
galvanometer is simply run through on the cells: it 
takes but a short time, and you can see exactly the 
condition of the cells without in any way interfering 
with the condition of your battery. 

There is one point about which I should like to 
have Professor Dewar tell us a little something. 
There is one defect, and it is a very peculiar defect, 
in all of these forms of secondary batteries. It fol- 
lows, after a short time, from covering the plate with 
minium, and it is the formation of trees on the plates. 
That formation is observable in that form and type of 
battery, and it is not being observed with the Planté. 
Planté himself has never suffered from the formation 
of trees; nor have I, in the batteries I am using, seen 
the slightest sign of these trees: therefore I think 
that the mode of separating, to prevent buckling, in 
my case will be a cure. It will not prevent treeing; 
and therefore it will not cure that defect, which is 
one of the most serious defects of the Faure bat- 
tery. 

Now, I will not say any thing about primary bat- 
teries. I mentioned, when first speaking, that there 
had been a good deal of interest expressed about 
secondary batteries and their introduction; but there 
has been none expressed about primary batteries. 
Such a battery as we have to-day has been brought 
before the London public; and it has been shown 
that the products of the battery formed in its action 
will repay the cost of the battery, and that the prod- 
ucts can be sold for more than they cost: therefore 
it has been suggested, that, if it be true, it would be 
a splendid thing for the government to buy up all 
these batteries, and to use them, and in that way to 
pay off the national debt. A great many experiments 
have been made; and the results of these experiments 
are not to be discarded. They are successfully used 
for certain purposes, but they are not just yet going 
to knock out of the field secondary batteries in the 
way that has been described before us. 

The qualities to which Professor Dewar referred 
are due to the impurities of the lamp. I have suf- 
fered somewhat in the same way. I have cured it 


SCIENCE. 


precisely in the same way by putting on the power 
for twenty hours; and in that way the impurities, or 


whatever they may be, have been jostled out. The 
result has been, that this has had to be done about 
every two months, whenever there was a repetition 
of the difficulty. What I am going to do is this: 
Iam going to have my battery in such order that I 
shall devote one day to the charging of the battery; 
and my gas-engine will be going all day long, and that 
will charge up my battery; and I shall have on that 
day sufficient storage-power to enable me to keep 
my house lighted for the rest of the week. 

Professor JAMES DEWAR. — My views with respect 
to the chemistry of secondary batteries may be shortly 
expressed as follows: I feel that, in the future, some 
other body than the peroxide of lead will be discov- 
ered, which will more efficiently represent the amount 
of energy absorbed. I take it to be, that, after all, 
it is the question of the relative efficiency of such 
batteries which is the real question under discussion. 
The electrolytic action is, after all, the question we 


are to discuss. Now, it seems to me, apart altogether 


from the difficulties of local action, the question is 
whether any other chemical bodies likely to be formed 
during electrolysis will be as efficient as the peroxide 
of lead in the construction of secondary batteries. 
Let us take the case, then, of the type of these reac- 
tions. In ordinary cases of chemical action, we have 
often two actions taking place. Take, as an illus- 
tration, the formation of chlorate of potash. As a 
matter of fact, in this case an exothermic and an 
endothermic action take place side by side. The 
total action takes place, like the majority of chemical 
actions, with a considerable evolution of heat; but 
the evolution of heat is, in this case, due to the for- 
mation of the chloride of potassium, and not to the 
formation of the chlorate. A chlorate would be en- 
dothermic, would be minus, or there would be a 
reduction of the temperature during the production 
of such bodies: therefore the energy for the forma- 
tion of the chlorate is really in some miraculous way 
extracted out of the energy produced by the direct 
formation of the chloride of potassium. The pro- 
duction of peroxide of hydrogen during electrolysis 
resembles that of the chlorate of potassium. It is 
endothermic, formed with a considerable absorption 


of energy, and consequently can decompose into 


water and oxygen again with an evolution of heat. 
If we could construct a battery in which all the oxy- 
gen is fixed in this way in an unstable body, there is 
no question but we could produce by this means a 
much higher electromotive force in secondary bat- 
teries. If we take the case of electrolysis of salts, 
we know very well, that, in a great majority of salts 
used for ordinary purposes, the electromotive force 
is practically constant, whilé that accords with the 
well-known fact, that the thermal value of the for- 
mation of the majority of soluble salts is nearly in- 


dependent of both the acid and the base; that is to 
say, it is nearly constant, giving something like fif- — 


teen thousand gramme units per equivalent. Fora 


direct battery, therefore, comprised of soluble oxide __ 
and soluble acid, the electromotive force is practically 


a 


4 


OcTOBER 17, 1884.] 


constant. To get a higher electromotive force, we 
must produce bodies like permanganic, chloric, or 
chromic acids, or peroxide of lead. It would seem, 
during the electrolysis of water, peroxide of hydro- 
gen is produced in very small quantity. The peroxide- 
of-hydrogen reactions, which are so easily recognized 
in an acid fluid which undergoes electrolysis, do not 
belore* to it, but come from a new acid, called per- 
sulphuric acid. It seems that persulphurie acid is 
the first product of the process, and that this per- 
sulphurie acid is undoubtedly the agent which is 
generally formed, and is often characterized as the 
peroxide of hydrogen. That being the case, there- 
fore, we have to consider cases where we can have a 
reverse or converse reaction. The action of iodic 
acid on hydriodic acid is a well-known case. There 
is undoubtedly a considerable dissipation of energy 
in the genesis of iodic acid, because it is not endo- 
thermic, like chloric acid. The moment the hydriodic 
acid is mixed with the iodic acid, free iodine and 
water result. The original constituents appear again 
without the complication of secondary reactions. It 
is reactions of that kind that we require. It is to 
the question of discovering reactions of that kind, 
without dissipation of energy, that we shall in the 
future look for the further advance of secondary bat- 
teries. 

With reference to what has been stated regarding 
the economical working of the incandescent lamp, it 
is quite clear that such favorable results can only 
come from working with an incandescent filament at 
a very high temperature. There is no reason why 
the incandescent filament should not yield the same 
efficiency as the are. Some years ago I made a series 
of experiments as to the increase of the amount of 
luminous intensity with the temperature. Since that 
time, experiments have been made by Violle and 
other experimenters. All the results seem to prove 
that as an average and fair way of representing the 
facts, sufficient in the mean time for practical pur- 
poses; that, above a temperature of 500° C., the mean 
rate of increase of luminous intensity is as a sixth of 
the power of the temperature. 5 

This law enables us to calculate the temperature of 
the incandescent filament. There can be no doubt 
of the explanation of the advantage of working at 
higher temperatures. The greater the temperature of 
the filament, the higher is the mean refrangibility 
of the emitted light. If blue light is considered, 
instead of the increase being as the sixth power of 
the temperature, it moves up to the seventh. In case 
of the violet rays, the rate of increase would move up 
to the eighth power of the temperature, and con- 
sequently the percentage of rays of high refrangi- 
bility is greater at higher temperatures. [I still think 
that there are a great many points in connection with 
the chemical constitution of the secondary battery 
which require further investigation. 

Mr. Keira. —I would like to ask Professor Dewar 
whether he has investigated, either theoretically or 
practically, the decomposition and re-composition of 
the sub-salts of lead, such as I considered some time 
ago, and were the subject of discussion. I think he 


SCIENCE. 


393 


was not present at the time when I stated my own 
experiments in that line. 

Mr. DEwAR. — No, I regret to say that I have not. 

Mr. KeirH. — Taking the solutions known as Gou- 
lard’s solutions, or sub-salts of lead, which are all 
very soluble, the peroxide is readily formed and dis- 
solved and re-dissolved in that solution, as my own 
experiments have shown: so far, I have carried them 
into practical effect only in laboratory experiments. 
But I have found that all the electricity is returned 
as electricity; but, of course, all the energy is not 
returned. 

Mr. DrEwAr.—As I understand it, the eventual 
action is admitted to be, that the peroxide of lead is 
really produced from the sulphate, All I can say is, 
that if you take and compress a block of sulphate 
of lead on a platinum plate, and if it is electrolyzed 
for hours, you will get a small deposit of peroxide of 
lead. 

Mr. KritH. —I think the gentleman misunder- 
stood my question. I want to state here, that, from 
solutions of sub-acetate of lead, there is by electro- 
lytic action deposited upon one pole the peroxide of 
lead, and metallic lead is deposited on the other pole. 
The reversal of the current reverses the operation: 
the peroxide of lead enters the solution, and lead is 
dissolved. There is a difference of potentials, say, 
of 1.70 volts. 

Prof. GEORGE F. BARKER. —I should like to point 
out some of the defects in storage-batteries. I made 
an experiment three years ago with secondary bat- 
teries, and I called attention to these experiments in 
the meeting of the American association at Mon- 
treal. I believe that the same thing had been found 
by Gladstone and Tribe; but I think that it did not 
excel, although they said in their paper they had 
seen it referred to. The cells to which I referred 
were not Faure cells: they were cells of the Planté 
type, of a peculiar construction. The lead plates 
were of a peculiar form, but they were entirely sepa- 
rated from each other. They were separated, also, by 
pieces of wood to prevent the buckling. Now, with 
regard to whether it was the impurities of the lead or 
not, Iam not inclined to agree with Mr. Keith on 
that point. The lead, in the first place, was clean. 
I have no doubt that the claim was a good one, and 
that it was as absolutely pure as lead could be ob- 
tained. Beyond that, they were so placed, that, if 
the lead was not pure lead, any local action that 
would take place in the cell on account of the im- 
purities of the material would not affect the general 
electromotive force of the cell: it would cause a 
waste of the material, but no other effect, and would 
not affect the resistance of the battery of this cell, 
nor its electromotive force. 

I attribute this action to the formation of some 
non-conducting film over the surface of the plates, 
both the peroxidized plate and the metallic lead 
plate. There is no doubt about it, both that the 
metallic lead, in this particular form in which we find 
it in the secondary battery, isattacked by sulphuric 
acid, with the formation of sulphate of lead; and that 
there is a chemical action and reduction of the lead 


394 


in the cell, which is also attacked by the sulphuric 
acid, with the formation of sulphate of lead. We 
all know that sulphate of lead is a pretty fair insu- 
lator. I think the action pointed out by Professor 
Trowbridge in these cells, and the fact that there was 
a little sulphate formed during the operation of the 
cell; the fact that the cell is restored after this pro- 
longed charging, in which, of course, there must be a 
great loss of energy; and the fact that they are restored 
to their original condition, — would induce me to be- 
lieve that it is nothing due to the impurity in the lead, 
but rather is owing to the non-conducting film, which 
discolors the plate. Besides that, with regard to the 
short-circuiting, there is no short-circuiting in the 
cell. I am quite satisfied from attendant circum- 
stances and observations, and from experiments that 
were made, that they saw no short-circuiting in the 
cells. 

Before I leave this subject, I should like to say a 
word or two with regard to the hope that Professor 
Preece indulged in. I am glad that he has had such 
an encouraging experience with regard to storage- 
batteries. I am inclined to think he will be disap- 
pointed in the hope expressed, of being able to charge 
the cells on one day of the week, and then use 
them during the rest of the week. A very simple 
calculation would convince him, as well as the con- 
ference, that such a plan is not practicable with his 
present plant. Perhaps, if he increases his plant, he 
may be able to doit: he cannot do it with what he 
has on hand. If we take the figures as Professor 
Preece has given them, of a candle from 23 watts of 
energy, a 16-candle lamp would require 40 watts, 
and that gives us an efficiency of about 18.6,— 16- 
candle lamps per horse-power of candle-energy, 
which I must say, in the first place, is good lighting. 
40 watts, with 30 volts between its terminals, will 
give us 31.3 amperes as the current to the lamp. 
Now, if we suppose that Mr. Preece has, in using 10 
lamps, for instance, —I donot know how many there 
are in the plant used; we will say 10 lamps; put 
the number small, because 10 lamps are enough for 
ordinary use, —10 lamps would require 13 amperes 
to maintain them. 13 amperes for 8 hours would 
be 89 ampere hours, we will call it, on an average 
night, and, for seven nights in the week, would be 
273 ampere hours. Now, we divide 273 by the effi- 
ciency of the storage-batteries, — forty per cent,— 
and we will get as the total number of ampére hours, 
during which the battery must be charged, 6823. If 
we divide that by the number of hours which the 
charging would occupy, —twelve hours during the 
day, — that will give us the time used in charging 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 89. 


the storage-battery, to produce this result, and give 
the current to the storage-battery of 56.9 ampéres 
and 42 volts; in other words, 52 amperes to .8 of 
an ohm. The charging resistance of the battery 
would certainly be greater than .8 of anohm. I call 
the charging resistance of the battery the difference 
of tension between the terminals of the battery, 
while the battery is being charged at the time b¥ the 
current flowing in the circuit. That is what I desig- 
nate by the term ‘the charging resistance.’ The 
charging resistance I am sure, from my own experi- 
ments, cannot be less than 2 ohms. Second, The 
current of his machine would be very materially re- 
duced. Besides that, admitting that he could get 
this current of merely 57 ampéres, which he requires 
for charging the battery, the question is, How long 
would his cell stand a current of that magnitude? I 
am inclined to think that a very few weeks’ char- 
ging with a current as great as that would very soon 
use up his cells. 

Mr. PREECE.— The assumption of the tempera- 
ture he starts with there, is wrong; for I am only 
using ten-candle lamps, and they absorb nine-tenths 
of anampere. If you go through with a calculation 
on paper, you are sure to make a mistake. My cal- 
culation shows that you can get two hundred am- 
pere hours out of my battery: if so, I shall have 
enough to last me a whole week; and the batteries, I 
am quite sure, after they have been used a little time, 
will give me that, and a margin tospare. I am quite 
certain, notwithstanding those figures that I had the 
pleasure of going over, that I shall be able to report, 
that, from one day’s charging, I have got my light 
for a week. 

I will mention one fact, which I mentioned to you 
this morning, that my gardener cut off the top of his 
foot: at that time my-battery was charged up Friday 
morning. I had a dinner-party Friday night; and 
whenever we have dinner-parties we make all the 
show we can. On Saturday I had no dinner-party, 
and I used my lamps as usual. On Sunday I used 
my lights as usual. On Monday morning my man 
cut off his toe. I had a dinner-party on Monday 
night, and I did not know of the accident at all. I 
got down just in time to dress for dinner. Without 
saying a word to anybody, I trusted to my battery; 
and I found my battery held on for the whole of that 
night. I had, without any further attention to the 
battery, sufficient light for two dinner-parties and 
four days. AndTI think if we did that in an emer- 
gency, with a little gentle care that could be given, 
I shall not be far wrong in saying that I shall have 
enough for a week’s use. 


pG@ak NEE. 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


PROFESSOR COTTERILL, in an appendix to 
his new ‘ Applied mechanics,’ describes the 
organization of the school of engineering in the 
Royal naval college at Greenwich. He states 
that the training of the students in the practice 
of naval architecture and of engineering takes 
place in the dockyards before entering the 
college, and during the three summer months 
in which the college isclosed. For such train- 
ing he considers the college-workshop a very 
imperfect substitute, and that it occupies time 
‘which may be better spent elsewhere.’ He 
further deprecates the use of models in teach- 
ing such students, remarking that the engineer 
does not use models, but drawings. He con- 
siders that models are of little value for such 
purposes, and would even condemn their use 
to demonstrate the laws of motion. He is, 
however, in favor of their use in explaining 
mechanical principles. Professor Cotterill 
approves of the ‘mechanical laboratory’ in 
which experimental investigation can be carried 
on, and in which mechanics can be studied 
experimentally. He also would allow the use 
of the school-workshop in the ‘ lower grades 
of technical instruction.’ 


These views of so distinguished and expe- 
rienced an educator will probably attract 
much attention from those who are engaged 
in similar work. It is a question, however, 
whether they will be very generally indorsed 
in this country, or indeed in any European 
country, if we may judge from the fact that 
the methods which he condemns are those 
which are most rapidly coming into use on 
both sides the Atlantic. In the discussion 
which took place in section D of the American 
association at Philadelphia, there seemed to 
be no difference of opinion on this point. All 

No. 90. — 1884. 


were apparently agreed that the school-work- 
shop is the place in which the student should 
learn the use of the tools in the several trades, 
and that systematic instruction there is vastly 
more profitable than any that the best of shops 
engaged in purely commercial work can give. 
There may, however, be some question whether 
the same systematic instruction in the large 
shop or in the dockyards (‘ navy-yards ’) might 
not be still more fruitful and profitable. The 
only point which seemed to be thought im- 
portant as a question to be settled, in the dis- 
cussion referred to, was the relative value of 
the workshop conducted purely as a classroom 
and that in which a certain amount of com- 
mercial work is constantly carried on. 


Tue U. S. artillery school at Fort Monroe 
has the following paragraph among its recently 
approved regulations: ‘* To the end that the 
school shall keep pace with professional prog- 
ress, it is made the duty of instructors and 
assistant instructors to prepare and arrange, 
in accordance with the programme of instruc- 
tion, the subject-matter of the courses of study 
committed to their charge. The same shall 
be submitted to the staff; and, after approval 
by that body, the same shall become the au- 
thorized text-books of the school, be printed 
at the school, issued, and adhered to as such.”’ 
If all the courses of study in the school were 
strictly technical, or if all the instructors there 
were eminent specialists, this plan of fostering 
home products would doubtless work to the 
advantage of the students; but in such sub- 
jects as geology, botany, or zodlogy, in which 
the ordinary forms of instruction cannot be 
improved by special adaptation to artillery 
practice, we believe that nothing is gained by 
neglecting to use the generally approved text- 
books of the science. The work on geology 
lately published by the school does not dispel 
this belief. 


Ae 


396 


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. 


American geological railway-guide. 


I HAVE commenced revising my geological railway- 
guide for a second and much improved edition. I 
should be glad if persons who have used the book, 
and made notes of corrections and additions, would 
send such corrections or additions to me; or, if it will 
be a saving of labor, it will be a great favor to me if 
they will send me their copies of the book by mail; 
and I will return them, and refund all postage. 

JAMES MACFARLANE. 
Towanda, Penn. 


A wider use of scientific libraries. 


In Science for Oct. 3, your editorial calls attention 
to the need of making scientific libraries more widely 
useful. Perhaps some of your readers will be glad to 
know the liberal policy of the Boston society of natu- 
ral history. The society is willing to send such books 
as can be replaced, to students in any part of the coun- 
try, at their expense of course; asking from strangers 
a deposit of twice the market-value of the books so 
sent, as a guaranty against loss. This is an example 
which may well be followed by all special libraries. 

EDWARD BuRGEssS, librarian. 
Boston, Oct. 17. 


Eye-pieces of the meridian circle at Washburn 
observatory. 


In vol. ii. of the Publications of the Washburn ob- 
servatory, p. 28, I have incorrectly said that the eye- 
pieces furnished by the Messrs. Repsold of Hamburg 
with our meridian circle were not Steinheil achromat- 
ics. I made this statement after receiving a letter 
from the firm of Steinheil & Co., which I erroneously 
supposed to convey this meaning. 

EDWARD 8S. HOLDEN. 

Madison, Wis., Oct. 14. 


THE OCTOBER MEETING OF THE 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 


THE autumn session of the National acad- 


emy was held last week at Newport, R.I. The 
time and place did not combine to a very suc- 
cessful gathering, the hotels having just closed 
their doors upon the exodus of summer visit- 
ors, while many a college-professor was still 
too much entangled in the work of an opening 
year to be able to leave his duties. At the 
beginning of the meeting on Tuesday, indeed, 
it looked as though a two-days’ session was all 
that could be counted on; but so many of the 
papers provoked discussion, that the session 
lasted, as usual, into Friday, with only half an 
hour devoted to business; and the number of 
papers finally offered surpassed that of. the 
year before. ‘Twenty-three of the ninety-three 
members were present, and twenty-three papers 
were presented. 


SCIENCE, 


The meeting was not marked by any paper 
of exceptional importance ; but most of them — 
were of general interest, and provoked ex- 
tended discussion. Perhaps that which awak- 
ened the liveliest interest was the one in which 
Dr. E. B. Tylor of Oxford, who addressed the 
academy by request, gave his observations 
upon our native tribes, and called attention to 
the parallelism of their customs and those of 
widely distant races. He dwelt at length upon ~ 
the distinction which should be drawn between 
the origin of identical customs in separate 
groups of men, some of which are due to the 
descent of such groups from one primordial 
stock, and some have arisen spontaneously from 
similar psychic conditions... To the former, Ray 
Lankester had applied the term ‘ homogeny,’ 
and, to the latter, ‘homoplasy.’ He asked the 
academy to tell him to which class so compli- 
cated a symbol as the pentagram belonged, 
which is used both by the Indians and the 
Asiatic astrologers. Professor Hilgard thought 
that such a symbol would arise spontaneously, 
as only in that form could a stellar figure be 
produced by the use of one continuous line. 
Major Powell believed that a third class should 
be added, to include arts and customs borrowed 
from neighbors, —a class which he was accus- 
tomed to call ‘ origin by acculturation.’ 

Among the physical papers, astronomy, as 
usual, held a leading place. Professor Langley 
offered the academy a continuation of his ob- 
servations on the temperature of the moon’s 
surface, as studied by the bolometer, showing 
that it must be even lower than two hundred 
degrees below zero, Centigrade. Professor 
Valentiner of Carlsruhe, by invitation of the 
academy, gave in his own language an account 
of the meridian-work he intended to undertake 
at the observatory, recently removed from 
Mannheim. and the installation of which would 
be completed by the middle of next year. His 
principal work was to be the observation of all 
stars, up to the eighth magnitude, between the 
equator and 22° south latitude, and he hoped 
to accomplish the task in twelve years. Dr. 
Peters of Clinton stated what progress he had 
made in determining the stars in the star-cata- 
logue of Ptolemy’s Almagest, and gave a very 
interesting account of his studies of the manu- 
scripts extant, and the errors which had crept 
into them, exhibiting photographs of some 
codices. we 

Mr. C. S. Peirce explained some of the 
errors still needing correction in pendulum 
observations, particularly such as were due to 
the flexure of the pendulum. He presented 
the outline of a scheme for a gravitation sur- 


dl 


OCTOBER 24, 1884.] 


vey of the entire country, indicating the posi- 
tion of points in the eastern portion of the 
country which he thought most desirable to 
occupy, in which the stations would be about 
two hundred miles apart, regions of geological 
disturbance avoided, but their sides occupied, 
together with the summits of the higher moun- 
tains. Seven or eight stations could be occu- 
pied in a year, and thus a series of curves 
secured which would give us the form of the 
geoid ; i.e., of the surface beneath the conti- 
nent where the force of gravity was uniform. 
In an interesting communication on the 
theory of atomic volumes, Dr. Wolcott Gibbs 


made the point that writers had left out of 


consideration the volume of the interstitial 
spaces. Mr. Fairman Rogers described some 
special features of Grant’s difference-engine. 
showing, that, by its method of calculating 
tables by successive differences, it was an 
improvement on previous arithmometers, elimi- 
nating many sources of error. Those present 
who had used such calculating machines be- 
heved them to be more useful in mathematical 
than in astronomical work. 

Of papers other than physical, much in- 
terest attached to the exhibition, by Mr. Pum- 
pelly, of the first attempt to obtain a composite 
photograph of the members of the academy. 
Thirty-one photographs were obtained at the 
last May meeting of the academy; and three 
composites had been made from the full-face 
views, —one in which all were represented, 
and two in which the physicists and naturalists 
had been separately combined. ‘The latter 
two showed marked differences, the physicists 
having a much more oval face, and greater 
temporal breadth. The common composite, 
as well as the others, had a far more youthful 
appearance than any of the pictures from which 
they were taken: only four or five at all ap- 
proached them in this respect. Messrs. Peirce 
and Jastrow’s experiments on the question, 
whether there is such a thing as a minimum 
perceptible difference of sensation, or what 
the Germans call differenzschwelle, were in- 
teresting. The experimenter arranged for the 
production, by an assistant, of successive dif- 
ferences of pressure upon the surface of his 
own body, so slight that he was unable, so 
far as he himself could judge, to either hear, 
or see, or even feel them; but actually, in 


the majority of cases, determined correctly 


whether the change was positive or negative. 
Of purely zodlogical papers there were few. 
A paper by Professor Verrill gave an account 
of the present season’s work of the U.S. 
fish-commission, which, by the steamer Al- 


SCIENCE. 


S97 


batross, continues to bring from the deep sea 
additional forms of animal life new to science, 
and.in great numbers. The most unexpected 
result is the finding, in some of the deepest 
dredgings, of large masses of exceedingly com- 
pact clay, instead of the usual globigerina and 
other ooze. Dr. Packard showed, that, in a 
blind isopod crustacean from the Mammoth 
Cave, the brain differed from its allies only in 
that traces of the pigment-layers of the eye 
remained more or less developed after the 
entire abortion of the optic lobes and nerve. 
Professor Cope believed he had found the 
probable ancestors of the Mammalia in the 
Pelycosauria, — an extinct type of reptiles, 
which, of all reptilian types, shows at once 
the most distinct batrachian and mammalian 
features. 

Major Powell gave a succinct account of the 
operations of the U.S. geological survey, ex- 
hibiting two copies of the land-office map of 
the country, — one colored to show the regions 
which had been occupied ; the other, the broader 
features of its geology. Mr. Pumpelly gave a 
similar account of the work of the recently 
closed Northern transcontinental survey, and a 
special notice of the mesozoic coals met with in 
that survey. By the study of transverse and 
cross sections of the crystalline tufa of Ne- 
vada, Prof. E. 8. Dana was able to determine 
that the original form of thinolite was a steep 
pyramid: it was probably a chloro-carbonate 
of calcium, now altered to calcium carbonate. 
Professor Brewer stated that in the dry regions 
of the west, especially when several dry seasons 
followed a succession of moister ones, in which 
the lands were overstocked, the nutritious 
grasses were eaten to death by cattle, and 
thereupon supplanted by noxious types. Sev- 
eral were mentioned as producing a rapid 
obliteration of our native pastures, and their 
seeds as injurious by piercing the skin, and 
producing sores. 

Two reports called for by the government 
had been transmitted to the president of the 
academy, and will form a part of his annual 
report to congress, — one upon the organiza- 
tion of the scientific bureaus of the govern- 
ment, called for by the commission, whose 
appointment we noticed in the first number of 
this volume ; the other upon the proper clas- 
sification of philosophical instruments under 
the existing tariff regulations, called for by the 
secretary of the treasury. A second quarto 
volume of memoirs was announced as in the 
hands of the binder. 

The next session of the academy will be its 
annual meeting, next May, in Washington. 


398 


DEATH AND INDIVIDUALITY. 


Tue current conceptions of death as a bio- 
logical phenomenon are very confused and 
unscientific. In this essay I shall endeavor 
to analyze the problem, and, by placing the 
factors concerned in a clearer light, to dimin- 
ish the obscurity in which the subject is still 
involved. This appears to me the more de- 
sirable, because the recent publications of 
Weismann and Goette upon this general topic 
have increased rather than lessened the exist- 
ing confusion. In fact, these authors fail to 
make the necessary distinctions between the 
different kinds of death, the different orders of 
individuality, and the different forms of repro- 
duction. This assertion is, I believe, justified 
by the following paragraphs : — 

First, as regards individuality. Individual- 
ity, as it is generally understood (i.e., as 
something always equivalent to itself), does 
not exist in nature, except subjectively as a 
rather fantastic notion of the human mind. 
The term ‘ individual’ is applied to things utter- 
ly incommensurate with one another. An in- 
dividual protozoon, an individual polyp, and 
an individual insect, are not homologous and 
comparable bodies. It is mere slavery to a 
false form of speech to imagine that their 
‘individuality ’ is a common quality; for, on 
the contrary, the same word indicates here 
three distinct phases. I know not how to 
account for the immense significance attrib- 
uted to the mystical idea of individuality, 
which in reality corresponds only to a physio- 
logical capacity for a separate existence, but 
in usage is tacitly assumed to be the name of 
some vague fundamental property of life, 
which, however, the mind cannot apprehend. 
Now, we have renounced considering a wing 
in a bee, a bird, or a bat, as identical or ho- 
mologous with every wing, either on account 
of its name or its function. But, although 
the different kinds of individuals of animals 
and plants are much more unlike one another 
than are the manifold types of wings, yet in- 
dividuality is generally taken to mean a uni- 
tormly identical something ; and that is untrue. 
Of course, the matter is really very simple, and 
indeed celhevident. as to its true nature; and 
the singular obscurity prevailing is probably 
due only to the problem not having been clear- 
ly thought over. At present the condition of 
opinion upon the subject reminds one of the 
ancient notions of beauty, according to which, 
beauty was an inherent quality of objects, not 
an impression of the mind, a psychological 
state. Despite custom, it is plain that ‘ individ- 


SCIENCE. 


Oe te oe) Ae ae i eo 


[Vou. IV., No. 90. 


ual’ has many meanings ; yet it is usual to com- 

pare ‘ individuals’ with one another through- 
out the animal kingdom. This error has been 
repeated by Weismann and Goette, hecause 
they both assume that the death of a single 
protozoon is equivalent to the death of one 
of the higher animals. Goette, however, has 
partially emancipated himself from this idea, 
which I believe to be erroneous. ‘The death 
of a unicellular, is entirely different from the 
death of a multicellular, individual. 

To Huxley’ we owe the first scientific deter- 
mination of individuality. His essay on the 
subject ought to be thoroughly studied by every 
biologist. Life occurs in cycles of cells; each 
cycle comprises all the cells springing from a 
single impregnated ovum; the whole of every 
cycle is homologous with every other whole 
cycle, no matter whether every cell is a so- 
called individual, or whether they constitute 
several individuals (e.g., polyps) or a single 
one (vertebrates). All cells are homologous, 
all cycles are homologous ; but individuals are 
not always homologous, since an individual 
may be either the whole or any fractional part 
of a cycle. This question I have discussed a 
little more fully on pp. 191, 192, of my article 
cited in the footnote. Manifestly the death 
of the single cell is not necessarily identical 
with the termination of a cycle. Now, when 
a man, he being a cycle of cells, has lost the 
ability to continue the cycle, he (or it) dies. 
Further, it is inherent in his constitution to 
lose that ability gradually: hence, when it 
is completely lost from internal causes, he 
dies, as we say, from old age. It is to this 
ending-off of the cycle, from causes resident 
in itself, I wish to restrict the term ‘ natural 
death.’ 

We have now two questions to pose: 1°. 
Do all organisms belong to cell-cycles? 2°. 
If so, are all cycles self-limited? In common 
language, the second question would be, Is 
death always the natural and inevitable ac- 
companiment of life? — an inquiry which may 
appear singular, but is none the less perfectly 
sensible and legitimate. Weismann has an- 
swered it with a negative. 

1°. I maintain the hypothesis that all or- 
ganisms do develop in cycles, and only in 
cycles; which involves the assumption that 
all living species begin their life-history with 
an impregnated ovum or its equivalent. We 
come, therefore, at once to the question of 

1 T. H. Huxley (1852) upon animal individuality, Royal 
inst. proc., i. 184-189; Edinb. new phil. journ., liii. 172-177; 
Ann. mag. nat. hist., 1852. 


2 C. 8. Minot (1879), Growth as a function of cells, Proc, 
Boston soc. nat. hist., xx. 190-201. 


j 


OCTOBER 24, 1884.] 


how far sexual reproduction extends down- 
ward in the scale of life. I deem it very 
probable that it extends to the lowest animat- 
ed being, even though it be quite differently 
manifested in the lower forms from what we 


observe in ordinary bi-sexual reproduction. | 


This view is opposed to the opinions generally 
held: for botanists trace the evolution of sex 
within the vegetable kingdom ; and zodlogists 
trace it, though less definitely, within the ani- 
mal kingdom. We are thus forced to assume 
that sex, one of the most fundamental and 
characteristic phenomena of life, has arisen 
twice. ‘This is to the last degree improbable. 
Such a coincidence would be the most extraor- 
dinary result of chance within human experi- 
ence. It is more reasonable to suppose, that, 
though we do not yet recognize it, the sexual 
function exists in the protobionts, which are 
neither animal nor vegetable, and that they 
also produce a body homologous with an im- 
pregnated ovum ; and to suppose, further, that, 
out of this common commencement, both ani- 
mal and vegetable sex have been evolved. The 
essential property of the sexually produced 
ovum is its power of repeated division, pro- 
ducing a succession of cell-generations, which, 
together with the original body (ovum), con- 
stitute the cycle. ‘There is much evidence of 
a positive character to confirm the belief of 
the cyclical course of life, even among the pro- 
tozoa and protophytes, in which there occurs 
what is known as rejuvenation (verjiingung). 

2°. I maintain that it is probable that all 
cycles of cells are self-limited. Let us first 
ascertain the nature of the limitation. Our 
knowledge of the manner in which the cycles 
are limited (i.e., of the causes of natural 
death) is very restricted, and derived solely 
from the higher animals. My own special in- 
vestigations have been in this field, and have 
led me to the opinions and problems we are 
discussing. 

My experiments demonstrate, that, when 
properly analyzed, the growth of at least the 
higher animals gradually diminishes from birth 
onwards, almost without interruption. This 
is an irrefutable mathematical verification of 
the views which I advanced in my article on 
‘Growth as a function of cells,’ published in 
1879, the essence of which, as far as we are 
now concerned, is, that the cells of a cycle 
continuously lose their power of division, so 
that the interval between two successive -divis- 
ions gradually increases. This involves the 
ultimate termination of the cycle, because the 
losses go on, not only until the cells can no 
longer divide, but until they exhaust them- 


SCIENCE. 


399 


selves. This whole series of changes is prop- 
erly senescence, or growing old. Senescence is 
a continuous process, covering the whole period 
of a cycle of cells; and we must assume it is 
the positive loss of power in the single cells, 
such that the last-produced cells cannot con- 
tinue, and natural death ensues. Of course, in 
the cases of a multicellular animal, death of 
the whole follows secondarily upon exhaustion 
of any essential part; as in the case of insects, 
which die upon laying their eggs. In the 
higher animals, then, the cycle is limited by 
senescence, and senescence is a decay which 
probably begins when the cycle begins. The 
next point to decide is, whether the same phe- 


‘nomenon occurs with the unicellular organisms. 


If it is found that the divisions of a Parame- 
cium,’ for instance, after a conjugation, are at 
first rapid, and then follow at increasing inter- 
vals, it would prove (provided, always, the ex- 
ternal conditions remained constant) that we 
here had true senescence, with its sequel, natu- 
ral death, or the end of the cycle. Until this 
point is settled, we cannot know whether there 
is, among unicellular animals, a form of death 
homologous with the natural death from senes- 
cence in the higher animals and plants. 

It is to be regretted that both Weismann 
and Goette appear not to know the article to 
which reference has just been made: otherwise 
they would have recognized that the problem 
of death is, first, whether growing old (veral- 
tung, involution) is a universal phenomenon of 
life. Weismann’s first article was an address 
delivered before the German naturforscherver- 
sammlung, September, 1881, and subsequently 
republished at Jena. He advanced then the 
view, that, for unicellular organisms, there is no 
death except through accident ; that, the propa- 
gation being by simple division, we must as- 
sume that the process of division may go on 
forever. He does not even consider whether 
the cells form cycles, and whether these cycles 
need to be renewed ; so that he misses the real 
problem. On the contrary, he is enchained a 
prisoner to the mystical idea of individuality, 
and reasons as if individuality rendered direct 
comparisons legitimate between things essen- 
tially different. All his reasoning is based 
upon the idea that an individual protozoan is 
comparable to an individual dog, and so on. 
The argument just made against him was to 
show that the basis of his whole fabric is illu- 
sory. Butschli, in his short article,' called forth 


1 Paramecium is a common unicellular animal. 

2 Weismann, Ueber die dauer des lebens (Jena, 1882, 8°), 
94p. Cf. also Weismann’s comments on Biitschli, Zool. anzei- 
ger, V. 377-380, and his reply to Goette,— Ueber leben und 
tod (Jena, 1884, 8°). 


400 , SCIENCE. 


by Weismann’s, partially liberates himself 
from the confusion as to individuality, and 
propounds the hypothesis of a lebensferment, 
which he supposes to be continually renewed 
in protozoa, which he thus assumes to be po- 
tentially immortal. He also fails to recognize 
that the true question is, not whether single 
protozoa die, but whether they form senescent 
cycles. In this error he is followed by Cholo- 
dowsky,” who also admits that natural death 
is restricted to the multicellular animals, but 
overlooks what would be its only possible homo- 
logue among protozoa. 

Goette seems to me to have made a distinct 
advance beyond his predecessors, for he has 
attempted ® to show that there is a death com- 
mon to all organisms. Especially is his conclu- 
sion that death and reproduction are intimately 
connected to be noted as important; but his 
thought appears to me often vague and ob- 
scure, and to many of his views I can by no 
means assent. I have just asserted that death 
and reproduction are intimately connected. 
Now, if my theory is correct, it is evident 
that each cycle, before it is completely ex- 
hausted, must produce the initials of new 
cycles: hence the connection in time between 
maturity, or the approach of death, and sexual 
reproduction. By speculation upon the few 
available facts, I have reached the following 
hypothesis. Originally each cell of a cycle 
was a distinct individual ; the exhaustion of the 
last cells of the cycle caused them to become 
sexual bodies and to conjugate; conjugation 
renews the power of division in the conjugated 
individuals, and therewith a new cycle is be- 
gun. Subsequently multicellular animals were 
evolved, and in these the same phenomena 
recur; but some of the cells have become spe- 
cially organized, and thereby incapable of as- 
suming the sexual state: hence, when the end 
of the cycle approaches, only a few cells be- 
come sexual, and the animal (or plant) is ma- 
ture. The higher organisms become sexually 
active only after having grown for a consider- 
able period, because they still preserve the 
primitive relation. Senility is the auslésende 
reiz of sexual reproduction. I hope to dis- 
cuss the matter fully in a memoir which I am 
now preparing for the press. 

It is evident, that, according to this hypothe- 
sis, sexual reproduction depends on the ex- 
haustion of the cells. There are many facts 
known to confirm this view. Thus among men 


1 Q. Biitschli (1882), Gedanken ueber leben und tod, Zool. 
anzeiger, V. 64-67. 

2 oN: Cholodowsky (1882), Tod und unsterblichkeit in der 
thierwelt, Zool. anzeigen, v. 264, 265. 

8 A. Goette (1883), Ueber den ursprung des todes (Hamburg 
and Leipzig, 1883, 8°), p. 81. 


the reproductive period begins sooner when — 
they are ill fed. Among many of. the lower 
plants, reproduction is induced by defective 
nutrition. I believe that nutrition and repro- 
duction are, indeed, opposed to one another, 
but a no means in the sense taken by Carpen- 
ter? and Spencer.” While I consider that the 
impaired nutrition causes the effort to repro- 
duce, they believe that reproduction is opposed 
to nutrition, constituting a tax which with- 
draws just so much from the parent. Un- 
doubtedly, in those cases where the parent, in 
consequence of a secondary addition to the 
office of genesis, has to supply food to its young, 
reproduction may detract from growth, but, 
even in such cases, only sometimes. Carpenter 
and Spencer’s whole argument rests upon the 
assumption that the power of assimilation is 
only just equal, or about equal, to the demands 
of the parent. It is, however, perfectly well 
known that the reverse is true, and that there 
is in most organisms a large surplus of assimi- 
lation possible, which is used whenever the 
functions demand it: hence in most cases the 
secondary taxes of reproduction can be wholly 
or mainly paid without calling on the growth 
capital of the parent. Spencer’s a priori ar- 
cumentation I consider superficial: it has led 
him to an exaggerated idea of an opposition 
which exists in nature, but is not general. 
Moreover, Spencer has mistaken the cart for 
the horse: animals do not stop growing be- 
cause they begin to reproduce, but they begin 
to reproduce because they stop growing; or, 
more strictly speaking, both events are due to 
one cause, — senescence. 

It will be seen, upon reviewing the preceding 
paragraphs, that the views I advocate are op- 
posed to all the other opinions upon the nature 
of death which have been noticed above. In 
a memoir I am now at work upon, I hope to 
array a large number of observations to defend 
the theory outlined in this essay. 

C. 8S. Minor. 


AMERICAN APPLIANCES FOR. DEEP-— 
SEA INVESTIGATION. 


‘The wire dredge-rope. 


Ir was a revolution in deep-sea dredging 
methods, when the cumbersome hempen rope 
was discarded for one of wire, measuring 
scarcely more than one-third the same diame- 
ter, stronger, more durable, and less expensive. 
The introduction of wire-rope will not affect 

1 William B. Carpenter, Principles of physiology, general 


and comparative (8d ed., 1851), p. 592. 
2 Hk. Spencer, The principles of biology, vol. ii. pt. vi. 


OcToBeR 24, 1884.] 


the interests of the small-boat dredger; nor 
ean this material be used to advantage without 
the aid of steam, but the active competition 
now existing with regard to deep-sea explora- 
tions must needs render its adoption necessary 
by all large expeditions. 

Hemp rope was employed in all deep-sea 
dredgings up to the winter of 1877-78. One 
of the most serious objections to its use is the 
amount of space it occupies, especially when, 
as in the case of the Challenger, twenty-five 
thousand fathoms are carried. On the Por- 
cupine, only three thousand fathoms of two- 
and-a-half and two-inch rope, weighing about 
fifty-five hundred pounds, were supplied ; but 
for the convenient storage and handling of 
this there was required a row of twenty great 
iron pins, about two-and-a-half feet in length, 
projecting over one side of the quarter-deck 
from the top of the bulwark. 

But a far greater objection to hemp-rope is 
the length of time required in making a deep- 
sea dredging with it, as experi- 
enced by Sir Wyville Thomson, 
and all other deep-sea dredgers 
prior to the past few years. In 
1869 the Porcupine dredged in the 
Bay of Biscay, in a depth of 2,435 
fathoms, requiring some ten hours 
for one haul. On the Chal- 
lenger an entire day would be con- 
sumed in dredging or trawling in 
depths of from two thousand to 
twenty-five hundred fathoms. 

For the utilization of steel-wire rope for 
deep-sea dredging, we are indebted to the 
fortunate suggestion of Professor Alexander 
Agassiz, who first recommended its use; and 
to Commander Sigsbee, U.S.N., who prac- 
tically demonstrated its superiority over all 
other kinds of dredging-rope, and perfected the 
method of handling it. The first trials were 
made on the coast-survey steamer Blake, 
dredging in the Gulf of Mexico, in the winter 
of 1877-78. The size of rope then selected, 
and since employed by both the coast survey 
and fish commission, measures only 14 inches? 
in circumference, and has an ultimate strength 
of 8,750 lbs. The chief advantages of wire 
rope, in the words of Mr. Sigsbee, are ‘‘ com- 
pactness, strength, durability, neatness, facil- 
ity of handling with a small force, celerity of 
Operations, andeconomy.’’ The entire amount 
required to make the deepest dredging can be 
stored upon a single drum which occupies but 
an inconspicuous position on the deck. But 


' One of 1;; inches has also been successfully tried. 


SCIENCE, 


401 


few men are required for the operations of 
dredging ; and the reeling-in can be performed, 
in case of necessity, by two men only, one stand- 
ing at the hoisting-engine, the other at the reel. 

Where the dredgings are confined to depths 
less than a thousand fathoms, as was the case 
with: the steamer Fish Hawk, the hoisting- 
engine may be dispensed with, and the rope 
led directly to the reel, which can be made 
sufficiently strong to withstand the strain put 
upon it in using so small a quantity of rope. 
With operations simplified to this extent, a 
single man can control both the lowering and 
the reeling-in; the additional help being re- 
quired only to handle the dredging apparatus 
on the deck, and to start it on its downward 
passage. 

As to economy of time, the wire rope has a 
decided advantage over hemp or manila. Sir 
Wyville Thomson states that 


‘‘There can be no doubt that in any future expe- 
dition, on whatever scale, it would be an unjustifiable 


Fie. 1. — COMPARATIVE SIZE OF DREDGE-ROPES. 
(From Sigsbee’s ‘ Deep-sea sounding.’) 


waste of time and space to neglect the use of wire 
for sounding, and wire rope for dredging and trawl- 
ing; but it seems to me that even the use of these 
should be simplified, and not made more complex.”’ 


Prof. H. N. Moseley has been even more 
generous in his acknowledgments; and in a 
lecture on deep-sea dredging, delivered before 
the Royal institution of London in 1880, and 
published in Nature for April 8 of the same 
year, he spoke of the advantages of wire rope, 
which have already been alluded to. 


Accessories to wire rope. 


Among the important accessories to the use 
of wire dredge-rope, which have been intro- 
duced in this country, may be mentioned an 
improved form of accumulator, a set of safety- 
hooks for attaching the trawls, and several pat- 
terns of dredging-blocks. 

The Sigsbee accumulator (fig. 3), which re- 
places the pattern formerly employed by the 
English, and which has since been adopted on 
the French steamer Talisman, was first used 


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(From Sigsbee’s ‘ Deep-sea sounding.’) 


OcTOBER 24, 1884.] 


on the steamer Blake, in 1878. It consists of 
a number (26 to 37) of rubber car-buffers, ar- 
ranged for compression on a central rod, and 
separated from one another by thin brass guide 
plates provided with hubs or fillets, which 
prevent the buffers from coming in contact with 
the rod. Under strain applied at the lower 
end, the accumulator elongates, and when re- 
leased from strain is restored to its former 
length by the elasticity of the buffers. The 


Fie. 3.— SIGSBEE’S ACCU- 
-MULATOR FOR DEEP-SEA 
DREDGING, WITH DREDGE- 
BLOCK ATTACHED. 


Fic. 4. — THE SAFETY- 
HOOKS FOR ATTACH- 
ING THE BEAM-TRAWL 
TO THE DRAG-ROPE. 
SHOWN IN DETAIL. 


amount of extension afforded by the Blake’s 
accumulator was six feet, which, according to 
the experience of Commander Sigsbee, is quite 
sufficient; the principal purpose of an accu- 
mulator being to indicate the amount of strain 
after fouling, and when the dredge-rope has 
been hauled tight and is nearly vertical. The 
English accumulator, consisting of a number of 
long elastic rods, was intended to relieve the 
first strain upon the rope in case of fouling. 
The safety-hooks (fig. 4) invented by Capt. 
Tanner, U.S.N., are an ingenious device for 


SCIENCE. 


403 


releasing the beam-trawl in case of its fouling 
irretrievably, and thus relieving the strain upon 
the rope which might otherwise break at some 
distance above the bottom, thereby entailing an 
additional loss ofrope. They consist of a stout 
steel spring enclosed in an iron cylinder, and 
controlling the opening and closing of a pair of 
heavy iron hooks, which project from one end, 
and can be adjusted to detach at any point be- 


tween three thousand and six thousand pounds. 


Commander Sigsbee first improved the dredg- 
ing-blocks. In the deck-blocks, the side plates 
are free to revolve; but in that which hangs 
pendent from the boom end, they are pinned 
to the strap, and connected by socket-bolts, 
which are intended to prevent the dredge-rope 
from getting between the side plates and the 
strap. The dredging-blocks supplied to the 
Albatross have no side plates ; and the sheave, 
which is of brass, revolves on a series of brass 
friction-rods surrounding the steel pin or axis. 


Sieves. 


Convenient sieves for working over the mixed 
materials after they have been landed upon the 
deck are very important adjuncts to the dredg- 
ing work. 

The larger proportion of the contents of the 
dredge and trawl frequently consists of mud or 
sand, which requires to be washed from the 
specimens before they can be preserved or 
studied. Many different devices to accomplish 
this sifting or washing have been tried, both 
in this country and in Europe: but of those 
now employed by the Fish-commission, only one 
has been borrowed ; the others, two in number, 
having originated with this survey. ‘The three 
patterns of sieves are intended for different 
purposes. The simplest is a nest of circular 
sieves similar to those figured in Sir Wyville 
Thomson’s ‘ Depths of the sea,’ and used for 
sifting small quantities of material by hand, in 
a bucket or tub of water. 

The rocker or cradle sieve (fig. 5) is designed 
especially for washing the contents of the 
dredges; and the table sieves, for the great 
mass of material which so often comes up in 
the trawl; but the latter has been found so 
useful for all kinds of work that it is now most 
commonly employed, especially as it forms 
in itself a large and convenient sorting-table 
around which a number of persons can stand 
at a time. The cradle sieve was devised by 
Professor Verrill in 1872, to afford the means 
of rapid washing over the side of the vessel. 
It is semicylindrical in shape, the curved bot- 
tom and sides consisting of two thicknesses of 


Bl 


404° 


wire netting; the lower having a strongwand 
coarse mesh, and designed to give strength to 
the upper netting which determines the size 
of material which can be washed through. 
The end pieces are of wood. A rectangular 
box fitting into the top of this sieve, and hay- 
ing a coarse wire bottom, is sometimes employed 
for the purpose described below in the next 
pattern. The table sieve was the joint inven- 
tion of Professor Verrill and Capt. Chester in 
1877, and was originally intended to receive 
the contents of the trawl which had been pre- 
viously dumped upon the deck. It consists of 
a large rectangular wooden frame, supported 
upon legs of a convenient height, and with a 
bottom of heavy galvanized wire-netting which 
serves to support the real bottom of the sieve. 
This is of fine wire-netting fitted to a remov- 
able frame. Above this is a second, hopper- 
shaped frame-work, covered underneath with 


Fie’. 5.— VERRILL’S CRADLE SIEVE. 


coarse netting, and provided at about the 
middle of the side with cleats which rest 
upon the upper edges of the main frame when 
the three frames are nested together for use. 
The trawls are emptied into the hopper frame, 
which retains the coarser objects, allowing the 
smaller and generally more delicate specimens 
to be washed out on to the finer netting below. 
This arrangement of sieves has been found 
to give greater satisfaction than any other 
for washing large quantities of material, and 
keeps the specimens in better condition. The 
under part of the main frame is covered with 
heavy canvas, which serves to direct the water 
to the canvas tube in the centre, and thence 
over the side of the vessel. 

Mr. James E. Benedict, naturalist on the 
steamer Albatross, has recently added an inter- 
esting feature to this sieve, for collecting and 
cleaning the foraminifera taken in the trawls, 
and of which many quarts were frequently 
washed away and lost by the old method 
at every haul. The canvas tube is simply 


SCIENCE. 


arranged to lead into the side of a cask placed. 
close to the sieve, and from which the water 


escapes at a slightly higher level on the oppo- 
site side. The heavier particles carried through 
the tube by the great force of the current are 
thereby given a chance to settle in the cask; 
the lighter sediment, composed mostly of fine 
mud, passing off through the outlet. After 
the washing has been accomplished, the water 
remaining in the barrel is decanted or drawn 
off through a siphon. The washing, in both 
the cradle and table sieves, is accomplished by 
means of a stream of water supplied through 
a hose. The large sieve figured on the deck of 
the French steamer Talisman in a recent num- 
ber of La nature (see Science, vol. iii. p. 453) 
appears to partake of the character of the table 
sieve above described, although its details are 
not shown. 

RicHarRD RATHBUN. 


KAFIRISTAN. 


THE adventurous journey of Macnair, disguised 
as a native physician, into Kafiristan has given us 
the first testimony of a European eye-witness to the 
characteristics of that country and its inhabitants. 
Without recounting the itinerary, or specially detail- 
ing the perils of the traveller, which were not few, 
it may be mentioned that a part of his route lying 
between Mirga and Lowerai Kotal was at an altitude 
of 10,450 feet above the sea-level, winding through 
the snow between heaps of stones, which cover the 
remains of Mohammedans assassinated by the Kafirs. 


Elphinstone relates, in his ‘ History of Kabul,’ that, — 


on the occasion of a sacrifice, the prayer offered was, 
‘‘Defend us from fever, increase our wealth, kill the 
Mussulmans, and after our death admit us to Para- 
dise.’’ It appears that none of their religious duties 
are better attended to by the Kafirs than that of 
killing the Mussulmans. Much the same importance 
is attached to it as belonged to head-hunting among 
the Dyaks, and no young Kafir is allowed to marry 
until he has killed at least one. A very similar feel- 
ing would seem to exist towards Europeans. 
Kafiristan embraces an area of some five thousand 
square miles, limited to the north by the stupendous 
crest of the Hindu Kush, of which at least one peak 
rises above twenty-five thousand feet; on the south 
by the Kunar range; and on the east and west chiefly 
by the Alishang and Kunar rivers. Three distinct 
tribes — the Ramgals, Vaigals, and Bashgals — corre- 
spond to and occupy the three principal valleys of 
the country, the last being subdivided into five 
clans. The Vaigals are reputed to be the most 
numerous, and occupy the largest valley. Each tribe 
has a distinct dialect, but all have many words in 
common. In general, the three tribes have few 
relations with each other. Altogether, they are sup- 
posed to number about two hundred thousand people. 


J 


OCTOBER 24, 1884.] 


The country is wild, picturesque, and densely wooded. 
The men are fine-looking. Blue eyes are rare, but 
brown ones, and light, or even reddish hair, are com- 
mon. The complexion varies from a ruddy blond 
to a bronze color, which is, doubtless, partly due to 
exposure. Their stature is but moderate. The men 
are fearless but lazy, and leave the work of agricul- 
ture to the women. When not at war they hunt. 
They are devoted to the dance, with which they 
occupy most of their evenings. The dance in use is 
invariably initiated by a woman, who goes through a 
prelude of graceful posturing. At a given signal, the 
dancers take their places on either side of the fire; 
the musicians, with a drum, flutes, and cymbals, 
taking a place at the end of the lines. At a second 
signal, couples form, and later turn singly around the 
fire. The dance terminates by a new formation of 
couples, holding a stick between them, feet firmly 
planted and close together, when they turn with 
great rapidity, first from right to left, and then in the 
reverse direction. 

The houses are constructed on the mountain-side. 
The ground-floor is of stone, ten or twelve feet high, 
and is not used, except for storing wood and dry 
dung, both used for fuel, the latter especially in the 
preparation of cheese, which is made daily, and is of 
good quality. Above the stone foundation the struc- 
ture is entirely of wood, with a sort of gallery around 
it. There are but two rooms, clean but very dark. 
The door-jambs are rudely carved. There is little 
furniture, but chairs of wood or wicker are in general 
use. The ordinary food is composed of bread and 
cheese in a sort of sandwich, dipped in melted butter, 
and boiled meat. The beds are built like a bunk 
attached to the wall. Some houses are provided 
with two stories, both of similar construction. The 
roof is made of flat stones, covered with a coating of 
clay. 

The temples comprise a single square room, in 
which there are some large water-worn stones taken 
from the bed of the river, but no idols, except certain 
figures used in the funeral ceremonies be so con- 
sidered. The dead are taken in their coffins into the 
temple, where sacrifices are made, and the remains 
then carried to the appointed place in the cemetery, 
but they are not buried. As to religion, the Kafiri 
believe in a passive supreme being, and a very active 
devil to whom all mischances are ascribed. 

The men shave the head, except a single long lock 
on the summit, and go uncovered. Their dress is 
much like that of the Afghans, chiefly of cotton, 
with leather buskins made of laced strips of hide. 
The women wear the hair long, coiled under a large 
bonnet, through the top of which two tufts of hair 
project, looking at a distance like horns. 
practised, Polygamy is exceptional. The unfaith- 
ful wife is beaten, and her lover fined not less than 
six head of cattle, and more according to his means. 
They have been supposed to be great wine-bibbers; 
but Mr. Macnair found in use only grape-juice, 
neither fermented nor distilled. This is pressed out 
during the vintage, and kept in jars under ground 
until needed. They are armed with the bow and 


SCIENCE. 


Slavery is - 


405 


arrow and afew matchlocks. The traveller observed 
artificial ponds, made to entice the wild ducks who 
pass over in their annual migrations. Some of the 
rivers carry gold; but the chiefs oppose washing for 
it, having in view the inevitable consequences to 
which successful gold-mining would give rise. 

The people are intensely jealous of European in- 
vasion. The mere suspicion of European origin 
several times put the life of Mr. Macnair in serious 
danger, and intended journeying in several directions 
was given up as unsafe on this account. 


THE CHANGES WHICH FERMENTA- 
TION PRODUCES IN MILK. 


MILK, if left standing a short time, becomes a sort 
of acidulated jelly called curd. In cheese-making 
this transformation is hastened by bruising; but in 
both cases the acidity and the peculiar savor of the 
curdled milk are caused by a microbe, the lactic ba- 
cillus, whose little rods are swimming by millions in 
the turning liquid. Only the caseine, the albuminous 
portion of milk, which forms the principal ingredi- 
ent of cheese, coagulates: the lactic bacillus, recently 
studied by Mr. Hueppe, avoids this, and prefers the 
sugar of the milk, which it changes into a lactic acid. 
Without the bacillus, the milk would not sour. If 
milk, when fresh, is carefully poured into Steril- 
ized flasks, and corked, it may be preserved indefi- 
nitely. Repeated warmings have the same effect; but 
the operation is too delicate to be of practical value. 
If we touch curdled milk with the point of a pin, and 
then plunge the point into fresh milk, in a few hours 
this milk will also becurdled. This pin-point carries 
the lactic bacilli in sufficient quantities to sow any 
quantity whatever of the milk-food. By introducing 
other microbes, milk will undergo a number of dis- 
similar transformations, according to the germs which 
are sown in it. The germs of the butyric bacillus 
condense the milk without its becoming acidulated: 
on the contrary, it will have an alkaline reaction, with 
a bitter taste, and an odor resembling that of fresh 
cheese or whey. By adding a little blue milk, in a 
few hours the whole becomes blue. The milk neither 
curdles nor sours, but a drop examined under the 
microscope is seen to swarm with vibrios. This is the 
cyanogen bacillus; and when sown in glue, in potato, 
or in soup, it everywhere multiplies, and makes the 
substance blue. At times this bacillus causes an 
eruption, which is cured with much difficulty. Milk 
is not rendered unwholesome by it, nor disagreeable 
in taste; but it is blue, which does not increase its 
market-value. A little ropy milk added will in three 
days make milk so thick that we can invert a bottle 
containing it without losing a single drop. In this 
case a peculiar microbe, a micrococcus, has been at 
work. This has been described by Mr. Schmidt-Mul- 
heim, who deserves a place of honor among confec- 
tioners; for he has discovered a method of producing 


1 Abridged from an article by Dr. H. Fou, in the Journal de 
Geneve. 


406 


a substance much resembling gum-tragacanth, which, 
when added to the jelly, makes it harden. This milk- 
jelly is easily digested, its taste is perfect, and it may 
be preserved, even in the air, for ten days. The in- 
habitants of the north of Sweden preserve the pre- 
cious microbe, caring for it as the savages care for 
their fire. They put it in all the milk they wish to 
preserve, as such milk is better and more easily ob- 
tained, in every case, than the condensed milk of the 
factories of Cham and Montreux. Alcoholic fermen- 
tation is produced in milk when sown with koumiss, 
or with the fungus of kéfir, a favorite Russian drink. 
This curious ferment is a combination of two distinct 
ferments, —a yeast analogous to that of wine, and a 
microbe, Dispora caucasia. These two organisms live 
together in perfect harmony, and for acommon end,— 
the production of a gaseous, piquant, agreeable, and, 
above all, healthful beverage. The kéfir is especially 
valuable as a food for infants and invalids. Several 
physicians of Geneva intend to make trials of it, and 
we are in hope of being soon enriched by the addition 
of a new and valuable hygienic food. 


THE MERIDIAN CONFERENCE. ! 


AT Tuesday’s meeting, Oct. 14, the resolution to 
reckon longitudes east and west from Greenwich 
tv plus and minus 180° was advocated by Professor 
Adams, Capt. Evans, and Gen. Strachey, of Great 
Britain, and by Mr. Rutherford; the very strong point 
being urged in its favor, that the jump in longitude 
from + 180° to — 180° occurs in the Pacific Ocean, 
where the local time now jumps twenty-four hours, 
—and it must do this somewhere, — and hence it will 
cause no change from the present practice among 
navigators, or in the date of the present local time of 
any part of the earth; and the relation between the 
local date and hour of any place, and the universal 
time of the Greenwich meridian, will always be cor- 
rectly given by the simple formula, L.T. = U.T. + 4A, 
A being the longitude expressed as above. After a 
short recess for informal discussion, the resolution 
was adopted by a small majority. 

A resolution was then introduced, that the confer- 
ence propose the adoption of a universal day for all 
purposes for which it may be found convenient, and 
which shall not interfere with the use of local time 
where desirable. 

The delegate from Italy offered as a substitute the 
resolution of the geodetic conference at Rome, which 
proposed a universal day of twenty-four hours, be- 
ginning at Greenwich, mean noon; i.e., the present 
astronomical day, twelve hours later than the civil. 

Mr. Allen here read a paper upon the needs and 
conveniences of the railroads and telegraphs, advo- 
cating local times differing whole hours from each 
other, and introduced a resolution that local time be 
held to mean that of the nearest meridian situated 
some whole number of hours from Greenwich; but, 
after some discussion as to the competence of the 
conference to go so far into details, he withdrew it. 

The resolution to adopt the recommendation of the 


1 Continued from p. 378. 


SCIENCE. 


|Vou. IV., No. 90. 


Roman conference was lost, and ene original resolu- 
tion was adopted by a laree. majority. 

It was then proposed that the universal day be a 
mean solar day, to begin for all the world at the mo- 
ment of midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding 
with the beginning of the civil day and date of that 
meridian, and to be counted from zero up to twenty- 
four hours. 

To give time for informally considering this, and 
for the secretaries to revise and publish in English 
and French the two-days’ proceedings, the conference 
adjourned till Monday, the 20th. 

At the meeting on Monday, the delegate from 
Spain proposed the adoption of a universal day cor- 
responding to the local day of Rome, ‘on account of 
classic historical associations,’ and apparently with 
the idea that somehow the epoch of the Gregorian 
calendar would be changed by adopting the Green- 
wich day. 

Professor Adams and Commander Sampson pointed 
out the confusion that would arise from reckoning 
time from one meridian, and longitude from another; 
and, after further discussions all the amendments 
were voted down, and the original resolution, recom- 
mending a universal day beginning at midnight of 
the prime meridian, and counted from zero to twenty- 
four hours, was adopted by a considerable majority. 
Another resolution was passed by a large majority, 
expressing the hope of the conference that the astro- 
nomical and nautical days may soon be arranged 
everywhere to begin at midnight. 

Mr. Janssen introduced a resolution expressing the 
hope of the conference that all nations will make a 
study of the advantages of dividing the day and cir- 
cular measure, wherever used, into four quadrants, 
with decimal division of quadrant. After considera- 
ble discussion, this was adopted with a slight modifi- 
cation in the phraseology. 

Gen. Strachey offered a resolution recommending 
that all local times differ, by some multiple of ten 
minutes, from that of the prime meridian. Without 
acting on this, the conference adjourned till Wednes- 
day. 


COTTERILL’S APPLIED MECHANICS. 


Applied mechanics : an elementary general introduction 
to the theory of structures and machines. By JAMES 
H. CotrTEerRILu. London, Macmillan, 1884. 20 
+584 p. 8°. 
THE appearance of a new book by the dis- 

tinguished lecturer on applied mechanics at the 

Royal naval college, the organization of which 

he has done so much to forward, and the pros- 

perity and success of which are ascribed so 
largely to Professor Cotterill, is an event likely 
to interest all who are engaged in similar lines 
of work. The opportunity is not open to the 
writer upon the subject of applied mechanics 
to produce as completely novel a work as was 
the earlier book by the same author, —‘ The 


steam-engine considered as a heat-engine.’ 


q 


OcTOBER 24, 1884. | 


The work is professedly based upon Ran- 
kine’s treatise, and is supplemented by a large 
amount of other, and some new, matter. The 
plan of the work is in some respects unusual. 
Its first part is devoted to the statics of struc- 
tures, the second to the kinematics of machines, 
the third to the dynamics of machines, the 
fourth to the strength and stiffness of mate- 
rials, and the fifth to the transmission and 
conversion of energy by machines. 

In part i. but little will be found to demand 
special notice. The methods of graphical stat- 
ics are adopted throughout, and are applied in 
succession to the simplest and the more com- 
plex cases. The straining action of a load 
applied to a structure is considered in several 
chapters ; shearing, bending, and twisting being 
taken upin order. Cases of frames having re- 
dundant parts, and the action of a travelling 
load, are given with propriety considerable 
space. In part ii. we find the author follow- 
ing Rankine in an innovation upon the standard 
plan of text-books on mechanics as hitherto 
constructed. Professor Cotterill here intro- 
duces the study of the kinematics of machines, 
—a subject not often considered to form a 
part of this general division of the theory of 
engineering, and only treated of, up to the 
present time, to any considerable extent, in 
separate works, as in Willis’s and in Reuleaux’s 
well-known works. Rankine introduced this 
subject, under the title ‘Geometry of mechan- 
ism,’ into his ‘ Machinery and mill-work,’ and 
introduced it also in his ‘ Applied mechanics.’ 
This author has introduced to a limited extent 
the nomenclature and methods of the latest of 
the great masters of this division of the science 
of engineering, Professor Reuleaux, and has 
thus brought the matter fully up to the time. 
A feature of the work to be noticed here, per- 
haps even more than elsewhere, is the selection 
of mechanism familiar to the engineer, and 
where possible of those in common use, in 
illustration of the principles to be explained. 
Part iii., on the dynamics of machinery, as 
would naturally be expected, occupies a large 
amount of space. It opens with a statement 
of the ‘ principle of work,’ shows how resist- 
ances are determined in common cases, de- 
fines energy, illustrates the methods of its 
transfer in machines, and considers the kinetic 
form of energy as met with in freely-moving 
bodies and in machines. A chapter is devoted 
to the dynamics of the steam-engine, and es- 
pecially to the graphical representation of the 
variation of effort and of energy at the crank. 
All of this work is interesting and valuable ; 
and the greater part of it is here for the first 


SCIENCE. 


407 


time, so far as the writer is aware, introduced 
into the literature of the schools. 

The study of cases of incomplete constraint 
and of straining actions in machines gives 
the author an opportunity to introduce the 
principle of momentum and other dynamical 
principles, and to illustrate their application 
by the analysis of the governors and other 
familiar cases. Part iv., on the strength of 
materials, occupies more space than any other 
division of the book. Impact, compound 
stresses, and flow are as fully treated as the 
limits of the book permit, and more so than 
is usual in treatises of this character. The 
work of Professor James Thomson on the flow 
of solids is described, and the experiments of 
Tresca and of Wobler are cited. 

The volume includes in its last division, 
part v., a discussion of the principles involved 
in the transmission of energy by fluids, and of 
its transformation. The flow of fluids, the 
action of machines driven by them, and the 
elementary principles of thermodynamics, are 
here studied. 

An excellent feature of the book is its 
references to works in which the _ subjects 
treated are more fully developed by accepted 
authorities. Examples are introduced at the 
end of each chapter which are doubly inter- 
esting as illustrating the special case there 
treated, and as exhibiting applications occur- 
ring in the engineer’s practice. The engrav- 
ings are numerous, and, in all cases in which 
it is possible, drawn from working machines 
and structures common in engineering. 

The work as a whole is one which will not 
only increase the reputation of its author, but 
will earn for him the thanks of many instruct- 
ors in technical schools who have long been 
hoping for such a treatise as will permit them 
to discard works, which, valuable in their day, 
are now left behind in the forward movement 
of the profession of engineering and of science. 


SCIENTIFIC BUTTER-MAKING. 


A manual for scientific butter-making. By W. H. 


Lyncu. Printed by order of the legislative as- 
sembly. Toronto, Robinson pr., 1883. 15+ 
204 p. 8°. 


Tue author, in the introduction to this man- 
ual, expresses himself in sympathy with the 
views advanced by Arnold and Bell on previ- 
ous occasions, that all persons connected with 
the prosecution of the dairy business should 
strive’ to make themselves familiar with the 
principles on which success depends. These 


- 


408 


considerations are, in his opinion, the key to 
the character of the manual. 

Practice and theory are treated in separate 
chapters, beginning, for stated reasons, with a 
description of the most successful method of 
butter-making, and closing with an exposition 
of the philosophy of the various modes of 
operation. The discussion opens quite deser- 
vedly by dwelling on the importance of cleanli- 
ness as the first and indispensable requirement 
for success in the dairy industry. The first 
chapter treats of the best indorsed rules for 
milking, and for setting milk for cream. The 
setting of milk in open and closed vessels, as 
well as the proper conditions of the cream for 
churning, and the management of churning, 
are carefully discussed. The author very fre- 
quently cites well-known authorities in the 
dairy business — Professors Arnold and Lewis 
—in support of his statements. A detailed 
description of the best rules for collecting, 
washing, pressing, salting, packing, and mar- 
keting the butter, closes the first chapter on 
the scientific method or process. 

The succeeding chapter explains the philos- 
ophy of the rules of treatment during the vari- 
ous stages of the process, which have been 
previously enumerated and critically discussed. 
The different points involved are here stated 
in an equally instructive manner. More promi- 
nence might have been given to a considera- 
tion of the chemical character of the various 
glycerides constituting the fat of milk, and 
consequently of the butter, as compared with 
those which constitute other animal fats. The 
serious influence of exceptionally large quanti- 
ties of the glycerides of four volatile fatty acids 
on the successful manufacture and on the keep- 
ing of butter is quite manifest, and deserves 
more than a passing notice. The first part 
of the book closes with remarks on milk-pro- 
duction, on the natural functions of the cow, 
on breeding and feeding, on dairy utensils and 
supplies, on water and its uses in the dairy, 
and on salt and its proper application in 
butter-making. The discourse on these sub- 
jects occupies about forty pages of the manual. 

It is unfortunate that by far the larger part 
of the pamphlet (the appendix) should be 
taken up with quotations from agricultural 
newspapers, and that in the closing paragraphs 
it should be stated that Mr. Lynch is the owner 
of the patents on the forms of butter-making 
appliances which he advocates. The work, 
with its numerous newspaper extracts and 
poor printing, has not the appetizing appear- 
ance so essential to a new book, and is calcu- 
lated to repel one at the first glance. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. | 


MAN’S FUTURE. 


The destiny of man, viewed in the light of his origi 
By Joun Fiske. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, g 
Co., 1884. 104121 p 16°. 


‘*’THE question of a future life is generally 
regarded as lying outside the range of scien- 
tific discussion,’’ says the writer; but yet he 
thinks it is one upon which an opinion may be 
legitimately entertained, and he proceeds to 
say, that opinion ‘‘ must necessarily be affected 
by the total mass of our opinions on the ques- 
tions which-[do] lie within the scope of scien- 
tific inquiry.’’ His essay is to let us know 
what the teachings of the doctrine of evolution 
as to the origin of man seem to indicate as to 
his final destiny. His conclusion is, that ‘* the 
more thoroughly we comprehend that process 
of evolution by which things have come to be 
what they are, the more we are likely to feel 
that to deny the everlasting persistence of the 
spiritual element in man is to rob the whole 
process of its meaning,’’ and that it goes far 
toward putting us to ‘permanent intellectual 
confusion ;’ which, as a well-known authority 
assures us, is a scientific reductio ad absurdum. 
So, finding ‘‘ no sufficient reason for our accept- 
ing so dire an alternative,’’ our author declares, 
‘* For my own part, therefore, I believe in the 
immortality of the soul, not in the sense in 
which I accept the demonstrable truths of sci- 
ence, but as a supreme act of faith in the rea- 
sonableness of God’s work. . The belief 
can be most quickly defined by its negation, 
as the refusal to believe that this world is all.”’ 
We must refer to the little book itself for the 
line of argument which leads up to this credo. 
And if the argument, however scientifically 
based, is philosophical and even theological 
in form, it needs only to be understood that 
this essay is, in fact, an address to the Con- 
cord school of philosophy last summer, at the 
time when the subject of immortality was under 
discussion. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


Tue following is the full list of papers read at 
the Newport meeting of the National academy of 
sciences, Oct. 14-17: On the Columella auris of the 
Pelycosauria, E. D. Cope; The brain of Asellus, and 
the eyeless form of Cecidotaea, A. S. Packard; On 
the theory of atomic volumes, Wolcott Gibbs; On the 
complex inorganic acids, Wolcott Gibbs; Notice of 
Muybridge’s experiments on the motions of animals 
by instantaneous photography, Fairman Rogers; No- 
tice of Grant’s difference-engine, Fairman Rogers; 
On the thinolite of Lake Lahontan, E. 8. Dana; On 
the mesozoic coals of the north-west, R. Pumpelly; 


Zz 


OcTOBER 24, 1884.] 


On the work of the Northern transcontinental sur- 
vey, R. Pumpelly; The grasses mechanically injurious 
to live-stock, William H. Brewer; On gravitation 
survey, C. S. Peirce; On minimum differences of 
sensibility, C.S. Peirce and (by invitation) J. Jastrow; 
Researches on Ptolemy’s star-catalogue, C. H. F. 
Peters; On the operations of the U. S. geological 
survey, J. W. Powell; The motion of Hyperion, 
Asaph Hall; Remarks on the civilization of the native 
peoples of America (by invitation), E. B. Tylor; Some 
results of the exploration of the deep sea beneath 
the Gulf Stream, by the U. S. fish-commission 
steamer Albatross during the past summer, A. E. 
Verrill; Recent progress in explosives, H. L. Abbot; 
On an experimental composite photograph of the 
members of the academy, R. Pumpelly; Report on 
meridian-work at Carlsruhe (by invitation), W. Val- 
entiner; On the algebra of logic, C. S. Peirce; On 
the temperature of the lunar surface, S. P. Langley; 
On methods of eastern archery, E. S. Morse. 


—A letter to Lieut. Schwatka, from one of the offi- 
cers of the Imperial geographical society of Russia, 
states that no polar expedition is to start from Rus- 
sia this year or next, as has been widely circulated 
inthe American press. There is in view, however, 
an expedition to the New-Siberian Islands, to start in 
the spring of 1886, to be carried on by money appro- 
priated by the czar for that purpose. The expedition 
is to be undertaken by two gentlemen from the Im- 
perial academy of sciences of St. Petersburg, and the 
preparations for it are going on under the supervision 
of a committee appointed by the academy. The year 
1885 will be employed in scientific work on the Yana 
and the coast between it and Indigirka. 


— Among recent deaths we note those of G. B. 
Delponte, formerly professor of botany in the univer- 
sity of Turin, well known for his researches upon the 
Desmidiae, on the 18th of May, at Mombaruzzo, Pied- 
mont; Count Constantin Branicki, a zealous promoter 
of natural science, to whose generosity the museum 
at Warsaw is indebted for a large part of its valuable 
collections, July 14, at Paris; August Pasch, professor 
of mathematics at Stockholm, in that city, on the 16th 
of July; L. M. Larsson, author of ‘ Flora af Werm- 
land,’ on the 17th of July, at Carlstad, Sweden; Dr. 
M. Perty, a well-known zodlogist and anthropologist, 
from 1834 to 1875 professor of natural history in 
Berne, where he died Aug. 8, almost eighty years of 
age: in Moscow, the last of July, A. G. Fischer von 
Waldheim, president of the Moscow natural-history 
society; E. P. M. Fournier, botanist, in Paris; Lodo- 
vico Caldesi, botanist, July 2, in Faenza; Dr. E. 
Carstanjer, chemist, on the 13th of July, at Leipzig, 
in his forty-ninth year; Dr. Hans Hiibner, the di- 
rector of the chemical laboratory at Gottingen, on 
the 15th of July, in his forty-seventh year; and Dr. 
Ferd. Hochstetter, geologist and naturalist on the 
Novara expedition, on the 18th of July, in his fifty- 
sixth year. 


— Prof. F. E. Nipher finds from data taken from 
Dr. Engelmann’s observations at St. Louis, Mo., last- 
ing over a period of forty-seven years, that the dura- 


SCIENCE. 


409 


tion of maximum rains is inversely proportional to the 
violence, or that the product of violence into duration 
is constant. This constant is the amount of water 
which may fall in a continuous rain, and is, for Dr. 
Engelmann’s series of about half a century, about 
five inches. A rain of five inches per hour may last 
one hour. A rain of four inches per hour may last an 
hour and a quarter; and such a rain Dr. Engelmann 
observed. A rain of two and a half inches per hour 
may last two hours, and several such rains were ob- 
served. A rain of an inch per hour may last five 
hours. Each of these cases would be a five-inch rain. 
For a longer period of time than fifty years it is 
likely that greater rains than five inches may be ob- 
served. The same is to be said if observations are 
to be taken over a wider area of country. In fact, 
a rain of six inches in three hours occurred near Cuba, 
Mo., some years since. This would increase the value 
of the constant from five to six, but otherwise the 
relation will probably remain unchanged. 

The importance of this law is very great in en- 
gineering, where the capacity of sewers, culverts, and 
bridges, must be such as to carry the water. A more 
general investigation which Professor Nipher is now 
making will determine the relation between the vio- 
lence, duration, and frequency not only of maximum, 
but of allrains. This work, when completed, will en- 
able an engineer to construct the water-ways of bridges 
of such a capacity that they will probably stand a defi- 
nite number of years befcre they are washed away. 
This number of years will be so determined that the 
interest on the invested capital during the probable 
life of the bridge will equal the possible damage when 
the destructive flood comes which the engineer deter- 
mines shall destroy his work. The running expense 
ot maintaining the bridge is then the least possible. 


—A late number of the Academy states that the 
eleventh annual meeting of the German and Aus- 
trian alpenverein has just been held at Constanz, 
under the presidency of Herr Richter of Salzburg. 
The grand duke of Baden took part in the proceed- 
ings. The united clubs have a membership of 12,500, 
and the property of the verein amounts to 11,430 
florins. Grants were voted for forest-planting, for 
support of certain mountain sections of the club, for 
payment of persons who have engaged to lecture 
during the winter months, for meteorological obser- 
vations, and for explorations of caverns. Next Janu- 
ary will be published the first collected volume of the 
Mittheilungen of the club, with illustrations. Col- 
lections of 3,180 marks and 9,925 florins were made 
for paths and huts. Villach was selected for next 
year’s meeting. 


— Signal-service note xvi., entitled ‘The effect of 
wind-currents on rainfall,’ by G. E. Curtis, is one 
of the most carefully prepared numbers of the series, 
both in the reference to previous work on the subject, 
in which English, French, and German authors are 
quoted, and in the discussion of the special series of 
records from five gauges on the summit of Mount 
Washington. The author concludes that the rainfall 
(without snow) in such exposed situations varies ma- 
terially within distances of only one or two hundred 


410° 


feet; that the windward gauges receive least and the 
leeward gauges most rain, as had been stated for 
buildings by Bache in 1837; and that, in high winds, 
small gauges do not collect enough rain, the discrep- 
ancy between eight-inch and three-inch gauges vary- 
ing as the square of the wind’s velocity; and, for 
velocities of sixty miles an hour, the three-inch 
receiving only two-thirds of the rain collected by the 
eight-inch gauge. 

— The elasticity in the carbon filaments of the in- 
candescent lamps, at least in some of the patterns, is 
rather remarkable. Take an Edison lamp of about 
a hundred ohms resistance, and a moderately sharp 
blow with the hand at right-angles to the plane of the 
loop will vibrate it so far that it strikes the side of 
the glass bulb; and it will continue for two minutes, 
swiftly vibrating through very slowly decreasing am- 
plitudes, and with beautifully complicated nodal 
effects, according to the direction of the blow. So 
sensitively elastic are some of them, that it is difficult 
to hold them in the hand ¢s0 steadily that the upper 
part of the loop is not blurred by rapid incessant 
vibrations. of small amplitude. 


— The Royal society of New South Wales offers its 
medal and a money-prize for the best communication 
(provided it be of sufficient merit) containing the 
results of original research or observation, upon each 
of the following subjects. To be sent in not later than 
May 1, 1885: anatomy and life-history of the Echid- 
na and Platypus, the society’s medal and £25; anat- 
omy and life-history of Mollusca peculiar to Australia, 
the society’s medal and £25; the chemical composi- 
tion of the products from the so-called kerosene shale 
of New South Wales, the society’s medal and £25, 
To be sent in not later than May 1, 1886: on the 
chemistry of the Australian gums and resins, the 
society’s medal and £25. 


— The committee of the Octagon chapel at Bath, 
England, where Sir William Herschel was organist 
from 1766 to 1782, invites subscriptions toward a me- 
morial-window of one whom they truly call ‘ by far 
the most distinguished citizen who ever lived in 
Bath.’ 


— The Illustrirte zeitung reports that the new tor- 
pedo-boat tried at the recent manceuvres of the 
German fleet has proved eminently satisfactory. In 
addition to its great strength and speed, it has water 
compartments which can be suddenly filled, and thus 
sink its deck to the level of the sea, without seriously 
impairing the speed of the vessel. 


— The London health exhibition has been so suc- 
cessful, that it is expected the council will have a 
handsome balance when they close their doors; and 
they have not yet decided what to do with it. The 
aggregate of admissions now exceeds two millions 
and a half, representing a gross taking of a hundred 
and ten thousand pounds, ten per cent of which may 
remain when the last liability has been wiped off. 

— Mr. Farini of the Royal aquarium, London, has 
now on view some of the dwarf race of men reported 
by several travellers as dwellers in equatorial Africa, 
and he has invited all anthropologists there to study 


a 


SCIENCE. 


Cir eee Owen 


[Von IV., No. 9 


The 
tallest of them is four feet six inches in height, and 


this strange development of the human race. 


professes to be a giant among his own people. ‘They 
are exceedingly intelligent. 4 

— The Social science congress this year met at the 
place of its origin, Birmingham, and attracted a 
much larger attendance than last year, the programme 
of work being a fine one. ‘The president of the year, 
Mr. Shaw Lefevre, in his opening address, reviewed 
the reaction from the non-intervention views of state 
policy of Ricardo, Stuart Mill, Bastiat, etc., and stated 
his opinion that the present ‘‘ movement for extend- 
ing the action of the state has not been due only to 
democracy. It has been demanded almost equally 
by all classes; but the greater force of the popular 
will in parliament has deprived the opposing interest 
of their power of resistance. . . . The more recent 
school of political-economists in this country, and 
still more on the continent, has largely departed 
from these (earlier) views, and has held, that while 
free exchange, free labor, and free contract are 
important principles to maintain, yet the state is 
bound to interfere when individual interests result 
in the degradation and oppression of the lower 
classes, and that it is justified in undertaking those 
works and functions which can be better attained by 
it than by individual effort. Almost alone, my friend 
Mr. Herbert Spencer has been left among philoso- 
phers, to preach the doctrine of laissez faire, to raise 
the banner of individualism against state action, and 
to denounce what has been done during the last few 
years as radically wrong in principle, and leading to 
socialism, or to the ultimate slavery of the masses.”’ 

During the last ten years, he stated, taking the 
increase of population of England and Wales into 
account, there had been a decrease of pauperism of 
thirty per cent, and of serious crime of twenty-two 
per cent. 


— Prof. W. Braune ciaims to have dtecoueradl some 
constant principles of arrangement of the veins in 
the human body, the variability of which has been 
an anatomical puzzle of long standing. He proposes 
to publish an atlas in imperial folio under the title 
‘Das venensystem des menschlichen korpers. The 
first part with four colored plates, prepared with the 
collaboration of Mr. E. Harry Fenwick, is now an- 
nounced by Veit & Co. of Leipzig; price 45 Rmk. 


— The Prussian authorities are planning a hygienic 
institute, as a branch of the University of Berlin, 
similar to the existing institutes of physiology, etc., 
this branch of knowledge being recognized as neces- 
sary to the medical profession. It is said that Dr. 
Koch will be placed at the head of it. 


—Dr. Th, Liebisch, formerly professor of miner- 
alogy at Greifswald university, has been called to the 
Konigsberg university. The professorship of physi- 
ology at Konigsberg has been given to Prof. L. Her- — 
mann (Zurich). Dr. L. Konigsberger, formerly in 
Vienna, has been called to the professorship of mathe- 
matics at the university of Heidelberg. Dr. P. Du- — 
bois-Reymond of Tiibingen has accepted : ai call to the “ 
Technical school in Berlin. 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


THERE is probably nothing which we can 
recognize as so entirely characteristic of our 
own epoch of history as co-operation, — the 
union of a number of men for a common pur- 
pose. Co-operation is very old ; but its present 
frequency, and often also its form, are new, 
and therefore it has a significance for us, the 
extent of which is great, but still unmeasured. 
It is, indeed, the very essence of democracy. 
But we have not to do with the general aspects 
of this great subject: we wish only to refer 
to its increasing development in scientific 
research ; and even of that development we 
intend to direct attention only to the prevalent 
tendency towards systematic and organized 
co-operation. 


In our recent numbers we have had occasion 
to report the progress of several noteworthy 
scientific undertakings which are strictly co- 
operative. We need only remind our readers 
of the new standard time, the electrical and 
meridian conferences, and the reports of the 
investigating committees of the British associa- 
tion, as illustrations of the accomplished good 
which science owes to co-operation. Our expe- 
rience of the benefits to be had through the 
efforts of competent men, united in confer- 
ences, committees, and congresses, to settle 
some scientific problem, is rapidly changing 
what was formerly a sporadic effort into a con- 
firmed habit of the civilized world. The same 
proclivity has another manifestation in the still 
more novel custom of what we venture to desig- 
nate as co-operative observation. A central 
bureau, a society or committee, receives and 
collates the data obtained by scattered ob- 
servers. The earliest instances we recall of 
this method of centralized collation is of 
meteorological observations, in this country 

No. 91.— 1884. 


DUA E NSr. 


conducted for many years by the Smithsonian 
institution. Such, too, is the method adopted 
by the English society for psychical re- 
search, by the American ornithological union 
for tracing the migrations of birds, by Mr. 
Galton in his remarkable studies, by the Eng- 
lish committee for the collective investigation 
of disease; and so on through a long list. 
Again, through the energy of the Harvard 
observatory, there is an extensive system 
of co-operation among astronomers, and the 
British association is endeavoring to systema- 
tize the work of the numerous local societies 
in Great Britain. | 


One naturally stops to ask, What is to be 
the future? Will the co-operative tendency, 
which is already so strong, go on increasing? 
We think the answer must be in the affirma- 
tive ; because the more systematized scientific 
research becomes, just so much surer and 
steadier will discoveries ensue. At present 
individual tastes have far too large a share in 
deciding what is investigated, and hence fol- 
lows the deplorable consequence that many an 


‘important subject is neglected because no one 


happens to be interested in it. Moreover, 
there is much work to be done which can be 
accomplished only by scattered observers who 
obey a pre-arranged system. May we not, 
therefore, reasonably expect a great deal for 
science in the future from systematized co- 
operation ? 


Tue medical journals are just now giving an 
interesting illustration of the ease with which 
the members of a busy profession may overlook 
their own past, and occupy themselves with ex- 
periments and investigations, only to find that 
the same results and disappointments had been 
reached and fully recorded long before. Not 
many months ago a French physician, at the 
suggestion of another from Copenhagen, tried 
etherization by the rectum, and in a report of 


412 


cases called attention to it as a ‘new method’ 
for the administration of this anaesthetic. His 
work made an impression in his own country 
and on this side of the ocean. Others took up 
the method ; and the journals had much to say 
about the promise which this improvement held 
out of being very useful, not merely in some 
special operations, but also in general. ‘Then 
came reports of unpleasant complications and 
unexpected effects more or less beyond the 
control of the operator. 


While this experience was growing, and 
practical rules were slowly getting formulated, 
some of the older doctors, and some of the more 
‘literary fellers’ of the craft, bethought them- 
selves, and remembered that this ‘new method’ 
was, after all, nearly as old as ether anaesthesia 
itself. It seems that in 1847 Pirogoff recom- 
mended this application of ether-vapor, others 
having tried a similar use of the liquid alone 
or in a mixture with water. Pirogoff and the 
few others who gave the really new method a 
trial were not altogether satisfied, and seem to 
have abandoned it in a short time, except to 
meet a few very special conditions. Twenty- 
one years ago (1863) all this was fully de- 
scribed, and the dangers of such administration 
pointed out, by Perrin and Lallemand in their 
work on surgical anaesthesia; and as late as 
1875 Claude Bernard mentioned it as an ‘ his- 
torically curious’ method of considerable un- 
certainty and little practical value. 


There would seem to be no easy way of 
avoiding such repetitions, unless, perhaps, to 
have some member on the editorial staff of 
every medical journal learn a few of the larger 
indexes by heart, and stand ready to nip all 
‘new’ methods and schemes in the bud. In 
general, however, a certain amount of repeti- 
tion, even in practical matters, is not always 
objectionable; and, in scientific research in 
competent hands, it is even less so. The cor- 
roboration which may thus be obtained has 
frequently considerable value. Then, too, it 
must not be forgotten, that a fresh investi- 


solved, perhaps is likely to approach it from 
another point of view, and with different tra- 
ditions and equipment from his predecessors. 
Thus it is possible, that what at -first appears 
to be needless repetition may lead to impor- 
tant results. It is a common experience, too, 
that few sets of old observations are really 
complete or useful, save for the particular and _ 
limited objects which interested the investi- 
gator. 


THE use of the word ‘scientific’ at the pres- 
ent time, illustrates how custom overrides ety- ? 
mology, giving sanction to an application of a_ 
word quite inconsistent with its derivation. 
‘Scientific’ means, strictly, ‘knowledge-mak- | 
ing ;’ but it is employed to signify ‘ relating to, 
or in accordance with, science.’ Last week we 
reviewed a work on ‘ scientific butter-making.’ 
Now, if we could, by any process of manufac- 
turing butter, produce science at the same 
time, every one would agree that it was an emi- 
nently practical and economical invention ; but, 
alas! the true Anglo-Saxon defies etymology ; 
and nobody will misunderstand the customary 
meaning of ‘scientific’ in adjectival association 
with butter-making, or when used to qualify 
much else which never makes knowledge. The 
word is a curious example of error becoming 
correct through usage. If we could only add 
the word ‘sciential’ to the language, usage 
might then conform to etymology in regard to 
‘scientific’ by transferring half its duties to 
the new adjective. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


x*» Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 
writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


Iroquois grammar. 


THE lively letter of your esteemed correspondent, 
Mrs. E. A. Smith, is satisfactory in one respect; as it | 
explains clearly her views on the subject discussed 
by her at the late Montreal meeting, and now more — 
briefly in your columns. Her remarks lead to infer- 
ences for which she is probably unprepared, and 
which she will be inclined to regret and disown; for — 
she doubtless, like all who know the French mission- | 
aries among the Iroquois, has a high opinion of their 
learning and worth. Yet her suggestions necess: 
imply that these worthy men are sadly incompetent 


OcTOBER 31, 1884.] 


-for their duties as teachers and translators, or worse 
than incompetent. We are, in effect, given to under- 
_ stand that they have either mistaken or purposely 
misrepresented the meaning of certain important 
_ pronouns, which they must have heard and used con- 
stantly for many years, and on which, toagreat extent, 
the life and force of the language depend. If thisis 


the fact, their scriptural and other translations, and - 


their tracts and other original works, in the Iroquois 
language, which conform strictly to this system of 
grammar, must be all wrong. Furthermore, it must 
be considered that the English missionaries among 
the western Iroquois (the Mohawks) have, during 
the last hundred years, published several scripture 
and other translations in that language. These, 
though made altogether independently of the French 
versions, and with a very different orthography, are 
based on the same system of grammar; and if Mrs. 
Smith is right, these versions are, of course, errone- 
ous. Still further, several scripture translations 
have been made by educated Indians among both 
the eastern and the western Iroquois. These follow 
the same grammatical method. That Indians, writ- 
ing for Indians, would use their language incor- 
rectly, is a supposition which Mrs. Smith herself will 
perceive to be inadmissible. This simple fact is 
therefore decisive of the question, and shows clearly 
that the missionaries are in the right. 

If your respected correspondent has any doubt 
about the correctness of the statement now made, 
she can readily satisfy herself by reading and analyz- 
ing the translations referred to. She has assuredly 
no desire to do injustice to any person; and she will 
therefore be pleased to have her attention drawn to 
this easy and satisfactory test. In justice to Mrs. 
Smith herself, it should be remembered that the 
Iroquois is one of the most difficult of languages, re- 
quiring years of study to masterit. That a beginner 
in this study, however intelligent and zealous, should 
be occasionally at fault about a point of grammar, is 
both natural and pardonable; but that learned mis- 
sionaries, who have had forty years of practice in the 
language, who speak and write it as fluently as they 
do their own, and some of whom are accomplished 
philologists, should be mistaken on such points, is 
simply incredible. 

To say that it is ‘hazardous’ for one who is not 
perfectly familiar with a foreign speech to undertake 
to expound its niceties to those who are adepts in it, is 
merely to hint a friendly warning. Nothing, indeed, 
can be more ill-advised than such an attempt. When 
a distinguished French writer rashly suggested that 
the name of the ‘ Frith of Forth’ was probably a cor- 
ruption of the ‘ firstof the fourth,’ his readers were 
inclined to measure from this absurd suggestion the 
extent of his knowledge of the English language, and 
perhaps did him muchinjustice. THE REPORTER. 


Points on lightning-rods. 


Mr. A. B. Porter’s letter in relation to points on 
lightning-rods (Science, iv. p. 225) suggests the pro- 
priety of calling attention to the fact, that, inasmuch 
as the ‘ power of points’ in neutralizing the electrical 
charge of the cloud depends upon the convective 
discharge of the opposite kind of electricity from the 
point of the rod, it is evident that it requires time 
for the rod to effectually perform its true function 
of disarming the cloud, and thereby averting the 
disruptive stroke. If a highly charged cloud is 
rapidly driven towards the point of the rod, the latter 
may not have time to neutralize the electricity of the 
cloud, and the rod may receive the disruptive stroke 


_ 


SCIENCE. 415 


of lightning: this seems to have been the case with 
Mr. Porter’s rod. If the cloud had slowly ap- 
proached the pointed conductor, it would have been 
silently neutralized, and the stroke averted. The 
significant point is, that convective neutralization is 
a gradual process, requiring time (see Nature, xxiii. 
p. 386). A familiar class-experiment will illustrate 
this point. If a charged Leyden-jar is held in one 
hand, while a sharp-pointed needle is held in the 
other hand, and the point of the needle is slowly 
brought towards the knob of the jar, no shock will 
be experienced when the point of the needle touches 
the knob: the charged jar is silently neutralized 
during the gradual approach of the point. On the 
contrary, if the point of the needle is rapidly brought 
towards the knob, a visible spark will pass to it, and 
a more or less severe shock will be experienced by 
the experimenter. JOHN LECONTE. 
Berkeley, Cal., Oct. 7. 


A wider use for scientific libraries. 


Your remarks in Science (iv. 335-336) on a wider 
use for the libraries of scientific societies, give me 
occasion to méntion at least two societies which 
make such use of their libraries. I think you would 
do a service by collating a list of such societies, and 
making a statement of their rules for the loan of 
books. A brief standing notice, or one occasionally 
inserted, would be of service to your readers. Cer- 
tainly the societies not deriving a revenue from 
these loans should not be expected to advertise at 
their own expense. 

The constitution of the American association for 
the advancement of science provides that all books 
and pamphlets received by the association shall be 
catalogued, and that members may be allowed to call 
for such books and pamphlets to be delivered to them 
at their own expense; but as yet the books are not 
available, as the catalogue has not been made. The 
Cambridge entomological club allows subscribers to 
Psyche the use of its library under certain restric- 
tions, —a library containing about a thousand titles. 
On the other hand, the American entomological so- 
ciety provides that ‘‘ no books presented to the society 
shall be loaned from the hall under any pretence or 
for any purpose whatsoever.”’ 

The publishers of the Revue et magasin de zoologie, 
at Paris, conducted for many years a circulating li- 
brary amongst the subscribers to the magazine, and 
reported that they had never sustained the loss of a 
single volume. Will not other societies or periodicals 
copy these practices ? B. PICKMAN MANN. 

Washington, D.C., Oct. 21. 


A possible danger to mariners. 


During the whole of the night of Aug. 23, 1884, the 
lantern of the lighthouse at Cape San Antonio, the 
westernmost point of the Island of Cuba, was sur- 
rounded by a cloud of winged insects, almost entirely 
of a bright red hue, their presence causing the light to 
assume a decided red color. The wind was moderate 
and from the south-west; the sky was overcast. A 
few of these insects have been sent to this city by 
Francisco Bautista, the keeper of the light, and 
identified as Dysdercus sanguinarius Stal, the cotton- 
stainer. ‘Though other insects have been observed 
to fly towards lights, this is the first time that this 
species has been so reported. Itis to be hoped that 
such dangerous action will not prove chronic with 
this brilliant and beautiful hemipteron. ie Sok 

New York, Oct. 28. 


414 


THE WORK OF THE MERIDIAN 
CONFERENCE. 

THoueH entangled and loaded down with the 
cumbersome and roundabout methods of diplo- 
macy, and unnecessarily surrounded with the 
secrecy of our State department, the Meridian 
conference has yet reached, in the main, very 
sensible conclusions ; much the same, no doubt, 
as a body composed entirely of the leading 
representatives of the scientific and business 
interests involved would have reached in one- 
fourth the time, with much greater unanimity, 
and without stirring up the feelings and jeal- 
ousies which the semi-political character of the 
body has engendered, and which will make its 
conclusions of much less weight, since a con- 
siderable percentage of the delegates will de- 
cline to recommend them to their respective 
governments. But with England, the United 
States, and the principal European powers, 
France excepted, in accord, the action of the 
rest will be of less importance, however desir- 
able unanimity would have been. 

It was almost a foregone conclusion, that 
Greenwich. would be selected as the prime 
meridian, on account of the overwhelming sci- 
entific and commercial reasons in its favor; 
while the proposition for an entirely new neu- 
tral meridian, with its necessary confusion and 
needless expense, merely for sentimental rea- 
sons, was too absurd to deserve serious con- 
sideration. 

The conclusion to reckon longitudes east 
and west to plus and minus 180° is, no doubt, 
all things considered, the best. Considered 
simply as a method of putting down longitudes 
on charts, the continuous reckoning from 0° 
to 360° is, without question, less liable to mis- 
take, simpler, and mathematically more ele- 
gant. But longitude is inseparably connected 
with local time, and herein arises the follow- 
ing difficulty. So long as the sun shines, and 
the earth revolves on its axis, the mean solar 
day, with its alternating light and darkness, 
must be the great natural unit of time-reckon- 
ing. Moreover, for civil purposes the date 
must change during the hours of sleep; and 
hence the civil ‘day’ must begin in the night, 


SCIENCE. 


“more international intercourse and cable news 


(Vou. IV., No. 


and should, for convenience, begin within ; an 
hour at least of midnight. Therefore civil 
dates and hours must be approximately local 
ones; i.e., must differ with the continuous 
westward sweep of the sun, the eastern times — 
being farther ahead. A necessary consequence — 
is, that on some meridian of the globe, where © 
the east meets the west, the local time must — 
jump one day; so that the people living on : 
the west side of this line, i.e., in the ‘ far east,’ — 
will be one day ahead of their neighbors on 
the east side; and there is no way of avoiding — 
this inconvenient arrangement. There is thus — 
an inseparable connection between universal 
or absolute time, local time, and longitude; — 
and the connection will be most simply ex- 
pressed, and most easily comprehended, if the 
longitudes jump 360° at the same point on the 
earth where the local time jumps twenty-four 
hours. 

The recommendations of the conference, that 
the prime meridian be that of Greenwich, that 
the universal day be the civil day (beginning 
at midnight) of the prime meridian, and that 
longitudes be reckoned to plus and minus 180° 
east and west respectively from this meridian, 
accomplish their object with the least change 
from the existing status, the day and the lon- 
gitudes changing in the Pacific at 180° from 
Greenwich. 

For the few islands lying close to, or on 
both sides of, the 180th meridian, like the Fee- 
jees, which are bound to keep up intercourse 
with each other, it will be most convenient to 
have the same day; and this will fall in with 
the adopted plans, if the longitudes are all 
given with the same sign, and extended alittle 
beyond 180°, to include the group. 

The recommendation to count the universal 
day from zero to twenty-four hours might well 
have been extended to the local times as well, 
though not so essential in this case. Still, the 


bring out the differences between local times and _ 
their relation to absolute time, the more inade- _ 
quate and unsatisfactory seems the clumsy a.m ; | 
and P.M. division of the day into two a | 


si 
tel 2 


OCTOBER 31, 1884.] 


away with this by publishing their time-tables 
to twenty-four hours. But the great obstacle 
lies in the dials of our watches and clocks; for 
until the hour-hands are made to revolve once 
in twenty-four hours, either on a separate dial, 
like most astronomical clocks, or with a separate 
twenty-four-hour division, and numbers on the 
main dial, people will naturally cling to the 
twelve-hour period. There is also the addi- 
tional obstacle, that, if clocks are to strike 
to twenty-four, these large-numbered hours 
would seem interminably long; but the change 
in the striking arrangements would not be of 
so much importance. 

It seems unfortunate that Mr. Allen’s reso- 
lution for local times, differing by whole hours 
from the universal time, was not recommended ; 
for this would seem to be by all odds the sim- 
plest way of connecting local and universal 
times. It is already in almost universal use 
in this country. 

The sixth resolution of the conference, rec- 
ommending that the nautical and astronomical 
days correspond with the civil, is open to dis- 
cussion. The two naturally go together. And 
to the navigator it is of little moment: he 
would simply change his chronometer-reckon- 
ing twelve hours, buy a new ephemeris, which 
the astronomer would have computed for him, 
make the proper entry in the log, and go on as 
before. With the astronomer it is a more im- 
portant matter. The ephemerides are issued, 
and the computations projected, so far ahead, 
that five years at least would elapse before the 
change could be made, even if agreed upon 
to-day. But with the astronomer there is the 
same reason for changing date at noon as for 
changing the civil date at midnight. While 
the rest of the world is sleeping, he is at work. 

The seventh resolution of the conference, 
which would seem to be a rather poor transla- 
tion of a French original, contains a sugges- 
tion as important as any thing it did. We 
believe that all systems of weighing, measur- 
ing, dividing, and reckoning any thing what- 
ever, should be the same as the system of 
numeration in use; and, as long as this is so 
universally decimal, such should be the system 


SCIENCE. 


415 


for all these. No doubt, an octaval system of 
numeration, with its possible subdivision, 8, 
4, 2, 1, would have been originally better ; but 
there is no sufficient reason for a change now. 


NORTH-ATLANTIC CURRENTS. 


From time to time the great iron sea-buoys 
set to mark shoals, or to indicate entrances to 
channels, are forced from their moorings, and 
go adrift. 

These buoys are of several types. The nun- 
buoys are pear-shaped; and the largest of 
them are twelve feet long, and eight feet across 
in the widest, and about two in the narrowest, 
part. The can-buoy is like the nun-buoy, ex- 
cept that it is wider at the top: both are 


eee 
Sor 


BOO Sor) 


Rs 


SS i ED 
AM pon 


Fie. 1.— IRON NUN-BUOY. 


widest at the line of flotation. In the oval 
bottom a steel loop is cast, to which is append- 
ed two fathoms of an inch-and-a-half stud 
chain, to which is fastened a solid iron ballast- 
ball of a thousand pounds weight, with two 
loops cast in it at opposite sides. To the ball 
is hung from fifteen to twenty fathoms of the 


a ee yen. 


416 SCIENCE. 


vEOue 
same-sized chain, to which is attached, in to six months, according to its size, without 
some cases, a three-thousand-pound mushroom being refilled. | We 
anchor, which is shaped like an open inverted As the government pays those who pick up~ 
umbrella, and in many cases a stone-sinker, any stray buoy a reasonable price for their 


as shown in the cut. The buoy is separated trouble, they are often brought into port. 
by diaphragms into several water-tight com- . 


partments, so that one of them may be punc- 
tured without sinking the buoy. They are 
made of boiler-iron, and are tested by hydro- 
static pressure before being placed in the 
water, and they will stand much hard usage. 
When these buoys are lifted from their as- 
signed positions by ice, they carry their moor- 
ings with them, and, when left by the ice, have 
sufficient buoyancy to float these accessories, 
though under such circumstances they are sunk 
somewhat below their ordinary line of flota- 
tion. They show a surface, at most, of eight 
by six feet. above water, while the mushroom 
anchor it is dragging must be fully one hun- 
dred feet below water. Hence the winds can == 
have little effect on the motion of the buoys, ee 
in comparison with the ocean-currents. x 
The whistling-buoy differs from the ordinary og 
sea-buoy in having a hollow tube from eigh- 
teen to forty-five feet long thrust through it 
and down into the still water, while it is ( 
surmounted by a steamboat-whistle. As the 


—S 
(@: 
= 


x5) 


SEF 


res 


goes 


aa 
PE 


ZZ Gy ty Y 
CLSYME Yy WHA Uy 
CY yf YY) Yy VMS IEE: yey US EMME) Le 


Fig. 3.— PINTSCH GAS-BUOY. 


The position of each of the stray buoys so far 
reported, and the prevailing currents so far as 
known, are shown on the accompanying chart. 
The buoys are plotted and numbered to cor- 
respond to the paragraph below, which gives 
Fins 3G ee cae a on such history of the buoy as could be obtained 
from official sources. The buoys are not num- 
bered consecutively, but in the order in which. 
the writer heard of each being sighted. - 


buoy rises, the air is received into the tube 
through a set of ingeniously arranged valves. 


As it sinks, the air is forced out through the 1. Whistling-buoy, recently adrift, as the paint was 


whistle. still fresh when it was sighted, May ee ee 
: =i : ' 2. Sighted June 15, 1884. Same as No. 19. 
The hghted ies buoy is filled with ce 3. Can-buoy of the largest size, picked up March 
pressed illuminating-gas, and is surmounted ; 


3 17, 1881, near Bermuda; supposed to have come from 
by a protected burner. It will burn from three New-York Bay. . 


OcTOBER 31, 1884.] 


4. Large iron sea-buoy, which had hanging to it 
about thirty feet of heavy chain. It came from 
Sandy-Hook bar, in New-York Bay. 

5. One of the largest of the iron nun-buoys. There 
was hanging to it some twelve feet of stud-link two- 
and-a-quarter-inch chain, from which dangled a thou- 
sand-pound ballast-ball. It was picked up about the 
middle of July last, some twenty-five miles south-west 
from Montauk Point, in good condition except that 
its lower compartment was filled with water. It was 
evident that it had come from some part of our south- 
ern coast. 

6. Large red buoy, with tower and lantern on top. 
It was discovered June 11, 1884, and would have been 
picked up but for the bad weather. Same as No. 7. 

7. Picked up June 21, 1884, about four hundred and 
eighty miles due east of New York. Same as No. 6. 
This buoy went adrift from its station on Hatteras 


SCIENCE. 


417 


the eastern side of Teneriffe, with a thousand-pound 
ballast-ball and a forty-two-foot chain attached. 

12. Second-class iron sea-buoy, was picked up on 
Oct. 20, 1883, about fifteen miles from the east side 
of Teneriffe, and had attached to it a fifteen-inch 
seven-hundred-and-fifty-pound ballast-ball, and about 
thirty feet of chain-cable. 

13. Iron sea-buoy, picked up June 5, 1882. 

14, Picked up Aug. 22, 1883. It was one of the 
largest iron buoys, and had attached to it a thousand- 
pound ballast-ball, forty-eight feet of heavy chain- 
cable, and a three-thousand-pound mushroom anchor. 
It was recognized as one of those carried to sea from 
New York Bay by the ice in December, 1880. 

15. Iron sea-buoy, which went ashore in February, 
1881, on one of the quays near Turk’s Island; sent 
home. 

16. Whistling-buoy, passed June 24, 1884. 


Fie. 4. —CHART OF STRAY BUOYS IN THE NoRTH ATLANTIC. 


Shoal, off Cape Hatteras, between May 24 and June 
4, 1884. It had made over twenty miles a day in a 
north-east course. It is of this buoy that Science 
said (No. 77, p. 92) that it was unfortunately picked 
up. If it had only been sighted and reported by each 
passing vessel, we might have had a record of its 
curious voyage, and known something more of the 
currents by which it was impelled. 

8. Iron buoy of the largest size. It was picked up 
on the west coast of Ireland in the spring of 1871. 

9. Iron nun-buoy of the largest size, with a heavy 
chain and ballast-ball attached. Went ashore in Pen- 
deen Cove, Penzance Bay, on the south-west extremity 
of the English coast, about March 1, 1884. It proba- 
bly left New-York Bay during the preceding winter. 

10. Iron sea-buoy, picked up by the Norwegian 
bark Vance in March, 1871. 
ea Large nun-buoy painted red, passed July 20, 

11. Iron sea-buoy, picked up on Aug, 30, 1883, on 


a 


17. This is doubtless the same buoy as that num- 
bered 18 and 22 on the chart. It was sighted June 
29, 1884, and described as ‘a large buoy, painted red, 
with patent fog-horn.’ 

18. A whistling-buoy. It stood about twelve feet 
out of water. It was passed June 29, 1884. The 
same buoy is plotted as No. 17, and also as No. 22, 
reported by two other ships. 

19. Whistling-buoy, passed July 14, 1884. The 
same buoy is plotted as No. 2 on the map, and was 
seen a month before by another ship. 

20. Second-class red whistling-buoy, picked up 


_ April 30, 1884, twenty-five miles off Cape Cod, which 


had broken adrift from Lurcher Shoal, Nova Scotia. 
This is the only case where a buoy is known to have 
drifted at once to the southward. 

21. After the other buoys were plotted, it was found 
that No. 21 and No. 6 were the same buoy, it having 
been twice reported by the same ship: so it has only 
been plotted as No. 6. 


418 


22. Passed June 22, 1884; also plotted on the chart 
as Nos. 17 and 18 in the positions in which it was 
reported by two other vessels. 

, 23. Iron can-buoy, run into by a British bark June 
17, 1884, about twelve miles from the Flemish Cap, 
on the banks of Newfoundland. 

24. Large iron buoy, passed June 22, 1884, ‘six- 
teen miles south-west from Gay Head,’ Martha’s 
Vineyard. 

25. Large iron conical-shaped buoy, passed June 
24, 1884, forty miles west of Bishop, Scilly Isles, off 
the west coast of England. 

26. Black barrel-buoy, passed June 29, 1884. 

27. Large red iron buoy, floating upright, passed 
ooNy 7, 1884, seven miles from Bishop Rock, Scilly 

sles. 


28. Very large red iron buoy, passed Aug. 4, 1884. 


29. Large conical-shaped iron buoy, passed Aug. 1, 
1884. 
30. Large iron can-buoy, which from appearances 


had been floating a very long time; passed Aug. 4, 
1884. 

31. Second-class can-buoy, picked up on the banks 
of Newfoundland, August, 1884. 

32. Second-class can-buoy, picked up about twenty- 
five miles from Cape Elizabeth, Me., in August, 1884. 


It would almost seem as if the buoys shown 
on this chart had attempted a system of circle- 
sailing, and as if several of them had nearly 
gotten round to their moorings after having 
circumnavigated the North-Atlantic Ocean. 
How else shall we account for the position of 
those picked up off the Canaries, those sighted 
in the Sargasso Sea, those found off Turk’s 
Island and the Bermudas? When some of 
these data were presented to the Philosophical 
society at Washington, and the matter was 
discussed by naval, coast-survey, and light 
house officers, the weight of the expressed 
opinion seemed to be in favor of this theory. 

But the object of this paper is to call atten- 
tion to the fact that the voyages of these buoys 
show the trend of surface or submarine cur- 
rents, of which we as yet know little, either as 
to their direction, force, or times of flow. The 
current indications on this chart show the ap- 
proximate sum of our present knowledge on the 
subject. It is evident that it would be greatly 
to our advantage to know more. Science said 
a short time ago that it was unfortunate that 
the gas-buoy (No. 6) was picked up. Would 
it not be in the interests of science, of com- 
merce, and of navigation, if some such object 
as that buoy, drawing as much water, floating 
as lightly, showing as little surface to the 
wind, and offering as little resistance to collid- 
ing vessels, were allowed to float, and were 
carefully watched until it should have gone 
ashore? And why could not some slow-sailing 
vessel be detailed for such duty? At any 
rate, if such an object were set afloat and re- 
ported by every vessel which sighted it, its 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 91.: 


voyage might add much to what we know of — 
the ocean-currents ; and if such objects were 
set adrift simultaneously, from, say, Nan- 
tucket, Penzance, Teneriffe, the Cape de Verde — 
and Turk’s Island, or the Bermudas, we might 
learn much more on this interesting subject. 
A. B. JOHNSON. 


DRUMLINS. 


THE arched hills. of glacial drift that have been 
called drumlins by the Irish geologists are among the 
most peculiar results of the action of land ice-sheets. | 
They are composed of closely-packed bowlder-clay, 
or till, distinctly unstratified, and containing well- 
scratched stones. ‘They rest on a foundation of 
glaciated rock, and rise in a smoothly rounded mass 
from fifty to two or three hundred feet in height, reach- 
ing from a quarter of a mile to two miles in length. 
Their bases vary in form from a circle to a long, nar 


rae Wy 12 


2%, 
oP 09, 
e, 


5 


5 mites. | 


Fie. 1. 


row oval; and, when elongated, their major axes are 


closely parallel to the direction of former local glacial — 
motion. They are therefore easily distinguished in 
form and structure from the rolling hills of terminal 
moraines, and from the ridges and mounds of osar 
and kames. Although they form pronounced fea- — 
tures in a landscape, their distribution is as yet — 


QcTOBER 31, 1884.] 


imperfectly understood. In continental Europe 
they have not attracted attention; but in Scotland 
and Ireland they are numerous and well known. 


ae 
MILES. 
Nevpame 


Fig. 1 shows a remarkable group of them in north- 
western Ireland, taken from a map prepared by 
Messrs. Kinahan and Close. In this country they 


SCIENCE. 


419 


in fig. 3, from a manuscript map by the author. Fig. 
5 is a view of Corey’s Hill, a few miles from the city, 
in the town of Brookline ; and fig. 6 represents some 


Fie. 3. | 


of the harbor islands, nearly all of which are drum- 
lins, more or less cut away by the waves. A great 
series of these drift-hills stretches through central 


Fig. 4. 


have received careful study by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock 
and Mr. Warren Upham, of the New-Hampshire 
geological survey. Fig. 2 is copied from the south- 


Massachusetts into Connecticut, but its limits have 


never been studied. Two of them at Charlton, on 


the Boston and Albany railroad, are drawn in fig. 7. 


HIG. 


eastern corner of their map; and fig. 4 presents a 
sketch of a few of these hills near the Merrimack, 
in the neighborhood of Amesbury, Mass. Around 
Boston they are again well developed, as illustrated 


5. 


Again in New-York, between Syracuse and Roches- 
ter, elongated drift-hills, that probably deserve the 
name of drumlins, may be seen in great numbers: 
here they have entire control of the topography, and 


Paes et ll ra LA 7 Ms 
~* ‘ 
a é ‘ 
r 


420 SCIENCE. [Von. IV., No. 91. 


produce a most characteristic landscape. Fig.8 gives As to origin, there is a general agreement now, among 
the view south-east and south-west from one of the the observers who have studied them, that their pres-— 


Fig. 6. 


hills at the town of Clyde, on the New-York central ent form is an immediate result of ice-action ; but 
railroad; and fig. 9 illustrates some of their common just how they were constructed is still an open ques- 


Fig. 7. 


varieties of form. Farther west they are described tion. The theory that seems most satisfactory is that 
only in Wisconsin, where they are sometimes circular which compares them to sand-banks in rivers, and 


and symmetrical, as in fig. 10, from Professor Cham- thus considers them the result of gradual local accu- 
berlin’s geological report. mulation of drift beneath the old glacial sheet, where 


Fre. 10. 


From this brief survey, it may be seen that drum- more material was brought than could be carried 
lins have both a wide and an irregular distribution, away. The author will be pleased to learn of other 
and, further, that much more observation and map- localities for drumlins than those here mentioned. 
ping are required before we shall acquire a satisfactory W. M. DAvis. 
explanation of their seemingly accidental occurrence. Cambridge, Mass. 


i 


OcTOBER 31, 1884.] 


HOW FAR A LIGHT MAY BE SEEN 
UNDER WATER. 


Mr. EDOUARD SARASIN recently made an interest- 
ing report of the experiments of the committee of the 
physical society of Geneva, in regard to the transpar- 
ency of the water of thelake. The auxiliary society 
of Geneva generously gave the committee twenty-five 
hundred francs to aid in the researches; and Messrs. 
Soret, Sarasin, C. de Candolle, H. Fol, A. Rilliet, Ch. 
Soret, Plantamour, and R. Pictet took part. Three 
candles in a lantern (the flame being fed by a con- 
tinuous current of air) are visible, at a depth of thirty 
metres, in the pure water of the lake. An electric 
light was distinctly seen in the water at the foot of the 
hydraulic machine of Geneva at a depth of thirty-three 
metres. A few centimetres more caused the clear im- 
age to disappear, which was replaced by diffuse light, 
faintly perceptible at sixty-seven metres. Messrs. 
Sarasin and Soret noticed a very characteristic ab- 
sorption ray in the spectrum of light which had trav- 
ersed a certain layer of water. This ray had been seen 
before, but former publications had not attracted the 
attention of physicists. The recent observations con- 
firmed the fact, and completed the data already ob- 
tained. This ray is in the red, near B. The same 
physicists have also undertaken experiments upon 
the transparency of water when agitated with insolu- 
ble substances, such as the chloride of silver, ete. 
They find that the distance of clear vision varies very 
little with the increase of the brilliancy of the lumi- 
nous body and its absolute dimensions. Assisted by 
Dr. Marcet, the committee has made photographic 
experiments in the deep portions of the lake. Down 
to two hundred and fifty metres they find the effect 
of light on the sensitive plates; but this depth seems 
to be, at least for the plates now in use, the extreme 
limit of action of the sun’s light. Below this point 
the lake is a vast, dark chamber. 


THE MERIDIAN CONFERENCE. 


AT the meeting on Wednesday, the 22d, the work 
of the conference was finished so far as the trans- 
action of new business is concerned. Gen. Strachey 
withdrew his resolution for ten-minute melidians for 
local time, and the conference then proceeded to pass 
a resolution reciting and affirming its action upon the 
seven resolutions already adopted. These, as finally 
determined upon, are as follows: — 

1. ‘* That it is the opinion of this congress that it 
is desirable to adopt a single prime meridian for all 
nations, in place of the multiplicity of initial meri- 
dians which now exist.”’ 

2. ‘* That the conference proposes to the govern- 
ments here represented the adoption of the meridian 
passing through the centre of the transit instrument 
at the observatory of Greenwich, as the initial meri- 
dian for longitude.”’ 

3. “That from this meridian, longitude shall be 


1 Concluded from p. 406. 


SCIENCE. 


421 


counted in two directions up to 180°, east longitude 
being plus, and west longitude minus.” 

4, ‘‘ That the conference proposes the adoption of 
a universal day for all purposes for which it may be 
found convenient, and which shall not interfere with 
the use of local or other standard time, Where desir- 
able.”’ 

5. ** That this universal day is to be a mean solar 
day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of 
mean midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding 
with the beginning of the civil day and date of that 
meridian; and is to be counted from zero up to twenty- 
four hours.’’ 

6. ‘* That the conference expresses the hope, that, 
as soon as may be practicable, the astronomical and 
nautical days will be arranged everywhere to begin 
at mean midnight.”’ 

7. ‘* That the conference expresses the hope that 
the technical studies intended to regulate and extend 
the application of the decimal system to angular 
measure, and to that of time, shall be resumed, so as 
to permit the extension of this application to all cases. 
where it presents real advantage.”’ 

A final resolution was then passed, reading as fol- 
lows: — 

_‘** That a copy of the resolutions passed by this con- 
ference shall be communicated to the government 
of the United States, at whose instance, and within 
whose territory, the conference has been convened.”’ 

With a hearty vote of thanks to the government 
for the facilities offered, to the president, Admiral 
Rodgers, for his impartiality and courtesy, and to the 
secretaries for their faithful work, and with a suitable 
response by the president, the conference adjourned, 
subject to the call of the latter, for the purpose only 
of verifying the protocols of the proceedings. 

The phraseology of the seventh resolution is some- 
what peculiar; and the word ‘resumed’ looks very 
much like a mistake in translating ‘ résumer,’ as the 
resolution was introduced by the French delegates. 


THE RESOURCES OF 
STATES. 


THE UNITED 


Tue seventh quarto volume of the Tenth 
census, containing the tables of valuation, 
taxation, and public indebtedness, must be re- 
garded as the most exact, and one of the most 
valuable, yet issued. It is largely historical in 
its treatment of the subject, which allows an 
exact historical statement more readily than 
most of the subjects of these volumes ; and it 
thus presents a view of the finances of the 
United States for a century, which must be of 
great interest to all economists. There is also 
much information of a political and personal 
nature contained in the history of the foreign 
loans made by the United States and by indi- 
vidual states, including some description of 
the repudiated debts of Pennsylvania, Missis- 


422 


sippi, and other states. The early loans made 
through Dr. Franklin, John Adams, etc., in 
France and Holland, from 1776 to 1795, are 
dwelt upon minutely ; and the transactions of 
Beaumarchais, the financier, author, and pub- 
lisher, are related at some length. Statisti- 
cally, the presentation of debt, aggregate 
wealth, and taxation, is more complete by far 
than was ever made before for the United 
States ; and, when these statistics are viewed in 
the perspective of past history, they confirm 
the wonderful economic resources of a demo- 
cratic republic like ours. They show that no 
amount of debt hitherto imposed has prevented 
the country from increasing rapidly in wealth 
and financial power, although there are local 
debts which may remain unpaid for a long 
time ; and that the aggregate debt of the coun- 
try is now fast decreasing, while the aggregate 
wealth is gaining more rapidly than ever. 
That such should be the case so soon after the 
most costly and desolating civil war known to 
modern history, is remarkable; but there can 
be no other interpretation of the figures pre- 
sented in this volume. 

In round numbers, the aggregate wealth of 
the United States in 1880, was, by careful 
estimate, $438,600,000,000, of which not quite 
$17,000,000,000 was that year assessed for 
taxation. This is between two and three 
times as much as was the aggregate wealth in 
1860, which did not much exceed $16,000,000,- 
000, or less than the taxed valuation of 1880. 
The aggregate debt of the country in 1880 was 
a little less than $3,000,000,000, or between 
six and seven per cent of the estimated wealth. 
Of this debt, the national government was 
responsible for $1,942,000,000; the separate 
states, counties, cities, etc., for $1,048,000,- 
000. This was the net indebtedness, which 
had in 1880 been decreasing for some years, 
and has since diminished by at least $400,- 
000,000 in the aggregate ; so that we probably 
shall enter the year 1885 with a net debt of 
about $2,500,000,000, while our population 
has increased from 50,000,000 in 1880 to 
28,000,000, and our wealth to at least $50,- 
000,000,000. The taxation for state and 
local purposes upon the valuation of 1880 was 
about $302,000,000, while the national ex- 
penditure drawn from imposts and excise was 
not far from the same sum. This would be 
an aggregate taxation of less than fourteen 
dollars a thousand, which is considerably less 
than they are taxed in Massachusetts, where 
even the state and municipal taxes often amount 
to more than that. The per capita distribu- 
tion of local taxation in different sections 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 91. 


of the country is curious; being highest in 
California ($14.60), in Nevada ($14), and 
in Massachusetts ($13.64), while in the two 
Carolinas it is only about $1.50, and in Ala- 
bama $1.63. Of course this high per capita 
tax implies great wealth in the community 
and consequently the richest states have the 
largest percentage of local taxation, consid- 
ered with regard to the individual tax-payers. 
Thus Massachusetts, with an assessed valua- 
tion of nearly $1,585,000,000, and a popu- 
lation of less than 1,800,000, in 1880, raised 
that year nearly $24,500,000 of local tax, be- 
sides what she paid into the national treas- 
ury; while Texas, with a population nearly 
as great as that of Massachusetts, but with 
a valuation of property less than a third part 
as large, raised by taxation only $4,568,716, 
or less than a fifth of the Massachusetts taxa- 
tion. Yet the Texans probably feel their light 
taxes more than the people of Massachusetts 
feel their heavy burdens. 

For a similar reason the debt of a state is 
often, perhaps almost always, largest where 
property most abounds to pay the debt with. 
This does not hold true of all the southern 
states, some of which have incurred great 
debts that bear no proportion to the property 
of the tax-payers. Thus Louisiana, with. 
a population of 940,000, and an estimated 
wealth of $422,000,000, had a debt of $42,- 
866,000; while Wisconsin, with a population 
of 1,316,000, and wealth estimated at $969,- 
000,000, had only $11,876,000 of debt. Vir- 
ginia’s estimated wealth was, in 1880, $693,- 
000,000, and Connecticut’s, $852,000,000 ; yet 
the latter had only $22,000,000 of debt, while 
Virginia had $42,000,000. In these statistics 
we include both the state debt, and the debts 
of counties, cities, etc., within each state; and 
we give the net indebtedness after allowing 
for sinking-funds, etc. The three states of 
largest estimated wealth (New York, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Massachusetts) had then the largest 
debts, —New York, $218,723,000; Pennsyl- 
vania, $106,133,000 ; and Massachusetts, $91,- 
284,000. These amounts seem vast, and are 
so; yet Massachusetts had $30 of wealth for 
every dollar of debt, New York $35, and 
Pennsylvania more than $50. It is curious 
to observe, however, to what a great and vary-. 
ing extent this wealth escapes taxation ; for, 
while more than half of Massachusetts’s prop- 
erty (57 %) is taxed, only a little more than 
one-third is taxed in New York (34.8 %), and 
in Pennsylvania less than one-third (31.2%). 
The New-England states generally tax prop- 
erty more closely than the other states, the 


OcTOBER 31, 1884.] 


percentage of taxed property rising in Rhode 
Island to 60, though it falls in Connecticut to 
38.4, and in Vermont to 30. In Vermont, 
also, the tax is very small (only $1,745,000) ; 
while New Hampshire, with scarcely more 
population, raised $2,698,000 by taxation, and 
Rhode Island, with 56,000 less people, raised 
$2,603,000. The estimated wealth of Rhode 
Island, however, was $420,000,000, while that 
of Vermont was but $289,000,000, and that of 
New Hampshire, $328,000,000. 

The mode of exhibiting property, debt, taxa- 
tion, etc., by pyramidal diagrams, —the largest 
states at the bottom, and so on, upward, —is a 
very effective one to the eye, far more so than 
the map-form of making such statistics impres- 
sive. A map, and an arrangement of divided 
disks and parallelograms, are also used to illus- 
trate the ownership of the national debt, etc. 
These devices are a novel and increasing fea- 
ture of statistical reports, and are doubtless 
useful to the general and casual reader; but 
scientific inquirers must be warned against 
making too much of them. Statistics them- 
selves, in their most exact form, are apt to 
mislead as soon as comparisons are attempted ; 
for then a multitude of qualifying circum- 
stances come into view, or, if not seen, make 
the result of the comparison deceptive. To 
make these statistics still less exact by redu- 
cing them to the pictorial form, introduces a 
new element of error. The investigator must 
therefore be prepared to see these general views 
become dissolving views, as he extends his 
inquiry into the real facts, which the best col- 
lected statistics do but disguise with a thicker 
or thinner veil of imperfect classification. 


THE ABORIGINES OF CHILE. 


Los aborijenes de Chile. Por Jose Torisio ME- 
pINA. Testo i laminas. Santiago, /mprenta 
Gutenberg, 1882. 427 p. 4°. 


Tue original sources on which we must de- 
pend for a knowledge of the ethnology of Chile 
are difficult of accecss, and Senor Medina has 
performed a meritorious work in collecting them 
in this volume. Nor is it a mere compilation. 
To a very full description of the Araucanian 
Indians he adds a discussion of the archeo- 
logical relics of that country, such as up to the 
present we might have sought in vain. Some 
of his conclusions will be read with interest. 

Although no unequivocal signs of quaternary 
man have been found in Chile, Medina men- 
tions two or three discoveries of stone imple- 
ments at great depths, one of which, as figured, 


SCIENCE. 


423 


has every appearance of a genuine quaternary 
celt. As is well known, in the contiguous ter- 
ritory of the Pampas, Ameghino has described 
undoubted and abundant human remains from 
quaternary deposits. At any rate, the state of 
preservation of the remains in the graves of the 
Araucanians seems to leave no doubt that they 
were relatively a late immigration. To the 
antecedent population the author attributes the 
curious petroglyphs which are not uncommon 
on the Chilian rocks. His effort, however, to 
make it appear that this earlier people was of 
a more civilized type, cannot be said to be suc- 
cessful. 

Appended to the text are two hundred and 
fifty-two lithographs of archeologic finds. 
They include articles in stone, copper, silver, 
bronze, and pottery. Those in stone present 
some forms which are not at all, or not often, 
found with us. Such are the rounded and pol- 
ished sling-stones,— a weapon popular in South 
America, but scarcely known in the northern 
continent. Stone implements for net-making 
are another curiosity. They are of the shape 
and size of a cigar, with grooves around each 
end. Perforated circular stones, about three 
inches in diameter, are extremely common, and, 
the author thinks, were used principally to add 
weight to agricultural implements, —a quite 
improbable theory. Both the stone implements 
and the pottery present markedly different de- 
grees of technical skill. This the author ex- 
plains chronologically, attributing the ruder to 
a much more ancient date; but the opinion 
that they merely represent different degrees of 
contemporary skill is equally probable. 

Shell-heaps are numerous along the Chilian 
coast, some of them six metres in height; but 
mounds, earthworks, or walls are not described. 
No fresh information is furnished on the Arau- 
canian language, and this part of the volume 
has slight value. The history of the Incarial 
conquest is detailed at length ; but the influence 
of the Incarial culture on the southern tribes, 
which was very widely felt, is not allowed its 
proper prominence. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THr Chesapeake zodlogical laboratory of the 
Johns Hopkins university was stationed this year at 
Beaufort, N.C., and was open from June 1 to Sept. 
19. Owing to the illness of the director, it was most of 
the time under the charge of Prof. H. W. Conn. The 
embryology of echinoderms, annelids, and medusae, 
formed the principal studies. Dr. Brooks nearly 
completed his monograph of the medusae of Beau- 
fort, and studied the embryology of Eutimia, besides 


424 


making some observations on the metamorphosis of 
stomatopods, to be incorporated in his report on 
those of the Challenger expedition. Dr. Conn com- 
pleted his work on the development of Thalassema, 
and nearly finished a monograph on the crabs of 
Beaufort, on which he had been engaged for three 
years. He also studied the development of Serpula, 
and prepared a paper on larval forms. Dr. Donald- 
son investigated the physiology of marine vertebrates, 
making many experiments to determine the relative 
susceptibility of the different classes to poisons of 
vegetable origin. He also carried on a series of 
experiments to determine whether the current the- 
ory of digestion in Actinozoa is correct, and reached 
the conclusion that it was not. Mr. Bateson of Eng- 
land, who carried on his studies by a grant from the 
Royal society, completed his investigations upon 
Balanoglossus. Dr. Osborn studied the embryology 
of Fulgur and Neptunia, and the origin of the body- 
cavity and reproductive organs of gasteropods. Alto- 
gether, ten persons were engaged the whole or a 
portion of the time in study at the laboratory, and 
the result of their work has been of the highest im- 
portance. 


— The first number of the seventh volume of the 
American journal of mathematics, which has just ap- 
peared, bears the name of Simon Newcomb, the suc- 
cessor to the chair of mathematics in Johns Hopkins 
university, as editor. 


— The Hydrographic office reports that the bark 
Nellie T. Guest, which arrived at St. John, N.B., 
Oct. 20, from Barrow, on the 6th of October encoun- 
tered in latitude 46° 10’ north, longitude 43° west, a 
cyclone, during which she lay four hours with decks 
full of water. ‘Three bags of oil were towed over 
the weather side, and assisted greatly in smoothing 
the sea. 

— By special request, Sir William Thomson deliv- 
ered a lecture in Hopkins hall, Baltimore, Wednesday, 
Oct. 15, on the rigidity of the earth. 


— The college for an advanced course of profes- 
sional study for naval officers, to be known as the Na- 
val war college, will be under the general supervision 
of the bureau of navigation. The principal building 
on Coaster’s Harbor Island, Newport, R.I., has been 
assigned to its use, and has been transferred, with the 
surrounding structures and the grounds immediately 
adjacent, to the custody of the bureau of navigation 
for that purpose. The college will be under the im- 
mediate charge of an officer of the navy, not below 
the grade of a commander, to be known as president 
of the naval war college, who will be assisted by a 
faculty. The course of instruction will be open to all 
officers above the grade of naval cadet. Commodore 
S. B. Luce has been assigned to duty as president of 
the college. 

— The Royal astronomical society has elected Prof. 
Edward S. Holden, director of the Washburn obser- 
vatory at Madison, Wis., one of its foreign associ- 
ates. 

— The first annual meeting of the New-England 
meteorological society was held in Boston on Tues- 


aS a 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 91. — 


day, Oct. 21. Sixty-four new members were elected, 
and the following communications were made: Rain- 
gauges, by Mr. Desmond Fitz Gerald of the Boston 
water-works; Rainfall maps, by Mr. W. M. Davis of 
Harvard college; Weather-observers in New England, 
by Professor Winslow Upton of Brown university; 
Establishment of a meteorological station on Blue 
Hill, Mass., by Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch of Boston. 


—Mrs. Dr. Sophie Kowalevski has been elected 
teacher of mathematics in the new university at 
Stockholm. As Dr. Kowalevski read last winter a 
privatissimum on partial differential equations with 
noteworthy results, a new professorship was estab- 
lished for her in the university. 


— The facts made use of in Hudson’s ‘ Cause, na- 
ture, and prevention of seasickness,’ are collected 
from the author’s own experience of twenty-five 
years at sea. The book lacks a little in physiological 
accuracy. It, however, is a contribution to a form 
of treatment which is fast gaining in popular favor, 
namely, preventive medicine. The author concludes, 
that by the proper adjustment of the body to gravity 
and the ocean, through muscular relaxation, sea- 
sickness may be avoided. 


— Hirsch, the well-known French engineer and 
author, reports to the Commission centrale des ma- 
chines a vapeur the results of experiments upon the 
production of the superheated condition in the water 
of steam-boilers. Studying the history of such phe- 
nomena so far as they are recorded, and conducting 
a somewhat extended series of experiments, the con- 
clusion was finally reached, that there is no evidence, 
up to the present time, that boiler-explosions may be 
caused by the conditions studied, or that such con- 
ditions ever arise in practice. If they occur at all, it 
is only in extremely rare instances, and as a conse- 
quence of a coincidence of circumstances seldom to be 
observed, and which are neither well understood nor 
well defined. ‘The use of the thermometer is advised 
to determine the facts bearing upon this question. 
The commission to which the report is made approve 
and adopt these conclusions. 


— The latest use to which the electric light has 
been put at the London health exhibition is the illu- 
mination of a baker’s oven with a plate-glass door. 
The light was from two incandescent lamps, driven 
by a Victoria brush-machine, which were inside the 
oven, where the temperature was from 400° to 600° 
F., the whole oven being distinctly visible. No more 
burnt bread! : 

— The reduction of the French photographs of the 
transit of Venus, taken Dec. 6, 1882, gives a polar 
flattening of the planet about the same as that of the 
earth, viz., 3j3. From measures during the transit 
of 1874, Lieut.-Gen. Tennant derived a compression, 

1 
moses ‘ft 
appears, thus, a strong presumption of a real flatten- 
ing in this direction; which, however, is to be noted 
as inconsistent with the hitherto received determina- — 
tions of the inclination of the equator of Venus to 
the ecliptic. 


in the north-south direction, of 


OcTOBER 31, 1884.] 


— Prof. E. S. Holden, director of the Washburn 
observatory of the University of Wisconsin, has lately 
collected all the data available for a discussion of the 
law of distribution of the fixed stars, so far as this 
is determinable from the method of star-gauging. 
The data were collected from a comparison with the 
results of a series of star-gauges in progress with the 
fifteen-inch equatorial of the Washburn observatory ; 
and they include, 1°, the 688 previously published 
‘gauges of Sir W. Herschel, with the places brought 
down from 1690 to 1860; 2°, the 405 unpublished 
gauges of Sir W. Herschel, extracted from his observ- 
ing-books, and generously placed at Professor Hol- 
den’s disposal by Lieut.-Col. John Herschel (these 
also reduced to 1860); 3°, 500 counts of stars from 
the published charts of Dr. C. H. F. Peters; 4°, 
983 counts of stars from the unpublished charts of 
Dr. Peters, from the Paris charts as revised by him, 
and from the unpublished ecliptic charts of Profes- 
sor Watson; 5°, 856 counts of stars from the un- 
published and published charts of Dr. J. Palisa. 
These, with the data from Sir J. Herschel’s 605 
southern gauges, and Celoria’s durchmusterung of 
the stars between 0° and + 6°, complete the very 
valuable collection of data which Professor Holden 
has brought together in convenient tabular form, and 
from which one of his most important conclusions 
is, that the method of star-gauging must be applied 
to the study of comparatively small regions, and that 
the results from these are then to be combined into 
larger groups. Professor Holden hopes that these 
tables may serve the valuable end of finally disposing 
of the fundamental assumption that the stars are 
equally scattered in space, and may bring about the 
study of their distribution on a more general basis. 


— Caspar Johann Bismarck was the editor, in 1694, 
of one of the most important geographical treatises 
of the seventeenth century, —the ‘Introductio in 
omnem geographiam’ of Philip Cluver, which passed 
through many editions between 1629 and 1780, and 
was annotated by various savants. Further inves- 
tigation will be required to determine if this Bismarck 
belonged to the particular family which has produced 
the great German chancellor. He was, however, a 
native of the same region, — Wolfenbiittel in Braun- 
schweig, a town about sixty miles west from Magde- 
burg. About fifty miles north from Magdeburg, 
a small town exists which seems to have given its 
name to the Bismarck family, though the orthography 
differs slightly. This village is situated in Altmark, 
a short distance from the River Biese; and its name, 
‘Bismark,’ probably signifies ‘market of the Biese.’ 
The name of Bismarck is associated with geographi- 
cal matters in another way. Before the revolution 
the students of the university of Orleans, which was 
then in a flourishing condition, were divided, as 
was then the fashion, into six ‘ nations,’ two of which 
were the Normans and the Germans. At this time 
a certain Christopher de Bismarck was quaestor of 
the Germanic nation. In that capacity, according 
to Monseigneur Dupanloup, he held a disputation, 
celebrated in the annals of the university, with the 
Normans, claiming that Denmark and the Danes, 


SCIENCE. 


425 


in spite of their community of origin, belonged, not 
with the Norman, but with the Germanic nation. 


— Engineering states that ‘‘ the pneumatic machine 
employed by Wroblewski in liquefying and evapo- 
rating ethylene and oxygen to produce intense colds 
has also been recently used by him to evaporate 
liquid marsh-gas. He has thus obtained a tempera- 
ture of — 155° C. to — 160° C., which is the tempera- 
ture of ebullition of the liquid gas. It is a useful 
temperature as coming between the temperatures of 
—144° C. and —184° C., which are obtained with 
ethylene and oxygen; but it varies with the degree 
of purity of the gas. Oxygen, atmospheric air, ni- 
trogen, and carbolic oxide, cooled with the marsh- 
gas, can be liquefied under feeble pressures, so that 
a chemist who succeeds in producing pure marsh 
gas easily and economically, will render a service to 
science.”’ 


— The periodical report of the City guilds of London 
institute for the advancement of technical education 
has just been issued, and gives an extended account 
of the examinations held at the end of May. A con- 
siderable increase is shown in the number of can- 
didates, the total this year having been 3,635, as 
against 2,397 in 1883. The number of centres has 
been increased from 154 to 164. Carpentry and 
joinery were new subjects, and attracted 369 can- 
didates; but metal-plate working, only 2, who did 
not succeed in passing. The results were considered 
satisfactory, but show the urgent need for more 
systematic technical instruction for those who are 
employed in factories and workshops. 


— Dr. Schweinfurth is spending three months in 
Berlin, preparatory to a new journey through the 
Egyptian deserts, on behalf of the Berlin academy 
of sciences, which he will undertake next winter. 
Though botany is his own specialty, the survey of 
the desert forms the main object of his journey. 


— According to the Colliery guardian, Mr. W. E. 
Garforth, mining-engineer of Normanton, has suc- 
ceeded in perfecting an invention for the detection 
of firedamp in mines, which is as remarkable for its 
simplicity as for its efficiency. It consists of an ordi- 
nary India-rubber ball, without a valve of any de- 
scription; but by the ordinary action of compressing 
the ball, and then allowing it to expand, a sample of 
the suspected atmosphere is drawn from the roof or 
any part of the mine without the great risk which 
now attends the operation of testing for gas, should 
the gauze be defective. The sample thus obtained 
is then forced through a small protected tube upon 
the flame, when, if gas is present, it is shown by the 
well-known blue cap and elongated flame. From 
this description, and the fact that the apparatus can 
be carried easily in the pocket, the value of this 
adjunct to the safety-lamp will be apparent. It is 
thought that explosions are caused frequently by the 
fire-trier himself, and that his death prevents the 
cause from being fully ascertained. This danger 
will now be altogether avoided, and it is said that 
the detector has been tried at several collieries with 
completely satisfactory results. 


426 


— The Athenaeum states that Sir Richard Owen’s 
‘History of British fossil reptiles,’ which has been 
upwards of forty years in preparation, is now ready 
for publication by Messrs. Cassell. On the prepara- 
tion of the 268 plates with which the volumes are 
enriched, great labor and attention have been lav- 
ished. The edition consists of 170 copies only, each 
copy being signed by Professor Owen; and the plates 
from which the illustrations have been printed have 
been destroyed. 


—The time of the glacial period in New Zealand 
has been studied by R. von Lendenfeld, whose sur- 
vey in the New-Zealand Alps, partly corroborating 
and partly extending the results of Dr. von Haast’s 
surveys, shows that the present glaciers are as large, 
and extend down as far, as those in Norway, where 
the mean annual temperature is 3° C., whilst in New 
Zealand it is 11° C. The greater expanse of water 
in the southern hemisphere, and the consequently 
greater amount of humidity in the air, and more 
copious rain and snowfall, are considered to be the 
cause of this. The sounds in the south-west coast 
are similar to the fiords in Norway, and the alluvial 
deposits at their upper ends are small. Scooped out 
originally by flowing water, these sounds remained 
unchanged during the period of subsidence of the 
land, and were not filled up with débris, because 
large glaciers occupied them during that time. As 
soon as these glaciers disappeared, the formation of 
the alluvial deposits commenced; and from the fact 
that the latter are small, and increasing rapidly in 
size from year to year, the author considers that the 
glacial period in New Zealand must have been very 
recent. 


— The committee of Lloyds has received from 
the London board of trade a report concerning the 
surface-ventilation of the cargo of 2,050 tons of coal 
carried in the Sutherlandshire from Hull to San 
Francisco last year. The ship was fitted with tubes 
to enable the master to ascertain the temperature of 
the body of the cargo, as recommended by tle re- 
port of the royal commission appointed to inquire 
into the spontaneous combustion of coal in ships. 
The voyage was perfectly free from fire. The com- 
mander, Capt. Inglio, highly approves of the tubes, 
and will continue testing the temperature. A record 
was kept, and the figures are on record at Lloyds. 


— England, so far, is not taking a very prominent 
part in the International exhibition to be held at 
Antwerp next year, only about two hundred firms 
having applied. France especially takes a prominent 
part, the French government having voted seven 
hundred and fifty thousand frances towards the ex- 
penses of the undertaking, and appointed two official 
commissions; while the municipal council of Paris 
has promised a grant of a hundred thousand frances 
for the purpose of sending workingmen delegates 
from that city. Prince Rudolph of Austria has also 
influenced the Vienna chamber of commerce to make 
strong efforts on behalf of the concern. The United 
States will be well repesented; and the Dominion of 
Canada better so than the mother-country,.as it gives 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 


both official recognition and a substantial credit. 
Germany is also making strong efforts to be officially 
represented. 


— Mr. Clermont Ganneau, the French archeolo- 
gist, has been describing for the benefit of his coun- 
trymen the antiquities of Palestine now treasured in 
London, and advises the formation of a vast Pales- 
tine museum and library, one of the departments of 
which should be ‘‘an extensive and animated pan- 
orama of the Holy City, and dioramic views of the 
principal localities and of characteristic scenes of 
popular life in Palestine, in order to add to this 
scientific combination an irresistible element of at- 
traction and success. In short, in the centre of 
London should be created a representation as faith- 
ful, varied, and complete as possible, of Palestine, 
past and present, which would be as a living com- 
mentary on the Bible.”’ England, says Mr. Clermont 
Ganneau, being ‘so passionately fond of biblical 
studies,’ would be the country most likely to carry 
out his ambitious project. 


— Mr. Wood Mason of the Calcutta Indian museum 
has recently drawn up a report on those insects from 
which the tea-gardens of Assam most suffer. He 
says the tea-bug or ‘ mosquito-blight,’ and the tea- 
mite or ‘red spider,’ are the only two insects which 
are at present known to do such injury as to mate- 
rially diminish the profits of the owners. Both 
these insects pass their whole lives on the tea- 
plant, and have never been found on any other plant. 
Such, at least, is the result of the most careful inves- 
tigation. The mite lives in societies on the upper por- 
tion of the full-grown leaves, beneath an exceedingly 
delicate web which it spins for itself as a shelter. It 
punctures the leaves, and then pumps out the liquid 
contents of the epidermis. The only remedy which 
has been discovered to check their ravages, and it 
has not proved very effectual, is to sprinkle the 
affected bushes with muddy water. The tea-bug is 
still more destructive, and particularly to the trees 
of the milder juice; for those which afford a strong 
and rasping liquor enjoy an almost complete im- 
munity from its attack. Mr. Wood Mason appends to 
his report engravings of these destructive creatures. 


— The Cape times says that a gigantic earthworm 
has been sent from the colony to Mr. Frank Bid- 
dard, the prosector of the Royal zodélogical society, 
who has been desirous of obtaining one of these 
monsters for scientific purposes. The Rey. G. Fisk, 
F.Z.S., with whom Mr. Biddard has corresponded on 
the subject, received the worm from Mr. H. W. Bid- 
well, who found it in the botanic garden at Uiten- 
hage. The longest measurement of the creature yet 
taken reaches six feet five inches; but it is thought, 
if it were drowned, the measurement would extend to 
ten feet, this mode of extinction having an extremely 
relaxing effect on the frame or substance of the 
worm. The surface of the upper portion of the body 
shows a bright green color, of variable intensity, but 
otherwise it is a loath]ful animal. Lumbricus micro- 
chaeta is the name by which it will be immortalized 
in the records of the Zodlogical society. 


‘ 


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SCIENCE, November 7, 1884. 


Bite 9 Greyiown, 173 87 ralles. 
Verve tity uses greater than bortzontal seale. 


Aven eo 


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PLAN AND PROFILE OF THE NICARAGUA INDER-OCEANIC CANAL ROUTE. 


Compiled from various surveys, by A. G. MENOCAL, civil englooer, U.S. 


eh cocnna rats 22.5070. 


SCIENCE, November 7, 1884. 


SCIENCE 


FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue treasury officials have partially reversed 
the obnoxious rulings by which recently they 
compelled public institutions to pay duty, or 
incur more onerous burdens still, in order to 
get through the custom-house the publications 
which congress had said they should have free 
of such charge. ‘Their last circular is almost 
insulting in pointedly prescribing the business- 
agents of such institutions as persons whose 
oaths they will not take. The government of 
these bodies, situated often at such a distance 
from ports of entry that they cannot conven- 
iently attend to the business details of importa- 
tion, appoint agents, whom they trust, and 
who, from experience, can serve the institutions 
better than they can serve themselves. These 
institutions are now practically told by the 
treasury Officials that the oaths of such ap- 
pointees are not good enough for them, and 
that, to get the privileges which congress has 
awarded to these institutions in the interests of 
learning and progress, the governing bodies of 
them must be subjected to such impertinent 
discipline as it pleases the treasury officials to 
impose. They are plainly told that they may 
accredit all the agents they please, but the 
oaths of such agents cannot be taken. An 
oath, then, is not an oath, except as the treasu- 
ry may approve the giver of it. This body of 
men who are thus traduced by the government 
are the importing book-dealers of the country. 


Tue recent conference at St. Louis, of repre- 
sentatives from nearly all of the existing state 
boards of health, and their decision to meet at 
Washington in December, bring prominently 
forward the question of a national authority in 
health matters. The present National board 
of health was organized in April, 1879, under 
an act passed at the close of the forty-fifth con- 

No. 92. — 1884. 


gress. The board consists of seven members 
appointed by the president, one medical officer 
of army, navy, and marine hospital service re- 
spectively, and one officer from the department 
of justice. In the early days of the board it 
was called upon to deal with a very serious 
outbreak of yellow-fever in Memphis and oth- 
er localities. The measures adopted at this 
time had an undoubted influence in the suppres- 
sion of these outbreaks. In addition to this 
work, numerous investigations into causes of 
epidemic diseases and sanitary survey were 
made, the published results of which have be- 
come too well known to need recital here. 
While doing a most useful work, the moderate 
appropriation at the service of the board at- 
tracted the hostile criticism of certain members 
of congress, who succeeded in procuring legis- 
lation that limited the fund at the disposal of 
the board to twenty-five thousand dollars, with 
the proviso that their duties and investigations 
should be limited to the diseases cholera, yel- 
low-fever, and small-pox. The next congress 
made no appropriation whatever for the board, 
and it is practically dead. 

Having in mind the valuable services rendered 
by this organization, it is not easy, at first sight, 
to perceive the causes of its overthrow. These 
were, first, the department of the treasury, 
which asserts a claim to the disbursement of all 
funds appropriated by congress for the suppres- 
sion of epidemic diseases, and to the selection 
of a medical officer of its own as agent in these 
operations ; second, the active hostility of the 
State board of health of Louisiana, and the jeal- 
ousy of some of the great commercial communi- 
ties in regard to all quarantine restrictions ; 
last, the composition of the board itself. As 


above stated, this consists of seven members 


at large, representing but seven of the thirty- 
eight states, — possibly the most important, 
perhaps the smallest, in the Union. Pennsy1- 
vania and Ohio have not been represented on 


428 


the board. While it has thus far apparently 
been composed of men of the best character 
and of high scientific attainments, there is no 
certainty, possibly but little probability, that 
the same standard can be maintained in the 
future. Any renewal of appropriations, or in- 
crease of powers, would be likely to make the 
board attractive to the place hunter. 


Coming at this time, the St. Louis confer- 
ence has an unusual significance. This volun- 
tary assembly of representatives of the only 
public bodies possessing any real power to deal 
with epidemic disease, or questions of public 
health, might very easily be transformed into 
a national organization, certain to control, with- 
in the above limits, public opinion. Let the 
central authority be composed of delegates 
selected by state boards of health, when such 
boards exist; when there are none, by the 
governors of the respective states. Such a 
body may be convened at any time, in case of 
need: ordinarily, one or two sessions annually 
would be sufficient. An executive committee 
of moderate size, with permanent officers at 
Washington, could attend to such routine work 
as congress might see fit to intrust the board 
with. It is not advisable to burden a board 
of health with great patronage or much ex- 
ecutive power. It should be largely devoted 
to scientific investigation of epidemic disease. 
These must, of necessity, be conducted on a 
scale so extensive that no private laboratory, 
public institution, or state board of health, 
has been or will be able to undertake them. 
The fact that the members of this association 
would be also members of powerful state organ- 
izations, would secure the co-operation of the 
various states, and would legitimately control, 
in a high degree, congressional action, and, as 
a board of consultation, would, when applied 
to, speak with an influence that no department 
at Washington could afford to neglect. 


Tue secretaries of war and of the navy have 
indirectly raised what may prove a trouble- 
some question respecting the duties of mem- 
bers of the National academy of sciences, who 


SCIENCE. 


[Von. IV., No. 92. 
are also officers of the government. Our read- 
ers may remember, that, when the organization 
of the surveys was reported upon by the acad- 
emy some years ago, a very strong protest 
against its conclusions was made. by the chief 
of engineers, in which one of the strongest 
points was, that the men who conducted such 
surveys were not represented upon the commit- 
tee which made the report. When a question 
very similar was submitted to the academy last 
summer, in order to elicit a report upon the 
coast and geological surveys, the signal-office, _ 
and the hydrographic office, the policy was 
adopted of putting an officer of the army, and 
one of the navy, upon the committee. When 
this fact became known to the heads of the 
departments, they decided that no officer of 
the government should take a place which 
might require him to report upon the policy of 
his chief; and both members, therefore, with- 
drew from the committee. 


Without discussing the application of this 
principle in the present case, we hope it will 
in the future be so limited and defined as not 
to cripple the academy in cases where it might 
happen that there are no experts available 
except those who are officially connected with 
the government. During a state of war the 
most important questions submitted to the 
academy would probably pertain to instruments 
and appliances to be used in warfare, and it 
would clearly be impossible to omit from its 
committees the very men who knew most about 
the subject-matter submitted. The academy 
is, we believe, the only government organiza- 
tion now existing, or which ever has existed, 
the members of which were required to give 
their services to the government without 
charge whenever called upon. As such, the 
body would seem entitled to a large measure 
of consideration on the part of the government, 
which will be increased when we call to mind 
the value and importance of its reports. No 
amount of labor and research has been spared 
in cases when methods of defrauding the rey- 
enue by the chemical manipulation of products 
had to be looked into. The efficiency which 


NOVEMBER 7, -1884.] 


has characterized the workings of the present 
geological survey affords an example of the 
practical value of the academy’s advice which 
should not be overlooked. While there may 
be one or two instances in which the opinions of 
the experts have not been justified by the re- 
sults, we believe that the proportion of failure 
to success will, on critical examination, turn 
out to be less than in any other class of ques- 
tions which the government has had to decide. 
The only reward received by the men who 
render these services is that of public appre- 
ciation. The damage which would be done by 
any act of the government, depriving the work- 
ers of this little reward, is a serious matter, and 
becomes all the more serious when we reflect, 
that, at more than one period in the history of 
the academy, the question whether it should 
continue its government existence hung in the 
balance. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


The recognition, by marine animals, of the hour 
of the day. 


THE changes produced by the tides are apparently 
much more important to marine animals than those 
which are due to the rotation of the earth; and the 
fact that many important physiological changes are 
regulated according to the hour of the day in these 
organisms, as well as in terrestrial animals and plants, 
is worthy of notice. 

The phenomenon has almost escaped the notice of 
naturalists, although it is not at all unusual. 

Claus in 1882, and Merejkowsky in 1883, have shown 
that the very young stages of Aequora and Obelia are 
found only in the morning; and Merejkowsky says 
that the successive steps in the formation of the 
planula of Obelia follow each other with such perfect 
regularity that each stage is met only at a definite 
hour in the morning. This author believes that the 
regularity is directly due to the action of light, but 
he gives no proof of this; and observations which 
have been made in the past three or four years at 
Beaufort, N.C., seem to show that the regularity is 
not due to external influences at all, but is deter- 
mined within the organism, like the returning appe- 
tite which tells us that the dinner-hour has come. 

The following are some of the instances which we 
have observed at Beaufort: — 

Dr. E. R. Wilson finds that the eggs of Renilla, an 
Aleyonarian which lives upon the bottom below low- 
tide mark, are always laid at very nearly the same 
hour of the day; viz.,6 A.M. Ina single case spawn- 
ing took place at 5.30, and it was never observed later 
than 7 A.M. 

The regularity appears to be independent of tem- 
perature, for the hour of spawning was the same in 
cold and warm days, although the temperature does 
have a very important influence on the rate of devel- 
opment of the embryo. 


SCIENCE. 


429 


Dr. Wilson has observed a similar regularity in the 
spawning of Leptogorgia; and in this case, if I re- 
member correctly, the hour was 4 A.M. 

While Obelia lays its eggs early in the morning, L 
find that closely related Beaufort medusae spawn at 
night. Thus, Entima, Eirene, Turritopus, and Liriope 
discharge most of their eggs about 8 P.m., although 
captive specimens drop a few eggs irregularly at all 
hours. As one hydromedusa lays its eggs early in 
the morning, while another species lays them early 
in the evening, the regulating influence can hardly be 
the change of illumination. While studying the de- 
velopment of Lucifer, a pelagic crustacean, I found 
that sexual union occurs with great regularity be- 
tween 6 and 8 P.M., while the eggs are laid between 
8 and 10 p.M.; so that the early stages can be studied 
only between 10 P.M. and 7 A.M. 

Dr. H. H. Donaldson has observed at Beaufort, 
that actinias of various genera are fully expanded 
only between 5 and 6 P.M. This is true of these 
animals in their natural homes, as well as in aquaria; 
and experiment showed that specimens which were 
kept in darkness expanded as promptly at the proper 
hour as those which were exposed to direct sunlight. 

Among the animals which I have enumerated are 
some which live at the surface, as Entima and 
Obelia; some which live near low-tide mark, as the 
actinias; and some which live in deeper water, as 
Renilla. Some of. them, as Lucifer, are vigorous 
swimmers, while some, as Gorgonia, are fixed. 

Wilson’s observations show that the regularity is. 
not due to temperature, and Donaldson’s experiments. 
show that it is not the effect of light. 

There is no evidence that it is due in any way to. 
the direct influence of surrounding conditions, and I 
think we must believe that it has been established in 
each species by natural selection, on account of its. 
advantage to the organism. 

The phenomenon is especially important to the em- 
bryologist, for the failure to procure the fertilized 
eggs of any animal may be due to the fact that it is 
not captured or observed at the right hour of the day. 
It also shows the importance of marine observa- 
tions when the naturalist may be on duty at all hours 
of the day and night. W. K. BROOKS. 


The star-nosed mole amphibious. 

It is now more than fifteen years since Dr. Gilpin 
announced that the star-nosed mole (Condylura cris- 
tata) had been seen swimming, in winter, in Nova 
Scotia; and his record, so far as I am aware, remains 
unique. 

Mr. Napoleon A. Comeau, who lives on the north 
shore of the St. Lawrence, near the point where the 
river widens into the gulf, has recently been fortunate 
enough to witness the habit in question. He writes: 
‘““On the 380th of April, 1884, I saw a star-nosed mole 
swimming under water like a muskrat. It swam 
directly across a small brook, keeping near the bottom, 
and moving very fast. The brook was about six feet 
wide and two feet deep. As the mole approached the 
bank, it turned up its snout, so that I plainly saw 
the ‘star’ on its nose, and took refuge under some 
branches where I could not get at it. Snow was still 
deep along the banks of the stream, and there was 
plenty of ice in places, though the mole crossed in an 
open space.”’ 

I have more than once caught this species in gal- 
leries that were half full of water, and have always 
found it most abundant in swampy situations along 
the borders of streams, but I never had the good 
fortune to see it swim. C. HART MERRIAM. 


430 


SIR WILLIAM THOMSON. 


Sm Witr1am THomson’s presence in this 
country, the prominent part he has taken in the 
two great scientific meetings held in America 
this year, and his course of lectures at the Johns 
Hopkins university, which has been attended 
by professors and students of physics from all 
parts of the country, will make a brief sketch 
of the man and of his work especially welcome 
at this time. é 

Born at Belfast in 1824, he showed at a 
very early age that the remarkable mathemati- 
cal talent possessed by his father was to re- 
appear in him with at least equal intensity. 
At the University of Glasgow, where his father 
held the chair of mathematics, he was, at the 
age of eleven or twelve, already noted among 
his much older classmates for his ability and 
originality. At the age of seventeen he began 
the splendid series of contributions to mathe- 
matical physics which have formed so great 
a factor in the progress of physical science. 
These first papers, written at so early an age, 
were of a nature to require a profound knowl- 
edge of both mathematics and physics; the 
first being a defence of Fourier’s mathematical 
methods against some objections which had 
been made to them, and the second relating to 
the mathematical theory of heat and of elec- 
tricity. 

A mere glance at the list of Sir William 
Thomson’s papers, as given in the Royal soci- 
ety’s catalogue, serves to convey some idea 
of the diversity of mathematical and physical 
subjects upon which he has written. Running 
down the list in chronological order, and noting 
only here and there a title, we find him dis- 
cussing the equations of motion of heat, the 
lines of curvature of surfaces of the second 
order, electric images, terrestrial magnetism, 
the theory of partial differential equations, the 
economy of heating or cooling buildings by 
currents of air, the dynamical theory of heat, 
the dissipation of energy, the density of the 
luminiferous ether, the theory of elasticity, the 
calculation of a certain class of definite inte- 
grals, the interior melting of ice, Leverrier’s 


_— 


SCIENCE 


ee 


investigations on the motion of Mercury, the 
protection of vegetation from destructive cold 
at night, vortex atoms, — but we must make 
an end somewhere. 

It is, of course, needless to say to the readers 
of this journal that it is not upon the number 
or diversity of his contributions to science that 
Sir William Thomson’s fame and pre-eminence 
rest, but upon the fundamental importance 
and epoch-making character of some of those 
contributions. The article upon Sir William 
Thomson in the Scientific worthies series (Na- 
ture, 1876) gives a brief summary of some of 
his most important researches and inventions. 
We can here do hardly more than allude to a 
few of them, referring readers, for a fuller ac- 
count, to. the above article, from which we 
freely draw. Probably his most important 
contributions to mathematical physics have 
been his researches in electrostatics and mag- 
netism. His first paper in this department of 
physics, on the elementary laws of statical 
electricity, written at the age of twenty-one, 
demonstrated that results which had previously 
been accepted were erroneous through a failure 
to adopt necessary precautions in the experi- 
ments upon which those results were based. 
In this paper he also began the work of fonnd- 
ing the mathematical theory of electricity upon 
Faraday’s theory of electrical induction, —a 
work which his later papers completed. In 
this field, as in many others, his work was not 
confined to mathematical, nor even to mathe- 
matical and experimental research: an almost 
equally notable part of it was the invention of 
most important and ingenious electrometric 
instruments, which have constituted the chief 
means of establishing our present system of 
practical electrometry. 

His contributions to thermodynamics have 
also been of the highest and most fundamental 
importance. He was among the first physicists 
to thoroughly appreciate the effect, upon the 
theory of heat, of Joule’s determination of 
the mechanical equivalent of heat; and, in the 
series of memoirs which he wrote upon thermo- 
dynamics, he placed the science thoroughly 
upon the new scientific basis of the doctrine 


‘[Vou. IV., No. 92. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884. ] 


of heat as a mode of motion. He was the 
first to propose the use of an absolute thermo- 
dynamic scale for the measurement of tempera- 
ture ; and, in his paper on the electrodynamic 
qualities of metals, he presented his discovery 
of the electrical convection of heat, and of a 
great number of important relations between 
thermal and electric properties of matter. 
Perhaps the most striking of the results to 
which his studies 
in thermodynamics 
led him was the 
theory of the dissi- 
pation of energy. 
The almost ran- 
dom list of papers 
which we gave 
above was designed 
to illustrate the va- 
riety, rather than 
the importance, of 
Sir William Thom- 
son’s work; but it 
is hardly necessary 
to say that many 
of his researches 
or subjects very 
wide apart have 
been profound and 
important. His 
great investi- 
gations on the sub- 
ject of vortex mo- 
tion, to which he 
has devoted much 
attention for so 
many years, his researches on the tides, his 
contributions to hydrodynamics, his researches 
on the physical condition of the earth, have all 
been of signal importance; and the highly 
original method of attacking the problem of 


RETRACTS ONT RANE OH CaSO SARAH Me 


the wave-theory of light, of which he gave 


some account in his recent Johns-Hopkins lec- 
tures, has long been occupying his mind, and 
may fairly be expected to give rise, in the not 
very distant future, to results rivalling in value 
any of his former discoveries. 

Besides his contributions to the advance- 


SCIENCE. 


ment of pure science, Sir William Thomsoi 
has been the originator of improvements and 
inventions of the highest immediate practical 
utility. The most prominent of his services 
of this character have been those connected 
with submarine telegraphy. Space does not 
permit our entering into details: but it may be 
mentioned, that he discovered the law of the 
‘retardation of signals,’ which was the chief 
preliminary — diffi- 
culty to be faced 
by those consider- 
ing the feasibility 
of using a cable 
stretching under 
the ocean, from 
the old to the new 
world; that, to 
meet this difficulty, 
he invented the 
‘mirror galvanom- 
eter,’ which, when 
the cable of 1858 
came to be laid, 
was employed dur- 
ing the brief period 
of its successful 
operation; and 
that, when this ca- 
ble broke, on ac- 
count of difficulties 
and imperfections 
connected with its 
submersion, he de- 
voted himself with 
signal success to 
improving the construction of cables, and 
the mechanical arrangements for their sub- 
mersion. 

The very great benefits conferred upon the 
world by the labors of Thomson and others, 
who contributed to overcoming the difficulties 
which were so triumphantly surmounted in 
1866, were recognized by the bestowal upon 
them of the honor of knighthood. Other 
important improvements in telegraphy are 


due to him, but we must omit mention of 
them. 


432 


Two important improvements in navigation 
are also due to Sir William Thomson, —his 
improved mariner’s compass, which has been 
adopted, we believe, by the British and French 
navies, and which is extensively in use upon 
large vessels generally; and his more recent 
invention of a navigational sounding-machine 
— navigational, as distinguished from the deep- 
sea sounding apparatus devised by him for 
purposes of research. The navigational sound- 
ing-machine permits of soundings being taken 
at intervals of a few minutes, in water of the 
depth of a hundred fathoms; and thus it 
gives navigators — who, it is to be hoped, will 
soon avail themselves of this new safeguard — 
the means of easily getting warning of danger 
long before it is imminent. 

We cannot conclude even this brief and im- 
perfect sketch of Sir William Thomson’s work, 
without mention of the great treatise on natural 
philosophy upon which he and Professor Tait 
have united their labors. 

To those who have had the privilege of per- 
sonal contact with Sir William Thomson, his 
name will always be associated with the idea 
of personal lovableness and kindness, gentle- 
ness and modesty, even more than with that of 
scientific greatness. Every one who attended 
his recent lectures must have been deeply im- 
pressed with the truth of Helmholtz’s remark, 
that ‘‘the gift to translate real facts into 
mathematical equations, and vice versa, is by 
far more rare than that to find the solution of 
a mathematical problem; and in this direction 
Sir William Thomson is most eminent and 
original.’’ But he could hardly fail to be as 
strongly impressed with his possession, in 
an equally rare degree, of genuine and unaf- 
fected modesty, enthusiastic appreciation of 
the achievements of others, and tender con- 
sideration for all those whom the chances 
of time bring into connection with him, 
whether it be for a lifetime of friendship, or 
for a few fleeting weeks of union as teacher 
and pupil. 

The accompanying portrait is after a crayon 
from a photograph taken in Montreal during 
the recent meeting of the British association. 


- 


SCIENCE. 


eS - Seer a 9  e 


(Von. IV., No. 92. 


THE NEW VOLCANO OF THE BERING 
SEA. | 


Since the appearance in Science (vol. iii., No. 
51, pp. 89-93) of Professor Dall’s paper upon 
this new volcano, Lieut. G. M. Stoney, U.S.N., 
has embodied in an official report the results of 
a personal examination of this locality. It will 
be recalled that when Professor Dall surveyed 
the island of Ioanna Bogoslova (St. John the 
theologian) in 1873, seventy-seven years after 
its appearance by violent upheaval, he found, 
that with the exception of the small reef near 
Umnak, and of the rocks within a short dis- 
tance of Bogoslova, there was water more than 
eight hundred fathoms in depth on all sides of 
the island. 

in October, 1883, a violent disturbance burst 
forth, contemporaneous almost with that at 
Mount St. Augustine, described in Science (vol. 
iii., No. 54) by Professor Davidson, and result- 
ing, as was believed, in the formation of a new 
island. The last reports of this, while agreeing 
materially with Professor Dall’s conclusions, 
show, that, while no new island was formed, 
Bogoslova was extended ; that the old volcano 
was supplemented by another, which is still 
active; and that where was relatively great 
depth of water there is now a land-formation 
nearly three hundred feet in height. 

Lieut. Stoney reports that the new volcano 
was first seen by Capt. Hague in October, 
1883, and suggests for it, in lieu of the name 
‘Grewingk ’ proposed by Dall, that of its dis- 
coverer. 

There is no lack of definiteness as to the date 
of this new formation, all accounts agreeing 
that the violent eruptions began early in 1883, 
and culminated about the 16th of October, when 
‘¢ a dark cloud of indescribable appearance cov- 
ered the sky northward from Unalashka, and 
hung very near the earth for some time, ex- 
cluding the light of the sun, and accompanied 
by a rise of temperature. In about half an 
hour this cloud collapsed, and covered the earth 
with dull, gray, cottony ashes of extreme 
lightness.’’ During this period the volcano of 
Makushin, on Unalashka, was quiet, though 
shocks were felt there; and in the subsequent 
survey, Stoney found that ‘‘ the dust and ashes 
which fell in Unalashka were the same as those 
seen on the sides of the new volcano.”’ 

On the 27th of May of this year, Stoney saw, 
after leaving this last island, the smoke of the 
new volcano, then distant forty-five miles, and 
bearing south-west; and by three a.m. of the 
28th it was in plain view, the base distinct, 


1 Communicated by the U. 8. hydrographic office. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884.] 


but the crater, save at rare intervals, hidden 
by masses of black and whitish smoke. What 
Hague and Dall supposed to be a new island 
was then seen to be a new formation, connected 


SCIENCE. 


435 


gravel bottom. This anchorage lay to the 
northward and eastward, and was supposed to 
be the best available; but subsequent surveys 
proved that another roadstead to the southward 


BOCOSLOFF ISLAND anp HAGUE VOLCANO 


f= ‘ 
Postoacte B 


Vu 


ran 
\ 


im 


~ YE, 


FZ 


SD 


BERING SEA 


Tak. of Sail Rock 53°55” 5673 N. 
‘Long. a a & 167. 57« Waa W 


Vesky fe, 


es 
ry os 
Oe: 
aaa & oy 2 
= BS 


Awe : AN 
Tah Ae) 

LAT 

————— 


with the old island by a low sand-spit. Within 
its curve a narrow bay, well protected from 
northerly winds, was sighted ; and, running in 
through thick volumes of sulphurous smoke, 
the schooner was anchored, amid bubbling 
water, in thirteen fathoms, with a sand and 


View fromAnchorage NE, Side. 


and westward was better, both in shelter and 
holding ground. 

Three days were occupied in surveying the 
voleano; a hasty reconnoissance, made in- 
mediately after arrival, having satisfied Stoney 
that with the exception ‘‘ of the occasional 


eer ee ee 


434 


shaking-up by shocks, and of the persistent 
odor of the sulphur,’’ the anchorage was a safe 
one. ‘The first impression of the voleano was 
its likeness to an immense lime-kiln; though 
when the intermittent masses of smoke from 
the crater and from the fissures, which in some 
cases extended to the water’s edge, gave a clear- 
er view, its jagged mouth and sides dispelled 
the illusion. At intervals the side crevices 
gave out only faint, pale ribbons of smoke, and 
then it was found that their edges were covered 
with incrustations of sulphur and of a white 
crystalline formation. A thermometer inserted 
an inch and a half below the crust reached its 
limit (250° F.) in a few seconds, the air tem- 
perature being at the same time 40° F. The 
crust was warm, though not unbearably so; 
but a stick placed against the heated rock 
blazed instantly. 

As arule, vibratory motion of the whole mass 
could not be discovered ; though, with instru- 
ments, the explorer believed vibrations could be 
continuously detected. ‘This statement rests 
upon the fact, that, when taking observations 
with the artificial horizon, the mercury was 
agitated so constantly as to permit accurate 
sights only at long intervals. Upon one oc- 
casion, while climbing the sides of the volcano, 
there was a most sensible vibration of the 
whole mass ; and at the anchorage many shocks, 
both single and successive, were felt. 

Rumbling sounds, and a dull roar similar 
to the discharge of distant cannon, were heard 
at intervals ; and, though flames were seen only 
upon two occasions, yet this is believed to have 
been due to the little darkness of the season 
at that latitude. 

The mass of the volcano was found ‘‘ to be 
of a species of sand rock, with large black 
rocks scattered about the crust.’’ No traces of 
lava, and but small quantities of pumice, were 
found. In some places the sand and cinders 
were ground to a fine powder, ankle-deep as a 
rule, but so yielding in places as to prevent an 
extended survey. The most careful examina- 
tion revealed no trace of shells, though many of 
the rocks at the base ‘‘ looked as if they had 
been exposed for a long period to the action of 
the water . . . and some of the rocks under 
water were still smoking.’’ When the compass 
was taken ashore, marked local action was so 
noticeable as to prove the presence of iron. 

Near the base of the volcano the water bub- 
bled and broke, as if boiling, but no difference 


was found in the surface and bottom tempera- 


tures; and at the anchorage, where the same 
ebullition was apparent, there was a difference 
of one degree only between the same points. 


y al = eet 
« , ‘ r 


SCIENCE. 


wou ee eee 


[Vou. IV., No. 92. 


Though one of the party reached the summit 
of the crater, no estimate of its periphery, 
depth, and apparent area, could be made. By 
repeated measurements the altitude of its sum- 
mit was found to be three hundred and fifty- 
seven feet. Some discrepancies were found 
on the printed hydrography of the place; for 
example, the reef charted as extending from 
Bogosloff to Umnak does not exist. 

Birds were found upon the old volcano in 
enormous numbers ; gulls, shags, and sea-crows 
being so numerous, that, ‘‘ when a gun was fired, 
the heavens would become black with them,’’ 
and such as flew into the smoke of the belch- 
ing hill, as many did, immediately perished. 
The sand-spit on the eastern shore, and the 
base rocks, were the resting-places for hundreds 
of sea-lions. No fish could be found, though 
lines were frequently put over; and, strangely 
enough, it is recorded, that, three days before 
the eruption on Augustin Island, all the fish are 
said to have disappeared from Port Graham. 


CANAL ROUTES BETWEEN THE ATLAN- 
TIC AND THE. PACIEXG: 


INTERNAL canals, or canals connecting dif- 
ferent parts of the same country, are now rare- 
ly constructed; and many formerly in use have 
been dried up, and superseded by railways ; 
while ship-canals are becoming more common 
and of greater importance than internal canals 
have ever been. The opening of the Suez 
canal has brought back to the Mediterranean 
the commerce of the east. Greece will soon 
have a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, 
with its outlet at the Piraeus of Athens; and 
the Dutch are constructing a ship-canal to con- 
nect Amsterdam directly with the sea. In 
England a canal is to be built from the ocean 
to Manchester, which will make that city a 
seaport town, and transfer to it a large por- 
tion of Liverpool’s commerce. In France a 
canal is proposed between the Mediterranean 
and the Bay of Biscay ; and in Massachusetts 
a canal is cutting across Cape Cod. 

Besides the Panama canal, there are two pro- 
jects for connecting the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, — the Tehuantepec route, advocated 
by Capt. Eads, the engineer of the great rail- 
way bridge at St. Louis and of the water-way 
at the mouth of the Mississippi River; and 
the Nicaragua route, by Capt. Bedford Pim 
of the British navy, for a long time favorably 
known to the scientific world. He was the 
first man who marched from a ship coming 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884. ] 


through Baffin’s Bay to the Navigator, — a ves- 
sel which had entered the ice through Bering 
Strait, and saved the crew of the latter from 
starvation ; thus for the first time solving the 
north-west passage, and proving it impractica- 
ble for commerce. Later, he was the first to 
enter Suez on the locomotive from Cairo, and, 
with the late Robert Stephenson, made a careful 
study of the isthmus, and of the hydrographic 
qualifications of the harbors at Suez and Port 
Said. Subsequently he spent three seasons, 
with a large staff at great labor and expense, in 
making a profile of the Nicaragua route from 
Greytown, through Lake Nicaragua, to the 
Pacific Ocean. 

Count de Lesseps proposes to make the Pana- 
ma canal broad enough and deep enough to 
allow the passage of the largest ships from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. Mr. Eads proposes to 
construct a canal and railway across the Tehuan- 
tepec route, and, in cradles adjusted to large 
cars, to carry the vessels from ocean to ocean 
over this railway; while Capt. Pim’s project 
is to dig a canal eight feet in depth, to raise 
the vessels by hydraulic lifts, and float them 
into a shallow dock on pontoons drawing six 
feet of water, claiming that in this way a 
vessel can cross the isthmus as quickly as by 
a deep-water canal, and that, by clearing the 
ship’s bottom of barnacles during the passage, 
a further saving of time may be effected. 

Capt. Pim objects to the Panama route on the 
grounds that the difference in the height of the 
water at Aspinwall and Panama will render it 


difficult, and without locks impossible, for ves-. 


sels to enter and leave the canal; that Panama 
is within the equatorial calm-belt, where the 
periodical calms continue ten or eleven months 
in the year (his own vessel, the Herald, was 
towed 700 miles from the land before reach- 
ing a breath of wind), and that on this account 
it will take a longer time for sailing-vessels to 
go to San Francisco by the Panama canal than 
by Cape Horn. 

He says, that, when the Panama railway was 
built, it was expected that large quantities of 
oil would be shipped over it; but no whaler 
has ever reached Panama. He estimates that 
the cost of this route will be not less than 
$150,000,000, or nearly twice as much as that 
of the Nicaragua route, the U.S. engineers 
estimating the cost of the latter at $82,000,000. 
The proposed route through Nicaragua (see 
the accompanying chart) is by a canal from 
Greytown to a dam to be constructed on the 
San Juan River, from there, by the river, to 
Lake Nicaragua, across the lake, and thence 
by a canal to the Pacific Ocean, making a total 


SCIENCE. 


435 


distance of 173.57 miles. The surface of Lake 
Nicaragua is 107 feet above the level of the 
Atlantic, and the height of the land between 
the lake and the Pacific is 147.7 feet, requir- 
ing a cut of 40 feet to bring the canal to the 
lake-level. This necessitates a series of five 
locks between the Atlantic and Nicaragua, and 
seven between the lake and the Pacific. There 
was formerly an excellent harbor at Greytown, 
but it was filled up by the silt coming down the 
river ; and at present there are no good ports on 
either side of the route, though it is believed 
that they can be constructed at a moderate ex- 
pense. It is proposed to change the course 
of the river so as to prevent the silt from com- 
ing down, and then to excavate the harbor at 
Greytown ; while at Brito, on the Pacific coast, 
a harbor can be made by the construction of 
two breakwaters. 

Nicaragua is 600 miles nearer San Francisco 
than Panama; and, as stated, sailing-vessels 
from the latter must make a long détour in 
order to obtain the advantage of the monsoons ; 
making a difference of 2,100 miles, or fourteen 
days, in favor of Nicaragua, though on the re- 
turn trip the difference is only about 600 miles, 
or four days. Although tonnage by steamers is 
increasing, yet at the present time the tonnage 
of sailing-vessels largely exceeds that of steam- 
ers. The tonnage of sailing-vessels in 1877, in 
the United States, was twice as great as that 
of steam-vessels, though at the present time it 
is only one-third more. 

The difference in favor of the route from 
Nicaragua to Japan, China, and the Sandwich 
Islands, is over 800 miles, while on the return 
it is only 600 miles, and to India and Aus- 
tralia, 400 miles. It is also stated that vessels 
can sail in a shorter time from Nicaragua to 
Valparaiso and Callao, than from Panama, al- 
though the distance is considerably greater. 
The saving for steamers, however, will not be 
nearly so great, amounting only to the direct 
distance between the two Pacific termini; that 
is, about 1,300 miles for the round trip between 
Panama and San Francisco, or five days in a 
ten-knot steamer. 

The committee appointed by our government 
in 1877, consisting of Gen. A. A. Humphreys 
(chief of engineers), Capt. C. P. Patterson 
(superintendent of the U.S. coast-survey), and 
Commodore Daniel Ammen, ‘after a long, 
careful, and minute study’ of the several sur- 
veys of the various routes across the continent, 
reported unanimously in favor of the Nicaragua 
route as possessing ‘‘ greater advantages, and 
offering fewer difficulties from engineering, com- 
mercial and economic points of view, than any 


.of the increased steam-tonnage. 


436 


one of the other routes shown to be practica- 
ble.’’ 

Admiral Ammen of the U.S. navy, in his 
speech on the Nicaragua route before the 
American association for the advancement of 
science at Philadelphia, said that there were 
2,000,000 tons of grain produced on the Pacific 
coast by English-speaking people, which find a 
market around Cape Horn, mostly in English 
ports; and that there were vast quantities of 
timber-lands, extending from Puget Sound to 
Bering Strait, with the best quality of lumber, 
which can be shipped through this canal most 
advantageously. From time to time, a good 
many estimates of the tonnage that would use 
the canal have been made, nine of which, 
obtained by the U.S. commission, range from 
3,000,000 to 6,000,000 tons of freight, and 
give an average of 3,804,000 tons per year. 
The estimated toll is three dollars per ton, in 
addition to the port charges and other dues; 
but the actual expense to the vessel will de- 
pend upon the rule adopted for ascertaining 
the charge, and whether the tonnage is 
charged upon the actual amount of cargo 
carried, or on the gross tonnage of the vessel. 
The latter, which is the method proposed by 
Mr. de Lesseps, would make the actual cost 
about six dollars for each ton of merchandise 
carried. 

‘¢’The tonnage of the world in 1870 amount- 
ed to 17,963,293 tons, and, in 1879, to 20.,- 
395,815 tons. These amounts were made up 
of steam and sail tonnage, as follows : — 


Steam. Sail. 


15,496,795 tons. 
16,029,594 < 


WHO s 4 ab 6 feo Soe do 16 2,466,498 
4,366,221 


1,899,723 532,799 tons. 


‘From this it will be seen, that, while the 
sailing-tonnage has actually increased, it has not 
done so at arate to compare with the increase 
of the steam-tonnage, which has been facili- 
tated by many causes, prominent among which 
was the opening of the Suez Canal. Sailing- 
vessels cannot use this canal to advantage: 
hence the increased commerce resulting from 
its construction has called into existence much 
It is very 
probable, that, in the event of the opening of a 
canal by way of Nicaragua, the sailing-tonnage 
would increase at a remarkably rapid rate, as 
this route lies in a region which is highly favor- 
able to sailing-vessels.’’ 

GARDINER G. HuBBARD. 


SCIENCE. 


m F 
CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF PRIMITIVE 
LAW. 


A DEFINITION of the term ‘law,’ that will 
hold good under all circumstances, must be 
divested of the many theories of its origin, the 
source of its authority, and its ethical charac- 
teristics, which are expressed or implied in 
customary definitions, and laws must be con- 
sidered as. objective facts. The following 
definition will perhaps do under all circum- 
stances: A law is a rule of conduct which or- 
ganized society endeavors to enforce. 

In civilization, law is theoretically founded 
on justice; but in savagery, principles of 
justice have little consideration. ‘There are 
two fundamental principles at the basis of 
primitive law: viz., first, controversy should 


be prevented ; second, controversy should be 


terminated. <A third is derivative from them; . 
namely, infraction of law should be punished. 

These principles enter into primitive law in 

many curious ways. 

It was customary among the tribes of North 
America for individuals to mark their arrows 
in order that the stricken game might fall 
to the man by whose arrow it had been de- 
spatched. 

A war-party of Sioux surprised a.squad of 
sleeping soldiers, who were all killed at the 
first volley from the Indians. ‘Their arms, 
blankets, and other property were untouched, 
because, the attacking party being large, it 
could not be decided by whose bullets the 
soldiers were killed. 

It has been widely believed that the pr actice 
of placing the property of deceased persons 
in their graves when they are buried has its 
origin in religion, and testifies to the universal 
belief that the dead live again, and will need 
such articles in their new life. But many 
tribes of North America who have not yet 
been long in contact with white men avow, that, 
there being no owner for the property, its dis- 
position might lead to controversy, and hence 
it is destroyed. Many examples of this fact 
have been collected. Ownership to the greater 
part of property in savagery is communal, 
some classes of property being owned by the 
clan, others by the tribe; and for such there 
is no proper inheritance, as the clan and tribe 
do not die; but purely personal property is 
inherited by the grave. It seems probable 
that such is the origin of the custom of bury-- 
ing various articles with the dead. Subse-— 
quently it has religious sanctions thrown about 
it, as have many social customs. 

‘There i is a law, among the tribes of. North 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884.] 


America, that superior age gives authority. 
This law is widely spread, and perhaps uni- 
versal, and exercises a profound influence in 
tribal society, as the occasions for its applica- 
tion are multifarious. Like many other of 
the institutions of tribal society, it is woven 
into the structure of tribal language.  Lin- 
euists have recorded as a curious fact, that in 
these languages there is no single term for 
‘brother,’ but two terms, — one signifying 
‘elder brother;’ and the other, ‘ younger 
brother.’ They have also found similar facts 
relating to the term ‘ sister,’ and to some other 
kinship words; but, so far as I know, they 
have failed to observe that the law applies to 
all consanguineal kinship names. All of these 
titles express relative age between the person 
speaking and the person addressed. Among 


savage tribes the age of an individual is not, 
No man knows his own age; but every 


kept. 
man, woman, and child in the tribe knows his 
relative age to every other person in the tribe, 
—who are older and who are younger than 
himself, — for, in addressing any other person 
in the tribe, he must necessarily use a term 
which implies that the person addressed is older 
or younger. The law that authority inheres in 
the elder is a simple and ingenious method of 
preventing controversy. 

The above is the explanation of another 
curious custom observed among savage tribes ; 
namely, that it is illegal to address a person 
by his proper name. Kinship terms are used 
in direct address, proper names in speaking of 
a third person. It is hardly necessary to state 
that by this device controversy is prevented. 

An interesting form.of outlawry exists among 
some tribes. When a man has frequently in- 
volved his clan in controversy with other clans 
by reason of quarrels or other outrageous con- 
duct, his own may decide no longer to defend 
him, and will formally announce in tribal council 
that such person is no longer under their 
protection. If the person thereafter by his 
conduct maltreats any member of the tribe, 
the injured party may do as he will with the 
offender, and not be held accountable by the 
kindred of the outlaw. 

The few illustrations here given are sufficient, 
perhaps, to make clear what is meant by the 
statement that a large class of savage laws are 
designed to prevent controversy. Many other 
illustrations might be given, for they are found 
on every hand. 

Three especial methods of terminating con- 
troversy are widely spread among the tribes of 
North America. 

When controversy arises in relation to owner- 


SCIENCE. 


437 


ship, the property is usually destroyed by the 
clan or tribal authorities. Thus, if two men 
dispute in bartering their horses, a third steps 
in and kills both animals. It seems probable 
that the destruction of property the ownership 
of which is in dispute is common to all tribes. 

A second method of ending controversy is 
by the arbitrament of personal conflict. For 
example: if two persons disagree and come to 
blows (unless conflict end in the maiming or 
killing of one of the parties), it is considered a 
final settlement, and they cannot thereafter ap- 
peal to their clans for justice. By conflict a 
controversy is outlawed. ‘This law seems to 
be universal. 

The third method of terminating controversy 
is by the establishment of some day of festival 
— sometimes once a month, but usually once 
a year — beyond which crimes do not pass. 
The day of jubilee is a day of forgiveness. 
The working of this principle might be illus- 
trated in many ways. 

We have thus briefly set forth certain prin- 
ciples of primitive law, in order that the sub- 
ject of marriage law in savage society, which 
will form the subject of a future paper, may be 
clearly understood. Law begins in savagery 
through the endeavor to secure peace, and 
develops in the highest civilization into the 
endeavor to establish justice. 

J. W. POWELL. 


SIR WILLIAM THOMSON’S BALTIMORE 
LECTURES. 


THE title ‘Molecular dynamics’ does not give an 
accurate idea of the nature of Sir William Thomson’s 
recent course of lectures at the Johns Hopkins uni- 
versity. The object of the lectures was to consider 
the possibility of placing the wave-theory of light 
upon a perfectly tangible physical basis which should 
be sufficient to account for all the phenomena. The 
lecturer stated at the outset that he would be occu- 
pied more with pointing out difficulties than with 
removing them. He expressed the conviction that 
what takes place in the propagation of light —at 
least through gases, if not through solids and liquids 
—can be represented in its essential features by sup- 
posing a mass of vastly denser matter in the ether, 
bounded by a perfectly rigid shell; this shell sur- 
rounded ata small interval by another perfectly rigid 
spherical shell; and so on. Each shell is connected 
with the one outside it by a number of spiral springs: 
the precise number of the shells is not a vital matter 
in the theory, and the actual number may be infinite, 
i.e., the system of shells may constitute a continuous 
atmosphere to the molecule. The problem of the 
modes of vibration of this system is essentially the 
same as that of a system of particles connected by 


pr eee 
ie Od ak 


438 


springs in a straight line. As for the ether itself, it 
is to be considered as a substance which may not be 
an elastic solid, but which, so far as the luminiferous 
vibrations are concerned, moves as if it were an elas- 
tic solid. The lecturer carried on the mathematical 
discussion of these two dynamical problems — the 
propagation of waves in an elastic solid, and the mo- 
tion of a system jof spring-connected particles in a 
Straight line —side by side, usually devoting the first 
half of a lecture to one problem, and the remainder 
to the other. 

It is impossible here to give any specific account of 
the contents of the lectures; it may be stated, how- 
ever, that many of the cardinal phenomena of light 
were shown to be explicable by the hypothesis 
sketched above, but that the phenomenon of double 
refraction presented apparently insuperable difficul- 
ties, as it has done in all previous attempts to explain 
it. By proper suppositions regarding the elasticity 
of the springs (in the mechanical ‘model’ of the phe- 
nomenon given above) double refraction would indeed 
be produced; but its law would be widely different 
from that actually observed. 

The lecturer was conversational in his manner, 
made almost no use of notes, and was full of enthu- 
siasm for his subject. The audience was composed 
of professors of physics from eastern and western 
colleges, scientific men from Washington, and stu- 
dents and instructors of the Johns Hopkins univer- 
sity. The lectures, while not condensed in form, 
presupposed thorough familiarity with the physical 
and mathematical theories involved. A verbatim 
report of them, from stenographic notes, will.be issued 
in a limited edition, by the use of the papyrograph 
process. At the close of the course, Sir William 
Thomson was presented by the class with one of Row- 
land’s concave gratings, as a memento of their con- 
nection with him. 


NORTH-AFRICAN ARCHEOLOGY. 


AT a meeting of the Academy of natural sciences of 
Philadelphia, Sept. 25, Dr. Daniel G. Brinton called 
attention to a collection of flint-chips collected at the 
station of Ras-et-Oued, near Biban, on the south- 
eastern coast of Tunis, and presented to the academy 
by the Marquis de Nadaillac. The specimens con- 
sisted of flint-chips, arrow-points, and a semi-lunar 
shaped implement of small size, which resembles the 
“stemmed scrapers’ found in America. This form 
was obtained from lower levels below the surface, 
and is characteristic in France of the later produc- 
tions of the stone age, especially of that epoch called 
by the French archeologists ‘the epoch of Roben- 
hausen,’ from the locality of that name in Switzer- 
land. Chronologically this is regarded as the first 
epoch of the appearance of man on the globe, the 
previous implement-using animals being probably 
anthropoids. These made use of stone only, not 
having learned the dressing of bone or horn. This 
view adds to the interest of the query as to the pur- 
pose of these scrapers. 


SCIENCE. 


That they were an important 


te ‘ 


‘[Vot. IV., No. 


distribution. ‘They have been found in France, in 
the Crimea, in India, in America (both North and 
South), and now we have them from Africa. The 
strata in which they have been found are of great 
antiquity. 

The archeology of the North-African coast has 
especial claims to attention, as from there, apparently, 
a very ancient migration advanced northward, pass- 
ing in one direction through Spain, and in another 
by way of Malta, Sicily, and Italy. This migration 
was apparently contemporary with the appearance of 
the Elephas africanus in Europe. Another point of 
interest, connected with North-African archeology, is 
found in the fact that the only locality in the old 
world where animal or effigy mounds have been re- 
ported is in Algiers, near the forest of Tenrit-el-Sad, 
south of Miliana. As these peculiar structures are 
so frequent in the Mississippi valley, the coincidence 
is worth noting. 

Prof. A. Heilprin contended, that while on the 
hypothesis of evolution, no objection could be raised 
to an assumption which made an animal intermediate 
between man and the anthropoid apes sufficiently 
intelligent to understand the full value and manu- 
facture of stone implements, such as were exhibited, 
yet, as a matter of fact, paleontological evidence had 
thus far failed to prove that any such use or manu- 
facture had been made of them, as was claimed. 
Indeed, no evidence was forthcoming to show that 
the implements were not the work of man himself, 
despite the fact that no traces of human remains 
have been found associated with the fragments. The 
assumption that the advent of man dates only to a 
given period of the so-called ‘stone age’ was con- 
sidered to be purely gratuitous, and to rest solely on 
negative evidence. Many archeologists concur in 
the belief that man’s remains may yet be found in 
deposits of a strictly tertiary age. 


THE LIMITATIONS OF SUBMARINE 
TELEGRAPH Y.} 


THE weight of the conductors, says Henry Vivarez 
in La lumiere électrique, plays an important part in 
submarine telegraphy, not merely as a heavy item in 
the outlay, but as one of the principal factors in lay- 
ing down the lines, and in taking them up in case of 
damage. When the conductor is being raised, the 
grappling-irons which lift it have to resist not merely 
the vertical component of the weight of the cable, 
but also the considerable effects resulting from fric- 
tion against the water. It thus frequently happens, 
when working at great depths, that the conductor may 
be exposed to a strain greater than it is able to bear, 
and we are forced to have recourse to stratagems to 
bring it to the surface. These artifices consist in the 
use of two or more ships in raising, which is done as 


shown in figs. 2 and 3, or, in the most simple cases, 


1 Reproduced in abridged form from the Electrical review, 
and the cuts from Za lumiere électrique. 


= 


tool to the primitive man is evident from their wide 


4 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884.] 


with the aid of an. auxiliary buoy, as in fig. 4. In 
any event, we see that the difficulties, and of course 
the cost of raising, must be considerable. 

Hence to decrease the weight of the cables would 
be an important step in advance. If the weight is 
in general very great, it is because the copper core 
does not take any part in the strain which the entire 
eable has to resist. We know, indeed, that copper 
eannot bear a breaking-strain greater, at most, than 
28 kilos per square millimetre. Besides, it would be 


elongated by such a strain by a very considerable 
fraction of its initial length; and, if the core were 
made to take part in any manner whatever in the 
strain which the entire cable has to support, it 
would be drawn out beyond its limit of elasticity, 
and would remain permanently elongated, whilst the 
substances in which it is enclosed would return to 
their natural length. It would result, that, being no 
longer able to find room in a sheath which had be- 
come too short, the copper wire would take a sinuous 
form in its gutta-percha envelope, and would occasion 
at certain points ruptures, the effect of which would 
be to decentralize the wire, to perforate the layer of 
. insulating matter, and finally to open out a fault in 
the cable. 

But there exists an alloy (silicium bronze) which 
can be drawn out into wires having a conductivity 
equal to that of copper, and a mechanical resistance 
equal to that of the best iron. The use of this alloy 
would render it possible to set free the coating of the 


Fie. 2. 


cables from a part of the strain which it now has to 
resist, and to diminish, consequently, their dimen- 
sions and weight. Wires are now made of this alloy, 
having a conductivity of from ninety-seven to ninety- 
nine per cent of the standard, which at 0° C., and 
with the diameter of a millimetre, have a resistance 
of 20.57 ohms per kilometre. These wires do not 
break with a less strain than from 45 to 48 kilos. per 


SCIENCE. 


459 


square millimetre, and, which is a very precious 
property, their increase in length at the moment 
of rupture does not exceed one or one and a half 
per cent. 

Let us consider the deep-sea section of cable of 
the French company from Paris to New York, — the 
so-called *‘ Pouyer-Quertier* cable, constructed and 
laid in 1879 by Siemens Brothers of London. 

The respective weight of each of its component 
elements is, per nautical mile, copper core, 220 kilos. : 


E 


| 


Garo 


gutta-percha, 180 kilos.; hemp, or an equivalent, 80 
kilos. ; 18 wires of galvanized iron of 2 millimetres in 
diameter, 860 kilos.; external hemp and composition, 
400 kilos.: total, 1,740 kilos. Total diameter, 30 mil- 
limetres. Total mechanical strength, 3,000 kilos., the 
wires of the covering being supposed to be of iron. 
Weight under water, 450 kilos. It can support its 
own weight without breaking for a length of from six 
to seven miles. 

The Atlantic presents from north to south, and at 
about an equal distance from each continent, a sort 
of longitudinal ridge, in which the depths vary from 
300 to 400 metres. This ridge spreads out, in 50° 
north latitude, into the region which has received 
the principal wires connecting England and France 
with the United States. On both coasts there are 
depressions in which the bottom is at the depth of 
from 4,000 to 6,000 metres. The one on the east 
extends from the south point of Ireland to the lati- 
tude of the Cape of Good Hope, and its left-hand 


boundary follows the general outlines of the west 
coasts of Europe and Africa. The two_others, the 
north-western and the south-western, form two 
basins, bordering respectively on the United States 
and the Antilles and South America. 

In these depressions soundings have shown certain 
zones in which the depths exceed 6,000 metres, the 
principal of which are found to the west of the Cana- 


es, ee ee | eailled id deh Die 


ries, to the south of Newfoundland, between Porto 
Rico and the Bermudas, and to the right of the Isle 
of Marten-Vaz. 

The great depths of the Pacific are differently dis- 
tributed. Between Japan and California, between 
40° and 50° north latitude, there is the Tuscarora 
depression, which has depths of from 6,000 to 8,000 
metres. Parallel to Japan and the Kuriles there is 
a depression in which has been found the greatest 
known depth, — 8,513 metres. 

We see, therefore, that any new great submarine 
line, having to extend into another zone than that 
which has received the present Atlantic cables, must 
traverse depressions in which the bottom reaches a 
maximum depth of 4,000 metres. The possibility of 
raising a damaged cable would be very problematical 
under such conditions, and it would become certainly 
impossible in case of a cable from San Francisco to 
Japan. 

Under these conditions, we are forced to conclude 
that the use of the present cables limits strikingly 
the progress of submarine telegraphy, which must 
remain confined to certain zones of the Atlantic, to 
inland seas, and to lines along the coasts. But if we 
consider the daily progress of applied science, and 
the constantly increasing demand for rapid com- 
munication between nations, it is certain that we 
must shortly undertake the study of new cables in- 
tended to traverse the greatest depths of the ocean 
for long distances. Necessity, therefore, compels us 
to investigate the new solutions of the problem, 
which may furnish us with light cables, easy to lay, 
and possible to repair. 

A cable made by Mr. J. Richards is composed as 
follows: core of silicium bronze equal in weight to 
that of the ‘Pouyer-Quertier’ cable, or, per nautical 
mile, 220 kilos.; gutta-percha, 180 kilos.; layer of 
hemp, 80 kilos. The sheathing is formed of 28 wires 
of galvanized iron of 1.25 millimetres in diameter, 
each covered with hemp, and all twisted into a rope 
around the dielectric; the wires, 500 kilos.; the hemp 
covering them, 250 kilos. The weight of the cable 
is, therefore, 1,280 kilos. in the air, and 320 kilos. in 
the water. Its diameter is 25 centimetres, and its 
resistance to fracture, 2,800 kilos., of which the core 
supports one-half. Under these conditions, the cable 
can support from eight to nine nautical miles of its 
length, and can be raised from the greatest depths. 
The results of this comparative examination are self- 
evident. 

For an equal conductivity and an approximately 
equal mechanical strength, the new cable is in weight 
and bulk equal to about two-thirds of the Pouyer- 
Quertier cable. It would cost about $165 less per 
mile, and would require, for laying, a ship and engines 
of less power, and therefore cheaper. The reduced 
armature will suffice to resist friction and the attacks 
of animal life in the deep sea; but for the shore ends 
we must keep to the types generally employed. Such 
as it is, and although it may undergo modifications 
in detail from a more complete study and from ex- 
perience, it merits the attention of competent engi- 
neers. 


440 SCIENCE. 


[Vor. IV., No. 92 


THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH 
ASSOCIATION. 


THE twelfth annual meeting of this association, 
held at St. Louis from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17, was one 
of the most successful in the series. The number 
of members present was large; and it is a matter of 
great promise for the association, that state and mu- 
nicipal boards of health were more fully represented 
than at any previous meeting. 

These occasions have a value far beyond the intrin- 
sic merit of the papers presented. The discussions 
are always instructive, often valuable. The sanitary 
questions of municipal life vary essentially in the 
different cities of the Union, and are answered in as 
many ways; and every public-health officer will find 
something to learn, as well as instruction to give. 

Several threadbare topics, which have occupied the 
attention of this body for years, have disappeared 
from the programme, such as vaccination, yellow- 
fever, and malaria. 

The order of exercises, as arranged by the exec- 
utive committee, included the following subjects : 
Hygiene of occupations, Hygiene of the habitations 
of the poor, School hygiene, Adulteration of food, 
Water-pollution, Disposal of sewage by chemical 
action or irrigation, The observable effects upon the 
public health of official sanitary supervision, The’ 
work of state and municipal boards of health, Dis- 
ease-germs, Cremation as a sanitary measure in times 
of great epidemics, Survey of present sanitary situ- 
ation in St. Louis. 

Nearly forty papers upon these topics were sub- 
mitted. By far the larger number were of more than 
average merit, giving rise to interesting and instruc- 
tive debate. The following-named papers contained 
more, perhaps, than the others upon the newer sub- 
jects in sanitary work. 

Dr. Sternberg’s paper upon disease-germs, read 
at the evening meeting of the third day, attracted 
the largest audience of the convention. This paper, 
which was illustrated by a collection of remarkably 
good microphotographs projected upon a screen, 
was substantially a re-statement of observations 
already made, and fortified by additional research. 
His statement that he was still at work upon the 
study of yellow-fever, by means of an abundant ma- 
terial furnished him from Havana, is a source of 
much satisfaction, somewhat diminished by the fact 
that this indefatigable and competent investigator 
carries on his work at his own expense. How long 
will the people of this country be willing to accept 
from the well-appointed laboratories of the old world 
the researches of Koch, Pasteur, and Klein, — in- 
vestigations into diseases of as much importance to 
one side of the Atlantic as to the other, —and still 
hesitate to properly study the one disease peculiar to 
our own continent — yellow-fever ? 

Dr. Sternberg’s assertion that he has douGaeteate 
the non-existence of a yellow-fever germ in the blood 
cannot be strictly accurate. At this day one cannot 
exclude the possibility of making visible, by some at 
present unknown methods, organisms not yet recog- 


= 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884. | 


nized. His own belief as to yellow-fever appears to 
be, that the habitat of the possible germ is in the 
digestive tract, as in cholera. 

Professor Vaughan’s paper on poisonous cheese 
treated a subject that has for a long time been under 
investigation, with no very satisfactory result. He 
has not been able to isolate the poison, which appears 
to be soluble in alcohol, but found it to be constantly 
associated with a very decided acid reaction of the 
cheese. In this view of the case, we have, then, a test 
of easy application in any hand. 

Dr. B. F. Davenport, inspector of drugs for the 
State board of health, lunacy, and charity, of Massa- 
chusetts, and milk-inspector of Boston, read a paper 
descriptive of the work done in his laboratory, which, 
with the work of the state inspectors and analysts, 
has produced a very marked improvement in the milk- 
supply of Massachusetts. 

Surgeon C. Smart, U.S.A., in a paper upon water- 
analysis, present and future, called attention to the 
necessary limitations of a merely chemical analysis 
of water. The determination of the amount of or- 
ganic matter is, after all, not of definite value, unless 
the living organisms that may furnish it can be 
shown to be innocuous. : 

Dr. F. R. Fry of St. Louis presented the results of 
an examination into the artificial mineral waters of 
St. Louis, notably soda-water, which appears to be 
generally made with water from polluted wells. This 
is the danger that also attends the watering of milk. 
The loss in nutriment is often of far less consequence 
than the polluted water of the barnyard or other 
source used. 

A paper upon cremation as a safeguard against 
epidemics, by Rev. G. A. Beugless of Brooklyn, and 
another by Hon. G. M. Keating of Memphis, on 
sanitation by fire, were the occasion for the appoint- 
ment of a special committee to consider the whole 
subject of the disposal of the dead. 

Three conferences of representatives of twenty 
state boards of health were held during the same 
week. At these meetings a representative of the 
Dominion of Canada, and one from the Province of 
Ontario, were present. This assembly was one of un- 
usual importance, since, in the absence of an effec- 
tive national organization, the country must look to 
these bodies for any concerted action in case of the 
appearence of cholera in this country. 

Dr. Rauch of Illinois brought before the conference 
a carefully prepared statement of his views upon the 
value of a proper quarantine, and the claims of the 
states to a protection at the hands of the national 
government, and, failing this, the obligation to pro- 
tect their own borders from invasion by contagious 
disease. His own experience had taught him that 
cholera in this country had invariably accompanied 
the infected person, and the person alone, generally 
an emigrant, surrounded by all the depressing condi- 
tions of his journey. He regarded the disinfection 
of rags, baggage, etc., as of minor importance. He 
concluded by urging upon congress the rehabilitation 
of the National board of health, or the formation of 
some stronger and more largely representative sub- 


SCIENCE. 


441 


stitute, with power and funds sufficient to maintain 
a sanitary quarantine on the seaboard, and official 
inspection of the lines of travel by river and rail in 
the interior, and to assist states and municipalities 
in their efforts to prevent the introduction of disease, 
or to remove it when introduced. 

Dr. Chancellor of Maryland presented his views, 
differing apparently very widely from those brought 
forward by Dr. Rauch. He did not accept the con- 
tagiousness of cholera; did not believe in the value 
of quarantine, which was always attended by the 
danger that a false sense of security was engendered, 
and other necessary sanitary precautions were neg- 
lected. 

Dr. Holt, chairman of the Board of health of Louisi- 
ana, urged a quarantine in the newer and better sense 
of the word, —a detention of passengers and ships 
long enough to secure thorough inspection and dis- 
infection; the shorter the period, the better. 

A committee of five, consisting of Drs. Baker of 
Michigan, Walcott of Massachusetts, Herrick of Lou- 
isiana, Rauch of Illinois, and Bryce of Ontario, to 
whom were referred all the papers read, reported cer- 
tain recommendations which were adopted by the 
conference, receiving the votes of all the states except 
Minnesota; she voting ‘no’ by reason of insufficient 
time to consider so important a subject. 

The main points of this report are the following: — 

That the factors essential to the disease are, — 

1°. The importation of the disease by ships more or 
less directly from its only place of origin, inthe delta 
of the Ganges. 

2°, Local unsanitary conditions favorable to the 
reception and development of the disease. 

5°, Persons sick with the disease, or things infected 
by such sick persons. 

In view of the possible and probable introduction 
of cholera in the coming year, and the constant 
danger from other communicable diseases at foreign 
ports, it was the sense of the committee that the na- 
tional government should maintain a national health 
service which should establish an effective system of 
quarantine, the appointment of medical officers at 
foreign infected ports, the prevention of the landing 
of immigrants until the danger of the introduction of 
cholera by them shall have passed. 

The inspection and quarantine service originally 
devised by the National board was approved. It was 
recommended that congress be urged to appropriate 
five hundred thousand dollars, to be used, the whole 
or as much as necessary, in case of cholera, for the 
purpose of removing the disease and of preventing 
its spread from state to state. A vigorous prosecu- 
tion of the work of local preparation, by cleaning 
foul localities and removing unsanitary conditions 
in anticipation of disease, was insisted upon. The 
concluding sentences of the report are, — 

‘‘ The cause of cholera is contained in the discharges 
of persons affected by the disease or in things infected 
by such discharges. Should the disease reach this 
country, the first case, and after this the first case 
which reaches any given community, should be strict- 
ly isolated. All infective material from these and 


7 


449 


from any subsequent cases should be destroyed in 
such manner as to stamp out the disease.’’ 

The conference adjourned, to meet in Washington 
on the second Tuesday of December. 


EUCLID AS A TEXT-BOOK OF GEOME- 
(Wine 


ALTHOUGH Euclid has long since been superseded 
in the schools of this country, the following statisti- 
cal notes on the extent to which Euclid’s ‘Elements’ 
are still used in other countries may prove of some 
interest to the readers of Science. The figures are 
derived from a list of editions of Euclid’s ‘ Elements’ 
and ‘ Data’ up to the year 1879, contained in a new 
Russian school edition of the ‘ Elements’ by Professor 
Vashchenko-Zakharchenko.! This is a noteworthy 
work in several other respects. Besides numerous 
and extensive notes, and additions to the text, de- 
signed to render Euclid’s treatment of geometry more 
palatable to modern taste, and to fill up some lacunae 
in the old work, the author has prefixed to his trans- 
lation a valuable dissertation on the axioms and pos- 
tulates and on the so-called non-Euclidean geometry 
of Bolyai and Lobachefsky, of which a sufficient- 
ly full sketch is presented. That a man so well 
acquainted with modern investigations of the princi- 
ples of the science of space as Mr. Vashchenko- 
Zakharchenko (a bibliography of this subject is also 
appended to the volume) should prove such an ardent 
adherent of Euclid, pure and simple, for the schools, 
is a truly remarkable fact. A closer inspection of his 
own list of editions of Euclid might have shown him 
that the modern mind does not tend at all in the 
direction of a revival of Euclid’s system and methods 
in geometry. 

This list has 455 entries, of which 2 belong to 
the fifteenth, 84 to the sixteenth, 92 to the seven- 
teenth, 118 to the eighteenth, and 159 to the nine- 
teenth century. This enumeration includes reprints. 
Of really different editions there were, according to 
the author’s count, 80 in the sixteenth, 59 in the 
seventeenth, 50 in the eighteenth, and 115 in the nine- 
teenth century. 

Mr. Vashchenko-Zakharchenko, however, does 
not pretend that his list is complete: indeed, he has 
not attempted to present a full and correct bibliog- 
raphy of all editions of Euclid. The titles are given 
in such an abridged form as to make identification in 


some cases difficult; and typographical errors abound. » 


No American edition appears in Mr. Zakharchenko’s 
list, although several have been published in the 
United States.2 Still, for our purpose the list, as it 
is, will yield some interesting results. We have only 
to group its data so as to show the distribution of the 


1 * The Elements of Euclid, with an explanatory introduction 
and annotations, by M. E. Vashchenko-Zakharchenko. Kieff, 
1880.” 15+747 pp. 

2 The library of congress possesses two American reprints of 
R. Simson’s Euclid, published by Desilver of Philadelphia in 
1825 and 1834 respectively, and an addition of the first three 
books of the ‘ Elements’ (Playfair’s text), with notes, under the 
title ‘‘ The geometry of Euclid: with annotations by Horatio 
Hubbell, Phila., J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1861.” 


SCIENCE. 


(Vou. IV., No. 


various editions among different nations and by cen- 
turies. This is done in the following table: — 


a 3| 2 

Z| .]. all ealleo Bae 

PERIOD. Bl Sel dale s/S) 4! .] 2] Sl ele] ei ¢ 
2 "S| S| S|] ca | Sct a) SRR oe ee eee 
| mE) s|2/8! 8/3] 2] 2) al 2/s| esi 3 

eo) ¢ 3 3 5| 0}.48 = 
S\alslelSe/aalzcialeisialaic| a 
15th century .| 2}- |---|. 4) 422322 eae 
16th se. | 60) 1) 2) 4/12) -| 2) -| -| -| -| -) -| -] 3) -| 84 
17th sc. 6. | 48] 3) 9/16)10) 7) 2) -| -| -| -| -| -| =| 1] 1) 92 
18th “=. | 81) 26)17/18)11) 5) 3) 3) 3) -| -] 1) -| -| -| -|118 
1800 to 18389. .| 9) 15/21} 1) 1) -| -| 1} 2] 2) 1) -| 1) -| 2) -| 56 
1840 to 1879. .| 0} 95) 1] -| 3) -| -| 2) -| -| -| -| -| 1) -| 1/108 
Total . .  . |145/140/50/39)/37/12| 7) 6| 5) 2) 1] 1! 1} 1| 6) 2/455 


There can be only one interpretation of these 
figures. They illustrate in a striking way the fact 
that at present Euclid is used as a text-book in the 
schools in no country but England. 

The English editions constitute thirty-one per cent 
of the whole number in the list, and fifty-three per 
cent of those in the four principal living languages 
(English, French, German, Italian). But this dis- 
proportion only appears in its full significance when 
we take into account the time of publication. In- 
deed, the table shows that up to 1840 the number of 
editions in the above-mentioned four languages is 
almost the same, — viz., 45 in English, 39 in French, 
49 in German, 34 in Italian, — while, within the last 
forty years, 95 English editions have appeared, but 
only 1 German, 0 French, and 3 Italian editions. 

-~In France the yoke of Euclid was thrown off as 
early as the end of the last century. The last 
French school edition of Euclid, according to Mr. 
Zakharchenko’s list, was published in 1778. Thus, 
in France the end of Euclid’s reign coincides with 
the beginning of the epoch of greatest splendor in 
the history of mathematical research; and, indeed, 
it is well known that this change is directly due to 
the influence of that celebrated school of French 
geometers who gave such lustre to the latter part 
of the eighteenth century, and won for France her 
unrivalled supremacy in mathematical science during 
this-period. Legendre’s ‘Elements’ took the place of 
Euclid’s, until he, in his turn, had to yield to more 
modern influences. And as early as 1814, Delambre 
and Prony, in their report on Peyrard’s critical tri- 
lingual edition of the ‘Elements’ and ‘ Data,’ were 
justified in speaking of Euclid’s method as ‘une 
maniére passée de. mode,’ and of his style as ‘au- © 
jourd’hui peu connu.’ 

Italy, Spain, Russia, and other countries, soon fol- 
lowed suit. Everywhere the influence of the French 
school was felt; and, until the last quarter of a cen- 
tury, Legendre supplanted Euclid, when in many of 
these countries there arose schools of geometers who - 
independently provided their countries with excellent 
text-books of their own. In Germany, Euclid held 
his own longer than anywhere else. But, on the 


other hand, opposition to the old system is nowhere 
so universal and uncompromising now; and no- 
where has modern geometry found so many enthusi- 
A. ZIWET. 


astic disciples. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884.] 


SHAFT-SINKING BY FREEZING. 


THE method of shaft-sinking recently invented by 
Mr. F. H. Poetsch of Aschersleben, by means of the 
artificial production of low temperatures, is an illus- 
tration of the new and unexpected directions in 
which chemical and physical processes become of 
use. In sinking shafts for mining and other engi- 
neering purposes, and in the construction of deep 
foundations, the presence of quicksand has always 
been dreaded; for it can be penetrated, if at all, only 
with great difficulty and expense. While the use of 
compressed air has enabled us to sink shafts and place 
foundations in water-bearing strata, we are limited 
to depths not much exceeding one hundred feet by 
the practical inability of the human system to en- 
dure greater air-pressures. Mr. Poetsch has success- 
fully applied to such cases a method of shaft-sinking 
by freezing, which bids fair to remove all the trouble. 
He proposes to do away with the pumps and air- 
compressors, to transform the surrounding liquid soil 
into a solid wall of ice, and in this way to reduce the 
problem of shaft-sinking to that of work in hard, dry 
ground. 

A system of tubes is sunk around and within the 
site of the proposed shaft, and a saline solution such 
as chloride of calcium, of very low temperature, 
having for its freezing-point — 40° F., and passed 
through a Carré ice-machine, is caused to circulate 
through the system by means of inner tubes until 
the semi-fluid soil is solidified by congelation. The 
temperature of the ground has been reduced, in actu- 
al work, from 52° F. to0° F. in twenty days, freez- 
ing within a circle of about five feet diameter around 
each pipe, and producing in the quicksand the solidi- 
ty of sandstone, with all its properties of stability, 
and a conchoidal fracture. 

The method of putting in place the freezing-pipes 
varies with the locality. When the quicksand has a 
slight thickness only, and the shaft is already sunk 
to the water-level, the pipes are simply forced into 
the sand with a sand-pump working inside. This was 
the system actually employed at the Archibald mine, 
near Schneidlingen, Prussia, where twenty-three 
pipes nearly eight inches in diameter were sunk 
through a water-bearing stratum eighteen feet thick, 
and at the Max mine, near Michalkowitz, Upper Si- 
lesia. In other cases a boring-machine is used which 
puts down four pipes at a time, and is worked by the 
water-jet system. If the fluid soil lies at no great 
depth, the holes for the pipes are bored from the sur- 
face, and the pipes are so arranged that the shaft can 
be sunk inside of them; but, when the water-stra- 
tum is ata great depth below the surface, a shaft of 
some three feet greater diameter than the finished 
shaft is first sunk through the firm ground, so as to 
permit of the sinking of the pipes through the fluid 
stratum, and the construction of the final shaft within 
them. 

At the Centrum mine, near Berlin, one hundred 
and seven feet of quicksand had to be penetrated. 
Engineers had been baffled for years in their attempts 
to overcome the difficulties. In thirty-three days, 


SCIENCE. 


443 


with sixteen pipes, Mr. Poetsch had secured a wall of 
ice six feet thick around the shaft area, and the shaft 
is now being excavated and curbed without special 
difficulty. 

A series of bridge-piers is to be sunk by this method 
near Bucharest, Austria. This last contract has espe- 
cial interest; as it will afford a test of the seemingly 
just claim of the inventor, that his plan opens up 
great possibilities in founding bridge-piers. As op- 
posed to the compressed-air process, the main advan- 
tages are in the practical absence of limitation in 
depth, and the relief of the laborers from the effects 
of severe air-pressures. The entire plant can be used 
repeatedly, as the pipes can be withdrawn as soon as 
the ground thaws out. The cost of an undertaking 
can also be estimated in advance with reasonable 
certainty. 

A more detailed description of this process is given 
in the Engineering news, June 7, 1884, based on an 
article from the Zeitschrift fiir berg., hutien., und 
salinenwesen in Preussischen stadte, and in the Engi- 
neering news, July 5, 1884, with illustrations of the 
plant used at the Cenuen mine. 


CHAs. E. GREENE. 


AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY. 


THE American oriental society held its autumn 
meeting at the Johns Hopkins university in Balti- 
more on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 29 and 30. 
A grammar of the Siamese language was reported 
as nearly finished by one of the members, Rev. S. C. 
George. A vocabulary of the Mortlock dialect had 
been offered to the society for publication by a mis- 
sionary in the Caroline Islands, and a translation of 
the Prem Sagar from the original Hindi by the Rev. 
J. M. Jamieson. The Peking missionary association 
sent resolutions respecting the eminent Sinologue, 
Dr. S. W. Williams, the lately deceased president of 
the Oriental society. 

Fourteen papers were presented to the society. 
The extreme east was represented by a paper on the 
Korean numerals and alphabet. Mr. Rockhill, an 
attaché of the U. S. embassy to China, presented to 
the library a Tibetan book of poems by Milaraspa, a 
Buddhist missionary of the eleventh century; and his 
paper gave an account of the work, with specimen 
translations. The president of the society, Professor 
Whitney of Yale, discussed a group of aorist-forms 
in Sanscrit. The forms in question are of especial 
interest, inasmuch as they furnish a good test-case 
for the general trustworthiness of the Hindu science 
of grammar, as compared with the most modern treat- 
ment of the subject. Professor Bloomfield of Johns 
Hopkins discussed the position of the Vaitana sutra 
in the literature of the Atharva-veda, an important 
text of which, the Kaucika sutra, he is now editing. 
Several Syriac and Hebrew papers of value were pre- 
sented; but we must pass them by for want of suf- 
ficient space. 

In Assyriology, finally, there was an account by 
Professor Lyon of Harvard, of the last instalment of 


oe of Ca are 


444 


the cuneiform inscriptions of western Asia. This 
contains a great deal of linguistic and historical ma- 
terial; e.g., a list of four hundred and eighty Assyrian 
verbs so arranged as to show an aquaintance with an 
alphabet on the part of the writer. We find, first, a 
series of groups of verbs whose first and second con- 
sonants are the same; and, secondly, within these 
groups, they are arranged according to their final 
consonant. This is the first inscription showing 
alphabetic order, and the alphabet is substantially 
the same as the Hebrew. Unfortunately the tablet 
is not dated. There is also an historical tablet of 
Nabunaid or Nabonetus, who was king when Cyrus 
took Babylon. Nabunaid tells how he restored the 
temple of the sun-god, and states that in renewing 
the foundations he discovered an old inscribed tablet 
that had been placed there by Naram-Sin, thirty-two 
hundred years before his own day, i.e., about 3750 
B.C. The interest in archeology, therefore, is itself 
something very ancient. 


ACTS EGE. 


Light. By P. G. Tarr. Edinburgh, Adam and 
Charles Black, 1884. 8+276p. 8°. 


Tus book, uniform with ‘ Heat’ by the same 
author, possesses in an eminent degree the 
qualities which render all books from Pro- 
fessor Tait eagerly welcomed by students 
of physical science. Although written prima- 
rily for the use of university students, it con- 
tains much which would interest and instruct 
one who has never pursued a definite course 
of study in physics, while there is not a little 
which will demand close attention from even 
a well-equipped student. 

The first chapter gives a brief but perspic- 
uous historical sketch of the discoveries in 
the science of light, down to the work of 
Alhazen. This is followed by chapters on the 
sources of light, and an admirable treatment 
of the consequences of the rectilinear propa- 
gation of light-waves. Chapter vi. treats of 
the speed of light. Chapters vii. to x. inclu- 
Sive are devoted to the phenomena of reflec- 
tion and refraction. Of notable excellence in 
the last of these, is the discussion of the rain- 
bow and halos. 

The eleventh chapter, doubtless, contains 
most that is novel to the general reader; for 
in it is an explanation of refractions in a non- 
homogeneous medium, including as_ special 
cases the phenomena of mirage. For the solu- 
tion of the most interesting problems presented 
by these frequently recurring phenomena, we 
are indebted to Professor Tait more than to 
any other investigator ; and probably no other 
writer could give in such a simple form so clear 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 92. 


a presentation of the subject. The last section 
of this chapter the author devotes to a eulogy 
on his master, Sir W. R. Hamilton, and an 
emphatic assertion of the necessity of extended 
mathematical study for the student of physics. 
This concluding paragraph is as important as 
it is characteristic in style, and may well be 
quoted. It reads as follows :— | 


‘¢ We have thought it absolutely necessary to point 
out, even in an elementary work like this, that such 
a perfectly general method [Hamilton’s principle of 
varying action] has been developed; but the few 
fragmentary illustrations of it, which alone can be 
given without the use of higher mathematics, are so 
inadequate to the proper exhibition of its power, that 
we do not give them here. We have said enough to 
show that any one who wishes really to know the 
science as it now stands must previously prepare 
himself by properly extended mathematical study. 
When he is possessed of this indispensable instru- 
ment, he may boldly attack the precious stores of 
knowledge already accumulated. ‘There is, as yet, no 
admission to any but those possessed of this master- 
key.”’ 


Fluorescence and absorption, with the at- 
tendant phenomenon of anomalous dispersion, 
form the subject-matter of chapter xil., which 
contains a highly interesting extract from a 
recent letter by Professor Stokes on the subject 
of fluorescence. ‘The next chapter introduces 
the undulatory theory of light; the remainder 
of the book being a development of its con- 
sequences, including, in the final chapter (xvi.), 
radiation and spectrum analysis. An appendix 
contains, 1°, Hamilton on theories of light ; 
2°, Huygens on rays; and, 3°, the well- 
known and astonishing letter of Laplace to 
Young, on the undulatory theory. An index 
closes the volume. 

Though the book is, perhaps, the most im- 
portant acquisition to the literature of its class 
for a number of years, there is one particular 
in which we could have looked for something 
better. The theory of lenses given is the old 
one, which has hardly been improved since the 
time of Kepler, and which is repeated in all 
English elementary works on physics. By it 
the approximations are so very imperfect that 
they are next to useless in practice ; while, by 
employing Gauss’s improvements in the theory, 
formulas no more complicated in form, and 
hardly more difficult in derivation, could be 
given, which are of the greatest utility. It has 


- long been the practice in German works, writ- 


ten for students no more advanced than those 
who will be the readers of this work, to give 
the Gaussian theory ; and it is not easy to see ~ 
why English writers should have been so slow 
in adopting it. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884.] 


THE MAMMALS OF THE ADIRON- 
DACKS. 


The mammals of the Adirondack regiun, north-eastern 


New York. By Cuinron Harr MEeErriIAM, 
M.D. New York, Foster pr., 1884. 10+3816 p. 
=. 


Few recent works on our native animals will 
be perused with keener interest by the general 
reader than Dr. Merriam’s ‘Mammals of the 
Adirondack region ;’ it being a popular narra- 
tive of the habits of the mammals of the great 
Adirondack wilderness, and ‘in no sense,’ as 
our author states, ‘ a technical treatise.’ Based 
almost wholly on original observation, in the 
main the author’s own, it differs widely from 
the ordinary works on such subjects, every 
page bearing strong evidence of long-con- 
tinued, intelligently and patiently conducted 
field-work. 

The region under consideration occupies por- 
tions of twelve counties, and has an area about 
one hundred and twenty miles square. It is 
made up of mountains and short ranges of high 
hills, which, conforming to no regular axis, con- 
stitute irregular groups of isolated peaks, nearly 
thirty of which attain a height of three thou- 
sand feet, while five exceed five thousand. The 
region is everywhere studded with beautiful 
lakes, two of which are more than four thou- 
sand feet above sea-level. The western border 
of the area has an altitude of about a thousand 
feet; the land rises thence eastwardly to its 
highest part, along the eastern border, where 
the elevation falls abruptly to the level of Lake 
George, three hundred and forty-three feet 
above the sea. The region is mainly covered 
with evergreen forests, composed very largely 
of a single genus (Abies) of coniferous trees. 

Owing to the elevation and northern position, 
the fauna of the Adirondacks is distinctly and 
almost purely ‘ Canadian.’ Snow covers the 
ground for nearly half the year, with a mid- 
winter average of over four feet indepth. Dur- 
ing this season the temperature often falls to 
—25° F., and sometimes to —40° F.; while 
‘‘ variations of forty, fifty, and sixty degrees 
Fahrenheit are by no means uncommon,”’ and a 
fall of over seventy degrees in fifteen hours has 
been observed. 

With its isolation, its almost unbroken 
forests, and its peculiar topographic and cli- 


matic features, no region of equal extent east 


of the Rocky Mountains, doubtless, offers so 
great attractions to the naturalist. 

Dr. Merriam, in his ‘ General introduction,’ 
devotes some sixteen pages to the topographic, 
climatic, floral, and faunal features of the re- 


SCIENCE. 


445 


gion, and then treats in detail the forty-six 
species enumerated, in systematic order. ‘Two 
of the species (harbor-seal and fox-squirrel) 
are given as accidental stragglers; and it is 
presumed that one or two shrews, and two or 
three bats, are still to be added to the list. The 
wolverine, moose, and elk are recorded as 
extirpated, the last moose having been killed 
about 1861, while the elk and the wolverine 
have not been seen there for nearly half a 
century. 

Dr. Merriam writes, in the main, tersely and 
in good taste; although his impatience with 
popular fallacies leads him here and there to 
almost undue positiveness of expression, even 
though his position may be unassailable. His 
pages are replete with information gathered 
from personal observation and from trust- 
worthy hunters and guides, and show a famil- 
larity with the region and its natural productions 
which only long experience could give. Par- 
ticularly noteworthy is his account of the pan- 
ther (Felis concolor), which, owing to the 
bounty placed upon it by the ‘ state’ in 1871, 
is now approaching extirpation. Contrary to 
current opinion and the authority of respectable 
authors, this animal is represented as ‘‘ one of 
the most cowardly of beasts, never attacking 
man unless wounded and cornered.’’ ‘The 
wolf, common twelve years ago, is now com- 
paratively rare, the special cause of the de- 
crease not being obvious. 

Nineteen very interesting and entertaining 
pages are devoted to the skunk, — apparently 
a special favorite of our author, —in which a 
number of popular fallacies are exposed, among 
them the belief that the bite of the skunk is 
usually fatal through giving rise to a peculiar 
kind of hydrophobia, which has. been named 
‘rabies mephitica.’ Dr. Merriam claims that 
a bite from a healthy skunk is in no way dan- 
gerous, as he has found by personal experience, 
but that skunks, like other animals, are sub- 
ject to rabies, and, when thus afflicted, are 
of course dangerous. 

There are thirty pages which relate to the 
common Virginia deer, the only existing 
ungulate of the region, in which the matter 
of ‘ spike-horn bucks’ very naturally receives 
special attention. In 1869 a writer in the 
American naturalist stated that he had hunted 
deer in the Adirondacks for twenty-one years, 
but not till within the last fourteen years had 
he begun to hear of spike-horn bucks. ‘‘ The 
stories about them multiplied, and they evi- 
dently became more and more common from 
year toyear. . . . These spike-horn bucks are 
now [1869] frequently shot in all that portion 


446 


of the Adirondacks south of Raquette Lake.’’ 
The spike-horn was described as differing great- 
ly from the common antler of the species, it 
consisting of a single spike, more slender, and 
about half as long as the antler, projecting for- 
ward from the brow, and giving ‘‘ a consider- 
able advantage to its possessor over the common 
buck.’’ In consequence of this advantage, the 
‘spike-horns’ were said to be ‘ gaining upon 
the common bucks,’ with the prospect that in 
time they might ‘entirely supersede them in 
the Adirondacks.’ The descendants of the 
original spike-horn—‘ merely an accidental 
freak of nature’ —are supposed by this writer 
to have propagated the peculiarity ‘‘in a con- 
stantly increasing ratio, till they are slowly 
crowding the antlered deer from the region they 
inhabit.’’ 

Although this view of the case was criticised 
by subsequent writers in the Naturalist, the 
original account attracted the attention of Mr. 
Darwin. who cites it, and generalizes from it 
in his ‘ Descent of man.’ It has since been 
affirmed by high authorities that the ‘ spike- 
bucks’ of the Adirondacks are all nothing 
more than yearling bucks with their first ant- 
lers. 

Dr. Merriam scouts the idea (and we think 
with good reason) that the ‘spike-bucks’ 
(which have obtained no little celebrity, and 
been the basis of much speculation with some- 
what visionary writers on evolution) are a dis- 
tinct race of deer, and is able to cite but a single 
exception to the rule that ‘ spike-horn bucks 
are always yearlings,’—that of a maimed, 
very aged, ill-eonditioned animal. This ex- 
ception he views as an illustration of the ten- 
dency in extreme age for certain parts to revert 
to a condition resembling that of early life, and 
of the fact that ill-nourished bucks bear stunted 
and more or less imperfect antlers. All year- 
lings, however, do not have true spike-horns ; 
and, if the term be made to include all un- 
branched antlers, Dr. Merriam inclines to the 
belief that two-year old bucks may sometimes 
grow them. ‘The myth of the spike-horn, like 
many other myths in science, will doubtless 
still live on, with the characteristic persistency 
of fanciful errors. 

Dr. Merriam’s observations respecting the 
bats, the moles, and the shrews, throw much 
light upon their obscure ways of life, in con- 
finement as well as in a state of nature. His 
biographies of the rodents are also full of fresh 
material. Attention may be especially directed 
to the accounts of the gray and red squirrels, 
not less for their grace of diction than for their 
fulness of detail, and vividness of portrayal. 


SCIENCE. 


‘in tropical America. 


40 


[Von. IV., No. 92. 


THE MOSSES OF NORTH AMERICA. 


Manual of the mosses of North America. By Lro 
LEsQUEREUX and [THomas P. JAMES. With 
six plates illustrating the genera. Boston, S. E. 
Cassino & Co., 1884. 447 p. 8°. 


THanks to our sole surviving bryologist, 
the venerable Lesquereux, we have at length 
a comprehensive manual of North-American 
mosses. In connection, first with Sullivant 
until his death, and more recently with James, 
who devoted himself unweariedly to the neces- 
sary microscopical investigation up to the 
very day almost of his passing away, Mr. 
Lesquereux has for years been more or less 
actively engaged in this work, and now hap- 
pily sees its completion. Those who have 
been attracted to this most interesting family 
of plants, but have been deterred from their 
study by the dearth of accessible books upon 
the subject, will here find their chief wants sup- 
plied. It throws open to our younger botanists 
a broad field, where much can be done, and 
needs to be done, and where enviable reputa- 
tions may be won by patient, skilled, and judi- 
cious workers. | 

The history of our mosses begins with Dil- 
lenius, who had received about a score of 
species from John Bartram, colonus curiosus 
of Philadelphia, and from Mitchell and Clayton 
of Virginia, describing and figuring them in 
his ‘ Historia muscorum,’ in 1741. Some 
others of Clayton’s collection were described 
later by Gronovius, but only seven of these 
species were recognized as from America by 
Linné, in his works.t The first edition of 
Sullivant’s ‘ Mosses of the United States’ 
(originally published in the first edition of 
Gray’s Manual, in 1848) included 205 species, 
of which 51 were exclusively American. In 
the second edition (1856) the number was 
increased to 402, the American species being 
143. In the present work, with a wider range, 
there are described 883 species, 363 confined 
to North America, and 21 others found only 
Of these American 
species, one-half (180) were detected and 
described by our own Sullivant, Lesquereux, 
James, and Austin; the remainder by Eu- 
ropeans ; there having been scarcely a bryolo- 
gist, from Hedwig and Schwaegrichen to the 
present generation, that has not been concerned 
with them. A considerable number of these 
species have been made on scanty material 


1 One of these Linnean species is not referred to in the 
manual; viz., Phascum caulescens, based upon the ‘ Sphagnum 
foliis teneribus, graminis, pellucidis,’ of Dillenius, which is Tetra- 
plodon australis, Sulliv. and Lesq.; to which must now be added 
the needless synonyme, Tetraplodon caulescens, Lindberg. 


~, 


4 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884.] 


from a single locality, and are of questionable 
validity. They have, however, to be recog- 
nized in a work like this, and in the want of 
positive evidence to exclude them; and it re- 
mains for future students to determine their 
true status. 

Late European authorities are here followed 
in separating the anomalous genera Sphagnum 
and Andreaea as distinct orders; while in 
the Bryaceae, or mosses proper, Schimper’s 
arrangement is in general adopted, with an 
occasional consolidation of his too numerous 
tribes and genera, — notably in the case of 
the genus Hypnum, which, under twenty-eight 
subgenera, is made to include nearly a fourth 
of all the species. By several artificial and 
analytical keys the student is aided in referring 
his plants to their proper tribes and genera, 
the characters of which, as well as of the 
species, are given with sufficient fulness and 
detail. The synonymy and citation of author- 
ities, while not numerous, are such as to be 
of service to the student capable of benefiting 
by them. ‘The habitat and range within our 
limits is given under each species, but not 
always with sufficient definiteness; and it is 
rarely that there is any indication that a species 
is also exotic, except as it may be inferred 
from the citation of Bruch and Schimper’s 
figures in the ‘ Bryologia Europaea.’ The 
nomenclature, too often a weak point with 
bryologists, is, on the whole, to be commended 
as in conformity with accepted rules, though 
subject to criticism in some cases; as where 
the generic names, Ulota, Tetraphis, and 
Atrichum, are retained in place of the earlier 
Weissia, Georgia, and Catharinea of Ehrhart. 
The views of Mueller, Mitten, and Lindberg, 
when not followed, are in many cases given in 
the synonymy. 

The publishers have made the book attractive 
by large, clear type and good paper. Many 
would doubtless have preferred a somewhat 
smaller type and thinner paper, by which the 
bulk of the volume might have been reduced 
at least one-half. Publishers should remember 
that the convenience of a ‘ handbook’ is in- 
versely as its size. S. W. 


GEOLOGY OF SOUTH-EASTERN 
PENNSYLVANIA. 


Theses préesentées a la Faculté des sciences de Lille uni- 
versité de France pour obtenir le grade de docteur és- 
sciences naturelles. Par PERSIFOR FRAZER, 
A.M. Lille, 1882. [6]+179p.,4pl. 4°. 


Tuts work is based upon the author’s labors 
as a member of the second geological survey 


SCIENCE. 


447 


of Pennsylvania during the seven years from 
1874 to 1881, being essentially a synopsis of his 
published reports (C1, C?, C?, C*) on Adams, 
York, Lancaster, and Chester counties. These 
counties, with the addition of Delaware and 
Philadelphia counties, which are geologically 
but an extension of Chester county, include 
all that part of Pennsylvania south of the belt 
of triassic sandstone, stretching from the Del- 
aware to the Susquehanna, and east of South 
Mountain. 

Professor Frazer recognizes, in the rocks of 
this limited area, representatives of the four 
principal divisions of geological time, — the 
cenozoic, mesozoic, paleozoic, and eozoic 
eras. The tertiary beds, however, are of no 
commercial or structural importance, being 
restricted to a few small isolated patches of 
marl and lignite. The mesozoic or secondary 
rocks are, of course, the triassic sandstones, 
shales, and trap, concerning the limits and age 
of which geologists are generally agreed. 
With these exceptions, this is essentially a 
region of crystalline rocks; and the interest 
of this memoir undoubtedly centres in the 
chronological disposition of these stratified 
crystallines made by our author, who evinces 
an appreciation of the difficulties attending 
any solution of this vexed problem in citing the 
singular fact that those sections of the United 
States which are the seats of the densest 
population and the oldest civilization are 
precisely those where the opinions of geologists 
concerning the age of the rocks present the 
greatest divergence. 

These rocks, and their extension in other 
states of the Atlantic seaboard, have been the 
principal battle-ground of American geologists 
for the last forty years. In all regions the 
chief difficulties which they present are their 
structural complexity, and the general absence 
of organic remains. But to these we have 
added, in the district in question, a topography 
affording few reliable outcrops of the rocks. 
The Susquehanna forms a remarkable natural 
section of this region, crossing the strike of 
all the formations between the coal-measures 
and the fundamental gneiss. But even here 
the exposures are few and poor, although what 
is definitely known of the succession of the 
lower formations in Pennsylvania has been in 
great part derived from the study of the rocks 
along this river and the Schuylkill. 

Our author regards these crystalline rocks 
as belonging largely to the older eozoic forma- 
tions, and accepts Dr. Hunt’s definitions of the 
Laurentian and Huronian systems, referring 
to the former the porphyritic and hornblendic 


448 


gneisses, with their accompanying coarse lime- 
stone and graphite ; and, to the latter, a large 
part of the chlorite and mica schists, and ser- 
pentine, with associated limestone, steatite, and 
argillite, and chrome and nickel ores, east of 
the Susquehanna, and the felsitic, chloritic, 
epidotic, and quartzose rocks of the South 
Mountain. ; 

The felsites are said to be distinctly inter- 
stratified with the other rocks named, and the 
theory of their igneous origin is vigorously 
combated. ‘The position of the Huronian in 
this region is shown to be clearly above the 
Laurentian, and below the primal sandstone ; 
but it is also allowed to fill this great gap, to 
the exclusion of the Montalban system, which 
Dr. Hunt has recognized here. 

The Taconian system is not admitted to 
the Pennsylvania column; but the quartzite, 
schists, marble, argillite, and iron-ores claimed 
by its defenders are referred, as by the first 
survey, and by Lesley, Dana, etc., to the Cam- 
brian. With the exception of the Scolithus, 
found in a small part of the so-called primal or 
Potsdam series, all these rocks are alike unfos- 
siliferous. Lithologically and stratigraphically 
they present little resemblance to the primal, 
auroral, and matinal west of the great valley 
and in New York; and hence the confident 
reference of these semi-crystalline rocks to the 
horizons named seems to rest on a very slender 
basis of facts. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THE English astronomers continue their obser- 
vations of the great red spot on the planet Jupiter 
with all the enthusiasm of past years; one observer, 
Mr. Stanley Williams, obtaining, as early as the morn- 
ing of Sept. 20, a favorable sight of that part of the 
disk of Jupiter which should be occupied by the red 
spot. It was still a visible object, although, at the 
then unfavorable position of the planet, one of ex- 
treme difficulty and delicacy. Only a very occasional 
glimpse of it could be obtained at all, as a faint patch 
of no particular color or boundary, until after its tran- 
sit of the central meridian, when the spot was once 
seen in its entirety, and with a distinct reddish tinge 
about it. The great hollow in the red south equato- 
rial belt still remains visible, but it appears to have 
much diminished in plainness. Mr. Williams has 
also observed three equatorial white spots, one of 
which is probably identical with a well-known white 
spot which has been followed for many years. The 
red spot has also been re-observed by Mr. Denning. 


— At the October meeting of the Natural science 
association of Staten Island, Mr. Davis exhibited a 
specimen of one of our green grasshoppers, Cono- 
cephalus dissimilis, which he had found without any 


SCIENCE. 


a 


[Vou. IV., No. 9% 


head, and stridulating while perched upon a blade — 
of grass. When touched by the finger, the insect 
did not close its wings tightly, as usual, but let them 
remain far apart. It had evidently not been long 
decapitated; for, when captured, the muscles in the 
thorax had their normal appearance. But gradually 
the tissues dried, and on the third day of its captivity 
it died without having stridulated again, though 
every means thought of was employed to induce it. 


— Dr. David Gill, her majesty’s astronomer at the 
Cape of Good Hope, will contribute the article on 
parallax for the forthcoming volume (xviii.) of the 
ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 


—Dr. E. B. Tylor, in an address to the anthro- 
pological society of Washington a few weeks ago, in 
which he narrated some of his experiences among 
the Mohaves and Zufiis last summer, said the Mohave 
has the same abhorrence of parting with a lock of his 
hair that is shown by an Italian or a Spaniard. The 
Zufi uses the same sound-producing piece of wood 
to warn the women away from certain rites attending 
the admission of youths to the privileges of manhood 
as is used for a like purpose both in Africa and Aus- 
tralia. The latter consists of a piece of wood at- 
tached to a thong, and well known in England as a 
‘bull-roar,’ from the character of the noise it makes 
when whirled rapidly. The use of bark skirts by 
the Zufii women, who now wear a part of them 
under their joined red handkerchief robes, is paral- 
leled by that of the Australian females. The Zufiis 
wore these originally in two parts, — one in front, and 
the other at the back, — forming, when both in place, 
a complete covering for the lower part of the body. 
Now that cotton-cloth is procurable, they make a 
skirt of bright-colored handkerchiefs sewed together, 
and wear this outside the bark garment, only the rear 
half or bustle of which they wear. The Australian 
women preserve the ancient custom by putting on 
bark skirts on festival occasions. Both customs show 


_a tendency to survival, and a corresponding mode of 


perpetuating an ancient usage. 


—A correspondent of the Science monthly writes 
that for the last year he has been engaged in the her- 
ring-fishery on the Kintyre coast, and has often been 
surprised during the night to hear a strange chirp- 
ing-sound, like the far-away disconsolate ‘chirp’ of 
some small dying bird. ‘‘It was something in the 
air, and always portended southerly winds and foul 
weather, and was known everywhere as the ‘ Cheep- 
ach,’ ’’ was all the explanation that his mates had to 
offer. It is most frequently heard from the begin- 
ning of August till the end of November, and is never 
heard before sunset or after sunrise, but always 
during the darkness of night. It is never heard 
ashore, but often enough within two or three hun- 
dred yards of it. It is generally heard whilst sailing, 
but sometimes, though rarely, while lying at anchor. 
It is always accompanied by a dampness in the atmos- 
phere, though never with rain, so far as he remem- 
bers. The sound is so very like the chirp of a bird 
that superstitious fishermen attribute it to the ghosts 
of little birds that have blown to sea and drowned. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1884. ] 


— Professor James Hall has been elected member 
of the French academy in the place of the late Dr. J. 
Lawrence Smith. 

— The experiments on the relative efficiency of 
different illuminants for lighthouse purposes, which 
are being carried out in England by the Trinity 
brethren, have in some respects been completed; and 
they support the conclusions previously arrived at, 
in that there seems to be little difference between gas 
and paraffine-oil for all practical purposes, except that 
the gaslight is slightly superior in fine weather, but 
then the electric light has proved vastly better than 
either. The crucial test of the latter, however, is in 
hazy weather; and it is stated, that, in some of the 
observations made when the weather was rather 
thick, this light did not hold its own against the other 
illuminants. Important tests will be made this 
autumn, when hazy weather, and a greater variety in 
the conditions of the atmosphere, may be expected. 

— A well-equipped expedition to East Africa will 
be undertaken by Dr. Dominik von Hardeggar in 
the autumn. The first object of the expedition will 
be to explore the stretch of country between Sela 
and Harar, then that town itself and its neighbor- 
hood. Lastly, if the circumstances are favorable, 
it will penetrate the land of the Somali to Ogaden, 
or go through to Schoa. The geographical and eth- 
nographical studies of the expedition will be under- 
taken by Professor Paulitschke; the geological and 
zoological, by Dr. von Hardeggar himself. A physi- 
cian and assistant naturalist will accompany the 
‘party. 

— The university of Freiburg, in Saxony, is to have 
an institute of zodlogy, Professor Weismann having 
made it a condition of his remaining there. 

— The seventh general congress of German analyt- 
ical chemists was held this year at Munich on the 9th 
of August, and the work of the honorary committee 
continued. The resolutions passed mostly referred 
to the restrictions of the German laws. 

— At a recent meeting of the Physiological ee 
of Berlin, Professor Kronecker spoke of a series of 
precautionary measures to be observed in cases of 
saving life by an infusion of common salt solution. 
He first described how animals, after severe loss of 
blood, recovered in the best and most rapid manner 
by introducing into their blood-channels a like quan- 
tity of common salt solution. In the case of infu- 
sions of albuminous solutions, of serum sanguinis, 
and even of the blood of another individual of the 
same species deprived of its fibrine, there was, accord- 
ing to direct measurements, an invariable destruc- 
tion of blood-corpuscles. With infusions of common 
salt solution, on the other hand, blood-corpuscles 
were seen to increase somewhat rapidly. Professor 
Kronecker then proceeded more particularly to lay 
down precautionary rules to be observed in applying 
this agency to man. In the first place, the compo- 
sition of the solution must be such as was most com- 
patible with the human organism. It would appear 
that a solution of 0.73 % exercised the least irrita- 
tion on the human body, and was therefore the most 


SCIENCE. 


449 


appropriate for infusions designed to save life. The 
addition of the carbonate of an alkali, recommended 
by some, had an injurious effect. Of great importance 
were the velocity and pressure with which the infu- 
sion was injected: both ought to correspond with the 
velocity and pressure in the vein into which the solu- 
tion entered. The common salt solution should, 
further, be disinfected beforehand by boiling, and the 
air which penetrated into the reservoir while it was 
being emptied must be filtered by means of a wadding 
stopper. The injurious effect of too strong pressure 
was illustrated by a comparative experiment on two 
rabbits. 


— The reduction in letter-postage from three to 
two cents commenced on Oct. 1, 1883. It is interest- 
ing to note the effects of this reduction on the postal 
business of the country as deduced from the returns 
for the year ending June 31, 1884. During the first 
three months of the year the three-cent rate was in 
effect, and the sale of stamps was much reduced in 
anticipation of the reduced rate. The increase in the 
sale of ordinary postage-stamps for the five years 
ended June 51, 1883, was 10.1%; for the year 1883 the 
increase was 8.6%. It is probable, that, owing to the 
general stagnation in business industries, the increase 
would have been less than 8% in 1884 but for the re- 
duction of postage. There was, however, an actual 
increase of 21% in the number of ‘ ordinary postage- 
stamps’ sold, or from 1,202,743,000 to 1,459,768,000, 
—an increase of 12.4% over the year 1883, and of 11% 
over the average increase for five years. The revenue 
from the sale of these stamps was $30,307,000 in 
1883, $29,077,444 in 1884, —a diminution of $1,230,- 
000, or 4%. The issue of postal-cards has heretofore 
increased more rapidly than that of letters, or at the 
rate of 13.7% a year on the average for the five years 
mentioned. During the last year the number dimin- 
ished 4.4%, or from 379,000,000 to 362,000,000. In the 
natural growth of the business, the postal revenue 
for the next year will probably be greater under the 
low rate than it has ever been under the high rate. 


—Mr. Maxim, the electrician, has invented a 
machine-gun by which the energy of the recoil from 
one ‘discharge is employed to load and fire the next 
round. The rate of firing is controlled by a lever; 
and, when the gun is once adjusted to a certain desired 
speed, it goes on firing at that rate until all the am- 
munition in the magazine is exhausted, whether the 
man in charge be killed or not. The maximum 
rate of firing, when the bullets have an initial velocity 
of twelve hundred feet per second, is six hundred 
rounds per minute. 


-— The U.S. signal-service is about to undertake 
the publication of a general bibliography of meteor- 
ology and allied topics (such as earthquakes, terres- 
trial magnetism, and meteors), and requests from 
the writers of all countries a complete list of their 
contributions to the literature of these subjects, in- 
cluding the titles of all separate works, papers, and 
published observations. The number of titles already 
on hand is about thirty-five thousand. Especial at- 
tention is invited to the importance of full titles. 


450 


with details of size, and place and date of publica- 
tion. References to periodicals should be on this 
pattern : — 

‘* Quetelet, Lambert Adolphe Jacques, 

Sur les orages du mois d’Avril, 1865. 
Bruxelles, Acad. Sci. Bull., XTX., 1865, 535-537.” 
Correspondence should be addressed to the chief 

signal-officer U. S. army, Washington. 


— When the physical studies of the Gulf of Mexico 
and the Caribbean Sea, now prosecuted by the U. S. 
coast-survey, are brought to an end, and when our 
knowledge of the natural history of these waters is 
sufficiently increased, we shall hope to see a mono- 
graphic description of them, after the pattern of 
Ackermann’s admirable ‘ Beitrage zur physischen 
geographie der Ostsee’ (Hamburg, Meissner, 1883). 
The arrangement of subjects is logical and syste- 
matic, and lacks but one chapter of being complete, 
for geological structure alone is not discussed. The 
first division of the book considers the form of the 
shores and bottom, under the heading of morphology, 
illustrated by bathymetric charts of fine execution; 
then, omitting the origin of this form, recent geo- 
logical action along the shores, and the evidences of 
secular elevation and depression, are discussed. The 
physical relations of the sea are described under cur- 
rents, winds and their effects, and the distribution 
of temperature; and the chapter on biology opens 
with a general discussion of the causes that influ- 
ence the occurrence of marine life, followed by an 
account of the horizontal and vertical distribution 
of the fauna and flora, and concluding with the 
effect of the Baltic on the habitat of certain birds. 
The inward and outward flowing currents at the 
wider entrance to the sea are described in detail, 
and the tide is traced till it disappears with a height 
of only one centimetre at Memel. 


— The geographical society at Halle has published 
a valuable local bibliography of physical and histori- 
cal writings (‘ Die landeskundliche litteratur fur Nord- 
thiiringen, den Harz,’ etc., Halle, 1883), covering 170 
pages, clearly arranged on a well-considered plan. It 
begins with natural-history topics (such as geology, 
hydrology, climate, fauna and flora), next taking ques- 
tions that refer to population (such as anthropology, 
statistics, economics, and folk-lore), and ending with 
papers of special or historical interest ; all of this be- 
ing arranged, first for larger, and then for smaller, 
geographic areas. Maps of all kinds are included in 
the lists, and a good index to the various subdivis- 
ions allows easy reference to any subject or place. 


—Scudder’s ‘ History of the United States’ (Phila- 
delphia, J. H. Butter) belongs to the class of manuals 
which includes the histories by S. Eliot, T. W. Hig- 
ginson, A. Gilman, and others ; but our limits will 
not permit us to point out how it differs from them. 
Its typography is attractive; and it is a marvel that 
so many maps, portraits, and other engravings, can be 


given in a volume which is sold at so low a price. 


Among some of the novel illustrations may be named 
a map of the physical features of the United States, 
not entirely satisfactory ; a map of the discoveries on 


a 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 92. | 


the Atlantic seaboard in the fifteenth century ; the 
progress of population westward in the United States ; 
the sectional weather divisions employed by the U.S. 
signal-service ; the standard-time belts ; and a very 
large number of diagram-maps, most of which are 
admirable, inserted in the text to explain the wars, 
battles, progress of civilization, etc. The text is clear, 
readable, and concise. 


— The fifteenth report of the Massachusetts bureau 
of statistics and labor, by Carroll D. Wright, contains 
an interesting paper on the condition of the working- 
girls in Boston; and this is followed by an elaborate 
study of the comparative wages, prices, and cost of 
living, in Massachusetts and Great Britain in the 
period between 1860 and 1883. As to wages, Mr. 
Wright’s result is as follows: that the general average 
weekly wage of the employees in the industries con- 
sidered in Massachusetts was 77 + % higher than the 
general average weekly wage of the employees in the 
industries considered in Great Britain. As to cost of 
living, it appears, that, on any basis of yearly expen- 
diture, the prices of articles entering into the cost of 
living were, on the average, 17.29% higher in Massa- 
chusetts in 1883 than in Great Britain; that, of this 
figure, 11.49% was due to higher rents in Massachu- 
setts, leaving 5.80% as indicative of the higher cost 
of living in Massachusetts as compared with Great 
Britain, as regards the remaining elements of expense. 


—The American academy of medicine held its 
annual convention in Baltimore, Oct. 28-29, with 
Dr. Benjamin Lee of Philadelphia as president. 
None but medical men who have had a liberal colle- 
giate education are eligible for membership in this 
association, which, among other things, endeavors to 
promote reforms and improvements in medical edu- 
cation. 


— The Association for the advancement of women 
also held its annual meeting in Baltimore, Oct. 29, 30, 
and 31, under the presiding guidance of Mrs. Julia 
Ward Howe. 


— The excellent ‘ Monthly reference-lists,’ which 
are printed by Mr. W. E. Foster of the Providence 
public library, should be watched by scientific men 
as well as by literary readers. The August number 
(vol. iv. No. 8) contains a handy index to articles on 
earthquakes, theories and observations, which was 
suggested by the shock of Aug. 10, 1884. In judging 
of the list of memoirs and articles which are cited, 
the reader should remember that it is prepared for 
popular reading, and not as an index for the seis- 
mologist, or even for the physicist. ‘The second part 
of the same number is devoted to the early English 
explorations of America. 


— The portrait accompanying our account of Sir 
William Thomson was engraved from a photograph 
taken in Canada. Sir William has since sat for a 
photograph in Baltimore, copies of which can be had 
on application to Cummins, photographer, 7 North 
Charles Street, Baltimore. 


— Ensign E. E. Hayden of the U.S. navy has been 
ordered to duty at the Harvard observatory. 


“Ba 


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ute? to, Assouan 
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fa 


car arst 70) 


euung 2407 


Telegraph Lines tits.) ———»=-— 


Scale of English Niles 


SUDAN AND NUBIA «errer wytm, WITH THE COURSE OF THE NILE FROM ITS SOURCE. 


SCIENCE, November 14, 1884. 


ect NG Ee. 


FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


THE cusromM-HOUSE at Philadelphia and the 

reasury department at Washington are wres- 
tling over a difficulty growing out of the special 
tariff upon ‘ philosophical instruments.’ Such 
instruments are, under the law of 1883, sub- 
ject to a duty of thirty-five per cent, while 
instruments of glass or metal, not ‘ philosophi- 
cal,’ are subject to forty-five per cent duty. 
Where can the line be drawn? An astronomi- 
cal telescope is evidently philosophical, as the 
word goes. But there are instruments of every 
grade, from the 26-inch equatorial to the little 
glass through which the opera-goer contem- 
plates the movements of his favorite prima 
donna: shall they all be classed together? If 
not, who can define what telescopes, spyglasses, 
binoculars, lorgnettes, microscopes, and other 
instruments for aiding vision, are entitled to 
patents of nobility which shall distinguish them 
from the plebeian mass of ‘ manufactures not 
specially provided for in this act’?. Of course 
the same question arises in the case of chemi- 
eal and physical instruments of all sorts, which 
may be used either in a laboratory, private or 
public, in a factory or telegraph-office, or in a 
children’s playroom. It is understood that the 
aid of the National academy of sciences will be 
invoked to furnish a solution of the problem, 
and the result will be looked for with great 
curiosity. 


oc 


THE PROBLEM, how to make scientific assem- 
blies more profitable to those who attend them, 
is constantly recurring. It is conceded that 
the more profound and special a paper may be, 
the fewer will be the number of those who take 
an interest in hearing it. On the other hand, 
if those who are special and profound are not 
to be encouraged to present their papers to 
scientific associations, who shall have the 
privilege? Certainly not the vague and the 

No. 93. — 1884. 


shallow. Papers must be presented, as elabo- 
rate and recondite as can be secured; but 
such papers repel the auditors. What shall be 
done in the dilemma? How can the mathemati- 
cian presenting some new development of the 
theory of functions expect to interest the bot- 
anist? How can the petrographer discussing 
the microscopic aspects of rocks command the 
attention of the morphologist? Or, in a philo- 
logical association, how can an elaborate paper 
on some point in the grammar of the Vedas 
command the attention of linguists who have 
never learned the Sanscrit alphabet? Has the 
advancement of knowledge reached such a 
point that there is no place left for the general 
society, the academy of science, and is spe- 
cialization to be so special that each line of 
inquiry is to be considered only in a limited 
company of those who are devoted to it? 


We venture to make a few suggestions which 
seem to us worth considering by those who are 
called upon to manage scientific meetings, 
especially the annual gatherings which bring 
from a great distance, at a great expense, 
those who are desirous of securing the utmost 
advantage from the meeting. First, Let the 
committee in charge make arrangements of a 
positive character for the conduct of the meet- 
ing, and require conformity to their regula- 
tions. Among these rules should be, (1) a 
strict adherence to the allotted time; (2) the 
presentation, in advance, of an abstract of what 
is to be read (and this should be printed, par- 
ticularly if it contains any tabular statement. 
mathematical formulas, chemical formulas, or 
other rigidly technical statements) ; (3) the 
allowance of a definite time for discussion, ques- 
tions, answers, and comments. Second, Let 
every speaker or reader form the habit of stat- 
ing in general terms the purpose of his inves- 
tigation, its relations to other work, and its 
results, refraining from going into minute de- 
tails unless he is sure that a considerable part 


babs 1. 


a SCIENCE. 


of the andience can follow him. Let him 
always remember that there are some state- 
ments which the mind cannot readily receive 
through the portal of the ear; and there are 
but few which cannot be simultaneously pre- 
sented, both to the eye and the ear. The dia- 
gram, the printed formula, the abstract, may 
cost the speaker a little expenditure; but it 
will save the hearer a vexatious outlay of time 
and attention. Third, Let there be a liberal 
margin allowed for social intercourse outside 
of the meetings, not merely for public recep- 
tions and excursions, but for those informal 
introductions and interviews which to many 
persons are the best part of scientific gather- 
ings. We should not then hear it said so 
often, ‘‘ This would have been a very pleasant 
meeting were it not for the papers which were 
read.’’ 


A REMARK made in one of the papers read 
before the recent Woman’s congress in Balti- 
more suggests an interesting argument in favor 
of the kindergarten. It is well known, that, 
in its development, each new-born being passes 
through very much the same stages that his 
ancestors have been through before him. Even 
after birth, the growth of the child’s intelli- 
gence simulates the progress of the human 
race from the savage condition to that of civi- 
lization. It has been shown by Preyer, and 
others who have studied infant-development, 
that a faculty which has been acquired by 
the race at a late stage is late in making 
its appearance in the child. Now, reading 
and writing are arts of comparatively recent 
achievement. Savage man could reap and 
sow and weave, and build houses, long before 
he could communicate his thoughts to a person 
at a distance by means of written speech. 
There is, then, reason to believe that a child’s 
general intelligence would be best trained by 
making him skilful in many kinds of manual 
labor before beginning to torture him with 
letters; and the moral to be derived is, that 


primary instruction should be instruction in~ 


manual dexterity, and that reading and writing 
could be learned with pleasure and with ease 


_ 7 2 ere ree? Pee 
"y’ 


[Vor. IV., No. 93. 
by a child who had been fitted for taking them — 
up by the right kind of preparation. The 
argument is a novel one, and it certainly seems 
plausible. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: 


Change in the color of the eye. 


In Science, p. 367, you say the color of the iris, 
‘after early childhood’ ‘does not vary with age:’ I 
think I can give you positive evidence that it does. 
My own eyes were called black (in reality dark brown) 
until after I was forty years old. About that time 
they commenced to change, and are now blue-gray, 
with streaks of light hazel, which last are fast fading 
out. Thesame thing happened with my father’s eyes. 
I remember him at forty years and under, with 
thoroughly black eyes, and there are portraits of him 
which show him thus; but between forty and fifty, 
his eyes changed, and eventually became a blue, with 
a very slight tint of hazel, not noticeable without 
close observation. TuErODORE F. McCurpy. 

Norwich Town, Conn. 


The eggs of Ornithorhynchus. 


The editorial comments in a recent number of 
Science (p. 412), on the revival of forgotten statements, 
lead me to believe that some more old matter may be 
revived with profit. The telegram sent to the meet- 
ing of the British association from Professor Liver- 
sedge, announcing the fact ascertained by Mr. W. H. 
Caldwell ( Science, iv. 261), that Ornithorhynchus lays 
eggs, has been universally hailed as an entirely new 
discovery; and a number of the prominent British 
zodlogists, whom we had the pleasure of welcoming to 
Washington recently, were unaware that the ovipari- 
ty of the monotreme had long before been definitely 
announced, and an egg figured. Nevertheless, such 
is the fact; and an extensive series of old comments 
and applications of the fact appears in the literature 
of zodlogy. I need only refer to some of the most 
prominent, and others can follow up the subject in the 
publications of the day. 

In 1829 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire published a memoir 
in the Annales des sciences naturelles (xviii. 157-164), 
in which he reproduced a figure of an egg of the natu- 
ral size (pl. 3, fig. 4). This was communicated to him 
by Prof. Robert E. Grant of London, who drew one 
of a nest of four obtained by a Mr. Holmes. Two of 
these eggs were reported to have been obtained by the 
‘Muséum de Manchester;’ and it would be well for 
our Manchester friends to hunt them up, and see 
whether they are still to be found. As a result of a 
general belief in the oviparity of the animal, several 
of the naturalists of the day revised the classification 
of the vertebrates. 

In 1830 Dr. Joh. Wagler, in his ‘ Naturliches 
system der amphibien,’ proposed a peculiar class 
(Gryphi—Greife), in which, however, by illegitimate 
assumptions, he included the ichthyosaurians, plesi- 
osaurians, and pterodactyles. 

In 1831 Charles L. Bonaparte, prince of Musigna- 
no, in his ‘Saggio di una distribuzione metodica 
degli animali vertebrati,’ also isolated the mono- 
tremes as a peculiar class (Monotrema), defining it 
in the following terms: ‘“‘I Monotremi sono animali 
vertebrati, a sangue calido, ovipari, quadrupedi; respi- 
rano per mezzo di polmoni; hanno un cuore bilocu- 
lare biaurito.””. ._ , uti ea 

And even long before the egg was thus figured, 


NOVEMBER 14, 1884. ] 


and, it may be said, the oviparity of the monotremes 
firmly established, the fact had been authoritatively 
proclaimed. Sir John Jamison, for instance, espe- 
cially declared that ‘the female is oviparous, and lives 
in burrows in the ground’ (Trans. Linn. soc. London, 
xii. p. 585). The Rev. Dr. Fleming, in his ‘ Philoso- 
phy of zodlogy’ (ii. 215), published in 1822, remarked, 
that, ‘‘if these animals are oviparous (and we can 
scarcely entertain a doubt on the subject, as the eggs 
have been transmitted to London), it would be interest- 
ing to know the manner of incubation.’’ Further, 
Fleming refused to admit the monotremes among 
the mammals, dividing the Vertebrata ‘with warm 
blood’ into ‘ quadrupeds’ and ‘ birds,’ and the former 
into ‘I. Mammalia’ (‘1. Placentaria’ pedota and 
apoda, and ‘2. Marsupialia’), and ‘ 1I. Monotremata.’ 
But, notwithstanding all these facts, scepticism as 
to the truth of the representations and authenticity 
of the eggs, developed into positive disbelief; and 
Bonaparte himself recanted, and took that decidedly 
_ retrograde course, which others had entered upon, of 
associating the monotremes with the marsupials in 
the unnatural and artificial negative group of Ovovi- 
vipara, or Implacentalia. I, too, was so far influ- 
enced by the prevalent scepticism or disbelief, and by 
the similiarity of the monotreme egg to that of a rep- 
tile, that I retained viviparity as a special attribute of 
the mammals in 1872, although I declined, on other 
evidence, to include a small size for the eggs in my 
diagnosis of the class. I then, also, adopting the sub- 
classes Monodelphia, Didelphia, and Ornithodelphia, 
segregated them into the major groups, combining 
the first two under the name Eutheria, and contrast- 
ing the last as the Prototheria. These names have 
since been accepted by Professors Huxley, Flower, and 
others; and, inasmuch as Professor Huxley did not 
accredit their origin, they have been ascribed to him. 
I must add, however, that Professor Huxley has 
restricted the name Eutheria, although apparently 
with a hypothetical qualification, to the monodelphs, 
while he has coined a new name (Metatheria) for the 
marsupials. I fail to appreciate the need for such 
modifications, which virtually become exact syno- 
nymes of Monodelphbia or Placentalia, and Didelphia. 
Finally, the old data as to the oviparity of mono- 
tremes became almost lost to memory, so that no one 
has recalled them since the rediscovery. In view of 
such forgetfulness and scepticism, therefore, further 
information was necessary to insure the admission of 
the old evidence as valid. But Mr. Caldwell has 
further added the intelligence, quite new, that the 
eggs of Ornithorhynchus are meroblastic. This dis- 
covery will have an important bearing on the question 
of the origin of the mammals, and is antagonistic to 
the suggestion of Professor Huxley that the type was 
a direct derivative from the amphibians, while it in- 
creases the possibility that Professor Cope may be 
nearer the truth in affiliating the ancestors of the 
mammals to the theriomorphous reptiles of the Per- 
mian. THEO. GILL. 
Sun-spots. 


The long-delayed maximum of solar spots, now 
undoubtedly passed, has attracted unusual attention 
to the spot-periodicity. To-day and yesterday the 
visible hemisphere of the sun was, for the first time 
in nearly fourteen months, observed to be entirely 
free from spots ; the occasion next preceding this 
being 1883, Sept. 25. During the past two years, the 
only additional days on which the sun was observed 
to be without spots were, in 1882, Oct. 9 and Dec. 3, 
and, in 1883, Feb. 23, and May 25, 26, 27, and 28. 

DaAvip P. Topp. 
Lawrence observatory, Amherst, Mass., Nov. 8. 


SCIENCE. 


way. 


453 


The numerical measure of the success of 
predictions. 


Suppose we have a method by which questions of a 
certain kind, presenting two alternatives, can in every 
case be answered, though not always rightly. Sup- 
pose, further, that a large number of such answers 
have been tabulated in comparison with the events, 
so that we have given the following four numbers : — 


(aa), the number of questions for which the answers 
were the first way and the events the first way; 

(ab), the number of questions for which the answers 
were the first way and the events the second 
way ; 

(ba), the number of questions for which the answers 
were the second way and the events the first 
way ; 

(bb), the number of questions for which the answers 
were the second way and the events the second 
way. 


Then the problem is, from these data to assign a 
numerical measure to the success or science of the 
method by which the answers have been produced. 
Mr. G. K. Gilbert (Amer. ineteorological journal, Sep- 
tember, 1884) has recently proposed a formula for this 
purpose; and I desire to offer another. 

I make use of two principles. The firstis, that any 
two methods are to be regarded as equal approxima- 
tions to complete knowledge, which, in the long-run, 
would give the same values for (aa), (ab), (ba), and 
(bb). The second principle is, that if the answers 
had been obtained by selecting a determinate propor- 
tion of the questions by chance, to be answered by an 
infallible witness, while the rest were answered by 
an utterly ignorant person at random (using yes and 
no with determinate relative frequencies), then the 
approximation to knowledge in the answers so ob- 
tained would be measured by the fraction expressing 
the proportion of questions put to the infallible wit- 
ness. The second witness may know how often he 
ought to answer ‘yes;’ but I give him no credit for 
that, jpecause he is ignorant when he ought to answer 
“yes. 

Let 7 be the proportion of questions put to the in- 
fallible witness, and let j be the proportion of ques- 
tions which the ignorant witness answers in the first 


Then we have the following simple equa- 
tions: — 


(ab) = (1 — 4)j} (ad) + (dd) {, 
(ba) = (1 — 4) (1 —§)} (aa) + (ba)}, 
(bb) = a} (ab) + (bb) } + (1-4) (1 —J)} (ab) + (bd) |- 


Now, whatever the method of predicting, these equa- 
tions can always be satisfied by possible values of 7 
and j, unless the answers are worse than if they had 
been taken at random. Consequently, in virtue of 
the two principles just enunciated, the value of i 
obtained by solving these equations is the measure 
of the science of the method. ‘This value is, 


bey: (aa) (ab) 
em(Gajicis(oa) | (@b)i 1-(b6)! 

a (aa) - (bb) 

~ (aa) + (ba) + (ab) + (6b) 1, 


m (aa) (bb) — (ab) (ba) 
| (aa) + (ba)} { (ab) + (db) { 


Mr. Gilbert’s formula has the same numerator, but 


454 

a different denominator. It is, in the present nota- 
tion, 

Sas, (aa)(bb) — (ab) (ba) 


} (ua) + (ab) + (ba) + (bb) eo (aa)? + (ab)2 + (ba)? — (bb)? 


For Sergeant Finley’s tornado-predictions, (aa)= 
28, (ab) =72, (ba)=28, (bb)=2,680. From these data, 
Mr. Gilbert finds i= 0.216, while my formula gives 
i= 0.523. 

If the questions should present more than two alter- 
natives, it would be necessary to assign relative values 
or measures to the different kinds of mistakes that 
might be made. I have a solution for this case. 

Another problem is to measure the utility of the 
method of prediction. For this purpose, let p be 
the profit, or saving, from predicting a tornado, and let 
l be the loss from every unfulfilled prediction of a 
tornado (outlay in preparing for it, etc.); then the 
average profit per prediction would be, 

(Do (oye) == (i (ala) 
(aa) (ab) a (ba) Abb) 
C. S. PEIRCE. 


Measurement of the speed of photographic 
drop-shutters. 


The usual method adopted for this purpose de- 
pends on photographing a white clock-hand revolv- 
ing rapidly in front of a black face.!. The chief 
difficulty in this case is to maintain a uniform rota- 
tion at high speed. To avoid this difficulty, and to 
determine the uniformity of exposure of any par- 
ticular shutter under apparently like circumstances, 
the following method has been suggested. In carry- 
ing out the experiment in practice, I have had the 
assistance of Mr. J. O. Ellinger. 


A tuning-fork, B, with a mirror attached to the side 
of one of the prongs, is placed in front of the camera- 
lens. This mirror is so arranged as to reflect into the 
camera, C, a horizontal beam of sunlight, which, before 
reaching the fork, has passed through a half-inch 
holeinascreen, S, placed about ten feet distant. This 
produces on the ground-glass a minute brilliant point 
of light. If the fork be set vibrating, the point will 
become a short, fine, horizontal line: if the fork be 
rotated about its longitudinal axis, the line will be- 
come a sinusoidal curve described on the circum- 
ference of a circle of long radius. A photographic 
plate is now inserted, and the drop-shutter attached. 
On releasing the latter, it will be found that a portion 
of the sinusoid has been photographed; and the pre- 
cise exposure may be determined by counting the 
number of vibrations represented on the plate. 

The mirror employed should be somewhat larger 
than the lens to be measured, so as to cover its edges 
during the whole exposure. The mirror may be glued 
directly to the prong o: the fork with strong carpen- 
ter’s glue, after first scraping off a little of the silver- 
ing at the edges of the glass. The rate of the fork 
is then determined, by comparison with a standard 
fork, by the method of beats. W. H. PICKERING. 

Photographic laboratory, - 

Mass. inst. of technology. 


1 For other methods, see Avit. journ. photography, Aug. 31, 


1888, and May 23, 1884. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vor. Ive No. 98, ; 


THE IMPORTANCE OF CHEMISTRY IN 
BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE. 


Tuer position of chemistry in the biological 
sciences has long been, in English-speaking 
communities, a very indefinite one: in fact, 
it may be questioned whether the science has, 
even at the present day, any generally recog- 
nized position *among biologists themselves. 
That this has been the case for many years, 
even in Europe, is evident from the fact that 
until recently the published results of investi- 
gation in the field of physiological chemistry 
have had to be sought for in widely diverse 
places. Many papers have been published in 
purely chemical journals, others in journals 
devoted to physiology, while still others have 
appeared in so-called ‘ natural-history’ jour- 
nals, —a fact which in itself plainly indicates 
the past status of this branch of science. 

There can be no question that physiological 
chemistry shéuld occupy a definite place among 
the biological sciences. Biology is confessedly 
a study of life, and, as such, has to do with the 
development, structure, and function of living 
organisms. ‘The first two of these we suppose 
to be included under the heads of embryology 
and morphology ; while the third, constituting, 
in the words of Herbert Spencer, ‘‘ the second 
main division of biology, embracing the func- 
tional phenomena of organisms, is that which 
is in part signified by physiology.’’ Further, 
‘*that part of physiology which is concerned 
with the molecular changes going on in organ- 
isms is known as organic chemistry,’’ or, with 
equal propriety, as physiological chemistry : 
hence a study of the functions of the body, 
to be at all complete, must include a study 
of the chemical changes incident to life, and 
cannot be restricted to the purely physical 
phenomena of the organism. Yet it is very 
noticeable that wherever ‘ biology ’ is taught in. 
this country, even in the most liberally con- 
ducted institutions, where the course of study 
embraces embryology, animal and vegetable 


morphology, experimental physiology, ete., 


physiological chemistry is rarely mentioned.? 
We need to inquire whether this is due ;to a 


NovEMBER 14, 1884.] 


lack of appreciation of the importance of the 
subject, or whether it is generally considered 
as outside the pale of biological inquiries. 
We are more inclined to believe that the rapid 
development of the past twenty years in the 
various branches of biology, so divergent from 
chemistry, has tended to push into the back- 
ground the chemical phenomena of life to such 
an extent that the existence of chemical 
science as a part of biology is in danger. of 
being forgotten. 

Physiology in its entirety, dealing with all 
the functions of the living organism, both ani- 
mal and vegetable, is truly a broad subject ; 
but that by itself does not constitute a suffi- 
cient reason why the chemical composition 
and chemical processes of the organism should 
be so seldom studied. By this it is not meant 
that all applications of chemistry to physiology 
are overlooked, or that there is an utter lack 
of appreciation of its importance, but rather 
that the average instruction in physiology in 
this country, and apparently likewise in Eng- 
land, disregards almost every thing pertaining 
to chemistry, aside from the common funda- 
mental facts; so that, whether as a part of 
physiology, or as physiological chemistry, the 
average student in biology acquires but little 
knowledge of the chemical processes of the 
animal organism ; by ‘ knowledge’ being meant 
that personal knowledge, which, in the case of 
an experimental science, can be obtained only 
in a properly equipped laboratory. | 

But while in America little has been done 
either to advance or to teach the chemical side 
of physiology, in Europe it has been very dif- 
ferent, until now as a growing science, follow- 
ing a natural law of progressive division of 
labor and of thought, the chemical phenomena 
of the living body have massed themselves 
together, and, aided by increased interest and 
added workers, a division of physiology has 
become necessary ; and to-day there exists, in 
Germany at least, a new science, or rather a 
specialized portion of an old one, viz., that of 
physiological chemistry. 

We would lay all possible stress on the im- 
portant position of physiological chemistry in 


SCIENCE. 


455 


Germany, its relation to medicine and _ biology 
in general, the large number of important re- 
searches emanating from her laboratories, and 
on all that tends to make the science so pro- 
gressive in that country; and then, by con- 
trast, how small and insignificant appears the 
little work done in our own country! If we 
look to the biological laboratories of our col- 
leges, to our medical schools, and to the labora- 
tories connected with our hospitals, we find an 
almost utter lack of work tended to increase 
the boundaries of the science. Seldom do we 
hear of a piece of original work in physio- 
logical chemistry ; and few American names 
are being added to that long list of German 
investigators whose united work has made the 
science what it is to-day. 

There is also a practical side to this ques- 
tion. Not every medical student, it is true, 
can become proficient in physiological chemis- 
try, there is not time for it; but many a man 
gifted with powers of observation, and en- 
dowed with a love of knowledge, may find 
much to do of direct practical value to medical 
science. Every student of medicine should, 
however, possess some knowledge of physio- 
logical chemistry. Dr. Perkin, in his recent 


-address before the Chemical society of Eng- 


land at its anniversary meeting, says, ‘‘ If 
there is any value in chemical products as 
curative agents, if there is any value in 
physiological chemistry, or any importance 
in toxicology, surely medical students should 
have a sound knowledge of chemical science, 
and not simply learn to detect an acid and a 
base in a mixture, — an operation which is of 
no value, except as an intermediate exercise 
to be followed by more advanced work.’’ 
What is needed in this country is a fuller 
appreciation of the importance of physiological 
chemistry, both in biology and in the science 
of medicine. A host of questions are to be 
answered regarding digestion, nutrition, respi- 
ration, etc., — questions to be answered only 
through the agency of chemical science; and, 
if America is to do her share in the clearing- 
up of the mysteries surrounding the chemical 
processes of the living organism, physiological 


‘ae 


456 SCIENCE. 


chemistry must be raised to a higher plane 
among the biological sciences. - 


THE NAVIGATION OF THE NILE. 


Tue Nile, which during thousands of years 
has attracted much attention from the intel- 
ligent portion of mankind, yet remains in 
many respects the most interesting of the great 
rivers of the globe. Its sources, which for so 
long a time were a mystery, have within the 


last quarter of a century been rediscovered; . 


but. that rediscovery has only rendered it more 
interesting, and more worthy of study. 

The great fluctuations in its flow, and the 
remarkable, almost mathematical, recularity, 
year after year, of these fluctuations, can now 
be practically studied, and their causes clearly 
understood. 

Having its great first reservoir under the 
equator, we now know that it derives its waters 
from the region between a few degrees south 
of that line, and latitude about 13° north. It 
receives its last affluent, the Atbura, south of 
latitude 13° north, and yet continues its flow, 
notwithstanding evaporation, receiving nothing, 
and giving life to the lands it traverses, until 
it pours the waters of south central Africa 
into the Mediterranean Sea, in latitude 32° 
north, carrying in those waters, each year, 
masses of the débris of the mountains of the 
interior to continually fertilize and extend its 
delta. 

Early in June of each year the flow is the 
least. The current near Cairo has then a 
rapidity of only a little more than one mile per 
hour, and the amount of water passing is only 
from four hundred to five hundred cubic yards 
per second. Before the end of June the annual 
rise commences ; and by the end of September 
the rapidity of the current reaches nearly, if 
not quite, three and a half miles per hour, the 
quantity of water passing a given point be- 
coming from nine thousand to ten thousand 
cubic yards per second. 

Late in October, or early in November, it 
commences a somewhat rapid decline, which 
continues until January, when the decline be- 
comes more gradual and regular; this gradual 
decline continuing until about the end of May, 
when the minimum flow is again reached, 
to give place the following month to the new 
annual rise. 


The great regularity of the fluctuations is 


‘due to the peculiar sources of supply, and the 


admirable system of reservoirs and checks 
which nature has there provided. 


[Vou. IV., No. 93. — 


The Egyptian Nile is formed by the junction, 
at Khartum, of the Blue Nile and White Nile. 

The Blue Nile (Bahr-el-Azrack) , taking its 
rise in the centre of Abyssinia, and fed by 
the rains which yearly fall in the mountains 
of that country during the months of April, 
May, June, July, and August, furnishes the 
great masses of water which cause the rapid 
summer rise, and also furnishes the rich silt, 
which, torn from the mountains of Abyssinia, 
spreads over the cultivatable lands of Egypt, 
and yearly renews the fertility of those lands. 

The White Nile (Bahr-el-Abiad), flowing 
from the great reservoir under the equator, 
guarded in that and the subordinate reservoirs, 
Lake Ibrahim and Lake Albert, and guarded 
also by the great system of dams called ‘ the 
cataracts,’ furnishes the steady flow of clear 
water which continues throughout the year. 

No human engineer has ever devised, on any 
thing like so grand a scale, so admirable a 
system for the collection, preservation, and 
distribution of irrigating waters, as has there 
been formed by nature for the supply of Egypt. 

Lake Victoria, with a surface of some forty 
thousand square miles, collects and stores, for 
the use of the Sudan and Egypt, the rain- 
water falling on a basin of more than a 
hundred and sixty thousand square miles of 
surface. The average yearly rise of the lake 
may be fairly taken, according to observations 
mace on the spot, as two feet, which gives for 
distribution through its only outlet, the Victoria 
Nile (the Somerset of Speke), the enormous 
volume of more than sixty-eight thousand mil- 
lion cubic yards of water per annum, or more 
than two thousand cubic yards per second. 

It will be seen that this storage is so well 
devised, that, in order to give one inch of rise 
to the Victoria Nile, more than twenty-eight 
hundred millions of cubic yards must be stored 
in this great reservoir. 

Then come the two secondary reservoirs, — 
first Lake Ibrahim (discovered by Col. Long 
in 1874), in latitude north 14°, which must be 
filled before the flow can continue on towards 
Egypt; and then Lake Albert, which must be 
filled over its surface of perhaps three thou- 
sand square miles before the direct distribution 
of waters through the White Nile can fairly 
commence. But this is not all that nature has 
there done to regularize the great distribution. 
Between Lakes Ibrahim and Albert, there is a 
great system of natural dams in the cataracts 
which are found between Foweira and Lake 
Albert. Then coming north, down the White 
Nile, we find, first at Duffli, and soon again 
at Beddin, successions of rapids, the results 


NOVEMBER 14, 1884. ] 


of other natural dams; and these we find 
repeated between Khartum and Berber, be- 
low Abu-Hamed, between that and Dongola, 
and between Dongola and Wadi-Halfa. At 
the last-named place is found what is called 
the second cataract ; and still farther down the 
course of the river, at Assuan, is the well- 
known ‘ first cataract.’ Thence to the sea the 
course of the great river is unobstructed in its 
flow, except by the works of man. The great 
viceroy, Mehemet-Ali, caused, at immense 
cost, the construction of the famous barrage 
du Nii (‘the dam of the Nile’) a few miles 
to the north of Cairo, in the endeavor to make 
art complete, by a dam, what nature had so 
well done in Central Africa and Nubia for 
securing regular irrigating-supplies. 

The cataracts which play so important a 
part in the preservation and regulation of the 
Nile flow, are formed by masses of granite 
rock, which at intervals cross the course of 
the stream, making enduring dams. It is 
easy to perceive, that, should they be worn 
away or destroyed, the flow of the river would 
be made much more rapid during the seasons 
of high water; and the Nile would become, in 
Nubia, a fierce torrent during high water, and 
a nearly dry channel for a considerable portion 
of the year. 

The natural destruction of these great dams 
by the formation of pot-holes, and the friction 
of débris passing over them, is, from the nature 
of the rock, very slow. From such observa- 
tions as have been made, it is probable that 
the natural wearing-away hardly exceeds six 
feet in one thousand years; and there is a 
corresponding effect in the natural rising of 
the river-bed below the cataracts and in the 
delta by the deposit of silt from the turbid 
waters. 

The Nile is navigable at all seasons of the 
year, by steamboats of light draught, from the 
mouth to Assuan (the first cataract), between 
the first and second cataracts (Assuan to 
Wadi-Halfa), between near Berber and Khar- 
tum, between Khartum and a point a little to 
the south of Gondokoro, and between Duffli 
and Lake Albert. It is only during the season 
of high water that boats can descend the Nile, 
passing the cataracts between Berber and 
Assuan. 

The great danger to boats descending these 
fierce rapids during high water is found in the 
eddies near the river-banks, islands, and large 
rocks. ‘The current is so rapid, and the fric- 
tion on either hand so great, that the water 
seems to heap up in mid-channel, where the 
current is the strongest; and great skill on the 


SCIENCE 


457 


part of the steersman, and prompt and vigor- 
ous work on the part of the engineer of the 
steamer, or oarsmen of a row-boat, are neces- 
sary to keep the boat on the ridge of the cur- 
rent. Ifthe boat is permitted to slide off this 
ridge, she is quickly caught by the eddies, and 
almost invariably lost. This is so well under- 
stood by the Nubian boatmen, that, while 
they work with a will at the oars in these 
descents, they always have their personal 
effects packed in a snug parcel beside them, 
ready to seize; and they leap overboard, each 
with his parcel on his head, the moment the 
boat gets into a hopeless position. 

The work of towing or warping boats up 
against the current is more difficult, but far 
less dangerous, than the descent. 

Cuas. P. STONE. 


A MUSSULMAN PROPAGANDA. 


Tue attention of geographers has of late 
been particularly attracted by the operations 
of a Mussulman confraternity known as the 
Sénousians, or the Brotherhood of Sidi Mo- 
hammed Ben Ali es-Senousi, the founder of 
the order. Of this now powerful and widely 
ramifying society, Henri Duveyrier has recently 
given an account. Its operations are of im- 
portance to civilization, not merely from the 
relation of this order to existing religions, but 
from that which it bears to the efforts being 
made by civilized nations to develop the dark 
continent, and explore its geographical and 
other mysteries. The success of the religious 
propaganda which the society represents men- 
aces not only projected explorations, but the 
very existence of established colonies and inter- 
national traffic. It is believed that to their in- 
stigation is due the melancholy fate of many 
African explorers of late years, among whom 
may be mentioned Dournous Dupéré, Beur- 
mann, Von der Decken and his party, Col. 
Flatters, Capts. Masson and Diarnous, Dr. 
Guiard, Béringer, Roche, Mademoiselle Tinné, 
Sacconi, and others. If the present crusade in 
the Sudan be not wholly due to their machina- 
tions, it has at least been actively assisted and 
impelled by individual members of the society, 
and guided by the blind fanaticism which is its 
rule of conduct. The favorite motto of the 
head of the order declares Turks and Christians 
to be equally offensive, and doomed to an equal 
and simultaneous destruction. Their monas- 
teries and influence extend from Morocco to 
Arabia, and from the Mediterranean to Mozam- 
bique, and govern two or three millions of peo- 


radicalism; and in the 


tara: Vie as” aes ee le n v. 


ple. Under their teachings, peaceable blacks, 
who formerly welcomed trade and civilization, 
or did not oppose it, have become ferocious 
bigots ; and large areas have thus been utterly 
closed to intercourse with the whites, unless 
accompanied by an army. A brief summary 
of the history and tenets of the fraternity will 
not be valueless. 

Of the religious societies which have flour- 
ished in the bosom of Islam, the present is one 
of the latest. but, during the forty-seven years 
of its existence, has attained a far greater suc- 
cess than any of its predecessors. 

Its founder was of the tribe of Medjaher, 
from the vicinity of Mostaghanem in Algeria, 
born during the last phases of the Turkish 


occupation, of which he was the declared ad- 
versary. Exiled to Morocco, he was initiated 


through the fraternity of Mulei Taieb into the 
mystic philosophy known to orientalists as 
Chadheliya. or Chadhelism. He returned to 
his native land about the time that Algiers 
was taken by the French. He travelled as a 
teacher of law and philosophy through the 
highlands of Algeria, gradually making his way 
eastward toward the holy places of Ar rabia, at- 
tracted by the renown of the theologians gath- 
ered there, and especially of Ahmed Ben Edris, 
the patriarch of Chadhelism at Mecca. This 
philosophy: was already tinctured with Wahabi 
course of his travels, 
stopping to give courses of instruction, and ex- 
pound his views in various cities, he became 
equally obnoxious to the representatives of the 
established doctrines, and to the government of 
Egypt. Arrived at Mecca, he became first the 
pupil, then the successor, of the sheikh Ahmed 
Ben Edris. His first attempt to make converts 
in Yemen, on a journey with that end in view, 

was unsuccessful. He returned to Mecca, and 
addressed himself more particularly to the Ber- 
ber pilgrims, to whom he taught what he called 
the ‘way of Mohammed,’—a title afterward 
altered to the ‘ way of és-Senousi.’ By this 
he intended a sort of reformed Chadhelism, 
partly drawn from the Koran and its commen- 
tators, and partly from his own meditations, 
which he presented to his pupils as the pure 
faith of Islam, disembarrassed of the theologi- 
cal incrustations of twelve centuries of theo- 
logians. ‘This religion was distinguished from 
the first by its claims to absolute authority ; 
and the writings in which his views are sum- 
marized bear the pretentious title of ‘ The 
rising suns.’ THis resolution of forming a re- 
ligious order bore fruit about 1837. The object 
of the fraternity was to teach the following 
doctrines, among others: the exaltation of 


SCIENCE. 


God, to whom worship is alone reserved ; liv- | 
ing saints may be venerated as permeated with 
the spirit of God, but this ceases with their 
death; their formes must not be the goal of 
pilgrimage, nor their names used as intermedi- 
aries in prayer (even Mohammed forms no 
exception) ; the novice renounces the world, 

he will respect the authority of the caliph so 
long as the latter respects the society ; politi- 
cal ambition must not be exercised against a 
true believer, but becomes a duty and a merit 
as against one who does not accept the true 
way, that is, the ‘ way of es-Senousi.’ 

Luxury and ornament are prohibited. Gold 
is reserved for the sword to be drawn in a holy” 
war. Women, however, are excepted from 
these rules. Drunkenness, tobacco, and coffee 
are prohibited ; tea allowed, if sweetened with 
brown sugar, the white sugar being impure, 
as refined by the use of bones of animals killed 
by unbelievers. It is forbidden to serve or to 
speak to a Christian or a Jew, or even to bow 
to them. Unless they are tributaries or slaves 
of believers, they are to be considered as out- 
lawed enemies, to be robbed or killed at the 
most convenient opportunity. The society is 
allowed to fraternize with other Chadhelistic 
orders, — 2 condition of great importance, and 
to which much of its success is due.” Almost 
all the Mussulman orders which at first repu- 
diated the new doctrine have come to ac- 
knowledge its supremacy, andito comin to its 
policy. 

The fraternity maintains itself in mystery. 
The acolytes wear no distinguishing dress or 
mark, their rosaries are similar to those com- 
monly in use, and the supplementary prayer 
which they add to the usual matin is commu- 
nicated only to members of the order. 

The society holds convocations, prescribes 
pilgrimages to its monasteries, levies a tax of 
two and a half per cent on the capital of its 
followers for the treasury of the order. ‘Those 
too poor to contribute money or stock render 
service as laborers, artisans, emissaries, spies, 
or even assassins. All means are held good 
toward their desired end, even the arts of 
light women being employed in cases where 
ruder influences have been repulsed. ‘The 
order administers justice to its followers and 
those under its influence. For instance: in 
the Ottoman vilayet of Ben-Ghazi, in Barca, 
the authorities have even gone so far as to de- 


- pute the administration of justice to the order. 


In all north-eastern Africa except Egypt the 
Mussulman swears by ‘the truth of Sidi es- 
Senousi,’ as formerly by that of Mohammed. 
Mild when weak, the order becomes defiant 


NOVEMBER 14, 1884. ] 


with secure establishment, and even dared, in 
1861, to excommunicate the sultan, Abd el- 
Mejid, for failing to respect its pretensions. 

The operations of the order are carried on 
by a system of graded officers, priests, and 
missionaries, which, as well as their adroit and 
varied methods, strongly recall the marvellous 
organization once attributed to the order of 
Jesuits. Nor has the result been less success- 
ful. Tribes alien and unreceptive, rulers cold 
or jealous, populations indifferent. or con- 
temptuous, have been won over and firmly at- 
tached to the order. The hard-worked native 
transfers his field to the society, preferring to 
lay up treasures in heaven. The fraternity 
digs wells in the desert, revives withered oases, 
protects its votaries from the nomad thieves of 
the Sahara, buys, instructs, and frees slaves, 
and sends them to their distant homes as mis- 
sionaries, with astonishing results. 

The headquarters of the order are at the 
zaouia, or convent, of Jarabub, founded in 
1861, on the 30th parallel, near the western 
frontier of Egypt. Its population has increased 
marvellously during the last ten years. The 
place was originally a desert. The society built 
reservoirs. began plantations, erected con- 
vents ; and in 1880 the body-guard of the head 
of the order was estimated to consist of four 
thousand men and about two thousand slaves. 
The metropolitan is the son of Sidi es-Senousi, 
whose genius he would appear to inherit, and 
is known as Sidi Mohammed el-Mahdi, having, 
like the false prophet of the Sudan, assumed, 
at his father’s instigation, the title equivalent 
to a Moslem messiah. The convent has be- 
come an arsenal, possessing large stores of 
arms and ammunition, and even fifteen cannon 
purchased at Alexandria. Aid and comfort 
are lavishly extended to those who have from 
time to time revolted against France in 
Algeria. 

Too wise to inaugurate as yet ‘the holy war 
predicted of El-Mahdi, the head of the order 
has, nevertheless, provided against external 
aggression. Suspecting that its propaganda 
may eventually rouse the arms of civilization 
against it, it is said that there are constantly 
kept at the zaouia of Aziat in Cyrenaica, for 
example, five hundred camels with their har- 
ness and equipments, drivers, etc., ready at a 
moment’s notice to convey to the interior the 
persons and property of the Senousian authori- 
ties. The fraternity possesses one of the best 
ports in North Africa, — 'Tobrug,— where an 
illegitimate trade flourishes, and does not 
want for manufactories of powder. 

France is, so far, the only civilized nation 


SCIENCE. 


459 


which has suffered directly from the policy of 
the order. In Algeria most of the rebellions 
of late years are attributed to the new propa- 
ganda. The insurrections there have been im- 
itated in the French district of Senegal. We 
have already referred to the probable connec- 
tion of the order with recent events in the 
Sudan. 

We have refrained from entering into a mul- 
titude of details which support the preceding 
conclusions, and it is not necessary to recount 
the different tribes and petty African states 
which have gradually become converts to the 
views of the fraternity. Enough has been 
said, however, to indicate the unsuspected im- 
portance of this new factor in the politics of 
Africa. The blood of many explorers and 
travellers bears testimony to the violence of its 
fanaticism; and neither the geographer nor 
the anthropologist can regard with indifference 
a movement which falls little short of that 
which originally propagated the faith of Islam. 

We: Fe DALE. 


THE RUBY-HILL MINES, EUREKA, NEV. 


Mr. J. S. Curtis, whose report on the silver-lead 
deposits of Eureka, Nev., is now in press, has pre- 
pared for exhibition at the New-Orleans exposition, 
by the U.S. geological survey, a model of the Ruby- 
hill mines, from which the largest portion of the 
metals extracted in the Eureka district has been 
taken. This model is eighteen inches in height, and 
about four feet long by eighteen inches wide. It is 
composed of glass plates horizontally arranged at dis- 
tances of one inch apart, each inch representing a 
hundred feet, and the glass plate showing a section 
at each mine-level in the body of the model, the 
mine-levels being that distance apart. The upper 
plates, however, are closer together, and are cut to 
show the contours of the surface at distances of fifty 
feet apart. 

On these plates the geological formations, three 
in number (quartzite, limestone, and shale), all of the 
Cambrian period, are colored with transparent colors. 
The ore-bodies, occurring only in the limestone and 
of tertiary or pre-tertiary age, are very irregular in 
form, and are shown by opaque red paint; while the 
mine-workings, shafts, tunnels, etc., are represented 
in opaque black paint. The effect of the model is as 
though a skeleton of the mine-workings and ore- 
bodies were seen suspended in a solid glass mass, the 
coloring of the geological structure not interfering 
with the view, on account of its transparency. 

The dominant factor of the structure of Ruby 
Hill is an extensive fault, which has determined the 
present relations of the formations. The presence of 
this fault is marked by a fissure filled in places with 
rhyolite. This fissure also forms the hanging-wall of 
the ore-zone. Above the water-level the ore is prin- 


Se a“ 2 — - = 


460 


cipally galena, anglesite, mimetite, and wulfenite, 
with very little quartz and calcite, the gangue being 
for the most part hydrated oxide of iron. It also 
carries gold and silver, and zine is present probably 
as a Silicate. Below the water-level it is composed 
chiefly of pyrite, arsenopyrite, galena, blende, and a 
few other sulphides, besides silver and gold. 

The ore-deposits are confined to a mass of crushed 
limestone between the main fault and the quartzite. 
Those of any size are always capped by caves, or in 
some way connected with them and with fissures. 
The caves were probably formed subsequent to the 
deposition of the ore, being due, partly to the action 
of water carrying carbonic acid, and partly to shrink- 
age of the ore from decomposition. Since the latter 
occurred, the ore has in many instances been redis- 
tributed by the flow of underground waters, whose 
former presence is indicated by stratification of por- 
tions of the ore-bodies, and by traces of aqueous 
agencies in the surrounding limestone. 

The constituents of the ore were probably derived 
by solution from some massive rock, not sedimentary, 
as assays of the country rock show that they could 
not have been so derived. The solutions were due 
to solfataric action, incident to the eruption of large 
masses of rhyolite. They entered the limestone from 
below, through fissures; and the greater part, at least, 
of the ore, was deposited by direct substitution for 
that rock. The limestone was fissured and crushed 
in many directions by the various faulting move- 
ments, and gave free ingress to the ore-bearing solu- 
tions, which naturally followed the channels of least 
resistance, and deposited the ore in masses of very 
irregular form. These are well shown in the model. 

From the year 1869 up to the present time (1884) 
the Eureka district has produced about sixty million 
dollars of gold and silver, and about two hundred and 
twenty-five thousand tons of lead; and, as already 
stated, the largest portion of these metals was derived 
from the Ruby-hill mines. 


TWO LARGE SUN-SPOTS.} 


THE figures of sun-spots given with this article are 
from drawings made at the observatory at Palermo, 
and represent two of the largest spots observed dur- 
ing the last two years, so remarkable for the number 
of spots seen. Not only was their extent (which is 
readily appreciated by comparison with the figure of 
the earth given on each plate) immense, but the 
changes which were seen to take place were most 
rapid. 

The first appeared on the eastern limb of the sun 
on June 25, 1888, about at latitude +7° 55’. After 
undergoing various transformations, it offered, on 
the 30th of June, the curious aspect shown in fig. 1. 
The spot was double; and its extreme length from 
east to west was not less than ten earth diameters, or 
about 3’. Considerable movements were agitating it. 
Two days afterward, on the 2d of July, the two parts 


1 Reproduced, with the cuts, from? L’ Astvonomie. 


SCIENCE. 


 [Vou. LV., No, 


had separated, and between them the photosphere 

shone with marked whiteness. From day to day 
this separation increased, until the 8th, when the spots 
disappeared on the western limb, after a deviation 
toward the north of 2° 30’. From the 28th of June 
to the 2d of July, long, brilliant tongues, ending in 


HiGs We 


red hydrogen flames, were seen extending into the 
umbra; and a yellow coloring was observed on the 
penumbra and on some of the tongues, perhaps due 
to the presence of sodium (fig. 2). 

This large spot was preceded and followed, on the 
limbs of the sun, by small but brilliant solar protu- 
berances. It returned July 2, at latitude 8° 11’, much 
smaller and more regularly shaped, to make once more 
the tour across the disk of the sun, and disappeared 
at latitude +8° 23’, not to be seen again. 

The second spot (figs. 3 and 4) was first seen on the 


Fie. 2. 


eastern limb, on the 10th of July, in latitude —7° 40°. 
It offered a strange appearance, and appeared to be 
the seat of much disturbance. On the 25th the 
centre was covered with luminous points which were 
in constant motion; and some strange lines of light 
seemed to be suspended over the umbra.. The diam- 


NovVEMBER 14, 1884. ] 


eter of the spot itself was six times that of the 
‘earth, about 1’ 46”; but the portion of the sun’s sur- 
face which was affected was much larger. By the 
27th the secondary spots (fig. 4) which accompanied 
it had become much less conspicuous, while the 


RIEL, Bh 


spot itself was the more marked, and curved tongues 
above it indicated great activity. From that day the 
spot began to diminish, and become more regular. 
On the ist of August it reached the west limb, in 
latitude —11° 13’, having 
consequently moved 3° 33’ 
toward the south. The 
appearance of this spot 
was heralded on the east- 
ern limb by small, very 
brilliant chromospheric 
flames; and its disappear- 
ance was followed by small 
but brilliant protuber- 
ances, and by the reversal 
of the coronal] ray 1474. 
It returned on the east at 
latitude —10° 15’, but only 
as a couple of small dots, 
which vanished on the 21st. 

It is worthy of remark, 
that these two large spots 
were formed almost at the 
ends of the same solar 
diameter, and that each 
showed a motion towards 
the pole of its respective 
hemisphere. 


NEW VOLUME OF THE TENTH CENSUS. 


_ Tse eighth volume of the census of 1880, just 
issued from the government press, a bulky 


ts 


SCIENCE. 


461 


quarto of about twelve hundred pages and many 
plates and maps, is a curious medley, discuss- 
ing as it does such diverse subjects as the 
newspaper and periodical press, the resources 
and sealeries of Alaska, and our ship-building 
industry. The appear- 
ance of these monographs 
under one cover is clear- 
ly a matter of conven- 
ience of distribution only. 

The first portion, deal- 
ing as it does only with 
the political and literary 
press, hardly needs our 
special attention. 

The report on the pop- 
ulation, industries, and 
resources of Alaska, by 
Ivan Petroff, occupies a 
hundred and _ seventy - 
seven pages, while that 
on the seal-fisheries and 
collateral topics, by Hen- 
ry W. Elliott, covers an 
equal number, not incluc- 
ing indices. 

As must always happen when reports of 
a frontier region remain unpublished for 
four or five years, the picture presented by 
them is chiefly useful for comparison with 


Wie, at. 


preceding or subsequent reports of the same 
kind. That there should, at the time of 
publication, be a considerable gap between 
the state of things as presented in the re- 
port, and their actual state, is inevitable ; 
but perhaps in none of the census reports is 


462 


the difference more marked than in the one we 
are considering. The region of Alaska most 
populous, and most likely to afford room for 
settlement, and resources for development, as 
well as the most interesting ethnological fea- 
tures, was not visited by Mr. Petroff, who 
derives his statistics of south-eastern and west- 
ern Alaska at second or third hand, or by com- 
pilation from already published works. 

The fact that Mr. Petroff is of Russian ex- 
traction, had had several years’ experience in 
Alaska as a private in the U.S. army and as 
a petty trader at the head of Cook’s Inlet, and 
had translated several Russian works for Mr. 
H. H. Bancroft’s library, gave a warrant. for 
believing that he possessed special qualifications 
for the work assigned tohim. Had the material 
gathered by him been subjected to a thorough 
sifting by an impartial statistician, the result 
would have been more valuable and much more 
reliable. At present, while the report contains 
much that is useful, and a great accumulation 
of facts, with some welcome translations from 
historical Russian works, it suffers, as a work 
of reference, from the attempt of the author 
to cover the faunal distribution of fur animals, 
history, philology, polities, geography, vulcan- 
ism, ethnology, and resources, —a task for 
which, with all due recognition of Mr. Petroff’s 
merits, it cannot be said that he was qualified, 
and which has consequently been performed in 
an often inadequate way. 

The report is illustrated by some extremely 
poor chromolithographic pictures of scenery 
and natives, which is the more to be regretted, 
as good photographs exist of most of the dif- 
ferent Alaskan races which might easily have 
been utilized. There is a topographical and 
ethnological map of large size, and six smaller 
maps showing distribution of fur animals and 
forests, and the geographical divisions adopted. 
The plan is excellent; but the information is 
much more scanty than would be inferred from 
the maps, which, in minor details, are not in 
accord, in some cases, even with what infor- 
mation we have. 

The topographical map has already been 
superseded by better ones in its groundwork, 
while the topography is necessarily mostly a 
matter of inference and assumption. This 
inheres in the nature of the case; but it may be 
questioned, whether, under the circumstances, 
such an ostentation of detail was desirable. 
Sundry old and some new errors have been in- 
troduced into it, the most striking of which is 
the erroneous position of the Yukon between 
the meridians of 140° and 145°. It is to be 
presumed that the information upon which 


SCIENCE. 


nT te 
Shit 
rien 


[Vor. IV., No. 9 


this was based was derived from the traders, 
who desired to locate the (now abandoned) 
trading-post of Fort Reliance on the Ameri- 
can side of the line, to avoid international 
questions. The earlier map of the telegraph 
explorers, and the later running survey by 
Schwatka, leave no doubt of the error. 

The ethnological map is in some respects an 
advance upon those which have preceded it, 
although not impregnable to criticism. The 
spelling of native and Russian names is not ac- 
cording to any uniform system; and the geo- 
oraphical names represent the idiosyncrasies of 
the author, rather than any standard charts. 
It is particularly unfortunate that the attempts 
of the U.S. coast-survey to unify the nomen- 
clature, although already published on some 
forty or fifty charts, have met with no recog- 
nition or co-operation in this report. 

The population of the territory, derived 
partly from estimation and partly from actual 
count, is 33,425, of which about half are 
Eskimo. The white population, including 
creoles, is stated at somewhat over 2,000, 
which has since been considerably increased in 
the south-eastern district. A valuable sum- 
mary of several previous enumerations and 
estimates shows that there never has been any 
sound ground for the excessive estimates of 
70,000 or 80,000, which are found in most 
gazetteers. Our space will not permit a de- 
tailed review of the various ramifications of the 
report; but the ethnologist may be particularly 
cautioned against a too confident reliance on 
the ethnology of this report as regards the 
regions not personally inspected by Mr. Petroff, 
several serious inaccuracies having a place 
there. The statistics of trade in continental 
furs since the American purchase are extremely 
inadequate, owing to the desire of traders to 
keep their business private, and to the unre- 
ported, arctic trade; but for this there seems 
no help. The collection of Russian records 
of the fur trade by the compiler are particularly 
valuable, though, as in all such cases, not to be 
rated as more than reasonable approximations. 

The report on the fur-seal fisheries by Mr. 
Elliott consists of matter several times previ- 
ously printed, but here revised, and fully illus- 
trated from the author’s sketches. It contains 
by far the best general account of the fur seals 
of Alaska, together with a quantity of other 
more or less relevant matters. The estimate 
of the total number of seals on the islands is, ~ 
however, evidently much in need of a more 
exact basis as being the crucial point upon 
which the regulation of the fishery depends. 

Probably no report for the tenth census was — 


NOVEMBER 14, 1884. ] 


so discouraging to its author as that on the ship- 
building industry, prepared by Henry Hall, who 
gives us a detailed history of the rise and fall 
of this business ; and its past prosperity vividly 
contrasts with the hopeless present and not 
hopeful future. Asa history, the report strikes 
one as rather stale; but perhaps this was un- 
avoidable, although we might have been spared 
another repetition of the yarn tracing the origin 
of ‘schooner’ from ‘How she scoons!* It is 
a pity that the illustrations should be so crude 
and cheap. 

In criticism of the whole report, we regret 
that more details of designing, methods of 
construction, discussion of steam-boilers, ma- 
chinery, etc., were not given. The lines of 
the Boston and Baitimore clippers will interest 
naval architects. 

In beginning with fishing-vessels, the author 
puts his best foot foremost; for here we can 
make a pretty fair showing still, at least as 
far as vessels and capital employed are con- 
cerned. As we have always looked upon the 
fisheries as the nursery of seamen, we wish 
statistics of the nationality of the crews of 
the offshore fishermen might have been given, 
though probably they would not have been 
encouraging. The rapid concentration of the 
fishing interests to a few towns of course di- 
minishes the interest of our coast people in 
marine pursuits. The tables given show that 
New England has as large tonnage, and as 
much invested capital, as all the rest of our 
ocean and lake coasts combined; and Massa- 
chusetts represents three-fourths of the whole 
New-England interest. Attention is properly 
called to the desirability of giving fishing- 
schooners more depth and freeboard. 

Chapter ii. is a short history of our merchant 
marine; and is followed by a chapter on the 
present state of ship-building at every point 
along the coast, from Maine to Alaska. Almost 
everywhere the same story: ‘ Harrington, once 
a prosperous village,’ or, ‘There is no ship- 
building at present at Ellsworth,’ and so on. 
The causes are several, — discouragement of 
foreign trade by tariff and extortionate consu- 
late tees, local taxation and pilotage laws, inter- 
ference of railroads with coasting-trade. failure 
of suitable timber-supply, and the greater cost of 
iron vessels here as compared with England. 
Bath, Me., is the principal ship-building port, 
and it is interesting to see the result of syste- 
matic work ; for, while timber is from seventy- 
five to three hundred per cent higher, it is still 
possible to build a ship at forty-five dollars per 


1 The word is probably of Dutch origin, and the rig can be 
traced back to earlier times than those of Andrew Robinson of 
Gloucester. 


SCIENCE. 


463 


ton, as in 1825. On the Pacific coast wooden 
ship-building is still a growing industry. 

The chapter on iron ship-building offers some 
hope, in the condition of the more important 
yards, and the cheapening of the cost of iron 
vessels. This is fortunate, for the next chap- 
ter shows how thoroughly the eastern seaboard 
has been stripped of ship-timber ; and, as well 
known, second-growth timber is very inferior. 
The supply of yellow pine, now almost exclu- 
sively used for planking, is reported large, but 
we believe it is growing more difficult to obtain 
the best quality of this useful wood. The 
Pacific coast still affords abundance of good 
ship-timber, and the good character given to 
yellow fir shows that ship-building on the Pacific 
need not suffer for years to come. ‘Tables of 
the specific gravities and weights of the differ- 
ent woods used by ship-builders, by Prof. C.S. 
Sargent and the late Constructor Pook, U.S.N., 
are given; and the report is closed with sta- 
tistics of vessels built in the census year. 
number of hands employed, wages, value of 
materials, etc. 


MINOR BOOK NOTICES. 


The electric light: its history, production, and appli- 
cations. By Em. ALGLAvE and J. BouLarp. 
Translated from the French by T. O’Conor 
SLOANE, E.M., Ph.D. Edited, with notes and 
additions, by C. M. Lunaren,C.E. New York, 
Appleton, 1884. 18+4458 p. 8°. 


Tue fascinating character of the subject, and 
the great popular interest in it, have stimulated 
the production of pictorial treatises on elec- 
tricity and its practical applications. To the 
specialist many of these modern treatises ap- 
pear to be uncalled for, or at least seem to be 
padded with much superfluous and unnecessary 
matter. 

Is there not a curious relation between the 
expensive furnishing of the offices of many 
electric-light companies, where the unwary per- 
son is induced to invest in stock which has only 
an imaginary value, and the luxurious editions 
of many treatises on the electric light? Ifthe 
office should be embellished, why should not 
the books that treat of the wares of the com- 
pany be of éditions de luxe? 

The work of Alglave and Boulard, edited by 
Mr. Lungren, contains much extraneous mat- 
ter; but the general reader will find valuable 
information in regard to the general features of 
electric lighting. The treatise does not pre- 
tend to be an exhaustive presentation of the 
subject. One is surprised to find how much 
interesting matter has been crowded into the 


464 


volume, notwithstanding so much space is given 
to large illustrations. Many of the latter are 
extremely amusing. One of them (p. 85) rep- 
resents a street in New York lighted by the 
Brush electric lamps. On the pavement are 
many mercurial New-Yorkers, waving their 
hats; and one is so much overcome with en- 
thusiasm, that he turns his back upon the fait 
accompli, ana walks away with bared head. 
Should not this engraving be entitled ‘ A street 
in Paris’? 


Report on the International exhibition of electricity, 
held at Paris, August to November, 1881. By 
Davip Porter Heap, major corps of engineers, 
U.S.A. Washington, Government, 1884. 287 p. 
O°. : 

Ir will be interesting to the visitor to the 
Philadelphia electrical exposition to compare 
his recollections of that exhibition with Major 
Heap’s report of the Paris exposition of 1881. 
He will find in this latter work a short and con- 
cise account of the principal types of dynamo- 
machines, and will discover that the new forms 
which were exhibited at Philadelphia differ only 
slightly from those described by Major Heap. 

The report does not pretend to contain any 
measurements or calculations, and was neces- 
sarily somewhat hastily prepared. ‘The elec- 
trician, however, will find it a valuable addition 
to his library. 


ABC de la photographie moderne. Par W. K. 
Burton, C.E. Traduit de anglais par G. Hu- 
BERSON. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1884. 112 p. 
We ; 

As its name implies, this work is intended 
for the beginner in photography, but it con- 
tains many hints that those of longer experi- 
ence might profit by. Beginning with thie 
choice of apparatus, and the arrangement of 
the dark room, the whole process of photog- 
raphy is described, including both methods of 
development, to the production of the finished 
print. The most prominent defect of the 
work is that the chapters on printing are rather 
too brief: indeed, there is no description at all 
of the processes of mounting and burnishing. 
The chapters on the production of the nega- 
tive, however, are excellent, as is the one on 
defects and their remedies. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


PROFESSOR Mell, director of the Alabama weather- 
service, announces, that through the liberality of the 


SCIENCE. 


a 


[Vou. IV., No. 


chief signal-officer, and of several railways, daily — 


weather-signals, predicting changes of weather and 
temperature, will be displayed at over one hundred 
telegraph-stations in that state. The predictions will 
be received by the director at an early hour every 
morning from the signal-office in Washington, and 
then promptly distributed along the railways. By 
paying for the cost of the signal-flags (about six dol- 
lars), any town or telegraph-station will receive free 
telegraphic warning of the daily weather-changes. 
Only about five minutes is required to set the flags. 
A similar system has been for some time in operation 
in Ohio and in part of Pennsylvania, and it will 
doubtless have farther extension. 


— Herr Warburg has succeeded in electrolyzing 
glass by heating a piece of soda-lime glass to about 
300° C., at which temperature it is a conductor, and 
placing it between mercury electrodes. It was neces- 
sary to use from fifteen to thirty Bunsen cells for a 
long period. He then found, that, at the anode side of 
the glass, he had a layer of silicic acid. -This layer 
very quickly reduces the strength of the current, 
owing to its bad conductivity. 


— We learn from Nature that a tunnel measuring 
about five thousand feet in length, and constructed 
at least nine centuries before the Christian era, has 
just been discovered by the governor of the Island 
of Samos. Herodotus mentions this tunnel, which 
served for providing the old seaport with drinking- 
water. It is completely preserved, and contains 
water-tubes of about twenty-five centimetres in diam- 
eter, each one provided with a lateral aperture for 
cleansing-purposes. The tunnel is not quite straight, 
but bent in the middle: this is hardly to be wondered 
at, as the ancient engineers did not possess measur- 
ing-instruments of such precision as those constructed 
nowadays. 


— Heddebault has succeeded in separating rags 
of cotton and wool, mixed, by subjecting them to the 
action of a jet of superheated steam. Under a press- 
ure of five atmospheres, the wool melts, and sinks to 
the bottom of the receptacle; while cotton, linen, and 
other vegetable fibres stand, thus remaining suitable 
for the paper-manufacture. The liquid mud which 
contains the wool thus precipitated is then desic- 
cated. The residue, which has received the name of 
azotine, is completely soluble in water, and is valu- 
able on account of its nitrogen. Moreover, its prepa- 
ration costs nothing; because the increased value of 
the pulp, free from wool, is sufficient to cover the cost 
of the process. 


—A Berlin correspondent of the St. James gazette 
writes that an engineer named Fisher is reported to 
have made an important discovery in aeronautics, by 
which he is enabled to condense or expand the gas in 
a balloon. The agent he employs is compressed car- 
bonic acid, with the help of which he can ascend or 
descend at pleasure. This perpendicular movement 
puts it in the power of the aeronaut to go up or down 
until he finds a current of air moving in the horizon- 
tal direction he wishes. Military critics attribute 


_ great importance to this discovery, because in time of 


a , ‘ 


a5 
NOVEMBER 14, 1884.] 


war a balloon will be able to reach the enemy’s terri- 
tory, and ascend again, without requiring a fresh 
supply of gas. 

— Weill, who has spent many years on his ex- 
periments, has, it is said, at last succeeded in coating 
instantaneously all the ordinary metals and their 
alloys with a thin film of brass, which can be varied 
in color. He uses only a single battery-celi, and 
obtains at will solid deposits of various hues and bril- 
lianey. The tints are stated to be due to the forma- 
tion of copper oxides, the composition of which has 
not yet been determined. 


— Nature states that the Globus reports the dis- 
covery of the ruins of an ancient city near Samar- 
kand. They are situated upon a hill which was 
doubtless a fortress formerly. Remains of utensils 
and human bones have also been found. According 
to Arabian sources, the large city of Aphrosiab existed 
there in the time of Moses: it was the royal resi- 
dence; and the king’s castle stood on the hill, and was 
provided with subterranean corridors. The result of 
the excavations shows that the ruins are indeed those 
of a very ancient city. The various depths, however, 
differ widely. In the lower ones fine glass objects 
are found, which are quite absent from the upper 
ones. The lowest layers contain remains of a very 
primitive nature, i.e., coarse implements of clay and 
flint. The excavations are being continued. News 
from Turkestan announces the discovery of another 
ancient city. Achsy, on the right bank of the Amu 
Darya. Remains of brick walls and other buildings 
are said to be visible in considerable numbers. 


— The December number of the monthly meteor- 
ological charts of the North Atlantic, described in 
Science, iii. 654, was recently issued by the Hydro- 
graphic office, completing the set. It is announced 
that work in a similar direction has been begun for 
the South Atlantic. 

The November number of the North Atlantic 
pilot chart is also just published. The bark Ethel 
Blanche continues its zigzag way across the ocean, 
being now reported for the sixth time. Two storm- 
tracks are charted, one of tropical origin, noteworthy 
in not advancing west of longitude 58° west, before 
turning to the north-east: the other storm seems to 
have Jeft our shores near Charleston, and then spent 
four days in turning round a sharp loop, and recross- 
ing its path, before finally moving away to the north- 
east. 

— After thirty-three years of duty, Gen. Isaac F. 
Quimby has been compelled by ill health to retire 
from the professorship of mathematics and natural 
philosophy at the University of Rochester. 


— Ensign J. J. Blandin, U.S.N., has been ordered 
by the navy department to the Johns Hopkins uni- 
versity, for a course of study in physics and chemis- 
try. 

—L. R. Hammersly & Co. of Philadelphia an- 
nounce a work on Indian sign-language, by the late 
Capt. W. P. Clark, U.S.A.; and E. & F. N. Spon 
announce a practical treatise on the manufacture of 
bricks, tiles, terra-cotta, etc., by Charles Thomas 


SCIENCE. 


465 


Davis; also a new book by J. Lothian Bell, entitled 
‘Principles of the manufacture of iron and steel, 
with some notes on the economic condition of their 
production.’ 


— Capt. Kostovich of the Russian navy proposes 
the use of a small captive balloon, to which an Edison 
lamp is suspended, for night signalling. By the aid 
of connecting-wires, the lamp may be lighted and ex- 
tinguished at will, and the apparatus may thus be 
used with any of the codes in vogue. 


— The report on the prizes offered by the Berlin 
royal academy of sciences was read at the July meet- 
ing. The Steiner prize for geometry was not granted, 
as no essay reached the required standard of excel- 
lence: the grant was therefore postponed until March 
1, 1886, when it will be offered for the best geometri- 
cal treatise written in German, Latin, or French. 
One prize has, however, been accorded to Professor 
Fiedles of the Zurich polytechnic school, for his work 
in geometry. The subject for the Cothenius prize 
is, ‘*‘ By personal experiment and chemical research 
to ascertain the assimilation process of plants in 
Jight, and by direct proof show in the plant-fibres 
the primary assimilation products of the carbon in 
plants, distinguishing them from the similar products 
of transformation in the change of matter in the 
cells, and showing its chemical nature.’’ As some 
approximate solution of the problem, a clear demon- 
stration will be accepted of the present ideas on the 
assimilation process of plants, and the primary organ- 
ic generations thereof by repetition of the series of 
observations and researches already made, and an im- 
portant extension or limitation thereof. The Diez 
prize of the academy, of two thousand marks, has been 
granted to Professor Pio Rajna of Florence, for his 
work on the origin of the French epic. 


—It is reported, says the Engineer, that the atten- 
tion of the Indian government has been drawn to a 
tree in southern India, from which large supplies of 
caoutchouc can be drawn. ‘This is the ‘ Teichmig’ 
of the Chinese, or Prameria glandulifera of botanists. 
Unlike the South-American tree, from which the 
caoutchouc is tapped by piercing the bark, the gum 
is obtained from the new source by breaking the 
boughs, and drawingit out in filaments. If the new 
caoutchouc is at all equal to the old in insulating- 
properties, it will form a timely discovery; for the in- 
troduction of electric lighting has created an increased 
demand for india-rubber coated wires. Indeed, sev- 
eral inventors have iately been engaged in trying to 
manufacture a substitute for gutta-percha and india- 
rubber out of oxidized oils; that is to say, oils treated 
with chloride of sulphur, mixed with asphalt, ozoke- 
rit, and other insulating substances. 


— The effect produced by Mr. Selim Lemstrém in 
his experiments on the artificial production of the 
aurora is well shown in the illustration on the next 
page, from a drawing by Mr. Lemstrém. On the top 
of the mountain a wire was stretched on poles, and 
furnished at every foot or two with brass points. 
This wire was several miles in length, and was car- 
ried over the top of the hill in the form of a spiral. 


466 


The poles were supplied with sulphuric-acid insula- 
tors in order to prevent, as far as possible, the creep- 
ing of electricity over their surfaces. From ‘this 
insulated system of points a wire was run to a ground- 
connection at a lower level, perhaps from five hundred 
to a thousand feet below. If the ground-connection 


had been made on the same level, no current would 
have been observed; but when there was a difference 
of level, even if not more than thirty feet, a current 
was always observed from the higher point to the 
The luminous effects portrayed in the cut 


lower. 


SCIENCE. 


‘ 


eral vineyards near Bordeaux, the workmen rubbing 
the stocks with a chain-steel glove; but the results 
are not satisfactory, as it is only the old wood which 
can be treated in this way. The use of boiling water 
would produce excellent results but for the fact that 
it is open, more than any other process, to careless- 
ness in application; and that neutralizes all its good 
effects. ‘The rubbing of the vines with a preparation 
composed of nine parts of coal-tar to one of oil was 
open to the objection that the coal-tar got so thick in 
cold weather that it could not be applied, and the 


A VERTICAL SHEAF OF LIGHT OBSERVED, DURING A DISPLAY OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS, ABOVE A SYSTEM OF WIRES ON THE 


TOP OF PIETARINTUNTURI, NEAR KULTALA, FINNISH LABRLAND. 


were only visible to the naked eye when there was a 
marked display of northern lights; although by the 
aid of the spectroscope, which would show the pecul- 
iar spectrum of auroral light, the existence of the 
streamer could often be proved. 


— Balbiani, professor at the Collége de France, 
was commissioned a short time ago, by the minister 
of agriculture, to report upon the best mode of de- 
‘stroying the winter eggs of the Phylloxera, as it has 
been found that it is in this way the progress of the 
parasite is very materially checked. Professor Bal- 
biani reports that three methods have been employed, 
—the mechanical destruction of the eggs by barking 
the vines, boiling water, and rubbing the vines with 
preparations calculated to burn up the eggs. The 
first-named of these methods has been tried in sev- 


(Reproduced from La Nature.) 


cost of heating it again was considerable. Several 
vine-growers tried to liquefy the mixture by adding 
fifteen per centof turpentine; but this, when applied, 
killed the vines altogether. Lalbiani tried several 
fresh experiments, among others a mixture of oil, 
naphtha, quicklime, and water. This mixture has 
been tried upon a very large scale in the vineyards of 
the Lot-et-Garonne and the Loir-et-Cher; and it 
possesses, according to Balbiani, the double recom- 
mendation of being effectual and cheap, as the cost 
is under a franc for a hundred stocks. 
—A Washington correspondent informs us that it 
was the Mohave and not the Zufli women whom Dr. 
Tylor mentioned, at a recent meeting of the anthro- 
pological society of Washington (see Science, p. 448), 
as wearing bark skirts. 


[Vou. IV., No. 93.. 


: 
4 


me be, Neer. 


FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

WE orTeN hear it said, that any thing is easy 
to do when one only knows how; but the 
transition from doing to speculating involves 
in some way the inverse of this; for what is 
easier than unending conjecture to the wilfully 
ignorant theorizer ? Astronomers and physi- 
cists, armed with powerful telescopes and spec- 
troscopes, have for years been assiduously 
occupied with the careful and systematic study 
of all the visible phenomena of the solar disk, 
and have been able to obtain satisfactory solu- 
tions of many problems of great difficulty. For 
the pretentious pseudo-scientist, however, all 
these labors have been in vain. His own 
theories preclude all need of investigation, and 
the facts must be manipulated into coincidence 
with his vagaries. But there still remains a 
host of mysteries in the field of the physics of 
astronomy which all observation and reason- 
able hypothesis have so far failed to unravel. 
Do these harass the soul of the pseudo- 
scientist ? Farfromit. Not only is he ready 
to urge on every occasion ‘the true theory,’ 
and to prove that his is ‘the only possible 
solution,’ but he rashly confronts all existing 
science with unanswerable clinchers, in this 
wise: ‘‘ Where, then, shall we turn for a 
theory, if we reject the one herein developed, 
. . . the non-admission of which will forever 
involve science in difficulties and inconsisten- 
cies ?”’ 


We have a doubt whether we do not owe our 
readers an apology for space given up to such 
a book as that noticed in another column of 
this issue; but it gives us excuse for correcting 
the impression, more or less prevalent among 
those indirectly interested in the progress of 
American science, that the crop of pseudo- 
scientific literature is larger in our own country 
than it is abroad. The scientific ‘ crank,’ like 

No. 94. — 1884. 


all of that ilk, is perpetually clamoring for 
recognition; and, as he ever and anon acts 
upon his belief that the acknowledged leaders 
in science are most easily accessible through 
their mails, this impression is speedily cor- 
rected on examination of the sources of the 
contents of a few waste-baskets. The more 
thorough and wide-spread scientific education 
afforded in many foreign countries is not ap- 
parently, as we should expect, the means of 
turning the energies of the ‘crank’ into the 
direction of legitimate research ; but he enjoys 
his frequent appearance in type with a freedom 
which the American pseudo-scientist only rarely 
indulges. 


We may take this occasion to comment 
further on the very unwise precedent which 
the publishers of this book have set by the 
issue of a work of this character. Book- 
publishing has for a number of years been 
conducted on a very'scientific basis by a few 
of the better-known houses, and only such 
works have been issued as were able to pass 
muster with the critical ‘ reader’ or expert. 
The greatest of care has been exercised, that 
the publication of no book should be under- 
taken the sales of which were not likely to 
be reasonably remunerative. Such care has 
greatly lessened the labors of large buyers of 
books, and inspired them with a very proper 
confidence in the best houses ; so that, in fact, 


not a few libraries have standing orders with 
certain publishers for every book as soon as 


issued, and the book-buyer has heretofore 
been usually safe against serious imposition. 
When, however, an accumulation of literary 
refuse comes on the market, bearing the im- 
print of a reputable house, it becomes an 
appropriate season for the display of caution- 
ary signals. 


THe Monthly weather-review of the signal- 
service for last August shows an important 


468 SCIENCE. 


4 


change in the right direction on its cover. 
Heretofore these valuable summaries, involv- 
ing a great amount of labor quite apart from 
the preparation of daily forecasts, have been 
issued anonymously ; at least, it has been sim- 
ply announced that they were ‘‘ prepared under 
the direction of . . . the chief signal-oflicer of 
the army.’’ There is now very properly added 
to this the name of the officer personally in 
charge of the work. ‘The more direct the state- 
ment of individual authorship, the better; for 
with it goes individual credit and responsi- 
bility. The ‘Professional papers’ and the 
‘ Notes of the signal-service’ have always been 
thus duly credited to their authors: it would 
be well if the authorship of the many cir- 
culars that have been issued on tornadoes, 
thunder-storms, and other subjects, had been 
as explicitly published. 


THE TERMINOLOGY of storms adopted in these 
reviews is somewhat open to criticism. After 
forty years of observation, during which it has 
always been found that regions of low baro- 
metric pressure are accompanied by an inward 
flow of the winds, with a constant direction of 
spiral turning, it does not seem hasty to use 
a name for such phenomena, and call them 
briefly ‘ cyclones,’ as was long ago suggested, 
so as to avoid the awkward paraphrase, ‘ area 
of low barometer,’ on the one hand, and the 
abrupt slangy expression, ‘ low,’ on the other, 
and do away with so erroneous a description 
as ‘ atmospheric depression,’ and with so in- 
definite a term as ‘disturbance.’ It is an 
incorrect use of the word that associates cy- 
clones only with hurricanes of devastating 
strength, or with local storms like tornadoes. 
It was originally proposed, and should still be 
used, to designate a certain kind of atmos- 
pheric mechanism, independent of gentleness 
or violence, and hence perfectly applicable to 
the ‘disturbances’ in question. 


Redfield was clearly of this opinion. In 
1854 he wrote that the term ‘ cyclone’ was 
proposed ‘‘ to designate any considerable area 


' found capable of rendering other valuable ser- 


(Vou. IV., No. 9 B 


or extent of wind which exhibits a turning or 
revolving motion, without regard to its vary- 
ing velocity, or to the different names which 
are often applied to such winds. . . . All hur- 
ricanes or violent storms may, perhaps, be 
considered as‘ cyclones or revolving winds ; 
but it by no means follows that all cyclones 
are either hurricanes, gales, or storms.’’ He 
said, further, that the word was not designed to 
express the degree of activity or force of the 
wind, and made mention of ‘* the inert and 
passive cyclones which seldom gain attention.’’ 
Similar abstracts could be made from Col. 
Reid’s famous work on the ‘ Law of storms ;’ 
and, even in the early numbers of the Weather- 
review, ‘cyclone’ was used in its original 
sense. It would be advisable to return to it. 


By MEANS of a most promising local anaes- 
thetic, Dr. Koller of Vienna has recently been 
able to render the eye quite insensible to pain. 
Under its influence, almost any operation may 
be performed upon this delicate organ without 
causing suffering ; and its use is not followed 
by unpleasant after-effects. A few minutes 
after putting three or four drops of a four-per- 
cent solution of hydrochlorate of cocaine into 
the eye, no discomfort is felt when the front 
of the eyeball is rubbed with the finger; or it 
may be cut with a knife, for example, to do 
an operation for cataract, and no pain is occa- — 
sioned. It is not many weeks since this was 
demonstrated in Germany; and already many _ 
operations have been performed by our own 
oculists with great success and satisfaction. 
For some months before its use in the eye, it 
had been employed by physicians to render the 
mucous membranes less sensitive, especially 
that of the throat; and it will probably be 


vices in medicine. 


The alkaloid cocaine, which was isolated 
about thirty years ago by Gardeke, and is 
somewhat similar to the one which is found in 
tea and coffee, is obtained from the leaves of — 
the Erythroxylon coca. This shrub is cul- 
tivated in the valleys of the eastern slopes of 


- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884.] 


the Andes; and its leaves, which are gathered 
and dried with great care, have been used by 
the natives as a stimulant and narcotic since 
the days of the Incas, by whom it was held in 
great esteem. This plant should not be con- 
founded with the more familiar Theobroma 
eacao, the seeds of which afford chocolate and 


eacao-butter, nor with the cocoanut, whose - 


tree supplies food, drink, light, clothing, 
and shelter to the natives of some tropical 
lands. 


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. 


The stone age in prehistoric archeology. 


In a recent number of Science, it is stated (p. 438), 
that at a meeting of the Academy of natural sciences 
of Philadelphia, Sept. 25, Dr. Brinton exhibited cer- 
tain stone objects from Tunis, presented by the 
Marguis de Nadaillac. Among them was one re- 
sembling the ‘stemmed scrapers’ found in this 
eountry. ‘‘ This form,’’ the writer goes on to state, 
“‘is characteristic, in France, of the later produc- 
tions of the stone age, especially of that epoch called 
by the French archeologists ‘the epoch of Roben- 
hausen.’ Chronologically, this is regarded as the 
first epoch of the appearance of man on the globe, 
the previous implement-using animals being probably 
anthropoids.’’ This is a most amazing travesty of 
the views of de Mortillet and the archeologists of his 
school. It may safely be asserted that no one holds 
any such opinions as these, with the possible excep- 
tion of the writer of the notice in question. 

At the Prehistoric congress held at Brussels in 
1872, Gabriel de Mortillet first proposed his sys- 
tem of classification of the age of stone. In it the 
name ‘ epoch of Robenhausen’ is given as Synonymous 
with ‘age of polished stone,’ or ‘neolithic period;’ 
while the paleolithic age is subdivided into four grand 
divisions, called, in the inverse order of their anti- 
quity, those of La Madelaine, of Solutré, of Moustier, 
and of St. Acheul, each characterized by its own 
peculiar type of instrument. This classification was 
still further extended by him to the age of bronze, in 
a table exhibited at the Geographical congress held 
at Paris in the summer of 1875. A full account of 
it was given in the Matériauz, vol. x. p. 872. Since 
then the system has been almost universally adopted 
by prehistoric archeologists; and it is thoroughly 
explained and admirably illustrated in the ‘Musée 
préhistorique,’ published by Messrs. Gabriel and 
Adrien de Mortillet, in 1881. In 1883 the elder de 
Mortillet published, in the library of contemporary sci- 
ences, his ‘ Le préhistorique antiquité de ’/homme.’ 
In this the views he was known to hold in regard to 
the so-called ‘tertiary man,’ or, as he more logically 
entitles him, ‘the precursor of man,’ are set forth in 
detail. A critical notice of this work was given by 
the writer in Science for March 30, 1883. The work 
is divided into three parts, — ‘ the tertiary man,’ ‘the 
quaternary man,’ and ‘the man of the present’ 
{homme actuel); and the doctrine is maintained that 


SCIENCE. 


469 


“it is only at the commencement of the quaternary 
that man shows himself not absolutely identical with 
us, but so near that we cannot refuse to him, under 
a proper nomenclature, the name of man.’’ De Mor- 
tillet’s peculiar views, with which only a very few 
anthropologists sympathize, are confined to the exist- 
ence of an intelligent ‘implement-using anthropoid’ 
in tertiary times. To this question he returns with 
renewed vigor in his journal, L’homme, of the 25th of 
last September, apropos of the excavations made at 
the celebrated locality of Thenay (near Tours) by a 
committee of the French association for the advance- 
ment of science. These were preparatory to a dis- 
cussion of the question of the tertiary man at the 
meeting held last year at Blois. 

Whether it was ‘man,’ or ‘an intelligent anthro- 
poid,’ who fabricated stone implements in tertiary 
times, may well be a question; but there is no doubt 
whatsoever that they were men very like those first 
found by Europeans on this continent, and Mr. Jacob 
Messikommer will help any one, as he did the writer, 
to disinter their relics from the peat-moor of Roben- 
hausen. HENRY W. HAYNES. 

Boston, Noy. 10. 


Forgotten conclusions of science. 


Your comments on the forgotten conclusion of 
an investigator on rectal anaesthesia reminds me 
of a discussion, in the section of physics at the Amer- 
ican association, over a paper of Professor Graham 
Bell’s, on a possible method of communication be- 
tween ships at sea. Several eminent men and some 
distinguished foreign visitors took part in the dis- 
cussion. Itled out into suggestions of telegraphing 
across the ocean without wires, and experiments of 
communication across rivers, and across the strait 
between Southampton and the Isle of Wight. 

As my recollection serves me, Professor Morse 
went over all these experiments more than thirty 
years ago, and supposed at one time he could carry 
his telegraph across rivers and streams by means of 
two wires, one running up and the other down stream 
along the shores, and then dipping into the water. 
I remember seeing a cut illustrating it. Professor 
Bell’s paper was a new adaptation of the old idea; 
but the discussion, and all, seemed to me to be wholly 
oblivious of the experiments and conclusions of 
Frofessor Morse. P. J. FARNSWORTH. 

Clinton, Io., Nov. 8. 


The lamprey as a builder. 


During the month of June I had an excellent op- 
portunity to observe the manner in which the lam- 
prey eel (Petromyzon marinus) builds a stone dam for 
the deposit of spawn and for the protection of the 
progeny. 

The location of the structure was in the Saco River, 
within the ripples near the foot of the lower falls, 
three miles from the sea, and near the level of mean 
high water. It was nearly at right angles with a 
shore-wall of granite, and was about fifteen feet long 
and from one to three feet in height. Its position 
and triangular shape in vertical section were well 
adapted for securing a change of water, and a hiding- 
place among the stones for the young. 

When I first noticed the movements of the eels, they 
were diligently at work, their system of operation 
being very methodical; but I was not able to deter- 
mine whether there was any action by single pairs, as 


a H, V¢ CIV" RP a Cee Ue oY 


[Vou. IV., No. O4. 


A 


470 SCIENCE. 


> 


their movements were rapid, and the number engaged 
at one time must have been fifty, while it is probable 
that a hundred were at work, for they were constantly 
coming from various directions to take or resume their 
places on the up-stream side of the dam. 


The river-bed at this point was made up of water- . 


worn stones, chips of granite, and fragments of bricks, 
over which there was a steady flow of water, the depth 
being four or five feet, but varying with the level of the 
tide. 

The mode of raising the material was the same in 
all cases: the eel attached his mouth to a stone, and 
then, with many wrigglings and contortions (the head 
always pointing up-stream), lifted it from the bottom; 
he then backed down stream, floating with the cur- 
rent, until the stone was over the centre of the heap, 
when it was dropped, lodging sometimes on one side, 
and sometimes on the other. He then usually re- 
turned for more material to the deep and compara- 
tively still pool formed above the dam by the previous 
excavations, but in some instances was unable to stem 
the more rapid current at the top of the dam, and 
was carried below it. When this happened, he swam 
around the outer end of the dam, and returned to the 
pool to resume the work. 

I noticed in many instances that the heavier stones 
were lifted by two eels, working alongside of each 
other, and carried to their proper places in the struc- 
ture. Half-bricks, weighing two pounds, were thus 
transported by one individual, and many of the stones 
were of much greater weight. 

Later in the season many of the eels were lying 
quietly upon the up-stream side of the dam, and about 
the middle of July all had disappeared. 

The temperature of the water, when the river-cur- 
rent was not met by the tide, was in June about 64° 
F., and in July 71°. 

Stones of various sizes, lying at the base of the 
shore-wall, were removed; and it was evident that the 
stability of this wall would have been impaired if it 
had been built upon a rubble or gravel foundation 
instead of upon a solid ledge. 

JOHN M. BATCHELDER. 


Cambridge. 


A viviparous pumpkin. 


To-day, on cutting open a common pumpkin fresh 
from the field and perfectly sound, it was discovered 
that very many of the seeds had already germinated. 
The caulicles were from one to three inches in length, 
while some of the rootlets were over seven inches. 
The cotyledons, wherever free from the seed-cover- 
ing, were green in color, and spread so as to expose 
the growing plumule. In one case the second leaves 
were partly unfolded. E. T. NELSON. 


Delaware, O., Nov. 1. 


American pearls. 


In answer to George F. Kunz in No. 89, let me say 
that many pearls, ranging from five to twenty-five or 
more dollars in value, have been found in the fresh- 
water mussel in the Little Miami River, a few miles 
from here. The prevailing color is pink, in various 
shades. In size they vary, the larger ones being about 
as large as a pea, or larger. The pearls have been 
found at various times, from a dozen years ago, up to 
last April. They are commonly found in the Unio, 
— U. undulatus, or U. occidens. R. N. ROARK. 


Nat. science dept., Normal university, 
Lebanon, O. 


FERDINAND VON HOCHSTETTER. 


Frerpinanp von Hocusrerrer was born at 
Ksslingen (Wurtemberg), April 80, 1829, and 
died, after a painful illness of five years, at 
Vienna, on the 17th of last July. His father, 
a clergyman, was a well-known botanist, and a 
professor of natural history. While a pupil of 
the celebrated geologist and paleontologist, 
Prof. F. A. Quensted of Tubingen, Hochstteter 
was a classmate of the late A. Oppel, and is 
one of the most prominent of the geologists of 
the school to which science is indebted for 
such celebrated geologists and paleontologists 
as Oscar Fraas of Stuttgart; C. Rominger 
of Ann Arbor, Mich.; A. Oppel, and Traut- 
schold, of Moscow. When an assistant in the 
Austrian geological survey, he was appointed 
naturalist of the ‘ Novara expedition round 
the world,’ 1857-59. After visiting Gibraltar, 
Rio de Janeiro, the Cape of Good Hope, St. 
Paul Island, the Nicobar Islands, and Java, 
Hochstetter left the Novara, shortly after its 
arrival at New Zealand, and passed almost 
the whole of 1859 in preparing a careful geo- 
logical reconnoissance of the northern and 
southern islands of New Zealand. Scarcely 
had the Novara anchored at Auckland, before 
Julius von Haast, an Austrian nobleman of 
great ability, well known afterward as the di- 
rector of the Canterbury museum of Christ- 
church, came on board. Haast had come out 
a short time before as a settler. Hochstetter 
at once secured him as his assistant; and after 
seven months in the northern island, and two 
months in the province of Nelson in the south- 
ern island, with the aid of the New-Zealand 
government and of the leading citizens of the 
colony, he succeeded in determining most sat- 
isfactorily the geology of this distant country, 
describing not only the beautiful voleanic for- 
mation, but also the secondary, the tertiary, 
and the quaternary formations, and adding 
much to our knowledge of geographical geol- 
ogy. The results of Hochstetter’s researches. 


were first given as lectures before the Auck- 


land mechanics’ institute, June, 1859, and 
at Nelson in October of the same year. The 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884.] 


New-Zealand government gazette published 
them, and a special copy was distributed in 
the colony and in England. Afterward, geo- 
logical maps were added, and lectures and 
maps appeared at Auckland in 1864, under 
the title of ‘ The geology of New Zealand.’ 
Later, Hochstetter published in Vienna, 1866, 
two quarto volumes, entitled ‘Geologie und 
palaontologie von 
Neu Seeland,’ the 
paleontology being § 
worked up by such ; 
specialists as Un- 
ger, Zittel, Suess, 
Stoliczka, with the 
assistance of 
Hornes, von Hauer, 
and Hochstetter 
himself. Shortly 
after his return to 
Vienna, in 1860, 
Hochstetter was ap- 
pointed professor of 
geology and miner- 
alogy at the impe- 
rial polytechnic 
school. In1867he 
was sent by the 
Austrian govern- 
ment to Paris asa 
commissioner to the 
International exhi- 
bition, and in 1874 
he was assistant di- 
rector of the Vienna 
international exhibi- 
tion. Shortly after 
this, he was made 
director of the new imperial museum of natural 
history, with the difficult task of erecting a 
new building. Notwithstanding illness, which 
soon attacked him, Hochstetter had the hap- 
piness of seeing all the collections removed to 
the new building, and arranged so systemati- 
cally that the Vienna museum now ranks among 
the first, if not the first, in the world. From 
1869 to 1872, Hochstetter was exploring Eu- 
ropean Turkey, of which he prepared an ex- 


SCIENCE. 


ee 7 pea 


471 


cellent geological map, with a report. He 
afterwards visited the Ural Mountains, de- 
scribed in his ‘ Ueber den Ural,’ Berlin, 1875. 
Hochstetter was also a geographer of note, 
and his ‘Die erde’ is justly popular. As 
vice-president, afterward president, of the geo- 
eraphical society of Vienna, he rendered im- 
portant services to geography, more especially 
) in assisting the ex- 
pedition to the 
north pole, which 
resulted in the dis- 
covery of Franz- 
Josef Land, and in 
his continued aid to 
Dr. Oscar Lenz, 
the/ex plorer toe 
western Africa, and 
the traveller who 
made the remarka- 
ble journey from 
Tangier to Timbuc- 
too and the Senegal. 
Finally Hochstet- 
ter was selected, in 
1872, by the emper- 
or of Austria-Hun- 
gary as tutor in 
natural history to 
the crown prince. 
Personally, Fer- 
dinand von Hoch- 
stetter was a most 
attractive man, a 
very interesting lec- 
turer, and a power- 
ful conversational- 
ist. He married an 
English lady; and his house in Dobling, 
Vienna, was a centre for Austrian savants. 
and for all foreigners visiting the capital of 


SKEW 


nsec! LLL 


the Austrian empire. 


MARRIAGE LAW IN SAVAGERY.! 


Society is organized for the regulation of 
conduct, and conduct is regulated by law in the 


1 See Certain principles of primitive law (Science, No. 92), 


472 


several stages of human progress in relation 
to those particulars about which serious dis- 
agreement arises. In the early history of 
mankind it appears, from all that we may now 
know of the matter, that the most serious and 
frequent disagreements arose out of the relations 
of the sexes. Men disagreed about women, 
and women about men. Early law, therefore, 
deals to a large extent with the relations of the 
sexes. The savage legislator sought to avoid 
controversy by regulating marital relations ; 
and this he did by denying to the individual 
the right of choice, and providing that certain 
groups of men should take their wives from 
certain groups of women, and, further, that 
the selection of the woman should not be given 
to the man, nor the selection of the man to 
the woman, but that certain officers or elder 
persons should make the marriage contract. 
This method of selection will*here be called 
legal appointment. 

Now, selection by legal appointment exists 
among all North-American tribes, and else- 
where among savages in Australia and other 
portions of the globe: it exists in diverse 
forms, which may not here be recounted for 
want of space. But the essential principle is 
this : in order that controversy may be avoided, 
marriage selection is by legal appointment, and 
not by personal choice. 

But the second fundamental principle of 
primitive law greatly modifies selection by legal 
appointment, and gives rise to three forms of 
marriage, which will be denominated as fol- 
lows: first, marriage by elopement; second, 
marriage by capture; third, marriage by duel. 

It very often happens in the history of tribes 
that certain of the kinship groups diminish in 
number, while others increase. A group of 
men may greatly increase in number, while the 
group of women from whom they are obliged 
to accept their wives diminishes. At the same 
time another group of women may be large in 
proportion to the group of men to whom they 
are destined. Under these circumstances, cer- 
tain men have a right to many wives, while 
others have a right to but few. It is very 
natural that young men and young women 
should sometimes rebel against the law, and 
elope with each other. Now, a fundamental 
principle of early law is that controversy 
must end; and such termination is secured by 
a curious provision found among many, per- 
haps all, tribes. A day is established, some- 
times once a moon, but usually once a year, 
at which certain classes of offences are for- 
given. If, then, a runaway couple can escape 
to the forest, and live by themselves until the 


SCIENCE. 


oe een 


[Vor. IV., No. 94. 


day of forgiveness, they may return to the 
tribe, and live in peace. Marriage by this 
form exists in many of the tribes of North 
America. 

Again: the group of men whose marriage 
rights are curtailed by diminution of the stock 
into which they may marry, sometimes unite 
to capture a wife for one of their number from 
some other group. It must be distinctly un- 
derstood that this capture is not from an alien 
tribe, but always from a group within the same 
tribe. The attempt at capture is resisted, and 
a conflict ensues. If the capture is successful, 
the marriage is thereafter considered legal; 
if unsuccessful, a second resort to capture in 
the particular case is not permitted, for con- 
troversy must end. When women are taken 
in war from alien tribes, they must be adopted 
into some clan within the capturing tribe, in 
order that they may become wives of the men 
of the tribe. When this is done, the captured 
women become by legal appointment the wives 
of men in the group having marital rights in 
the clan which has adopted them. 

The third form is marriage by duel. When 
a young woman comes to marriageable age, it 
may happen that by legal appointment she is 
assigned to a man who already has a wife, 
while there may be some other young man in 
the tribe who is without a wife, because there 
is none for him in the group within which he 
may marry. It is then the right of the latter 
to challenge to combat the man who is entitled 
to more than one, and, if successful, he wins 
the woman; and by savage law controversy 
must then end. 

All three of these forms are observed among 
the tribes of North America; and they are 
methods by which selection by legal appoint- 
ment is developed into selection by personal 
choice. Sometimes these latter forms largely 
prevail; and they come to be regulated more 
and more, until at last they become mere 
forms, and personal choice prevails. 

When personal choice thus prevails, the old 
regulation that a man may not marry within 
his own group still exists ; and selection within 
that group is incest, which is always punished 
with great severity. The group of persons 
within which marriage is incest, is always a 
highly artificial group: hence, in early society, 
incest laws do not recognize physiologic con- 
ditions, but only social conditions. ; 

The above outline will make clear the fol- 
lowing statement, that endogamy and exogamy, 
as originally defined by McLennan, do not 
exist. Every savage man is exogamous with 
relation to the class or clan to which he may 


i 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884.] 


belong, and he is to a certain extent endog- 
amous in relation to the tribe to which he 
belongs, that is, he must marry within that 
tribe; but in all cases, if his marriage is the 
result of legal appointment, he is greatly re- 
stricted in his marriage rights, and the selec- 
tion must be made within some limited group. 
Exogamy and endogamy, as thus defined, are 
integral parts of the same law, and the tribes 
of mankind cannot be classed in two great 
groups, one practising endogamy, and the 
other, exogamy. : 
The law of exogamy is universal. Among 
all peoples there is a group, larger or smaller, 
and natural or artificial, within which marriage 
is prohibited. The terms ‘exogamy’ and 
‘endogamy’ are misleading, and should be 
discarded. J. W. Powe Lt. 


A SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF LAWN- 
TENNIS. 


LAWN-TENNIs is a game which has taken firm 
hold upon Americans, and is becoming more 
popular every year. It is claimed to possess 
the qualities which make a perfect game, being 
safe, healthful, not insuperably difficult, and 
alike interesting to ‘ duffer’ and expert, pro- 
vided the two are not matched. The use of 
the ‘cut’ and of slow returns having been 
given up for drives, volleying, and swift 
returns, it has ceased to possess the reproach 
once cast upon it of being a ladies’ game, and 
is admitted to call forth science, skill, and 
endurance. Lawn-tennis puts upon its players 
a demand for muscular quickness and elasticity, 
great self-control, and a fine and peculiar de- 
velopment of the muscular sense. 

It is by the help of this sense that the ball 
is returned with just the right force and in 
just the right direction, no matter how hard 
or how gently it strikes the bat; and in ten- 
nis the peculiarity lies in the fact that delicate 
muscular adjustments must be made at the 
same time that violent contractions of the 
muscles take place. The skilled artisan goes 
slowly and gently over his delicate work. 
The juggler performs his tricks with light 
and easily handled articles. The _ billiard- 
player has to use comparatively little force 
to make his brilliant strokes. The tennis- 
player, however, must be ready to strike hard 
or softly while gripping the racket, adjusting it 
at just the right angle, and driving it in just 
the right direction. 

Man experiences a curious sensation of pleas- 
ure in thus developing and exercising his mus- 


SCIENCE. 


473 


cular sense. The delight felt over a good shot, 
a brilliant catch, an unexpected return, — all 
come in the main from this same source, which 
we might almost call the ‘ sporting sense.’ 

The physiology of muscular co-ordination has 
been much studied, but its relation to aesthetics 
is, perhaps, not as yet ‘ worked up: ’ therefore 
I will dwell upon this point a little. 

Every phase and degree of muscular contrac- 
tion registers itself in the brain; but when 
these contractions, in obedience to the will. 
effect a certain delicate, previously conceived 
result, a thrill of pleasure is felt, which is not 
wholly mental satisfaction over success; it is 
also an intensified muscular sensation. As the 
eye delights in beautiful colors, and the ear in 
sweet music, so the muscles rejoice in delicate 
adjustments. They have their own esthetics : 
hence there have always been athletic sports, 
and hence even pugilism would have no charm 
if it were mere slugging. The Greeks culti- 


‘vated this sense as actively as that for poetry, 


sculpture, and architecture: we might do well 
to imitate them. 

It is true that the muscular sense is not the 
only factor in measuring distance and adjust- 
ing muscular movements. ‘The eye, the ear, 
and the tactile, more especially the pressure, 
sense, also come into play. But setting aside 
the zest of competition, the joys and sorrows 
of beating or being beaten, it is to certain 
sensory nerves, distributed through muscle and 
tendon, that we must attribute much of the 
pleasure got from athletic games. This may 
be shown in still another way. After the fre- 
quent repetition of a set of muscular contrac- 
tions, the sensations excited thereby cease to 
rise into consciousness. Perhaps this is due, 
as Ribot suggests, in part to their increased 
number, and briefness of duration. At any 
rate, we know that a frequently repeated act 
of muscular skill finally comes to be done 
almost automatically and with little interven- 
tion of consciousness. So itis that with skilled 
players the minor and easy strokes of the game 
call out no new, complex, and delicate adjust- 
ments with the corresponding aesthetic excite- 
ment. 

Every one who has ever attained any special 
skill in athletic games knows the pain and wea- 
riness of playing with the beginner. What 
hours of heroism in love’s cause have been 
spent by old tennis-players in teaching the non- 


1 IT am quite aware that some physiologists consider part of the 
muscular sensations to be central in origin (innervation feelings), 
starting up with the volitional impulse, and accompanying it, as it 
were, to the muscle. It is simply inconceivable, however, that 
we can be conscious of muscular contractions that have not yet 
been made. 


474 


co-o1dinated musculature of fair young maidens 
to serve and return the ball! The reason is 
plain enough to the player; but, put in physi- 
ological terms, it supports the view I have 
suggested as to the aesthetic function of the 
muscular sense. 

The muscular mass of the human system is 
a large one. It makes up forty per cent of the 
total bodily weight; and leaving out the skele- 
ton, which has a mechanical function only, we 
are two-thirds muscle. Besides, it is supplied 
throughout with the nerves which excite it, and 
with sensory nerves, which notify the brain at 
once of use and misuse, sickness and health. 
There may be a fair state of health, but 
there can be no exuberant vigor, none of the 
lusty joie de vie, without perfectly nourished 
and perfectly functioning muscles. Thus, when 
over-used or poorly nourished, we have the 
sensations of fatigue, weariness, and malaise, 
such as are complained of by thousands of 
underfed and underworked persons. 
more, as the muscle retires, the nerve comes to 
the front, and we get our nervous women, who 
are the products, in large part, of insufficient 
or improper muscular exercise. 

There are a few pathological facts in connec- 
tion with lawn-tennis which may be briefly 
noted : — 

Every new invention and every new sport 
has its accidents and diseases. For some time 
English medical journals have had letters about 
‘lawn-tennis arm,’ ‘lawn-tennis elbow,’ and 
‘lawn-tennis leg.’ The cause of these troubles 
is generally simple. ‘Tennis arm’ is caused by 
a rupture of some of the fibres of the pronator 
radi teres. ‘The front of the fore-arm is 
tender, perhaps swollen, while pronation and 
flexion are difficult. In some forms of ‘ ten- 
nis arm’ the musculo-spiral nerve, as it passes 
around the elbow, gets pinched and injured ; 
then there is weakness in extension and in 
‘back-hand’ strokes. In ‘lawn-tennis wrist’ 
the anterior part of the annular ligament is 
stretched, and there is probably a litle in- 
flammation of the grooves in which the flexor 
tendons run. 

‘ Lawn-tennis leg’ is due to rupture of some 
of the muscles of the calf in swift and power- 
ful serving. The muscle ruptured is thought 
to be the plantaris longus. 

These ‘legs’ and ‘arms’ are more apt to occur 
in middle age and among too ambitious begin- 
ners. They are not of frequent occurrence, and 
are not dangerous. Rest, rubber bandages, 
friction, and electricity are sure to bring about 
a cure. C. L. Dana, M.D. 

New York. 


SCIENCE. 


Further- ° 


Be ES en Ph I TO ae ae ee 
en : Ki 


[Vou. IV., No. 94 . 


LATE NEWS FROM THE NORTH-WEST. 


LATE advices from Alaska state that the voleano 
on Augustine Island, Cook’s Inlet, continues to 
show signs of activity by smoke, noises, and earth- 
quake shocks of light intensity. About the time of 
the eruption last autumn, between the 23d of Sep- 
tember and the 18th of October, eight shocks were felt 
at Port Etches, in Prince William Sound. At Kas- 
siloff, on the eastern shore of Cook’s Inlet, at the 
mouth of the river of the same name, on the 14th of 
November, 1883, a tidal wave flooded the salmon- 
canning establishment of Cutting & Co., and washed 
away a considerable strip of bluff along the shore for 
several miles. 

Edward Langtry, one of the early explorers of the 
Lewis branch of the Yukon, in the’Chilkat country, 
has been prospecting on the Kuskokwim and Nusha- 
gak Rivers during the past year, and intends to re- 
main another season. 

News from the explorers of the Copper or Atna 
River indicates that they were in July detained at a 
point where the river passes through a narrow cafion, 
and a glacier abuts upon it. This glacier, extending 
over the surface of the stream, nearly closed it to 
navigation, and an arrangement had just been com- 
pleted with some of the natives, who were to assist 
the party to cross the glacier. 

News has been received of the return of Lieut. 
Stoney from his explorations on the Kowak River, 
emptying into Hotham Inlet, Kotzebue Sound. He 
had ascended this river, which has been known for 
thirty years, but never surveyed, to a distance which 
he estimates at four hundred miles, which is proba- 
bly meant to include all irregularities. He did not 
reach its source, as his instructions forbade him to 
winter there. He has forwarded a report to the Navy 
department. A party from the revenue-steamer 
Corwin has also ascended the river this season, 
and in 1881-82 Messrs. Jacobsen and Woolfe ex- 
plored its course for some fifty miles. The former 
has just published at Leipzig an account of the jour- 
ney under the editorial supervision of Dr. Woldt, a 
work which has not reached us. The following year 
Lieut. Stoney, furnished with a boat and party 
from the revenue-steamer Corwin, Capt. Healy, on 
which he was a passenger, made some praiseworthy 
investigations at the mouth of the Kowak and the 
entrance of Hotham Inlet. These gave rise to some 
unfounded reports in the daily press that the river 
was a new discovery. The extent of the stream, 
leaving minor curves out of account, cannot much 
exceed two hundred and fifty geographical miles; but 
it runs through an almost unknown region, and the 
official reports will, no doubt, add materially to the 
geographical knowledge of that part of Alaska. 

A trading-post has been established at Yakutat 
Bay by the Alaska commercial company, — the first 
which has existed there since the destruction by 
the Indians of the old Russian settlement of ‘New 
Russia’ about eighty years ago. The natives have > 
always been treacherous and unreliable. The estab- 
lishment will be conveniently situated for any adven- 


. al 


- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884.] 


turous spirits who may attempt the exploration of 
the St. Elias alps and glaciers. 

The last advices from the whaling-fleet announce 
the taking of a hundred and seventeen whales, which 
is an unusually successful catch. The steam-whaler 
Bowhead was crushed in the ice, but without loss of 
life. The party who intended to winter at Point Bar- 
row, in the signal-station buildings, are reported to 
have reached their destination after several mishaps. 

Brown bears have been unusually numerous and 
fierce on the Aliaska peninsula this summer, and 
several salmon-fishers have been attacked: one is 
reported killed. 

Several new canneries have been established, one 
on Bristol Bay, where four hundred cases of canned 
and thirty-two hundred and fifty barrels of salted 
salmon were put up during the season. 

At Kadiak the summer had been calm and fine, 
and the hay-crop a success. At the end of the sea- 
son several severe gales had occurred. ‘Twenty-one 
thousand cases of canned salmon had been put up by 
the two canneries on Kadiak Island. 

Two Moravian missionaries entered the Kuskok- 
wim region, and were expecting to winter there 
among the Innuit tribes. They found their knowl- 
edge of the Innuit tongue, gained in Labrador, 
of much assistance. Letters from them are being 
printed in the Moravian, and contain details of in- 
terest. 

The vacancy in the church at Unalashka, caused 
by the recent death of the Rev. Innocentius Shayesh- 
nikoff, has been filled by the transfer of the Greek 
clergyman at Kadiak to the more western post. 
Shayeshnikoff was well known to the traders and 
explorers who have visited the port of Unalashka 
during the last fifteen years. He was a native Aleut, 
trained in the colonial seminary, and, for his opportu- 
nities, a remarkably well-informed and intelligent 
man. A pupil of Veniaminoff, he partook of the 
scientific tastes of his preceptor, was always ready to 
lend assistance to the explorer, recorded the weather 
and temperature for many years, and was never hap- 
pier than when he recounted to some interested lis- 
tener his observations of natural phenomena, or of 
the anthropological features of his native region. He 
will long be regretted, not only by the passing visitor, 
but by his parishioners, to whom he most faithfully 
ministered. 

The Dominion government, during the past season, 
has had an explorer investigating the capabilities of 
the Queen Charlotte Islands for settlement or other 
purposes. We extract the following notes from his 
report: — : 

There are about eighty islands in the group, three 
of which are of considerable size, the largest having 
a length of seventy and an extreme width of fifty 
miles. It is pierced by several remarkable and 
widely ramifying inlets. Along the western border 
of the group runs a range of high mountains, whose 
chief peaks reach four thousand or forty-five hun- 
dred feet above the sea, often within a few miles of 
the sea. ‘The land gradually falls in a series of wave- 
like hills and rugged valleys toward the north-east, 


SCIENCE. 


475 


where the largest area of level land occurs. ‘There 
are about fifty thousand acres of grazing-land on the 
islands, and a good deal of timber, the best of which 
is on the shores of Massett Inlet. Many trees were 
found which measured from thirty to thirty-five feet 
in circumference. The wood is chiefly spruce (Abies) 
and yellow Alaskan cedar (Chamaecyparis). The tem- 
perature was very even, in midsummer ranging from 
50° and 60° in the early morning, to about 70° F. at 
noon. The rainfall is estimated at from fifty to sev- 
enty inches per annum. The snowfall on the coast is 
not heavy, and remains only a week or ten days on 
the ground. There are about eight hundred Indians 
of the Haida nation on the group, who were friendly, 
and do a brisk business in fish-oil and fish. A fish 
locally known as the ‘black cod,’ but which is more 
like a sea-bass, is extremely numerous: thirty of 
them will yield a gallon of oil. There are many 
halibut-banks. Bituminous coal exists, and there is 
a local deposit of anthracite well known to geolo- 
gists. Little is known of other minerals. A sub- 
merged forest was found, off the coast of Graham 
Island, covering over fifty acres. Many of the trees 
were petrified, or converted into lignite. The coast 
is but little known. Dr. George M. Dawson added 
greatly to our knowledge of it, in an exploration 
made a few years since for the Dominion geological 
survey. In one bay a series of six or eight cataracts 
was observed, having a combined fall of nearly fif- 
teen hundred feet. Game and wild fowl were tame 
and very abundant. 


THE FLORA OF THE HIGH ALPS. 


A RECENT paper on the nival flora of Switzerland, 
by the late Professor Oswald Heer, shows that 357 
species of flowering plants are found in Switzerland 
between 8,000 and 13,000 feet above the sea. All 
these species are found between 8,000 and 8,500 feet, 
probably one-fourth having their greatest distribution 
above 8,000 feet; while twelve were obtained above 
12,000 feet. One tenth comprises species belonging 
to the lowlands, and nine tenths are mountain plants, 
the majority belonging to the Alpine region proper. 
Monte Rosa contains the richest nival flora, although | 
most of the species are distributed through the whole 
Alpine region. 

About half of these plants originated in the arctic 
zone, and apparently came in glacial times from 
Scandinavia. This arctic flora evidently had its ori- 
gin on the mountains of the arctic zone, and in mio- 
cene times bore the same relation to the flora of the 
arctic valleys as the present Alpine flora does to the 
flora of the lowlands of Switzerland. The miocene 
arctic flora advanced toward Europe as far back as in 
tertiary times, and in this way the tertiary flora of 
Europe came into possession of types which now 
characterize the temperate zone; for instance, the 
pines and deciduous trees. They gradually gained 
upon the tropical and subtropical forms, the primitive 
inhabitants of these regions, and became the parent- 
plants of a part of the present flora of the lowlands. 


476 


In glacial times the mountain plants of the arctic 
zone descended to the valleys, and were distributed 
with the glaciers toward the south. That this mi- 
gration radiated from the north is shown by the fact 
that not only do arctic species form almost half of 
the plants in the snowy region of the Alps; but also 
the mountains of America, as well as of the Altai and 
Himalayas, possess a large number of arctic forms 
common also to the Swiss Alps. It is known that in 
the tertiary and in the upper cretaceous periods a 
number of species can be traced from Greenland as 
far as Nebraska in America, and as far as Bohemia 
and Moravia and southern Europe on the other side. 
Similarly in the cretaceous period, in the tertiary, 
and at the present time, Europe and North America 
have in common a number of species which also 
existed at that time in the arctic zone, and very evi- 
dently had their origin there; and hence the flora of 
the far north has at all times exerted a great influence 
on that of Europe. 

The endemic flora of the nival region originated 
in the Alps, especially in the Monte Rosa chain. It 
possessed its present features at the beginning of the 
quaternary, and was distributed by means of the gla- 
ciers into the valleys and the neighboring mountain 
regions. 


THE DANISH INTERNATIONAL POLAR 
STATION. 


THE Danish polar station was at Godthaab, Green- 
land, —a little colony situated at the extremity of 
a peninsula which separates the two large parallel 
fiords, of Godthaab, and that, farther south, of 
Ameralik. The station was erected on a little hill 
of almost pure gneiss, twenty-six metres above the 
level of the surround- 
ing water. This place 


SCIENCE. 


cart electrometer. Besides these, there was in the 
open space a Wild shelter, covering the thermometers 
to determine the temperature and humidity of the 
air, a delicate hygrometer, and a Wild evaporimeter. 
Three thermometers were placed vertically in holes in 
the rock, at depths of sixteen, thirty-one, and sixty- 
three centimetres. _ At the edge of the holes were small 
iron pipes to prevent infiltration. ‘The thermometers 
were sheathed in wooden rods having the same diame- 
ter asthe holes. At the bottom of each hole was a lit- 
tle mercury, which could penetrate to the thermome- 
ter-bulbs through perforations made in the lower part 
of the rods. Behind the shelter of the thermometers 
were placed two thermometers whose bulbs were 
buried fifteen and thirty-seven centimetres respec- 
tively beneath the surface of the ground. At some 
distance from the foot of the hill, two Hamberg ther- 
mometers were placed at depths of one metre and one 
and five-tenths metres. Besides the proposed obser- 
vations, the parallaxes of a large number of auroras 
were measured, the electricity of the air was studied, 
and the temperature of the rocks, the soil, and the 
water of the fiord, noted. 

In the early part of the autumn of 1882 the weather 
was comparatively mild, south winds prevailing. It 
was not till the last of September that it was cold 
enough for a slight frost; but the weather again mod- 
erated under the influence of the south winds, which 
lasted until the first days of October. From the 11th 
of October the eold was maintained, almost without 
interruption, until the 5th of March, 18838. During 
all that interval the thermometer remained constant 
ly below 0° C., except for some isolated days, and 
then only for ashorttime. From the 23d of January 
to the 18th of February the cold was the most intense 
and persistent; so that even the south winds, and the 
very low barometrical 
pressure during that 


was chosen both be- 


eriod, were powerless 
>] 


cause it was the high- 


to produce a change. 


est elevation in the 


The greatest cold was 


immediate neighbor- 


observed on the 9th of 


hood and because the 


February, with 24°.4 


gneiss appeared free 


upon a slight eleva- 


from iron ores. 
There were, in all, 
five buildings. The 
one farthest to the 
south had two apart- 
ments, of which that 
to the east con- 
tained the telescope 
and the astronomical 
apparatus. In the 
other room were a 
Robinson anemometer 
and a recording anem- 
oscope. North-east of this building were two for the 
study of magnetic variations. East of this building 
was a Smaller one for the absolute determination of 
terrestrial magnetism. The building farthest north 
was the office; and there the barometers and the 
Hagemann anemometer were placed, as well as a Mas- 


tion; but at the same 
time it was found to be 
26°.7 in the low lands. 
During the first part of 
March the cold became 
again very severe; but 
after the 5th of the 
month the weather 
moderated, and _ be- 
came more variable. 
It was only after the 
middle of June that 
the weather grew mild- 
er. In July the heat was normal, and the winds from 
the south; but by the end of August frost appeared 
again during the night. The greatest heat of 149.5 
was observed on the 22d of June, during a tempest 
from the south, at the same time that the thermome- 
ter on the low lands attained 17° C. 


[Vou. IV., No. 94, 4 


i 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884. ] 


EDISON’S THREE-WIRE SYSTEM OF 
DISTRIBUTION. 


THE three-wire or multiplex system of distribut- 
ing currents for electric lighting over large areas, 
as devised and used by Edison, is highly ingenious, 
and effective in reducing the necessary size of the 
large copper conductors. The size of the conductor 
must be proportioned to the maximum number of 
lamps which it will ordinarily supply. This number 
being given, the size should be such that the resist- 
ance of the metallic part shall bear a fixed ratio to 
that of the lamp part of the circuit; and the value of 
this ratio will be determined by the condition that the 
additional running expense due to the resistance of 
the conductor shall equal the interest on its first 
cost, so far as this depends upon its cross-section. 

In the two-wire system, A is the dynamo, which 
we will suppose to keep up a difference of potential 
of a hundred volts between the conductors I and 
II. Across these are bridged twelve lamps of equal 
resistance, representing what would be, in practice, 
several hundred dwellings, factories, churches, thea- 
tres, ete. 


7 


2 


5 


<, 


I 


mem 6a 78 


FOUR-WIRE SYSTEM. 


The next figure shows Edison’s three-wire modi- 
fication of this. A and B are two dynamos coupled 
in series, with conductors I, II, and III leading 
out asshown. As A and B each keep up a hundred 
volts, as before, the difference of potential between 
I and III will be two hundred volts. The twelve 
lamps are now, however, equally divided between 
the circuits I-II and JJ-III, connected as shown. 
If the resistance of the six odd-numbered lamps, 1-11, 
exactly equals that of the six even-numbered, 2-12, 
and if A and B keep up the same difference of 
potential, no current will flow in II, between the 
dynamos and where the first lamp joins it. Suppose 
Il to be cut, there will then be a single circuit 
through A and B, I and III, and the twelve lamps, 
as shown, with a difference of two hundred volts in I 
and Ili. The resistance of the twelve lamps, as 
now arranged, will be four times what it was before; 


SCIENCE. 


477 


and hence only one-half as much current will flow 
through I and Ill. But each of the lamps will get 
just as much as before, and willshinethesame. The 
conductors I and III, since the resistance is now 
four times as great, need only be one-fourth as heavy, 
according to our adopted principle. This is also 
proper as regards heating-effect in them, which, pro- 
portional to the square of the current, is now only 
one-fourth what it was before. 

If this were all that was needed, we should now 
have the same amount of lighting done, and the con- 
ducting-mains, which are the most expensive part of 
the plant, of only one-fourth their size and cost in 
the two-wire system, and with only the additional 
expense of another dynamo. Moreover, since the 
current is only one-half as much, these two dynamos, 
though giving the same potential as before, can be 
smaller. But on account of the difficulty in keeping 
an exact balance in the two sets of lamps, especially 
about the time of lighting up at twilight, it is neces- 
sary to introduce the third conductor from between 
the two dynamos, and then neither circuit can be 
exposed to a difference of potential greater than 
either dynamo is generating. Also, if the balance is 
not kept, a current through II, and a galvanometer, 
shows on which side the lamp-resistance or the 
dynamo-potential is in excess; and Edison restores 
the balance by variable resistances in the cireuits of 
the field-magnets, or, in some cases, by bringing an 
extra conductor from one or two large buildings, like 


factories, theatres, etc., when near by, so that they 


can, at will, be thrown into either circuit from the 
central station. 

This middle wire need not, for most purposes, be 
so large as the other two; but, in the case of a break- 
down of I or III, it will have to do equal work with 
the other, so that it is safer, simpler, and better to 
make them all of the same size. The cost, then, of 
conductors, is that of three wires, each of one-fourth 
the section of the two in the first case, or $°4= 
.ov0, or a Saving of sixty-two and a half per cent. 

The four-wire system shows a still further reduc- 
tion of expense. The law on which this percentage 
of economy proceeds, as far as cost of conductors is 
concerned, may be shown as follows, in units of the 
cost of the two-wire system : — 


For 2 wires, we have, 3 (+)? = 1.000 
66 3 66 66 (54 3 (3)? — 37D 
66 6“ AG oe weatayat oh 999 

4 Zz (=) ——— 22 
66 5 66 66 66 2 (f)2 = .156 
«ge 6 66 66 § (1)2 = 0) 


A limit of economy or practicability, however, will 
soon be reached in the increased number of dynamos, 
the complexity of the system, and especially in keep- 
ing up an approximate balance between so many 
circuits. In practice, probably, the three-wire sys- 
tem, with its saving of .625 of the cost of the two- 
wire, will be found all-sufficient; except, perhaps, in 
the case of along main through a large scattering 
district, when the four- or five-wire plan might be 
preferable. 

One other advantage, available in all these systems 


478 SCIENCE. 


over the two-wire plan, is, that if needed for purposes 
of driving motors, or for large street-lamps of higher 
resistance, a potential twice as high as the ordinary 
one is very simply available by connecting across 
from I to III, or three times as high from I to IV 
in the four-wire plan, etc.; and, no matter what the 
amount of such employment, it will not disturb the 
balance of the intermediate lower potential circuits. 
H. M. PAUL. 


ZOOLOGICAL RESEARCHES OF THE 
SCOTTISH FISHERY BOARD. 


THE Scottish fishery board has for its principal 
function the administration of public matters relat- 
ing to the fisheries of Scotland; but since its recon- 
stitution in 1881 it has been endeavoring to perform 
some of the functions so successfully exercised by 
the U.S. commission of fish and fisheries. It has 
recently published its report for the year 1883, the 
second annual report since its reconstitution. In the 
general report, a short introduction is followed by a 
chapter on the herring. The first part of this con- 
sists of a summary of inquiries into the natural his- 
tory of the herring, carried out before the year 1882; 
to this succeeds a summary of the history and results 
of similar work done in foreign countries; and, finally, 
there is an account of the researches undertaken by 
the board since its reconstitution. The rest of the 
report is taken up with statistics of the various fish- 
eries, and a few paragraphs on the salmon-fishing. 

The remaining and of course much the larger 
portion of the volume is devoted to the various ap- 
pendices, in which fuller details are given on matters 
discussed in the general report. Of these, Appendix 
F describes the investigations carried out at the 
instance of the board, while Appendix G is Mr. 
Young’s report on the salmon-fisheries. 

The biology of the herring, of course, occupies a 
prominent place in the volume; and in its discussion 
there is a tendency to optimistic assumptions, which 
are not in accord with the true spirit of research. 
For example: the board, or its scientific committee, 
proposes in the present autumn to deposit, on some 
of the inshore banks in the Moray Firth, some mil- 
lions of fertilized herring-eggs; and then, if next 
year the said bank is visited by a shoal of compara- 
tively small herring, it will conclude, 1°, that they 
are the produce of the eggs deposited this year; 2°, 
that herring, like salmon, when about to spawn, in- 
stinctively seek their birthplace; 3°, that the migra- 
tion of herring is limited, and that, in course of time, 
special varieties of herring may have been formed 
at different parts of the coast; and 4°, what is of even 
more importance, that when any particular spawn- 
ing-ground is deserted, the fishing may be restored 
without waiting till accident brings another shoal. 
Investigation would be a very simple matter, if every 
experiment were as fruitful in inferences as this. 
The board will have to prove, in the first place, that 
the herrings, if it finds them next year, are the 
produce of the eggs it has laid down. He is a wise 


[Vor. IV., No. 94. 


herring-breeder that knows his own herrings in the 
open sea. . 

Professor Ewart’s essay on the natural history of 
the herring forms No. iv. of this appendix. It is, for 
the most part, an abstract of a paper read by him 
before the Royal society of London, on the spawning 
of the herring, and the examination of a spawning- 
bed at Ballantrae, on the west coast of Scotland. 
Professor Ewart observed for the first time the 
spawning and fertilization of herring-eggs in an 
aquarium. (The process, as he describes it, is proba- 
ably the same, or nearly, as that which takes place in 
the sea. But it would have been more satisfactory, if, 
when he had the opportunity, he had observed the 
behavior of a number of male and female herrings 
in the same tank. In his experiment there was but 
a single female herring. The discussion of other 
problems connected with the life-history of the her- 
ring is not very luminous. The author concludes that 
herring have come to spawn in spring and autumn 
because the food of the young fry is more abundant 
at those seasons than at others; but he has no evi- 
dence to show that minute pelagic animals are less 
abundant at a given place in summer than in spring 
and autumn. <A quantitative investigation of the 
pelagic life at a given spot throughout the year has 
not yet been carried out, and such a research would 
be very valuable. 

The report on the sprat-fishing, by Mr. Duncan 
Matthews, contains a record of much good and in- 
teresting work, and raises a question of general inter- 
est in marine biology. A certain proportion of young 
herring are killed with the sprats in the firths of 
Scotland, and herring-fishers believe that this injures 
their industry. This contention does not seem very 
important, after such a season as the last, when her- 
rings were so plentiful off the east coast of Scotland 
that it was almost impossible to find a market for 
them. But it is of interest to note the difficulty of 
deciding whether the abundance of a species depends 
more on the variations in its food-supply than on 
the attacks of its enemies, or vice versa. It is pos- 
sible, in the case of the herring, that the destruction 
caused by all its enemies, including man, is insig- 
nificant in comparison to its breeding-powers, and 
that the number which reaches maturity depends en- 
tirely on the amount of food available. 


PSEUDO-SCIENCE. 


The true theory of the sun. By THomas BASSNETT. 
New York, Putnam’s, 1884. 41+268 p., illustr., 
ipl eS 
We nowhere find in this volume a systematic 

attempt to arrive at legitimate deductions from 

all the collected work of observational astron- 
omy and meteorology; but page after page is 
devoted to the author’s baseless speculations, 
and to the details of such of his own isolated 
observations as serve to confirm these specula- 
tions, while the labors of others, not condu- 


Z 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884. | 


cing to the safety of his hypotheses, are cast 
aside; as, for example, the well-known work 
of Carrington on the solar spots, ‘‘ for the 
sun was an especial study with him [the 
author | before Mr. Carrington was born, and 
he prefers his own approximations ’’ (p. 30). 

It is not, however, so hard to see how an 
ill-balanced enthusiast may persist in this 
course indefinitely, as it is difficult to conceive 
of the intellectual stupefaction which busies 
itself with the preposterous invention of suit- 
able facts to match agreeable hypotheses. 
When, for example, Mr. Bassnett finds his 
theory of ethereal vortices cannot help going 
to pieces when he tries to make it account for 
the observed phenomena of the periodicity of 
the solar spots, he has no hesitation in fabri- 
cating a great planet outside of Neptune, of 
such mass, and position, and distance from the 
sun, as to bring about the absolute harmony of 
his hypothesis with the observed periodicity ; 
nor does he shrink, when he finds it necessary, 
to make this convenient planet travel round 
the sun in just the other way from what all the 
hitherto recognized planets do. 

But unaccountable idiocy can be tolerated 
where unconscionable conceit cannot. When 
the world’s greatest investigators of solar 
phenomena confess that the sun and its sur- 
roundings are the mystery of cosmical physics, 
this writer pops into prominent print with a 
book ‘‘ whose credentials are an undeniable 
ability to divest that subject of its mystery.”’ 
Sun-spots, to say the least, have yielded all 
their secrets to him; and he retires from an 
excursion of half a hundred pages on his own 
theory of the solar spots with a self-compla- 
cency more alarming than a thousand eurekas, 
for he finds that ‘‘ the solar spots are not such 
formidable mysteries, after all’’ (p. 172). 

The gross failure of the author’s life as a 
scientific man appears to lie, just where many 
lives make shipwreck, in his early penetration 
with the idea that his destiny was with the 
great. It was for others to drudge in collect- 
ing facts, but for him to cut a grand figure in 
the development of striking and original gen- 
eralizations,— an unhappy fallacy of ill-bal- 
anced minds. ‘ Our business,’ he says, ‘is to 
establish a theory,’ etc. ; and later (p. 129) we 
are told that ‘‘in 1853 the author published 
the only possible solution of the problem [of 
sun-spot periodicity |.’’ The persistent refusal 
of scientific men to recognize his arrogant 
claims leads him to indulge a vindictive inso- 
lence. His experience of the treatment which 
his theory of electric vortices has received 
during the past thirty years is a sorry one, and 


SCIENCE. 


479 


encourages. occasional despondency, and the 
‘¢ orowing conviction that the scientific world. 
as a body, loves darkness rather than light.’’ 
However, he falters not; for it is better to 
‘¢ have the approval of a few kindred spirits, 
than drift with the current which is sweeping a 
deluded majority to inevitable oblivion.’’ 

How long ought the patience of scientific 
men to indulge this badgering assumption ? 
Mr. Bassnett has repeatedly addressed himself 
to the acknowledged leaders in science, and 
has been just as repeatedly snubbed. At vari- 
ous scientific assemblies he and his ubiquitous 
electric vortices have been the dread of presid- 
ing officers, and the butt of ‘Section A.’ So 
far, however, from inculcating the necessity of 
humility, all these merited rebuffs have only 
emboldened him to renewed impertinence, 
which he has the effrontery to term ‘ scientific 
spirit.’ 

A book so nearly valueless we have rarely 
seen. <A single chapter, however, — that on 
the ethereal medium, — is worth the reading: 
it is suggestive as to lines of research which 
may some time come to be worth following out ; 
and the vigorous statements of the author’s 
beliefs are an interesting study. But as a 
whole, little good, if any, can come from the 
printing of such a volume; and with equal 
certainty the harm it can do is a minimum, 
for its readers will be few, and chiefly confined 
to such of the curious as know too much to be 
led astray. 


THE VALUE OF SORGHUM. 


Sorghum: its culture and manufacture economically 
considered as a source of sugar, syrup,and fodder. 
By Peter Couuier, Ph.D., late chemist of the 
U.S. department of agriculture. Cincinnati, 
Clarke, 1884. 114570 p,, illustr. 8°. 


ArnoucH the cultivation of sorghum in the 
United States, and its utilization as a source 
of sirup, date from about the middle of this 
century, and although more or less frequent 
attempts to produce sugar from it had been 
made at the time when the U.S. department 
of agriculture began its investigations (1878), 
the most conflicting opinions prevailed as to 
the value of the plant as a source of sugar. 
The remarkable growth of the sorghum-sugar 
industry within the last few years, and the very 
general interest in the subject now manifested, 
may be fairly ascribed mainly to those inves- 
tigations, and to others which were incited by 
them. , 

It is a matter of congratulation, that the 
task of recording the results of recent inves- 


‘tigation. 


480) 


tigation and experience in this important sub- 
ject in permanent and accessible form has 
been assumed by one so competent as the late 
chemist of the department of agriculture, un- 
der whose direction or at whose instigation so 
much of the work has been done. Dr. Col- 
lier’s scientific standing, and his thorough 
knowledge of the sorghum question, will hardly 
be doubted; and, if at times he betrays the 
sanguine temper of the enthusiast, the failing 
is one which leans to virtue’s side. 

In the book before us we have a very full 
account of the history of sorghum ; a descrip- 
tion of its leading varieties, including a table 
for their identification; and the result of the 
experience thus far had, relative to the man- 
agement of the crop and its profitable manu- 
facture. The preparation and manuring of the 
ground; the selection of suitable varieties ; 
the best methods of planting, cultivating, and 
harvesting ; the effects of climatic conditions ; 
the development of sugar in the plant as related 
to the proper time for cutting the cane; the 
operations of milling, defecating, evaporation 
of the juice, and separation of the sugar; and 
the utilization of the waste products, — all 
receive a due share of attention; and the whole 
constitutes an excellent handbook for the in- 
telligent sugar-maker. 

The book, however, is more than a sugar- 
maker’s handbook. One of the most commend- 
able features of the work is the fulness with 
which the evidence upon each point in turn is 
laid before the reader, thus enabling him to 
judge for himself of the value of the conclu- 
sions reached. ‘This feature of the volume 
cannot fail to make it of great value to all who 
are engaged in investigations in this direction ; 
for, not only are the results thus far obtained 
given with much fulness, but the author is as 
careful to exhibit our ignorance as our knowl- 
edge, and does not fail to point out the direc- 
tions in which further investigations are needful. 

That the latter are numerous need hardly 
be said. In spite of the great amount of work 
which this book records, or refers to, much 
yet remains to be done to render this industry 
an assured success. Indeed, to us the need 
of more knowledge is really the most striking 
conclusion to be drawn from a study of what 
is already known. Particularly is this the 
case with regard to the economies of sugar- 
making, where a wide field is open to inves- 
If Dr. Collier’s volume shall prove 
an incitement and aid to the acquisition of 
more light upon these and other points, as well 
as be of use to the practical sugar-maker, he 
may account it as in the best sense a success. 


A ahd 
m™ is 
Ba abe 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No: 94, | 


“eG 


-NOTES AND NEWS. ‘i 


Tue library of the late Professor Henry has — 
been purchased from his heirs by Dr. A. Graham 
Bell. It contains about two thousand volumes, at 
least one-third of which treat of electrical science, 
and many of these bear marginal notes in the hand- — 
writing of Professor Henry. One of the terms of 
the sale was that the library should be kept intact. 


— The Norwegian bark Loveid, recently arrived in 
Philadelphia, reports a very peculiar squall experi- 


enced Oct. 18, in latitude 39° 49’ north, longitude 


69° 5’ west. During fine, clear weather, with a 
light breeze from the north-west, heavy banks of 
clouds of most threatening aspect suddenly appeared, 
driving in every direction. Almost immediately a 
heavy squall of wind and rain struck the vessel, the 
wind shifting quickly all around the compass. In 
the midst of this disturbance, which lasted about an 
hour, a single peal of thunder was heard, and simul- — 
taneously a bolt of lightning struck the fore royal 
mast-head, and ran down the mast to the royal yard, 
which was almost destroyed. The lightning, which 
looked like a ball of fire, then ran out on the horn 
of the cross-trees, and ‘burst’ with a loud report, 
scattering sparks all over the vessel. The barometer 
fell suddenly from 30 to 28.60, and then rose as 
rapidly, the weather becoming pleasant immediately 
afterwards. This is a rather peculiar squall, con- 
sidering the locality and the season. 


— The monthly weather-review of the signal-ser- 
vice, prepared, as announced for the first time in 
the August number, by Second Lieut. W. A. Glass- 
ford, has come to be a quarto of twenty-eight pages, 
with five charts. This is a good growth from the 
four small pages and three charts of the first issue, 
eleven years ago. Then, the headings were storms, 
anti-cyclonic areas, temperature, precipitation, pecul- 
iar phenomena and facts, rivers, and cautionary sig- 
nals: now, all these subjects are treated in much 
greater detail; and among the many additional topics 
there may be mentioned atmospheric pressure and its 
range (illustrated by a new style of chart), Atlantic 
storms and ice, range of temperature, frosts (illus- 
trated by a chart for Aug. 9 and 25), winds, local 
storms, tornadoes and thunder-storms, sunsets, 
drought, two and a half pages on the earthquake of 
Aug. 10, meteors, and notes of state weather-services 
for Alabama, Nebraska, Tennessee, Missouri, Lou- 
isiana, Ohio, and Georgia. ‘The storm-tracks for the 
month are remarkably regular, and, with insignificant 
exceptions, all lie north of the Great Lakes and St. 
Lawrence: no tropical cyclones were felt along the 
seacoast. Nine tornadoes are reported, and many 
violent thunder-storms. Some of the results of the 
special studies of the latter, undertaken by Mr. H. A. 
Hazen during the past season, take form in a brief 
summary, from which it appears that the mean dis- 
tance and direction of the nine hundred thunder- — 
storms recorded in August, from the centre of the 
broad cyclonic storms in which they occurred, was five 
hundred and fifteen miles, a little west of south. A 
full account of these studies will be of much value 


NOVEMBER 21, 1884.] 


and interest. . Most of the observations on meteors 
are of small value; and, at best, they have but an 
etymological connection with a weather-review. 

— The fish-commission steamer Albatross will 
spend the winter in the Gulf of Mexico. A special 
study will be made of the waters in and about Mo- 
bile Bay, where, during the past few years, a strange 
and as yet unknown malady has poisoned the fish so 
as to render them unfit for food; but the larger part 
of the cruise is to be spent along the coast of Texas 
and Louisiana. 


SCIENCE. 


481 


The exact days and place of meeting will be an- 
nounced later. Titles of papers to be read, and 
nominations of candidates for election, should be 
sent to the secretary at once. 


— Bulletin No. 5 of the U.S. geological survey is a 
dictionary of altitudes in the United States, compiled 
by Henry Gannett, chief geographer of the survey. 
It is essentially an extension of the ‘Lists of eleva- 
tions,’ prepared by the same author for Hayden’s 
survey; but, with the present broader organization of 
the geological survey, the lists now appropriately in- 


EXPERIMENT WITH THE AEROPLANE MADE AT THE FRENCH 
(La Nature.) 


— The announcement is made, that copies in bronze 
of a bust of the late J. B. Dumas of Paris, may be 
obtained by subscription, addressed to the adminis- 
tration of the Génie civil, Paris. The original bust 
was executed by Guillaume, of the Institut, and was 
pronounced highly satisfactory. The prices range 
from sixty francs to six hundred francs, according to 
size and quality of the bronze. 


— Phylloxera has made its appearance in the Pomo- 
logical institute of Proskau (Silesia). It is hoped, 
however, that the spread of the disease may yet be 
prevented, | 


— The next meeting of the Society of naturalists 
of the eastern United States will be held at Wash- 
ington during the week following Christmas, 1884. 


MILITARY EXPERIMENT-STATION OF CHALAIS-MEUDON IN 1879. 


clude the whole country, while the earlier editions 
were concerned chiefly with the region west of the 
Mississippi. A list of authorities fills eight pages, 
and railroad abbreviations occupy eight more; then 
the states and stations follow alphabetically, the num- 
ber of altitudes given being about eighteen thousand. 
It is stated that the collection of railroad profiles for 
Pennsylvania is exceptionally complete and admir- 
ably adjusted, making the portion of the diction- 
ary referring to that state by far the fullest and 
most satisfactory. By apparent oversight, it is not 
stated whether the base level is high, mean, or low 
tide. 


— Two volumes of the addresses and speeches of 
Helmholtz have just been published in Germany. 


482 SCIENCE. 


A third edition of his well-known volume, entitled 
‘Popular scientific addresses,’ having been called for, 


the author seized the opportunity to complete the 


collections, and in doing so has dropped the word 
‘popular,’ although the earlier and later papers are 
alike designed to bring the results of mathematical, 
physical, and other scientific researches, before a cir- 
cle of hearers and readers whose studies do not run 
in that direction. Among other papers, the volumes 
contain Htlmholtz’s prefaces to the German edi- 
tion of Thomson and Tait’s ‘ Natural philosophy,’ 
and of Tyndall’s ‘ Fragments of science,’ and also his 
academic discourses. Among other noteworthy pa- 
pers is an address on electrical units in reference to 
the action of the Electrical congress at Paris in 1881. 


This address, which was given in Berlin in December 


of that year, was reported, at the time of its delivery, 


SS cs se ee ee 


’ pointed professor in the philosophical faculty in the 


[Vou. IV., No. 94. 


in Carlsruhe, has been called to the professorship of — 
physics at Tubingen. Dr. O. Liidecke has been ap- 


university at Halle. 


— The German association of naturalists has se- 
lected Strassburg for its next year’s assembly. 


— The completion of the Lick observatory now 
depends upon the successful making of the disk of 
glass for the objective of the large telescope. The 
main dome cannot be made till the focal length of 
the large equatorial has been determined. 


— The success of the flying-machine invented by 
Renard and Krebs has called attention to a partially 
successful experiment tried at the military experi- 
ment-station at Chalais-Meudon in 1879. The con- 


= SS 
— 
SSS ae 


— 


AERUPLANE INVENTED BY VICTOR TATIN. (La Nature.) 


stenographically, and has now been revised, and sup- 
plemented by a statement of the conclusions of the 
conference of 1884. 


— Professor Valentine Ball of Dublin writes to 
Nature, lamenting the few copies of the English gov- 
ernment scientific reports which are gratuitously 
distributed in the United States. He states, that 
although from a feeling of shame he did not seek to 
gather statistics, he found from casual conversation 
that a great many of the American libraries were 
obliged to purchase such reports as those of the vari- 
ous English surveys and the Challenger expedition. 
He praises the lavishness of our own government 
bureaus and the work of the Smithsonian in the dis- 
tribution of printed matter, and expresses a hope 
that some similar free bureau of exchange may be 
established in England. 


— Prof. F. Braun, formerly at the Polytechnikum 


struction of the machine, an invention of Victor 
Tatin, is pictured in a general way above. It con- 
sisted of a cylindrical receiver for compressed air, 
which was used to drive two air-propellers. The 
weight of the whole was supported by the pressure 
of the air against the under sides of the laterally ex- 
tended wings, the forward edges of which were kept 
inclined slightly up by the steering-action of the tail. 
The total weight of the apparatus, as tried, was 1.75 
kilograms, and the velocity obtained, about 8 metres 
per second. The machine was able to rise from the 
ground; and, attached by a cord to a post, it flew 
around in a circle, passing over the head of the spec- 
tator (seep. 481). Mr. Tatin sent a description of his 
experiments to the French académie des sciences, in 
competition for the Perraud prize, and‘received a 
reward, as did Gaston Tissandier for his experiments 
on the application of electricity to aeronautics, and 
Duroy de Bruignac for his aéruphone mixte. 


mere. Nee. 


FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue primary work of our Hydrographic of- 
fice is the publication of charts, based on origi- 
nal surveys of distant coasts, by officers of our 
navy ; but at present we take only a small part 
in this form of maritime exploration. During 
the past year, only. one vessel has been en- 
gaged in such surveys. In unpleasant contrast 
with this, the review of hydrographic recon- 
noissances and surveys published annually in 
the English Nautical magazine, for example, 
shows how largely our ship-masters must de- 
pend on British charts in their voyages. The 
coast-survey does admirable work on our own 
seaboard; but, in addition to this, our gov- 
ernment should take its proper share of the 
general hydrographic study of the world, com- 
mensurate with our wealth and maritime inter- 
ests. New surveys of the northern coast of 
South America and of parts of the West In- 
dies are urgently required, and their execution 
would be a well-chosen initial step towards the 
desired increase of our trade with the Spanish- 
Americans. 


The collection of data for the physical study 
of the oceans is an important supplementary 
work of the same office; and by the recent 
establishment of its branches at six of our 
ports, intercourse has been greatly increased 
with ship-masters, from whom a large share of 
valuable material is obtained. The demand for 
the pilot chart of the North Atlantic (see Sci- 
ence, No. 69) has steadily increased ; and some 
captains have even telegraphed from Europe, 
at their own expense, certain observations of 
special interest, made on the voyage across, for 
publication on it. The distribution of blank 
meteorological journals to voluntary observers 
has more than doubled during the past year ; 
and ship-masters have been stimulated to make 

No. 95. — 1884. 


immediate report of inaccuracies of charts, and 
matter of all kinds pertinent to hydrography 
and cartography. 


AMERICANS are often called upon to contrib- 
ute toward memorial funds which are designed 
to honor distinguished Europeans. Among 
recent requests of this sort, we remember the 
subscriptions which were opened in honor of 
Berkeley, the early friend of education in this 
country ; Tyndall the reformer; Charles Dar- 
win; and the naturalists Balfour, Barrande, and 
Muller, — every one of whom is well worthy of 
high honor from Americans as wellas from Eu- 
ropeans. Probably the amount which has been 
raised for all these commemorations is quite 
moderate, constituting no adequate expression 
of American sentiments, and no important part. 
of the entire sum collected. The value of the 
gift is doubtless in the international or cosmo- 
politan aspect which it imparts to the memo- 
rial. But it is quite possible that each of these 
tributes has taxed some one in this country to: 
a very considerable extent. Committees have 
been formed, circulars distributed, small sums. 
collected, and a good deal of correspondence 
exchanged; and all this with very slight re- 
sults. We raise the question whether it is 
worth while to make such efforts? Is the re- 
turn worth the exertion? The truth is, in our 
opinion, that what force we can command in 
the direction of monuments ought to be ex- 
pended in memorials to be retained in this 
country. Among secondary educational in- 
fluences, monuments to great men hold a most 
important place. ‘They not only honor the de- 
parted: they inspire the enthusiasm of youth, 
they encourage lofty emulations, they lead all. 
classes to think about the men who have con-- 
tributed to the advancement of our 
tion. 


civiliza- 


We are only at the beginning of the monu- 
mental epoch in this country. Having honored! 


484 


/ 


soldiers and statesmen for many decades, the 
Americans now seem ready to commemorate 
their literary and scientific heroes. John Har- 
vard and Abraham Pierson, whose real like- 
nesses perished long ago, have risen in bronze 
upon the greens at Cambridge and New Haven. 
The statues of Joseph Henry and Benjamin 
Silliman stand near the scenes of their activi- 
ty. Examples like these should be imitated 
throughout the land. Those who have rendered 
great services to science and education should 
receive due recognition from those who have 
profited by their labors. Only let us pray to 
be spared such commonplace monuments as 
are to be seen in abundance in London. Let 
us rather study the memorial statues which 
have of late years been placed in the cities of 
Germany, Holland, France, and other conti- 
nental countries. Better no monuments than 
those which give positive pain to the beholders, 
and which will some day be lowered, like the 
Tron Duke from his lofty arch, when taste and 
skill are more highly developed. 


LETTERS TO THE.EDITOR. 


The oldest living type of vertebrates. 


Ir is necessary to add a little to the discussion of 
Chlamydoselachus in order to give readers of Science 
a just idea of the case as it now stands. On hearing 
the evidence presented in my paper at the Philadel- 
phia meeting of the American association, Profes- 
sor Cope gracefully conceded that he had mistaken 
the affinities of Didymodus, and agreed with me 
in the conclusions that the two genera belonged to 
different orders, and that, judging from the teeth 
alone, the nearest known allies of Chlamydoselachus 
were Cladodonts of the subcarboniferous and middle 
Devonian. The shapes of the bodies of the extinct 
Cladodonts are yet unknown. What has been con- 
sidered the closest approach to a determination of 
their skeletal structure is that of Dr. Traquair, based 
on the resemblance of a single, partly visible, and im- 
perfect tooth of Ctenacanthus costellatus. Professor 


Gill has accepted the doctor’s idea, and classified the | 


sharks, fossil and recent, in accordance (Science, iii. 
346). The lateral curvature near the apex of the 
tooth is rather against the determination, and the 
character of the base is not known. The weight of 
the evidence does not seem to favor the conclusion 
that Ctenacanthus is a Cladodont. The tooth re- 
sembles that of Rhinaas much. Until we are toler- 
ably certain in regard to the extinct (the unknown), 
it is about as well to assume that it in some degree 
resembled the recent (the known). In a revision of 
the arrangement of Gill, the Xenacanthini should 
be taken from his Lipospondyli to form a new order, 
the Cladodonts removed and placed with the Selach- 
ophichthyoidi, and the definitions revised in several 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. 


cases to accord with structure. The result would 
appear thus: — 
Xenacanthini, Pleuracanthus, Didymodus, and allies, 


prototypes of bony fishes. 


SELACHIA. GALEI. 


1. Lipospondyli, including the true Hybodonts, but 
excluding the Cladodonts. 

2. Selachophichthyoidi, including Chlamydoselachus 
and the Cladodonts, but excluding Didymodus; 
changing the definition from ‘‘ vertebral condition 
unknown, and with teeth having fixed bases,’’ to 
“vertebrae partially or imperfectly developed, noto- 
chord persistent, and teeth with broad backward 
expanded bases.’’ 

3. Opistharthri, the Notidanidae; changing the ex- 
pression, ‘‘ which alone exhibit these peculiarities 
in the existing fauna,”’ to read, ‘‘ which share many 
of their peculiarities with the preceding.”’ 

4, Proarthri, Heterodontidae. 

5. Mesarthri (Anarthri Gill), most sharks; changing 
the statement, ‘‘ palato-quadrate apparatus not ar- 
ticulated with theskull,”’ to read, ‘‘ pterygo-quadrate 
articulated or connected with the skull in the orbit 
by the trabecular elbow.’’ The name ‘ Anarthri’ 
is manifestly inappropriate, since few of the gen- 
era are without the articulation. 

6. Rhinae, Rhinidae; changing the definition so that 
‘‘with the palato-quadrate apparatus not articu- 
lated with the skull”’ shall read, ‘‘ with the pterygo- 
quadrate articulated with the skull in the orbit by 
the trabecular elbow.”’ S. GARMAN. 

Cambridge, Nov. 17. 


Water of crystallization. 


The first accompanying illustration (fig. 1) is taken 
from a photograph of plumes produced by the crystal- 
lization of water. In the appendix of Tyndall’s work 
on light will be found an illustration (fig. 2) of the 


same phenomenon which is explained in the follow- 
ing letter from the late Professor Joseph Henry to 
Professor Tyndall. 

‘“‘ Accompanying this, I send you a photograph at 
the request of Prof. S. H. Lockett of the Louisiana 
state university, of which the following is his ex- 
planation : — . ; 

‘¢*In my drawing-room I kept a wash-basin in which 
to rinse out the color from my water-color brushes. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884. ] 


This color gradually formed a uniform sediment of 
an indefinite tint over the bottom of the basin. On 
the night of the 26th of December last, which was 
an unusually cold one for this climate, the water in 
the basin froze. On the melting of the ice the next 
day, the beautiful figure you see on the photographs 
was left in the sediment. I carefully poured the 
water from the basin, let the sediment dry, and thus 
perfectly preserved the figure. It has been accurately 
photographed by an artist in this city. The negative 
is preserved; and, if you would like to have any more 
copies, they can readily be obtained.. 

*** We are not much accustomed, in this warm 
couutry of ours, to the beautiful ‘forms of water;’ 
and this has 
struck me asa 
little remarka- 
ble, and wor- 
thy of being 
kept.’ 

= he “fact 
that the results 
have been pro- 
duced by col- 
ored sediment 
indicates a 
method of ex- 
hibiting the ef- 
fects of crystal- 
lization in an 
interesting 
manner.”’ 

Professor 
Tyndall refers 
to this as a 
‘surprising 
case of crystal- 
lization,’ which 
it most certain- 
ly is. 

Some years 
ago a_ glass- 
crystallizing 
dish was filled 
with Ohio-river 


water, which 
at certain 
stages carries 


in suspension 
a large quanti- 
ty of yellow 
clay, and al- 
lowed to settle 
for several 
days, forming a thin yet firm deposit on the bottom 
of the dish. During a very cold night the water in 
the dish was frozen, and the sediment figured as 
herewith represented. The ice was melted, water 
removed, and the sediment dried. I have this re- 
markable specimen in my possession to-day, just as 
it was originally formed. 


Wm. L. DuDLEY. 
Cincinnati, O. 


An open polar sea. 


In one of your September numbers (No. 86), there 
was a letter from Lieut. Ray on this subject, which, 
I think, needs some elucidation. Mr. Ray questions 
the existence of an open polar sea, on account of the 
low temperature of the water found by the last Ameri- 
can polar expedition. What has the temperature of 
water to do with its greater or less freedom from ice in 
arctic climates? The temperature of maximum den- 


SCIENCE. 


485 


sity of sea-water being lower than the freezing-point, 
the formation of sea-water ice is impeded, as the 
colder water is not the lighter. If, however, ice forms 
on sea-water, it is because, 1°, the specific gravity near 
the freezing-point differs much less (about one-third 
as much) from degree to degree than near 70°; so 
colder water has not so strong a tendency to arrange 
itself according to specific gravity as warm water, 
and may freeze, especially with cold winds from the 
land; 2°, at the close of summer the upper layers are 
generally much less salt than the lower, on account 
of the fresh water coming from melting ice, and from 
rivers swelled by the melting snow (this is especially 
the case in many inland seas of the northern hemi- 
sphere, and to 
a less degree in 
the southern 
hemisphere; 
such an ar- 
rangement of 
the waters al- 
lows the upper 
strata to be 
colder and yet 
lighter, and 
thus is very fa- 
vorable to the 
formation of 
ice): 3°; after 
ice begins ta 
form, 1 heise 
creases both 
from below, on 
account of the 
cold penetrat- 
ing the ice, and 
from above, on 
account of the 
freezing of 
waves, spray, 
etc., on the 
surface of the 
ice. 

Now, when 
the second con- 
dition, the most 
powerful (at 
least, for the 
beginning of 
the formation 
of sea-ice), is 
absent, or pres- 
ent only in a 
small degree, 
the conditions for the formation of field-ice or sea- 
ice are lacking, or only present on asmall scale. This 
is more often the case in the high latitudes of the 
southern hemisphere than in the northern; because 
in the southern the seas are deeper and more open, 
and receive little river-water, the temperature of the 
air and sea is below the freezing-point to about 62° 
south, and the icebergs reach that latitude without 
melting. 

If the north pole is surrounded by open, deep 
water, and if the temperature of summer there is 
lower than at the stations where observations have 
been made in the northern hemisphere (both suppo- 
sitions will be granted as possible), there do not exist 
conditions so favorable for the formation of field-ice 
as on the north coast of Asia and North America, as 
there will be no brackish water of a low specific 
gravity near the surface. Thus there may be rela- 
tively open water near the north pole, not warm,: 


486 


but cold; this only on the supposition of a deep, 
broad expanse of sea. If not, —if the pole is sur- 
rounded by a cluster of islands, like the archipelago 
of North America, —ice must predominate there, yet 
probably not so as to entirely exclude patches of open 
water, since these have been found everywhere in 
the Arctic. 

Mr. Ray does not entertain the idea of a ‘polar 
ice-cap,’ —an idea which, unfortunately, lurks in so 
many heads that should know better (by ice-cap I 
mean one of great depth and permanence, formed on 
the open sea, not glacier ice). Mr. Ray’s letter led 
me to look over the controversy on ‘ geological cli- 
mates’ in Nature, 1880-81. The polar ice-cap hy- 
pothesis was warmly advocated by Professor Samuel 
Haughton, who is, I think, considered an authority 
On this subject, at least in Great Britain. It was not 
abandoned by him, notwithstanding the strong ar- 
guments brought against it, especially by Mr. A. R. 
Wallace. A. WoEIKOF. 

St. Petersburg, Oct. 29. 


Rhyssa not lignivorous. 


In the record of the proceedings of the Brooklyn 
entomologial society, as reported in Science of Nov. 
7, Mr. George Gade denies the parasitic nature of 
KRhyssa lunator, and states that it is a wood-feeder. 
This conclusion was indorsed by at least two other 
members of the society at the meeting of Sept. 27, and 
without any protest. The conclusion is quite errone- 
ous; for not only does the whole organization of this 
genus of our largest ichneumon-flies point unmistak- 
ably to its parasitic nature, but there is plenty of evi- 
dence by competent observers on record to corroborate 
it. 

Let me add, that I have had ocular evidence of 
the fact, as I have in a number of instances taken the 
Rhyssa larva of various ages and sizes, feeding upon 
the larva of Tremex columba. The Rhyssa does not 
sting and oviposit in its victim, however, as is gener- 
ally supposed, but lays its egg anywhere in the Tre- 
mex burrow. The Rhyssa larva seeks its victim, and 
fastens to it from the outside, and thus develops, as 
do so many other parasitic larvae. This trait will 
account for Mr. Gade’s observation upon which he 
based the erroneous conclusion. C. YV... BILE 

Washington, D.C. 


Sky-glows. 


Several letters in recent numbers of Nature, on 
‘sky-glows,’ have reminded me of some observations 
made last summer during a trip across the Sierra 
Madre Mountains from Parral to Guadalupe y Calvo, 
in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, which may be of 
interest to the readers of Science. The following ac- 
count of the phenomenon is taken from my note-book 
under date of June 24, 1884 : — é 

About nine o’clock this morning, as we neared the 
top of the mountain above San Estavan, at an eleva- 
tion of 8,900 feet, Col. Matlock, my travelling com- 
panion, called attention to the remarkable dimness of 
the sunlight, suggesting the approach of rain or an 
eclipse of the sun, as no clouds were to be seen. On 
looking towards the sun, a peculiar pinkish glow, 
shading into purple, surrounded it, extending from 
fifteen to twenty degrees. The remainder of the sky 
presented a dark-blue, leaden color. The sunlight 
was so obscured as to give a peculiarly sharp outline 
to the shadows cast by the trees, and a weird ap- 
pearance to the landscape. The glow continued 
throughout the day, which was perfectly clear with 
the exception of a few small fleecy clouds about 
noon, that flitted across the sky from the south-west. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. 


We camped at Cuevas Blancas, on a small creek, a 


little before sunset, at an elevation, as indicated by a 


small aneroid barometer, of 9,190 feet. A huge rock, 
unfortunately, shut out the sun as it set; but on one 
side could be seen the new moon and two planets — 
Jupiter and Venus—shining with a bright silvery 
lustre through the pinkish hue of the sun-glow. As 
the twilight faded away, the color changed to a pale 
red. The sky at the time was perfectly clear, and the 
stars came out beautifully. According to my watch, 
the sun set at quarter-past seven o’clock, and the glow 
did not entirely disappear until half-past eight. 

Wednesday, June 25; the same appearance of a 
pinkish or salmon-colored glow surrounded the sun 
as on yesterday, though the sunlight was apparently 
not so much obscured. 

I may add, that asimilar glow, though not so marked 
in appearance, was observed for a week or ten days 
thereafter. The rainy season, which usually begins 
in the mountains by the middle of June, had not 
commenced at the time; and, indeed, there was very 
little rain up to the last of July, when I left the moun- 
tains. N. T. Lupton. 


Vanderbilt university, Nov. 17. 


Iroquois grammar. 


The assumption of ‘ Reporter,’ that the conclusions 
of my Montreal paper can affect the value of mission- 
ary work, except in illustrating its difficulties, I deny. 
My critic’s own statement, however, that the life and 
force of the language depend upon the meaning of 
certain pronouns, and that these must conform 
strictly to a system of grammar already prescribed, 
or render the version erroneous, does throw aspersions 
upon many valuable works. ) 

That the early French missionaries did influence the 
language of the western Mohawks is evident from 
their use of words coined by those old fathers; but 
the statement that their translations conform to those 
of the east is incorrect. 

As the most perfect and complete grammar yet 
written in the Mohawk has been in my possession for 
over two years, it has been an easy task for me to 
find, upon ninety pages scattered throughout Brant’s 
prayer-book, over two hundred instances where the 
pronouns do not follow the system there prescribed. 

In comparing two translations of St. Mark, ex- 
ecuted at different localities, we find still greater 
differences, not only in pronouns, but in the tenses, 
number, etc. In one of these translations we find 
that ‘‘they that did eat of the loaves were five 


thousand warriors,’’ and, in the thirteenth chapter, 


that ‘those days’ which in that chapter refer to the 
future are translated in the past. These are only 
a few of the instances which might be given to show 
the difficulties of those pioneers. When my critic 
says that the supposition of Indians writing for 
Indians, and writing incorrectly, is ‘inadmissible,’ 
he is the one to cast an undeserved reflection upon 
the venerable missionary reviser of Brant’s prayer- 
book, who has made numerous changes in these pro- 
nouns. 

Through the kindness of French missionaries, I 
have had access to archives rarely or never opened 


before, have been permitted to bring to my own | 


home their erudite researches, and I have not been 


_ $0 ungracious or ungrateful as to underrate either — 
I refer my friends @ 


them, their work, or influence. 


to the paper read before the American association 
for the advancement of science at Minneapolis. 
Confessedly now and forever a ‘ beginner,’ 
ERMINNIE A. SMITH. 


et Ee 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION. 


Tue benefit accruing to science from the 
humble work of those who endeavor faithfully 
to popularize its teachings is not always rec- 
ognized by the investigator. Yet such work, 
though looked down upon by many not taking 
the trouble properly to inform themselves, is 
worthy of no doubtful recognition. An excel- 
lent example, perhaps second to none in this 
country for its success and beneficial results, 
is the founding and conduct of the Agassiz 
association, which held its first general as- 
sembly last summer in Philadelphia. The 
origin and plan of the association are the work 
of one man, Mr. Harlan H. Ballard. The 
society was first a local institution for youth 
at the Lenox (Mass.) academy, of which Mr. 
Ballard is principal. It proved so successful 
in promoting a love for the study of natural 
phenomena, that he conceived the idea of mak- 
ing the experiment more generally useful. An 
invitation to form a general association was 
answered with such unexpected enthusiasm, 
that over seven hundred local branches have 
now been established, and more than eight 
thousand children and grown people enrolled 
within four years. As the idea was in part 
suggested by the success of a similar society 
of boys and girls in Switzerland, the American 
association has been very appropriately named 
after Louis Agassiz, whose sympathy and ear- 
nest work in behalf of popular education has 
made his name historical in both Switzerland 
and America. 

The association was originally planned for 
the benefit of the young. It was speedily 
ascertained, however, that its methods of en- 
couraging study by out-door collecting, by 
subsequent talks, and by arranging exchanges 
with others, were much more effective stimu- 
Jants than had been imagined; and other 
teachers besides the principal of Lenox acad- 
emy found them useful in their schools. 

By the regulations of the association, chap- 
ters may be established by a few persons, four 
being the minimum limit; and age having been 
wisely left out of account, 


many families 


SCIENCE. 


487 


have formed separate chapters. In some cases 
single persons of mature age, living in remote 
places, have found its advantages such that 
they have been admitted as correspondents. 
The voluntary labor of students in various 
departments has been secured, so that chapters 
and correspondents can obtain the information 
they need at first hand ; and the extensive cor- 
respondence to effect this result has been con- 
ducted without charge by Mr. Ballard. By 
the co-operation of the editors of St. Nicholas, 
a monthly report is printed in that journal, 
without expense to the association. The maga- 
zine has thus become instrumental in helping to 
support the association, and deserves all the 
honor and credit won by such good Offices. 

Classes for the systematic study of elemen- 
tary botany, entomology, anatomy, and physi- 
ology, have been formed under the leadership 
of competent teachers, and conducted by cor- 
respondence. Self-help and independent ex- 
ertion are in this way made necessary for 
every isolated chapter, and this is systemat- 
ically encouraged by all the influence of the 
leader of the association. Much good must 
have been already done in this way in direct 
opposition to the whole tendency of the ordi- 
nary training of the schools, and we are much 
mistaken if both pupils and teachers have not 
in many cases been greatly benefited by their 
experience in this really higher class of educa- 
tional work. 

We are told by the president, in his ‘ Hand- 
book,’ that the association is designed to be 
an extended free school of the natural sciences, 
open to persons of all ages and conditions. 
We cannot avoid a smile, however, when he 
adds that the association is intended to re- 
semble the ‘great school at Chautauqua ;’ for 
that school, with its large annual attendance and 
camp-meeting organization, is not one-tenth 
part so valuable to the intellectual interests of 
this country as either the Agassiz association 
or the somewhat similar ‘ Association for the 
promotion of home studies,’ founded by Miss 
Ticknor of Boston. The conductors of these 
enterprises have done something permanent 
and effectual towards spreading a taste for 


488 


self-culture in an almost new sense, so far as 
the majority of people are concerned. They 
have shown that there is a practicable method 
by which the average intelligence and self- 
reliant character of the people outside of the 
schoolroom, as well as in it, can be effectively 
increased, and have taught thousands how to 
work with whatever means were at hand, not 
only for their own intellectual improvement, 
but for that of their children and neighbors. 
This must eventually affect the curriculum of 
the public schools through the creation of a 
demand for better and more natural methods 
of instruction. Indeed, if Mr. Ballard were to 
do nothing for the remainder of his life but 
carry on and perfect the system he has origi- 
nated, and so extend the influence of his 
society, he could do nothing more desirable 
for the interests of science in this country, 
or more likely to secure future happiness and 
personal satisfaction for himself. 

There is, however, in the path of this new 
organization, a certain danger arising from 
its necessarily intimate association with a 
publishing enterprise like that of St. Nicholas. 
Publishers and editors must do what will be 
profitable, and cannot afford too much philan- 
thropy in their business. This spirit appears 
in the title, ‘ St. Nicholas Agassiz association,’ 
as it stands upon the titlepage of the ‘ Hand- 
book.’ The incongruity of names offends 
good taste, and does not accord with the 
purely unselfish nature of the whole enterprise. 
There is also a real cause for apprehension in 
one clause of the constitution, which places 
the appointment of his successor in the hands 
of the president and the editors of the St. 
Nicholas. Most persons will translate it as 
having but one object, — that of securing to the 
publishers and editors, in the future, whatever 
advantages may flow from the prosperity of 
the society. However pardonable and strictly 
honorable this may be from a business point 
of view, it is not consistent with the scheme 
of the association, and will finally excite com- 
ment and dissatisfaction. It might have been 
necessary to confine the power of appointment 
and election in a society of children; but this 


SCIENCE. 


[VoL. 1V.,: No. 95. | 


association is no longer composed wholly of 
young persons, and has admitted large num- 
bers of adults. The proprietors of St. Nicholas 
have a chance to lay the whole society under 
obligations of a kind which such bodies of 
people, in our experience, have never failed to 
recognize with gratitude and appropriate ac- 
knowledgments. We should earnestly advise 
them to take advantage of their opportunity. 


THE ‘POROROCA,’ OR BORE, OF THE 
AMAZON. 


WHi_e travelling upon the Amazon in 1881, 
I was fortunate in having an opportunity to 
observe some of the effects of a remarkable 
phenomenon which occurs at the northern em- 
bouchure of that river, in connection with the 
spring-tides. It is known to the Indians and 
Brazilians as the porordca,' and is, I believe, 
generally supposed to be identical with the 
‘bore’ of the Hugli branch of the Ganges, of 
the Brahmapootra, and of the Indus. I regret 
very much, that like Condamine,’? who passed 
through this part of the country about 1740, I 
could not observe this phenomenon in actuak 
operation; but the gentleman whose guest I 
was at the time, and upon whose boat I was a 
passenger, was fairly horrified at my suggest- 
ing such a thing, while his boatmen united in 
a fervent ‘God forbid that we should ever see 
the pororéca!’ and ever afterwards doubted’ 
my sanity. J venture, however, to give some 
of the results of my own observations, in order 
that those who in the future visit this region, 
concerning which so little is known, may be 
able to see, and establish as far as possible, the 
rate of destruction and building-up here being 
carried on. 

I was upon a trip from Macapa, —a small 
town on the northern bank of the Amazon, 
and about a hundred miles from its mouth, — 
down the river to the ocean, and thence up 
the Rio Araguary as far as the last might be 
found navigable. The one inhabited place on 
the Araguary is a military colony, called the 
Colonia Militar Pedro Segundo. At Macapa 
I became acquainted with the then director, 
Lieut. Pedro Alexandrino Tavares, and was 
invited by him to visit the Araguary. 

1 This word, which is of Tupy or native Brazilian origin, is 
the one invariably used by the Brazilians. Father Joao Tavares 
says it is probably a frequentative form derived from the Tupy 
word opoe, which means ‘ to break with a noise.’ 

2 Condamine was sent by the Royal academy of sciences, of 
France, to make astronomical observations in South Ameriea in 


1735. His description of the porordca is the one from which al) 
references to it have been taken until now. 


- 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


~The trip from Macapa was by a small sail- 

boat down the Amazon to the ocean, and 
thence up the Araguary. Our departure was 
so arranged that we could reach that part of 
the region disturbed by the porordéca exactly 
at the time when there would be the least prob- 
ability of its being met with; that is, at the 
time of the neap-tides. The voyage down 
the river was in the face of the wind, and it was 
only five days after leaving Macapa that we 
put into an 7garapé on the Island of Porqui- 
nhos to wait for the turning of the tide. Ihad 
already seen islands said to have been half 
washed away, and others built 
up, by the porordca; and I had 
seen upon the shores the evi- 
dences of its destructive power 
in carrying away forests, and 
cutting away banks: but it was 
on this island that I was first 
able to see some of its effects 
near at hand, and at my leisure. 
After having seen so much, I 
was only the more anxious to 
see the pororéca itself; but my 
suggestions in regard to it were 
answered by an ominous silence 
on the part of the director, and 
my requests by additional ex- 
pressions of horror. 

As I shortly afterwards met 
and conversed with a man who 
had seen the porordca, I shall 
first give his description of it, 
and then speak of its effects as 
observed by myself. This man 
was a soldier in the Brazilian 
army, and, on the occasion re- 
ferred to, was going with a few 
other soldiers from the colony 
to Macapa in a small open boat. 
Arriving at the mouth of the 
Araguary, they went down with the tide, and 
anchored just inside the bar which crosses the 
mouth of this stream, to await the turning of 
the tide, which would enable them to pass 
the shallows, and then carry them up the 
Amazon. Shortly after the tide had stopped 
running out, they saw something coming to- 
ward them from the ocean in a long white line, 
which grew bigger and whiter as it approached. 
Then there was a sound like the rumbling of 
distant thunder, which grew louder and louder 
as the white line came nearer, until it seemed 
as if the whole ocean had risen up, and was 
coming, charging and thundering down on 
them, boiling over the edge of this pile of 
water like an endless cataract, from four to 


Le 


SCIENCE. 


]MA CAPA 


EQUATOR | 


MOUTH OF THE AMAZON. 


489 


seven metres high, that spread out across the 
whole eastern horizon. This was the poro- 
roca! When they saw it coming, the crew 
became utterly demoralized, and fell to crying 
and praying in the bottom of the boat, expect- 
ing that it would certainly be dashed to pieces, 
and they themselves drowned. The pilot, 
however, had the presence of mind to heave 
anchor before the wall of waters struck them ; 
and, when it did strike, they were first pitched 
violently forward, and then lifted, and left roll- 
ing and tossing like a cork on the sea it left 
behind, the boat nearly filled with water. But 


‘ i i. ee NoaTH 


2 


TSS IN EES 


EGUATO® 


SIXETCH-MAP OF THE PART PRINCIPALLY AFFECTED 
BY THE POROROCA, BY J. C. BRANNER. 


their trouble was not yet ended ; for, before they 
had emptied the boat, two other such seas 
came down on them at short intervals, tossing 
them in the same manner, and finally leaving 
them within a stone’s throw of the river-bank, 
where another such wave would have dashed 
them upon the shore. They had been an- 
chored near the middle of the stream before 
the waves struck them, and the stream at this 
place is several miles wide. 

But no description of this disturbance of the 
water can impress one so vividly as the signs 
of devastation seen upon the land. The silent 
story of the uprooted trees that lie matted 
and tangled and twisted together upon the 
shore, sometimes half buried in the sand, as 


490 


if they had been nothing more than so many 
strings or bits of paper, is deeply impressive. 
Forests so dense that I do not know how to 
convey an adequate idea of their density and 
gloom, are uprooted, torn, and swept away 
like chaff; and, after the full force of the waves 
is broken, they sweep on inland, leaving the 
débris with which they are loaded, heaped and 
strewn through the forests. The most power- 
ful roots of the largest trees cannot withstand 


TLD rerum 
8 —eee* 
wt Drouin tog F42B.9 MES 


SKETCH ON THE ILHA DOS PORQUINHOS, SHOWING THE UPROOTED TREES. 


the porordca, for the ground itself is torn up 
to great depths in many places, and carried 
away by the flood to make bars, add to old 
islands, or build up new ones. Before seeing 
these evidences of its devastation, I had heard 
what I considered very extravagant stories of 
the destructive power of the porordca; but, 
after seeing them, doubt was no longer pos- 
sible. The lower or northern ends of the 
islands of Bailique and Porquinhos seemed to 
feel the force of the waves at the time of my 
visit more than any of the other islands on 
the south-east side of the river; while on the 
northern side the forest was wrecked, and the 
banks washed out far above Ilha Nova. 

The explanation of this phenomenon, as 
given by Condamine, appears to be the cor- 
rect one; that is, that it is due to the incom- 
ing tides meeting resistance, in the form of 
immense sand-bars in some places, and narrow 
channels in others. 

Most persons who mention the porordca, 
say that it breaks as far up the Amazon as 
Macapa; and, indeed, the people of Macapa 
themselves often refer to the rapid cutting- 
away of the river-banks near their city as the 
work of the porordca. It is true that these 
banks are being rapidly cut down; and it is 
even a common thing to see, in this part of 
the country, the stilted houses —the floors 
being nearly two metres from the ground — 


‘ 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No, 95. 


that were originally built one, two, or three 
hundred feet from the water, gradually en- 
croached upon until they fall into the stream. 
A portion of the old fort at Macapa was, at 
the time of my visit, about to fall, on account 
of the land upon which it was built being 
washed away; but all this is the work of a 
rapid current, for the surf of the porordéca does 
not reach Macapa, though it may reach a little 
farther west than I have represented on the 
map. Moreover, there 
is a marked difference 
in character between 
the washing done by 
the pororéca and that 
done by the ordinary 
river or tide current. 
The latter works from 
below, and, by under- 
mining and softening 
the bank, causes what 
is known through the 
Amazon valley as ter- 
ras cahidas, or fallen 
banks. The land 
falls into the stream 
in sections of various 
widths, and not infrequently these form tem- 
porary terraces miles in length. These ¢terras 
cahidas are most common and most exten- 
sive on the upper Amazon during high water, 
but they may be seen on a small scale at vari- 
ous places through the valley. The accom- 
panying diagram and sketch were made near 
Mazagao, on the lower Amazon. From this 
it is clear that the work of destruction goes 
on entirely below the surface. With the poro- 
réca, on the contrary, the water is dashed fairly 
against the banks, and the earth is washed 
away from above as well as from below, and 
the shore is left perfectly clean. The depth to 


a attain > 


Y LOU 


TAB LN", aN 4. 
Hin Winzagda “i” \ ¢\ N 
WAT 3p ‘ 


SECTION OF A FALLING BANK ON THE AMAZON. 


which the banks are cut shows that this disturb- 
ance is also a profound one; so much so, in- 
deed, that on the north-west side of Porquinhos- 
the deepest place in the channel of the river 
was, in 1881, close to this island, where the 
action of the pororéca was most violent. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


All through this region the porordca is 
largely instrumental in the rapid and marked 
changes that are constantly going on. The 
water of the Amazon is notoriously muddy ; 
and, as would naturally be expected, these 
disturbances in comparatively shallow places 
make it much more so, and fill it with all the 
sediment it can possibly carry. Even when I 
entered the Araguary, a time when there was 
the least possible tidal disturbance, the water 
near the mouth of this stream was so muddy, 
that a thick sediment would settle in the bot- 
tom of a vessel of it left standing a single 
minute; though the water of the Araguary 
proper, as far down as the Veados, is of a clear, 


Nal Rin 


, ne al 
Le EE) sh ee ‘ia 
a hats Von 6 V/A RAID Pe 


SP in 


SHORE 2 M. HIGH, WASHED BY THE DOROROGA FORMERLY 
COVERED WITH FOREST. 


dark color. But the work of tearing down and 
that of building up are equally rapid, and the 
vegetable world takes quick possession of what 
the sea offers it; and. while some islands are 
being torn away, others are being built up, old 
channels being filled, islands joined to the main- 
land, and promontories built out. To the north- 
west of Faustinho is an island known as the 
Ilha Nova (‘newisland’), about ten miles long 
by about three wide, when I saw it, and which, 
I was assured by several trustworthy persons, 
did not exist six years before. In 1881 it 
was covered by a dense forest. The young 
plants were sprouting at the water’s edge, 
those behind a little taller, and so on; so that 
the vegetation sloped upward and back to a 
forest from twenty to thirty metres high in the 
middle of the island.1_ Again: on the southern 
side of the mouth of the Araguary was a point 
of land nearly or quite six miles in length, and 
covered with vegetation, from young shoots to 
bushes six metres high. I was told, that, one 
year before, this was nothing more than asand- 
bar, without a sign of vegetation onit. The 
western end of the Island of Porquinhos was 
once known as Ilha Franco; but the channel 
that separated it from the Porquinhos has been 
filled up gradually, and the two islands are now 
one, though the upper end of it is still known 
as Franco. The point in the mouth of the 
Araguary known as the Ilha dos Veados (‘ deer 
island’) was, at the time of my visit, fast being 
joined to the mainland. A couple of years 

1 The plants growing upon this newly formed land are all of 


one kind. They are called Ciritiba, or Xiriuba, by the inhabit- 
ants, and belong to the family Verbenaceae, genus Avicennia. 


SCIENCE. 


49] 


before, boats navigating the Araguary passed 
through the channel on the south side of the 
island. In 1881 it was no longer navigable, 
and the Veados was rapidly being made part 
of the right bank of the river. 

Owing to this shifting of material, the pilots 
never know where to find the entrance to the 
Araguary River. One week the channel may 
be two fathoms deep on the north side, and 
the next it may be in the middle; or it may 
have disappeared altogether, leaving the river- 
bed perfectly flat, with only one fathom of 
water across the whole mouth. The bar was 
in this last-mentioned condition when I passed 
over it in 1881. At this time another bar ex- 
tended eastward from the eastern end of Bai- 
lique; while a little farther out was another 
just south of the same line, as I have indicated 
on the map. ‘The shifting nature of the sand- 
bars about the mouth of the Araguary renders 
it unsafe for vessels drawing more than one 
fathom to enter this river, except at high tides. 
But, as high tides and the porordéca come at 
the same time, only light-draught steamers can 
enter by waiting well outside the bar until the 
force of the pororéca is spent. 

With the few. canoes or small sailing-vessels 
that enter this stream (probably less than 
half a dozen a year), it is the custom to come 
down past Bailique with the outgoing tide, and 
to anchor north of the bar that projects from 
the southern side of the Araguary, and there 
to await the turn of the tide to ascend the lat- 
ter river. Care is always taken to pass this 
point when the tides are least perceptible. 

Although the pororéca breaks as far up the 
Araguary as midway between the Veados and 
the entrance to the Apureminho, its violence . 
seems to be checked by the narrowing of the 
stream below the Veados, by the turns in the 
river, and by the vegetation along the banks. 

This vegetation is of the kind against which 
it seems to be least effective, namely, bamboos. 
They grow next the stream from near the mouth 
to the foot of the falls above the colony, and 
form a fringe to the heavy, majestic forest be- 
hind them, than which nothing could be more 
strikingly beautiful. The clusters next the 
stream droop over till their graceful plumes 
touch the surface of the water; and, as the 
plants grow older, they droop lower, until the 
stream is filled with a yielding mesh of canes. 
I measured a number of these bamboos; and 
the longer ones, taken at random, were from 
twenty to twenty-five metres in length, and 
from seven to ten centimetres in diameter. A 
more effectual protection against the porordca. 
could hardly be devised. 


492 


On Bailique and Brigue I found the forests 
very different from any I had hitherto seen in 
the tropics. These islands, like all the others 
in this part of the country, are flooded at high 
tide during part of the year; and, as a conse- 
quence, they are very like great banks of mud 
covered with the rankest kind of vegetation. 
This vegetation varies with the locality. All 
around the borders, Brigue is fringed with tall 
assai palms, bamboos, and various kinds of 
tall trees, all of which are hung with a dense 
drapery of sipos (lianes) and vines, which form 
an almost impenetrable covering. Inside of 
this are several palms, the most common being 
the ubussi (Manicaria saccifera). The next 
in order are the murumuri (Astrocaryum mu- 
rumurti), urucury (Attelea excelsa, the nut of 
which is used for smoking rubber), and ubim 
(Geonoma). But, unlike most tropical forests, 
this one has very little or no undergrowth, ex- 
cept upon the borders. Most of the ground 
was under from one to six inches of water, 
while the exposed places were covered with fine 
sediment deposited by the standing muddy 
waters of the Amazon. I walked several miles 
through this forest without finding any palms 
except the ones mentioned. The little ground 
above water was covered with the tracks of 
deer, pacas, cutias, and of many kinds of 
birds, mostly waders; but the deathlike still- 
ness was unbroken, save for the little crabs 
that climbed vacantly about the fallen palm- 

leaves, or fished idly in the mud for a living. 
_ This vast expanse of muddy water, bearing 
out into the ocean immense quantities of sedi- 
ment; the porordca, breaking so violently on 
the shores, and carrying away the coarser ma- 
terial to the open sea, and burying uprooted 
forests beneath newly formed land; the rank 
vegetation of islands and varzea rapidly grow- 
ing and as rapidly decaying in this most humid 
of climates ; the whole country, submerged for 
a considerable part of the year by the floods 
of the Amazon, — impress one with the proba- 
bility of such phenomena having been in past 
ages, and still being, geological agents worthy 
of study and consideration. Across the mouth 
of the Amazon, a distance of two hundred 
miles, and for four hundred miiles out at sea, 
and swept northward by ocean-currents, beds 
of sandstone and shale are being rapidly de- 
posited from material, some of which is trans- 
ported all the way from the Andes, while in 
many places dense tropical forests are being 
slowly buried beneath the fine sediment thrown 
down by the muddy waters of the great river. 
JoHn C. BRANNER. 


Geological survey of Pennsylvania, Scranton, Penn. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. 


HISTORY OF ALMANACS. 


THE derivation of our English word ‘almanac’ 
seems doubtful. The word possibly came from 
almonaght, Saxon words meaning ‘the observation 
of all the moons.’ In Roman times the priests 
announced once a month to the people what days 
should be observed as holidays, basing their calcula- 
tion upon the movements of the moon. In this way 
almanacs arose to give information of church feasts. 
Then superstition entered, and caused an interest to 
be taken in the movements of the planets. As the 
earth was held to be the centre around which moved 
the moon, the planets, and the stars, and as the 
moon was seen to have an influence upon the tides, 
the inference was drawn that human affairs could 
but be affected by these outside bodies which. were 
supposed to have been created for the benefit of the 
world alone. 

The earliest calendars known were cut upon rods 
of wood or metal, some of the Roman calendars on 
blocks of stone. The earliest written almanacs were 
of two classes,—the first containing astronomical 
computations; and the other, lists of saints’ days, and 
other matters pertaining to the church. Both are 
sometimes found united; although the latter claimed 
greater antiquity, being prefixed to most ancient 
Latin manuscripts of the Scriptures. We reproduce 
from the ‘ Glossaire archéologique’ of Victor Gay a 
church calendar of the fourteenth century, in which 
the leaves are made of box-wood, the pages repro- 
duced giving the calendars of January and December. 
The first printed calendar was issued in 1472, by 
Johannes de Monte-Regio; and before the end of that 
century they became common on the continent. In 
England they were not in general use until the mid- 
dle of the sixteenth century; and the making of cal- 
endars interested the best mathematicians of the 
time, which was not the case a little later. 

From the earliest times, calendars were filled with 
advice to physicians and the farmer: the farmer is 
told when to plant, and the sick man when to take 
physic. We quote here from an almanac published 
in 1628, in London, by Daniel Brown, — “‘ Willer to 
the Mathematickes, and teacher of Arithmeticke, and 
Geometry,’’ —the titlepage of which bears the in- 
scription, ‘ Astra regunt homines et regit astra deus,’ 
the paragraphs on 


** Judiciall Astronomy. 


“‘Tt hath beene an order and a custome (amongst 
the most excellentest and wisest Physitions, to 
choose the Moone for the principall. Significatrix of 
the sicke Person, and according unto her motion, 
situation, and configuration (with other Planets) 
haue giuen judgement on the increasing, mittigation 
and alteration of the disease; which of the Physition 
is called Crisis, that is a swift and vehement motion 
of a disease, either to life or death, and it hapneth 
about the supreame intention of a disease. And 
Galen (in commento de diebus Criticis) sayth. A 
Physition must take heed and advise himselfe of a_ 
certaine thing that faileth not neither deceiveth, 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


-which the Astronomers of Egypt taught) that is to 
say when the body of the Moone is joyned with for- 
tunate Plannets and Starres, dreadfull and fearefull 
sicknesse commeth to good end. And therefore the 
expert in that excellent science of Physicke, doth 
obserue and marke how the Moone passeth through 
the Zodiacke; and with what Planets she is joyned; 
thereof they do vnderstand much of the alteration of 
the sicknesses, for the Moone with the good Planets, 
as Iupiter and Venus, or aspected well of them tend- 
eth to good. Contrarywise with the euill Planets as 
Saturne and Mars, or euill aspected of them, doth 
pronounce and cause euill essence of the sickenesse, 
in so muth that such dayes in euery moneth is to be 
accounted more dangerous then the rest to fall sick 


ie | 
SS 


SSeS 
PANN ee 


HA) an 
j TAR = 


pest 


Ra bes 


te 
SS 
WELARN 


ee 


U 
ct 
os NG 
Be AN% 
DS 


cs 4 


NESTA 


i 
Rar 


eS 
CAL 4 


Ay 


Ag 


4 
£ 
4; 
y 


4 
3 


\ 


— 


Naty Awe A 6 s PRR SLRS ANN iT: 


SCIENCE. 


493 


causeth the mutability and alteration of mens bodies, 
to bee good or euil, according to the nature of that 
Planet with whom she is adjoyned, which agreeth to 
the saying of Ptololeus in the 16. Aphorisme of his 
Centi loquio. Behold the motion of the Moone as 
she passeth through the Criticall, Judicial and mor- 
tall dayes, for if she be in them fortunate, it will fall 
out well: if Unfortunate, the contrary. And by the 
censure of the great. Astrologicall and Theologicall 
Doctor Frauncis Iunctinus, that by the motion of 
the Moone and Planets are knowne the Criticall and 
dangerous dayes, when the sicknesse will bee more 
remisse and placable. And when it is conyenient to 
vse outward, or inward medicines. 

‘*Concerning cautions in ministration in Physicke , 


ee 


, 
g 


tas 
ll 
[ , 


Se 


SSS boa addadsyg gs 


EER KE RK 
a eaaeeene 
MSZ SEs 1042 


BELA 


== YOO 
i! = BVAVOV AW. 


D : 
MVAVAYEN AAT — — 
CRYO SAAR 


re r8 
} 


l 3 


SEES 
i) 
—— Sb = 
| EE); 
a SSS Dh 
Nec: 


10 fu] 


| ~ 2 
x 5 
Th Fy <? 
2 
b 2 Poeges 
= 5 a) 4a 
se 
Ny kA 
%, 
°F 4, 
: 


A CHURCH CALENDAR OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 


in. Which dayes I have noted in my Almanacke, 
with their Characters, under the Aspects of Luna to 
Saturne and Mars. Thus a 6 Conjunction, this a 0 
Quartile, this a & Opposition: For example, The 5. 
day of Aprill, the 6 of Saturne and Luna the Moone, 
being in Virgo of h afflicted, the griefe shall proceede 
of viscuous and tough fleame. The thirteenth of 
Aprill the & of Mars and Luna, the Moone being in 
7 of Z. afflicted, the griefe is of blood and red choller. 
For Astrologers say, that among all the other Planets 
the Moone (in ruling) hath most power and mastry 
of mens bodies. Ptolomeus saith, under the moone 
is contained sicknesse, therefore about the alteration 
of mans body, the Moone worketh principaly; and 
because her orbe is neerest to the earth, sendeth vs 
the vertue and impression of the other Planets; and 


as purgations, laxatiue, or phlebotomie, seeing the 
fore sight, and preuention of such especially apper- 
taineth to the learned in Physicke, wherein they can 
helpe themselues, and others, God giuing a blessing 
to their practise, for of the most high commeth heal- 
ing. I commit them to the consideration of the 
learned, in that excellent Science of Physicke and 
Chyrurgery.”’ 

Prognostications of the weather were also called 
for by the readers of almanacs; and the following 
rules, quoted from a manuscript in Lambeth palace, 
as given by Mr. Halliwell-Phillips, may be of service 
to those whose faith in the moon is still strong, 
and who may wish ‘‘to knowe what wether shall 
be all the yere after the chaunge of every moone 
by prime dayes.”’ 


494 SCIENCE. 


““Sondaye pryme, drye wether. 

Mondaye pryme, moyst wether. 
Teusdaye pryme, cold and wynde. 
Wenesdaye pryme, mervelous. 
Thursdaye pryme, Sonne and clere. 
Frydaye pryme, fayre and fowle. 

Saturdaye pryme, rayne.”’ 


of the almanac are those who thumb them over with 
the expectation of finding similar guidance. When 
criticised, they reply that it is just as well to be on 
the safe side. 

One of the earliest American almanacs, which also 
served as an altar upon which to offer human sacri- 
fices, and which has given rise to such lively dis- 


S yj e \ fs Xa) f 


) 6 Ba | Raz 
i - 
1 y = ALE 
‘Yt Mi, i] re rm 
te, :. 2. x, H ag | 
2 70 (aA Soe! eye) 
¢ = et alk > | 
@ x f = 
jy a alee BIN) 97d ed 
w/e we </e, y 718, 
t j ed) 
, i 4 
5 <2. hy, AWOL " 
5 ay ‘ 
a Oo oy M, 
g D % : 
/; - u 3 Y 
Ky? 
e J ST 
4 pel 
4 
eo 


THE MEXICAN CALENDAR-STONE. 


It will be seen that superstition has largely entered 
in keeping alive the interest in almanacs. The first 
object in their publication was that men might save 
their souls by knowing their church days; and the 


cussion among the antiquarians, was the Mexican 
calendar-stone. 

The* Mexican year was a solar year of three hundred 
and sixty-five days. Their old calendar consisted 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. 


second, that they might sow their seed and take their 
physic to the best advantage. Of course, all this wis- 
dom of our greatest grandfathers was often scoffed 
at by the unbelievers; but it will probably be found, 
that, even at the present day, the most constant users 


of three hundred and sixty days, to which they finally 
added five. Each day had a name except the added 
five. The year was divided into two parts, —one of 
two hundred and sixty days, called meztli pohualli 
or ‘moon-reckoning;’ and asmaller portion of a hun 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


dred or a hundred and five days, called tonal pohualli. 
The year was divided into eighteen months of twenty 
days each: the five extra days were looked upon as 
outcasts and unlucky days. The week was only five 
days long. Further, they recognized a cycle of fifty- 
two years, each 
of which had a 
name,and during 
the last night of 
any one of which 
the world might 
come to an end. 
On the Mexi- 
ean calendar- 
stone the sun- 
god is represent- 
ed in the middle, 
and surrounding 
him the symbols 
of the sixteen 
hours of the day. 


BOS 


SCIENCE. 


BICKERS TAF E'S 


IMPAC 


For the Year of or REDEMPTION; 
ing Oe 


Being, the Firft after Leap-Year and Ninth of- American INDE.) 
PaNDENCY. Fitted forthe Meridian of BosTow, Lats4z 25°.N- 


495 


ion of the year; and it will be noticed that the space 
for these is exactly occupied by the pointers, the lines 
across the pointers indicating that the zones are sup- 
posed to be continued under them. The other divis- 
ion of the year contains a hundred and five days as 
represented by 
the zone of 
glyphs just out- 
side the zone of 
dots, and it will 
be found to con- 
tain a hundred. 
The missing five 
are seen directly 
3} under the sun’s 

face. There only 
remains the rep- 
resentation of 
the fifty-two 
years cycle, and 
this is found in 


I ON 


“3 a ms ahd et nw nan Ne A ET AP DEC OST OTTER a es 
Reigenmapra’ Se Fi es hn 


The four larger a Ne 
pointers indicate a 

sunrise, mid-day, 
sunset, and mid- 
night. Thesub- 
divisions of eight 
hours are marked 
by the smaller 
pointers, while 
the sixteen hours 
are indicated by 
the small towers 
at the corre- 
sponding dis- 
tances. In the 
narrow belt sur- 
rounding the 
central shield are 
found the sym- 
bols for the 
twenty Mexican 
months, begin- 
ning at the left 
of the centre at 
the top, and run- 
ning round con- 
trary to the hands 
of a watch. The 
first is named Ci- 
pac, for the as- 
tronomer who 
added the five 
days to the year; 
the second is 
called ehecatl 
(‘ wind’); and 
the third, calli 
(‘house’), showing a Mexican house with flat roof. 
Surrounding this is a narrow zone of squares, each 
containing five points divided into four lots of ten 
squares each, which gives two hundred dots. There 
are lacking sixty dots to make up the larger subdivis- 


BOSTON: Printed aad. fold by 
Wholelale or Retail, cheap. 


Se ae the outer belt. 

= ya Every fifty-two 
years the sacred 
fire was rekin- 
dled, the cere- 
mony beginning 
with human sac- 
rifices, and end- 
ing by the rekin- 
dling of the fire 
by rubbing a 
stick in a hollow 
piece of wood. 
This rekindling 
is symbolized in 
each of the fig- 
ures of the outer 
belt. The verti- 
cal column rep- 
resents the stick, 
and the flames 
are seen rising at 
either side. The 
belt just within 
this outer one 
symbolizes the 
destruction of 
the world by 
rain, being a 
rough represen- 
tation of clouds, 
with four 
streams of rain 
descending from 
each. The Mex- 
icans had a tra- 
dition of four de- 
structions of the earth, — one by war, symbolized by 
the tiger’s head above the sun at the right; another by 
wind; another by rain; and the fourth by great flood. 
The four squares around the sun-head are supposed 
to symbolize these epochs. The antiquarian would 


496 


deduce valuable facts with regard to Mexican history 
from the stone; but for further details we must refer 
to the lecture of Dr. Valentini, published by the 
American antiquarian society. 

The first book printed in Cambridge, Mass., was 
an almanac, that the wise men of New England 
might not lead unguided lives; but no copy of the 
book is known to exist. We give, however, the title- 
page of an almanac published in 1785 in Boston, which 
shows the maker taking the altitude of a star with a 
cross-stick, which is nothing more than a cross-piece 
sliding upon a graduated stick, the observer bringing 
one end of the cross-piece on a line with his eye and 
the horizon, and the other end on a line with his eye 
and the star. 

Almanacs contained considerable trashy informa- 
tion up to the early part of this century, when the 
British almanac and companion were published in 
1827. The British almanac aimed to give a reliable 
calendar, and a vast amount of information which 
is generally hidden in census reports. It has been 
followed by Whitaker, giving similar information for 
the whole world, and by the American almanac, 
more especially devoted to American affairs. So it 
will be seen that the almanac first gave rules by 
which one might know every thing, and ended by 
telling us every thing we know. 


EXPLORATION OF PUTNAM RIVER, 
ALASKA. 


THE Ounalaska (Lieut. G. M. Stoney, U.S.N., 
commanding) arrived in San Francisco, Oct. 25, hav- 
ing completed the exploration of Putnam River so 
far as the time allotted would permit. The river 
was explored by a steam-launch three hundred miles, 
when rapids were encountered ; then a canoe was 
taken, and towed by hand about eighty miles far- 
ther; and from this point a short portage brought a 
portion of the party to the head waters of one of 
the northern tributaries, which was fed by two large 
lakes. A mountain near one of these lakes furnished 
a view far to the eastward, up the main valley of 
Putnam River, and showed it flowing in undiminished 
volume as far as the eye could reach. The natives 
reported, that seven days’ journey farther up the river 
there was a great lake, looking like a sea; and it is 
thought that this is the source of the river. There 
is little doubt that the river has its origin as far east 
as the British possessions, and probably near to the 
Mackenzie. 

- Putnam River empties into Hotham Inlet just north 
of Selawik Lake and to the south-east of Kunatuk 
River. There is a large delta at its mouth stretching 
back about forty miles, which is pierced by over one 
hundred channels, one of which is about one mile 
in width. The river is navigable to boats drawing 
from five to six feet of water, up tothe rapids. Here 
the water flows at about ten knots per hour. The 
river and most ofits tributaries lie within the are- 
tic circle. Most of the tributaries are from the north, 
and they are generally shallow but rapid-flowing, 


SCIENCE. 


{Von. IV., No. 95. 


while the water is very cold; in some instances the 


observed temperature being 38°, while in one case it .— 


was 33°. Only one considerable branch was found 
flowing from the southward. This is called the Pah 
River by the natives, and it is used by them in jour- 
neying to the south; for a very short portage from its 
source enables them to reach one of the northern 
tributaries of the Yukon River, and they are thus 
brought in easy communication with the trading- 
posts. It is believed that like easy portage can be 
made from the Putnam to the river discovered by 
Lieut. Ray near Point Barrow, and which empties 
into the Arctic Ocean. J 

The country about the Putnam is mountainous. 
Long ranges extend along either side; but they are 
peculiar in existing in small, detached groups, each of 
which possesses distinguishing characteristics, some 
being clearly defined, sharp, rocky peaks, while 
others are smoothly rounded. The higher ones are 
estimated at about three thousand feet. From the 
tops of those which were ascended, the whole coun- 
try to the north appeared to be a confused mass of 
mountain peaks, and the natives stated that the coun- 
try was of the same character to the Arctic Ocean. 

The country explored was found to possess a warm 
and agreeable summer climate, the thermometer 
having reached 115° in the sun, while the nights were 
cool. The valley of the Putnam is heavily timbered 
with spruce, birch, cottonwood, larch, and willow; 
while flowers were in abundance, roses being seen in 
large numbers. Cuttings of these latter, together 
with specimens of coal, gold, and copper, and a huge 
fossil trunk, form a part of the material collected for 
the Smithsonian institution. 

While Lieut. Stoney was absent, Ensign Purcell 
remained with two men in charge of the schooner, 
and made a survey of Hotham Inlet and the Sela- 
wik. He found that the Selawik River represented 
on the charts has no existence; but there is a channel, 
six miles in length, connecting Selawik Lake with a 
chain of three lakes to the eastward. He also found 
a five-fathom channel over the Hotham-inlet bar. 

The Ounalaska is a fifty-four ton schooner, and 
Lieut. Stoney was provided with two officers and a 
crew of eight men. There were no naturalists with 
the expedition. 

While returning from his expedition, Lieut. Stoney 
encountered several severe gales. During one of the 
most severe he employed oil for stilling the waves, 
with marked success. The oil was rigged upon a spar 
to which a drag was attached, and the vessel was 
so manoeuvred that the drag stood off the weather- 
bow. The vessel holding the oil was so constructed 
that the oil was forced out in portions by each advan- 
cing wave. All the waves were affected by the oil; 
but the great foaming combers most markedly. 


THE BIRD-COLLECTION OF THE U.S. 
NATIONAL MUSEUM. 


In the register of specimens belonging to the bird 
department of the National museum, which records 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


the complete known data of every specimen received, 
the number 100,000 has been passed. 

This collection is by far the most complete of any, 
in the representation of North-American birds and 
those of the West Indies; while, of South and Cen- 
tral American birds, only two collections — those of 
Dr. P. L. Sclater and Messrs. Salvin and Godman in 
England —excelit. These are superior in the num- 
ber of species represented, but are decidedly inferior 
as regards the number of specimens; the aim of the 
museum being to acquire series which will illustrate 
the important subjects of geographical distribution 
and variation, thus furnishing material for those in- 
vestigating the higher branches of the science. In 
Australian, Japanese, and European birds the col- 
lection is also tolerably complete; but of African, 
Asiatic, Indo-Malayan, and Polynesian species, there 
are still many important deficiencies. These, how- 
ever, are being rapidly filled by exchange and other- 
wise, so that a fair collection of old-world birds is 
only a question of time. It may be explained, with 
regard to exotic birds, that the chief aim of the mu- 
seum is to acquire representatives of, first, the higher 
groups not represented in the American fauna; sec- 
ond, genera and species allied to American forms; 
and, third, typical species of the more distinct gen- 
era within each family. 

The extensive and unique collection of birds now 
possessed by the museum has grown from the private 
collection of Professor Baird, consisting of three 
thousand six hundred and ninety-six specimens, 
mostly collected, prepared, and labelled by Professor 
Baird and his brother, William M. Baird, from 1839 
to 1851, but embracing also many, if not most, of 
the types of Audubon’s works, presented to Professor 
Baird by Mr. Audubon. The catalogue of this col- 
lection, in Professor Baird’s handwriting, forms vol- 
ume i. of the museum registers of the bird-collection, 
which now comprises eighteen volumes, containing a 
full record of every specimen. In the case of speci- 
mens which are the parents of eggs collected, the 
museum register number of the latter is given in a 
particular column; while in the egg register the num- 
ber of the parent, if in the collection, is given in a 
corresponding place. 

The great bulk of this collection is in the form of 
unmounted skins, arranged in insect-tight drawers, 
the contents of which are, as far as practicable, 
marked on the outside; the arrangement being so 
systematic that any specimen in the entire collection 
ean be readily found within five minutes of the 
time it is called for. The number of specimens 
in the mounted or exhibition collection is, for several 
reasons, necessarily small. In the first place, the 
cases available for their exhibition are in every way 
unsuitable, being old and badly constructed, admit- 
ting freely both dust and insects, thus rendering 
it a great risk to put valuable specimens inside of 
them. Were suitable cases provided, the number 
of specimens which the public could view might 
easily be increased from six thousand (the number, 
approximately, now on exhibition) to fifteen thousand 
or more, without materially weakening the ‘study 


SCIENCE. 


497 


series,’ or putting in the cases specimens of no inter- 
est to the general public. 

Labels designed with special reference to the 
needs of the non-scientific public are being prepared 
for the mounted specimens, and will be attached to 
them as soon as possible. 

Ornithologists will rejoice that Professor Baird has 
lived to see the gradual development of a grand 
national collection from the humble nucleus upon 
which it was built. The pleasant associations which 
his memory, no doubt, recalls, must be no less a source 
of happiness to him than the opportunity of witness- 
ing the important and far-reaching results of his 
boyhood studies. All wish for him the satisfaction 
of realizing the consummation of the plans conceived 
during his maturer years, not the least of which, 
perhaps, may be the perfection of a national estab- 
lishment for the study of natural history, which 
shall be alike attractive and instructive to the general 
public, and accessible to the special investigator, 
under the auspices of a government which should 
take pride in fostering and maintaining a natural- 
history museum such as no other country can boast. 

As being more than any living person entitled to 


‘the privilege, specimens numbered 100,000 closing 


the first century of thousand, and 100,001 com- 
mencing the second, are entered as donations from 
Professor Baird. They were collected in 1850, and 
presented to Professor Baird by Mr. George N. Law- 
rence of New-York City, to whom belongs the honor 
of being the oldest active American ornithologist, 
and an associate of Professor Baird in his classical 
work on North-American birds published in 1858. 
ROBERT RIDGWAY. 


OVER-PRESSURE IN SCHOOLS. 


THE subject of over-pressure in schools is being 
seriously agitated in many European states. In 
England the discussion just now is related to the 
report of Dr. Crichton-Browne upon over-pressure in 
the Board schools of London. This gentleman was 
invited by Mr. Mundella to examine the schools from 
his stand-point as a medical expert, and report his 
observations and conclusions as to the effect of the 
system upon the health of the scholars. As eventu- 
ally issued by the education department, the report 
is accompanied by a memorandum from the pen of 
Mr. F. G. Fitch (one of her Majesty’s inspectors), 
who severely criticises Dr. Browne’s method of inves- 
tigation, his arguments and conclusions. The press 
has entered upon the controversy with considerable 
ardor, so that over-pressure and Dr. Crichton-Browne 
are topics of the day. 

The characteristic features of the English Board 
school system, the rigid arrangement of subjects and 
standards, the government inspection, the comnli- 
cated scheme of examinations, and the payment by 
results, are unlike any thing that is known, or that 
would be tolerated, in America; nevertheless, the 
two systems have certain tendencies in common. In 
both, the animating impulse of the schools is derived 


498 


largely from the standard by which the results are 
periodically estimated, which standard is an a priori 
conception of the powers and capacities of the young. 
This is not the only, and possibly not the best, means 
of estimating a process of growth; but it is the only 
one encouraged under the English code, and the only 
one that is likely to be employed among us, so long 
as the majority of parents demand, not that their 
children shall grow, but that they shall overtake 
some one else’s children in the race. 

Wherever an artificial stimulus is employed, there 
will be over-pressure to a greater or less extent; 
and it is this fact which Dr. Crichton-Browne has 
brought out most effectively. The backward chil- 
dren, whom he judges to be incapable of accomplish- 
ing an ordinary year’s work without undue strain, 
include the dull, the delicate, and the half-starved. 
In this country the last-named class are virtually 
outside the operation of the influences that produce 
over-pressure; but of dull and delicate children we 
have a full quota, and it is well for parents to con- 
sider the risk that attends the endeavor to force such 
to keep pace with those whom ‘God has made full- 
limbed and tall.’ 

It is difficult to establish a relation between edu- 
cational processes and vital statistics; but there is 
reason to infer the connection, whenever, as Dr. 
Browne expresses it, ‘‘ diseases due to nervous con- 
ditions, identical with those that educational over- 
pressure sets up,’’ are on the increase. That this is 
the case in England is shown, Dr. Browne believes, 
by the statistics of mortality from hydrocephalus, 
cephalitis, diabetes, and kindred diseases. Nor does 
he stop here. ‘‘ We have signs,’? he says, ‘‘ which 
can scarcely be misinterpreted, of the tendency of 
education, when not safe-guarded by physiological 
discretion, to overthrow mental equilibrium. Sui- 
cide, which is the crowning symptom of one type of 
insanity, has been spreading portentously during 
the last hundred years. A startling revival of it has 
occurred all over Europe; and the rate of suicide 
calculated on the entire population seems to have 
quintupled in the last century. It is,’’ he says 
further, ‘‘an indisputable fact, that the revival of 
suicide in almost every country of Europe has coin- 
cided in time with the modern extension of educa- 
tion, and that suicides are now most numerous in 
the very regions where education is most widely 
diffused. The number of children under sixteen 
years of age in the list of suicides, although still com- 
paratively small, is swelling annually; and the age 
at which the maximum number of suicides occurs in 
England has receded considerably in the last half- 
century, showing that the disposition to self-destruc- 
tion arises now earlier in life than it was wont to 
do in former times.’’ 

Dr. Browne’s personal investigations in the schools 
were directed to ascertaining the extent of headache, 
sleeplessness, neuralgia, etc., among school-children. 
It is sufficient to note the line of inquiry, without 
going into the tabulated results, more especially as 
the author admits that they are merely tentative. 

Attention has already been drawn in the pages of 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. 


Science to the action taken by several German states 
with reference to overwork in the Gymnasien and 
Realschulen. More recently, in accordance with the 
commands of the Prussian minister of instruction, 
a report on the subject has been prepared by the 
‘Royal scientific commission on medical affairs,’ 
including Professors Virchow and Hofmann, and 
ten other members of almost equal note. The com- 
missioners go into a detailed discussion of the ob- 
servations submitted to them by the government, 
touching suicide and insanity among scholars, head- 
ache, bleeding at the nose, congestion of the brain, 
and general physical and mental weakness. In view 
of all the information attainable, they state ‘‘ that 
the requisite data are wanting for a scientific esti- 
mate of the extent of over-pressure among the pupils 
in higher schools;’’ and they express the opinion, 
that, for the collection of such data, ‘‘ the co-operation 
of competent medical men is indispensable.’’ They 
do not, however, overlook the fact that there are many 
essential points involved in the inquiry, of which the 
teachers alone are the proper judges. The commis- 
sioners especially insist that teachers must not meas- 
ure the strength of their scholars all by the same 
standard. | 

The agitation of the subject of over-pressure is 
not confined to England and Germany. Information 
reaches us that the minister of public instruction in 
France has reduced the hours of study in secondary 
schools. In Switzerland, where the evidences of 
over-pressure are startling, the cantonal governments 
are considering the best means of counteracting the 
evil. At the recent international medical congress, 
Copenhagen, Dr. Kjellberg of Upsala made a pro- 
found impression by his statements concerning the 
effect of study upon the health of children. The 
symptoms of excessive brain-work on the part of 
the young, which he had noticed, were headache, 
sleeplessness, intellectual torpor, muscular weakness, 
and spasm, culminating in hallucination, and often in 
sudden loss of consciousness. 

Little or no effort has been made in the United 
States to collect data bearing upon the subject, but 
there is reason for supposing that over-pressure is not 
so common here as in countries where education is 
more highly developed. It would, however, be well 
for us to take warning in time, and seek to forestall 
such effects as those described by the various experts 
who have investigated the matter in Europe. We 
should be particularly cautious about advocating 
European systems of education before we have as- 
certained their ultimate effects. 


NEW-ENGLAND ORCHIDS. 


The orchids of New England: a popular monograph. 
By Henry Batpwin. New York, Wiley, 1884. 
158 p., illustr. 8°. . 


Lovers of flowers have always wondered at 
and admired the beauty and oddity of orchids, 
which are sure to form the most interesting 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


part of a collection of exotics; but since the 
reason for their many strange and complicated 
forms was set forth by Mr. Darwin, in his work 
on their fertilization, the name ‘ orchid ’ at once 
suggests a plant worthy of more careful study. 
While we do not have Angraecum, Pterostylis, 
or Catasetum among our wild plants, to indicate 
the extreme adaptation to insect-pollination of 
which the family is capable, our flora contains 
many species quite as interesting to the student 
as those to be seen in most collections; and 
Mr. Baldwin has done very good service in 
collecting the scattered notes on their pecul- 
iarities. Of the fifty-nine species or well- 
marked varieties of our eastern flora, no less 
than forty-seven are found in New England ; 
so that the book is of more than local interest. 
With few exceptions, the sixty illustrations, 
the larger ones mostly from nature, are very 
good; some are excellent, and show not only 
a botanist’s knowledge, but an artist’s appre- 
ciation of light and shade and of the value 
of a well-selected background. ‘The writer’s 
style is pleasing ; and, if the professional bot- 
anist might feel disposed at times to criticise 
it as sacrificing something of precision for the 
sake of avoiding technicality, it contrasts very 
favorably with the many popular books whose 
only merit is their style, since every page 
shows personal study. It is not surprising 
that a popular book on a group which has long 
been an object of special observation should 
contain little that is new; yet this is far from 
being entirely devoid of new matter, and is 
worthy of a place on the shelves of the specialist 
as well as of the amateur. 


INDIAN FOLK-LORE AND ETHNOLOGY. 


The Algonquin legends of New England ; or, Myths 
and folk-lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and 
Penobscot tribes. By CuHarites G. LELAND. 
slam Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1884. 400 p. 

° 
A migration legend of the Creek Indians, with a lin- 
guistic, historic, and ethnographic introduction. 

By Avpert S. Gatscuet, of the U. S. bureau 

of ethnology. Vol. i. [Libr. abor. Amer. lit., 

iv.| Philadelphia, Brinton, 1834. 257 p. 8°. 


THE comparison of languages, if made on 
scientific principles, affords undoubtedly the 
best, and indeed the only sure, means of tra- 
cing the relationship of different branches of 
the humanrace. Next to this method, though 
at a long interval, comes the study of their 
myths and legends. This study, though infe- 
rior in the certainty of its deductions to that 


SCIENCE. 


499 


of comparative philology, has certain evident 
advantages in other respects. We learn from 
it the intellectual and moral traits of the peo- 
ple who preserve and repeat the legends. We 
get to understand their habits of life, their 
ways of thought, their views of this world, and 
their ideas of a future life. Occasionally, also, 
we gather traces of genuine tradition, some- 
times even of a far distant past, which, when 
corroborated by the evidence of language and 
perhaps other memorials, may be of real his- 
torical value. 

Mr. Leland has been obliged by want of 
space, as he tells us, to exclude from his pres- 
ent work the historical legends which he has 
collected, and which, it is to be hoped, will be 
hereafter published. His work is thus entirely 
made up, as its titlepage professes, of what 
may properly be termed the ‘ myths and folk- 


lore’ of the eastern or Abenaki branch of the 


ereat Algonquin race. As such it must be 
deemed one of the most valuable as well as 
most interesting contributions that have been 
made to this department of knowledge. ‘The 
collection comprises some seventy stories, dis- 
tributed under different heads, such as ‘ Gloos- 
hap the divinity,’ ‘ The merry tales of Lox the 
mischief-maker,’ ‘The amazing adventures of 
Master Rabbit,’ ‘’The Chenoo legends,’ ‘ Tales 
of magic,’ and some minor divisions. The 
whole work shows the hand of an experienced 
writer, who is at once practised in the literary 
art, and alive to the requirements of science. 
The stories themselves display much imagina- 
tive power and a genuine sense of drollery. 
As evidence of intellectual capacity in their 
framers, some of them will bear comparison 
with any thing contained in Grimm’s Teutonic 
legends. Mr. Leland is disposed to consider 
them superior to the legendary tales of the 
other Indian tribes, but in this view he is 
certainly mistaken. There is no reason for 
supposing that the Abenaki Indians surpassed 
in intelligence the Algonquin tribes of the west 
and south, or their neighbors of the Huron- 
Iroquois stock. These, indeed, are known to 
possess a folk-lore of remarkable extent and 
interest, which, in the specimens we possess, 
is not at all inferior to that disclosed to us in 
the present volume. 

The author, in his preface, modestly an- 
nounces that his chief object has been, not to 
discuss theories, but to collect and preserve 
valuable material for the use of better ethnolo- 
gists to come hereafter, who, as he humorously 
suggests, ‘‘ will be much more obliged to him 
for collecting raw material than for cooking 
it.”’ This captivating humility, the reader 


500 


presently perceives, is. merely an exhibition of 
the highest literary skill, for it preludes the 
suggestion of the most novel theory thus far 
propounded in regard to the mythology of any 
Indian tribe. This theory, which is sustained 
with much ingenuity and learning, supposes 
that the myths current among the north-eastern 
Algonquins are in great part derived from, or 
colored by, the legends of the Norse mythology. 
The author assumes that the Norse colonists, 
who dwelt for three centuries in Greenland, 
having there at one time as many as a hun- 
dred and ninety villages, taught these ancient 
legends to their Eskimo visitors and depend- 
ants, by whom the stories were in turn com- 
municated to their Algonquin neighbors. He 
points out many resemblances in the person- 
ages and incidents of the two mythologies 
which are certainly remarkable ; and he even 
traces the name of the mischief-making semi- 
deity Lox of the Abenakies to the evil-working 
Loki of the Edda tales. At times, however, 
he finds these resemblances of folk-lore extend 
to so much wider limits, both in the old world 
and in the new, that he is disposed to refer 
them to a far earlier and more primitive inter- 
communication, prevailing at the time when one 
pre-Aryan race inhabited both continents. 

There is nothing’ incredible, or indeed im- 
probable, in either theory. Without neces- 
sarily adopting them, — and the author himself 
has not fully made up his mind about either of 
them, — students of folk-lore may be grate- 
ful to any thoughtful. fellow-worker who can 
suggest new lines on which their inquiries may 
be conducted. ‘They will not, of course, forget 
the more common explanation, which supposes 
that similar beliefs may often arise from mere 
similarity of circumstances. Given the striking 
resemblance which Mr. Leland himself has 
well pointed out, between the regions inhabited 
by the Norsemen and by the Abenakies, and 
in the character and pursuits of the two races, 
can we then account for all the coincidences 
of their folk-lore ? Half a dozen resemblances 
of words, like that between Loki and Lox 
(which, by itself, may be a mere accident), 
would suffice to settle this question and to 
establish Mr. Leland’s Norse theory. The 
decisive value of language as a test in ethno- 
logical investigations could hardly be better 
exemplified than by this statement, the force 
of which every one will appreciate. Until 
this test has been satisfied, the author’s theory 
remains only an ingenious and plausible sug- 
gestion. 

Mr. Gatschet’s work, as might be expected 
from his former publications, is of a purely 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV:, No. 95. 


scientific character; but in this sphere it takes 
a widerange. It is based on an ancient legend 
of the Creek or Maskoki Indians, which is 
partly mythological, and partly historical. This 
legend, of which the text and translation are 
given at the close of the present book, is 
to be more fully elucidated in the forthcoming 
volume. * As it treats of the origin of the 
Creek nation, and their journeyivgs from the 
west, with their wars and other adventures 
among the people whom they encountered 
until they arrived at the eastern region in 
which they were found by the whites, the 
author has deemed it a suitable basis for a 
full description, not only of the Maskoki tribes 
themselves, but also of the surrounding com- 
munities. His first or introductory volume 
thus comprises an account of all the southern 
tribes of the United States, from the Atlantic 
seaboard to the western limit of Louisiana, 
so far as these are known. The history and 
character of each tribe, and its ethnical rela- 
tions, are clearly explained. The classification 
is based on language, which the author justly 
considers to be the only scientific method. 
He has devoted much attention to the languages 
of the Maskoki stock, and gives abstracts of 
the grammatical characteristics of several of 
these tongues, which will be of much use to 
students of philology. The systems of gov- 
ernment of the various tribes, their social 
usages, their modes of warfare, and their re- 
ligious views and rites, are described with 
many interesting details. The volume forms 
a thesaurus of authentic information’ con- 
cerning the southern races, and will hold a 
high position as an authority on the ethnology 
of these tribes, and the archeology of the 
region which they formerly inhabited. The 
more extended notice which its contents de- 
serve must be deferred until the appearance 
of the second volume. 


RECENT CHEMICAL TEXT-BOOKS. 

Traité pratique d’analyses chimiques et d’essais indus- 
iriels. By Raout JAGNAUX. Paris, Doin, 
1884. 124503 p. 8°. 

The elements of chemistry. By F. W. CLarKe. 
New York, Appleton, 1884. (Appleton’s science 
text-books.) 10+ 369 p, illustr. 8°. 

Lessons in chemistry. By W. H. GREENE. Phila- 
delphia, Lippincott, 1884. (Lippincott’s science 
series.) 357 p., illustr. 8°. 

A short text-book of inorganic chemistry. By*Dr. 
HERMANN Koper. ‘Translated and edited by 
T. S. Humprpce. New York, Wiley, 1884. 
164606 p., Lpl. 8°. | 


——o i. Se. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884. ] 


JAGNAUX’s little book treats. chiefly of the 
analysis of minerals, metals, and alloys.  Al- 
though it is not intended for beginners, accord- 
ing to the author’s preface, the details of the 
various processes are often described with great 
care ; and, moreover, a considerable amount of 
descriptive chemistry, mineralogy, and metal- 
lurgy is introduced, which any practical.chemist 
in need of such information would certainly 
prefer to look for elsewhere in amore complete 
form. While the methods described are in the 


main those usually followed in certain cases,. 


one cannot help wondering at the author’s 
choice of method, or at his strange omissions. 
Thus he describes for the commercial assay of 
manganese only the method of Levol. Under 
the head of ‘ Potash and soda’ he mentions no 
indicator but litmus, directs that this should 
be used with carbonates and bicarbonates, and 
says nothing of the convenience of a normal 
alkaline solution. For the volumetric deter- 
mination of iron he directs the use of a solution 
of potassic permanganate, obtained by fusing 
manganic dioxide with potassic hydrate and 
potassic chlorate, dissolving in water, and 
adding nitric acid until the liquid has a purple 
color. ‘The author calls attention to the novelty 
of certain methods, but he gives nowhere any 
discussion of the accuracy attainable by these 
or the older methods ; so that the reader is un- 
able to judge of their merit without actual trial. 

A very convenient feature of the book is the 
frequent introduction of tables showing the 
composition of the more common substances, 
both natural and artificial. 

In his ‘Elements of chemistry’ Prof. F. 
W. Clarke presents briefly but clearly the 
more important chemical theories, together 
with the usual amount of descriptive chemis- 
try. The student who wishes more extended 
informaticn will find useful references to larger 
works‘or more special treatises. The hundred 
or more experiments which are described seem 
to be well chosen, and, as a rule, require but 
simple apparatus and inexpensive material. 

A brief sketch of the carbon compounds is 
introduced, but the author fails to improve the 


opportunity thus offered to explain the isom-' 


erism peculiar to them. Although he illus- 
trates (p. 307) the structure of certain meta- 
meric compounds, he passes over in silence the 
existence of isomeric propyl, butyl, and amyl 
alcohols. The fundamental facts of isomerism 
would seem more important to the beginner 
than the structure formulae of naphthalene, 
anthracene, pyridine, or chinoline, or the com- 
position of populin, fraxin, phloridzin, aesculin, 
all of which he gives. 


SCIENCE. 


501 


In the excellent advice to’ teachers with, 
which Dr. Greene prefaces his ‘ Lessons. \in 
chemistry,’ he says that ‘‘the object of a 
limited course in chemistry is not to make 
chemists of the pupils, but to teach them what 
chemistry is, what it has accomplished and 
what it may accomplish.’’ 

This object he has kept steadily in view in 
writing the book. While many of the more 
common elements are treated quite fully, he 
has very properly omitted entirely all descrip- 
tion of the rarer elements with which many 
of the elementary text-books are encumbered. 

The space devoted to the compounds of car- 
bon is unusually large. Although the treat- 
ment of the subject is necessarily brief, the 
student cannot fail to get some notion of the 
broad field upon which so large a number of 
chemists are now at work. 

While we can hardly discuss in detail the 
facts given, and the method of presenting them, 
we may say that the old formula of Kekulé for 
benzol seems quite as well justified by facts as 
the prism formula of Ladenburg, which he 
gives, and that by its means the facts of aro- 
matic isomerism are more readily rendered 
intelligible. We would also note that one or 
two statements with regard to the higher fat 
acids are misleading or erroneous. 

The plates introduced by Professor Clarke 
and Dr. Greene, to illustrate spectrum analy- 
sis, are such distressing caricatures of nature 
that they might better have been suppressed. 

Dr. Kolbe tells us in the preface to his short 
text-book that it has been written ‘*‘ to recall to 
the memory of students who have attended a 
course of lectures on experimental chemistry, 
what they have seen and heard,’’ and that in 
writing it he has adhered to the general prin- 
ciple which should lead the lecturer in chemistry, 
and that is, ‘‘ to give to his hearers an idea of 
chemical processes and the most important 
chemical theories without burdening their mem- 
ories with a large number of mere facts.”’ Ad- 
mirable as this principle may be, it does not 
seem to have led the author, in this case, to 
give us any thing particularly novel, at least as 
far as the descriptive portions of the book are 
concerned. Its style, it is true, is fresh and 
entertaining ; and yet we can hardly agree with 
the editor in thinking that it will supply any 
definite want among teachers or students. 
Aside from the purely descriptive portion, 
which certainly is admirable, the book seems 
to possess a decided disadvantage, in that the 
necessary theoretical introduction is unsatis- 
factory. It is true that the editor has done 
his best to remedy its defects by introducing 


002 


.into the text brief statements of the laws of 
Gay-Lussac, Arogadro, Dulong, and Petit, and 
by adding an appendix upon the determina- 
tion of atomic and molecular weights. Still, it 
strikes us that these alterations in the text 
might have been carried farther with advan- 
tage. As it is, the student can hardly fail to 
be confused by the passage from equivalent to 
atomic weights; and the book should have re- 
called to his memory a discussion of molecules 
and molecular weights in order to make the 
transition intelligible. The subsequent chapter 
upon valence makes this omission all the more 
noticeable. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


COMMANDER BARTLETT’S annual report on the op- 
erations of the U.S. hydrographic office makes a good 
showing for activity and enterprise. Lists of light- 
houses and ‘notices to mariners,’ in which bearings 
are given in degrees from true north, instead of 
magnetic bearings in points, as formerly, have been 
liberally published; the official correspondence with 
other hydrographic offices has been increased; and a 
complete set of the charts issued by all nations is kept 
on file, and is always at the service of the public for 
the determination of any questions relating to hydrog- 
raphy. The only vessel engaged in making surveys 
during the year was the Ranger, on the west coast of 
Mexico and Central America; but it is strongly rec- 
ommended that new surveys be undertaken in several 
regions where they have long been wanted. The 
charts of the northern coast of South America are 
mostly based on old Spanish surveys dating back to 
1794. ‘ Watson’s rock,’ latitude 40° 17’ north, longi- 
tude 53° 22’ west, in the path of North-Atlantic 
traders, has been reported so many times that its 
existence ought to be definitely settled or unsettled. 
The recommendation of previous hydrographers 
with regard to surveys of the Caroline and Marshall 
Islands, in the equatorial Pacific, should no longer be 
neglected: they lie in the belt of the trade-winds 
and westerly current, the natural highway of vessels 
crossing the ocean to Japan, China, aud the East 
Indies, and require immediate examination. In the 
North Pacific alone there are over three thousand 
reported dangers that need decisive observation. In 
many cases the same island has half a dozen different 
positions, with as much as fifty miles between the 
extremes. It is urged that every naval vessel be 
provided with modern sounding-apparatus, by which 
even deep-sea measures can be quickly made, and 
required to sound wherever the charts show no depths 
reported within twenty miles on any side; and it is 
desired that a ship should be fitted out expressly to 
make investigations into ocean temperatures at all 
depths, and thus obtain data necessary to complete 
the determination of the actual oceanic circulation. 


—In an attractive volume entitled ‘ Higher educa- 
tion in Germany and England’ (Kegan, Paul, & Co.), 


SCIENCE. 


which may be read through at a sitting, Mr. Charles 
Bird has given an account of what is done in Stutt- 
gart, Germany, for the promotion of higher educa- 
tion. In a recent visit to the capital of Wurtemberg, 
it occurred to him to describe the educational equip- 
ment of a German town, and to institute a compari- 
son between what is already done in Germany, and 
what is hoped for in England. All three varieties of 
high schools, — the gymnasium, the real-gymnasium, 
and the real-school, — corresponding very closely in 
their purposes to our colleges and scientific schools, 
are maintained in Stuttgart; but the university is 
wanting. There is, however, a Polytechnicum, which, 
as most of our readers are aware, has nearly the 
same relation to the real-schools as the universities 
have to the gymnasia. 

The book, being written by an expert for a specific 
public purpose, is excellent, reading. Among many 
things which we might cull, we select a table show- 
ing where the school population of Stuttgart may be 
found. It is estimated that one-seventh of the popu- 
lation, or 17,000 persons, should be under instruction; 
and of this number, 15,550 are thus accounted for: — 


At Universities <° 27 5 3) 3) tee ene 100 
At the polytechnic . 350 
At the baugewerk schule 600 
At the art school 300 
At the two gymnasiums. 1,300 
At the real-gymnasium . 900 
At the realschule a fe 1,100 
At the two girls’ high schools. 900 
At the burger school for boys. 1,000 
At the burger school for girls. . .... . 1,000 
At the volkschulen for boys 4,000 
At the volkschulen for girls 4,000 

Sola G6 G ot aera . 15,550 


Higher than elementary, 7,550; elementary, 8,000. 


How would our American towns bear comparison 
with Stuttgart ? 


—It is now proposed to carry the railway-trains 
across the English Channel on steamers; and the 
London, Brighton, and South coast railway company 
is having constructed at Glasgow two propellers suit- 
able for the purpose. 


— Stenographic notes of Sir William Thomson’s 
course of eighteen lectures at the Johns Hopkins uni- 
versity, on molecular dynamics, were taken by Mr. 
A. §. Hathaway, B.S., Cornell university, lately a 
mathematical fellow of the Johns Hopkins univer- 
sity; and these notes, with additions subsequently 
made by the lecturer, have been carefully reproduced 
by the papyrograph plate process. <A bibliography of 
the subjects considered will also be given with the 
lectures. In all, there will be about three hundred 
and fifty pages quarto. A few copies are offered for 
sale at five dollars net. The edition is strictly limited 
to three hundred copies; and orders should therefore 
be sent at once to the publication agency of the Johns 
Hopkins university, Baltimore, Md. 


—A third series of Johns Hopkins university 


‘Studies in historical and political science,’ com-— 


prising about six hundred pages in twelve monthly 
monographs devoted to American institutions an 


[Vox. IV., No. 95. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


economics, is offered to subscribers at the former rate, 
three dollars. As before, a limited number of ‘ studies’ 
will be sold separately, although at higher rates than 
to subscribers for the whole set. Special announce- 
ments will be made in December as to the subjects 
of the early numbers in the third series, for which 
subscriptions will now be received. In general it may 
be said, that the new series will include papers on 
local and municipal government, state and national 
institutions, and American economic history. The 
very limited number of complete sets of the first 
Series now remaining in the hands of the publication 
agency of the university, compels the announcement 
that no further subscriptions for that volume can be 
received at the original rate of three dollars. <A few 
sets, bound in cloth, will be sold at five dollars net, 
by the publication agency only. The future interests 
of the work represented by this journal will require 
the agency to give preference, in disposing of the 
remainder of the first series, to libraries, specialists, 
and other patrons who are likely to prove continuous 
subscribers to the ‘ studies.’ 


— At the requisition of the Paris prefect of police, 
Messrs. Dujardin, Beaumetz, Pasteur, and Roux per- 
formed experiments with the view of ascertaining 
what would be the best gas for disinfecting rooms in 
which patients have suffered from contagious affec- 
tions, and have come to the conclusion that sulphu- 
rous-acid gas would be the most efficacious for such 
purposes; but instead of simply burning sulphur, as 
is done in the barracks and military hospitals, they 
recommend the burning of bisulphide of carbon as 
being the least expensive, and the least injurious to 
the furniture, or articles of metal,in the room. This 
recommendation is not new, but it is satisfactory to 
have it stamped with the authority of the distin- 
guished Frenchmen. 


—Among recent deaths we note the following: 
J. A. Barral, agricultural chemist, editor of Arago’s 
works, at Paris, in his sixty-fifth year; Dr. J. J. 
Woodward, U.S. A., microscopist, well known for his 
micro-photographs, at Washington; Dr. Th. Kostlin, 
formerly professor of natural history, Sept. 1, at 
Stuttgart; Dr. Heinrich Schellen, physicist, author of 
‘ Spectral-analyse,’ ‘Magnet- und dynamo-electrische 
maschinen,’ ‘ Electro-magneticher telegraph,’ etc., 
Sept. 3, at Cologne, in his sixty-sixth year; O. J. 
Fahraeus, coleopterist, May 28, at Stockholm, in his 
eighty-eighth year; George Brettingham Sowerby, 
conchologist, author of ‘Thesaurus conchyliorum,’ 
July 25, at London, in his seventy-second year; Dr. 
A. Foerster, a well-known hymenopterist, Aug. 13, 
at Aachen, in his seventy-fourth year. 


— The Imperial sanitary department at Berlin has 
been arranging for a series of investigations dealing 
with the practical dangers arising from the use of 
petroleum, in comparison with the point of ignition 
as fixed by Abel’s apparatus. The ignition of gases 
which are to be found above the oil, and the nature 
of such ignitions as are caused by injury to the oil- 
reservoir, or by throwing down the lamps, will also 
receive attention. As all artificial trials of this kind 


SCIENCE. 


503 


are more or less unreliable in the results obtained, 
the investigations will deal with the cases of petro- 
leum ignition which have actually taken place. The 
examination will deal with hanging-lamps, standing- 
lamps, cooking-appliances, etc. 


— The Ainos are distinguished from all the Mongo- 
lian peoples surrounding them by their dark com- 
plexion, their luxuriant growth of hair, their thick, 
long beard, heavy mustache, and their European 
rather than Asiatic features. During his journey in 
Kamtchatka, Dybowski visited the Island of Sag- 
halin, and took the opportunity of collecting some 
bones of the Ainos. The following account of the 
graveyards of the Ainos he sent to Koperniki: — 

Unfortunately, almost all the graves have already 
been rifled by the Russian soldiers, who hoped to find 
gold and silver buried with the bodies: hence I have 
found, outside the graves, skulls without the lower 
jaw. Many, indeed, are broken into small pieces. 
Very few graves are left entirely undisturbed; viz., 
those only which are covered with turf, and conse- 
quently more difficult to find, and which can hardly 
be opened without implements; but with these one is 
not allowed to enter the graveyard, for the opening 
of graves is forbidden. On account of this prohibi- 
tion, the search of the graves was made very difficult 
for me, as I was forced to dig with my hands, or only 
with a small stick. Fortunately the graves of the 
Ainos are not deep: they extend north and south, the 
head buried towards the north. On the right side of 
the grave, which is covered with turf, are embedded 
three low pillars about three inches thick and one 
and a half feet long. On the left side, at the foot of 
the dead, is found a thin, pointed stick, thrust deep 
into the earth. The upper end of it is cut in the form 
of a human head, with two inclined lines running 
downwards and outwards, as if they were intended to 
indicate two streams of tears, or perhaps only the 
eyes. A yard and a half under the sward are found 
split (not sawn) planks, which rest upon other planks* 
that make the walls of the grave, so that the corpse 
lies in an empty space. The dead is in the same 
clothes which he wore when alive, and is provided 
with the same ornaments which he then carried On 
the planks over the head of the dead, I have always 
found three lacquered wooden boxes, and near the 
feet one large box, also lacquered. On the body I 
have always found a knife, a tinder-box, a piece of 
touch-wood, and a pipe. 

According to the accounts of eye-witnesses, the 
religious conceptions of the Ainos appear to be a 
degenerate and crude feticism. These conceptions 
are based upon a worship of numerous good and bad 
spirits or gods, as god of the sun, of the stars, of the 
sea; worship of the family guardian, of sea and land 
animals and plants, as also of forest animals. The 
Ainos have no conception of the continuation of the 
soul after death, and consequently no service for 
the dead. 


— At the first monthly meeting, Oct. 15, this 
winter, of the Russian geographical society, the sec- 
retary mentioned that the observations of the polar 


004 


station at Sagastyr (mouth of the Lena) were ended, 
and the greater number of the party expected to re- 
turn this autumn. Only Dr. Bunge staid behind, 
on account of an entire mammoth, which has been 
known for some years to exist not far from Sagastyr, 
and which he was eager to secure. This work, on 
account of the frozen soil, proved to be a rather 
arduous task, and he is not expected back until next 
winter. Leaving seven men of his party at Zaidam, 
Prjevalski has started for the sources of the Yellow 
River. He was expected to return to Zaidam in Au- 
gust. According to the latest news, Potanin was 
about to start from Peking, going to Kukuchoto, not 
by the ordinary road already visited by Europeans, 
but by Utaé. This place is interesting on account 
of a Buddhist monastery, a famous place for pilgrim- 
ages, and on account of the proximity of mountains 
said by the Chinese to be ten thousand feet high. The 
secretary also mentioned the ethnographical travels of 
three members, —Istourine, who visited Archangel; 
and Houetz and Wolter, who travelled among the 
Letto-Lithuanian population of the government of 
Wilna, Witebsk, and Kowno. 

This was followed by a communication on a partial 
ascent of the Elborus by the mining engineer, Iwanof, 
well known for his travels in the Pamir in 1883. The 
natives are convinced that the ascent is impossible; 
yet the south-eastern summit was ascended in 1869 
by Freshfield, Moore, and Tucker; the north-western, 
by Grover, Gardiner, ete., in 1874; and the western, by 
Dechy in 1884. Unfortunately these travellers were 
not scientific men. Russian travellers were less for- 
tunate in their attempts, but their work was more 
useful to science; for example, that of Muschketone 
who explored the glaciers on the south-east of the 
mountains. Iwanof could not ascend farther than 
15,700 feet, being prevented by a severe snow-storm. 
He was obliged to go with his travelling companion 
only above 18,000 feet, their native porters refus- 
ing to go farther, notwithstanding the steepest slopes 
were below; the gradient from that place upward 
being very easy, mostly 10° and below. At nearly 
15,0v0 feet, before the snow-storm was reached, the 
temperature was rather high, —14°C. Iwanof thinks, 
that, though access from other directions may be easy, 
the Elborus will be ascended from the south-east, as 
on that side there is a considerable population to an 
elevation of more than 8,000 feet; and thus supplies, 
porters, etc., may easily be obtained, and the great 
drawback of mountain travelling in the Caucasus 
avoided. Hementions especially the assistance which 
can be obtained here from a native gentleman, Prince 
Ismael Uruskief, through his practical knowledge 
of the mountains. 


— The Oil and colourman’s journal for October con- 
_ tains an interesting article on the Scottish mineral- 
oil trade. It is only about thirty years since James 
Young began his famous Bathgate oil-works, and 
only about twenty since the attempt was first made 
to start shale distilling-works. Now the amount of 
oil shale brought to the surface daily is about 5,000 
tons. The whole of that is distilled for the produc- 
tion of solid paraffine, paraffine-oil, and collateral 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. % 


products yielding at the rate of 50,000,000 gallons of 
crude oil and 14,000 tons of sulphate of ammonia per 
annum. From that vast quantity of crude oil there 
are prepared about 500,000 barrels (each containing 
40 gallons) of burning-oil, 30,000 tons (or upwards 
of 800,000 gallons) of lubricating-oil, and 19,000 tons 
of solid paraffine. Not less than £2,000,000 has been 
invested in the Scottish oil-works, most of which 
yields a handsome return. The annual value of the 
trade is now about £1,750,000, and the number of 
persons who directly get their living by the industry 
cannot be fewer than 9,500. The enormous Ameri- 
can oil trade, however, makes skilful working a 


' necessity to the Scotch. Continuous distillation has 


been the object in view now for many years, and 
this has at last been obtained through the process 
patented by Mr. Horman M. Henderson of the Brox- 
burn oil company, which has now been in operation 
more than a year. Under this process the stills are 
found to work steadily, continuously, and uniformly. 
Impurities and heavy oil never accumulate, and the 
quality of the products is improved. The purified 
once-run oil is fractionated continuously in a con- 
nected series of three cylindrical stills. 


— The producers of petroleum on the western shore 
of the Caspian Sea, it is said, have been seriously 
contemplating laying a pipe-line entirely across Per- 
sia to the Persian Gulf. If this were done, they 
claim that they would have the Asiatic market to 
themselves. This pipe-line would have to be some- 
thing more than seven hundred miles long to reach 
the coast; and as it would for a long distance pass 
through a territory of savage Kurds, and other no- 
madic tribes, it is feared that it could not easily be 
kept in operation. 

— The municipality of Issoudun has resolved to 
erect a monument to Nicholas Leblanc, the pioneer 
in the artificial soda industry. A hundred years ago 
the French government consulted the academy as 
to the best means of replacing the soda-supply, for 
which they had been dependent on Spain; and a 
prize of twelve thousand francs was offered to the 
inventor of a successful process for extracting the 
alkali from sea-salt. When Leblanc had fulfilled 
the conditions of the prize, the academy had ceased 
to exist: the inventor was obliged to renounce his 
rights, to close his factory, and to live in the ex- 
treme of penury, until finally he committed suicide. 


— The council of the re-organized Archaeological 
institute of America met in New York, Nov. 20, and 
elected Prof. C. E. Norton of Cambridge, president; 
Prof. H. Drissler of New York, vice-president; Mr, 
George Wigglesworth of Boston, treasurer; and Dr, 
Frothingham of Baltimore, secretary. : 


— Mr. F. de la Touche, of the geological survey of 
India, has written a report on the Langrin coalfield, 
which is situated in the south-west Khasia hills, 
Assam, Mr. de la Touche says the coal-bearing rocks 
are exposed over an area of nearly eighty miles, and 
he thinks there is a large amount of coal available, 
within a short distance of the plains. Limestone is. 
also to be found in many parts of the country, and, 


NOVEMBER 28, 1884.] 


after being quarried in the coal season, is taken 
down to Sunamganj, on the Surma River, where it is 
burnt in holes in the river-bank, reeds being used as 
fuel. The lime is finally taken to Calcutta, but an 
interval of two years elapses from the time the stone 
‘is quarried until it is sent to market. It is suggested, 
that, if the coal on the spot were used in properly 
constructed kilns, a great saving of the time and ex- 
penditure would be effected. 


— The French minister of instruction has de- 
spatched the following scientific missions: Mr. Brau 
de St. Pol Lias is sent to Sumatra and Malacca to 
make collections; Professor Guardia, to study the 
Balearic dialects; Mr. Etienne Gautier, to make inves- 
tigations in natural history and anthropology in 
Asiatic Turkey and Persia; and Professor Henri 
Lerwis, to study leprosy in Norway. 

— The composition and properties of the light 
emitted by insects of the Pyrophore genus form the 
subject of a paper recently presented to the Paris 
academy of sciences by Aubert and P. Dubois. 
The spectrum of the light, examined by the spec- 
troscope, is very beautiful, but destitute of dark 
bands. When, however, the intensity diminishes, 
the red and orange disappear, and the green and 
yellow only remain. 

— Admiral Cochrane of the English navy has re- 
cently suggested a novel plan for the defence of ves- 
sels of commerce from attacks of men-of-war. He 
proposes. that these vessels should be armed with a 
pair of mortars of considerable range, placed in the 
same plane fifty to eighty feet apart, and so arranged 
that they may be simultaneously discharged by elec- 
tricity. The mortars are each to be loaded with a 
small charge of powder; and on this is to be placed 
a buoyant, concussive torpedo of light weight and 
thin metal, which is to contain a bursting charge of 
gun-cotton or other high explosive. The torpedoes 
are to be connected by a light but very strong line from 
a hundred to two hundred feet long, the surplus of 
which is to be coiled about the torpedoes when in the 
mortar. When the mortars are discharged, the tor- 
pedoes will diverge slightly, and fall into the water 
some distance apart, where they will float with the 
line between them. If then the man-of-war in’pur- 
suit continues in a direct path toward her intended 


prey, she will run foul of the line, and the torpedoes | 


will be drawn under her sides, and explode on contact. 


— Some interesting fulgurites have been received 
by the National museum from Whiteside county, IIl. 
The largest one found measured two inches in diam- 
eter: it was unfortunately broken in transportation. 
The largest specimen of those received intact meas- 
ures one inch and a half in diameter and four inches 
in length. Mr. Abbott, the donor of these specimens, 
states that he traced the tubes to a depth of seven 
feet in the sand. 


— Past assistant surgeon H. G. Beyer, U.S.N., is 
giving a course of twelve illustrated lectures before 
the Naval medical society of Washington upon the 
development of vertebrate animals. 


— A somewhat novel device for illustrating the 


SCIENCE. , 505 


microscopic structure of rocks has been brought into 
use in the geological department of the National 
museum, A series of photomicrographs was pre- 
pared from twelve thin sections of typical rocks, and 
the former were then thrown upon glass, forming 
transparencies twelve inches in diameter. The latter 
were afterwards colored by hand, the artist taking 
his tints from an examination of the sections them- 
selves under the microscope and in polarized light. 
The transparencies thus produced are highly artistic 
in effect, and, on account of their accuracy and at- 
tractiveness, must prove an important addition to the 
educational series of the museum. 


— The increasing interest in good methods of library 
administration is illustrated by a call for aconference 
of western librarians, to be held at Rock Island, IIl., 
Dec. 3, and to continue in session during two days. 
Mr. W. F. Poole of the public library in Chicago is 
the president and convening officer. 


— To supplement the building-stone collection of 
the National museum in the way of illustrating the 
adaptability of certain kinds of stone to architectural 
purposes, a series of photographic negatives of some 
of the important stone buildings of the country has 
been obtained, from which enlarged prints (thirty 
inches by forty inches) have been prepared. These 
prints have been painted ina manner to show the 
natural colors of the stone of which the buildings 
are constructed. Among the prominent buildings 
represented are the Smithsonian institution, the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, the residence of Mr. William 
H. Vanderbilt (New York), and the Harvard law 
school (Cambridge). 


—Itis reported in Berlin that Dr. Koch has suc- 
ceeded in transferring the cholera bacilli to several 
rabbits, which have died with all the symptoms of 
genuine cholera. The priority of success in this ex- 
periment is disputed by two Swiss physicians, Messrs. 
Nicati and Ritsch. 


— The Japanese native papers are crying.out at the 
extinction of the lacquer industry of the country. 
The trees from which the varnish is obtained are dis- 
appearing. Formerly, like the mulberry-tree on which 
the silk-worm feeds, it was protected by law. Each 
family of the upper classes was obliged to rear a hun- 
dred trees, the middle classes seventy, and the lower 
classes forty. Since this law became a dead letter, the 
cultivation of the lacquer-tree has rapidly declined. 
The trees were cut down without care, and none were 
planted to replace them, so that they have become 
exceedingly rare, while the price of lacquer has enor- 
mously increased. Similar complaints are heard of 
the process of deforestation going on in Japan since 
the ancient law, which required every one who 
cut down a tree to plant two in its place, was abol- 
ished. 


—A Chinaman, named Chen-Ki-Souen, has writ- 
ten a monograph on the famous Chinese ink, com- 
monly known as India ink, from a translation of 
which the Oil and colourman’s journal prints the fol- 
lowing abstract. The Chinese writer describes every 
stage of the preparation of India ink with great accu- 


Dae 


506 SCIENCE. 


racy and elaborate detail. The author states that a 
kind of pigment ink was discovered somewhere be- 
tween 2697 and 2597 B.C. It was employed for writ- 
ing on silk with a bamboo rod. Afterward an ink 
was prepared from a certain stone, which is still 
known in China as Che-hei. It was not until about 
260 B.C. that they began to make an ink from soot or 
lampblack. The soot was obtained by burning gum- 
lac and pine wood. This ink was made first in round 
balls, and very soon supplanted the stone ink. For 
a considerable period the province of Kiang-Si appears 
to have had a monopoly of ink-making. Under the 
dynasty of Tang, 613 to 915 A.D., there was a special 
officer, called an inspector, who had charge of its 
manufacture. He had to furnish the Chinese court 
with a certain quantity of this ink annually. Some 
of the factories seem to have been ‘ Royal Chinese’ 
factories. The emperor Hinan Tsong (718-756 A.D.) 
founded two universities, to which he sent three hun- 
dred and thirty-six balls of ink four times a year. 
The most celebrated factory in China is that of Li- 
Ting-Kovei, who lived in the latter part of the reign 
of Tang, and made an excellent article. He made 
his ink in the shape of a sword or staff, or in round 
cakes. The test of its authenticity consisted in 
breaking up the rod, and putting the pieces in water: 
if it remained intact at the end of a month, it was 
genuine Li-Ting-Kovei. Since the death of this 
celebrated manufacturer, there seems to have been 
no perceptible advance made in the making of India 
ink. In the manufacture of lampblack, nearly every 
thing is used that will burn. Besides pine wood, we 
may mention petroleum, plant-oils, perfumed rice- 
flour, pomegranate bark, rhinoceros horn, pearls, and 
musk. Nor does fraud seem to have been entirely 
wanting. According to the best Chinese authorities, 
the best India ink smells like musk, and the addition 
of musk not only serves to give poor goods the re- 
semblance of finer ones, but also actually makes them 
more serviceable. The binding-agent is the most 
important ingredient next to the lampblack. In 
former times glue made from the horns of the rhi- 
noceros and of deer was employed: now only ordi- 
nary glue and isinglass are used. Good Chinese ink 
improves with age, and should not be used until a 
few years after it is made, but must be entirely pro- 
tected from moisture. In using, it should only be 
rubbed backwards and forwards, as, for some unex- 
plained reason, rubbing it round and round hardens it. 


— D. Wedding, says the Athenaeum, has been mak- 
ing experiments showing that the capacity for weld- 
ing increases with the amount of silicon present, and 
decreases with any excess of manganese. The latter 
acts by interfering with the crystalline structure of 
the iron, and confirms Ledebur’s idea that all adven- 
titious bodies influence welding in proportion to their 
amount. 


— Capt. Walker of the steamship Para at Phila- 
delphia, Nov. 17, reports that on two successive oc- 
casions he thinks his vessel was saved by the use 
of oil. In one instance he was running before a 
heavy gale in the Formosa Channel, China, and the 


aie s 


[Vou. IV., No. 95. 


sea was remarkably high. His vessel was in great 
danger of being pooped, as she was coal laden and 
very deep. He concluded to try oil, and hung two 
canvas bags upon each quarter. Sufficient oil oozed 
through the canvas to answer his purpose, and the 
sea ceased breaking at once. Only four or five gal- 
lons of oil were expended in twelve hours. 

Capt. Petersen of the Norwegian bark British 
Queen reports that about one year ago he com- 
manded a vessel which was trying to make the port 
of Valencia, Spain, in heavy weather. Just before 
making the breakwater, the wind hauled ahead, and 
he was forced to let go his anchor. The storm in- 
creased, and seas swept over the vessel fore and aft. 
He lowered a canvas bag of oil from the jibboom, 
and the seas no longer broke over the vessel. 


— The students of Berlin university have organ- 
ized a new association among themselves, —a society 
of students of the science of dentistry. ‘They have 
added the American stars and stripes to their banner 
in acknowledgment of the debt this science owes to 
the United States. 


— Mr. Spence Paterson, British consul at Reykja- 
vik, writes to the London Standard that on Sept. 9 
he visited Cape Reykjanes, the south-west point of 
Iceland, in order to observe the volcanic island which 
recently appeared off that cape. It was first seen by 
the light-keeper at Reykjanes on July 29, and had 
then the shape of an irregular truncated cone, with 
a slight hollow on the top, and a projecting shoulder 
on the north side. No earthquakes or other volcanic 
manifestations accompanied its appearance; but on 
Aug. 5 a series of severe shocks occurred, which 
split the walls of the lighthouse, and damaged the. 
lamps. For several days rain and fog obscured the 
island. When next seen, its shape had altered: part 
of the south side had fallen down into the sea, form- 
ing two little mounds, and Jeaving a steep, almost. # 
perpendicular face on the south. The height of the 
island is about two-thirds of its length. It lies 
about west-south-west of Reykjanes. Two officers of 
a French war vessel, who recently visited Reykjanes, 
estimate its distance from the coast at nine or ten 
miles, but Mr. Paterson believes it to be consider-. 
ably greater. When first seen, the upper part of the 
island was perfectly black; but it has now begun to. 
whiten, owing to the droppings of the myriads of 
sea-fowl which frequent the adjacent coast and 
neighboring islands, and seem already to have taken 
possession of the new land. The neighborhood of 
Reykjanes is noted for volcanic manifestations. 
Islands have from time to time risen and sunk there;,. 
and only a couple of years ago a violent eruption 
occurred near the spot where the new island lies: 
columns of smoke and steam rose out of the sea,. 
and large quantities of pumice were thrown up, and 
floated ashore on the neighboring coast. Nature of 
Nov. 18 gives pictures of the past and present ap- 
pearance of the island. . 

— Dr. Finsch, the German explorer, left Sydney in. 
the Samoa on Sept. 10, to explore the Phoenix and. 
Union Islands. 


thie iv a ee 


ee. NAT 


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


SEVERAL QUESTIONS of importance, affecting 
the scientific work of the government, will 
come before congress during the session just 
opened. First among these will be the organ- 
ization ef the two great surveys and of the 
signal-service. Our readers have already been 
informed through this journal, as well as through 
the newspapers, that the question of the man- 
agement of these bureaus was referred to a 
congressional commission, composed of three 
senators and three representatives, who are re- 
quired by law to report their conclusions, by 
bill or otherwise, on or before the third Monday 
in December. This commission invoked the 
aid of the National academy of sciences, and 
a report from a committee of this body is 
already in the hands of the commission. The 
conclusions of this report have not been 
authoritatively made public; but, according to 
a newspaper account, it recommends nothing 
more radical than the concentration of the 
bureaus in question under a single department 
of the government, and the appointment of a 
commission to control the policy both of the 
coast and geological surveys. 


Jt was naturally expected that the commis- 
sion would itself enter upon a thorough and 
minute investigation of the subject, —a view 
which was strengthened by the fact that a 
meeting was called for Nov. 11; but, up to 
the present time, there are no indications that 
the commission is going to enter upon any very 
serious labors. Only one week will remain 
to it when these lines reach our readers, and 
we have not been able to learn that it has done 
any thing but postpone its meetings. In this 
it only reflects the natural tendency of the 
congress whose term is about to expire. A 
short session is, under any circumstances, un- 

No. 96. — 1884. 


favorable for new legislation, and the house 
would naturally be inclined to await the views 
of the incoming administration before adopt- 
ing any measures which might hamper it. We 
must also remember that it is much easier to 
stop a bill than to pass it, and that we can 
hardly expect a measure to be devised which 
will command the unanimous approval of all 
concerned. The establishment of a bureau of 
electrical standards, as proposed by the elec- 
trical congress at Philadelphia, must take its 
chances with the measures for re-organization 
of the surveys. ‘There is no likelihood of an 
independent measure for such a bureau being 
successful. 

Other matters which may be expected to 
arise are international in character; namely, 
the legalization of the conclusions of the Paris 
electrical conference and of our own meridian 
conference. In both these matters we can 
only hope that congress will make haste very 
slowly. There is no apparent pressing reason 
for speedy action on either subject, since both 
might very well take care of themselves with- 
out legislation ; and there is a chance of much 
harm being done by too hastily adopting con- 
clusions which may soon be found to need 
revision. The standard of light of the Paris 
conference has not been shown to be realizable 
in practice, and the accuracy of its ohm is 
already being called in question. In the case 
of the meridian conference, so far as its con- 
clusions define the counting of longitudes from 
Greenwich, they merely authorize our universal 
practice, and there is hardly more need of our 
legislating upon the subject than there is of 
enacting that people shall eat their dinners. 
If its universal day is found convenient, it will 
come into use of itself; if not, congress ought 
not to legalize it. Altogether, we do not see 
much prospect of very good measures being 
devised between now and the 4th of March: 
and we may as well, therefore, reconcile our- 


eaten elae 2 0 I ah eet ie AUN 
rl ; 


508 SCIENCE 


selves to the prospect of nothing being done 
beyond the passage of the regular appropriation 
bills. 


THE RAPID increase of an organic species in 
a new and favorable habitat has been illus- 
trated by Darwin’s description of the cardoon, 
that so quickly spread over the Argentine 
pampas. A more recent example of similar 
success on the part of a colonizer is seen in 
the English sparrows that have become so nu- 
merous around our eastern cities; but the most 
peculiar illustration of the effect of better op- 
portunity on an old form is found in the rapid 
development of seismometric instruments in 
Japan. The instrumental observation of earth- 
quakes has had but moderate advance in Europe 
of late years: earthquakes are too rare there to 
give the study sufficient nourishment for devel- 
opment much beyond its present stand. But the 
English and German professors imported a few 
years ago, by the Japanese government, to build 
up the University at Tokio, found the numer- 
ous light shocks in that country to be just the 
stimulant needed for the rapid multiplication of 
seismometers; and as a result the European 
stock planted there has sprung up in such num- 
ber, variety, and perfection, as to leave its rel- 
atives elsewhere in the world far behind. 


We dwellers in a land of relatively few 
earthquakes may profit by the studies made in 
Japan, as reviewed in another column, instead 
of waiting for the slow development of seis- 
mometry among ourselves. Even a brief ex- 
amination of Professor Ewing’s memoir and of 
the transactions of the Seismological society of 
Japan will show how many of Mallet’s theorems 
need revision in the light of these newer and 
more practical studies, and how great is the 
need of systematic and co-ordinated observa- 
tion in the search for the seat and cause of 
seismic disturbances. The study is regener- 
ated since Mallet’s time. The newly opened 
opportunity for its cultivation in this country 
is described in our notes. 


AT THE FOOT of the titlepage of Professor 


[Vou. [V., No. 06.9 


Ewing’s recent work on earthquakes, printed 
by the Japanese government, the date is given 
as ‘2543 (Japanese era). 1883 A.D.’ In a 
matter of chronology, where, to avoid confusion 
in dates, a uniform system among all nations 
is the great desideratum, it would seem almost 
superfluous to suggest the advisability of drop- 
ping from the works which the Japanese pub- 
lish in foreign languages the use of an era 
which has never been employed in either 
business or official correspondence or records 
by the Japanese themselves, which was in- 
vented and officially adopted only twelve years 
ago, and which, though claiming to reckon 
from the time of the accession to the throne 
of the first Japanese emperor, has no reliable 
historical basis whatever, for at least the first 
twelve or thirteen hundred years, perhaps 
more, of its claimed antiquity. 


In a Notice of the first annual report of the 
New-York experiment-station (Science, vol. il. 
No. 42) we took occasion to point out what 
appeared to us to be the mistaken view of its 
director regarding the duties of an experiment- 
station. It would seem either that our appre- 
hension of his meaning in the preliminary 
passages of that report was imperfect, or that 
time and further experience have led to a re- 
vision of opinion upon the point in question. 
On p. 22 of the present report we find the fol- 
lowing: ‘‘ Before much real practical advance 
can be made in bringing agricultural pursuits 
within the domain of applied. science, much 
work of a purely scientific character must be 
accomplished ; and unpopular as it may be for 
the worker, yet that worker who investigates 
agricultural problems, not from the economic 
but from the reason stand-point, is doing the 
best work, and the work which in the end will 
be found most profitable in its applications.”’ 
We quote this paragraph because it so well 
expresses the opinion which we urged in our 
review of the first report, that an experiment- 
station is primarily a scientific institution, in- 
tended to promote the advancement of the 
science of agriculture, and capable of the high= 


DECEMBER 5, 1884.] 


est and most permanent usefulness, only when 
it fulfils this intention as far as possible. 


Whether the words we have quoted, and 
others of a similar tenor, mark a change of 
opinion on the part of the director of the New- 
York station, or are only a clearer expression 
of convictions previously held, we do not un- 
dertake to say. In either case, we are glad 
to see the weight of this important institution 
east in favor of the scientific conception of an 
experiment-station. The great need of agri- 
culture to-day is not new varieties of plants, 
or improved breeds of animals; new methods 
of cultivating the soil, or improved systems of 
farming. All these, and many other like 
things, are good; but the two great wants 
are a better knowledge of principles, and great- 
er intelligence to apply them. For the latter 
we must look to our agricultural schools: the 
former we should require from our experiment- 
stations. 


We do not hold that an experiment-station 
should never undertake to originate or test 
new varieties of plants and animals or new 
agricultural methods, — often work of this gen- 
eral character will be demanded of it by the 
public, and will prove of great public utility, — 
but, in our view, it should not be allowed to 
be, or to appear to be, the chief end of the 
station. The two kinds of work are both 
important, but we question the advisability of 
attempting to unite them in one institution 
and under one management. Each requires 
facilities and talents peculiar to itself; and it 
seems doubtful, whether, as a rule, one insti- 
tution will be able to provide good facilities for 
both kinds of experimentation, and still more 
doubtful whether it can find combined in one 
person the diverse knowledge and training re- 
quired for their successful prosecution. With 
the growth of agricultural experimentation 
there might profitably be, we suspect, in the 
majority of cases, a subdivision of it into 
two overlapping yet independent classes. We 
should have, first, the experiment-station prop- 
er, aiming chiefly at a further elucidation of 


SCIENCE. 


09 


the laws and principles underlying agriculture ; 
and, second, the experimental farm, devoted 
mainly to carrying out upon a farming scale 
the principles worked out by the experiment- 
station. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 


s 
x*y Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 
writer’s name is in all causes required as proof of good faith. 


Psychical research. 


Your issue of Oct. 17 contained two articles which 
are of good omen for the future of ‘ psychical re- 
search’ in America. Of the first, the editorial arti- 
cle, I need say little. It is cordially welcomed by my 
colleagues and myself for its recognition of the far- 
reaching importance of an enterprise in the further 
development of which our society will, we hope, go 
hand in hand with yours. With the second article, 
on ‘psychic force,’ our agreement is less complete; 
but we still find nothing to complain of in the general 
attitude of the distinguished writer. He, too, rec- 
ognizes the legitimacy of the inquiry, while clearly 
apprehending its difficulties. He describes with en- 
tire justice the two opposed classes between which 
psychical research has to clear a path, — the party of 
easy credulity, and the party of easy incredulity; 
and he points out with no more than proper empha- 
sis the rigorous caution which every forward step 
demands. Fraud and superstition have naturally 
seized on what science has so systematically neg- 
lected; and those who now endeavor to take the 
subject up from the scientific side must accept the 
fact and its consequences. 

So far, then, we are wholly at one with Professor 
Newcomb; but we cannot quite so readily follow 
him in his criticisms of our own doings. He begins 
by condemning one of our public appeals for infor- 
mation; but his strictures seem to assume that all the 
information which the appeal brings in will be re- 
garded by us as a safe basis for conclusions. The 
appeal is, of course, merely a first step, for which it 
would be difficult to imagine any effective substitute; 
though I may mention that a very large amount of 
our information comes to us through private chan- 
nels. The sifting and treatment of the evidence 
according to scientific canons must be a subsequent 
labor, the rationale of which could not be set forth, 
or even suggested, in the terms of a short advertise- 
ment. And of this labor no portion is more impor- 
tant than the one which we are glad to find Professor 
Newcomb so explicitly recognizing, — the application 
of the doctrine of chances. In all those branches of 
our inquiry where questions of coincidence occur, it 
is clearly essential to ascertain, as Cefinitely as may 
be, how far the coincidences may fairly be ascribed 
to chance. We have taken, and are still taking, great 
pains to obtain this definite information. Very wide 
inquiries have been made; and the results, though 
far from complete, may still, I think, claim decidedly 
more validity, as a basis of computation, than Pro- 
fessor Newcomb’s guess at what ‘‘any physician will 
consider quite within the bounds of probability.” 
It would require more space than I ean ask for, to 
comment on Professor Newcomb’s numerical argu- 
ment in detail. But I may remark that he seems to 
confuse the argument by classing all together what 
he calls ‘dreams, illusions, visions,’ etc.; at least, if 


510 


he means to include in this heterogeneous group 
visual hallucinations of waking persons, which we 
regard as by far the most important phenomena from 
an evidential point of view. If any one, in his 
waking moments, experiences apparitions of human 
forms as often as once a week, which is the degree 
of frequency that Professor Newcomb’s calculation 
assumes, it is obvious that the approximate coinci- 
dence of one of these apparitions with the death of 
the corresponding human being will be an insignifi- 
cant accident. But we have not ourselves met with 
any specimen of this class. We have collected more 
than a hundred first-hand cases of apparitions closely 
coinciding with the time of death of the person seen ; 
and it is only in a small minority of such cases that 
our informants, according to theirown account, have 
had any other hallucination than the apparition ‘in 
question. 

The following sketch may serve to show the lines 
on which our own reasoning in the matter will pro- 
ceed. We are making a census, which, so far, shows 
that in this country the proportion of sane persons, 
in good health and awake, who within the last ten 
years have had a visual hallucination representing 
some living person known to them, is about one in 
three hundred. Now, let us make a supposition far 
below the actual mark, and confine the number of 
the acquaintances of each of these hallucinated per- 
sons to five. Let us further suppose that one of these 
five persons does actually die in the course of the ten 
years. This seems fair, on the whole; for, though in 
some cases more than one may die within that time, 
in others none may die. According to this estimate, 
then, the chance that the death will take place within 
twelve hours of the apparition will be one in 865 X 2 
x 10 X 5; that is, one in 36,500: in other words, only 
one out of every 36,500 of the hallucinated persons 
will, in the course of ten years, hit off the coinci- 
dence by chance. But since the hallucinated persons 
are only a three-hundredth of the whole population, 
this means that the proportion of the whole popu- 
lation who will by chance have an apparition of a 
person known to them within twelve hours of that 
person’s death is only one in 10,950,000. Now, we 
ourselves have a large collection of such recent cases, 
resting on good first-hand testimony; but let us put 
the number far below the mark, and say thirty cases. 
If, then, these thirty coincidences are to be fairly at- 
tributed to chance, the population of the country 
will have to be 328,500,000. But we cannot suppose 
that our appeal for evidence has reached the whole 
population; and we shall be making a sober estimate, 
if we reckon that within the given time ten times as 
many cases must have occurred as those we happen 
to have encountered. This brings the necessary 
population up to 3,285,000,000; and the number will 
be further immensely increased if we take count of 
the fact that many of the coincidences are extremely 
close, that the times of the two events fall not only 
within twelve hours, but within one. Thus the 
theory that chance would account for the cases could 
only be justified if the population of the country were 
several hundred times what it actually is. The re- 
ductio ad absurdum seems tolerably complete. 

The case of dreams is of course very different. 
Weare most of us constantly dreaming. <A very large 
number of ‘odd coincidences’ between dreams and 
external events is certain to occur by mere chance, 
and the cases are rare where the correspondence is of 
a kind which strongly suggests telepathic influences. 
Here, therefore, Professor Newcomb’s estimate is far 
more applicable; and we have always felt that dreams, 
by themselves, could not be expected to afford conclu- 


SCIENCE. 


[Vo.. IV., No. 96. 


sive proof of telepathy. This, however, does not seem 
a sufficient reason for ignoring them; since, if the fact 
of telepathic communication be otherwise established, 
they may throw light which we could ill afford to 
neglect, on the nature of the mental and cerebral 
processes involved. 

As regards ‘haunted houses,’ we readily admit, and 
have expressly pointed out, the far greater uncertainty 
of the evidence as compared with the best telepathic 
cases. Buteven here we differ from Professor New- 
comb in seeing a distinction between the experiences 
which we deem of some prima facie importance, and 
the experience which he supposes when a person, 
lying awake an hour after midnight, hears some 
sound the cause of which is beyond his power to 
guess. Sounds are the very weakest sort of evidence. 
What strength the prima facie case has, depends, not 
on things heard, but on things seen; and seen, not by 
one person only, but by several independently and at 
different times, and, as the seers affirm, without any 
knowledge, on their part, that the house was supposed 
to be ‘ haunted.’ 

Professor Newcomb’s concluding remarks, dealing 
with the experimental side of telepathy, deserve care- 
ful attention. But his objections here rest entirely 
on the hypothesis of visual and auditory indications 
consciously or unconsciously given by the ‘agent’ 
to the ‘ percipient;’ and though it is difficult, I know, 
to convince persons who have not been present that 
sufficient precautions have been taken to eliminate 
this source of error, it must surely be admitted that 
such precautions are possible. As regards sight, no 
one will deny the possibility; and, as regards hear- 
ing, we think, that, if a careful watch is kept, the 
means of communication resolve themselves into 
slight variations of breathing. Such variations were 
never detected in our experiments, and in any case 
could hardly be supposed capable of rapidly convey- 
ing to the percipient’s mind the form of an irregular 
diagram; and the difficulty would be increased in 
cases where the signs would have had to be wncon- 
scious, as in many of our experiments where we were 
able not only to vary the ‘agent,’ but to act our- 
selves as ‘agents.’ As for ‘indications whether the 
subject is going right or wrong,’ they must, of course, 
be prevented by taking care that the ‘agent’ shall 
not watch what the ‘percipient’ is doing. Most of 
the spurious ‘ thought-reading’ of the ‘ willing-game’ 
would be prevented, if the ‘willer,’ instead of the 
‘ willed,’ were effectively blindfolded. 

But we find ourselves once more wholly in sympa- 
thy with Professor Newcomb, when he insists that 
the experiments must be repeated again and again, 
under the strictest conditions, before we can reason- 
ably expect thought-transference to be accepted as 
an established scientific fact. So far from resenting 
the demand for more evidence, we are ourselves un- 
ceasingly reiterating it. The responsibility for such 
novel observations cannot be too widely spread, and 
glad indeed shall we be to shift some of it to Ameri- 
can shoulders. EDMUND GURNEY, 

Hon. sec. of the Society for psychical research. 


14 Dean's yard, Westminster, 8.W., 
Nov. 4. 


Mr. Gurney’s letter suggests many interesting 
reflections on the probabilities involved in questions 
of telepathic phenomena, and I hope for an early 
opportunity to engage in a further discussion of the 
subject in the columns of Science. This will natu- 
rally involve the consideration of the points raised in 
his letter. Meanwhile there are two numerical data; 


' 


DECEMBER 5, 1884.] 


and, if he would favor me with them, I should feel 
much flattered, — firstly, his estimate, from the census 
results, of the number of persons of the age of fifteen 
and upwards, resident in the British Islands, whose 
statements he would consider prima facie entitled 
to full credence (to guide him I may remark that I 
see no reason why the number should not be from 
ten to twenty millions); secondly, his estimate of the 
probability that one of these persons, taken at ran- 
dom, would not be above amusing himself or herself 
at the expense of a society soeminent as that of which 
Mr. Gurney is the honorary and honored secretary. 
These numbers will come into my discussion, and I 
should much rather have them from an authority 
conversant with the subject than attempt to guess at 
them myself. 

StMmon NEWCOMB. 


Change in the color of the eye. 


The experience of Mr. T. F. McCurdy (p. 452) is, 
I imagine, a not uncommon one. It certainly finds 
illustration in my own family and in myself; the iris, 
which was quite black in childhood, having for many 
years visibly lightened, until it is more correctly de- 
scribed as gray, withshades of hazel. The fading-out 
of black eyes with age is a matter of common obser- 
vation; and the change, judging from the facts within 
my own knowledge, is more apt to occur where the 
individual takes after a grandparent who had the 
dark eye, and where the immediate parents had blue 
or gray. C. V. RILEY. 

Washington, D.C. 


Specimens illustrating Lehmann’s ‘Origin of 
the crystalline schists.’ 


It may not be uninteresting to the geological read- 
ers of Science to know that the writer has recently 
received, through the kindness of Professor Johannes 
Lehmann of the University of Breslau, a very valua- 
ble suite of rock specimens illustrative of the latter’s 
new and important work on the origin of the crystal- 
line schists, noticed in Science, No. 86, p. 827, and in 
the American journal of science for November, 1884, 
p- 392. These specimens are sixty-three in number, 
and were collected, partly by Professor Lehmann him- 
self, and partly under his immediate supervision, in 
the granulite area of Saxony, and in those parts of 
Bavaria which he has made the subject of his special 
study. They exhibit in an excellent manner nearly 
all those phenomena ascribed by the author of the 
above memoir to metamorphism by pressure, espe- 
cially, however, the changes which certain massive 
pyroxene rocks of Saxony have undergone in becom- 
ing hornblendic schists exactly analogous to similar 
alterations traced by the present writer in the rocks 
near Baltimore. 

To all students of metamorphism and of structural 
geology in highly crystalline regions, this work must 
be of absorbing interest as undoubtedly the most 
advanced of its kind; and, in spite of its superb atlas 
of most satisfactory photographic illustrations, its 
readers may be glad to know that this suite of origi- 
nal specimens is in the petrographical laboratory of 
the Johns Hopkins university, where it will always 
be accessible to such persons as may be interested in 
examining it. Gro. H. WILLIAMS. 

Baltimore, Nov. 25. 


Bot-flies in a turtle. 


Some days ago Prof. T. Robinson of Howard uni- 
versity called my attention to a box-turtle (Cistudo 


SCIENCE. 


11 


carolina) which had in the muscles on either side of 
the neck about thirteen large bot-fly larvae. The 
turtle was alive, but evidently suffered inconvenience 
from the intruders which had taken up their abode 
at a point from which they could not be dislodged by 
claw or beak. They were removed with forceps, and 
sent to Mr. Howard of the agricultural bureau, who 
informed me that they belonged to the family Oestri- 
dae, and to a genus probably undescribed. He also 
brought to my attention an exactly parallel case re- 
ported in the American naturalist (xvi. 598) about 
two years ago by Prof. A. S. Packard. 

FREDERICK W. TRUE. 


U. 8. national museum, Washington, 
Nov. 24. 


On the function of the serrated appendages 
of the throat of Amia. 


Through the kindness of Prof. B. G. Wilder I have 
at present two living specimens of Amia which I pro- 
pose to employ shortly in a comparative study of the 
brains of American ganoids. 

My attention was first attracted to the serrated 
appendages of the throat by Professor Wilder’s own 
note upon the subject, published in the Proc. Amer. 
assoc., 1876, and more recently by a reference to the 
same structures inone of Sagemehl’s admirable con- 
tributions to the anatomy of fishes (Morph. jahrb., 
x. 63). Sagemehl concludes, from the examination of 
alcoholic specimens, that these ‘ flagella’ are, during 
life, in constant motion, and thus help to renew the 
water in the gill-cavity. Such is by no means the 
case. The ‘ flagella’ are attached by their bases to 
the lateral aspects of the sterno-hyoid muscles (hyo- 
pectorales of McMurrich), the chief function of 
which is to enlarge the cavity of the mouth. When 
these muscles are .at rest, the flagella lie flat along 
their surfaces: when they contract, the cavity of the 
mouth is enlarged, the flagella erected, and the gill- 
covers pushed outwards. At the suggestion of my 
assistant, Mr. A. B. Macallum, we stimulated the prox- 
imal part of the muscle with the result of a perfect 
demonstration of the above facts. The flagella thus 
help to replace functionally the absent dilatator mus- 
cles of the gill-covers. A strip of condensed tissue 
occupies a precisely similar position on the hyopec- 
toral muscle of Amiurus, perhaps a rudiment of 
similar organs possessed by the ancestors of the silu- 
roids before the differentiation of the dilatator mus- 
cles of the operculum. 

My specimens of Amia, after being in captivity for 
some time, became very sluggish, and hardly any 
movements of respiration could be detected. After 
the fish had been removed for a little out of the 
water, however, and then returned to it, the move- 
ments were sufficiently active to disclose the follow- 
ing facts: — 

During the enlargement and filling of the cavity of 
the mouth, the posterior flexible (and muscular) bor- 
der of the gill-cover is tightly applied to the soft 
parts behind the gill-opening. When the mouth- 
cavity is quite full, the mouth closes, the muscular 
border of the gill-cover releases its sucker-like hold 
of the soft parts, and the water is driven out by the 
contraction of the walls of the mouth-cavity. 

Professor Wilder’s account of the structure of the 
serrated appendages is so complete as to render any 
further reference to this subject unnecessary. 


R. RAMSAY WRIGHT. 


University college, Toronto, 
Nov. 27. 


ee 


O12 SCIENCE. 


Ergot nectar. 


During the past summer I received a kind of grass 
from several of the northern states, which was sent 
me under the name of manna-grass. It proved to be 
Glyceria fuitans. It was stated that the bees were 
gathering large quantities of very delicious honey 
from this grass. I could readily believe the report, as 
the grass was covered with small crystals, as if it might 
have been wet, and dipped into granulated sugar. 
This sugar was very sweet and pleasant; and I have 
no doubt, that, like the nectar from Aphides, it would 
be wholesome winter food for bees, and no injury in 
honey for the market. The bees expressed the same 
opinion, as I learn that they would not leave this 
grass even for clover or linden bloom. 

Upon examination, I found that the grass was 
covered with ergot grains, and that the nectar was a 
secretion from this poisonous fungus. 

We see, then, that even the poisonous ergot, which 
I believe some of our best veterinary scholars think 
caused the so-called ‘foot and mouth disease’ among 
the cattle of Kansas last winter, has its wholesome 
uses. Why the ergot secretes this pleasant sweet, is 
hard to answer. The nectar, doubtless, serves the 
fungus in some way. A. J. Cook. 


Agricultural college, Michigan, 
ov. 20. 


THE ‘OLD STONE MILL’ AT NEWPORT. 


Finpinc myself in Newport lately, I took 
occasion to make some measurements upon 
that old circular building about whose origin 
(whether English or Norse) there has been so 
much dispute. I have not the slightest title 
to an opinion upon that subject, in which I have 
only a metrological concern. ‘The building is 
circular, and rests upon eight cylindrical pil- 
lars. Itis of such a size that any one would 
say, before measuring it, that the pillars would 
be circumscribed by a circle of four yards 
radius, and inscribed by one of three yards 
radius. The building could not have been 
erected without a drawing to scale, so that a 
unit of length must have been employed, and 
that unit (whether Norsemen or English were 
the builders) would undoubtedly be a foot. 
The Icelandic foot was, I take it, the same 
as Denmark and the Scandinavian countries 
used up to the adoption of the metric system ; 
that is to say, it coincided with the Prussian 
foot of 12.36 inches English. 

I found the diameters of the structure, meas- 
ured at the pillars, as follows : — 


From outside to outside of the | 
| Between the inward sides. 


\ shafts. 
24 feet 8inches. | 18 feet 6 inches. 
Oe IO Ty) GG uf} GO" ES 
24 6 9 66 18 ce 4 ceé 
24 66 7 6é | 18 6é 5 66 
Mean . . 24feet8inches. | Mean. . 18 feet 5 inches. 


I think there can be little question that these 
lengths were meant to be 24 and 18 of the feet 


[Vou. IV., No. 96. 


used. But supposing that I ought to have 
gone, say, farther out for the outer diameter 
(for instance, as far as the bases of the pillars 
extend), then I ought to have cut off the inter- 
nal measure by the same amount; so that the 
mean of the two measures that I have taken is 
almost certainly 21 of the original feet. This 
mean is 21 feet 65 inches, which, divided by 21, 
gives 12.31 inches as the length of the foot 
used. Besides the two lengths just mentioned, 
I found no other of sufficient magnitude, 
which I could conveniently measure, except the 
heights of the pillars. These appear to be 
intended to be 8 feet from the top of the base 
to the upper side of the cap-stones. The latter 
are 6 inches thick, as well as I could judge, 
leaving 74 feet for the height between the base 
and capital. This could readily be measured 
with a tape-line, and was measured ? on the in- 
sides of the pillars at two places on each pil- 
lar,—one at the right, and the other at the 
left. The following are the results :— 


North arch. East arch. South arch. West arch. 
U ibis Uf Tha 7-4t./8) int 8 ft. 2 in. 7 ft. 74 in. 
7 5 ss UO Oe OL \3 eg « se 38 
North-east South-east South-west North-west 
arch. arch. arch. arch. 
\ 7 ft. 74 in. { 7 ft. 9 in. 8 ft. 04 in. 7ft.6 in. 
Wp UC 8% *¢ 7 6 8 66 8 0 66 qs 64 “< 
East arch. South arch. West arch. North arch, 


The mean of these is 7 feet 8£ inches; but 
the two south-west pillars are so different from 
the others, that I think it is more satisfactory 
to adopt the middling heights. Excluding, 
then, the two highest and two shortest pillars, 
the others measure ° 


7 feet 8 inches. 


te SE 8a 
et 
Mean . . 7 feet 83 inches. 
We have, then, 
Outer Inner 
diameter. —_ diameter. Height. 


Presumed intentional ; ; f 
measure, 24 ft.0 im. 18 ft.0) ind ft. Gems 


Same in English feet, 
if foot used was 12.31 24. 8° Tass 
English inches, 

Same, if foot used was ) 


dey OS By CC 155 Stames 


the Scandinavian i ie a Pe + x su 
foot of 12.36 English 24 ed) 19 ae ery 
inches, 
Observed . DENGES Tey C0 Des ee aye a $6 WB ales 
(7 8.9 *) 


I made some other measures, which, though 
I think them of no value for determining the 
value of the foot, I proceed to give. 


1 The tape-line is believed to require about half an inch nega- — 
tive correction for all the measures. This has not been applied, 
as I have been unable to obtain the tape to verify the correction. 
In any case, such a correction is negligible in micanaee so rough 
a structure. 


DECEMBER 5, 1884.] 


SCIENCE. 


Heights of the pillars on the , Circumferences of the pillars. 


outside. 
7 feet 34 inches. 
7 “eé 2 “ce 
7 66 4 66 
7 “6 6 ee 
7 sé 3 6 
4 sé 10 oe 
a oe 4 sce 
7 6é 5 ee 
Meme . . 7 = 


feet 57 ¢ inches. 


10 feet 14 inches. 
10 66 66 

10 66 
9 66 
9 6 


66 
66 
66 


RoRoial \) 


ue 


Mean. . 9 feet 11.6 inches, 


giving diameter, 3 feet 2.linches. 


513 


Sockets for jambs below. West window. 


Breadth . . . 0 ft. 4} in,| Seaadth 9 in. 
Beene). Oe Breadth . . . 2ft. Zin. 
Depp thiv. i ONDE 166 
Original height of frame, 2 
feet. Higher socket. 
South-west niche. 3readth . . 1 ft. 6 in. 
Height. . Te (4s 


Weyeelide 4 4° 4 
Height. << . . 


il ft..6 1m: 


1 6 3 66 | 


6 
' 
ft 
y 

o 


Diameters of bases of columns 


(most regular). 


3 feet 10 inches. 
3 66 93 66 
BI gi 66 
3 «6 10 6 


Mean .. 


Circumferences of bases. 


12 feet 2 inches. 
11 6“ 9 sé 
12 “eé 1 “e 


I Je se 2 eé 


Mean .. 


corresponding 


to diameter, 3 ‘** 10 L 


3 feet 9% inches. 


12 feet 03 inches, 


Fireplace. 


lesrerelon 6 6) 6 Wits Dono 
IsleieAanh 5 5. 6 EL CRON 
Breadth at base, 2 “ 7 * 


Niche on the right of fire- 
place. 


Breadth . . . 2 ft. 34 in. 
eit | 5. 2 oo es 


Small niche or socket on 
south side. 


breadth 2 2. Jift. 6) in. 
ree a ee Lt. 8S 


South window. 


Height outside, 2 ft..53 in. 
IBLCHAiMee ss « 2 8 2 SE 


My ladder was too short to enable me to 
measure the upper parts. 

Without wishing to express any archeologi- 
ical opinion whatever, I cannot refrain from 
saying, that, as far as I could perceive, all the 
rough-cast covering the walls, the smooth mor- 
tar in the sockets, etc., were a part of the origi- 
nal mortar. There is a certain amount of later 
mortar, but it is readily distinguished upon 
close inspection. - 

The fireplace has two flues ; and the windows 
formerly had frames, as if for holding glass. 
The projections of the pillars beyond the upper 
part of the tower suggest that there might 
have been a ledge upon which a miller could 
climb to turn round the axis of the sails of 


_” oii gt ae a 


al4 


the wind-mill. The two separate flues to the 
fireplace might prevent the draught from being 
interfered with by the axle. But would not 
a fire in a grist-mill be dangerous? 

The hearth of the fireplace was elevated 
above the floor, as in a forge. The building 
had two stories above the ground. Its total 
height is about twenty-five feet. 

The stones, many of them granite, show no 
drill-marks and no marks of an axe, but do 
show marks of the hammer. C. 8S. PeErrce. 


THE OOD? OF THE HOODED SEATS 
CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA. 


ALL THE figures of the hooded seal which I 
have seen represent the animal with a great 
bunch on the top of its head. This bunch is 
made to vary somewhat in shape, size, and 
position, in the different illustrations: but all 
agree in placing it on top of the head, no part 
ever protruding beyond the jaw. It is some- 
times pictured as extending transversely across 
the crown, sometimes as a double or single roll 
reaching from the nose to the occiput. The 
sarliest delineation of it which has fallen 
under my observation is that given by the 
old missionary, Hans Egede, in his descrip- 
tion of Greenland, published in 1741 (fig. 1). 
Crantz, who was also for many years a mis- 
sionary in Greenland, said, ‘‘ The forehead is 
furnished with a thick folded skin, which the 
animal can draw over its eyes like a cap, to 
protect them from stones or sand driven about 
by the surf in a storm.’’ And even Dr. Rink, 
in his recent excellent work on Danish Green- 
land, says that this seal ‘is well known from 
the bladder on its forehead.’ In Griffith’s 


en eg oe ou” BP 
Ns ieee ee Z is ¥ = 
ok eee ee 
== Seat wethe w Catt gs ——- 
=e a, See 


‘ Cuvier ’ it is stated that the hooded seal ‘‘ has 
the power of bringing a fold of skin placed on 
the forehead, forward, so as to cover the eyes, 
which it does when threatened, or about to be 


1 Abstract of apaper read before the Biological section of the 
American association, Sept. 9, 1884. 


SCIENCE. 


—— a pee 


[VouL. IV., No. 96. q 


struck. ... When at rest, or drawn back, it 
considerably enlarges the apparent size of the 
neck and shoulders.’’ The only adult hooded 
seal, so far as I am aware, possessed by any 
museum in America, is in the American museum 
of natural history at Central Park, New York. 
Its head is very well represented in the accom- 
panying drawing (fig. 2). 


Fre. 2. 


Determined to visit the seal-fishery in per- 
son, I set sail from Halifax in February, 18383, 
proceeding northward from Newfoundland in 
the eabin of the ill-fated Proteus, in her annual 
cruise to the sealing-grounds. On the 18th of 
March, after a somewhat laborious walk over 
an ice-floe, I found myself face to face with a 
family of hoods, and discovered that the male, 
—a huge beast, bigger than an ox, — instead 
of having a crest, or fold of skin, on the top 
of his head, was provided with a great probos- 
cis, suggesting that of the sea-elephant of the 
antarctic (fig. 3). He looked on with appar- 
ent indifference, while his mate, solicitous for 
her young, advanced to meet me, growling 
fiercely, and displaying her sharp, curved teeth. 
Wishing to observe her actions, I annoyed her 
for a few minutes with my gaff, — a proceeding 
which it is by no means safe to undertake with 
the male. While this encounter, in which she 
was the aggressive party, was in progress, her 
spouse began to manifest symptoms of uneasi- 
ness, and finally became very much enraged, 
though he did not attempt to drag his ponder- 
ous body to the scene of the conflict. He at 
first showed his displeasure by frowning, and 
wrinkling the skin on his long snout. The tip 
of the proboscis was then inflated and emptied 
several times in rapid succession, after which 
the entire ‘hood’ was partially inflated. In 


DECEMBER 5, 1884.] 


addition to its numerous and ever-changing 
contractions, there was one rather constant 
constriction about opposite the nostrils, in- 
completely dividing it transversely into two 
portions, the anterior of which, though dark in 
color, much resembles a bladder, and explains 
the vulgar epithet, ‘ bladder-nose,’ often ap- 
plied to this species. A curious fact observed 
was, that, during the alternate filling and emp- 
tying of the sac, a noise was produced which 
closely resembled that of bubbles of air rush- 
ing into a bottle from which a liquid is being 
poured. It was a loud, gurgling sound, audi- 
ble at a distance of twenty-five metres or up- 
wards. On approaching nearer, the animal 
became furious. He inflated his ‘hood’ to 
such an extent that all traces of constriction 
were obliterated, and, by a series of ugly tosses 
of the head, kept it swinging from side to side. 

During the ten days that followed, about 


Fig. 3. 


fifteen thousand seals were killed and hauled 
aboard by the crew of the Proteus; and I had 
ample opportunities for observing their actions 
both upon the ice andin the water. I there- 
fore state, without fear of contradiction, that 
it is utterly impossible for the animal to arrange 
his head-gear in the manner shown in fig. 2, 
or, for that matter, in any figure that I have 
seen. 

The largest males which I killed measured 
ten feet in total length (from tip of nose to 
end of hind-flipper), and eight feet in girth. I 
think that they do not attain their full growth 
until ten or twelve years of age. In the largest 
individual measured the uninflated proboscis 
extended two hundred and twenty-five milli- 
metres (nearly nine inches) in front of the 
upper lip. The height of the proboscis mid- 
way between the nostrils and tip was two hun- 
dred and thirty millimetres; height at mouth, 
three hundred and twenty millimetres. This 
curious development is purely a sexual char- 
acter, no trace of it existinginthe female. It 


SCIENCE. a15 


begins to appear in the third year, when, by 
passing the fingers into the nostrils, it may be 
detected as a small sac at the extreme end of 
the nose, divided longitudinally by the nasal 


two 
(ji \ 


Sea AT) 30 Oe 
Fie. 4. 


septum into two distinct chambers, which 
remain distinct throughout the animal’s life. 
So far as I was able to ascertain from the ex- 
amination of a very large number of individ- 
uals, it continues to grow for ten or twelve 
years. } 

Dissection of the proboscis, when in the adult 
condition, shows it to be a loose muscular bag, 
covered with the skin of the nose, and lined 
with a continuation of the nasal mucous mem- 
brane. It is completely divided for its entire 
length into two parallel chambers by a thin 
partition, which consists chiefly of two layers 
of mucous membrane, and is continuous with 
the nasal septum. ‘The nostrils (fig. 4) are 
capable of closure by the contraction of mus- 
cular fibres, which are so arranged as to act as 
sphincters. ‘To prevent interference in breath- 
ing by the falling together of the walls of this 


redundant bag, the roof of the proboscis is 
supported by three large and stout cartilages, 
—one median and two lateral (fig. 5). The 
median or septal cartilage, which is a continu- 


516 SCIENCE. 


ation of the mesethmoid, rises above the plane 
of the top of the skull, and extends forward 
beyond the jaw. A bilateral expansion of its 
base in front forms a firm supporting pad, 
resting upon the pre-maxillary bones. The 
two remaining cartilages are paired. 

Since returning from the seal-fishery, I have 
examined the accessible works that would be 
likely to mention this curious appendage, but 
have failed to discover any thing approach- 
ing an accurate or complete description of it. 
That given by Fabricius more than a century 
ago is one of the best ~— All writers whose 
accounts I have seen, including the most recent, 
agree in failing to express the chief character- 
istic of the animal, which is, that the so-called 
‘hood’ of the male is an inflatable proboscis, 
protruding considerably beyond the mouth, 
which it overhangs. 

C. Hart Merriam, M.D. 


MEASURING EARTHQUAKES.! 


IN VIEw of the recent earthquake in England, and 
the still more recent shakings which parts of this 
country have experienced, a notice of the above 
work will be of especial interest. Professor Ewing’s 
long residence in Japan as professor of mechani- 
cal engineering in the University of Tokio, and his 
active labors in connection with the Seismological 
society there, of which he was vice-presi- 
dent, entitle him to speak with authority 
on this subject. Indeed, in this matter of 
the exact measurement of the motion of 
the ground during an earthquake, seis- 
mologists the world over must look for enlightenment 
to young Japan, whose Seismological society, under 
the guidance of the foreign professors in her univer- 
sity and her college of engineering, has in this partic- 
ular branch far outstripped European seismologists. 

In chapter i. Professor Ewing gives a résumé of 
the theory of waves in an elastic solid, as applied by 
Hopkins, in the British association report for 1847, to 
the case of terrestrial disturbances; ‘‘since it both 
teaches the earthquake-observer what to look for, 
and guides him in the interpretation of his results.” 
This shows how, froma single sudden disturbance, 
two series of waves will set out in all directions,— the 
first or normal waves consisting of compression and 
expansion of the material in the direction of transit; 
the second or transverse waves travelling more slow- 
ly, and consisting of motion of distortion at right 
angles to the line of transit, —also how these waves 
may be reflected or refracted at the bounding-sur- 
faces between different strata, and thus by successive 
reflections be reduplicated; so that, at a distant point, 


1 Memoirs of the science department, T6kiéd Daigaku (Uni- 
versity of Tokié), No. 9. Earthquake measurement. By J. A. 


Ewing, B.Sc., F.R.S.E. T6kid, T6kid Daigaku, 1883. 12+92 Ps ES 
23 large plates. 4°. 


-[Vou. IV., No. 96. 


the vibrations will probably be far different from 
(in number, order, phase, and period), and generally 
much more complicated than, those at the origin. 
Add to this the effect of imperfect elasticity, and the 
condition that the original disturbance may be a 
series of slips along a whole line or ‘ fault,’ and noth- 
ing further could be desired to give confusion to the 
vibrations. 
Chapters ii. and iii. deal with instruments for 
measuring the horizontal motion of the ground. At 
the outset Professor Ewing notes the difficulties in 
the way of getting a steady point, or something ‘ to 
tie to,’ while every thing around is being shaken ; and 
the characteristic feature of every seismometer is its 
method of supporting a heavy mass so that it will 
remain steady, receiving no impulse (save what is 
unavoidable through friction) while the system that 
supports it is being shaken. As the ‘ horizontal pen- 
dulum’ seismograph in one of its forms is considered 
the best, and has given the greater part of the records 
obtained, its essential feature is here shown in fig. 1. 
Popularly it might be termed a heavy weight, swing- 
ing on a gate. It isa heavy mass, pivoted upon a 
vertical axis through d, upon a frame free to move 
about the vertical axis bc. The long light reed mul- 
tiplies the motion, and records it upon a rotating 
smoked-glass plate by the steel pointer on its end. 


This reed is pivoted at d, with most of its weight 


taken up by the coil-spring, whose tension is adjusta- 
ble ate. The parts of this supporting lever and long 
reed are so proportioned that in the vertical axis 
through d lies the centre of percussion relative to the 
axis bc: hence, if this is shaken through be at right 


angles to the plane of the lever, the vertical through 


d will be of itself the axis of instantaneous rotation, 
independent of the heavy mass pivoted there; hence 
the latter will receive no impulse at right angles to — 


DECEMBER 5, 1884.] 


the plane of the lever, save that due to the very 
slight friction at b and c and at the marking-point ; 
and the purpose of the heavy mass is chiefly to fur- 
nish, by its inertia, the necessary fulcrum upon which 
to overcome this slight friction. These principles, as 
regards centre of percussion, and axis of instantane- 
ous rotation relative to the axis of support, are espe- 
cially insisted on by Professor Ewing as essential 
features of a reliable seismometer. Two of these 
horizontal pendulums at right angles record the two 


rectangular components of the horizontal motion 
upon a rotating smoked-glass plate. 

Many other ingenious and novel forms of appara- 
_ tus for registering the horizontal motion of the earth 
are described in chapters ii. and iii., and various de- 
vices are described in chapter iv. for measuring the 
vertical component of the motion. 

We reproduce the trace of the earthquake of 1881, 
March8. Fortunately, Professor Ewing was present 
during its occurrence, and, as it drew to aclose, lifted 
the marking-levers from the plate, so that their sub- 
sequent trace should not obliterate at all the record 


SCIENCE. 51 


( 


already obtained. Fig. 2 shows this record, made by a 
pair of horizontal pendulums multiplying the motion 
six times. As here reproduced, it is about twice the 
actual motion of the ground. ‘The inner circle gives 


the N-S, and the outer the E-W components. At 
d and d@ are two cross marks, showing where the 
pointers rested when the plate was stopped; and 
their angular distance is that to be used in connect- 
ing the two circles to obtain the simultaneous motion 
of the two points. 


The motion began on the outer, 


E-W, circle at a (corresponding to q@ on the inner), 
and thence can be easily traced nearly twice round 
the circle to c, where the pointer was lifted (corre- 
sponding to c’ on the inner circle). There was no 
appreciable motion in a N-S direction till about ten 
seconds after it began at a, E-W ; but it began quite 
suddenly just before b’, and can be traced twice round 
to where the plate stopped at d’. The rotation time 
was about eighty seconds, and the earthquake had 
lasted about two minutes and a half when the plate 
was stopped. Feeble movements were observed some 
time longer. 


A mati evils os ieee 


In fig. 3, Professor Ewing has carefully combined 
the motion of the two components so as to give the 
actual path of a point of the earth’s surface for a 
short interval. From p to q, following the arrow- 
heads, it shows that motion (magnified six times) 
during an interval of three seconds. 

This same characteristic wriggling motion is shown 
in fig. 4, which is the entire record, 
magnified three and a half times, 
upon astationary plate, of an earth- 
quake which occurred on April 23, 
1883, and lasted four minutes and 
a half. It is quite likely that the 
earthquakes which recently shook 
up our middle and western states would have given 
a somewhat similar record. 

The principal characteristics of the average earth- 
quake in the plain of Tokio are: 1°. The motion of 
the ground begins very gradually. 2°. An earth- 
quake consists of many successive movements, and 
there is almost always no single large one which 
stands out prominently from the rest. 3°. The dis- 
turbance ends even more gradually than it begins. 
4°. The range, the period, and the direction of move- 
ment, are exceedingly and irregularly variable during 
any one earthquake. 5°. The duration of disturb- 
ance of the ground is rarely less than one minute, and 
often several minutes. 6°. Even in somewhat de- 
structive earthquakes, the greatest displacement of a 
point on the surface of the soil is only a few milli- 
metres. 7°. The vertical motion is generally much 
Jess than the horizontal. 8°. A mass shaken back 
and forth in the most severe earthquakes of Tokio, 
would, if it did not slide, be urged by a horizontal 
force, which, at its maximum, would equal about 
one thirty-third of its weight. This, regularly re- 
peated, is sufficient to crack brick walls, and some- 
times throw down chimneys. 

To the many readers who have had no experience 
of earthquakes, but are accustomed to think of them 
as a sudden violent thrust, accomplishing at a blow, 
as it were, all their disastrous work, the preceding 
descriptions will be a somewhat new revelation. 

Professor Ewing plainly shows that as seismom- 
eters, the instruments in use by Palmieri and others 
are worthless; for not one of them can be depended 
upon to give a reliable measure of the direction, 
period, or amplitude of the vibrations of the ground, 
most of them being designed to record a single violent 
thrust in one direction, and nothing subsequent, and 
the greater part of them being some form of stable 
pendulum which is almost certain to be set swinging 
in an earthquake through amplitudes far greater 
than the earth itself, and thus to mask entirely the 
motion of the latter, 

One novel ‘ time-taker,’ the invention of Professor 
Milne, whose work in Japan is so well known, is 
worthy of note. A clock has its hour, minute, and 
seconds hands all on the centre of the face, and of 
different lengths, with their ends turned up into the 
same plane, and tipped with cork smeared with print- 
er’s ink. In front is a track upon which, when a 
seismoscope closes a circuit, a carriage travels up and 


Hie. 4. 


SCIENCE. , 


[Vor. IV., No. 96. 


presents a disk to the face, and then backs off again, 
carrying an impression of the instantaneous position 
of the three hands, and leaving the clock to go on — 
undisturbed. 

The closing chapter treats of the constructive de- 
tails and requirements of a seismological observatory ; 
and a series of experiments by Professors Milne and 
Gray are noticed, in which it was sought to deter- 
mine, by a series of artificial earthquakes (dropping 
heavy weights in a foundery, and exploding buried 
cartridges of dynamite) in connection with time- 
recording seismometers, the velocity of transmission 
through the ground. These gave 438 feet per second 
for normal, and 357 feet per second for transverse, 
waves. This was through hardened mud. Mallet’s 
earlier experiments gave for sand 825 feet, for jointed 
granite 1,306 feet, and for solid granite 1,665 feet, per 
second. The last, Professor Ewing remarks, is prob- 
ably very much too low. 

This element of earthquake motion, the velocity 
of transinission through the earth’s crust, is very in- 
exactly known; and the author notes the desirability 
of extending the observation of earthquakes over a 
considerable region of such a country as Japan by 
means of many stations connected by telegraph, to 
which simultaneous time-signals can be sent, and 
at which the same earthquake may be recorded on 
rotating plates, together with a record of the absolute 
time. These, if sufficiently widely distributed and 
numerous enough, would give us valuable data re- 
garding the latitude, longitude, depth, and time of 
the origin of the disturbance, and the velocity of its 
transmission to the surface in all directions, suppos- 
ing it rectilinear and uniform. Regarding the possi- 
bility of this, Professor Ewing, in the article referred 
to above (Nature, June 19, 1884), speaks as follows : 
“But all this depends upon our being able to recog- 
nize at the various stations, some one wave out of 
the complex records deposited at each; and, especial- 
ly in view of the curvilinear nature of the motion, 
it would be hazardous to say, without trial, whether 
this can be done.”’ 

In conclusion it may be said ,that the whole work is 
exceedingly interesting and valuable; and Professor 
Ewing is to be highly commended for thus bringing 
together the best results of modern methods in exact 
seismometry, and for showing the sources of error 
and the fallacies in older methods and theories. The 
work should receive as wide a distribution as possible 
by the University of Tokio. H. M. PAUL. 


EXCURSION MAP OF THE VICINITY 
OF BALTIMORE. 


THE need has long been felt, among those students 
of the Johns Hopkins university who are especially 
interested in the study of natural history, of a relia- 
ble map of the adjoining country, on a suitable scale, 
and so mounted as to be adapted for convenient pocket 
use, ‘It is believed that a few words regarding the 
method by which the want of it has been recently 


DECEMBER 5, 1884. ] 


supplied in Baltimore, will have more than a merely 
local interest. 

The students and instructors of the university 
whose work naturally inclines them to out-of-door 
explorations are associated in what is known as the 
Naturalists’ field-club; and it was decided by the 
members of this club, that a map on a scale of a 
mile to the inch, covering an area twenty-five miles 
square, with the city-hall of Baltimore as its central 
point, would amply supply all present needs. The 
difficulties in the way of the construction of such a 
map were, however, considerable. The cartographic 
materials already existing were very fragmental, and 
varied much in their form, scale, and reliability, while 
the great cost of a new survey of so large an area 
was out of the question. Mr. Albert L. Webster, 
however, who had had four years’ experience as topog- 
rapher on the U.S. geological survey, submitted a 
plan to the trustees of the university, which met 
with their hearty approval. ; 

All maps, of whatsoever kind, relating to the area 
in question, were collected and carefully compared, 
the most accurate of them being reduced toa uniform 
scale. A drawing on the scale of two inches toa 
mile was then commenced, upon which, however, 
only the most reliable material—the work of the 
U.S. coast-survey, which covered about one-third of 
the entire area — was incorporated. The remainder 
of this drawing was left blank, with the intention of 
placing upon it in future only such material as is up 
to the standard of the coast-survey work. For the 
remaining two-thirds of the area a tracing was made 
from the best existing sources, and the two together 
(drawing and tracing) reduced one-half, and photo- 
lithographed. The present published map, therefore, 
is on a scale of one mile to an inch, and represents 
the best existing information relating to the vicinity 
of Baltimore. It is, however, not in any way to be 
regarded as complete or final, but only as the first 
step toward the attainment of a really good repre- 
sentation of the region. It is doubtless faulty in 
many particulars, and is certainly very deficient in 
showing no topography. With a view to its improve- 
ment, any suggestions relating to either details or the 
general character of the map, as well as any infor- 
mation regarding accurately determined elevations 
within the area, are earnestly solicited from all per- 
sons who may make use of it. In this way it is 
hoped that the map may be a constant growth, im- 
proving year by year through the criticism and sug- 
gestions of those interested in it. 

After the original drawing has oncé been made, the 
cost of embodying improvements and publishing suc- 
cessive editions is not large, and may easily be de- 
frayed by the sale, at a moderate price, of the printed 
copies. The Baltimore maps, cut into sections and 
mounted on linen, folding intoa pocket-case, are sold 
at a dollar each. 

These details are given in the hope of eliciting 
suggestions, or of inciting similar ciubs, in other cities 
where a good map is as much needed as in Baltimore, 
to start the development of something of the same 
kind. 


SCIENCE. 


519 


THE NEW-YORK AGRICULTURAL STA- 
TION. 


Second annual report of the board of control of the 
New-York agricultural experiment-station for the 
year 1883, with the reports of the director and offi- 
cers. Albany, Weed, Parsons, & Co., pr., 1854. 
ZEON amO 
In the space at our command it is impossi- 

ble to make any adequate review of the large 
amount of valuable work which we find in the 
New-York report. In general it may be said 
that it partakes of the characters of both the 
classes of experiments spoken of in our com- 
ments on p. 509. Some of it lies on the 
border-land between the two, yielding results 
of more or less immediate value to both science 
and practice. We include here such experi- 
ments as those upon methods of cutting seed- 
potatoes ; the influence of depth, and distance 
apart, of planting, upon the crop; the effects 
of mulching, cultivation, root-pruning, and the 
like. Others are more distinctively scientific 
in their aim, such as the lysimeter observa- 
tions, the notes on hybridization in maize, the 
experiments upon the influence of food upon 
milk and butter production, etc. 

Perhaps the most noteworthy portion of the 
report is its proposed method of classification 
of artificial varieties of plants for purposes of 
identification. This method is based on the 
belief, confirmed by two years’ observations, 
that those portions of the plant for whose 
sake it is especially cultivated are compara- 
tively constant in form within the same variety, 
under the circumstances of cultivation, while 
the agriculturally unimportant parts may show 
considerable variations. For example: the 
roots of any particular variety of beet will 
show comparatively little variation, while the 
tops may present very considerable differences. 
Artificial selection has here impressed certain 
desired qualities upon the root, but paid little 
or no attention to the tops. 

Proceeding upon this belief, it is proposed 
to base the classification in ‘ agricultural bota- 
ny’ upon the agriculturally important part of 
the plant. Thus all root-crops would be united 
into one class, irrespective of their ordinary 
botanical relationships, this class to be sub- 
divided into smaller groups in accordance 
with the form of the root. 

Such a method of classification for a par- 
ticular purpose would appear to be legitimate. 
Its final justification is to be sought in its 
success, and of this it is too early to judge. 
When the observations shall have been ex- 
tended over a term of years, and the constancy 


520 


of varieties established, agricultural botany 
may prove of much value to the farmer, gar- 
dener, and seedsman. Until then it belongs 
in the category of hopeful experiments. 


MINOR BOOK NOTICES. 


A treatise on the adjustment of observations, with appli- 
cations to geodetic work and other measures of pre- 
cision. By T. W. Wricut, B.A., late assistant 
engineer U.S. lake-survey. New York, Van 
Nostrand, 1884. 437 p. 8°. 


Tue student of the method of least squares 
often fails to grasp the true meaning and sig- 
nificance of the method, from the want of illus- 
tration and well-chosen applications. The chief 
merit of Mr. Wright’s book is in the collection 
of examples which have been drawn from the 
records of actual work in which the author has 
been engaged. Besides the application of the 
methods of least squares to the results of 
triangulation and of levelling, a chapter is 
devoted to these methods in relation to line- 
measures in general, and to the calibration of 
thermometers. 

There are some observers who are tempted 
to believe in the infallibility of certain criteria 
proposed by different writers for the determi- 
nation of the weight of observations. There 
are others who reject the mathematical criteria, 
and prefer graphical methods as guides to a 
correct judgment. Mr. Wright is one of those 
who prefer to look at observations from the 
‘practical observer's point of view. His treatise 
will therefore be of interest to the mathemati- 
cian who desires to frame criteria which will 
represent more closely the results of experience, 
and will prove of great utility to the practical 
man. 


Recent progress in dynamo-electrie machines, being a 
supplement to dynamo-electric machinery. By Prof. 
SyLvaNnus P. THompson. New York, Van Nos- 
trand, 1884. (Van Nostrand sc. ser., No. 75.) 
113°p., illustr. 24°. 

Tue writers who rapidly assimilate the ad- 
vances in electrical engineering, and present 
their knowledge to the public in an intelligible 
way, are doing very useful work. ‘The treatises 
of Professor Thompson are increasing upon 
the electrician’s book-shelf. The time has not 
arrived for a standard treatise on electrical en- 
gineering, on account of the rapid changes and 
development of the subject. Until we can 
have such a standard treatise, we must rely 
upon brochures like this latest production of 
Professor Thompson. 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No: 96. 


The reader will find in it an account of Mr. 
Hopkinson’s modification of the Edison dyna- 
mo, and also a description of the latest modi- 
fications of the Gulcher machine, and also of 
the ‘Thomson-Ferranti machine. 


Wonders and curiosities of the raiiway; or, Stories 
of the locomotive in every land. By WILLIAM 
SLOANE KENNEDY. Chicago, Griggs, 1884. 
16-4254 p. 12°. 

Onz is a little startled, on opening this book, 
to find mentioned the ‘‘ huge, ample-shadowed 
foundry ; the peculiar fragrance of burnt earth 
and iron ; . the boy controlling the huge 
steam-hammer;.. . and, finally, the great crane 
that lifts up the monster in chains, and carries 
it to the doorway, and sets it down in all the 
resplendence of its polish and paint, ready to 
begin its thirty years of toil,’’ with nothing 
predicated of: them; but is relieved immedi- 
ately by the statement that ‘this is the build- 
ing of the locomotive.’ This introductory 
chapter, in which ‘our old Homeric poet 
Whitman’ receives praise, and which may 
have been written by him, should not, however, 
deter the reader from going de€per into the 
book. From chapter ii. on, the writer tells 
the anecdotes he has collected in regard to 
the railway, and has succeeded in bringing 
together a most entertaining collection. The 
account given of the Quincy railway must 
change the impression that many have of that 
so-called ‘ first American railroad.’ ‘The chap- 
ter on the ‘ locomotive in slippers’ is devoted 
to the history of the railway in the east, and at 
times is especially amusing. The author also 
touches upon the ‘ vertical railway’ (the eleva- 
tor), upon the various mountain railways, and 
upon the recent attempts to use electricity as 
a transmitter of power. 3 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


A CONFERENCE to formulate plans for the syste- 
matic observation and discussion of earthquakes was 
recently held in the rooms of the U.S. geological 
survey in Washington, at which there were present 
Messrs. Powell, Dutton, and Gilbert, of the survey, 
Abbé and Marvin of the signal-service, Paul of the 
naval observatory, Rockwood of Princeton, and Davis 
of Harvard college. It was decided that three classes 


of observations should be attempted; the first class 


consisting of those made by self-registering seismom- 


eters of approved pattern, upon which Messrs. Paul, — 


Rockwood, and Marvin are to report at an early date. 


The second-class observations will be chiefly to deter- — 


mine the time of shock, probably by means of a 


Slew a? ‘heierc Mil Mac leli ae ail all 


| 


a 


DECEMBER 5, 1884. ] 


seismograph of relatively moderate cost. The third 
¢lass will include ordinary non-instrumental observa- 
tions according to a system to be prepared by Pro- 
fessor Rockwood. It is expected that a considerable 
number of the first and second class instruments will 
be maintained by co-operation of public institutions 
and government bureaus, at observatories, physical 
laboratories, army arsenals and signal-service sta- 
tions, and navy-yards ; while the instructions for the 
general observations will be sent to all the regular 
and volunteer observers of the signal-service, the 
members of the state weather services, and to all 
others who desire to aid in the work. In order to 
concentrate work on the most profitable districts, a 
chart of recorded shocks will be prepared by Professor 
Rockwood; and the selection of stations will then be 
discussed by Messrs. Rockwood, Abbe, and Davis. 
Further studies will be undertaken on the matters 
of bibliography, previous observations, and instru- 
ments; the whole work being under the direction of 
the geological survey. 

— The recent works of the U.S. geological survey, 
and especially the remarkable report of Capt. Dut- 
ton, have given an opportunity to Professor Traut- 
schold of Moscow to draw a parallel between the 
geological structure of Colorado and that of European 
Russia, which appears in the bulletin of the Moscow 
society of naturalists. In Russia the Silurian, 
Deyonian, carboniferous limestone, and lower Per- 
mian series are marine deposits, while the upper 
Permian is of fresh-water or terrestrial origin. The 
trias and lower Jurassic rocks are also continental 
deposits, or seem to be so to a great extent, while 
the upper Jurassic groups are again of marine origin, 
as is also the chalk, which contains only islands with 
land vegetation. Three parts of the tertiary series 
consist of terrestrial and fresh-water deposits, marine 
deposits appearing only in the south; and the qua- 
ternary is also a continental formation. Such being, 
according to Professor Trautschold, the structure of 
Russia, he had already concluded that in the north- 
ern hemisphere there was a general retreat of the 
sea during paleozoic times, and a growth of conti- 
nents, upon which the carboniferous and then the 
Permian. fioras largely increased; European Russia 
being, during the triassic and the first half of the 
Jurassic periods, a continent with nearly the same 
outlines as now. During the second half of the 
Jurassic period, another subsidence of the continent, 
and an advance by it into the northern hemisphere, 
again took place; without reaching, however, the 
same level that it had had during the paleozoic 
period, the sea remaining shallow. A second retreat 
of the water took place during the tertiary and 
quaternary periods. Similar oscillations might well 
explain, in Professor Trautschold’s opinion, the 
structure of the Grand Cafion district, where the 
connection between the Jurassic and triassic is as 
close as in Russia. 

— From recent experiments to determine the abso- 
lute force of the flexor muscles of decapod crusta- 
ceans, Professor Felix Plateau of Gand, Belgium, 
concludes that the absolute or static force of the 


SCIENCE. 


a21 


muscles of the claws of crabs is relatively weak, and 
that while the adductor muscles of some lamelli- 
branchs are comparable with those of mammals, and 
others with the more powerful muscles of the frog, 
the muscles of the claws of crustaceans can be com- 
pared only with the weakest muscles of the frog. 
The relation between 
the absolute force of 
the muscles of man 
and the greatest pow- 
er Plateau had ob- 
served in the crusta- 
ceans, convinced him 
that the contractile 
force of the muscular 
fibre is not the same 
in all animals. Ar- 
thropods are inferior 
in this respect to 
mammals and to la- 
mellibranechs. Crus- 
taceans, like insects, 
have in proportion to 
their weight much 
greater power than 
the vertebrates. 
When experimented 
on, as in the figure 
given, he found that 
common crabs could raise from one to two and a half 
kilograms, representing a force which he thought 
clearly explained the mishaps undergone by these 
animals. 


— The women medical students of Paris have pre- 
sented a petition to the authorities for permission to 
walk the hospitals, and become house-surgeons there- 
in. The petition is supported by a considerable num- 
ber of physicians and surgeons. 


— The ship Occidental, at San Francisco, Nov. 14, 
reports, ‘‘ At six p.mM., Nov. 4, a hundred and fifty 
miles off Mendocino, Cal., had three shocks of earth- 
quake, and a few hours later two more heavy ones.”’ 


— Mr. E. Knipping, meteorologist of the Imperial 
meteorological observatory at Tokio, describes in the 
September number of the Mittheilungen der deutschen 
gesellschafl fur natur- und volkerkunde Ostasiens, the 
rapid development of weather telegraphy in Japan. 
There are now twenty-four stations in the empire 
connected by telegraph; and on the basis of their 
observations, supplemented by despatches from China, 
three daily synoptical maps are published in Japanese 
and English characters. Observations are taken at 
six A.M., and two and nine P.M., ‘ Japan’ time, which 
is about that of the Kioto meridian; so that the even- 
ing observation corresponds to eight o’clock ‘China 
coast’ time, six o’clock ‘ Bengal’ time, four o’cloek 
‘Persian’ time, one o’clock ‘ German’ time, and noon 
in ‘English’ (Greenwich) time. The director of the 
service is Mr. I. Arai; and the observers, telegraphers, 
draughtsmen, and printers are all Japanese. The 
first weather-map was printed on March 1, 1883, and 
the tri-daily issue began a month later. The chief 


522 


need of the service at present is the addition of the 
fifty-six lighthouses to the other stations, and the 
construction of a submarine cable to the Liukiu (Loo 
Choo) Islands. 


— The first part of the Atlas of the western- 
middle anthracite coal-field has lately been issued by 
the Second geological survey of Pennsylvania, the 
work being in charge of Mr. C. A. Ashburner. It 
comprises the district between Ashland and Mahanoy 


City, and is in the same style of construction as the 


atlas of the Panther-creek basin, of which mention 
has already been made in Science (i. 309). The new 
maps fully maintain the high standard of accuracy, 
and the careful distinction between observation and 
inference that characterized the earlier number of 
this important contribution to practical geology. The 
atlas includes four mine-sheets (1:9,600, with under- 
ground fifty-foot contours of mammoth coal-bed), 
three topographical sheets (1:19,200, with surface 
form in ten-foot contours), and four cross-section 
sheets (scale, 1: 4,800). The reference-lines, marking 
out squares of two thousand feet on a side, are now 
properly adjusted to the true meridian, instead of to 
the loca] and temporary magnetic north, as before; 
and the ground-colors representing the geological sub- 
divisions are changed to tints of rather more agree- 
able tone. The full indication of the known facts on 
the basis of which the area and altitude of the coal- 
beds are represented, and their careful separation 
from hypothetical lines of outcrop and dip, make it 
possible for both the practical and the theoretical 
geologist to use these sheets with as little effect as 
possible from the personal equations of those who 
made the maps. SBesides being issued, folded in the 
octavo atlas, the sheets can be bought, unfolded and 
singly, at simple cost of printing, — about fifteen 
cents apiece. 


—In a recent lecture upon the languages of the 
American aborigines before the Lowell institute in 
Boston, Prof. D. G. Brinton endeavored to show the 
general characteristics of the American languages to 
be synthesis, or the blending of a number of words 
into ones incorporation, or the absorption by the verb 
of both subject and object; and the peculiar use of 
pronouns. Other features were described and illus- 
trated, such as the absence of grammatical gender 
and of the true substantive verb, the rarity of nu- 
merals and of the true adjective, and the difference 
in the speech of the two sexes and of different ages and 
classes. In spite, however, of the absence of all ety- 
mology, these languages are very interesting. While 
they lack in parts of speech, they are rich in themes 
and ideas. They were shown to compare favorably 
with European languages in respect to their vocabu- 
laries and their ability to express abstract ideas, but 
to be deficient in respect to sentence-building. The 
lecturer claimed, however, that the importance of 
any language depended upon the use that was made 
of it. After showing that unwritten language is not 
necessarily liable to the greatest changes and fluctua- 
tions, and that language forms a satisfactory basis 
for studying the laws of ethnology, the characteristic 
features of the principal aboriginal tribes of North 


SCIENCE. 


awe Fw 


[Vou. IV., No. 96. 


America were briefly sketched, and the peculiarities 
of their language described. The Narwatal language 
of Mexico was asserted to be the only aboriginal 
American language for which a regular professor- 
ship had been established in any university. The 
literature which survives, of the native languages of 
Mexico and Central America, was described. The 
lecturer closed by urging those who wished to study 
the American languages to do so at once, as the time 
was not far distant when these languages would have 
entirely disappeared. 

— Professor Liversidge of the Sydney university, 
says Nature, sends to the local press a suggestive 
communication, in connection with the recent meet- 
ing of the British association in Montreal and the 
invitation forwarded by the Victorian premier to visit 
Melbourne next year. Feeling how insurmountable, 
for the present, are the obstacles to such a visit, the 
writer proposes what appears to be a very wise alter- 
native. Instead of looking forward to a near visit 
from the association, he suggests as a preliminary 
step a federation of the various scientific societies in 
Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, into an Aus- 
tralasian association for the advancement of science, 
on the lines of the British association. <A first meet- 
ing of the new association might be held in Sydney 
on the hundredth anniversary of the colony; which, 
with the combined attractions of an international 
exhibition, might induce a fair number of scientific 
visitors from England to take part in the proceedings. 
After the first meeting, gatherings could take place 
annually, or every two or three years, as might be 
agreed upon by the members, in various parts of 
Australasia. The writer concludes with the remark, 
which few will gainsay, that such an association 
would tend greatly to advance the sciences in the 
colonies, and in many ways materially favor their 
progress elsewhere. 


—Dr. Kollmann announces a law of correlation 


governing the form of the face of European man. 
Two modern Swiss skulls from the collection at Basle, 
which may be duplicated in any collection of Euro- 
pean crania, represent two types existing in the 
present population of Europe, —the broad-faced 
(chamaeprosope of the craniologist), and the narrow- 
faced (leptoprosope of craniology). The broad-faced 
variety is wide between the eyes, with broad low 
orbits, short nose with low bridge, wide nostrils, and 
broad mouth. The narrow-faced variety has slender 
features, round open orbits with eyes set near togeth- 
er, long nose with high bridge, narrow nostrils, and 
small mouth. Either variety, if pure, will present its 
characteristic features, while, if crossed, the degree of 
mixture may be determined by the number of features 
varying, and the amount of variation from the gen- 
eral type. 


— Professor Haynes requests us to state that the — 
closing sentence of his letter on p. 469should read, — 
‘““There is no doubt whatsoever that it is the relics — 


of men very like those first found by Europeans on 
this continent, which Mr. Jacob Messikommer will 
help any one, as he did the writer, to disinter from 
the peat-moor of Robenhausen.”’ 


mee Nae. 


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


THE QUESTION of manual training is begin- 
ning to receive in this country the attention 
it deserves. Among the indications of this 
fact, we point to the experiments which are 
in progress in New York, Philadelphia, St. 
Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, and other impor- 
tant cities; to the admirable debate (never, 
we believe, adequately reported) which oc- 
curred in the section of mechanics at the 
Philadelphia meeting of the American associa- 
tion; to the report presented to congress a 
year or more ago on technical education, by 
Gen. Eaton, the U.S. commissioner; to the 
interest which has been awakened by the Brit- 
_ish-commission report on the same subject, 
of which three volumes have appeared ; and, 
finally, to the action of the Slater trustees in 
insisting that the income which they distribute 
among the schools for freedmen shall only be 
given to schools where manual labor or handi- 
craft is encouraged. 


Some light is thrown upon principles and 
methods by a recent paper on technical educa- 
tion, by David Sandeman and EK. M. Dixon 
of Glasgow. They discuss the relations of 
the elementary school and the work-shop ; 
second, the part which secondary schools may 
take in preparing boys for industrial pursuits ; 
third, the sphere of school work-shops or tech- 
nical schools. Their conclusions, which are 
of general interest, though intended only for 
Scotland, are briefly stated, as follows: Every 
child should have as good a general education 
as he can get; as circumstances differ, schools 
must be adapted to different wants of the 
industrial classes ; there should be elementary 
schools for children less than thirteen years 
old, secondary schools for more who can con- 
tinue to study until they are sixteen; and, in 

No. 97. — 1884. 


both, school work-shops should be established ; 
apprenticeships might thus be reduced in time ; 
finally, trades should be taught systematically 
to the young, after they leave school, either in 
a work-shop or in a special building detached 
from a work-shop, as experience may suggest. 


AN ARGUMENT which did good duty during 
the dark ages, but which has fallen into disuse 
in later times, has seldom been more naively 
employed than in the following passage, taken 
from a little book just published, ‘ On the dis- 
covery of the periodic law : ? — 


‘* Are the atomic weights invariable? This ques- 
tion must most probably be answered in the affirma- 
tive. If the atomic weight of an element varies, such 
variation is most likely very slight, otherwise the 
simple relation between the atomic weights of the 
elements when arranged in their natural order would 
be liable to be disturbed.”’ 


Mr. Newlands (late professor of chemistry 
in the City of London college), who is the 
author of the above passage, is also a claimant 
to the honor of having discovered Mendc- 
lejew’s periodic law. How far chemists were 
from suspecting the truth of that law in 1866, 
appears from the fact, that, at a meeting of the 
Chemical society, Prof. G. F. Foster humor- 
ously inquired of Mr. Newlands whether he 
had ever examined the elements according to 
the order of their initial letters. 


How mucu brighter is sun than moon? Can 
anybody tell? Has anybody tried to tell? 
What shall be the standard of measurement? 
Sir William Thomson has lately printed a note 
which conveys some curious data bearing on 
these questions. During the meeting of the 
British association at York in 1881, he ob- 
served the moon when it was nearly full, and 
at about midnight. He found the light to be 
equal to that of a candle at a distance of two 
hundred and thirty centimetres. Making no 
account of the loss of moonlight in transmis- 


o24 


sion through the earth’s atmosphere, he com- 
puted that twenty-seven thousand million million 
candles must be spread over the moon’s earth- 
ward hemisphere, painted black, to send us as 
much light as we receive from her. Probably 
forty thousand million million candles would 
be required to allow for absorption. Sir Wil- 
liam carried his computations a little farther, 
and figured, that, if the face of the moon which 
we see were painted black, and covered with 
candles standing packed in square order, touch- 
ing one another, all burning normally, the light 
received at the earth would be about the same 
in quantity (as estimated by our eyes) as it 
really is. 


How does moonlight compare with sunlight? 
On the 8th of December, 1882, Sir William 
Thomson in Glasgow measured the brilliancy 
of the sunlight at one p.m., and computed that 
it was about fifty-three thousand times greater 
than that of a candle-flame. ‘This, he says, is 
more than three times the value found by 
Arago for the intensity of the sun’s light. 
‘So much for a Glasgow December sun!’ 
Hence he derived the conclusions that the Glas- 
gow sunlight was seventy-one thousand times 
the York moonlight, and that ‘‘ we cannot be 
very far wrong in estimating the light of full 
moon as about a seventy-thousandth of the 
sunlight anywhere on the earth.’’ ‘Those who 
are curious to know more of this inquiry will 
find the note to which we call attention in the 
proceedings of the Glasgow philosophical so- 
ciety for 1882-83. 


LETTERS TO THE’ EDITOR. 


«*x Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 
writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 


The oldest living type of vertebrates. 


I wASs gratified to have my own conclusions as to 
the systematic relations of the galeoid Selachians 
verified by so competent an original investigator as 
Mr. Garman. The differences between us now are 
fictitious rather than real; or better, perhaps, they 
are chiefly differenees of expression. 

As to the characters of the Opistharthri, it must be 
remembered that I assigned them long before Chlamy- 
doselachus was known; and then the statement that 
among living sharks they ‘ alone exhibit’ the ‘ ' peculi- 
arities’ specified, was literally true. 


SCIENCE. 


. Rhinae. 


[Vou. IV., No. 97. 


‘The: palato-quadrate, not articulated with the 
skull,’ is a true character of the typical sharks and 
Of course the apparatus, being the suspen- 
sorium of the lower jaw, must have some connection 
with the cranium; but it is indirect, and not direct. 
The name ‘ Anarthri’ is therefore quite appropriate, 
contrasting well with ‘ Opistharthri’ and ‘ Proarthri.’ 
The newly proposed term, ‘ Mesarthri,’ is, however, 
unobjectionable, although I should still, independ- 
ent of priority, prefer Anarthri. No one who took 
an intelligent interest in the subjects in question 
would be misled by the name ‘ Anarthri,’ or the diag- 
noses of the Anarthri and Rhinae. 

I must dissent from the opinion that the Clado- 
dontidae are related to the Chlamydoselachidae rather 
than to the Hybodontidae. ‘To traverse the question 
would, however, infringe too much on your space. 

Mr. Garman, in his substitute for my provisional 
diagnosis of the Selachophichthyoidei, ‘vertebral 
condition unknown,’ has added to.our knowledge of 
the group by verifying my suggestion (Science, April 
11, 1884) that the ‘‘anatomy will probably reveal a 
structure most like that of the Opistharthri.”’ 

I am pleased to find that the views of Mr. Garman 
as to the remoteness of the Xenacanthini or Ich- 
thyolomi from the true selachians agree with those 
expressed by myself. The Xenacanthini, in fact, 
appear to me to be true fishes rather than selachians, 
although not teleosts, as has lately been urged. 

THEO. GILL. 


Hornblende andesite from the new Bogosloff 
volcano. 


A short time since, there were received at the Na- 
tional museum, from Lieut. George M. Stoney of the 
Ounalaska, several fragments of rock from the new 
volcano on Bogosloff Island in Bering Sea. On ac- 
count of the interest just now attached to this locality, 
it is thought a brief notice of these may not be out 
of place here. 

The rocks are hornblende andesites. Two varieties 
were received, — one very light gray and slightly pur- 
plish in color, fine-grained, friable, and somewhat 
porous; the other dark gray in color, and much more 
firm and compact in texture; both varieties contain- 
ing macroscopic hornblende and plagioclase, and, un- 
der the microscope, seen to be nearly identical, each 
consisting of a gray groundmass in which are em- 
bedded deep reddish-brown, strongly dichroic horn- 
blendes, light green augites, and numerous crystals 
of a plagioclase felspar. Sanidin is also present, a 
very little apatite, and the usual sprinkling of iron 
oxides, which seem to be largely magnetite. The 
groundmass consists of a microfelsitic base, carrying 
colorless microlites, grains of opacite, and minute 
yellowish and greenish particles which are probably 
hornblende and augite. The light-colored variety 
contains small patches of a nearly colorless glass, 
while the dark variety seems felsitic throughout. A 
more detailed description of these rocks will be given 
later. Gro. P. MERRILL. | 


National museum, Washington, 
Dec. 1. 


Edison’s three-wire system of distribution. 


Referring to the article with the above heading 
in No. 94 of Science (Nov. 21), it is not difficult to 
show that the conclusions reached are not in har- 
mony. with the fundamental : proposition governing 
the size of electric conductors. . This proposition is, 
that ‘‘the additional running-expense due to the re. 
sistance of the conductor shall equal the interest on — 


DECEMBER 12, 1884.] 


its first cost.’”? The correctness of the principle has 
heen established by Sir William Thomson and oth- 
ers. 

In the three-wire system, Edison reduces the cur- 
rent to one-half its value in the two-wire system, 
and increases the total resistance of the same number 
of lamps to four times the former value, by the ar- 
rangement shown in the second diagram of the arti- 
cle referred to. The total heat-energy developed in 
the lamps, then, remains the same, since it is rep- 
resented by C°r, where r is the combined resistance 
of the lamps in multiple arc. The inference is, that 
the resistance of the leading wires should also be 
increased fourfold. In the articles referred to at the 
bottom of the page; it is shown that the cross-section 
of the conductor should vary simply as the current 
strength. Hence the conductors in Edison’s three- 
wire system should be diminished only one-half in 
size for greatest economy of working. That this is 
entirely correct will appear from an examination of 
the energy expended in heating the leading wires in 
the several cases. In the two-wire system 


ee 1 
Rtr (1) 
in which R and r are the resistance of conductors 


and lamps respectively. In the three-wire system as 
arranged by Edison 


C= 


Ve as (2) 
4R + 4r 
In the three-wire system, with conductors half size, 
so = me (3) 
2R + 4r 


in which £’ equals the electromotive force of each of 
the two dynamos inseries. This electromotive force 
can be lower than in cases one and two. From (1), 
EH=CR+ Cr, and EC= C?R + C?r, for total elec- 
trical energy expended; the first term being the heat- 
waste in the conductors, and the second the energy 
expended in the lamps. 

From (2), H=CR+ Cr, as before. The total en- 
ergy is 3C.2H—= CE, the same as before. From (3), 
E’=3CR-+ Cr, and the total electrical energy is 
$0.2 = CH’ =3C?R+ C*r, The energy expend- 
ed upon the lamps is the same in the three cases, 
being represented by Cr; but in the third case the 
heat-waste is +C?R, or only one-half as much as in 
the other cases. In Edison’s arrangement the ratio 
between energy expended in the lamps, and _ heat- 
waste in the mains, is the same in his three-wire 
system as in the two-wire system. If the conductors 
be reduced to only half their former cross-section, 
the ratio of heat expended in conductors to heat 
developed in lamps is only half as great as before. 
Edison saves 62.5% of the cost of conductors, or 62.5% 
of the interest on their cost, the running-expenses 
remaining the same. With half-size conductors, the 
saving would be 25% in interest on cost of conductors, 
and 50% in heat-waste on conductors, or a total of 75%, 
—a gain of 12.5% over the plan adopted by Edison. 
Moreover, the electromotive force of each machine 
being lower, the dynamos could be reduced in size, 
and their cost would be less. In reducing the con- 
ductors three-fourths in cross-section, the rise of 
temperature for the same quantity of heat developed 
in them is four times as great as in the two-wire sys- 
tem, since their capacity for heat is reduced to one- 
fourth. In the case of conductors reduced one-half 
in size, the rise of temperature would be the same as 


1 Naturé, vol. xxiv. p. 489; American engineer, Nov. 7, 1834. 


SCIENCE. 


525 


with the two-wire plan, since the energy expended 
in heating them is one-half, and their thermal capacity 
is also one-half. We have supposed, in the calculated 
economy, that the three wires are all of the same size. 
Their combined cross-section would then be #.4= % 
of the combined cross-section of the two wires in 
the first plan. The saving in interest on conductors 
would then be 25%. Edison sacrifices running-ex- 
penses in order to diminish the size of his conductors 
beyond what is clearly the most economical arrange- 
ment. We take it for granted that the principle of 
making loss by heat-waste in conductors equal to 
interest on their first cost was taken into account in 
calculating the size of conductors in the two-wire 
plan. H. S. CARHART. 
Evanston, Ill., Dec. 1. 


CAN GHOSTS BE INVESTIGATED? 


In the last number of Science, Mr. Gurney, 
honorary secretary of the Society for psychical 
research, replies to my paper in Science of Oct. 
17, 1884. ‘To one whose experience has been 
that scientific discussion is often nugatory be- 
cause the parties sedulously refuse to under- 
stand each other, it is a great pleasure to read 
Mr. Gurney’s paper. ‘The reader who com- 
pares it with my own, will, I think, have a fair 
view of the two sides of the question from the 
special point of view which we have heretofore 
taken. I therefore ask permission to consider 
the subject from a somewhat different stand- 
point. 

When one adduces evidence in favor of telep- 
athy between living persons, each having the 
other in mind, I am prepared to listen in the 
spirit of one who feels that there may be many 
things on earth not yet dreamed of in our 
philosophy. But when an imposing array of 
evidence is presented, tending to show telep- 
athy between a live man and a dead one, I 
must frankly confess that I cannot help receiv- 
ing it in the spirit of the African monarch of 
whom the following story is told. He had 
captured a Dutchman who had been trespass- 
ing on his territory, and was about to put him 
to death. The prisoner, however, like the 
heroine of the ‘ Arabian nights,’ managed to 
postpone the fatal day from time to time by 
inventing stories about the wonders of civili- 
zation with which to regale the royal mind. 
When his inventive powers had reached their 
limit, he felt obliged to fall back upon facts, 


526 


and so told the king that the water in the lakes 
and rivers of his native country annually be- 
came so hard that people walked and drove 
upon it. The king, in a fit of rage, informed 
the Dutchman that he not only did not. believe 
this story, but now he did not believe any thing 
he had been telling him, and ordered him to 
immediate execution. The reader can point 
the moral. 

Let us now inquire whether the ghost side 
of telepathy can possibly be established by the 
methods hitherto employed for that purpose. 
I will start out by trying to answer the ques- 
tion asked Mr. Gurney in the last number, 
respecting the probable number of respectable 
credible people in the British Islands who 
would not be above amusing themselves at the 
expense of a learned society. Without waiting 
for his reply, I roughly estimate that the num- 
ber of respectable credible people alluded to 
exceeds fifteen million. Knowing what we do 
of human nature, I conceive that it will not be 
considered excessive to suppose that one out 
of every thousand would come into the category 
in question. ‘This would give fifteen thousand 
people who would be capable of the pleasantry 
alluded to. It must be expected that some of 
them would forward replies to such requests 
for information as have been circulated in Eng- 
land. How are the reports of such people to 
be eliminated from the mass? It will be hard 
to establish even the possibility of detecting 
the frauds. 

It may be asked in reply whether the con- 
clusion thus intimated, if extended to other 
departments of inquiry, would not lead to a 
general lack of confidence between man and 
man, and to an unjustifiable incredulity in 
regard to human testimony in a very wide field. 
My reply is, that there are wide fields in which 
human testimony would be wholly unreliable, 
but that methods for eliminating the false, and 
preserving the true, have come into use. These 
methods are so common and familiar that we 
forget all about them. Let us suppose that a 
paleontological society should advertise for 
human skulls found in the tertiary deposits of 
a country. Suppose, also, that any ingenious 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. IV., No. 97._ 


person could in fifteen minutes manufacture a 
skull which the most diligent investigation of 
paleontologists could not distinguish from a 
genuine fossil. Can any one doubt that the 
society would be deluged with skulls? Could 
any investigator be made to believe in a single 
one of them? I trow not. The fact is, that the 
only security that paleontologists have from be- 
ing imposed upon by manufactured specimens 
lies in their power of distinguishing at a glance 
the true from the false. When, as in a case 
known to the writer, a man who has spent 
several months in elaborating a row of fossil 
bird-tracks brings his production to a museum, 
and is informed on sight by the professor in 
charge that this specimen is very interesting, 
because he recognizes the tracks as those of 
the domestic turkey, it produces a depressing 
effect upon all manufactures of this class. 
When psychic zoography is so far developed 
that a spurious ghost can be distinguished from 
a real one with the readiness with which 
Cuvier is said to have detected a spurious 
devil, there will be some outlook for establish- 
ing the existence of such beings. For this 
stage the reasonably incredulous will be likely 
to wait. 

I have spoken as though the question were 
that of intentional deception. In fact, how- 
ever, it is hardly necessary to suppose any 
thing of the sort. It is only the fortunate few 
of mankind who are not subject to lapses of 
memory, and illusions respecting the time and 
place at which events have happened, as well 
as to illusions of the senses. So far is this 
true, that a prudent person will rarely trust im- 
plicitly to a presentation of any complicated 
statement made by another, unless it is verified 
by independent evidence. If two persons 
could see and describe the same psychic phe- 
nomenon, the case might be better; but, as 
it really stands, there is no way of eliminating 
delusions, deceptions, or mistakes of any kind. 

There is, however, a conceivable method by 
which every thing except intentional deception © 
may be avoided. Let any psychical society 
issue to the people of a country a request that 
any person impressed in an unusual manner, 


DECEMBER 12, 1884.| 


whether in his sleeping or waking hours, with 
the apparent sight or presence of a person 
whom he knows, shall immediately, without 
waiting for further investigation, state that 
fact on a postal-card, and mail it to the society, 
being careful to give the name of the person ; 
also that any remarkable connection between 
this impression and any other circumstance 
subsequently discovered shall be sent in an- 
other communication. It should be distinctly 
understood that no case will be taken into ac- 
count unless it is shown that the first card was 
mailed before the knowledge contained in the 
second was acquired. A correspondence of 
this sort might lead to something worthy of 
inquiry and investigation. 

The evidence of haunted houses is entirely 
different in kind, but I must frankly admit that 
Mr. Gurney’s reply to what I said on the sub- 
ject in my previous paper does not strike me as 
satisfactory : indeed, he quite mistakes the point 
of my illustration, which was intended to show 
that events are all the time happening which 
we are unable to explain. Thesame logic that 
he uses would, it seems to me, lead to the con- 
clusion that all tricks of the juggler which we 
could not explain after the most careful exami- 
nation must be due to some other than known 
general causes. The general rule which we all 
unconsciously apply is, that if, upon investi- 
gating a class of seemingly unaccountable phe- 
nomena, we readily explain one-half, then 
explain another portion after much investiga- 
tion, and with yet additional toil and industry 
succeed in explaining a third, but finally still 
have an inexplicable residuum, we conclude 
that this residuum could also be explained if 
we knew all the circumstances. This is the 
conclusion which everybody adopts in the af- 
fairs of common life; and I see no reason for 
making an exception to it in the case of that 
small collection of haunted houses which the 
committee on the subject has found it impossi- 
ble to explain. 

To sum up, I deem it essential that psychic 
investigators should find stronger evidence for 
the improbable than for the impossible. 

Simon NEwcoms. 


SCIENCE. 


527 


SOME IMPLEMENTS OF THE MINNE- 
SOTA OJIBWAS. 


Tue uses of a portion of the implements 
figured in Abbott’s ‘ Ancient stone implements 
of eastern North America’ are still somewhat 
open to conjecture. One group, comprising 
oval, grooved pebbles, has recently been re- 
duced by Dr. Abbott to a classification com- 
prehending mauls, club-heads, bone-breakers, 
and net-weights respectively (Science, iii. 701). 
These neolithic objects, and a second series 
closely allied to them, appearing in considera- 
ble numbers upon the New-Jersey coast, are 
attributed by their discoverer to the Indian 
races inhabiting the country when first colo- 
nized by Europeans; that is to say, to the 
Lenni Lenapé, or Delawares. 

Now, the latter tribe, if it may still be called 
a tribe, is a cognate of our Algonkin-Ojibwas 
of the north-west. The languages of the two 
peoples are essentially the same, being dialects 
of the common Algonkin tongue, like the 
speech of the Canadian Crees, of the New- 
England Indians (preserved to us by the Eliot 
Bible), and of other nations. The Ojibwas, 
therefore, may not unreasonably be expected 
to retain, at the present time, vestiges of early 
race-ideas and race-practices which may, per- 
haps, serve in some way to illustrate the 
archeology of dead branches of the parent 
stock. Hence the writer of this paper thought 
it not amiss to set on foot inquiries touching 
the actual use of the two sets of implements 
instanced among the Ojibwas of Red Lake, 
northern Minnesota, where, owing to peculiar 
isolation, tribal peculiarities are believed to 
have been retained to an exceptional degree. 

The members of the second series of imple- 
ments, indicated above, are described as flat, 
discoidal pebbles, with side-notches, which in. 
thickness vary little from about half an inch. 
These Dr. Abbott regards as almost certainly 
net-weights, considering that there would be 
no room for doubt upon the subject, were it 
an ascertained fact that the Delawares of pre- 
historic time were actually acquainted with the 
manufacture and management of nets. Now, 
the Ojibwas are credited by their native his- 
torian, Mr. William Warren, with making 
and using fishing-nets before the appearance 
of the whites in North America. In describ- 
ing the Ojibwas seated upon the shores of Lake 
Superior, at La Pointe and vicinity, prior to 
the advent of the whites, he says : — 

‘‘The waters of the lake also afforded them fish of 


many kinds,—the trout, siskowit, white-fish, and 
sturgeon, — which in spawning-time would fill their 


528 


rivers, where, making racks across the stream, they 
would spear and hook up great quantities as the fish 


came down after spawning. They made nets of cedar 


and basswood bark, and from the sinews of animals. 
The ribs of the moose and buffalo made materials for 
their knives. A stone tied to the end of a stick, with 
which they broke sticks and branches, served the 
purpose of an ax. .. . Bows of wood, stone-headed 
arrows, and spear-heads made of bone, formed their 
implements of hunting and war.’’ 


Ojibwa gill-nets.—The nets used by the 
Red-Lakers are exclusively of the pattern 
known as gill-nets. When set, the apparatus 
depends like a perpendicular curtain from one 
of its longer margins, which is buoyed at the 
surface of the water by a succession of wooden 
floats (see fig. 1) tied to it at regular intervals 


= z 


Fig. 1.— NET-FLOAT, 304 INCHES LONG. 


of a few feet with bits of grass, rush, bark, 
or of the material of which the nets are manu- 
factured. 

The net-appendages of stone are of two 
sorts. First, there are small manageable peb- 
bles, or rough bits of rock, which, at intervals 
corresponding to those between the floats, are 
fastened along the under margin of the net, to 
hold it perpendicular in the water. ‘These net- 
weights weigh a few ounces each, and are 


Fie. 2.— NET-WEIGHTS, ONE-HALF NATURAL SIZE. 


never notched (see fig. 2). They are simply 

tied about the middle with the bit of grass, 

etc., by which they are hung to the net. 
Second, there are heavier stone anchors 


SCIENCE. 


[Vou. 1V., No. yay 


weighing from three or four to six and eight . 
pounds each, which are» suspended from the 
lower corners of the net to prevent it from 
drifting out of position. Sometimes one of 
these is also hung midway between the others. 
The net-anchor is also a mere unwrought block 
of stone of convenient size and shape. To 
prepare it for use, it is wound about and 
knotted in repeatedly with long, strong 
strips of bark, which, perfectly serving the 
purpose of cordage, enclose it in a rude kind 
of tackle. <A lighter or heavier set of anchors 
is attached to a net according to existing con- 
ditions of -wind and wave. The necessary 
anchors, with their bark investitures, are con- 
veyed to the fishing-grounds before being hung 
in place, while the net-weights proper are more 
permanent fixtures. Indeed, I have seen the 
floats and stone-weights put upon the net as 
the work of manufacturing it went on. 
Gill-nets being designed to insnare by the 
gills, they are adapted in size to the partic- 
ular species of prey to be captured. Thus 
a family often employs a set of nets of different 
meshes. For example: Mrs. Dick Big-Bird, 
a Red-Lake woman of a thrifty turn of mind, 
keeps in stock four nets, ranging in point of 
mesh from small to great, and of such a length, 
that, when they are extended to the utmost 
longitudinally, they have a measurement of 
eighteen arm-stretches, — an arm-stretch equal- - 
ling the spread of the two arms. 
Lost net-weights, tied up in 
their little grass fastenings, occur 
most abundantly where they have 
become detached in dragging the 
fishing-apparatus over the ground, 
and likewise in spots where the 
women are accustomed to mend 
their nets and to spread them for 
drying. Of course, great num- 
bers of these objects are also lost 
in the water from being washed 
out of their lashings. If we allow 
to a single outfit a complement of 
from twenty to thirty weights, 
with a varying equipment of 
~ anchors, we find that prodigious 
quantities of these stone bits must 
be used at one time and another, 
at every considerable fishing-sta- 
tion. The weights described 
would not, it is true, be ‘recog- 
nizable in the future as remains, 
since they are wholly unwrought; but it is 
easy to imagine conditions which would neces- — 
sitate the notching of these fragments, and — 
thus render them subject to identification. — 


DECEMBER 12, 1884.] . 


Other things being equal, it would seem that 
thin disks of stone would naturally be chosen 
forthe purpose in question, as being least diffi- 
cult to work notches in. 

It may be proper to explain, that Red Lake 
lies in the Ojibwa reservation of the same 
name, to the north-west of the head waters of 
the Mississippi River. The band of about 
twelve hundred Indians inhabiting the reser- 
vation originated at Lake Superior, and jour- 
neyed hither by way of Rainy Lake; but it has 
been more or less re-enforced during its century 
of existence by Ojibwas of identical extraction, 
coming from various other northern lakes of 
the state, as Cass Lake, Gull Lake, and Win- 
nibigoshish and Leech Lakes. Hence it may 
be inferred that the mode of net-fishing here 
practised is one prevailing commonly among 
the lake Ojibwas of the north-west; and this 
agrees substantially with their own _ state- 
ments upon the subject. 

Chopping-stones. —It cannot be doubted, 
however, that notched discoidal pebbles have 
been in use among the Ojibwas from time 
immemorial as fuel-breakers. The objects fig- 
ured in Abbott’s ‘Stone age in New Jersey’ 
(figs. 204, 205), old edition (see fig. 3), are 


Fic. 3.— CHOPPING-STONE. 


asserted by the Red-Lakers to be precisely 
such as are described by Mr. Warren in the 
quotation given above. These little implements 
are called axes, though they are not designed 
for cutting, and might with more propriety be 
specialized as chopping-stones. It goes with- 
out saying, that the primitive Ojibwas did not 
supply themselves with fuel after our fashion. 
They*never cut body-wood for firing ; but, hav- 
ing at command the illimitable forest with its 
abundance of fallen trees, they provided for 
warmth by simply breaking the dried bark and 
twigs, or large branches close at hand, into 


SCLENCE. 


ao 


lengths suitable for their purpose. Indeed, 
families very generally changed their dwelling- 
place, during the season of greatest cold, in 
order to bring such supplies within easy reach. 
The tools represented by these figures seem 
much too small for effective work in their line, 
but I was assured by the Indians that this is 
not the case. In fact, the summer fires kept 
up for the purpose of driving away insects, 
and for drying fish and other game, and corn, 
as well as for occasional cooking processes, 
are commonly maintained (many times by chil- 
dren) with mere twigs, and such small boughs 
as would be most easily separated by a chop- 
ping-stone of small size. Old Ojibwa authori- 
ties state that they know no Indians who do 
not avail themselves of these simple fuel-break- 
ers whenever unprovided with better tools. 
Rat-and-duck arrow. — The small object 
illustrated at fig. 4 is a weapon of the chase, 


(Sees EES GE ny ee 


Fie. 4.— RAT-ARROW, NATURAL SIZE. 


which is known to have been in occasional use 
at Red Lake as recently as a half-century ago. 
It was collected some years since by Mr. Elmer 
Hamilton, of the agency, from the beach of 
Red Lake, where it had been newly thrown up 
by the waves. <A portion has been broken 
from the extremity of the stem, so that, as fig- 
ured, it does not show the original length. 
This instrument was unknown to the younger 
Ojibwas of the place, who, however, were of 
opinion that it must be something in the nature 
of a fish-spear. Later the object was brought 
to the attention of chief Leading Feather and 
certain other of the older members of the band, 
by whom it was at once recognized as a kind 
of arrow-point formerly used in the tribe for 
shooting muskrats and ducks. ‘They called it, 
in fact, a rat-and-duck shooter, and they as- 
serted that it was put to service by tying it 
securely at the end of an arrow, and despatching 
it from a wooden bow. Leading Feather and 
his friends had often heard of this weapon from | 
old Ojibwa hunters, as one commonly employed 
by their tribe in ancient times, but at present 
superseded by fire-arms. Certain of the Red- 
Lakers claimed to have seen the implement in 
use during their boyhood. From all I could 
gather upon this subject, I judged that the rat- 
arrow was largely put in requisition at a for- 
mer day, for destroying small animals which it 
was desirable to preserve unmangled. 
Franc E. Bassirt. 


“oh ntl eae ia ae 


530 


THE SUDAN. 


Tue Sudan, in the broadest sense of the 
word, is bounded on the north by the Sahara, 
and on the south by the 5th degree of north 
latitude, except in the Nile region, where its 
southern limit may be fixed somewhat farther 
south. Between these boundaries, it stretches 
from the Atlantic Ocean to the highlands of 
Abyssinia and the Red Sea. The Sudan, as 
the word is commonly used at the present day, 
is the Egyptian Sudan properly so called, or 
the provinces belonging to Egypt lying south 
of the Nubian desert. These are, going from 
west to east, Dongola, Berber, and Suakin on 
the north; Darfur, Kordofan, Khartum and 
Senaar, Taka and Massawa, situated, roughly 
speaking, between 10° and 15° north latitude ; 
and the southern Nile provinces of Fashoda, 
Bahr-el-Gazelle, and Equator. Onmany maps, 
however, the word ‘ Nubia’ will be found as 
including all the Nile provinces as far south as 
Fashoda. 

There is very little known of the history 
of this part of the world, but the following 
may be taken as approximately correct. The 
aboriginal inhabitants of these countries were 
undoubtedly negroes. It is not probable that 
the Arabs arrived much before the advent of 
Mohammed; but, in the eighth century of our 
era, one or more Arab tribes crossed the Red 
Sea, and settled in the Sudan as far west and 
south as Senaar. They became more or less 
amalgamated with the negro tribes, which they 
conquered and converted, and whose names 
they in many cases took. Thus it came about 
that the eastern Egyptian Sudan possesses at 
this day a reasonably homogeneous, impure 
Arab population, composed of the Hadendoa, 
Bishareen, and other tribes. 

Kordofan lies approximately between 12° 
and 16° north latitude, and 29° and 32° east 
longitude. It contains a population of not 
over three hundred thousand. The Nouba 
(Nuba),a race of very black negroes, are not 
unlikely the representatives of the aborigines. 
They live by themselves in the mountains of 
southern Kordofan, and speak a language of 
their own. ‘They are pure negroes. Between 
them and the Arabs there are two mixed races, 
the Ghodiat and Koungarra. It has been con- 
jectured that the Ghodiat represent the ruling 
race at the time of the conquest of the country 
by the Fur, with whom the Koungarra seem 
to be allied; but this is largely conjecture. 


1 It was originally intended to give this article to the readers 


of Science in No. 93, in which the map of the Sudan appeared, 


but it could not be prepared in time. — Ep. 


SCIENCE. 


:  [Vou. IV., No. 97. 


These tribes live in villages, and cultivate the 
soil. They are thus easily distinguished from 
the purer Arab tribes, the most numerous of 
which are the Kababish and the Bagarra, all 
of whom arereal nomads. With the exception 
of the Nouba, the Kordofanese are Mussul- 
mans, and very superstitious. 

Kordofan was conquered by the chief of 
Senaar in the last quarter of the eighteenth 
century, and almost immediately wrenched 
from his grasp by the forces of the sultan or 
chief of Darfur, who retained possession of the 
country until the Egyptian invasion in 1821. 
Perhaps the following from Major Prout’s re- 
port to Stone pasha will convey a good idea 
of the mixture of races in Kordofan, where, 
he says, to-day one may see ‘‘all the variety 
of face, form, and color, which is to be found 
from Italy to the land of the Niam-Niam.’’ 

These and other disturbances in the Sudan 
attracted the attention of Mohammed Ali in 
1819, and he sent an army for its subjuga- 
tion. This was easily accomplished, so far as 
Nubia, Kordofan, and Senaar were concerned ; 
but the Red Sea littoral, Suakin and Massawa, 
was not incorporated until 1864. ‘The cruel- 
ties of Ismail, Mohammed Ali’s son, were so 
great that he and many of his officers were 
treacherously burned alive at Shendy; while 
the defterdar, his son-in-law, so misgoverned 
Kordofan that it is said that Mohammed Ali 
had him poisoned. ‘This was the beginning of 
Egyptian rule in the Sudan, and its promise 
has been borne out by succeeding events. 

In 1853 John Petherick, the English con- 
sul at Khartum, opened up the ivory trade of 
the White Nile. Other foreigners followed. 
It was soon found that slave-hunting was still 
more profitable, and their energies were ac- 
cordingly turned in that direction. Seribas, 
or stockaded villages, were built throughout 
the Bahr-el-Gazelle country ; but ‘‘ about the 
year 1860 the scandal became so great that 
the Europeans had to get rid of their stations.”’ 
They sold them to the Arabs, who paid a 
nominal rental to the government. The life 
of the Nubians and other Arab peoples under 
the oppression of the Turks, as they called 
the Egyptians, was so miserable, that whole 
communities betook themselves to slave-hunt- 
ing. From Berber to Khartum ‘‘ there was 
not a dog to howl for his lost master... . 
Thousands had forsaken their homes, and 
commenced a life of brigandage on the White — 
Nile.’’ Thus wrote Baker in 1869, and to — 
the same effect Schweinfurth a year earlier. 

It was to put a stop to this slave-hunting 
that Baker, and after him Gordon, were ap- 


DECEMBER 12, 1884.] 


pointed governors of the equatorial Nile basin. 
They succeeded in stamping out the trade in 
the province of Equator, which was annexed 
to Egypt in Baker’s time. This province was 
inhabited exclusively by pure negroes; while 
Bahr-el-Gazelle, where Schweinfurth lived so 
long, contained a large number of Arabs of 
more or less pure blood. 

Baker and Gordon undoubtedly suppressed 
the slave trade of the White Nile, so far as it 
was carried on by water; but how much the 
poor slave was benefited is another question. 
Probably not much; for the overland march 
through Darfur and Kordofan must have been 
more destructive of life than even the voyage 
in a crowded Nile nugger. 

One of the most powerful of these ruffian 
kings of Bahr-el-Gazelle was Seebehr Rahama, 
whose seribas were near the Darfur boundary. 
It was during Schweinfurth’s stay in the Bahr- 
el-Gazelle country that Seebehr attacked and 
defeated some government troops who had 
been sent to take possession of a portion of 
southern Darfur. Seebehr himself then under- 
took the conquest of that country. The Egyp- 
tian government, thoroughly alarmed at his 
growing power, sent an army to co-operate, and 
Darfur was annexed to Egypt. This was in 
1874. 

Darfur, the land of the Fur, is situated be- 
tween 9° and 16° north latitude, and 22° and 
28° east longitude. Its area is about one hun- 
dred and five thousand square miles. Very 
little is known of the country ; but the following 
facts, gleaned from Dr. Nachtigal’s communica- 
tion to the French geographical society in 1876, 
may be of interest. ‘The population, estimated 
at about four millions, is as mixed as that of the 
other central Sudan provinces. The Fur, who 
live in the highlands, speak a language of their 
own. ‘They are stigmatized by Nachtigal as 
proud, vain, cowardly, treacherous, and as dis- 
agreeable as the Wadai on the west. They 
are black, of moderate height, with regular fea- 
tures, and were the ruling race in Darfur before 
the coming of the Egyptians. There, as in 
Kordofan, there are many mixed races, and a 
large Arab population, especially in the north- 
ern and central portions. It must be remem- 
bered that these Arabs of the Sudan are not 
true Arabs, but to a great extent merely Arab- 
ized negroes. 

After Seebehr had conquered Darfur, he went 
to Cairo for his reward; but, instead of being 
loaded with honors, and sent back as governor 
of Darfur, he was made a pasha, and kept in 
Cairo on a pension. His followers, led by his 
son Suleiman, in accordance with a preconcert- 


SCIENCE. 


Dd1 


ed arrangement, rebelled ; but Seebehr was not 
sent to quell the rebellion, as he had expected. 
The revolt was crushed by Gordon’s able lieu- 
tenant, the lamented Gessi pasha, who became 
governor of Bahr-el-Gazelle. But upon Gor- 
don’s withdrawal, all power to do good was 
taken from Gessi, and he resigned. 

In 1877 the khedive entered into an agree- 
ment with England, in which it was stipulated 
that the slave-trade should cease in lower Egypt 
on Aug. 4, 1884, and in the Sudan five years 
later. The rebellious spirit of the inhabitants 
had been suppressed by Baker, Gordon, and 
Gessi. It broke out again on the favorable 
opportunity which the revolt of Arabi pasha 
afforded. Mahomet Achmet, or El] Mahdi, put 
himself at the head of the movement. A 
series of defeats was suffered by the govern- 
ment troops. ‘Then came the worst blunder 
of all. A portion of Arabi’s bashi-bazouks 
were sent to the Sudan under the command 
of Hicks pasha, a retired English army-officer. 
At first they were successful; but, when they 
attempted the invasion of Kordofan, they were 
surrounded, and cut to pieces. ‘The Mahdi and 
his followers were supreme except in the im- 
mediate vicinity of a few garrisoned towns. 
It was at this juncture that Gordon was sent 
by the English government to report on the 
military situation in the Sudan. On his way 
he stopped at Cairo, and was commissioned 
governor-general of the Sudan without pay. 
His doings there are not known. It will be 
curious to see, whether when he again turns up, 
he still adheres to the following opinion, which 
he wrote just before setting out: ‘‘ I am con- 
vinced that itis an entire mistake to regard the 
Mahdi as in any sense a religious leader: he 
personifies popular discontent.”’ 


NAVIGATION OF THE AIR. 


WE have described in detail (Science, No. 86) the 
experiment made at Chalais-Meudon on Aug. 9, when 
for the first time a balloon returned to its point of 
departure. 

In 1852 Mr. Henry Giffard, in a steam-screw bal- 
loon, obtained a speed of about 4 metres a second. 
In 1872 Mr. Dupuy de Léme, with a motor worked 
by seven men, attained a speed of 2.8 metres; and 
the Tissandier brothers, with the first balloon fur- 
nished with an electric motor, a speed of 3 metres 
in 1883, and of nearly 4 metres in 1884.2, Renard and 


1 From an article by Gaston TISSANDIER in La Nature, 
Noy. 15. 

2 By an experimental trip on Sept. 26, 1884, the brothers Tis- 
sandier proved that their balloon could be brought back to its 
starting-point in calm weather; but, through lack of funds, they 


932 


Krebs, by the use of a more powerful and a lighter 


-motor and a long balloon, reached a speed of about 


5.5 metres a second in their first two experiments, 
and 6.5 metres a second in their recent experiments 
of Nov. 8, 1884, or 23.5 kilometres an hour, with a 
five-horse power, and fifty revolutions of the screw a 
minute. 

On the 9th of November, says Tissandier, the wind 
was moving at the rate of 8 kilometres an hour. 


When the balloon was going with the wind, its speed ° 


was equal to 23.5 plus 8 kilometres, or 31 kilometres, 
an hour: on the other hand, when it went against the 
wind, its speed was 23.5 kilometres minus 8 kilome- 
tres, or 15.5 kilometres, an hour. The balloon was 
easily guided in all directions. 


\ Wks 


ss 


SX 
<> 


FRIIS 


Ess 


=) 


Ss: 
A 


is Je 


ENN 

JAS Fe 4 
GINS Y 
AM eyloo : 
Metres 


oe 
a 

eee 

Soo 1000) 


The first ascent took place at noon. When the 
balloon had risen above the surrounding obstruc- 
tions, the working of the screw was begun; and the 
balloon, tacking about, was directed in a straight line 
toward the viaduct of Meudon, which it soon reached. 
It crossed the Seine below the bridge of Billancourt, 
became entangled on the right bank of the river, and 
the motor was stopped, and the balloon allowed to go 
with the wind, in order to measure the rate of the 
current. After a rest of five minutes, the machine 
was again put in motion; and the balloon, guided by 
the rudder, described a semicircle of about 160 metres 
diameter, and returned to its starting-point at a slow 
rate, but with perfect stability. Atthree p.m. Renard 
and Krebs began a second experiment. The balloon 
arose a second time, and made several excursions in 
the neighborhood of Chalais; but the fog was so 
thick, that the second ascent only occupied thirty- 
three minutes through fear of losing sight of the 
landing-place. A return to the place of departure 


have not been able to provide a shelter for the inflated balloon, 
that it might be ready to set out in favorable weather. 


SCIENCE. 


Oo Se TN AOR Ae ee ee a a 


was easily effected, as before. The accompanying 
maps give the exact routes of the two trips. ‘ 

These new experiments are decisive. Navigation 
of the air by means of long balloons provided with 
screws is demonstrated. We will repeat, what we 
have already said many times, that to be practicable 
and useful, aerial ships must be made very long, of 
very large dimensions, which shall carry very large 
machines, capable of giving a speed of from 12 to 15 
metres a second, allowing their working at almost 
any time. When the wind is high, or there is a squall 
or tempest, aerial ships must remain in port, as other 
vessels do. It becomes now only a question of 
capital. 


A NEW LAW OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 


I HAVE in another place given many reasons for 
believing that the male cell has, by division of labor, 
gradually acquired the function of exciting variation, 
while the ovum transmits the established character- 
istics of the race. The following facts, among others, 
seem to indicate that a specialization of this sort actu- 
ally exists. 1.° There is no evidence that the func- 
tions of the two sexual elements are alike, but the 
possibility of parthenogenesis shows that the ovum 
in itself can transmit all the established character- 
istics of therace. 2°. Organisms born from fertilized 
eggs or seeds are much more variable than those which 
are produced asexually. 3°. The children born from 
a male hybrid with the female of either pure form are 
much more variable than those from a female hybrid 
with the male of either pure form, 4°. Parts which 
are confined to males, or which are of more functional 
importance in males than in females, are much more 
variable than parts which are confined to females, or 
which are of more functional importance in females 
than in males. 5°. Males are more variable than 
females. 6°. The male leads, and the female follows, 
in the evolution of new features, as is shown by the 
fact that the females of allied species are more like 
each other, and more like the young, than the males 
are. This cannot be due to sexual selection; for it 
holds true to a remarkable degree in domesticated 
pigeons, and in other animals which are paired by 
the breeder. 

Now, if it is true that the tendency to vary comes 
through the influence of the male parent, it will be 
for the advantage of the species to give birth to an 
excess of females, so long as the conditions of life 
are favorable, and change is not needed, and to give 
birth to an excess of males whenever the conditions 
of life become unfavorable, and thus demand new 


modifications. 


Diising has recently published ! a very valuable and 
highly suggestive series of papers upon the laws which 
regulate the sex of the embryo in mankind, and in 
other animals, and in plants; and the facts which he 
has brought together seem to show that this specializa-. 
tion actually exists, and that a favorable environment 


1 Jenaische zeitschrift, xvi. iii. 1888, 428, and xvii. 1884, 592- 
940. 


| {Vou. IV.,‘No. 97) sam 


DECEMBER 12, 1884.] 


causes an excess of female births, while an unfavor- 
able environment causes an excess of male births. 

-Among mankind the conditions of life are somuch 
under control, that it is difficult to say just what con- 
stitutes a favorable environment; but I think we 
may safely conclude that a high birth-rate indicates 
that the conditions of life are favorable, and that a 
decrease in the birth-rate indicates decreased pros- 
perity, and that human races which are disappearing 
are so doing because surrounding conditions are no 
longer favorable. 

Diising gives many facts to show, that, as the birth- 
rate increases, the number of boy-births to each 100 
girl-births decreases, and vice versa. At the Cape of 
Good Hope the Boers are very prolific: six or seven 
is a small family, and from twelve to twenty children 
are not unusual, and 100 girls are born to every 97.2 
boys. The Hottentots, on the other hand, are very 
infertile: many of the women are barren, and they 
seldom have more than three children, and 103.9 boys 
are born to each 100 girls. 

The birth-rate is higher in towns than it is in the 
country, and the ratio of boys is greater in the coun- 
try than it isin the towns. In 1881 the average for 
the whole of Prussia was‘106.36 boys to each 100 girls; 
and in all the towns the boy-births were below this 
average, and above the average in the country. Ploss 
has shown that in Saxony the ratio of boy-births 
rises and falls with the price of food. 

From nearly 10,000,000 births, Dising has compiled 
a table to show the birth-rate, and the ratio between 
the sexes, for each month in the year; and this table 
shows that the ratio of boy-births is the highest 
when the birth-rate is lowest. In March the birth- 
rate was highest (942,488), and the ratio of boy-births 
was lowest (105.92 boys to each 100 girls); while in 
June the birth-rate was lowest (812,469), and the ratio 
of boys highest (106.77). 

Among the lower animals, it is difficult to obtain 
statistics: but Dusing states that domesticated animals 
are more prolific than their wild allies, and that there 
is a greater number of female births; that, when 
animals are taken from a warm to a cold climate, the 
ratio of male births increases; and that leather-dealers 
state that they obtain most female skins from fertile 
regions with rich pastures, and most male skins from 
more barren countries. } 

The power of parthenogenetic reproduction seems, 
in many cases, to have been acquired in order to 
permit an unusually great and rapid increase in the 
birth-rate, when the conditions of life are unusually 
favorable; and in these cases the parthenogenetic eggs 
give birth to females almost exclusively. Among the 
parthenogenetic Cladocera, both males and females 
are found in the fall and in the early spring; but dur- 
ing the warm months only females are found, and 
they multiply so rapidly, that, according to Ramdohr, 
a female Daphnia can in sixty days produce 1,291,- 
370,075 parthenogenetic female descendants. As the 
supply of food fails in the fall, males make their ap- 
pearance; and Kurz has shown that any unfavorable 
change causes the production of males. He says 
that males appear when food fails, when the water 


SCIENCE. 


D598 


dries up, when it becomes too dense, when it acquires 
an unfavorable temperature, or, in general, when there 
is a decrease in prosperity. From these and many 
other facts recorded by Dusing, I think we may safely 
conclude, that among animals and plants, as well as 
in mankind, an unfavorable environment causes an 
excess of male births, and a favorable environment 
an excess of female births. 

Now, why should this be so? If the welfare of the 
species can be secured, under a favorable environ- 
ment, by females alone, why are males needed when 
the environment becomes unfavorable? I believe 
that we have, in the facts recorded by Dusing, an illus- 
tration of one of the most important and far-reaching 
of all the adaptations of nature, —an adjustment 
which tends to cause variation when it is needed, and 
to keep things as they are, so long as no change is 
demanded. Asthe conditions of life become unfavor- 
able, variation becomes desirable in order to restore 
the adjustment between the organism and its envi- 
ronment; and this is secured by an increase in the 
ratio of male births. 

That this is theitrue explanation of the phenomena, 
is shown, I think, by the contrast between domes- 
ticated animals and captive animals. The fact that 
an animal has become domestic shows that it finds in 
captivity a favorable environment; and Dusing says 
that domestic animals are exceptionally fertile, and 
that they produce an excess of females. Animals 
which are kept as captives in menageries and gardens, 
have, as a rule, no fitness for domestication; and 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire says that individuals born in 
Mmenageries are usually male, while skins sent to 
museums are usually female; and that the attempt 
to domesticate a wild animal increases the number of 
male births. Dusing states that captive birds of prey, 
and carnivorous mammals, are very infertile, and that 
the young are nearly always males. 

The wild human races of Oceanica and America are 
much like captive animals, as they have been sud- 
denly thrown into contact with a civilization which 
has been in Europe the slow growth of thousands of 
years. Food and climate have not changed, but a 
new element has been introduced into their environ- 
ment. The New-Zealanders are very infertile, and ~ 
nearly all the children are boys; and the census of 
1872 for the Hawaiian Islands gave a ratio of 125 
male births to each 100 female births. 

I believe we may see, in these instances, the last 
struggle of nature to save the race from extermina- 


tion by the production of a favorable variation. It 


is proper, however, to point out that Dusing himself 
gives a different explanation of the excess of male 
births under unfavorable conditions of life, although 
I believe that examination will show that his expla- 
nation is inadequate. 

He says that the excess of male births is for the 
purpose of preventing close inter-breeding. Heshows 
that inter-breeding causes sterility, small size, and 
lack of general vigor and vitality; and he also shows 
that these effects are most marked when the other 
conditions of life are least favorable, and that no evil 
effects follow inter-breeding when food is abundant, 


i 


aoe 


oo4 


and when the environment in general is conducive to 
prosperity. Since the evil effects of inter-breeding 
become more marked as the environment becomes 
less favorable, and as male births are then in excess, 
he believes that the excessive production of males is 


- an adaptation which has gradually been acquired by 


natural selection, for the purpose of preventing close 
inter-breeding at the time when it is injurious; but, 
as an injurious property cannot be established by 
natural selection, the evil effects of inter-breeding 
cannot be primary. The end which is advantageous, 
and which has been secured by natural selection, is 
the crossing or sexual union of individuals which 
are not closely related. As the object of crossing 
is to secure variability, it is most necessary when 
change is needed; that is, when the conditions of 
life are unfavorable. 

Natural selection has accordingly acted to secure 
this by rendering the offspring of a cross more able 
to resist an unfavorable change than the offspring of 
closely related parents, or the parthenogenetic chil- 
dren of a single parent; and the excessive production 
of males under an unfavorable environment is for 
the purpose of securing variation, rather than the 
prevention of inter-breeding. 

This very suggestive topic opens many fields for 
research where our information is very scanty; and 
any readers of Science who are able to contribute 
information regarding the number of births of each 
sex in wild or captive or domestic animals will help 
to a clearer insight into an extremely interesting and 
important problem. The writer will gladly receive 
and tabulate information upon this point, and will 
give proper credit to contributors. 

W. K. Brooks. 


Johns Hopkins university, Baltimore. 


CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM. 


Contemporary socialism. By Joun Rak, M.A. 
New York, Scribner, 1884. 13+ 455p. 8°. 


AmonG the merits of this volume may be 
mentioned the spirit with which the subject of 
socialism is approached. ‘The author, under- 
standing that his position is not that of an ad- 
vocate either of existing society or of any pro- 
posed future social form, attempts to present 
an impartial but critical account of the schemes 
which contemporary socialists assure us will 
inaugurate an earthly paradise. Mr. Rae in- 
dulges neither in abuse nor declamation nor 
frightened outcry, but manifests a judicial 
calmness of temperament, befitting a man of 
science. 

The scope of this work is indicated by the 
titles of the chapters, which are the following : 
Introductory, containing a preliminary survey 
of the field; Ferdinand Lassalle; Karl Marx ; 
The federalism of Carl Marlo; The socialists 
of the chair; The Christian socialists ; Russian 


SCIENCE. 


ST OY oe ee 


[Vou. IV., No. 97. 


nihilism ; Socialism and the social question ; 
Progress and poverty ; Henry George. 

The arrangement of topics is not at all what 
one might expect, and is due, perhaps, to the 
fact that the book consists, in part, of articles 
previously published in the Contemporary re- 
view and the British quarterly. 'These have 
been enlarged, and supplemented with addi- 
tional chapters, and the old and new are not 
well joined together. It exhibits more or less 
of the character of patchwork in many places ; 
each chapter not leading naturally to the fol- 
lowing, nor being an outgrowth of what has 
preceded. Thus Lassalle, who built on Marx 
and Rodbertus, and who simply interpreted 
their doctrines to the common people, kindling 
in their breasts a fire of enthusiasm not yet 
extinguished, is treated in the second chapter ; 
while Karl Marx, his logical predecessor, fol- 
lows. Rodbertus, the father of scientific so- 
cialism in Germany, of whom Marx is only a 
further evolution, receives no separate treat- 
ment at all, and is barely alluded to in the 
chapter on Marlo. The greatest figure in 
modern socialism is thus passed by in scarcely 
half a dozen words, in a work professing 
to give a picture of contemporary socialism. 
French socialism fares scarcely better, receiv- 
ing only three or four pages in the introduc- 
tory chapter, and that in a work of four 
hundred and fifty-five pages. This is certain- 
ly inadequate. Henry George, on the other 
hand, who, it is acknowledged, is not a socialist 
in the ordinary acceptation of the term, re- 
ceives seventy-seven pages. 

The book is a disappointment ; because it is 
a series of detached essays, instead of a con- 
nected whole, and is not what a perusal of 
the author’s articles in the Contemporary re- 
view might reasonably have led one to expect. 
The entire work betrays either indolence, or 
lack of sufficient time for the adequate per- 
formance of the author’s task; for it ought 
to have been re-written, the style improved, 
a more philosophical and symmetrical arrange- 
ment secured, and more careful attention 
given to the most recent phases of con- 
temporary socialism. Parts of the book were 
written several years ago, and, though per- 
haps true then, are not accurate now; and,. 
even in the apparently more recent additions, 
there is an oversight of what is transpiring 
at the present time. Thus, on p. 56, Mr. . 
Rae uses these words: ‘‘England is the 
only great country where ‘socialism has at. 


present neither organ nor organization that 
This sounds. _ 


reaches the public eye or ear. 
strange, for in this country we hear frequently 


DECEMBER, 12, 1884. ] 


of the ‘ democratic federation,’ and at least 
three periodicals of a radically socialistic na- 
ture are supported, —viz., the monthly To- 
day, and the weeklies Justice and Christian 
socialist, — while Hyndman’s books, ‘ England 
for all,’ ‘The historical basis of socialism,’ 
ete., have certainly attracted wide discussion, 
as have also the contributions of the poet 
Morris to the literature of socialism. Ameri- 
can socialistic movements likewise receive 
entirely inadequate attention; and the im- 
pression is conveyed that there is practical- 
ly no American socialism,—a most radical 
error. 

One of the peculiarities of modern socialism 
is its unexpectedness wherever it makes its ap- 
pearance. Thisis brought out in several places 
by Mr. Rae. Referring to German socialism, 
on p. 61 he says, ‘‘ Professor Lorenz von 
Stein of Vienna, . . . who wrote an acute 
and thoughtful book on French communism in 
1842, says in that work, that Germany, unlike 
France, and particularly England, had nothing 
to fear from socialism because Germany had no 
proletariate to speak of. Yet in twenty years 
we find Germany become suddenly the theatre 
of the most important and formidable embodi- 
ment of socialism that has anywhere appeared.’’ 
This is a correct statement. Again and again 
it was said that communism was a French 
disease, from which Germany had nothing to 
fear ; as her peace-loving, laborious, frugal, and 
contented laborers could never become infected 
with the poison of discontent. Now, to use a 
socialistic phrase, she leads the labor battalions 
of the world. Less than ten years since, 
Englishmen boasted that socialism was a conti- 
nental plague, from which the free institutions 
of England, and the manly, self-reliant char- 
acter of her sons, forever exempted the British 
Isle: now it is doubtful whether socialism has 
anywhere a more respectable following, and 
even the government is influenced by socialistic 
ideas. A tinge of socialism is diffusing itself 
over the institutions of England, the classic 
land of laissez-faire. And in America how 
proud has been our self-confidence! With 
what satisfaction have we pointed to our broad 
prairies, offering homes to all! With what con- 
tentment have we talked about the prosperity 
of the American laborer! With what scorn have 
we referred to the pauper labor of Europe! 
Surely no sane man could expect a social 
disease like socialism in the United States. 
But here it is, and it is nowhere making more 
rapid strides. The proof of this is on every 
hand. It is but necessary to open one’s eyes, 
and watch the movements of the laboring 


SCIENCE. 


D3) 


classes. ‘Their parades, mottoes, labor-unions, 
newspapers, conventions, and congresses tell 
the tale; but of all these, Rae has little or 
nothing to say. 

The book is timely, and it is unfortunate 
that our author did not do himself better 
justice in a more carefully prepared treatise. 


HAE ACE OF MWE sh Ake TH. 


By E. Sugss. 
310 p., illustr. 


Das antlitz der erde. 
Leipzig, Freytag, 1883. 


Abteilung i. 
4°, 


Dr. Epuarp Suess of Vienna, well known 
among geological readers for his original writ- 
ings on the structural relations of earthquake 
disturbances and on mountain building, has in 
preparation a more general work on the ‘ Face 
of the earth,’ in which he attempts, by a 


> 
a Oe 
=—- 
= 


——  S 
Sat 
re a a” 


OVERTURNED FOLD IN THE MAMRANG PASS. 


critical review of recent studies, to correct a 
number of surviving errors, and prepare the 
groundwork for an unprejudiced view of dy- 
namical geology. The first part of the work, 
already published, contains a discussion of mo- 
tions in the outer crust.of the earth, and of 
the structure and course of some of the larger 


536 


mountain ranges. Under the former heading 
there is an extended essay on the deluge, which 
has been printed apart, and briefer chapters on 
earthquakes, dislocations, and voleanoes. The 
second heading includes, thus far, only the 
Alpine system. 

The work shows a broad acquaintance with 
the subject; and, in spite of its title, it is not 
a ‘popular* book. Yet its style is much more 
attractive and readable than one usually ex- 
pects in a geological essay. Among the more 
novel topics, there may be mentioned the brief 
account of Fischer’s and Hann’s studies of 
the deformation of the ocean’s surface by con- 
tinental attraction ; 4 summary of the evidence 


RESTORATION OF A DISTURBED REGION OF PALEOZOIC ROCKS IN BELGIUM. 


contradicting the often quoted elevation of 
the Chilian coast in the earthquakes of 1822, 
1835, and 1837; the series of forms devel- 
oped in an eruptive region by deeper and 
deeper denudation; and the relations of the 
curved trends of the Alpine system to the 
generally northward tangential thrust that pro- 
duced it. 

A moderate number of well-executed cuts, 
and several long lists of authorities, add to the 
value ofthe work. The first of the illustrations 
here copied shows an overturned fold on the 
Mamrang pass, in the north-western Himalaya: 
the second is a restoration, by Cornet and 
Briart, of a greatly disturbed region of pale- 
ozoic rocks in Belgium, over part of which 
cretaceous strata are laid unconformably. Of 
the three great faults, AA is the oldest, and 
CC the youngest. | 


SCIENCE 


| [Vou, IV., No. 97. 


A POPULAR WORK ON AMERICAN 
NATURAL HISTORY. 


Tenants of an old farm, leaves from the note-book 
of a naturalist. By Henry C. McCoox, D.D. 
New York, Fords, Howard, and Hulbert, 1885. 
456+4 p., illustr. 8°. 


SCIENTIFIC men are accustomed to consider 
themselves an exclusive body. They collect 
bits of knowledge, which they seem to look 
upon as their private property, and, either 
wisely or unwisely, spend their time making ob- 
servations, and rigidly describing them for sci- 
entific ears, with no attempt to put the material 
within reach of the ordinary mind. The re- 
sult is, that the 
popular books of 
science, from 
which the general 
reader must get 
his information, 
are usually com- 
piled by persons 
who have never 
seen what they 
are describing, 
but have obtained 
their information 
entirely from oth- 
ers. A book like 
the one before us 
is therefore of 
special value, for 
we have in it a 
popular account 
of scientific sub- 
jects by one who 
has himself ob- 
served every 


thing he describes. The scientific statements 
of the author are not only reliable, but, coming 
directly from nature, they still retain evidence 
of direct contact with life, which is so sure 
to disappear with too many repetitions; and 
when, further, these statements are put in a 
form to appeal to the general reader, we may 
be sure of an addition, perhaps not to science, 
but to the knowledge of the reading public. 
The author informs us, that under the persua- 
sions of friends, and rather against his own 
inclination, the plan of the book is colloquial, 
in form. What the book might otherwise 
have been cannot be said, but the persuasion 
of friends seems here to have had a happy. 
effect. The desirable quality of a popular 
scientific book is to obtain as many readers as 
possible, and thus spread the knowledge widely. 
However interesting facts. of natural history — 


“—— 


DECEMBER 12, 1884.] 


may be in themselves, it yet remains true that 
man is more interested in man than in any thing 
else; and scientific information given in the 
form of conversations, as in this book, is not 
only more interesting, and sure to obtain more 
readers, but makes a much more lasting im- 
pression. 

The plan of the book is this: a city mer- 
chant who was formerly a naturalist is ordered 
by the doctor to take ayear’s rest in the country. 
He obeys the order, and occupies his time, 
while regaining health, in resuming his old 
acquaintance with the insect world. Various 
persons are introduced, who become interested 
in the oddities found, and weekly conversations 
to the household upon insects are the result. 
The author, assuming the character of the 
naturalist, details to his listeners a great many 
interesting and valuable bits of information 
upon their natural history: their life-history 
and habits, the damage which they do, with 
occasionally the method for its prevention, 
are discussed. A classical student introduces 
the mythology and classical lore relating to the 
subject; two farm-hands are thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the various superstitions con- 
nected with insects; the peculiar habits give 
opportunity for occasional moral lessons ; while 
a ‘school-ma’am’ enlivens the party with her 
wit. The classical student, being a clergyman, 
serves to introduce the relation of evolution 
to religion, and is made to say, ‘‘ As a method 
of creation simply, I am willing to leave it in 
the hands of the naturalist and philosopher,”’ 
a conclusion which, happily, is being reached 
by all thinking men. In short, these conversa- 
tions, and the experiences detailed, give to the 
non-scientific reader a pleasant and accurate ac- 
count of many of the animals which he is sure 
to meet in his walks inthe country. The work 
is not a scientific one. It is true that there are 
a few new observations given; but they are so 
absorbed in the general character of the book 
that their value disappears, for no naturalist 
would be apt to go to a book of this nature for 
scientific information. 

The illustrations form not the least attractive 
feature. ‘These are very numerous, — about a 
hundred and fifty in all, — all new, and drawn 
especially for this work. Of themselves, they 
will insure many a purchaser. It is some- 
what to be regretted that so many of them are 
simply humorous in nature. The whimsical 
oddities of Mr. Beard are certainly unique and 
excellent, but seem somewhat out of place, 
giving to the pages the appearance of humorous 
selections. While they do somewhat enliven 
the book, the reader cannot help wishing that 


SCIENCE. 537 


their place were filled with more of the sketches 
from nature from the author’s sketch-book, 
whose excellence is verified by the many ex- 
amples given. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


GEN. F. A. WALKER, of the Massachusetts institute 
of technology, has published a brief paper on indus- 
trial education, which he read before the American 
social science association in Saratoga last September. 
This interesting paper bears upon the questions which 
are under discussion in Glasgow. Gen. Walker offers 
the following classification of schools devoted to in- 
dustrial education : — 

1. Schools of applied science and technology, such 
as the school over which he presides, the Sheffield 
scientific school, the Stevens institution, the Rensse- 
laer polytechnic institute, and the like. 

2. Trade-schools, in which a particular art, or 
branch of industry, is taught; as, for example, watch- 
making in Switzerland. 

3. Schools in which manual and mechanical edu- 
cation is introduced as a part of the general educa- 
tion of the scholar with reference to the fuller devel- 
opment of all his powers, not to make an engineer on 
the one hand, nor a trained operative on the other. 

Gen. Walker advocates with clearness and vigor 
the gradual introduction of manual training in the 
public schools, and sketches what he calls ‘a fairly 
conservative programme,’ which would involve only 
a Slight disturbance of the structure of the existing 
schools, but would call for a surrender of a consid- 
erable portion of time to the new studies. Gen. 
Walker seems at a loss for a phrase or term with 
which to indicate the training he desires to give. We 
suggest ‘handicraft.’ Let handicraft be taught in 
every school for girls or boys, in the kindergarten, 
and in the scientific laboratory. ‘Handicraft’ will 
make a good rallying word for all who favor this new 
phase of popular education. 


— We would call the attention of our readers to 
the following remarks by Sir William Thomson dur- 
ing an address at Philadelphia last summer: ‘‘ You 
in this country are subjected to the British insularity 
in weights and measures: you use the foot and inch 
and yard. I am obliged to use that system; but I 
apologize to you for doing so, because it is so incon- 
venient; and I hope all Americans will do every 
thing in their power to introduce the French metrical 
system. I hope the evil action performed by an Eng- 
lish minister whose name I need not mention, because 
I do not wish to throw obloquy on any one, may be 
remedied. He abrogated a useful rule, which for a 
short time was followed, and which I hope will soon 
be again enjoined, that the French metrical system 
be taught in all our national schools. I do not know 
how it is in America. The school system seems to 
be very admirable ; and I hope the teaching of the 
metrical system will not be let slip in the American 
schools any more than the use of the globes. I say 
this seriously. I do not think any one knows how 


508 


seriously I speak of it. I look upon our English 
system as a wickedly brain-destroying piece of bond- 
age under which we suffer. ‘The reason why we con- 
tinue to use it is the imaginary difficulty of making 
a change, and nothing else; but I do not think in 
America that any such difficulty should stand in the 
way of adopting so splendidly useful a reform.”’ 


— Professor George Davidson of the Coast and 
geodetic survey, San Francisco, informs us that the 
account of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Au- 
gustin, Cook’s Inlet, Alaska, prepared by him, and 
published in Science, No. 54, Feb. 15, 1884, was wholly 
derived from an account by Capt. Sands, and is seri- 
ously in error. It appears that Capt. Sands saw the 
eruption only from a distance of about fifty miles, in 
unfavorable weather, and therefore derived his in- 
formation about details from the natives or from his 
imagination. The splitting of the island in twain, 
the formation of new islands, etc., appear not to have 
occurred. According to Capt. Cullie of the Alaska 
commercial company, who visited the island, there 
has been a great land-slide on the north-north-west 
side of the mountain, leaving a precipitous bluff over 
which has poured lava and eruptive matter filling up 
the rocky boat-cove there. He further reports that 
a reef running westward, and formerly submerged, 
is now elevated to the sea-surface. The volcano 
above the great slide was actively smoking or steam- 
ing at the time of his visit last summer. This infor- 
mation is in confirmation of that printed in Science, 
No. 73, June 27, 1884. 


— Lord Rayleigh has resigned the Cavendish pro- 
fessorship of experimental physics at Cambridge, 
Eng. 

— The department of biology of the University of 
Pennsylvania was formally opened on the 4th with 
an inaugural address by Professor Harrison Allen, 
one of the principal promoters of the enterprise. 


—Mr. H. E. Dore of Portland, Ore., has discov- 
ered Zonites cellaria Muller somewhat abundantly 
in that city, while the native helices appear to be 
receding from the vicinity of civilization. The in- 
truder, now for the first time reported from that 
region, is a European species living in damp places, 
and apparently with a penchant for travel. It was 
introduced at Charleston, 8.C., nearly a century ago, 
and described by Say as a new species. It has been 
found along our eastern coast in many cities, and 
in Manila, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, and many 
other widely distant regions which are visited by 
European ships, and seems to flourish equally well 
everywhere. 


—In the journal of the Anthropological institute 
of Great Britain for November, 1884, Dr. Flower dis- 
cusses the size of teeth as a.race-character in man. 
His observations were made upon all those skulls, out 
of the three thousand in the collection of the museum 
of the Royal college of surgeons, which retained the 
bicuspid and molar teeth of either side in the upper 
jaw. These five teeth he measured in a straight line 
along the crowns, from the anterior margin of the first 


SCIENCE. 


TAPE Sha a oe 


|Vou. IV., No. 97. — | 


bicuspid to the posterior margin of the last molar, to 
get the ‘ dental length.’ This absolute length is not 
sufficient in comparing races, for smaller races might 
naturally be supposed to have smaller teeth; so that it 
was necessary to find some standard of length as indi- 
cating the general size of the cranium, with which to 
compare the dental length. For this purpose, there 
was chosen the length of the base of the skull from 
the anterior margin of the foramen magnum to the 
point where the nasal bones are set upon the frontal. 
The expression in figures, of the proportion between 
the length of these five teeth and that of the base of 
the skull, is known as the ‘dental index.’ 'Theaver- 
age dental indices of the human races represented 
in the collections examined range between forty and 
forty-eight: and for convenience of classification they 
are divided into microdont, with proportionally small 
teeth, index below forty-two; mesodont, with me- 
dium-sized teeth, index between forty-two and for- 
ty-four; megadont, with large teeth, index above 
forty-four. Six gorillas, six chimpanzees, and as 
many orangs, examined, were found to be strongly 
megadont; while a male siamang proved to have mo- 
lar teeth scarcely larger, in proportion to the skull, 
than the higher races of man. The megadont human 
races are the Tasmanians, Australians, Andamanese, 
and Melanesians of various islands. The mesodont 
races are the African negroes of all parts; Malays of 
Java, Sumatra, ete.; American Indians of all parts; 
and the Chinese. The microdont races are the low- 
caste natives of central and southern India; the Poly- 
nesians; the ancient Egyptians; mixed Europeans, 
not British; and the British. While the separation 
into groups is necessarily arbitrary, it seems to be not 
wholly unnatural, since it accords in a general way 
with the familiar classification based on color; the 
microdont section including all the so-called Cauca- 
sian or white races, the mesodont the Mongolian or 
yellow races, while the megadont is composed exclu- 
sively of the black races, including the Australians. 
— The Royal academy of sciences in Turin cele- 
brated its hundredth year in July, 1883, and, in com- 
memoration of its centennial, has issued a quarto 
volume of nearly six hundred pages. In this may be 
found biographical sketches of the three founders of 
the academy, — La Grange, the famous mathema- 
tician; Saluzzo di Monesiglio, the physician and 
chemist; and Cigna, the anatomist and natural phi- 
losopher. The two first named were successively 
presidents of the academy; and they were followed by: 
Morozzo, a physician and mathematician. His name 
is followed by that of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was 
chosen president while he was first consul. A brief 
history of the academy is given, and lists of the 
officers and members, an analytical table of the 
contents of the society’s transactions, and, finally, an 
elaborate alphabetical index to names and subjects. 
mentioned in the transactions. Among the associates 
of the academy are our countrymen, James D. Dana. 
and George Bancroft, who are foreign members, and 
William D. Whitney, who is a corresponding member. 
— Prof. T. C. Mendenhall has been Bete chief 
electrician ft the U.S. signal-bureau. 


v.) 


> % AN : & AS, ‘.° halls « 
ahd Ss er lea ais hy (ae OC ii Mt ik 


Sat 107, 7 a7 = eee West from Greenwich 
f ai 3 C So ~ eae a : . 
Ee Oa 5 oleae i: 8, > 
i = 3 
| 7 IDs 
1 3 
| Jo 
—] > 
38 3 


Ve hee ee oe! 


a 
~ 
. 
ay 


87 Struthers, Servoss & Co., Engr’s, N. ¥. 


THE REGION NORTH OF HUDSON BAY, TO SHOW THE RELATIVE 
POSITION OF ADELAIDE PENINSULA. 


: : = “So 
ole of Ross, 1831 


-~) a 


= 98° 7° = 5 9 
Pole, 18791?) ¢ adalaideeMagnetic P 


BEAUFORT)IS. | Front Bay 
oa ~> oy 
4, °,C.Victoria 


C.Felix 


C.Herschel | ° 
Simpso 


Wilmot Bay : 
PENINSULA 


ro 


$9 Wey 
L. Franklin; 


Dangerous 
Rapids 

alle, 

McKinney’s Pt." 


— 
=) 
2 
re 


SCALE OF MILES, F 
eS —— ——— | fe 
036 91215 30 45 60 ee 

100° 99° 98° 9 03° am E 
Er 


Struthers, Servoss & Co., Engr’s, N. ¥. 


THE SHADED LINES SHOW THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NETSCHILLUK 
INNUIT ABOUT ADELAIDE PENINSULA. a 
SCIENCE, December 19, 18 


— ~~ 


mes eT. 


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1884. 


COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 


Tue Kowak or Kiak River, to the explo- 
ration of which attention has been recently 
attracted, was first entered by Elson, of 
Beechey’s expedition, in 1826; the opening 
being indicated on their rough sketch of Ho- 

tham Inlet. Its name and general character 

were ascertained in 1849 by officers of the 
Plover, who ascended it to the point where 
large trees begin to maintain themselves. An 
account of these investigations appeared in 
the Parliamentary papers of 1855, and. was 
republished in the Arctic papers of the Royal 
geographical society in 1875. Placed on the 
map of north-western America by Petermann 
in 1859, with its name, this river has appeared 
in some shape or other on every good map of 
Alaska issued since. We have referred to the 
later observations of Jacobsen and Woolfe in 
1882 (Science, iv. p. 474), and have since 
learned that the-river was ascended some 
twenty-five miles in 1874 by Capt. E. E. 
Smith. In 1883 Lieut. Stoney was furnished 
with the means for exploring the delta by the 
U.S. revenue marine, represented by Capt. 
Healy of the Corwin, who had for some time 
contemplated an expedition for such a pur- 
pose. 


The above facts being known to geographers, 
it was a matter for surprise, when, after his re- 
turn, the newspapers, apparently by authority, 
claimed for Stoney the discovery of a new 
river of prodigious extent, which, in accord- 
ance with the unwritten law in such cases, he 
as discoverer was entitled toname. This sup- 
position by those better informed was ascribed 
to imperfect charts; and it was supposed that 
the really important additions to geographical 
knowledge, made in the course of this explo- 
ration by Lieut. Stoney, entitled the hasty un- 

No. 98.— 1884. 


official and unfounded claims on his behalf, 
so widely published, to the charity of silence. 
During the past season the explorations pro- 
jected by Capt. Healy have been carried out 
by Lieut. Cantwell of the Revenue marine, not 
the less energetically, perhaps, from the fact 
that he was followed by a naval party in charge 
of Lieut. Stoney. Both parties have contrib- 
uted largely to our knowledge of the hitherto 
unsurveyed river, and a comparison of the 
results of both will probably give a chart ap- 
proximating nearly to accuracy. Meanwhile 
the western newspapers have published further 
accounts of Stoney’s expedition, in which the 
claims of last year are repeated, together with 
others which may probably not appear in the 
official report when made. An abstract of 
this newspaper article, by an editorial over- 
sight, appeared in Science, No. 95, without 
explanation or comment. We consider our- 
selves within the bounds of moderation when 
we Say it is time that Lieut. Stoney protected 
his own reputation by emphatically disavowing 
claims on his behalf, which, by this time, he 
can but know are without a foundation in 
fact. 


OuR NATURALISTS must have recognized the 
force of the remarks of Mr. P. L. Sclater 
before the American ornithologists’ union, 
at its recent meeting, an account of which we 
published a few weeks ago, regarding the 
insufficient care taken of the valuable ornitho- 
logical collections in this country. The same 
thing could be said concerning the older col- 
lections of insects forming so important a part 
of the history of the science of entomology in 
this country. It is a positive misfortune that 
the cabinets of the early naturalists, such as 
those of Say, Hentz, and Melsheimer, remained 
in this country; for almost without exception the 
specimens have been totally destroyed through 
neglect. There is not to-day more than a sin- 
gle museum in the country, where proper pro- 


540 


vision is made for the preservation of such 
perishable collections as dried specimens of in- 
sects. Under the present condition of things, 
it is actually unfortunate for the future of 
this science, when an enthusiast arises in some 
local museum whose care for and interest in 
these objects result in the accumulation of a 
considerable collection, often containing valu- 
able types. At his death or removal, or pos- 
sibly the failure to retain his early ardor, the 
chances are ten to one that the collection will 
be ultimately destroyed. Even our best en- 
dowed institutions have failed to make any 
proper provision for the preservation of their 
collections of insects and stuffed animals, —the 
two departments of a natural-history museum 
which require eternal vigilance. 


There are many valuable entomological col- 
lections in the hands of specialists in this 
country, which would find their way by gift, 
or by sale on easy terms, to the National 
museum at Washington, were any reasonable 
inducement held out to them. These collec- 
tions contain material especially valuable for 
the future of descriptive entomology in this 
country. Within a few years many such col- 
lections have been sold, either to other private 
collectors, or perhaps to parties out of the coun- 
try, to find their place in European museums, 
where they are insured perpetual care. It is 
only within three years that there has been 
even a nominal curator in charge of the collec- 
tion of insects at the National museum; and 
the paltry collection of the department of agri- 
culture was all the authorities at the national 
capital had to show for an entire department 
of natural history, and one abounding in its 
wealth of varied forms. ‘The present curator 
has but an honorary office, and is without funds 
for the support of an assistant. Until pro- 
vision is made for the proper conduct of this 
immense department of natural history at the 
national capital, the appointment of an honor- 
ary curator is worse than useless. It only 
deceives those who know no better, into the 
supposition that collections sent to the muse- 
um are insured proper care. They are not. 


SCIENCE. 


‘ 


Vou. IV., No. 98. _ 


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. 


Verification of predictions. 


THE vulnerable point about Mr. Doolittle’s meas- 
ure of success (given under ‘ Proceedings of societies’ 
in this number of Science) seems to me to be his com- 
bination of the two differences of probabilities, — 

pass Aca and oe 2 
Oo S—=0 p s—p 
It appears clear to me that either of these differences. 
may be taken alone, with perfect propriety, as the 
true measure, according as our concern is to test oc- 
currences for successful prediction, or to test predic- 
tions for fulfilment. If we allow an importance n 
to the former test (limits of n, 0 and 1), so that an ad 
valorem change of 6 in this measure produces an 
ad valorem change of no in i, and similarly an im- 
portance 1 —n to the latter test, these two quantities. 
will enter as psc iis and 
o—c\!—-2 
on 


= -Fea) G 


In my opinion, the value of ¢ is not discoverable 
unless the value of n is given; and this is a subjective 
quantity. Assuming n = #4, we have for 4% an expres- 
sion equal to the square root of that given by Mr. 
Doolittle, and without the fault of giving no negative 
values to answer to perverse predictions. 

HENRY FARQUHAR. 


The microscope for class-room demonstration. 


The following adaptation of the use of the micro- 
scope as a sort of magic-lantern for class demonstra- 
tion has been found so extremely useful, cheap, and 
practical, that it is illustrated here. 

A large common kerosene ‘duplex’ lamp is the 
illuminator. Superfluous light is cut off by a piece 
of six-inch stove-pipe, which fits over the lamp-chim- 
ney, and rests upon a horizontal collar, C, of stove- 
pipe metal. The collar prevents the pipe from 
shutting down too far upon the lamp, which would 
cause the kerosene to become dangerously hot. The 
lamp is filled at # with a curved glass funnel; and the _ 
two flat wicks, an inch and a half broad, are turned 
by their separate keys outside of the pipe. The pipe 
has two elbows, which conduct heat and smoke away, 
and completely cut off the light from the top of the 
flame. ‘These elbows may be rotated into any con-. 
venient position. Opposite the lamp-chimney a third 
short elbow, H, is inserted, closed by a movable cap. 
Through this elbow the chimney can be removed, the 
wicks trimmed, and a concave glass or tin reflector, | 
M, four inches and a half in diameter, may be placed 
behind the flame. The flat of the wicks should be. 
parallel to this mirror. Opposite the mirror, and. 
directly in front of the flame, a plano-convex lens, _X, © 
two inches in diameter, is inserted in a hole in the 
pipe. The light reflected from the mirror, M, passes. 
through this lens, and falls upon the reflector of the . 
microscope, whence it is made to illuminate the ob- 
ject upon the glass slide in the ordinary way. The 
object is magnified by a one-fifth inch or one-half inch 
objective; the eye-piece of the microscope is removed ;, 
and the image is projected upon a ground-glass screen, 
G, a foot and a half square, which is placed from 
one to four feet in front of the microscope. The. 
screen is supported by a perpendicular iron rod and 
cork-lined clamp, such as is in use in every chemical. - 


DECEMBER 19, 1884.] 


laboratory, to hold glass retorts, tubes, etc. The iron 
rod rests upon the floor, occupies very little space, and 
can be moved to any convenient focusing distance. 
A similar stand supports the horizontal elbow of the 
stove-pipe. The tube of.the microscope should be 
blackened+inside as in micro-photography. The 
microscope is handled in every way'as usual in 
respect to stage movement, fine adjustment, etc. 

The great difficulty with the apparatus consists in 
trying to prevent the reflection of superfluous light. 
To obviate this, a pasteboard box, B, six by six by eight 
inches, is readily cut to fit closely over the plano- 
convex lens and the back of the microscope stage, 
thus enclosing the microscope reflector, and allowing 
it room to be focused properly when the lid of the 
box is removed. It is also advisable to fit a sheet of 
pasteboard, P, tightly over the microscope tube at 
right angles to it, in order to cut off the rays which 
escape around the object illuminated, pass along the 
axis of vision outside of the tube, and tend to blur 
the image on the screen. 


#, outline of paper box to enclose mirror; C, collar to support 
stove-pipe; #, elbow through which chimney may be re- 
moved; /, funnel for filling lamp; G, ground-glass screen; 
MM, reflector inside of stove-pipe (posterior surface) ; P, paste- 
board screen; X, hole in stove-pipe where lens is inserted. 


Dr. J. West Roosevelt (to whom the larger part 
of the ingenuity of this apparatus is due) and the 
writer have for some time made constant use of it 
for instructing students. Physiological, histological, 
pathological, and botanical specimens may be clearly 
shown. A number of students can look on at once. 
The slides are rapidly changed, and students and 
instructor may always be sure that they are discuss- 
ing the same particular cell; which, unfortunately, is 
not the case when a beginner in the use of the micro- 
scope looks through the instrument alone. The 
apparatus may readily be constructed by any one for 
about five dollars: it is easily portable, and always 
ready for use in any darkened room. It is possible 
to throw the light from the lens X directly upon 
the object without the intervention of the micro- 
scope reflector, but the reflector facilitates focusing. 
Objectives of wide aperture are preferable. With 
some lenses, the use of the eye-piece adds distinctness, 
but in most cases it cuts out too much light. An 
Abbe illuminator may be inserted. The image on 
the screen G is seen most distinctly upon the farther 
side; and some objects become clearer if the screen 


SCIENCE. 541 


be moistened with water, or covered with a thin coat 
of transparent varnish laid over the ground surface, 
The image may also be received upon white glazed 
paper, but this is less clear. 

For demonstration on a larger scale, an oxy-hydro- 
gen light can of course be used, or some form of 
electric light. The arc-light is not sufficiently steady, 
and the incandescent light requires a great deal of 
storage-room for batteries. ‘The light above described 
shines with thirty-six candle power, is clear and 
steady, and serves every ordinary purpose: the circu- 
lation in the frog’s foot, varieties of epithelium, 
injected lung tissue, tubercle, plant-cells, ete., may 
all be clearly shown. The colors of stained or in- 
jected specimens come out distinctly. 

The principle of this apparatus is by no means 
new; but its application is made so easily within the 
reach of any one who owns a microscope, that it is 
especially recommended to instructors in schools and 
colleges. W. G. THompson, M.D. 

25 West 26th Street, New York. 


QUINTINO SELLA. 


QuUINTINO SELLA was born July 27, 1827, at 
Mosso Superiore, a little village on the Biel- 
lese mountains, and pursued his early studies at 
Biella, evincing a special aptitude for the clas- 
sics. Later he completed a course of study in 
mathematics and physics at the Turin univer- 
sity, and obtained the degree of hydraulic 
engineer. He then entered the school of mines 
at Paris, and passed the following five years, 
partly in study, partly in travelling through 
Germany and England. MHis studies were 
much interrupted by the political excitement of 
1848, and he was an interested witness of all 
the stirring events from the fall of Louis Phi- 
lippe to the proclamation of the second empire. 
At Paris he made the acquaintance of Gastaldi, 
with whose co-operation he later founded the 
Valentino museum. After his return to his 
home in 1852, he would have entered the service 
of the royal corps of mining engineers; but 
Savoy being the only district vacant, and not 
being able, on account of private business and 
his somewhat impaired health, to reside there 
during the winter, he remained at Turin, where 
he became professor of geometry at the tech- 
nical institute, and where he married Clotilde 
Rey. In June of the next year he went to 
Savoy, and remained till the autumn, when he 
was appointed temporarily professor of math- 
ematics at the university of Turin. In 1856 
he was admitted into the corps of mining engi- 


542 SCIENCE. 


neers, and was given charge of Turin district 
and the regency of that of Coni. 

In 1859 he was made a member of the coun- 
cil of public instruction, and in 1860 of the 
council of mining engineers. Since 1856 he 
had had the care of the mineralogical cabinet 
of the technical institute, which later became 
the school of appli- 
cation, and where 
in 1860 he was ap- 
pointed professor of 
mineralogy. Here 
his active scientific 
work ended. Sel- 
la’s political career 
began in the fol- 
lowing year, when 
he was elected rep- 
resentative of Cos- 
sato (Biellese), in 
which capacity he 
was serving at the 
time of his death. 
In the same year 
also he was gener-— 
al secretary of the 
minister of public 
instruction, and 
held the office for 
some time gratul- 
fousty. Three 
times he was the 
minister of finance, 
the first time in 
the Rattazzi cabi- 
net, when he had had no experience 1n politics, 
and as the successor of Cavour. Then began 
that gigantic but successful struggle with the 
enormous debt of the Italian treasury which 
saved the national honor and fortune. To him 
also was largely due the construction of the 
Palazza dei finanze. 

In 1873 he withdrew for an indefinite time 
from politics, and accepted the presidency of 
the Accademia scientifica dei lincei, and ob- 
tained its removal to the Corsini palace. 

His mineralogical and geological publications 
were numerous. ;,One of the most. important 


(Vor. IV! 


of the former was his account of the minera- 
logical industry of Sardinia, in which he gave 
the general statistics and description of the 
mines and smelting-works of the iskand, with 
their technical and economical condition, and 
proposed a plan for their improvement, and in 
which he touched upon the important question 
of the ownership 
of mines. In 1881 
he was made: hon- 
orary president of 
the international 
geological jcon- 
gress; and at. that 
time, in conjunc 
tion with Professor 
Capellini, he found- 
ed the Italian. geo- 
logical society. 
His principal | geo- 
logical work was 
his map of the 
Biellese district ; 
and he was) intend- 
ing to make a de- 
tailed study of the 
Biellese Alps in the 
interests. of geolo- 
gy. He was ‘the 
founder and presi- 
dent of the Italian 
alpine club, and of 
his work. in, this. 
branch much might 
be said. 
So passed away, in his fifty-seventh year, a 
man the useful period of whose life, coinciding 
with that of the re-organization of Italy, con-, 
tributed much to its formation. Italy was not 
unmindful of his services. Public funeral hon- 
ors were granted him, parliament decreed | a 
national monument at Rome, and various, tes- 
timonials; were offered by different. cities Bee 


organizations, among which may be mentioned’ 


the medallion presented by ite € royal: corps’ of 
mining engineers. iilsetoVl 1 wore 
sjab I ba 
Our portrait rEPrePeN A, him at ‘the. s age. of 


thirty, “SIX. r oH oloubowal to shel 


£ 


N68, 


DECEMBER 19, 1884. ] 


THE NETSCHILEUK INNUITS. 


Tse Netschilluk Innuit, or Eskimo, have 
been variously spoken of as Neitschilluk, Net- 
schillee, Nachillee, and Nachilluk, by various 
writers. The name comes from Netshuk, or 
Neitschuk, meaning the small seal of the Arc- 
tic, and is no doubt due to their being depend- 
ent upon the seal as their staple article of 
food. So important a factor is the stomach of 
the Eskimo, in his economy, that his diet often 
determines his tribal name; but the significance 
of the name has in many cases vanished, either 
on account of tribal migration, or the extinc- 
tion of the animals upon which they were de- 
pendent. 

I found the Netschilluks, in 1879, living on the 
mainland opposite King William’s Land, and 
along the islands in the vicinity of Simpson’s 
Strait. They were most numerous along the 
northern shores of Adelaide Peninsula, their 
villages being scattered every few miles along 
this coast from the Montreal Islands to Sinith’s 
Point. Farther east were the Pelly Bay Kski- 
mo, with whom the Netschilluks get along 
well enough, and through whose country some 
have migrated to Hudson’s Bay. To the south- 
east were the Oogueesik Salik Innuit, a nearly 
extinct tribe, the few remaining members living 
at the Dangerous Rapids of Back’s River,*and 
Salmon Rapids of Hayes River. Between 
them and the Netschilluk, there exists the 
deepest distrust. From Smith’s Point to 
Maclaughlin Bay, along the western shore 
of Adelaide Peninsula and in King-mik-took 
(Dogs’ Inlet), there live the Ookjoolik, or 
Oojooklik, with whom the Netschilluks are in- 
timately associated. Still farther west are the 
Kidnelik (copper Eskimo) ; and between them 
and all the other tribes I have mentioned, there 
exists open hostility, —the only case I know 
among the -whole family of Eskimo. This 
hostility, however, takes more the form of 
strenuous efforts to avoid each other, than to 
bring on collisions, though occasionally such 
do oceur. 

The Netschilluks, in weight and stature, are 
above the Caucasian race. The Eskimo of 
Greenland have been so often described, and are 
generally so undersized, that this characteristic 
has unwittingly been attributed to the whole 
race. Among the Eskimo of North Hudson’s 
Bay I occasionally found a man of even con- 
spicuous size. One of these was the only fully 
grown Netschilluk on the shore of the bay; 
and I determined to have him in my sledging- 
party for King William’s Land, as he would be 
a letter of introduction. He was named Ik- 


SCIENCE. 


545 


gueesik, stood about six feet high, and weighed 
perhaps from two hundred and twenty to two 
hundred and thirty pounds, every ounce appar- 
ently serviceable muscle. He proved to be 
a by no means exceptional specimen of his 
race, one whom I met standing over six feet 
six inches. ‘Those of shorter stature were of 
exceedingly heavy build, with stout frames and 
broad shoulders. A cadaverous-looking speci- 
men (fig. 1), whom we met for the first time as 


we were leaving his country in November, could 
hardly be called an exception, when his story 
is told. As soon as the ice in the fresh-water 
lakes is melted in July, this tribe leaves the 
coast to hunt reindeer. Our friend, having 
chosen a very unfrequented sheet of water for 
his summer reindeer-hunt, was left one day 
upon an island with his kiak wrecked, and, 
when rescued many days after, was at the point 
of death from starvation. He was brought to 
the coast in the fall, and when we saw him, 
although unable to walk alone, had overcome 
this difficulty by harnessing a strong dog, and 
tying the trace around his waist, and, with a 
long cane or staff, could make good headway 
as a pedestrian. 

The Netschilluks know nothing of fire-arms. 
Their bows are made of spliced pieces of musk- 
ox horn or driftwood, and cannot compare 
with those of the American Indians. Their 
method of hunting reindeer is to build a line of 
stone monuments (fig. 2) of about a man’s size, 
from fifty to a hundred yards apart, on some 
ridge often two or three miles in length, which 
runs obliquely (fig. 3) toward some large lake 
or wide river. If a herd of reindeer is seen 
between the line of cairns and the water, the 
natives deploy into a skirmish line across from 
the last cairn to the river, and walk slowly 
toward the reindeer, their weapons and their 
kiaks being concealed near the water’s edge. 


4 ie eA ee eee ae er NO ee 
BX 25" SS : "y 
' J J . 


944 


The reindeer, seeing their enemy, trot away 
until they come within sight of the piles of 


stones, when, believing themselves to be sur-- 


rounded, they take to the water. Then the 
Innuit follow in their kiaks, and easily over- 
take the bewildered animals. <A herd of rein- 
deer, when undisturbed, will repeatedly graze 
near such a line of cairns without any further 
notice than a few suspicious glances. 
Depending as they do upon such a precari- 
ous chase, the Netschilluks are poorly clothed. 
As they live nearest to the pole of minimum 
temperature, it is interesting to note their 
methods of combating the cold. Their igloos 
are the warmest I saw in the Arctic: they are 
very low, as shown in fig. 4, the dotted lines 
indicating the usual height. With such a 
cramped space, the heat from the lamp and 


from the bodies of the Innuit is naturally 
economized to the utmost. 

They have an unlimited supply of seal and 
ookjook (great seal) oil for lamp-use, while 
they devour enormous quantities of seal- 
blubber. Their consumption of fat, even dur- 
ing the summer and autumn months, when I 
saw them, was noticeably greater than that .of 
other tribes. Their reputation for thieving is 
not conspicuous, and they generally tell the 
truth. They treat their children well, espe- 
cially the boys, but still practise to a limited 


SCIENCE. 


. 


[Vou IVs, No. 98. 


degree female infanticide: They have the usual 
superstitious beliefs of savages, but are to be 
credited with having devised a physical theory 
to account fora physical phenomenon. ‘They 
never have seen wood growing, and only know 
it as driftwood scattered on the shore. They 
see the logs frozen in the ice before they are 
cast upon the shore, and believe the timber to 
be a growth on the bottom of the ocean (fig. 
5), which, when it reaches to a certain height, 
is nipped off by the ice, and borne to the land. 
It was on one of their wood-seeking trips that - 
the Netschilluks learned so much regarding the 
ill-fated Franklin party. These trips are at 
rare intervals ; and wood enough is secured to 


1 


Fira. .4. 


last for. five or ten years, as this part of the 
country is almost destitute of game. : 
The Netschilluks’ fear of their western neigh- 
bors was well illustrated by their reception of 
our party. As soon as they discovered us 
approaching, the women and children withdrew 
to the snow-huts, while the men formed in line 
with drawn bows, one arrow fixed, and the 
whole quiver brought around in convenient 
position for the use of the others. At my 
ouide’s request, I fired a gun in the air to show 
them that we were white men: this seemed to 
frighten them more than ever. At last an old 
woman was sent forward to meet Ikgueesik, 
whom I had directed to go toward them; and 


(oes 

Ge 4 

shy Sota 
py) / 
SS Ot OI Ys 


YU 


AWE 


TOUS... 


Fie. 5. . , 


; 
‘ 3 WY 


i Nol sow x 
the poor old hag came forward, trembling, 
with a perfect. bewilderment of volubility to 
strengthen her fast-failing courages», {9 600. 


DECEMBER 19, 1884. ] 


In their marriage relations I found but. little 
difference from those of Eskimo better known. 
The marriage contract is arranged early in life 
by the parents, although Ikgueesik bought a 
wife for his nearly grown brother, who was 
also of my party, for the consideration of a 
whaler’s jack-knife. 

Their pugilistic encounters generally take 
place between the ‘best men” of different vil- 
lages, and especially of different tribes, so that 
all my Eskimo were promptly challenged ; but 
being feather weights, compared with these 
giants, I interfered. ‘Their fights are managed 
somewhat in this way: one of the combatants, 
sitting or standing, leans forward with both 


hands or elbows resting on his knees, when his’ 


opponent, with clinched fist, deals him such a 
blow on the side of the head as he may see fit, 
the first stroke being usually. comparatively 
light. No. 2 then takes his turn in. leaning 
forward, and No. 1 deals him a blow, generally 


a little heavier than that he has just received. 


This operation goes on until one or the other 
is either knocked senseless, or rendered help- 
less from sheer exhaustion. 

Another danger threatening the natives of 
my party was no less than the undertaking to 
assassinate one of them, or possibly a white 
man, should circumstances favor. Family 
feuds are not unfrequent; and, when a death 
results, every male relative of the murdered 
man feels bound to avenge the death by killing 
some man of the offending tribe, the murderer 
or some near relative being preferable. This 
vengeance may be postponed almost indefinite- 
ly, and friendly social relations maintained ; 
but, slow as it is, it is sure to come, sooner 
or later. 

I have known one of these murderers to 
coolly take up his residence among his ene- 
mies, and to all intents and purposes be as one 
of them. Among the Netschilluks at the last 
camp we visited was a powerfully built speci- 
men of his tribe, Toolooah by name. Many 
years before,—so many that he could not 
count them on his fingers, and therefore could 
not tell how many, —a relative of his had 
fallen a victim at the hands of an Iwillik; and 
had not yet been avenged. Although there 
was not an Iwillik among us, still my own 
Eskimo felt that any of us might fall to atone 
for this ancient crime. They told me that 
they felt satisfied that many of the natives 
who watched our sledge-loading the morning 
we left had long knives secreted in their 
sleeves, should they need to defend the Net- 
schilluk Toolooah, who’ still persisted in his 
idea of revenge, should opportunity offer. 


SCIENCE. 


545 


But the sight of our many and wonderful 
weapons frightened him into a peaceful atti- 
tude. Singularly, these feuds never swell into 
tribal wars. FREDERICK SCHWATKA. 


HOW THE PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN 
ANTHROPOLOGY PRESENT THEM- 
SELVES TO THE ENGLISH MIND. 


I HAVE seldom, ladies and gentlemen, felt myself 
in a more difficult position than I do at this moment. 
Yesterday morning, when we returned from an expe- 
dition out into the far west, —an expedition which 
your president was to have joined, but which, to our 
great regret, he was obliged to give up, —I heard that 
at this meeting of the Anthropological society of 
Washington I should be called upon to make, not 
merely a five-minutes’ speech, but a substantive ad- 
dress; and since that time my mind has been almost 
entirely full of the new things that I have been see- 
ing and hearing in the domain of anthropology in this 
city. I, have been seeing the working of that un- 
exampled institution, the Bureau of ethnology, and 
studying the collections which, in connection with 
the Smithsonian institution, have been brought in 
from the most distant quarters of the continent; and 
after that, in odd moments, I have turned it over in 
my mind, What can I possibly say to the Anthropo- 
logical society when I am called upon to face them 
at thirty-six hours’ notice? I will not apologize: I 
will do the best I can. 

I quite understand that Major Powell, who is a 
man who generally has a good reason for every thing 
that he does, had a good reason for desiring that an 
anthropologist from England should say something 
as to the present state of the new and growing sci- 
ence in England as compared with its condition in 
America, —for believing that some communication 
would be acceptable between the ald country and the 
new, upon a subject where the inhabitants of both 
have so much interest in common, and can render to 
one another so much service in the direction of their 
work. And therefore I take it that I am to say be- 
fore you this evening, without elaborate oratory and 
without even careful language, how the problems of 
American anthropology present themselves to the 
English mind. 

Now, one of the things that has struck me most in 
America, from the anthropological point of view, is 
a certain element of old-fashionedness. I mean old- 
fashionedness in the strictest sense of the word, — 
an old-fashionedness which goes back to the time of 
the colonization of America. Since the Stuart time, 
though America, on the whole, has become a country 
of most rapid progress in development as compared 
with other districts of the world, there has prevailed 
in certain parts of it a conservatism of even an 
intense character. In districts of the older states, 
away from the centres of population, things that 
are old-fashioned to modern Europe have held their 


1 A lecture delivered by Dr. Epwarp B. Tytor before the 
Anthropological society of Washington, Oct. 11, 1884. 


RAPML AM NT ity Us 


Sia aes a eee wea OAM SP ONAN MTSE 


546 


own with a tenacity somewhat surprising. If I ever 
become possessed of a spinning-wheel, an article of 
furniture now scarce in England, I can hardly get a 
specimen better than in Pennsylvania, where ‘ my 
great-grandmother’s spinning-wheel’ is shown — 
standing, perhaps in the lumber-room, perhaps in an 
ornamental place in the drawing-room — oftener than 
in any other country that I ever visited. 

In another respect Pennsylvania has shown itself 
to me fruitful of old-fashioned products. I was 
brought up among the Quakers, — like so many, I dare 
say, who are present; for the number of times in the 
week, or even in the day, in which it occurs that 
those whom one meets prove to be at least of Quaker 
descent, represents a proportion which must be highly 
pleasant to the Quaker mind. In the history of the 
Society of the Friends, there has recently come out a 
fact unknown, especially to the Friends themselves. 
Their opinion has always been that they came into 
existence in the neighborhood of 1600, by spontane- 
ous generation, in an outburst of spiritual develop- 
ment in England. It hasnow been shown, especially 
by the researches of Robert Barclay (not the old con- 
troversialist, but a modern historian), that the Qua- 
kers were by no means the absolutely independent 
creation that they and others had supposed them to 
be; that they were derived from earlier existing 
denominations by a process which is strictly that of 
development. Their especial ancestors, so to speak, 
were a division of the early Dutch sect known as 
Mennonites. The Friends have undergone much 
modification as to theological doctrine; but some of 
their most pronounced characteristics, such as the 
objection to war and oaths, and even details of cos- 
tume, and the silent grace before meals, remain as 
proofs of Mennonite derivation. To find the Men- 
nonites least changed from their original condition 
is now less easy in their old homes in Europe than 
in their adopted homes in the United States and 
Canada, whither they have migrated from time to 
time, up till quite recently, in order to avoid being 
compelled to serve as soldiers. They have long 
been a large and prosperous body back in Pennsyl- 
vania. I went tosee them; and they are a very strik- 
ing instance of permanency of institutions, where 
an institution or a state of society can get into pros- 
perous conditions in a secluded place, cut off from 
easy access of the world. Among them are those 
who dissent from modern alteration and changes by 
a fixed and unalterable resolution that they will not 
wear buttons, but will fasten their coats with hooks 
and eyes, as their forefathers did. And in this way 
they show with what tenacity custom holds when it 
has become matter of scruple and religious sanction. 
Others have conformed more and more to the world; 
and most of those whomI have seen were gradually 
conforming in their dress and habits, and showing 
symptoms of melting into the general population. 
But, in the mean time, America does offer the specta- 
cle of a phase of religious life, which, though dwin- 
dling away in the old-world region where it arose, 
is quite well preserved in this newer country, for the 
edification of students of culture. These people, who 


SCIENCE. 


bb 5 in od Ne a a ie oe Ce aT ee YN Aloe yd! hy Ly bal 


[Vou. IV., No. 98. 


show such plain traces of connection with the his- 


torical Anabaptists that they may be taken as their 
living representatives, still commemorate in their 
hymns their martyrs who fell in Switzerland for the 
Anabaptist faith. There was given me only a few 
days agoa copy of an old scarce hymn-book, ante- 
rior to 1600, but still in use, in which is a hymn com- 
memorative of the martyr. Haslibach, beheaded for 
refusing to conform to the state religion, whose head 
laughed when it was cut off. 

Now, to find thus, in a secluded district, an old state 
of society resisting for a time the modifying influences 
which have already changed the world around, is no 
exceptional state of things. It shows the very pro- 
cesses of resisted but eventually prevailing alteration 
which anthropologists have to study over larger re- 
gions of space and time in the general development 
of the world. In visiting my Mennonite friends in 
Pennsylvania, I sometimes noticed, that, while they 
thought it nothing strange that I should come to 
study them and their history, yet when I was asked 
where I was going next, and confessed with some 
modesty that I was going with Major Powell to the 
far west to see the Zufiis, this confession on my 
part was received with a look of amazement, not 
quite unmingled with kindly reproof: it seemed so 
strange to my friends that any person travelling 
about of his own will should deliberately go to 
look at Indians. I found it hard to refrain from 
pointing out, that, after all, there is a communit, of 
purpose between studies of the course of civilization, 
whether carried out among the colonists of Pennsyl- 
vania or among the Indians of New Mexico. Inves- 
tigation of the lower races is made more obscure and 
difficult through the absence of the guidance of writ- 
ten history, but the principle is the same. 

A glance at the tribes whom Professor Moseley and 
I have seen in the far west during the last few weeks 
has shown one or two results which may be worth 
stating; and one, merely parenthetical, I think I 
must take leave to mention, though it lies outside the 
main current of my subject. 

Our look at North-American Indians, of whom it 
has been my lot to write a good deal upon second- 
hand evidence, had, I am glad to say,:a very en- 
couraging effect; because it showed, that on the 
whole, much as the writings of old travellers and 
missionaries have to be criticised, yet if, when 
carefully compared, they agree in a statement, per- 
sonal inspection will generally verify that statement. 
One result of our visit has been, not a diminution, but 
an increase, of the confidence with which both of 
us in future will receive the statements of travellers 
among the Indians, allowing for their often being 
based upon superficial observation. So long as we 
confine ourselves to things which the traveller says he 
saw and heard, we are, I believe, upon very solid 
ground. 

To turn to our actual experiences. The things 
that one sees among the Indian tribes who have not 
become so ‘white’ as the Algonkins and the Iro- 
quois, but who present a more genuine picture of old 
American life, do often, and in the most vivid way, — 


DECEMBER 19, 1884. ]. 


present traces of the same phenomena with which- 
one is so familiar in old-world. life. 
sitting in a house just inside California, engaged in 
what appeared to be a fruitless endeavor. on ,the part 
of Professor Moseley to. obtain a lock of hair of a 
Mojave, to add to his collection., The man objected 
utterly. Heshook his head... When pressed, he ges- 
ticulated and talked. No: if he gave up that bit of 
hair, he would become deaf, dumb, grow mad; and, 
when the medicine-man came to drive away. the 
malady, it would be of no use, he would, have to die. 
Now, all this represents a perfectly old-world group 
of ideas. If you tried to get.a lock of hair,in Italy 
or Spain, you might be met, with precisely the same 
resistance; and you would find that the reason would 
be absolutely the same as that which the Mojave ex- 
pressed, — that by means of that lock of hair one can 
be bewitched, the consequence being disease. And 
within the civilized world the old philosophy which 
accounts for disease in general as the intrusion 
of a malignant spirit still largely remains; and the 
exorcising ;,such a, demon is practised. by white 
men, as a religious rite, even including the act 
ef exsufflating it, or blowing it, away, which our 
Mojave Indian illustrated by the gesture of blowing 
away an imaginary spirit, and which is well knownas 
forming part of the religious rites,of both the Greek 
and.Roman church. | How is it that such correspond- 
ence with old-world ¢eremonies should be found 
among a. tribe. like the Mojaves, apparently Mongo- 
lian people, though separated geographically, from 
the Mongolians of Asia? Why does the civilization, 
the general state of culture, of the world, present 
throughout its whole range, in time and space, phe- 
nomena so wonderfully similar and uniform? This 
question is easy to ask; but it is the question, which, 
in. few words, presents the problem which, to all an- 
thropologists who occupy themselves with the history 
of culture, is a problem -full of the most extreme 
difficulty, upon which they will have for years. to 
work, collecting and classifying facts, in the. hope 
that at some time the lucky touch will be made which 
will disclose the answer. . At present there is none of 
an absolute character. There is no day in my life, 
when I am able to occupy myself with anthropological 
work, in which my mind does not swing like a pen- 
dulum: between the two great possible answers. to 
this question. Have the descendants of a small 
group of mankind gone on teaching their children 
the same set of ideas, carrying them on from genera- 
tion to generation, from age to.age, so that when they 
are found .in distant regions, among tribes which have 
become different even in bodily formation, they rep- 
resent the long-inherited traditions of a common 
ancestry? Or is it that all over the world, man, 
being substantially similar in mind, has again, and 
again, under similar circumstances of life, developed 
similar groups of ideas and customs ? I cannot, I 
think, use the opportunity of standing at this table 
more profitably than by insisting, in the strongest 
manner which I, cam find words to, express, on the 
fundamental importance of directing attention to this 
great problem, the solution of which will alone bring 


SCIENCE. 


Imagine us- 


DAT 


the study of civilization into its full development as 
a science. 

Let me put before you two or three cases, from ex- 
amples which have been brought under my notice 
within the last few days, as illustrating the ways in 
which this problem comes before us in all its diffi- 
culty. 

This morning, being in the museum with Major 
Powell, Professor Moseley, and Mr. Holmes, looking 
at the products of Indian life in the far west, my 
attention was called to certain curious instruments 
hanging together.in a case in which musical instru- 
ments are contained. ‘These consisted simply of flat, 
oblong, or. oval pieces of wood, fastened at the end to 
a thong, so as to be whirled round and round, caus- 
ing a whirring or roaring noise. The instruments in 
question came, one from the Ute Indians, and one 
from the Zufiis. Now, if an Australian, finding him- 
self inspecting the National museum, happened to 
stand in front of, the case in question, he would stop 
with feelings not, only of surprise, but probably of 
horror; for this is an instrument which to him repre- 
sents, more intensely than any thing else, a sense of 
mystery attached to his own most important religious 
ceremonies, especially those of the initiation of youths 
to the privileges of manhood, where an instrument 
quite similar in nature is used for the purpose of 
warning off women and children. If this Australian 
were from the south, near Bass Strait, his native law 
is, that, if any woman sees these instruments, she 
ought immediately to be put to death; and the illus- 
tration which he would give is, that, in old times, 
Tasmania and Australia formed one continent, but 
that one unlucky day it so happened that certain 
boys found one of these instruments hidden in the 
bush, and showed it to their mothers, whereupon the 
sea burst up through the land in a deluge, which never 
entirely subsided, but still remains to separate Van 
Dieman’s Land from Australia. And, even if a Caffre 
from South Africa were to visit the collection, his at- 
tention would be drawn to the same instruments, and 
he would be able to tell that in his country they were 
used for the purpose of making loud sounds, and 
warning the women from the ceremonies attending 
the initiation of boys. How different the races and 
languages of Australia and Africa! yet we have the 
same.use cropping out in connection with the same 
instrument; and, to complete its history, it must be 
added that. there are passages of Greek literature 
which show pretty plainly that an instrument quite 
similar was used in the mysteries of Bacchus. The 
last point is, that it is a toy well known to country- 
people, bothin Germany and in England. Its English 
name is the ‘bull-roarer:’ and, when the children 
play with it in country villages, it is hardly possible 
(as I know by experience) to distinguish its sound 
from the bellowing of an angry bull. 

In endeavoring to ascertain whether the occur- 
rence of the ‘bull-roarer’ in so many regions is to 
be explained by historical connection, or by inde- 
pendent development, we have to take into consider- 
ation, first, that it is an apparatus so simple as 
possibly to have been found out many times; next, 


st La UM LTA if, 4 


548 SCIENCE. 


that its power of emitting a sound audible at a great 
distance would suggest to Australians and Caffres 
alike its usefulness at religious ceremonies from which 
it was desired to exclude certain persons. Then we 
are led to another argument, into which I will not 
enter now, as to the question why women are excluded 
in the most rigid manner from certain ceremonies. 
But in any event, if we work it out as a mere ques- 
tion of probabilities, the hypothesis of repeated re- 
invention under like circumstances can hold its own 
against the hypothesis of historical connection ; but 
which explanation is the true one, or whether both 
are partly true, I have no sufficient means to decide. 
Such questions as these being around us in every 
direction, there are only two or three ways known 
to me in which at present students can attack them 
with any reasonable prospect of success. May I 
briefly try to state, not so much by precept as by ex- 
ample, what the working of those methods is by 
which it is possible, at any rate, to make some en- 
croachments upon the great unsolved problem of 
anthropology ? 

One of the ways in which it is possible to deal with 
such a group of facts may be called the argument 
from outlandishness. When a circumstance is so 
uncommon as to excite surprise, and to lead one to 
think with wonder why it should have come into 
existence, and when that thing appears in two differ- 
ent districts, we have more ground for saying that 
there is a certain historical connection between the 
two cases of its appearance than in the comparison 
of more commonplace matters. Only this morning 
a case in point was brought rather strongly under my 
notice; not that the facts were unknown, for we have 
been seeing them for days past at Zufii. The Indians 
of the north, and especially the Iroquois, were, as 
we know, apt to express their ideas by picture-writ- 
ings, in the detailed study of which Col. Mallery is 
now engaged. One sign which habitually occurs is 
the picture of an animal in which a line is drawn 
from the throat, through the picture of the animal, 
terminating in the heart. Now, the North-American 
Indians of the lake district have a distinct meaning 
attached to this peculiar heart-line, which does not 
attach to ordinary pictures of animals: they mean 
some animal which is living, and whose life is affected 
in some way by a charm of some kind. 

It is expressly stated by Schoolcraft that a picture 
he gives of a wolf with such a heart-line means a 
wolf with a charmed heart. It is very remarkable 
to find, among the Zufiis, representations of deer and 
other animals drawn in the same manner; and the 
natural inference is, that the magic of the Iroquois and 
the Zuiiis is connected, and of more or less com- 
mon origin. Iverified this supposition by asking Mr. 
Cushing, our authority on Zufii language and ideas, 
what idea was generally attached to this well-known 
symbol; and his answer was, that it indicated a living 
animal on which magical influence was being exerted. 
May we not, then, consider, — leaving out of the ques- 
tion the point whether the Pueblo people invented the 
heart-line as a piece of their magic and the nomad 
‘tribes of the north picked it up from them, or whether 


it came down from the northern tribes and was 


adopted by the southern, or whether both had it from 
a common source, — that, at any rate, there is some 


ground, upon the score of mere outlandishness, for 


supposing that such an idea could not occur without 
there being some educational connection between the 
two groups of tribes possessing it, and who could 
hardly have taken it by independent development ? 
To mention an instance of the opposite kind: I 
bought a few days ago, among the Mojaves, a singular 
article of dress, —a native woman’s girdle, with its 
long fringe of twisted bark. This, or rather two of 
these put on so as to form one complete skirt, used 
to be her only garment; and it is still worn from old 


_ custom, but now covered by a petticoat of cotton, 


generally made of several pocket-handkerchiefs in 
the piece, bought from the traders. Under these cir- 
cumstances, it has become useless as a garment, only 
serving as what I understand is called in the civilized 
world a ‘dress-improver;’ the effect of which, in- 
deed, the Mojave women perfectly understand, and 
avail themselves of in the most comic manner. Sup- 
pose, now, that we had no record of how this fantastic 
fashion came into use among them: it has only to 
be compared with the actual wearing of bark gar- 
ments in Further Asia and the Pacific Islands in order 
to tell its own history, —that it is a remnant of the 
phase of culture where bark is the ordinary material 
for clothing. But the anthropologist could not be 
justified in arguing from this bark-wearing that the 
ancestors of the Mojaves had learned it from Asiaties, 
Independent development, acting not only where 
men’s minds, but their circumstances, are similar, 
must be credited with much of the similarity of 
customs. It is curious that the best illustrations of 
this do not come from customs which are alike in 
detail in two places, and so may be accounted for, 
like the last example, by emigration from one place 
to another. We find it much easier to deal with 
practices similar enough to show corresponding work- 
ings of the human mind, but also different enough 
to show separate formation. Only this morning I 
met with an excellent instance of this. Dr. Yarrow, 
your authority on the subject of funeral rites, de- 
scribed to me a custom of the Utes of disposing of 
the bodies of men they feared and hated by putting 
them under water in streams. After much inquiry, 
he found that the intention of this proceeding was to 
prevent their coming back to molest the survivors. 
Now, thereis a passage in an old writer on West 
Africa where it is related, that, when a man died, his 
widow would have herself ducked in the river in 


order to get rid of his ghost, which would be hang-. 


ing about her, especially if she were one of his most 
loved wives. Having thus drowned him off, she was 
free to marry again. Here, then, is the idea that 
water is impassable to spirits, worked out in different 
ways in Africa and America, but showing in both 
the same principle; which, indeed, is manifested by 
so many peoples in the idea of bridges for the dead 
to pass real or imaginary streams, from the threads 
stretched across brooks in Burmah for the souls of 


friends to cross by, to Catlin’s slippery pine-log for vf 


[Vox. IV., No. 98. — 


DECEMBER 19, 18&4.] 


the Choctaw dead to pass the dreadful river. In such 
correspondences of principle we trace, more clearly 
than in mere repetitions of a custom or belief, the 
community of human intellect. 

But I must not turn these remarks into what, 
under ordinary circumstances, would be a lecture. 
I have been compelled to address myself, not so 
much to the statement in broad terms of general 
principles, as to points of detail of this kind, because. 
it is almost impossible, in the present state of anthro- 
pology, to work by abstract terms; and the best way 
of elucidating a working-principle is to discuss some 
actual case. There are now two or three practical 
points on which I may be allowed to say a few words. 

The principle of development in civilization, which 
represents one side of the great problem I have been 
speaking of, is now beginning to receive especial cul- 
tivationin England. While most museums have been 
at work, simply collecting objects and implements, 
the museum of Gen. Pitt-Rivers, now about to be re- 
moved from London to Oxford, is entirely devoted to 
the working-out of the development theory on ascale 
hardly attempted hitherto. In this museum are col- 
lected specimens of weapons and implements, so as 
to ascertain by what steps they may be considered to 
have arisen among mankind, and to arrange them in 
consecutive series. Development, however, is not 
always progress, but may work itself out into lines 
of degeneration. There are certain states of society 
in which the going-down of arts and sciences is as 
inevitable a state of things as progress is in the more 
fortunate regions in which we live. 
will watch with the greatest interest what effect this 
museum of development will have upon their science. 
Gen. Pitt-Rivers was led into the formation of the 
remarkable collection in question in an interesting 
manner. He did not begin life either as an evolu- 
tionist or as an anthropologist. He was a soldier. 
His business, at a particular time of his life, was to 
serve on a committee on small-arms, appointed to re- 
form the armament of the British army, which at 
that time was to a great extent only provided with 
the most untruthful of percussion-muskets. He 
then found that a rifle was an instrument of gradual 
growth; for the new rifles which it was his duty to 
inspect had not come into existence at once and in- 
dependently. When he came to look carefully into 
the history of his subject, it appeared that some one 
had improved the lock, then some one the rifling, and 
then others had made further improvements; and 
this process had gone on, until at last there came 
into existence a gun, which, thus perfected, was able 
to hold its own in a permanent form. He collected 
the intermediate stages through which a good rifle 
arose out of a bad one; and the idea began to cross 
his mind that the course of change which happened 
to rifles was very much what ordinarily happens with 
other things. So he set about collecting, and filled 
his house from the cellar to the attic, hanging on his 
walls series of all kinds of weapons and other instru- 
ments which seemed to him to form links in a great 
chain of development. The principle that thus be- 
came visible to him in weapon-development is not 


SCIENCE. 


Anthropologists. 


D049 


less true through the whole range of civilization; and 
we shall soon be able to show to every anthropologist 
who visits Oxford the results of that attempt. And 
when the development theory is seen in that way, 
explaining the nature and origin of our actual arts 
and customs and ideas, and their gradual growth 
from ruder and earlier states of culture, then anthro- 
pology will come before the public mind as a new 
means of practical instruction in life. 

Speaking of this aspect of anthropology leads me 
to say a word on another hardly less important. On 
my first visit to this country, nearly thirty years ago, 
I made a journey in Mexico with the late Henry 
Christy, a man who impressed his personality very 
deeply on the science of man. He was led into this 
subject by his connection with Dr. Hodgkin; the two 
being at first interested, from the philanthropist’s 
point of view, in the preservation of the less favored 
races of man, and taking part in a society for this 
purpose, known as the Aborigines’ protection society. 
The observation of the indigenous tribes for philan- 
thropic reasons brought the fact into view that such 
peoples of low culture were in themselves of the 
highest interest as illustrating the whole problem 
of stages of civilization; and this brought about the 
eatablishment of the Ethnological society in England, 
Henry Christy’s connection with which originated 
his plan of forming an ethnological museum. The 
foundations of the now celebrated Christy collection 
were laid on our Mexican journey; and I was witness 
to his extraordinary power of knowing, untaught, 
what it was the business of an anthropologist to 
collect, and what to leave uncollected; how very 
useless for anthropologic purposes mere curiosities 
are, and how priceless are every-day things. The two 
principles which tend most to the successful work of 
anthropology — the systematic collection of the pro- 
ducts of each stage of civilization, and the arrange- 
ment of their sequence in development — are thus 
the leading motives of our two great anthropological 
museums. 

To my mind, one of the most remarkable things 
I have seen in this country is the working of the 
Bureau of ethnology as part of the general working 
of the government department to which it belongs. 
It is not for. me, on this occasion, to describe the 
working of the Smithsonian institution, with its re- 
search and publication extending almost through the 
whole realm of science; nor to speak of the services of 
that eminent investigator and organizer, Prof. Spen- 
cer F. Baird. It is the department occupied with the 
science of man of which I have experience; and I do 
not think that anywhere else in the world such an 
official body of skilled anthropologists, each know- 
ing his own special work, and devoted to it, can be 
paralleled. The Bureau of ethnology is at present 
devoting itself especially to the working-up of the 
United States, and to the American continent in 
general, but not neglecting other parts of the world. 
And I must say that I have seen with the utmost 
interest the manner in which the central organism 
of the Bureau of ethnology is performing the func- 
tions of an amasser and collector of all that is worth 


550 


knowing; how Major Powell is not only a great ex- 
plorer and worker himself, but has the art of infus- 
ing his energy and enthusiastic spirit through the 
branches of an institution which stands almost alone, 
being, on the one hand, an institution doing the work 
of a scientific society, and, on the other hand, an in- 
stitution doing that work with the power and lever- 
age of a government department. If we talked of 
working a government institution in England for 
the progress of anthropology in the way in which it 
is being done here, we should be met with — silence, 
or a civil answer, but with no practical result; and 
any one venturing to make the suggestion might run 
the risk of being classed with that large body de- 
scribed here as ‘cranks. The only way in which 
the question can be settled, how far a government 
may take up scientific research as a part of its legiti- 
mate functions, is by practical experiment; and some- 
how or other your president is engaged in getting 
that experiment tried, with an obvious success, 
which may have a great effect. If in future a prop- 
osition to ask for more government aid for anthro- 
pology is met with a reply that such ideas are 
fanatical, and that such schemes will produce no 
good results, we have a very good rejoinder in 
Washington. The energy with which the Bureau of 
ethnology works throughout its distant ramifications 
has been a matter of great interest. It is something 
like what one used to hear of the organization of the 
Jesuits, with their central authority in a room ina 
Roman palace, whence directions were sent out which 
there was some agent in every country town ready 
to carry out with skill and zeal. For instance: it 
was interesting at Zufii to follow the way in which 
Col. and Mrs. Stevenson were working the pueblo, 
trading for specimens, and bringing together all that 
was most valuable and interesting in tracing the 
history of that remarkable people. Both managed 
to identify themselves with the Indian life. And one 
thing I particularly noticed was this, that to get at 
the confidence of a tribe, the man of the house, 
though he can do a great deal, cannot do all. If his 
wife sympathizes with his work, and is able to do it, 
really half of the work of investigation seems to me 
to fall to her, so much is to be learned through the 
women of the tribe, which the men will not readily 
disclose. The experience seemed to mea lesson to 
anthropologists not to sound the ‘ bull-roarer,’ and 
warn the ladies off from their proceedings, but rather 
to avail themselves thankfully of their help. 

Only one word more, and I will close. Years ago, 
when I first knew the position occupied by anthro- 
pology, this position was far inferior to that which it 
now holds. It was deemed, indeed, curious and 
amusing ; and travellers had even, in an informal way, 
shown human nature as displayed among out-of-the- 
way tribes to be an instructive study. But one 
of the last things thought of in the early days of 
anthropology, was that it should be of any practical 
use. The effect of a few years’ work all over the 
world shows that it is not only to be an interest- 
ing theoretical science, but that it is to be an agent 
in altering the actual state of arts and beliefs and in- 


SCIENCE. 


stitutions in the world. For instance: look at the 
arguments on communism in the tenure of land in 


the hands of a writer who thinks how good it would _ 
be if every man always had his share of the land. 


The ideas and mental workings of such a philoso- 
pher are quite different from those of an anthropolo- 
gist, who knows land-communism as an old and still 


existing institution of the world, and can see exactly - 


how, after the experience of ages, its disadvantages 
have been found to outweigh its advantages, so that 
it tends to fall out of use, In any new legislation on 
land, the information thus to be given by anthropol- 
ogy must take its place as an important factor. D 

Again: when long ago I began to collect materials 
about old customs, nothing was farther from my 
thoughts than the idea that they would be useful. 
By and by it did become visible, that to show that a 
custom or institution which belonged to an early 
state of civilization had lasted on by mere conserva- 
tism into a newer civilization, to which it is unsuited, 
would somehow affect the public mind as to the ques- 
tion whether this custom or institution should be 
kept up, or done away with. Nothing has for months 
past given me more unfeigned delight than when I 
saw in the Times newspaper the corporation of the 
city of London spoken of as a ‘survival.’ You have 
institutions even here which have outlived their origi- 
nal place and purpose; and indeed it is evident, that, 
when the course of civilization is thoroughly worked 
out from beginning to end, the description of it from 
beginning to end will have a very practical effect 
upon the domain of practical politics. Politicians 
have, it is true, little idea of this as yet. But it al- 
ready imposes upon bodies like this anthropological 
society a burden of responsibility which was not at 
first thought of. We may hope, however, that, under 
such leaders as we have here, the science of anthro- 
pology will be worked purely for its own sake; for, 
the moment that anthropologists take to cultivating 
their science as a party-weapon in politics and reli- 
gion, this will vitiate their reasonings and arguments, 
and spoil the scientific character of their work. I 
have seen in England bad results follow from a pre- 
mature attempt to work anthropology on such con- 
troversial lines, and can say that such an attempt is 
not only in the long-run harmful to the effect of an- 
thropology in the world, but disastrous to its imme- 
diate position. My recommendation to students is to 
go right forward, like a horse in blinkers, neither 
looking to the right hand nor to the left. Let us do 
our own work with a simple intention to find out 
what the principles and courses of events have been 
in the world, to collect all the facts, to work out all 
the inferences, to reduce the whole into a science; 
and then let practical life take it and make the best 
it can of it. In this way the science of man, ac- 
cepted as an arbiter, not by a party only, but by the 
public judgment, will have soonest and most perma- 
nently its due effect on the habits and laws and 
thoughts of mankind. ; 

I am afraid I have not used well, under such short 
and difficult conditions, the opportunity which you 
have done me the great pleasure and honor of giving 


ki me 


} 


DECEMBER 19, 1884. | 


me here. I have tried, as I said I would, to put 
in the simplest way before you some considerations 
which appear to me as of present importance in our 
science, both in the old world and in the new, and 
I thank you in the heartiest way possible for the 
opportunity you have given me to do this. 


EXPLORATION OF THE KOWAK RIVER. 


WE have been favored by Major E. W. Clark, 
chief of the Revenue marine bureau, with the follow- 
ing abstract of explorations on the Kowak or Kuak 
River of Alaska, made during the season of 1884 by 
a party from the U. S. steamer Corwin, Capt. Healy. 
The party comprised Lieut. J. C. Cantwell, com- 
manding, assisted by Second-Assistant Engineer S. 


SCIENCE. 


591 


the river, hitherto uniformly low, began to be more 
elevated, and the current increased to three miles 
per hour. The course of the river was extremely 
tortuous. Another village was seen on the left 
bank, on a high black bluff, at four p.m. The depth 
of the river increased to five fathoms: its width 
varied, being from half to three-quarters of a mile. 
Many offshoots of the main stream were noticed, all 
extending to the northward and westward. The 
following day a good growth of pine, birch, and 
willow adorned the banks, which had previously 
shown only shrubbery. At half-past eight A.M. 
a large westerly arm was passed, which, according 
to the native guide, was the last arm of the delta, 
and flowed into the western part of Hotham Inlet. 
At noon the party obtained observations, placing 
them in latitude 68° 45’.3, and west longitude 161° 
46’. At half-past two P.M. a series of ice-cliffs, like 


ICE-CLIFFS ON KOWAK RIVER. 


_ B. McLenegan, a quartermaster, fireman, miner, and 


interpreter, and was furnished with two small boats 
and the Corwin’s steam-launch. They left the Cor- 
win at Cape Krusenstern, July 8, and the following 
morning entered Hotham Inlet by a practicable chan- 
nel four or five fathoms deep, which enters the inlet 
close to its eastern point or headland. The eastern 
and southern shores of the inlet are composed of clay 
bluffs about two hundred feet high, backed by rolling 
tundra. ‘The opposite shore, however, was low and 
swampy, with many lagoons, the native guide stating 
that this was the Kowak delta, which has fifteen 
mouths, and extends some fifty miles inland. The 
temperature at this time averaged 80° or 90° F. dur- 
ing the day. At seven o’clock on the 10th of July a 
break was seen in the lowland of the delta, where 
a high peak ahead and a high bluff point on the 
western shore form a range for the channel entering 
the river. The channel is about two hundred yards 
wide, with two and a half fathoms least water at 
the time the party entered. The banks are low and 
marshy, with a dense growth of willow and birch, 
and harbored myriads of mosquitoes. At ten A.M. 
next day a collection of Innuit huts was seen, ten- 
anted by only one family at that date. The banks of 


those of Eschscholtz Bay, was observed, composed 
of a solid mass of ice extending three-quarters of 
a mile along the left bank, covered by a thin layer 
of dark-colored earth, and rising to a height of a 
hundred and fifty feet. Trees were growing on the 
surface. Up to this point, and for some distance 
farther, not a single stone or pebble was to be seen, 
and the silence was frequently disturbed by the fall 
of large masses of the soft earthy banks undermined 
by the strong current. On the afternoon of the 15th 
a stretch of river extending about six miles in a 
north-easterly direction was reached, which offered 
a beautiful prospect. The river widened to half a 
mile, with low green banks, while beyond a range of 
rugged mountains could be seen. At the end of the 
six-mile reach was a succession of high bluffs, 
caused by the foot-hills coming down to the river, 
with a narrow, rocky beach, the slopes wooded with 
pine and juniper. There were many very fragrant 
wild-flowers, and the mosquitoes were the only dis- 
turbing element. This, which was named Highland 
Camp, was about eighty miles from the entrance of 
the river. About one P.M., on the 14th of July, the 
mouth of the Squirrel River of the natives was 
reached, coming in from the north-east. Its source 


mop i ae ere te eH A i CRE CUR SRN” > Sa 


uve 
ae 


[VOL. TVieg No. 98. “a 


D902 SCIENCE. 


is in the mountains, one day’s portage from the 
Nunatok, or some of its branches. Here three 
nearly equal waterways presented themselves, of 
which the middle one was chosen. The strength 
of the current made progress very difficult, and there 
were numerous bars. The right bank was high and 
rolling to the water side, where it formed a beach of 
variously colored limestone pebbles. Large masses 
of metamorphic rock cropped out among the dense 
growth of forest which lined the shore. On the left 
bank the land was low, being an island some ten 
miles long, whose upper end was reached about six 
P.M. On the following morning the river widened, 
the current became less, and the stream less crooked, 
and it was apparent that the party had passed the 
region of the mountains through which the river 
cuts its way. These mountains beyond the right 
bank rise over three thousand feet, heavily timbered 
at their bases, and trend nearly as the river runs. 
In the afternoon a large coal-vein was discovered in a 
bluff on the river-bank, and was extremely welcome 
for use in the steam-launch, though that on the sur- 
face had been weathered so as to partly impair its 
good quality. : 

This and the following day were rainy: so no 
observation could be had. The thermometer stood 
at about 90° F. At half-past six a deserted village 
was reached. The width of the river was from five 
hundred to nine hundred yards, and the depth of 
the channel from twelve to thirty feet. The follow- 
ing day another deposit of coal in a stratum of fine 
white clay suitable for pottery was found. This coal, 
however, did not burn well, probably on account 
of the admixture of clay. Later in the day the first 
rapids were reached, and passed with some diffi- 
culty; and in the evening the party halted at a fish- 
ing-village, where the natives, who were very honest 
and friendly, were preparing their nets for the ex- 
pected run of salmon. 
current became extremely strong, numerous rocks 
were found to exist alongshore, and it required much 
care to keep the launch from being thrown upon them 
by the force of the stream. Several villages and fish- 
ing-stations were passed, and small ripples or rapids 
became more numerous, so that the lighter boats 
easily outstripped the launch. On the 21st, having 
nearly reached the Jade Mountain, it was deter- 
mined to divide the party, let the engineer and 
miner explore in the vicinity, while the launch was 
taken to a convenient spot for laying her up by 
Lieut. Cantwell, who would then rejoin them. The 
launch was left at a fishing-village, whose inhabitants 
informed them that the channel of the river above 
soon became obstructed by rocks, and ran in a sort 
of cafion, so that the natives do not attempt to navi- 
gate it. It divides into two branches, one of which 
takes its rise in a large lake (supposed to be twenty- 
five miles long), while the other rises farther to the 
eastward, near the head waters of the Koyukuk River, 
which enters the Yukon just above Nulato. The 
natives use birch canoes in this region. The river 
rose one foot during the night of the 22d; and the 
Innuit stated that the water was very high, but later, 


AS progress was made, the. 


with dry weather, would fall, so that all the river- 
bed would be dry except the channel. Lieut. Cant- 
well, after repairing the furnace of the launch with 
the native fire-clay, left her to rejoin McLenegan and 
Miller with a party of Innuit. They were reached 
on the 24th, much exhausted by their trip, their 
boots worn out, pestered to an incredible degree by 
mosquitoes, but bringing some of the native jade 
and other minerals. They were sent to recuperate 
at the station where the launch had been left, while 
the others pushed on, and at noon reached a part of 
the river where it takes a sudden bend to the south- 
east, the country being low and rolling, backed by 
mountains on both sides. The Jade Mountain could 
be readily distinguished from the other peaks by its 
greenish color. The depth of water did not dimin- 
ish. At half-past four p.m. a remarkable clay bluff, 
three-quarters of a mile long and a hundred and 
fifty feet high, was reached on the left bank of the 
river. Quantities of mammoth tusks were observed 
in this clay and its débris where undermined by the 
stream. The river now becomes very tortuous, with 
many islands, and tundra extending to the moun- 
tains. The soil is clayey, with a thick layer of black 
mould. In winter the natives, who at this time were 
fishing on the lower Kowak, ascend to the region of 
its head waters, and travel to trade with the Yukon 
Indians, vid the Koyukuk River, or go still farther 
to the north-east to the range of the high Yukon 
Mountains, where moose and mountain sheep are 
found in great numbers. It was reported that ona 
clear day the sea (or a large lake) could be seen from 
these mountains in one direction. On the other 
side of the Yukon range is a river (doubtless the 
Colville) by which the sea can be reached in five 
days. On the 26th of July a point was reached where 
the river divides into two parts, the south-eastern of 
which was followed, on account of its more direct 
course, to a point where the Umakalukta River 
comes in from the southward. This was narrow and 
crooked, soon diminishing to a mere torrent. Trees 
two feet in diameter, and very rank shrubbery, were 
observed on its banks. It was ascended to a village 
about twenty miles above its mouth, where the ex- 
plorers were kindly welcomed by the inhabitants, 
some of whom had never seen a white man before. 
Boats could not be obtained here to replace the 
water-soaked skin-boat of the party ; but they were 
told that they could from this place make a portage 
across to the Kowak, which they would reach from 
twenty-five to thirty miles above the point where the 
Umakalikta joins it. This was determined upon, 
and the party camped at the village, enjoying some 
delicious fresh salmon. 

The following day the portage was made over a hill 
to a small lake, then over tundra to a large lake which 
took four hours to cross, and then through a swamp 
to the Kowak again. For reasons connected with 
the supply of provisions and the worn state of the 
skin boat upon which the party depended for trans- 
portation, it was decided to return to the launch. It 
was supposed that there were, by native reckoning, 
about twelve days’ farther navigation to the falls, 


DECEMBER 19, 1884.] 


which terminated the navigable part of the river, 
which would now diminish in depth with every day 
of fine weather. From a hill near the camp, the river 
could be seen, winding along the foot of the moun- 
tains and off into level country beyond, while in the 
far distance snowy peaks were seen, from which 
the natives reported that the other peaks in which the 
Kowak takes its source could be seen on a clear 
day. At seven A.M., July 29, the party started down 
the river, descending with great velocity on the swift 
current. The mouth of the Notmoktowak or ‘ Pack’ 
River, which drains the country between the Nunatok 
and Kowak, was examined, and the boat passed 
through several sloughs not observed in coming up. 
The boat leaked and needed repairs: so on the 30th 
Lieut. Cantwell left it to be mended, and started for 
the Jade Mountain, twelve miles away, on foot. The 
natives refused to accompany him, as the shaman de- 
elared evil would come to any one who visited the 
mountain. The tramp was fatiguing; but a torrent 
was reached which separates the mountain from a 
high, rugged peak of the same range. Large quanti- 
ties of the green stone were found in the bed of the 
stream ; but the mountain itself seemed actually to be 


myriads of water-fowl. 


SCIENCE. Bysy5) 


The lake along its south shore is not very deep, and 
shoals off very gradually, so as to make landing diffi- 
cult. The country is high, rolling tundra, forming 
a bluff bank behind the beach, covered with a thick 
growth of shrubbery. At intervals long spits extend 
far out from the shore, forming many small harbors 
or bays. The eastern end of the lake, where the 
shore trends to the north-west, is low and swampy, 
and the water very shoal, with a sort of bar parallel 
with the beach two hundred yards off. Here were 
A river comes in from the 
eastward about seventy-five yards wide, with from 
twelve to eighteen feet of water. This flows from a 
lovely little lake about five miles in diameter, almost 
entirely surrounded by mountains. A narrow creek 
enters the opposite side of the lake, and, ascending 
this, the large lake, Imogarik-cho-it, or Little Sea, of 
the natives is reached. The stream connecting this 
with Selawik Lake is called Kiaktuk or Fox River. 
The mountains visible from Selawik Lake border the 
eastern shore of Imogarik Lake, and extend nearly 
round it; but the northerly shore is quite low and 
marshy. Another branch, called the Igaiak River, 
connects Imogarik Lake and Selawik River about 


ENTRANCE TO SELAWIK LAKE. 


entirely composed of it, and the sides of the cliffs 
were like polished glass for smoothness where they 
had been subjected to pressure or wear. About a 
hundred pounds of the mineral were collected; and, 
after a short nap, the party returned to the river, 
which they reached, almost exhausted by the heat, 
the bad travelling, and the torture of sand-flies and 
mosquitoes. On the 2d of August the party started 
down to meet the launch, whose boilers were so 
worn that she could not with safety attempt much 
more hard steaming against the current. Observa- 
tions for position and declination were obtained at 
various points; and on the 6th of August, at two A.M., 
the party reached Highland Camp, where sundry arti- 
cles collected on the up-trip were taken on board. 
On the following day the party camped on the shores 
of Hotham Inlet. The distance travelled up the 
river, including all tortuosities; was estimated at 
three hundred and seventy miles. 

The remainder of their stay was devoted to the 
exploration of Hotham Inlet and Selawik Lake, and 
its associated rivers and lakes, during which some 
extremely valuable corrections to the charts were 
made. Selawik Lake is practically an extension 
through a narrow passage of Hotham Inlet. The 
main mouth of the Kowak River empties into the in- 
let close to the entrance of the lake, which on the 
south side is marked by a sand-spit projecting far out 
from the shore, forming a convenient boat. harbor. 


twenty-five miles from the mouth of the latter, by 
which Selawik Lake could be reached in two days. 
This was taken, and the junction of the Selawik and 
Igaiak rivers reached on the morning of Aug. 14. 
The banks of the Selawik differ little from those of 


‘the Kowak, except that the undergrowth is heavier. 


The width of the river varies from six hundred to a 
thousand yards, and in some places expands into bays 
a mile wide. The channel showed from four to six 
fathoms. From the mouth of the Igaiak, the Selawik 
trends about six’ miles in a north-westerly direction, 
and then south and west to Selawik Lake. Many 
small lakes and lagoons were observed near the river, 
and from a hill one large sheet of water was seen 
which lay near the foot of the mountains, about six 
milesfrom theriver. That evening Selawik Lake was 
reached through a large bay filled with many islands, 
and the party camped on a sand-spit which formed 
the north point of entrance to the lake. About half- 
way from the river to the inlet a river comes into the 
lake from the mountains between the latter and the 
valley of the Kowak. The country here is low and 
marshy. ‘The work was completed Aug. 16, and the 
party started down Hotham Inlet, of which a recon- 
noissance was made on their way. The bar at the 
mouth of Hotham Inlet was found to have no more 
than six feet of water on it anywhere at low water. 
On the 30th of August the party rejoined the Corwin 
about fifteen miles westward from Cape Blossom, 


ili i UUM Bask LM ve 11 ed 
ory Seal 


Ah ELAN OER LURE CR 8 SOR RRO C MR MRROL RS 2.0 WS! AA Cee eae 


554 


and reported for duty without serious accident or 
illness of any of its members. 

‘Reports on the minerals, birds, general character 
of the country and its inhabitants, the fur trade, etc., 
from Engineer McLenegan, accompany the report. to 
Capt. Healy, commander of. the Corwin, from which 
the above notes are derived. The Kowak abounds in 
salmon, pike, and white-fish, which are dried by the 
natives. The white spruce is the largest and most 
abundant tree. The natives are all Innuit or Eskimo; 
and their numbers in this region are estimated at three 
hundred and fifty on the Nunatok, two hundred and 
twenty-five on the Kowak, and two hundred and fifty 
on the Selawik lakes and rivers. The coal-belt is 
about thirty miles wide, and is probably’ lignitic, re- 
sembling the small seam near Nulato, on the Yukon. 
The ‘ color’ of gold was obtained almost everywhere, 
but it is doubtful if it would pay to work it. Beds 
of a beautifully mottled serpentine, used by the 
natives for ornaments, were found in the mountains 
near the Kowak, as well as the so-called ‘ jade,’ used 
far and wide for the most costly and elegant stone 
implements, which is perhaps the variety of pectolite 
recently described by Clarke from specimens got at 
Point Barrow. Seventy-seven species of birds were 
collected, mostly of species common to the Yukon 
region, among which the rock ptarmigan and white- 
tailed godwit (L. uropygialis?), are noteworthy, as 
well as the great white-billed loon (C. Adamsi). 

Commercially the most important result of the 
expedition is the indication of a route by which 
whalers or others, held by the ice eastward from Point 
Barrow, might find a comparatively available way to 
the settlements on the Yukon, vid the Colville and 
Kowak rivers, and through the Koyukuk valley. 
Geographically the journey of Lieut. Cantwell is the 
most important of the past year in America; and its 
results, taken in connection with those of Lieut. 
Stoney, who subsequently passed over nearly the 
same route, will give us an approximate knowledge 
of a considerable area which has hitherto been al- 
most a blank upon the best maps. 


THE CHOLERA BACILLUS: —KOCH’S RE- 
FEY PO YS 'CRrrics, 


THe doubts that have arisen in many minds in 
regard to the specific nature of the cholera bacillus 
of Koch may be in some measure dispelled by the 
latter’s answers to his critics in a recent number 
of the Deutsche medicinische wochenschr ift (No. 45, 
1884). In it he shows the differences between the 
cholera bacillus and that found in’the mouth (Lan- 
cet, Sept. 20, 1884), and then takes up the work’ of 
Finkler and Pryor. ‘He shows that they have not 
obtained pure cultures (this from specimens of their 
own); that their bacillus is larger and thicker, more 
rapid in growth, and very different j in ‘culture- aed 
In examinations of three. cases of ‘cholera nostras,’ 
he failed to find the ‘comma. bacillus.’ Koch has 
also succeeded in producing cholera by the inocula- 


SCIENCE. 


tion of one one-hundredth: of*.a/drop of a solution 
of a pure culture. This produced death in rabbits 
and guinea-pigs in from one anda half to three days, 
when placed’ inthe duodenum.-)The appearances 
post mortem were those: of the human :subject in 
death from*Asiatiecholeras tuo, yibsdtear eTeiiil 

In addition ‘to this, we have the confirmatory evi- 
dence of E. van Ermengen in a communication to. 
the Belgian microscopical society, Oct. 26, 1884 
(Lancet, Nov. 29, 1884). This observer found the 
comma bacillus in the intestinal fluids of eight au- 
topsies and ‘thirty-four examinations of stools. He 
considers that its peculiar-shaped, chain-like groups 
and occasional wavy filaments distinguish it com- 
pletely from other bacteria. “ He finds that it is more 
or less abundant, according to the stage of the dis- 
ease; and in two cases (foudroyant) they were pres- 
ent almost as in a pure culture. They disappear 
during reaction. Bi: 

Premonitory diarrhoea was not investigated for the 
presence of the organism, for lack of time. In cases 
of algide cholera, where no bacilli were found in’ ‘the 
stools, culture of the most’ minute «portion produced 
enormous numbers of the organism within) twenty- 
four hours. He considers that the presence of -the 
organism is diagnostic of cholera, and that the method 
of microscopic examination in conjunction, with, cul- 
tures should be adopted in all doubtful cases, By 
thus settling the diagnosis early, efficient prophylaxis 
against the ‘spread of the disease may be established. 
He found no spores, and considers their absence 
probably established by the want of resistance to 
drying of this organism. He finds precisely the same 
differences between the cholera bacillus and those’ of 
Lewis and of Finkler and Pryor, and exactly thesame 
objections to the latter’s work, as does Koch (loc. 
cit.).. He, aswell as Koch, succeeded in, producing 
cholera by inoculation of one drop) of; a, culture,;ex- 
tending over four days (this in dogs, guinea-pigs, 
and rabbits)... The cadaveric appearances were those 
of cholera; and the intestinal fluids contained many 
comma pacillt, from which further cultures were 
made. He thinks that the pathogenic action of these 
bacteria is very likely due to some product of their 
growth in the material in which they are sown, and 
closes his communication by advising that shy sivtanis 
generally should be instructed: inthe methods’ ‘of 
microscopic search for these organisms in: order) to 
the early determination of the existence. of, the-dis- 
ease, and all that that implies. This is a recommen- 
design which might. be made in, this country, ane 
adopted with much. benefit to the POPE BES cid 
large. 


Bh R GS 


that the woke is again indebted to Koch for his 
labors in the investigation of disease, and that the 
links connecting his choléea bacillus with cholera ‘as 
its specific cause are na RIG: into a! “complete 
chain of evidence. ©: ogs 2id ,asoabaid = 

-In regard tothe organism , itself, we thes received 
within, a day or two a slide containing masses’ of 


bacilli from a pure culture. The preparation. is ja 


‘very, beautiful one; and jits PRESET is undoubt- 


. Dh ™ 


DECEMBER 19, 1884. ] 


ed, inasmuch as it was put up and forwarded by Koch 
himself. It shows all the peculiarities of shape de- 
scribed by him, and most certainly bears out the asser- 
tion that it possesses distinguishing characteristics 
from other bacteria. In form and arrangement, it 
differs markedly from any other organism with 
which we are acquainted, either those found in the 
intestines or elsewhere. 


SCIENCE IN MANCHESTER. 


A centenary of science in Manchester. (In a series 
of notes.) By R. Anecus SmitH, Ph.D., LL.D. 
London, Taylor & Francis. 475 p. 8°. 


Tue progress of literature and science in 
Manchester, Eng., is full of interest to Ameri- 
cans. It is not only that the city is full of 
life and vigor, and that its relations to the 
United States are very close, but there is a 
sort of western freshness in all its undertak- 
ings. Owens college is not yet forty years old ; 
the Victoria university is more recent than 
Johns Hopkins ; the Literary and philosophical 
society of Manchester is younger by several 
years than the American academy and the 
American philosophical society ; and the Free 
public library is the junior of the Astor library 
in New York. Manchester has grown during 
this century more rapidly than Baltimore, and 
its wealth has increased at a rate which is still 
more remarkable. Under these circumstances, 
we have examined with some curiosity the 
volume prepared for the hundredth year of the 
Literary and philosophical society of Manches- 
ter, 1881. 

Among the many honorable names com- 
memorated in it, two are pre-eminent, — Dalton 
and Joule. The former established the science 
of chemistry on the basis of the atom: the lat- 
ter ascertained the mechanical equivalent of 
heat. Referring to these great discoverers, 
Dr. Smith expresses his belief that there has 
been ‘‘a law in the recesses of humanity which 
has caused the influence of the community to 
concentrate itself, first into the Society, and 
then, through particular members, into the 
theory of chemistry, equivalents of atoms, and 
their connection with mechanical force, — the 
knowledge of which must influence mankind 
forever.’’ Dalton’s development of the atomic 
theory was preceded by other noteworthy con- 
tributions to science, — his discovery of color- 
blindness, his epoch-marking essays in meteor- 
ology, and his elaborate inquiry on the force 
of vapor; to all of which brief reference is 
here made. 

Joule was a pupil of Dalton; ‘‘ a follower,”’ 


SCIENCE. 


says Smith, ‘‘ worthy of the prophet; ... a 
pupil who has become the master of many 
learners.’’ ‘The relations of these two men 
are thus described. ‘‘ The idea of units of 
measure in Dalton’s mind developed itself 
gradually into the idea of units of force in the 
mind of Joule. . . . To say that the two are 
the most successful descendants of the great 
thinkers who have grappled with the subject 
of atoms for three thousand years, is but to 
express a simple fact; and to assert that Dal- 
ton and Joule have made the great leading 
discoveries on the subject is simply to follow 
history. From one we learn the order in which 
the ultimate particles of bodies move: from the 
other we learn the force and relation of their 
movements in those great phenomena, heat, 
electricity, and mechanical force.’”’ 

There are other stars in the Manchester fir- 
mament. Among them are William Fairbairn, 
builder of the tubular bridge at Menai, a man 
of ‘wonderful instinct’ as an engineer; and 
his more scientific coadjutor, Eaton Hodgkin- 
son. Sir John Hawkshaw, Sir Henry Roscoe, 
and Professor Balfour Stewart are famous 
among recent members of the society. The 
laboratory of Dr. Edward Schunck is said to 
be the finest private laboratory in the country. 
The founder of the society, Dr. Thomas 
Percival, a physician of great repute, who had 
the skill to elicit the best co-operation of other 
men, is commemorated by Dr. Smith as one who 
foreshadowed some of Darwin’s views. His 
contemporary in the society, Charles White, 
Dr. John Ferriar and the three Henrys, also re- 
ceive due notice; and so does Thomas Cooper, 
afterwards of Columbia, S.C., whose name has 
recently been brought to mind by allusions. 
to it in the autobiography of Dr. Marion 
Sims. 

The comments of Dr. Smith on the present 
state of the society are suggestive. First, he 
recognizes a disposition, on the part of the 
Manchester investigators, to send their papers 
to the Royal society of London. ‘‘ It is use- 
less to complain of this: it is a phase of na- 
tional life, and it will probably grow stronger 
for a time, until this sub-centre becomes suffi- 
ciently brilliant to make men feel that it is an 
object of great ambition to become distin- 
cuished here.’? The writer thinks that Man- 
chester has allowed its forces to be too muck 
scattered. Next he pleads for enlarged quar- 
ters. The members of the society are unwill- 
ing to leave the rooms where Dalton studied, 
which were his home from morning until even- 
ing for the greater part of his life; but more 
space is demanded. Third, he answers the 


506 


criticism that the society gives ‘no lectures, 
no soirées, no displays.’ Fourth, he argues 
that original researches should be encouraged in 
Manchester, and that this society should inspire 
and aid such work. ‘This leads him to mention 
the good influence of Owens college and the 
Victoria university.. He closes the chapter 
with the strong assertion, which few men of 
science will dispute, that if Manchester, and 
many cities and countries besides, were obliter- 
ated from the earth, the loss would be less 
than it would be if the world should lose the 
influence which came from Dalton’s atomic 
theory and from Joule’s law of the mechanical 
equivalent of heat. 


INDIAN SIGN-LANGUAGE. 


The Indian sign-language ; with brief explanatory 
notes of the gestures taught deaf-mutes in our 
institutions for their instruction, and a descrip- 
tion of some of the peculiar laws, customs, myths, 
superstitions, ways of living, code of peace, and 
war-signals of our aborigines. By W. P. CLarx, 
Heres Philadelphia, Hamersley, 1885. 443: p. 
Tue study of the gesture-speech of our In- 

dians began in 1801, when Mr. William Dunbar 
read a paper on the subject before the American 
philosophical society, which was published in 
their Transactions. Only quite within the last 
decade, however, has the subject received the 
careful attention which it merits. In 1880 
there appeared, under the auspices of the Bureau 
of ethnology, three works, or rather portions 
of the same work, from the pen of Col. Gar- 
rick Mallery, U.S.A., entitled ‘*‘ A collection 
of gesture signs and signals of the North- 
American Indians, with some comparisons ’”’ 
(distributed only to collaborators, and there- 
fore one of the bibliographic rarities of the 
government press) ; ‘‘ Introduction to the study 
of sign-language among the North-American 
Indians ;’’ and ‘‘ Sign-language among North- 
American Indians compared with that among 
other peoples and deaf-mutes.’’. This last, 
which was printed in the first report of the 
Bureau of ethnology, is amply illustrated, and 
may be considered the completion of Col. 
Mallery’s investigations in this direction. It 
includes a history of gesture-language in both 
the old and new world, its study as a phase 
of evolution, its prevalence i in America, its re- 
lations to philology, its connection with the 
origin of writing and the interpretation of pic- 
tographs, and the bearings it has upon theories 
of syntax and etymology. 


SCIENCE, 


(. [Vou IV.; No. 98, 


These applications \are‘striking and instruc- 
tive in a high degree,and vindicate the emi- 
nently important place which the philosophic 
study of gesture-speech must hereafter occupy 
in archeologic research. An excellent illustra- 
tion of it is given by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, in 
an article on American pictography in the 
Transactions of the Anthropological society 
of Washington (vol. ii. 1883), where by its aid 
he translates in the most Satisfactory manner 
a petroglyph from California, and an Innuit 
carving on ivory. Such a demonstration of 
the significant character of these primitive 
rock inscriptions and carvings was the more 
timely, since the distinguished ethnologist, Dr. 
Richard Andree, in his. ‘ Ethnographische pa- 
rallelen und vergleiche,’ has condemned. pretty 
much all these relics as the.idle and. meaning- 
less amusements of savages. 

Capt. Clark’s work is a welcome addition 
to our knowledge of the subject. He speaks 
from long personal observation and a, practical 
familiarity with this mode of communicating 
ideas. His studies began in 1876, and’ were 
continued for years, mainly within the lim- 
its of the plains or prairie tribes. As in 
Mallery’s treatise, the words are arranged 
alphabetically, the signs following them, thus 
facilitating comparison. An advantage’ in 
Capt. Clark’s presentation is, that he adds the 
mental conception or picture which the native 
forms to himself of the object or idea to be 
represented, thus furnishing a clearer meaning 
to the sign, and also enlightening the reader 
as to the psychology of the aboriginal thinker. 
His definitions are by no means confined to ex- 
plaining the sign-language. He fully redeems 
the promise on his titlepage to describe the 
laws, customs, myths, and peculiarities of the 
tribes he names. These facts are all fresh, 
derived from original observation, and add a 
great deal to the available ethnological infor- 
mation of the prairie Indians. 

Such material must, however, be used with 
caution. When (p. 10) the author infers from 
the myths of the Indians that there was a time, 
referred to in these narratives, in which the 
natives did not know the use of the bow and 
arrow, he attributes to these stories an an- 
tiquity which they by no means possess. The 
stemmed and barbed arrow-head was in use 
when the loess of the now long, since dried-up 
Nebraska lakes was in process of Forni 
almost a geologic cycle ago. 

In an appendix the author describes ai “num- 
ber of signals with a blanket, a pony, or a 
mirror, and adds the explanation of Gatti 
geographical names. It is a peculiarity, that, 


2 oi i ell Sel 


DECEMBER 19, 1884.] 


we do not undertake to explain, that he nowhere 
alludes by name to those writers whose works 
have preceded his, and) which we have men- 
tioned in the earlier paragraphs of this notice. 


CASTE IN INDIA IN 1881. 


Outlines of Punjdb~ ethnography. By DENZzIL 
CHARLES JELF [pBETson of her Majesty’s. Ben- 
gal civil service. Caleutta, Government, 1883. 

oO 


Imperial census of 1881. Digest of the results in 
the presidency of Bombay, including Sind. By 
order of government. Bombay, Government, 
1882. 

Report of the census of Bengal, 1881. 
BourpILyon of the Bengal civil service. 
cutta, Secretariat pr., 1883. 


TuHEseE reports treat of about 109,000,000, of 
the 198,000,000 people of India. The Punjab 
(near 23,000,000) has about 41% Hindus, 
51% Mahometans, 7% Sikhs. Bombay and 
Sind (16,500,000) have 73% Hindus ; Bombay 
alone, 84%. Bengal (69,500,000) has 64% 
Hindus. The chief strength of the Sikhs in 
India is in the Punjab. The. preponderance 
of other races and religions in the Punjab gives 
a special field for inquiry how far caste is a 
Hindu institution. 

Mr. Ibbetson deems the treatment of caste 
hitherto, including his own work, inadequate 
and unsatisfactory, and he recognizes that 
contradictory statements regarding the same 
people may be true in different localities. He 
says, — 


By J. A. 
Cal- 


The popular and currently received theory of caste 
1 take to consist of three main articles: 

1°. That caste is an institution of the Hindu reli- 
gion, and peculiar to that religion alone; 

2°. That it consists primarily of a fourfold classifi- 
cation of people in general, under the heads of Brah- 
man, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra; 

3°. That caste is perpetual and immutable, and 
has been transmitted from generation to generation, 
throughout the ages of Hinda history and myth, with- 
out the possibility of change. 

Now. I should probably be exaggerating in the op- 
posite direction, but I think that I should still be far 
nearer the truth, if, in opposition to the popular con- 
ception thus defined, I were to say, — 

1°. That caste is a social far more than a religious 
institution; that it has no necessary connection what- 
ever with the Hindu religion, further than that under 
that religion certain ideas and customs common to all 
primitive nations have been developed and perpetu- 
ated in an unusual degree; and that conversion from 
Hinduism to Isl4m has not necessarily the slightest 
effect upon caste: 

2°. That there are Brahmans who are looked upon 
as outcasts by those who, under the fourfold classifi- 
cation, would be classed as Stidras; that there is no 
such thing as a Vaisya now existing ; that it is very 
doubtful indeed whether there is such a thing as a 


SCIENCE. 


557 


Kshatriya, and, if there is, no two people are agreed 
as to where we shall look for him; and that Sidra has 
no present signification save as a convenient term of 
abuse to apply to somebody else whom you consider 
lower than yourself; while the number of castes which 
can be classed under any one or under no one of the 
four heads, according as private opinion may vary, 
is almost innumerable: 

3°. That nothing can be more variable or difficult 
to define than caste; and that the fact that a genera- 
tion is descended from ancestors of any given caste, 
creates a presumption, and nothing more, that that 
generation also is of the same caste, —a presumption 
liable to be defeated by an infinite variety of circum- 
stances. 


Mr. Ibbetson gives 275 pages to the consid- 
eration of religions, races, castes, and tribes 
of the people of the Punjab, and justice to his 
work is hardly possible in a brief space. Sum- 
ming up as to evolution of caste, he says : — 


Thus, if my theory be correct, we have the follow- 
ing steps by which caste has been evolved in the 
Punjab: 

1°. The tribal division common to all primitive 
societies ; 

2°. The guilds based upon hereditary occupation 
common to the middle life of all communities; 

3°. The exaltation of the priestly office to a degree 
unexampled in other countries; 

4°, The exaltation of Levitical blood by a special 
insistence upon the necessarily hereditary nature of 
occupation ; 

5°. The preservation and support of this principle 
by the elaboration from the theories of the Hindu 
creed or cosmogony of a purely artificial set of rules, 
regulating marriage and intermarriage, declaring cer- 
tain occupations and foods to be impure and pollut- 
ing, and prescribing the conditions and degree of 
social intercourse permitted between the several 
eastes. Add to these the pride of social rank and 
the pride of blood, which are natural to man,.. 
and it is hardly to ‘be wondered at that caste should 
have assumed the rigidity which distinguishes it in 
India. 


He holds that caste in the Punjab is primarily 
based on occupation, and, with the masses own- 
ing and cultivating land, upon political position, 
which brings in the tribal element. The trades- 
suild type of caste, found chiefly in the large 
cities, owes its existence largely to the preva- 
lence of Mahometan ideas. ‘* The people are 
bound by social and tribal custom far more 
than by any rules of religion. . The differ- 
ence [between Hindu and Mussulman |] is na- 
tional rather than religious.’’ In some cases 
Mahometanism has here strengthened the caste 
bonds of its adherents. The four castes lead- 
ing in number in the Punjab are Jats, proba- 
bly of Indo-Scythian stock (agriculturists and 
ploughmen) ; Rajputs,‘ Sons of Rajas’ (largely 
land-owners, preferably pastoral, and avoiding 
personal ploughing); Brahmans, priestly and 
Levitical; Chuhras;; the scavengers ; number- 
ing respectively about 4,500,000, 1,500,000, 
1,000,000, and 1,000,000. 


508 


In Sind little detail was observed in abstract- 
ing information respecting caste. In the Bom- 
bay presidency 84% of the people are Hindus. 
Caste is not discussed elaborately in the Di- 
gest of the census, but incidentally the views 
of Mr. Ibbetson as to the close relation of 
occupation, tribe, religion, and caste, are sus- 
tained by the unnamed official who prepared 
the Digest. Among the 200 pages of tables, 
one table shows ‘Class and name of caste,’ 
‘ Hereditary occupation,’ ratios occupied in 
certain general pursuits, and, under ‘ Remarks,’ 
more definitely the numbers actually occupied 
in pursuits not hereditary. The largest caste 
is the Kunbi, or cultivators, of the Maratha dis- 
tricts, and next the Mahar and Dhed, unclean 
castes, village servants. Brahmans and Raj- 
puts lead socially. Over 830 castes are rec- 
ognized, the forty-page index for which, unfor- 
tunately, was not bound in the copy of the 
Digest at hand. Mr. Bourdillon (Bengal) 
avoids discussion of caste farther than it was 
necessary for general tabulation of caste enu- 
meration. He quotes the instructions of the 
census committee of India in this :— 


We have no hesitation in saying that there is no 
part of the work of compilation which presents so 
many difficulties, involves so much labor, and at the 
same time is so unsatisfactory when completed, as 
the working-up of the caste tables.”’ 


The committee did not encourage minute 
research as to caste, and it is only by a sort of 
cross-examination that we can trace Mr. Bour- 
dillon’s views as compared with Mr. Ibbet- 
son’s. Under caste, however, he speaks of 
‘* the interest of the caste question being much 
more ethnological than statistical,’’ — the race 
idea. The Bengal tables deal only with ‘ Hin- 
du castes ;’ but Mr. Bourdillon tells us, under 
‘ Religions,’ that 


The term ‘ Hindu’ now denotes neither a creed nor 
a race, neither a church nor a people, but is a general 
expression devoid of precision, and embracing alike 
the most punctilious disciple of pure Vedantism, the 
agnostic youth who is the product of western educa- 
tion, and the semi-barbarous hillman who eats with- 
out ‘scruple any thing. . . and is as ignorant of the 
Hindu theology as the stone which he worships in 
times of danger. ’ 


And he quotes approvingly from Mr. Bev- 
erley : — 


So does the Hindu religion in Bengal assume a 
Protean form, from the austere rites practised by the 
shaven pundits of Nuddea to the idol-worship of the 
semi-barbarous Boona. The Bauris. ..are prob- 
ably all of aboriginal extraction, but have adopted as 
their religion a form of Hinduism, and can scarcely 
be classed as other than Hindus. 


SCYENCE. 


ey . iets ata 7 Wn eh aes 


(Vou. 'IV., No. 98. 


In chapter ix., after stating that the Gwalla 
or the cowherd caste is largest, Brahmin sec- 
ond in numbers, Kaibartha, (husbandmen of 
lower Bengal) ‘third, Mr. Beverley says, ** The 
KKoch, who occupy ‘the fourth place, afford a 
striking example of the way in which Hindu- 
ism is “replenished, *? and goes on to explain 
how a people, once witha language and a re- 
ligion, as well as a government, of its own, has 
been absorbed by Islamism and Hinduism, in 
which latter the converts are, to allintents and 
purposes, low-caste Hindus. Many names are 
siven that are to be interpreted as occupation 
or as castes interchangeably, and heredity of 
caste and of occupation is distinctly named. 
Under ‘ Religion’ Mr. Beverley gives a general 
statement of absorption of aboriginal tribes 
into Hinduism, their ruling classes being ‘ab- 
sorbed into the warrior caste, while the com- 
mon people became low-caste Hindus. 

The principal point on which ‘there may be 
a diversity of view as to caste between’ the 
census officers is as to its ‘existence among 
non-Hindu peoples. ‘There is no evidence of 
antagonism in their general views, and it is 
not clear that there would not be essential 
harmony if each wrote fully on the subject. 

Other provincial census reports should short- 
ly be received from India, to aid our investi- 
gations. Meantime’ we may recognize some 
suggestions of caste in the relations of race, 
oecupation, and social position, among western 
nations. In more than one locality in’ the 
United States a lady finds that her cook will 
not make a bed, the chambermaid will not 
dress the infant, the nurse will not broil a 
steak, and, with a houseful of servants, no 
one will clean the clothes, which are sent to a 
washerwoman. Actual scavengers have hardly 
higher social rank in America than in India, 
where distinction, varying here with daily 
changes of wealth and of occupation, become 
moulded into family and religious permanence. 

Mr. Ibbetson reminds us that ‘** William 
Priest, John King, Edward Farmer, and James 
Smith are but the survivals in England of the 
four Varnas of Menu.”’ 


PAEMIST ivy. 


Handbook of modern palmistry. By Prof. ve DE 
Metz. 2d ed., with 8 illustrations. New York, 
Thompson and Vaneau, pr. [1883.] 8+ 130 Ds) 
LOL. 


Od (ie [Je 

Armaouen written apparently with sottvetining 
curiously like anhonest intent, this book is a 
piece of absurd claptrap, — utterly: irrelevant 


' DECEMBER 119, 1884.] 


deductions from monstrous assumptions, affec- 
tations of impossible learning mingled with a 
mass of mere jargon, calculated to sound like 
science to the vulgar. Lhe whole makes such 
a farrago as might of itself, send its writer to 
the lunatic-asylum, in which he would certainly 
prove a distinguished ornament—that is, if he 
is honest in his madness. Still, those who are 
minded to find ‘sermons, in stones, and good 
in every thing,’ may get useful matter for re- 
flection from it. 

First, he may learn that the palmist art of 
divination is one of the oldest and most wide- 
spread, as well as the longest, to survive, of 
superstitions. It is perhaps natural that men 
should try to make some interpretations of the 
curiously varied lines of the human hand. It 
would be easy for a primitive people to frame 
a fancy that the likeness, and at the same time 
the variety, of ‘the lines in the hands of men, 
had something akin to the like and the unlike 
elements, of all men’s lives... It was, perhaps, 
from, the ever-present longing for light on the 
great mystery, that. some one of old hit on 
the conjecture that these lines that toil gives to 
the hand were prophecies of the life that the 
mortal was to lead.. There at once sprang up 
systems of interpretation less apparently scien- 
tific than those of the astrologers, yet quite as 
credible, and winning as much credence in the 
olden time, as did the predictions of the star 
science. There was a great mass of supersti- 
tion of this same general nature afloat among all 
early peoples. Astrology, from the largeness 
of its claims, and the dignity of its. pretended 
subject-matter, the action of the stars, has 
always held the first place in the hierarchy 
of humbugs. Next comes the interpretation of 
dreams, then divinations by signs, then palm- 
istry, and at last a variety of less determined 
means of divination, —the flight of birds, the 
aspect of their entrails, etc. _Where these 
notions have taken any strong hold upon the 
people, they have certain common features 
that show them, one and all, to be the bastard 
brothers of true science... They all rest upon 
that idea of likeness in nature which precedes 
the understanding of cause and effect. Man 
is always ready to find the unexplored clouds 
of nature ‘ very like a whale,’ or ‘ backed like 
a camel,’ at the bidding of any one who will 
affect superior discernment, and promise him 
to rend the future’s veil. The more remote 
the likeness, the more undisciplined men will 
strain to note it, and, noting, the more implicit 
their belief in it. 

Such books as this mark the remains of the 
old truth-searching impulse, which, in its first 


SCIENCE. 559 


active shape, gave us superstitions, but which, 
finally united with a critical spirit, gave us true 
learning. ‘They indicate a stronger survival of 
the old spirit of superstition than is commonly 
supposed to continue in educated communities. 

Divination has a higher place in the common 
mind than most well-trained men are disposed 
to believe: even in our best educated commu- 
nities, it is still, as of old, a well-paid profes- 
sion. In the leading paper of Cambridge, 
Mass., published within a stone’s throw of the 
university, a professed divinator has kept for 
years a large business-like and soberly worded 
advertisement of his services. ‘The circulation 
of this paper is not. among the lower classes : 
on the contrary, its principal clientéle is among 
the more intelligent people. The present writer 
is informed that a good many speculators base 
their ‘futures’ on the predictions they obtain 
from these wizards. We have managed to 
varnish our American people with an appear- 
ance of modernism; but our school system, 
with its imperfect scientific training, makes no 
efficient battle against these pernicious relics 
of the past. It leaves the child without that 
sense of natural law which alone can overthrow 
such superstitions. 

We cannot dismiss these indications of a 
low state of mind with the grin with which 
one is disposed to treat them. ‘That a consid- 
erable part of our people still believe in witch- 
craft isindeed a serious matter. The machinery 
of our modern society rests on the theory that 
men are guided by a common sense of cause 
and ‘effect. In any serious turn of affairs, 
when action must rest on the general ration- 
ality of the people, those who support these 
wizards will prove unfit for trust. Oursystem 
of education should be shaped to meet this 
evil. Children should be forced to see that 
they live under a reign of law: to leave them 
longer, with nothing to check this strong inher- 
ent tendency to base superstition, is to leave 
rotten timber in the ship of state. 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


THE ‘cold-wave flag,’ whose use has been inau- 
gurated by the signal-service during the past autumn, 
is intended to be displayed not only at the regular 
stations of the signal-service, but also at as many 
railway-stations and post-offices as possible, in order 
to spread the widest notice of the coming change of 
weather. The service cannot at present undertake 
to provide the flags or to pay for special telegrams to 
numerous local display-stations; but the cost of the 
flags (white, six feet square, with a two-foot black 
square in centre) is moderate, and can easily be borne 


oy ee eo! 


960 


by those interested in securing early indications of 
falling temperature; and in several parts of the coun- 
try the telegrams are sent to all the stations on cer- 
tain railroads that co-operate with the signal-service, 
and thus promptly distribute weather-forecasts to the 
towns along their routes. It is probable that the 
coming year will see a considerable extension of this 
kind of weather-service. 


— The report on the terminal moraine in Pennsyl- 
vania, by Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, published by the 
geological survey of that state, gives the detailed 
observations on which was based the résumé that 
has already appeared in Science (ii. 168). The vol- 
ume opens with a characteristic preface by Professor 
Lesley; and the description of the moraine along its 
irregular course follows in 
nearly three hundred 
pages, with numerous 
sketch maps and artotypes. 
The latter illustrate types 
of landscape having astrik- 
ingly glacial form, espe- 
cially well shown in the 
morainic deposits of Cher- 
ry valley, Monroe county 
(pl. x., xi.); and include a 
remarkably fine view of a 
scratched bowlder (pl. v.). 
Students of glaciology are 
already familiar with ob- 
servations showing the 
small regard paid by the 
ice-sheet to hills and ridges 
in its path. Theeffects of 
a similar indifference to lo- 
cal topography are seen in 
the direct course of the 
moraine across valleys; for 
the opinion that separate 
glaciers ran down each 
river-valley like a series of 
tongues projecting beyond 
the margin of the united 
glacial sheet is not sus- 
tained by Professor Lewis’s 
investigations. The same 
report contains a note by Professor Lesley describ- 
ing a remarkable monument—if a hole can be so 
called —of glacial action. This is a pot-hole found 
last winter by the men at work in the Ridge (coal) 
mines of Messrs. Jones, Simpson, & Co., Archibald, 
Luzerne county, Penn. It is twenty feet in diameter 
and forty feet deep, and when found was full of round 
stones, gravel, and fine sand; on removing this, the 
walls of the natural air-shaft were disclosed, showing 
the sandstone cut through clean and smooth, down 
and into the underlying ccal-bed. The adjoining 
coal was found in perfect condition. Flanges of rock 
rise spirally from the lower part of the cavity toward 
the surface. The cut here given is taken from a 
photograph by Mr. Henry Frey of Scranton, Penn., 
who has also published larger views, looking out of 
as well as into the hole. 


SCIENCE. 


POT-HOLE FOUND IN A PENNSYLVANIA COAL-MINE. 


A second pot-hole is also: 


[Vou. IV., No: 98. 


reported, two miles from the above locality, near 
Messrs. Winton & Dolph’s mines. 

In the October number of the American journal 
of science, Mr. Lewis discusses the validity of obser- 
vations on supposed glacial action at eleven points in 
Pennsylvania south of the terminal moraine, all of 
which he has visited. He concludes that they are all 
non-glacial, some being simple water-worn gravels, 
others being ice-rafted bowlders, while the scratches 
reported in two localities are pronounced slickensides. 
and plant-fossils. ‘The glacial action reported in 
Virginia needs similar re-examination. 


— Capt. H. W. Chetwynd, R.N., chief inspector of . 


lifeboats in Great Britain, having been directed to 


test the use of oil in CAeiaes troubled waters, reports 


that his experiments show 
that there is little differ- 
ence in the effect produced 
by the various oils of 
every-day use; very small 
quantities of either colza, 
linseed, fish, seal, or paraf- 
fine oil being found: suffi- 
cient to cover a considera- 
ble space with the smooth 
glassy surface characteris- 


effect of this oily film was 
most marked on moderate 
breakers, as it entirely 
stopped their breaking, 
and left only a gentle swell; 
but, on surf such as might 
endanger the safety of a 
lifeboat, the oil had. but 
little and often no calming 
effect. On several occa- 
sions, when a larger break- 
er than usual rose in a 
moderate surf which the 
oil had ‘ killed,’ the oil was 
powerless to check it; and 
the sea broke through. it, 
covering the boat, gear, 
etc.,, with oil. It failed, 
- also, to have an effect on 
breakers caused by a heape pected swell. To be 
any protection, oil must be applied to the sea from 
the boat or vessel in the direct line from which the 
seas are advancing, and at a sufficient distance to 
give it time to spread and act upon the waves be- 
fore they reach the vessel. ‘This could be done in a. 
lifeboat only in two positions: 1. When anchored, 


and lying head to sea and tide; 2. When running: 


dead before the sea for the shore. In any other po- 
sition, even supposing the oil to be calming the water, 
it would probably be impossible to keep the boat 
within its influence, and proceed towards a wreck or 
other desired point, at the same time. Under these 
circumstances, Capt. Chetwynd is of the opinion 


that no practical advantages can arise from the use i 


of oil by the lifeboats of his institution, and he can- 
not recommend its being issued to them. He states, 


» 


tic of oil on water. ‘The - 


. 
| 


DECEMBER 19, 1884.] 


however, that these experiments clearly demonstrate 
that in many cases it, would prove a material protec- 
tion to ordinary open boats ina dangerous surf, and 
he strongly urges its adoption for use in such cases. 

— Capt. Klein of the German bark Kron Prinz von 
Preussen, making passage from Rio de Janeiro to 
Baltimore, reports encountering on Nov. 80 and 
Dec. 1 a very strong current from south-east one- 
eighth south, which he estimated at 3.2 knots per 
hour. The wind was blowing a whole gale from the 
north-east and north, and his vessel was hove to for 
twenty-four hours. His position at noon on Nov. 30 
was, latitude 34° 29 north, longitude 74° 22’ west; 
and on Dee. 1, latitude 36° 5’ north, longitude 78° 20’ 
west. The captain, being unable to account for this 
unusual current, took six observations between noon 
of Nov. 30 and noon of Dec. 1 to verify the fact. 

— The earlier editions of the Coast pilot of Alaska, 
prepared by Davidson, and published by the Coast- 


SCIENCE. 


561 


fessor Oliver are fellows,—the former well known 
for his mathematical investigations on the rigidity of 
the earth and on tides; the latter, for his investigation 
of the classification of plants, and for the important 
services which he has rendered to taxonomic botany. 


— The work of establishing secondary meridians 
of longitude on the west coast of Central and South 
America by means of the submarine cable, which 
was undertaken by Lieut.-Commander C. H. Davis, 
U.S.N., has been completed. Stations were estab- 
lished at various points between La Libertad, San 
Salvador, and Valparaiso; and the differences of 
longitude between Valparaiso, Arica, Lima, Payta, 
Panama, and La Libertad, were determined. The 
measurements between La Libertad and Guatemala 
were made in eo-operation with Mr. Miles Rock of 
the Guatemala survey. From Valparaiso, signals 
were exchanged with Dr. Gould at Cordova for the 
purpose of connecting the measurements made on 


KASA-AN BAY, CAPE GRINDALL, E. 3 N. 12 MILES. (From U.S. Hydr. Office, Chart No. 225.) 


survey in 1867 and 1869, are now succeeded by a new 
work, exhaustive of all known sources of informa- 
tion, compiled by Mr. W. H. Dall, assisted by Mr. 
Marcus Baker. This is entitled ‘ Pacific coast pilot, 
Alaska, parti.,’and gives sailing-directions, with charts 
and views, for the inland passage from the north 
end of Vancouver’s Island to Dixon’s entrance, and 
thence along the coast of our distant possessions to 
Yakutat Bay, where the shore-line turns westward. 
Much additional surveying is needed to attain final 
accuracy, as the coast is fringed with many islands, 
and is greatly broken by long, irregular fiords. In 
the northern part especially, it is bold and mountain- 
ous, and numerous glaciers descend close to water- 
level. The accompanying figure gives a view of 
Kasa-an Bay, and recalls the abruptness of the Nor- 
wegian coast. 


— Nature states that Prof. G. H. Darwin of Cam- 
bridge, and Professor Daniel Oliver of the Royal 
gardens, Kew, have been nominated by the council 
of the Royal society for the award of the two royal 
medals conferred by the crown. The Copley medal 
is to be given to Professor Carl Ludwig of Leipzig, 
in recognition of the great services which he has 
rendered to physiological science; Professor Tobias 
Robertus Thalén of Upsala is to have the Rumford 
medal for his spectroscopic researches; and the 
Davy medal is awarded to Prof. A. W. H. Kolbe, also 
of Leipzig, for his researches in the isomerism of 
alcohols. The two Leipzig professors are foreign 
members of the society. Professor Darwin and Pro- 


the west coast with those made on the east coast of 
South America in 1878 and 1879. The observations 
are now being reduced, and prepared for publication. 


_— The bureau of navigation of the Navy department 
announces that the computations and discussions 
of the observations and experiments for determining 
the velocity of light have been completed, and are 
being prepared for publication. 


— The Navy department reports that the ‘ electric 
plant’ for incandescent lighting, which was supplied 
to the U.S.S. Trenton, has given great satisfaction, 
notwithstanding some defects in the insulation of the 
wires, and has added materially to the comfort and 
health of the officers and crew, and therefore the 
Atlanta, Boston, and Omaha are to be lighted by elec- 
tricity. The plant for the Atlanta will be supplied 
by the U.S. electric-lighting company of New York; 
that for the Boston, by the Brush electric company 
of Cleveland; and that for the Omaha, by the Con- 
solidated electric-light company of New York. The 
merits of the various systems may thus be deter- 
mined. 


— A group of beetles known as the Stenini has re- 
ceived attention at the hands of Lieut. Casey in a 
brochure of more than two hundred pages. It brings 
us another step toward the aggregation of the mate- 
rial for a more or less complete monograph of our 
Staphylinidae. The work has been carefully and con- 
scientiously done from the author’s stand-point, and 
but little adverse criticism can be made except in the 


562 


following particulars: there is an evident tendency 
-to divide species upon small details of sculpture, fortu- 
nately checked, as the author admits, where the 
specimens are numerous; but the summary admits 
eighty-eight species in a hundred and seventy-two, 
founded on only one and two specimens, — an un- 
paralleled percentage in any monographic work on 
Staphylinidae ever published. The descriptions are 
unnecessarily verbose and tiresome, and could have 
been abbreviated by half with advantage to both 
author and reader. The division of Stenus, in 
which the author believes himself to have taken the 
initiative, is unnecessary and untenable. The genus 
Areus of Casey has already been separated by Mot- 
schulsky (Bull. Mosc., 1860, i. 556) under the name 
Hemistenus, but has found no followers. 


— The American brigantine Senoruta was in lati- 
tude 35° 50’ north, longitude 74° 12’ west, at meridian, 
Nov. 16, and experienced the severe storm of that 
date. About two P.M., when it was blowing very hard 
from the north-east, five whirlwinds were seen to the 
southward and eastward. They were black columns 
of water about four hundred feet in diameter, and 
their tops seemed to reach the clouds. ‘They moved 
with great velocity at right angles to the wind, and, 
after passing the vessel, disappeared to the northward 
and westward. Four went ahead of the vessel, and 
one astern, within a half-mile. The whirlwinds were 
moving at the rate of twenty-five or thirty miles an 
hour. The appearance of waterspouts in the midst 
of a gale, and moving at right angles to the wind, is 
quite unusual. 


— The molluscan fauna of the Silurian period in 
Gotland is illustrated in a fine quarto, with numer- 
ous plates by Prof. G. Lindstr6ém of Stockholm, pub- 
lished by the Swedish academy. It comprises the 
gastropods and pteropods, and is, perhaps, the first 
paper which treats at all fully of the Silurian mem- 
bers of these groups, and contains much of interest, 
both new and old. A Silurian genus of Chitons 
(Chelodes), a remarkable Patellid (Tryblidium), and 
a very large number of forms allied to the recent 
Pleurotomariae, are fully described. The presence of 
Subulites, and other siphonostomatous gastropods in 
Silurian times, is demonstrated, and some extremely 
singular new genera made known. The text is in 
English, and the whole work extremely creditable to 
its learned author, and useful to the paleontologist. 


— An additional discovery by Dr. Lindstrom, in the 
same rocks, is worthy of special notice. In beds 
which are said to be the equivalent of our Niagara 
group, he has discovered a remarkably well-preserved 
scorpion, of which a photograph is before us. That 
it was air-breathing, though found in a purely marine 
deposit (into which it was probably washed), is proved 
by the fact that one of the stigmata is plainly visible. 
Dr. Thorell, one of the foremost students of Arachnida 
in the world, and Dr. Lindstrém, are preparing a 
paper upon it, and have given it the name of Palaeo- 
phoneus nuncius. No scorpions, nor indeed any 
Arachnida, have before been found fossil in beds lower 


than the carboniferous deposits, in which some twenty- 


SCIENCE. 


AD ar ee |) wy ey Bb Baars et | 


[Vou. IV., No. 98. _ 


five species have been found in this country and Eu- 
rope; yet this Silurian example is more perfect than 
any specimen of a fossil scorpion from any formation: 
It presents some marked peculiarities, but it seems 
to be unquestionably a scorpion. 


—In his ‘Contributions to the tertiary geology 
and paleontology of the United States,’ Prof. A. 
Heilprin has collected a series of six papers, mostly 
from the publications of the Philadelphia academy of 
sciences. Mr. Heilprin does not recognize the exist- 
ence of any pliocene strata in the eastern and south- 
ern portions of the United States. A map which is 
added embraces only the tertiaries of the Atlantic 
and Gulf coast regions, and the lower Mississippi 
valley. This is the first time that a succinct state- 
ment of the tertiary geology of the eastern United 
States has been attempted; and Professor Heilprin 
has produced a work which will be valuable to those 
who may undertake the exhaustive study of the 
eastern tertiaries, which they so much need. 


—In a paper read before the Linnean society of 
New South Wales, Oct. 29 last, Dr. Lendenfeld con- 
tests the views of the French physiologists, that the 
position and movements of the wings of insects are 
merely the results of the mechanical influence of the 
resisting air, and gives instances where muscular con- 
traction had been clearly proved. 


—The committee on organization of the Ninth 
international medical congress, to be held in the 
United States in 1887, met in Washington, D.C., on 
Nov. 29, 1884, for the determination of the general 
plan of the congress, the election of officers of the 
committee who will be nominated to fill the same 
offices in the congress, and the consideration of ques- 
tions of finance. The officers elected are as follows: 
president, Dr. Austin Flint, sen., of New York; vice- 
presidents, Dr. Alfred Stillé of Philadelphia, Dr. 
Henry I. Bowditch of Boston, Dr. R. P. Howard of 
Montreal, Canada; secretary-general, Dr. J. S. Bil- 
lings, U.S. army; treasurer, Dr. J. M. Browne, U.S. 
navy; members of the executive committee (in addi- 
tion to the president, secretary-general, and treasurer), 
Dr. I. Minis Hays of Philadelphia, Dr. A. Jacobi of 
New York, Dr. Christopher Johnston of Baltimore, 
Dr. S. C. Busey of Washington. The executive com- 
mittee will proceed at once to complete the work of 
organization. 


— The next meeting of the Society of naturalists 
of the eastern United States will be held at Washing- 
ton, D.C., on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 29 and 30, 
1884. By the courtesy of the Smithsonian institution, 
the society will have the use of the lecture-room of - 
the institution for its meetings. The first session 
will be on Monday the 29th, at ten A.M. promptly. 
It is expected to have a discussion on the teaching of 
natural history in colleges. 


— The San Diego society of natural history has 
received an addition to its herbarium of seven 
hundred species of southern and lower Californian 
plants. This series of plants will be known as the 
Orcutt herbarium. 


= 


Harvard Colles 


[= 


SC1LENCGE. 


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1884. 


A CHRISTMAS GREETING. 


ALTHOUGH still an infant, having scarcely at- 
tained the age of two years, Sczence does not 
appear to-day in its usual leading-strings, but has 
been granted a certain license in accord with the 
season, of which it does not in the half know the 
meaning, and has been decked in a new dress to 
fit the day. That what the child says may be 
rambling, is to be expected: that what it may 
mean shall be clear, its lispings shall be trans- 
lated. First look at its new dress, all salmon 
and brown. ‘ Arbor scientiae’ does not mean 
that the plant is a scientific tree, nor yet a tree 
upon which science grows, but rather the tree 
is to symbolize the fact that science does grow. 
Inside the cover you will find a picture of the 
sun, taken at the Harvard college observatory, 
but of a composite nature, as all the prominences 
with which it is circled were actually observed, 
though not all at one time.. 

The sun has in all times been worshipped by 
some ; but since it has been reduced to nothing 
more than a ball of fire rolling on through space, 


according to laws fixed by Sir Isaac Newton, his 


worshippers have many of them abandoned him. 
Still to a few faint souls it occurred that their old 
favorite could not fail them so utterly ; and they 
have sought to show his influence on the growth 
of wheat, the price of stocks, and the pointing of 
the compass: of this there is more in the open- 
ing article. They would also call attention to 
the effect the sun has in bringing out the flowers, 
and the early birds, and the insects that the birds 
may have whereon to feed. We had not meant to 
give the sun-worshippers such vantage-ground ; 
but, looking down the pages, we find something 
about tornadoes, about the variations of tempera- 
ture at different points in the United States, and 
a map showing by lines the points at which the 
average mean temperature for the year is the 
same, — phenomena which depend on the sun, 


No. 99. — 1884. 


—and certain advice to farmers which would be 
of little avail if the sun should fail to perform its 
part. Whether earthquakes can be made to de- 
pend on the sun, we dare not say ; but there are 
those who would not deny him even that power. 

But at last we find some small evidence of a 
revolt against the tyranny of the sun. For years 
people would rise as the sun rose, they aimed to 
eat their dinners as the sun crossed the meridian, 
and they donned their nightcaps as the sun went 
down. A few wise men have long pointed out 
that the sun had by no means the regular habit 
he had the credit for; that often good people 
had eaten their pudding, and got well into their 
broth, before the sun had crossed the noon-mark. 
This is all changed. Man now gets up by arail- 
way-whistle, eats his dinner by a railway-whistle, 
and counts his sleepless hours at night by railway- 
whistles. ‘That it may be clear just how these 
whistles blow, we give a map showing the limits 
of railway-time. So the sun at last has lost a 
part of his former pre-eminence, and yielded it 
to the railway-king. 

The natural instinct with each of us is to live 
within himself ; he is quite startled when, at times, 
he notes that he is only one among a large commu- 
nity ; and, as we view with indifference the toils of 
some distant Tasmanian, so does the J’asmanian 
live in utter ignorance of our toils. The maps of 
the stars we give are from some point in the solar 


system. We look at the stars as pretty, bright ob- 


jects ina frosty sky. Suppose the maps made from 
the point of view of a dweller in the planetary 
system abouto Draconis : would our sun be given? 

The innovations which science has brought to 
pass have startled a few; to allay which fear, 
Science, casting about in search of an anchor 
still left to which a well-regulated life may be 
moored, has hit upon the almanac, and therefore 
gives up the closing pages to such data of sun 
and moon risings and settings, of high tides and 
low tides, of planets good and planets bad, as 
may enable all its readers to know at least when 
it is day, and when night. 

563 


564 | ‘8 SCIENGE= 


SUN-SPOTS AND THE HLARTE. 


“Tf dusky spots are varied on his brow, 
And, streaked with red, a troubled color show; — 
That sullen mixture shall at once declare 
Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war.” 
DRYDEN. 

ONE of the most interesting questions of mod- 
ern astronomy is whether sun-spots produce any 
effect upon terrestrial affairs, and, if so, of what 
nature is their influence, and how extensive ? 

It is an important question too; for, if they really 
do exert any thing like a commanding authority, 
then our knowledge of the laws that regulate their 
extent and frequency will give us a power of pre- 
diction, in respect to coming seasons, of the 
greatest value in all agricultural and commercial 
operations. 

‘It was ascertained long ago (first by our own 
Henry), that as a sun-spot is darker, so also it is 


SUN-SPOT AS SEEN JUNE 30, 1883 


cooler, than the bright surface of the sun. Ac- 
cording to the observations of Professor Langley, 
the black nucleus or wabra of a spot emits only 
about fifty-four per cent as much heat as an equal 
area of the normal surface; and the pJexumobra, the 
shaded fringe around the nucleus, about eighty per 
cent. If, then, any considerable portion of the 
solar surface were ever covered by the spots, we 
should reasonably expect a notable falling-off in 
the sun’s light and heat, and an unmistakable effect 
upon climates and the weather. 

It has been found, however, that, even in the 
most extreme cases yet observed, the portion of 
the sun’s surface actually occupied by the spots is 
relatively very small, seldom amounting to a five- 
hundredth of the whole, and then only for a few 
days ata time. The direct temperature effect of 


sun-spots is therefore still more minute, never 
reaching a thousandth of the sun’s whole heat. 


But while their direct effect is thus insensible, it 


does not seem impossible, nor even improbable, 
that the spots might be indicative of an abnormal 
condition of things upon the sun’s surface, such as 
would seriously affect the earth’s revenue of heat. 


We might suppose, for instance, that they are 


symptoms of a general chilling of the solar sur- 
face, or, on the other hand, that they are caused 
by some ebullition from beneath the surface, which 
would, on the whole, raise the temperature instead 
of lowering it, and so compensate, or even over- 
balance, the effect of their darkness. 

In regard to this, it is now only possible to say 
that the change, if any, is too slight to be detected 
by our present means of observation. It is ear- 
nestly to be hoped, that before long some apparatus 
and method of observation may be devised delicate 
enough to deal with the problem; but at present 
they do not exist, and no one knows with certainty 
whether the sun’s radiation is increased or dimin- 
ished when sun-spots are most prevalent. 

A priort, then, we have no reason for expecting 
any perceptible effect of sun-spots upon the earth’s 


conditions. But, on the other hand, it would not © 


do to assume that they have none; that a variation 
in the sun’s heat, even too small to be directly 
measurable, may not zzdzrectly produce very impor- 
tant consequences by disturbing some nicely ad- 
justed equilibrium. The gentlest touch of a child’s 
finger may depress a key, and fire a mine. It is 
easy to imagine many ways in which an extremely 
slight change in the temperature might occasion, if 
it did not strictly cause, such alterations in the 
cloudiness, or in the direction and velocity of 
winds, as would seriously modify the climates and 
the fertility of large regions of the earth. The 
question is simply one of fact. 

Since, however, it has been discovered that there 


is a somewhat regular, though unexplained, increase 


and decrease in the number and extent of the sun- 
spots (with a period of about eleven years), we are 
in a position to investigate the subject statistically. 
It is only necessary to compare the tabulated data 
relating to the spots with those relating to tempera- 
ture, barometric pressure, magnetic disturbance, 
rainfall, height of water in rivers, — every thing, in 
fact, that fluctuates in our terrestrial affairs: we 
may even justifiably and properly include in our 
inquiries such matters as the price of grain and 
stocks, financial crises, and epidemic diseases. If 
in any case we find that in a sufficiently long run 


’ DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


the variations in the sun-spot data correspond 
exactly to those relating to the element under ex- 
amination, we shall be compelled to admit some 
sort of a causal connection; and that, even if the 
nature of the connection is inscrutable. 

Numerous such comparisons have been made 
during the past twenty-five years. So far the re- 
‘sults must be pronounced indecisive, except as 
‘regards the effects of solar disturbances upon ter- 
restrial magnetism. Here all the investigations 
agree in showing an intimate connection, the mech- 
anism of which is, however, still unknown. When 
sun-spots are numerous and active, we always have 
magnetic storms upon the earth, manifested by the 


SUN-SPOT AS SEEN JULY 25, 1883. 


aurora-borealis and by strong disturbance of our 
compass-needles. 

The investigations in regard to other elements 
have, as Professor Langley says, “nearly every 
one brought out some result which might be plausi- 
ble if it stood alone, but which is apt to be contra- 
dicted by the others.” For instance: Dr. Gould 
in South America, and Mr. Stone at the Cape of 
Good Hope, think they have detected a slight low- 
ering of temperature, amounting to one or two 
degrees, at the time of sun-spot maximum; while 
at Edinburgh, Smyth reaches a similar conclusion, 
except that the minimum temperature follows the 
sun-spot maximum at an interval of about two 
years. On the other hand, Chambers, from twenty- 
eight years’ observations in India, finds a rise of 
temperature coinciding with the sun-spot maxi- 
mum ; and, in opposition to all the others, Jelinek 


of Prague, from all the observations he could col- 
lect in Germany up to 1870, obtained a purely 
negative result. Discrepancies of the same sort 
appear in the results of other investigators, with 
reference to the rainfall and the height of rivers in 
different parts of the earth; though, on the whole, 
they seem to show a slight increase in the rainfall 
(one or two per cent) at or near the time of spot- 
maximum. 

It is to be remarked, however, that these dis- 
crepancies and contradictions by no means dis- 
prove the reality of sun-spot influence. It is quite 
possible, and even likely, as Dr. Gould and others 
have pointed out, that slight changes in the sun’s 
radiation might be felt 
mainly by their effect in 
disturbing atmospheric cur- 
rents, and so altering the 
distribution of heat and 
moisture, rather than by 
any general effect. In this 
case, the effects in neigh- 
boring regions would evi- 
dently be exactly opposite 
in character. 

As matters stand, it is 
clear, in the first place, that 
a much longer period of 
observations will be needed 
to settle the question de- 
cisively as to the reality of 
sun-spot influence; and, in 
the next place, that, if the 
influence is real, it is only 
slight, and so masked by 
other effects as to be difficult of detection. There 
can be no reasonable expectation that the ordinary 
variations in the state of the solar surface will prove 
to be dominant, or even very important, in terres- 
trial meteorology, or in human conditions that de- 
pend upon climate and the weather. 


We INSECTS, OF THE, VEAR. 


; “ Fatry bands 
Saztling, “mtd the golden atr, 
In skiffs of ytelding gossamer.” 
Hoae. 

THE seasonal appearance of insects varies. 
Some species are found during several months, 
others at all times of the year; some vary in date 
of appearance with the earliness or lateness of the 


eee iekeatel 


68° SCIENGE 


566 


<a. se 


S - SKA { 


[Vou. IV.,,No. 99. _ 


2 ALMANAC: 


season, while others appear quite punctually, re- 
gardless of the season. In the same locality the 
peach will blossom one year in February, another 
not till May; and there is similar variation in the 
first appearance of spring insects. The irregularity 
lessens, however, as the growing season advances. 
July is more uniform than April. From Boston to 
Enterprise, Fla., one may travel in a couple of days 
in January from ice-bound midwinter to summer 
temperature, and, with the progress southward, 
activity in both plant and insect life increases. In 
a country so vast that it represents sub-boreal and 
sub-tropical temperatures at one and the same time, 
it were eminently improper to speak of the ap- 
pearance of an insect without specifying the lati- 
tude. The midwinter difference between Maine 
and Florida, however, is not the difference.between 
dead of winter, and height of summer ; because there 
is, even in the subtropical sections, a winter or 
hibernating period when insect-life is comparatively 
at a stand-still, or dormant. 

For calendar purposes the country may be di- 
vided into northern, middle, and southern; and, 
where not otherwise stated, the following index to 
the first appearance of some of our more conspicu- 
ous insects will have reference to some middle 
latitude. St. Louis is a very good point, being 
central between the Atlantic and the Rocky Moun- 
tains, our northern boundary and the Gulf; while 
Washington is another, lying well between our 
northernmost and southernmost borders. Be- 
tween the Gulf and Lake Superior there is a dif- 
ference in earliness of spring forms of nearly two 
months, or of four to five days with each degree of 
latitude, as the history of the Rocky-Mountain 
locust (Caloptenus spretus) and of the army-worm 
(Leucania unipuncta) shows. This difference, as 
already indicated, diminishes for summer forms. 
Development quickens in adaptation to the shorter 
northern season; and a widely distributed species, 
that does not mature till August in Missouri, or 
even Texas, may appear but a few days later in 
Minnesota. 

Fanuary.— Hushed in a frosty cradle, as most 
lower life is at this season, the snow-fleas (genus 
Podura) — little, black, springing creatures not more 
than one-twentieth of an inch in length — may never- 
theless be seen during a mild spell, abounding on 
the snow, even in the more northern states. To 
the southward, whenever the temperature is above 
freezing-point, the farmer will start from his corn- 
shocks various hibernating bugs, as the chinch-bug 
(Blissus leucopterus) and the tarnished plant-bug 


ground nests. 


(Lygus lineolaris); while the housekeeper may be 
alarmed by the buzzing of the paper-wasps (genus 
Polistes), and particularly Polistes metricus and P. 
annularis. Still farther south many butterflies, es- 
pecially the yellows (genus Colias) and the whites 
(genus Pieris), so common everywhere later in the 
season, may be observed. 7 

February.— In average or normal years the in- 
sect-life of this month resembles that of the pre- 
ceding. On mild days swarms of small gnats 
(Chironomidae) dance in the air near still waters, 
while near larger streams small sombre-colored Neu- 
roptera (Perlidae) will often fly. The wingless 
female of the spring canker-worm moth (Paleacrita 
vernata) ascends the trunks of apple and elm trees, — 
while the male, with ample wings, flits about her. 
In the extreme north the remarkable wingless and 
spider-like dipteron (Chionea valga) and the equally 
remarkable neuropteron (Boreus nivoriundus), also 
wingless in the female sex, may be seen upon the 
snow; while in the south our heaviest-bodied but- 
terfly (Megathymus yuccae) and our most graceful 
species (Heliconia charitonia) are conspicuous, — 
the one darting swiftly among the yuccas, the other- 
slowly sailing through the dense underbrush of the 
shady hammocks. 

March. — Insect activity now rapidly increases. 
With the thawing of the ice*in ponds and ditches, 
the water-beetles (Dytiscidae) appear, while in the 
woods many species of ants (Formica) make their 
way from their subterranean abodes. Many pine- 
boring beetles (Buprestidae and Scolytidae) are 
seen, and a small dung-beetle (Aphodius inquinatus) 
flies in countless numbers. The velvety brown 
larva of Telephorus will follow the melting snow, 
the brown and black hedge-hog caterpillar (Arctia 
isabella) will scamper across a sun-warmed path, 
and the dipterous Bibio larvae will be found in 
masses under decaying leaves in the garden. Of 
butterflies, the mourning-cloak (Vanessa antiopa), 
with its beautiful purple-brown and cream-margined 
wings, somewhat the worse for wear, is conspicu- 
ous; and, of moths, the cotton-worm moth (Aletia 
xylina), the army-worm moth (Leucania unipuncta), 
and Platyhypena scabra, are noteworthy in the 
south. 

April. — The first flowers of spring, and espe- 
cially the catkins of willows and poplars, teem with 
insects of many orders, but especially the Hymenop- 
tera of the genera Andrena, Halictus, Melissodes, — 
and Nomada, which have issued from their under- 
The honey-bee (Apis mellifica), the 
carpenter-bee (Xylocopa virginica), and the bumble- 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


bee (Bombus) are conspicuous. Among Coleop- 
tera, the blister-beetles (Meloidae) and the tiger- 
beetles (Cicindelidae)are noticeable ; and the painted 
clytus (Cyllene pictus), with its black-and-yellow 
banded coat, will be common in houses where 
hickory-wood is used in the fires. Among Lepidop- 
tera, the blues (Lycaenidae), the monarch or milk- 
* weed butterfly (Danais archippus), the Graptas, and 
Eudamus bathyllus will be seen. Among Orthop- 
tera, the Acridium americanum and Oedipoda 
phoenicoptera will be noticeable among wintering 
forms on account of their large size. 

May.—In this month the hibernated legion is 
warmed to new life, and the number of species oc- 
curring is too great to warrant special indication. 
The large tiger swallow-tail (Papilio turnus) darts 
swiftly about, while a lot of humbler butterflies are 
seen. Those gigantic beauties of the night, the 
Cecropia moth (Platysamia cecropia) and the Poly- 
phemus moth (Telea polyphemus), are seen hanging 
listless as they just issue from their cocoons, or 
pass bat-like at dusk overhead. Some of the 
hawk-moths (Sphingidae) already begin to hover 
at twilight, humming-bird fashion, over honeysuckle 
and other honey-yielding flowers. The carpenter 
moth (Xyleutes robiniae) will be found early in the 
morning, resting on the trunk of the black locust, 
from which the empty pupal exuvium sticks out as 
an index. A host of Hymenoptera make their ad- 
vent: and noticeably the gigantic saw-fly (Cimbex 
americana) will be found ovipositing in willow 
leaves, and the pigeon Tremex (Tremex columba) 
in old maple trunks. The buffalo-gnat (Simulium) 
swarms in the lower Mississippi country to the in- 
jury of all kinds of stock. The fruit-grower finds 
the plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar) making 
its dreaded crescent-mark on his fruit, and the 
canker-worms blighting his apple-trees. The house- 
keeper observes with dread the various clothes- 
moths (Tinea) and the carpet-beetle (Anthrenus 
scrophulariae). But the latter part of the month is 
chiefly characterized, first, by the hosts of delicate 
May-flies (Ephemeridae) which issue from our rivers 
in the sub-imago state, and, attracted to the light, 
crowd on windows and around lamps; second, by 
the swarms of more robust May-beetles (Lachno- 
sterna fusca), which begin to defoliate oak-groves 
and poplar-trees. 

Fune. — During this leafy month, when nature’s 
pulses beat most strongly, insect-life is at its acme. 
The army-worm marches through meadow and 
grain-field, and a host of destructive species gather 
force and spread dismay. The woods and meadows 


567 


abound in gaudy butterflies, and multiform cater- 
pillars feed voraciously. The commoner firefly 
(Photinus pyralis) rises slowly from the moist 
ground at eve, and intermits its soft, glowing light. 
But the month is chiefly characterized by the ap- 
pearance of that singular periodical, or seventeen- 
year Cicada (Cicada septendecim), with its tredecim, 
or thirteen-year race. The woods rattle with its 
hoarse beat about the first of the month, and broods 
appear in some locality or other nearly every year. 
The present year (1885) is a memorable one; for 
a very extensive seventeen-year brood, which ap- 
peared last in 1868, and has been fully recorded 
every seventeen years since 1715, may be looked 
for on Long Island and in Monroe county, N.Y., in 
south-eastern Massachusetts, in parts of Vermont, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Dis- 
trict of Columbia, in north-western Ohio, in south- 
eastern Michigan, in Indiana, and in Kentucky. 

Fuly.— With the great heat of July there is less 
variety of insect-life than in June, and the month 
is chiefly notable for the tormentors. Horse-flies 
(Tabanidae) interfere with the ploughman’s work, 
mosquitoes swarm to such an extent in the north- 
west as to render travel for both man and beast 
positively dangerous, while the bot-flies (Oestridae) 
attack horses, cattle, and sheep. The nests of the 
tent-caterpillar (Clisiocampa americana) and of 
the fall web-worm (Hyphantria textor) disfigure 
orchard and forest, and the tumble-dungs (Canthon) 
assiduously roll their balls of dung. The harsh 
rattle of the dog-day harvest-fly (Cicada canicularis) 
is also first heard. 

August. — In this month the fossorial Hymenop- 
tera most abound, and the numerous locusts (Acri- 
didae) begin to get their wings, and reach their 
greatest destructiveness. The katydids and the 
tree-crickets also become full-fledged, and join the 
other insect stridulators which fill the late summer 
and autumn nights with sound. The cotton-worm 
does its greatest mischief in the south, and the 
chinch-bug leaves the wheat-fields for the maize. 
Many true bugs (Hemiptera) get their wings, among 
which the wheel-bug (Reduvius novenarius) is con- 
spicuous. The dragon-flies (Libellulidae) are more 
numerous, and the mantis (Mantis carolina) and the 
walking-stick (Diapheromera femorata) acquire full 
growth, and are more noticeable than formerly. 

September. — Many of the insects of the preced- 
ing month are still more noticeable in this, while 
few new ones appear. The blister-beetles and a 
vast number of smaller Hymenoptera abound on 
the flowers of the golden-rod; and most species are 


568 


|S ScENeE= 


a ee 


busy providing for their issue, or preparing for 
winter quarters. 
October. — This is the month when spiders of all 
kinds are most noticeable, their gossamer threads 
glistening high up in the air, or their webs disfigur- 
ing shrubs and buildings. Immigrant plant-lice 
come on the wing to store away the winter egg on 
congenial trees ; and the other insects most notice- 
able are those which hibernate, and are getting 
ready todo so. The buck moth (Hemileuca maia) 
flies quietly, with its delicate crape-like wings, 
among the dropping leaves of the forest, and is 
the species most peculiar to the month. 
November.—In this month most insects are 
hushed in death or torpor; but the fall canker-worm 
moths will rise from the ground after a severe frost, 
and many hibernating Hymenoptera and Coleoptera 
will take an airing when the weather is mild. The 
cluster-fly (Pollenia rudis) holds out against the 


cold much longer than the house-fly, which it so — 


much resembles. 

December. — Nothing peculiar marks this month ; 
but most of the species mentioned for both No- 
vember and January may be seen in December, 
when the temperature and circumstances favor. 


WEATHER FORECASTS. 


“ Another storm brewing; I hear tt 


Sing 2’ the wind.” 
SHAKSPEARE. 


THE methods by which weather forecasts are 
made are based almost wholly upon facts of ob- 
servation rather than upon established deductions 
of science. This is unavoidable, because atmos- 
pheric movements are very complicated, and 
because the science of meteorology is not yet 
sufficiently advanced to satisfactorily explain them 
in the detail necessary for successful forecasting. 

The leading fact upon which predictions depend 
is that atmospheric conditions advance in a direc- 
tion generally easterly. The motion may vary in 
velocity, but in direction is usually between north- 
east and south-east, rarely towards any other 
point of the compass. During this advance, 
changes in condition may occur; and it is neces- 
sary to foresee the character of these changes, as 
well as the direction, and rate of motion. The in- 
dications of the barometer are the chief aid in 
understanding the weather conditions themselves, 
and the changes which may be expected. At any 
given moment there exist, in the territory occupied 


[Vou. IV., No. 99. 7 


by the United States, differences in the atmos- 
pheric pressure which may amount to two inches 
in the height of the barometer. Usually there are 
one or more areas of pressure above the average, 
and one or more below the average, the pressures 
at intermediate points lying between the highest 
and lowest values. Each of these areas of high 
and of low pressure is accompanied by its peculiar 
conditions, and is moving towards the Atlantic 
coast with varying velocity. Thus the low area, if 
its centre is more than two or three tenths of an 
inch below the average pressure, is accompanied 
by clouds, and rain or snow, and forms a storm. 
The area of high pressure is usually attended by 
clear skies; and the radiation of solar heat to the 
earth during the day, or from the earth at night, is 
unchecked by clouds: consequently in summer, 
when the days are long, the temperatures which 
accompany an area of high pressure are above the 
average; while in winter, when the nights are long, 
low temperatures are found with high pressures. 
Many similar facts have been learned from the 
study of meteorological observations, upon which 
dependence is placed in weather-predicting. 

Under the auspices of the U.S. signal-service, 
observations are made three times each day at a 
hundred and twenty-nine stations suitably located. 
Each of these observations is made at the same 
moment (seven A.M., three P.M., and eleven P.M., 
Washington time), and includes determinations of 
the atmospheric pressure, the temperature and 
humidity of the air, the direction and velocity of 
the wind, the kinds and motion of clouds, and 
other meteorological data. The results are at once 
telegraphed to the central office, and maps formed 
which show graphically the conditions at the mo- 
ment of observation, and the changes which have 
occurred in the past few hours. From these maps 
a detailed prediction is made for the twenty-four 
hours following, based upon the conditions which 
exist at the time, the changes which have occurred, 
and the changes which, former experience shows, 


usually follow similar conditions. 


The weather prediction thus assumes that com- 
ing changes will agree with the changes noted in 
former times under like circumstances. This is 
true on the average; but, whenever exceptions 
occur, the prediction fails. Increased skill in pre- 
dicting depends upon increased skill in anticipat- 
ing these exceptional cases. At the present time 
the government predictions are verified in eight 
cases out of ten. Reliable forecasts cannot be . 
made for a period longer than twenty-four hours, 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


& ScIENGE=* 


though it is hoped that an increase in the time 
may be successfully made at some future day. 
There ‘is needed a better understanding of the 
laws which underlie atmospheric changes, so that 
empirical generalizations may give way to scientific 
deductions. 


EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED 
STATES AND CANADA. 


“Some say, the earth 
Was feverous, and did shake.” 
SHAKSPEARE. 

THE part of the earth’s surface occupied by the 
United States is not generally regarded as much 
affected by earthquakes. As compared with some 
other localities, this is true; yet records show that 
moderate earthquakes are not so infrequent here 
as is usually supposed. 

In the twelve years from 1872 to 1883 inclusive, 
three hundred and sixty-four earthquakes have 
been recorded as occurring in Canada and the 
United States, not including Alaska. Their geo- 
graphical distribution may be expressed in this 
way. Suppose the country divided into three dis- 
tricts,— one extending from the Pacific Ocean 
eastward, to include Idaho, Utah, and Arizona, 
which may be called the Pacific slope; the second 
extending from Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and 
New Mexico eastward, to include Ohio, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Alabama, which may be called 
the Mississippi valley; and the third, or Atlantic 
slope, extending eastward again to the Atlantic 
Ocean, and including the Appalachian region from 
the St. Lawrence to Florida and Georgia. Then 
the distribution of these three hundred and sixty- 
four earthquakes has been 


ReMMMAODS ea eee 5G) oe. TET 
MEESINSIP PE VANCY. woe) 2 =. «ws. 06 
PPMEESOMe a oF. ; fae els IAT 

364 


These numbers indicate that about once in twelve 
days an earthquake occurs somewhere in the United 
States or Canada, and about once a month one oc- 
curs somewhere on the Atlantic slope. 

It is quite likely, also, that for every earthquake 
which is of sufficient intensity to get itself noted in 
the midst of our busy American life, several lighter 
tremors may have occurred, which, although not 
violent enough to attract the attention of any one, 
would yet have left their record on a properly con- 
structed seismoscope. 


= ALMANAC aa 


ee ee, 


569 


So, if any of our readers feel disposed to set up 
a seismoscope, they need not be deterred by the 
paucity of shocks in our country. A seismoscope 
anywhere along our eastern seaboard, or, still bet- 
ter, on the western coast, might fairly be expected 
to record ten or a dozen shocks in the course of 
the year, and might detect a much larger number. 
Such observations would be of high scientific 
value. 


TEMPERATURE AND ITS CHANGES 
UO ES NEED) SA TAGS, 


“ For hot, cold, motst,and dry, four champions fierce 
Strive here for mastery.” 
MILTON. 


In the United States the changes of tempera- 
ture with the seasons are of several types. These 
are illustrated in the accompanying diagrams, con- 
structed chiefly from our signal-service reports; 
the thermometric scale being indicated by marks 
for every twenty degrees Fahrenheit on the left, 
and for every ten degrees Centigrade on the right, 
of each local division. The middle horizontal line 
shows the measure of that arithmetical abstraction 
commonly known as the mean annual temperature ; 
and the adjoining lines above and below indicate 
how much variation there may be in the means of 
different years. In this respect, St. Vincent, Minn., 
has a much more irregular climate than Key West. 
The dots connected by a fine, dotted, curved line, 
represent the mean monthly temperature, begin- 
ning with October on the left side, descending to the 
January minimum, crossing the mean annual line 
about April, on the way to the July maximum, and 
descending again to October on the right margin. 
In illustration of the least annual variation, a curve 
is introduced for the equatorial station of Singapore, 
at the extremity of the Malay Peninsula, where the 
mean annual change is only seven degrees (F.); 
and, in contrast with this torrid uniformity, we find 
Yakutsk, Siberia, in the so-called temperate zone, 
giving the greatest known annual variation, on 
account of being far north, and far within a great 
continental region. St. Vincent, the coldest of the 
signal-service stations, is probably our nearest ap- 
proach to this extreme variability. 

The irregularity of the monthly means in differ- 
ent years is shown by short transverse lines above 
and below the dots: these are farther apart in 
winter than in summer, on account of the frequency 
of winter storms which produce great and sudden 


57° 


& SCIENSE 


changes of temperature.t A rough measure of the 
average daily range for summer and winter is seen 
in the vertical lines drawn through the July and 
January dots: these are commonly longer in sum- 
mer than in winter. The hottest and coldest rec- 
ords for every month are marked by A and V. 


SINGAPORE 


100 


KEY WEST 


~S7 MICHEL 


100 FRANCE 


BOSTON 


Pong’ 


DENVER 


{00 


Denver is thus seen to be warmer but more vari- 


able than Pike’s Peak. In San Francisco the sum- 
mer heat extremes rise higher above the mean 


1 The variation of monthly means for Boston is large, in compari- 
son with that of the other diagrams, partly because it is taken from a 
thirty-five year record instead of from the eleven or fewer years of 
the signal-service reports. 


S? VINCENT 


“A 


curve than the winter colds fall below it, while the 
reverse is the case with New Orleans. The ex- 
treme variation between winter minimum and sum- 
mer maximum, even of different years, is only 23° 


F. at Singapore: our least variable station is Key 


West, with a maximum change of 53° F. Yuma, 
Arizona, although 
well known as often 
excessively hot, con- 
fines its variations 
within 93°; Denver 
has a recorded 
change of 134° from 
105° to —29°; while 
Fort Benton, Mon- 
tana, leads the list 
with a change of 
167°, between 108° 
and — 59°, but even 
this is exceeded at 
Yakutsk. The con- 
trast between east- 
ern and western 

coasts is seen in the 
variability of Boston 
as compared with St. 
Michel, on the coast 
of France in about 
the same latitude, 
the lattersbieras 
warmer and _ less 
variable because it. 
lies to the leeward 

of a temperate ocean, 


YAKUTSK 


SIBERIA 


A40-\-g9 v ~60 
PIKE'S PEAK while Boston is to 
leeward of an un- 
n tempered land; and 
again in comparing 
; Boston (in latitude 
42° 21’) with Sitka 
: (in_ latitude 57-3, 
v and recognizing the 
small difference in 
vy fw their mean tempera- 
tures, and the de- 
cided decrease in 
variability, annual and diurnal, in going from the 
east coast to the west. The effect of going inland 
is to increase changes of temperature ; for, while the 
sea is conservative of its warmth or cold, the land 
allows great and rapid variations. If the climatic 
zones had been first named in this country, ours. 
would never have been called the ‘ temperate.’ 


, 
ii te 
Vie, 


[Vou. IV, No. 99. 


—=_— = 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


i SCIENGE= 


THE COMING OF THE ROBIN AND 
OTHER EARLY BIRDS. 


“ Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? 
Loved the wild-rose, and left tt on tts stalk ?” 
EMERSON. 


THE migration of birds is a subject which is 
attracting much attention in many parts of the 
world. From earliest historic times, naturalists 
and philosophers have written, speculated, and 
theorized upon the periodic appearance and dis- 
appearance of the species with which they were 
familiar; and the coming and going of many were 
considered of ominous portent. 

In more recent times, ornithologists have 
watched the movements of birds with increasing 
interest, and have accurately recorded the facts 
observed. But it is only within the last few years 
that any thing like a systematic co-operative at- 
tempt to study bird-migration has been made. 
The work was begun in Germany, and was soon 
afterwards undertaken in Great Britain. In the 
United States, co-operative work was commenced 
in the Mississippi valley in the spring of 1882, 
under the superintendence of Prof. W. W. Cooke. 
The investigation of this subject was deemed of 
such importance that the American ornithologists’ 
union, at its first congress, determined to extend it 
over the whole of North America, and for this pur- 
pose appointed a special committee. This com- 
mittee prepared a circular (of which six thousand 
copies were distributed), setting forth the objects 
in view, and the methods by which they were to be 
attained. Through the co-operation of the depart- 
ment of marine of Canada, and of the lighthouse 
boards of the United States and Newfoundland, 
blank schedules were also supplied to the keepers 
of lighthouses, lightships, and beacons, through- 
out the whole of North America. -The committee 
has already received returns from nearly a thousand 
stations, which are scattered over the whole coun- 
try, extending, in the east, from Sombrero Key, Fla., 
to Newfoundland, and, in the west, from Arizona 
and southern California to British Columbia. 

Most birds migrate chiefly by night. In clear 
weather they fly high, often from one to two miles 
above the country over which they are passing; 
while during dark nights, particularly in fogg 
weather, they often lose the way, become confused, 
and fly directly toward any light that may chance 
to lie within the field of vision. Thus, every year 
many thousands dash themselves to death against 
lighthouses and lightships. Birds whose summer 


SS a aga SS 
a ALMANAC oe 


—— 
7 971 
and winter homes are widely separated often 
shorten their long journeys by crossing great lakes, 
broad bays, extensive seas, and sometimes even 
considerable stretches of open ocean; and obser- 
vations in various parts of the world, carried on 
Over many years, have demonstrated that the 
places of crossing are not accidental, but that 
certain definite courses are followed season after 
season with surprising regularity and precision. 
These ‘avenues’ or ‘lines’ of migration, though 
most strongly marked in aquatic, marsh, and river- 
dwelling species, are not limited to the neighbor- 
hood of large bodies of water, but may be traced 
throughout the entire range of migration. It is 
also well known that in nearly all birds the same 
individuals return to identical localities year after 
year. 

The following statement of the times of arrival 
of the robin (Merula migratoria) at various places 
will serve to show in a general way the progress 
of its advance over the greater part of North 
America during the spring of 1884.1 

Our common robin winters in vast numbers as 
far north as North Carolina, and more sparingly 
in southern New England, New York, and even 
in southern Ontario north of Lake Erie. On its 
northward journey, Dr. Wheaton’s observers in 
the middle-eastern district found it at Columbus, 
©; Heb: 3.) Cleveland, ©. Feb) 24. Petersburc 
Mich., Feb. 19; Battle Creek and Locke, Mich., 
March 10; Sault St. Marie, April1. In the Atlan- 
tic district, Dr. Fisher’s returns show it at Long- 
Island City, N.Y., Feb. 10; Sing Sing, N.Y., Feb. 
14; Lockport, NGY., Feb: 16; Watertown, INSY. 
March 13; Lake George, N.Y., March 20; Ham- 
mondville (near Lake Champlain), N.Y., March 24; 
Boonville, N.Y., March 21; Locust Grove, N.Y., 
March 25. In Ontario, Mr. MclIlwraith reports it 
at Hamilton, March 17; and at Ottawa, March 14. 
In New England a few wintered in the southern 
portions, and their march northward was irregular 
and often interrupted. Mr. Sage’s observers re- 
corded them from East Hartford, Conn., Feb. 2; 
Greenfield, Mass., Feb. 35 Thetford, Vt., Feb. 22; 
Hanover, N.H., March 21; Waterborough, Me., 
March 23; Calais, Me., March 30: Moosehead 
Lake, Me., April 9. In Quebec and the maritime 
provinces, Mr. Chamberlain’s report shows them 
at Montreal, March 30; Quebec, April 14; Grand 
Menan Island, March 10; Halifax, March 18; 

1 These data, by permission of the council of the American orni- 


thologists’ union, have been selected from a part of the returns on the 
species named. 


a a 


St. John, N.B., March 20; Prince Edward Island, 
April 15; Godbout, on the north shore of the 
mouth of the St. Lawrence, May.21; Point Rich, 
Newfoundland, May 1; and Greenly Island, off 
Labrador, May 20. In the Mississippi valley, 
Prof. W. W. Cooke has ascertained that robins 
usually winter north to about latitude 39°, but that 
the unusual cold of January, 1884, drove the bulk 
of them south of the parallel of 37°. Returning, 
the regular advance began March 9, and ina single 
week they spread over Illinois and eastern Ne- 
braska to latitude 41° 51’; March 16 there was a 
slight advance in Iowa; on the 1gth and 2oth they 
pushed forward in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin 
(but not in Nebraska), to latitude 43°; March 21 
there was a sudden spreading over Wisconsin to 
latitude 45°. In the Red-river country, latitude 
47° was attained April 3; and one week later the 
first robin of the season sang at Oak Point, Mani- 
toba, latitude 50° 30’. From Mr. Belding’s notes, 
it appears that the western race of the robin 
(Merula migratoria propinqua) winters more or less 
abundantly throughout the greater part of Cali- 
fornia, moving northward in February, March, and 
April. Its nest and eggs were found at Seattle, 
Washington Territory, May 1. In Alaska our 
robin has been seen in the Chilkat region as early 
as the end of April, and at Nulato about the middle 
of May. 

The following statement shows approximately 
the average dates of arrival, in the latitude of New- 
York City and southern Connecticut, of a number 
of common and well-known birds. The yearly 
variation is considerable, and is greatest in the 
early-comers, amounting in some cases to upwards 
of two weeks. The robin (Merula migratoria) 
may be expected about the middle of Felruary; 
wood-thrush (Turdus mustelinus), first week in 
May ; brown thrasher (Harporhynchus rufus), May 
1; catbird (Mimus Carolinensis), May 1; blue- 
bird (Sialia sialis), early in February; house-wren 
(Troglody tesaedon), May 1; yellow-rumped war- 
bler (Dendroeca coronata), fiddle of April; barn- 
swallow (Hirundo erythrogastra horreorum), April 
25; scarlet tanager(Pyranga rubra), May Io; red- 
eyed vireo (Vireo olivaceus), May 6; rose-breasted 
grosbeak (Zamelodia ludoviciana), May 12; indigo- 
bird (Passerina cyanea), May 12; chewink (Pipilo 
erythrophthalmus), May 1; bobolink (Dolichonyx 
oryzivorus), May 10; red-winged blackbird (Age- 
laeus phoeniceus), March 1; Baltimore oriole 
(Icterus galbula), May 8; king-bird (Tyrannus 
Carolinensis), May 8; pewee (Sayornis fuscus), 


early March; whippoorwill (Caprimulgus vocife- 
rus), May 1; night-hawk (Chordeiles pepetue), May 
Io; chimney-swift (Chaetura pelasgica), latter part 
of April; humming-bird (Trochilus colubris), May 
5; kingfisher (Ceryle alcyon), flicker (Colaptes 
auratus), and fish-hawk (Pandion haliaetus Caro- 
linensis), late in March. 


TORNADOES, AND HOW TO ESCAPE 
THEM. 


“ Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow! 
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout 
Till ahi have drench’d our Gig arown'd the cocks / 


Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll ore ‘ 


SHAKSPEARE. 

TORNADOES are among the most characteristic 
features of the central states of the Union. Their 
Opportunity comes when a broad cyclonic disturb- 
ance of our regular westerly winds brings cold 
air of the north-western plains down to meet warm 
southerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico. A mod- 
erate number of miles east of the average contact- 
lines of these two currents, the tornadoes are 
formed, when they appear at all. A number of 
them frequently occur at about the same time, for 
the contrasts of temperature and moisture that 
permit the development of one are generally wide- 
spread enough to produce several more. Fig. I 
illustrates the tracks of the tornadoes of Feb. 19, 
1883, when the southern states were swept over by 


Fic. 1. 


a large number of these storms,—in Kentucky 
and Alabama about noon, in eastern Alabama and 
Georgia during the afternoon, and in the Carolinas 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


after sunset, — the progress of their region of oc- 
currence across the country corresponding to the 
passage of the broad cyclonic storm that gave them 
birth. The signal-service report states that about 
a thousand persons were killed, more than twice as 
many wounded, and three or four million dollars’ 


coe Sema ASE ae 


WOFrin G1 property aestrcyec, 
this single day. This was the first and severest 
visitation of the year. 

The distinguishing mark of the tornado is its 
dark, pendent funnel-cloud at the centre of the most 
violent winds. The rules published by the signal- 
service for escaping from such a storm, when it is 
seen approaching, are based on the regularity with 
which tornadoes move to the north-east, or at least 
to some point between east and north, along a tol- 
erably straight course, at a rate of about thirty 


ASD GUO) (on) 


ai waa wv~ 


Fic. 2. 


* 


miles an hour. If seen to the north-west or south- 
east, the tornado will, in all probability, pass to 
one side of the observer. If seen in the south- 
west, a few moments’ watching will serve to dis- 
cover whether the funnel-cloud is advancing so as 
to pass north-west or south-east of the observer ; 
then, without waiting too long, let him run to the 
open side. If the funnel-cloud seems to come 
directly toward the observer, he should run to the 
north-west, because the winds on that side are a 
little less violent than on the other, and the chance 
of escape there is correspondingly better. In re- 
gions where tornadoes occur frequently, every 


house should be provided with an underground 
chamber or dug-out, easily reached, and guarded 
by a strong grated door. This is the only retreat 
on the storm-path in which safety can be found. 
The effect of a tornado on the buildings of a 
western town is seen in fig. 2, copied from a pho- 
tocranh taken by D. H. Cross at Grinnell, Io., 
shortly after its destruction on June 17, 1882. 


BLOOMING-TIMES FOR FLOWERS. 


“And ’tis my faith that every flower 
Enjoys the atr zt breathes.” 
WorDSWORTH. 

THE pressure brought to bear on every branch 
of industry in this rapidly moving nineteenth cen- 
tury has not failed to produce its effect on students 
of natural history; and comparatively few 
of the present active workers find time to 
leisurely ramble, observe, and philosophize, 
as, for example, Gilbert White did a century 
ago. Yet there is scarcely a lover of nature, 
however closely confined to his study or 
laboratory, who does not listen for the first 
twitter of the bluebird, or delight in the 
first bunch of violets brought by the spring, 
and find himself cheered by the chirp of the 
last robins, and the flowers of the witch- 
hazel, on the threshold of winter. For such 
and all lovers of nature, this effort to indi- 
cate the usual time at which a few typical 
plants of the different seasons may fairly be 
said to be coming into full bloom is made 
as a reminder of seasons that are gone. and 
a prompter for those to come. 

Like the birds, flowers vary much in their 
habits. Some stay with us through the en- 
tire open season, and push their heads up 
at the very edge of the snow or in the heat 
of midsummer; some come at their ap- 
pointed time, last but a few days or weeks, and 
disappear completely, be the season what it may; 
and others, usually regular in their blooming. feel 
the stimulus of a long, warm autumn, like the last, 
and anticipate the following spring by unfolding 
more or less profusely. 

Every region has its own climatic peculiarities 
and its proper spring and autumn; and, though the 
limits of these may vary somewhat from year to 
year, there is usually some close observer of na- 
ture to be found, who prides himself on knowing 
a sheltered place where he is certain to find the 
trailing-arbutus or pasque-flower at about the same 


574 


date every year. But one spray of arbutus does 
not make a spring, and the lovely May-flower may 
not reach its prime of beauty and fragrance for 
some time after the most sheltered plants open 
their buds. Even in the same neighborhood, dif- 
ferences in exposure and elevation defy an exact 
tabulation of the periods of leafing, flowering, and 
fruiting; and the moderating influence of a body of 
water may retard the blooming of early species in 
its immediate vicinity for days or even weeks. 

In a country covering nearly twenty-five degrees 
of latitude and fifty-five of longitude, with lofty 
mountains and tablelands and low valleys, diver- 
sified by great lakes and rivers, and embracing 
every variety of climate from the subtropical to the 
subarctic, with excesses of humidity in one region 
and of drought in another, it is impossible to 
arrange the phenomena of the seasons so as to in- 
clude the whole. 

On comparing the data obtainable, however, a few 
general features are found common to a great part 
of the country. Whatever their exact date of leaf- 
ing or flowering may be, there are certain genera — 
like the maples, poplars, and elms among trees, and 
the violets and wakerobins among herbs —that 
precede most of their fellows; and, except in very 
anomalous seasons, their species succeed each 
other with the same regularity. Where the same 
plant extends from the Gulf to New England, it 
naturally blooms earlier in the warmer region; but 
it is noticeable that the difference, greatest in the 
flowers of early spring, becomes less marked as 
the season advances, under the accelerating heat 
of the northern summer, so that there is often little 
difference in the flowering of summer and autum- 
nal plants. In general the same rule applies to 
species occurring over a considerable range of alti- 
tude, and is now and then illustrated nicely by a spe- 
cies with a wide distribution on both high and low 
ground. 

FLORAL CALENDAR.! 

Blooming all the year in favorable seasons. — 
Chickweed, dandelion (N.), Cherokee rose 
(Al.), Eschscholtzia, Anagallis (Cal.). 

Jan. 1-10. — Ranunculus californicus (Cal.). 

Jan. 10-20. — Ribes sanguineum (Cal.). 

Jan. 20-30. — Red cedar (Al.). 

Feb. 1-10. — Scoliopus (Cal.), red maple (Al.), Salix 
scouleriana (O.). 


1 Based on the notes of Dr. Mohr for Mobile, Ala. (Al.); Pro- 
fessor Porter for middle Colorado (3-6,000 feet, Col.- 8-10,000 feet, 
Col.); Mr. Rattan for San Francisco, Cal. (Cal.); Mr. Hay for St. 
John, N.B. (C.); Mr. Howell for Oregon (O.); and the writer for 
Wisconsin and New York (N.). 


[Vo.. IV, Nomeenes 


Feb. 10-20. — Trillium ovatum (Cal.), wild plum, 
trailing-arbutus (Al.). 

Feb. 20-28. — Choke-berry, blue violet (Al.), Den- 
taria (O.). 

March 1-10. — Cottonwood, sassafras (Al.), Ne- 
mophila Menziesii, Viola pedunculata (Cal.), 
Trillium ovatum (O.). 

March 10-20. — Oaks, Pinus taeda (Al.), Phacelia 
tanacetifolia, Nemophila aurita (Cal.). 

March 20-30. — Locust, flowering dogwood (Al. y 
Gilia multicaulis (Cal.), Ribes sanguineum (O.). 

April 1-10. — Violets, Gilia achillesetele (Cal.), 
magnolia, wild cherry, Oxalis violacea (Al.), 
skunk-cabbage (N.). 

April 10-20. — Gilia androsacea (Cal.), hickories 
(Al.), red maple, cottonwood, red cedar, pasque- 
flower (N.), Delphinium bicolor (Col.), Nardos- 
mia palmata (C.), Erythronium (O.). 

April 20-30. — Ceanothus thyrsiflorus (Cal.), poison 
sumach, blue flag (Al.), trailing-arbutus, sugar- 
maple (N.), Thlaspi alpestre (Co/.), spring beau- 
ty (C.). 

May 1-10.— Calochortus alba (Cal.), smooth su- 
mach (Al.), ash, spring: beauty, Erythronium, 
Trillium, golden currant (N.), spring beauty, 
pasque-flower (Col.), Clematis Douglasii 
(Col.). 

May 10-20. — Calochortus Weedii (Cal.), sun-dews, 
New-Jersey tea (Al.), blue violet, wild plum, 
wild cherries (N.), Viola Nuttallii (Col.), Mer- 
tensia alpina (Co/.), trailing-arbutus (C.). 

May 20-30. — Calochortus pulchella (Cal.), sweet 
bay, dwarf palmetto (Al.), barberry, oaks, apple 
(N.), spring beauty (Co/.), Trillium (C.). | 

June 1-10. — Lilium pardalinum (Cal.), St. Johns 
worts (Al.), blue flag, choke-berry (N.), Sophora 
sericea (Col.), golden currant (Co/.), Calypso 
(C.). 

June 10-20. — Mentzelia ee vicanlia (Cal.), Vir- 
ginia-creeper (Al.), raspberry, locust (N.), 
Lepachys columnaris (Col.), Anemone multi- 
fida (Col.). 

June 20-30. — Rosa carolina (Al.), laurel, sun-dews, 
Aquilegia coerulea (N.), Delphinium azureum, 
Gilia aggregata (Col.), Zygadenus glaucus (Co/.), 
Cypripedium acaule (C.). 

July 1-10. — Sabbatia, Aster paludosus (Al.), Vir- 
ginia-creeper, Rosa carolina (N.), Cleome in- 
tegrifolia (Col.), pasque-flower (Co/.). 

July 10-20. — Gentiana oregana (Cal.), Habenaria 
ciliaris (Al.), New-Jersey tea, smooth sumach 
(N.), Pentstemon glabra (Col.), Gilia aggregata, 
Viola canina (Co/.), Habenaria psycodes (C.). 


iF 


ep 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


| SCIEN 


July 20-30. — Rhexia, Zygadenus (Al.), poison su- 
mach (N.), Grindelia squarrosa (Col.), Aquile- 
gia coerulea (Co/.), Lilium canadense (C.). 

Aug. 1-10. — Zauschneria (Cal.), Petalostemon co- 
rymbosum (Al.), Sabbatia, Habenaria ciliaris 
(N.), Helianthus petiolaris (Col.), Erythronium 
grandiflorum (Co/.), Rubus villosus (C). 

Aug. 1o—20. — Chrysolepis mariana (Al.), sun-flow- 
ers (N.), Malvastrum coccineum (Col.), Aster 
canescens (Co/.), lovage (C.). 

Aug. 20-30. — Lilium catesbaei, Liatris elegans 
(Al.), Solidago altissima (N.), Solidago missou- 
riensis (Col.), Gentiana Parryi (Co/.), Impatiens 
(C.), Aster Douglasii (O.). 

Sept. 1-10. — Nabalus Frazeri (Al.), beech-drops, 
Liatris, Indian pipe (N.), Aster spectabilis (C.), 
golden-rods (O.). 

Sept. 1o—20. — Golden-rods (Al.), golden-rods, sow- 
thistle, Nabalus Frazeri (N.) (C.). 

Sept. 20-30. — Gerardia purpurea (Al.), gentians, 
Acalypha (N.). 

Oct. 1-10. — Aster tradescanti (Al.), asters (N.). 

Oct. lo—20. — Gentiana ochroleuca (Al.). 

Oct. 20-30. — Gentiana elliotii (Al.). 

Nov. — Spiranthes brevifolia (Al.), 
(N.). 


witch-hazel 


IMPORTANT AGRICULTURAL STATIS- 
TIES. ; 


Live-stock in the United States in 1880, excluding 
ranch-stock, horses, mules, cows, and swine in 
cities, and those belonging to persons not owning 
or occupying farms. 


35,191,056 
47,087,951 


10,357,981 | Sheep 
12,443,593 | Swine 
22,488,590 | 


Horses 
Cows (milch) 
Other cattle 


The leading states in the raising of live-stock are 


as follows. 
Illinois, horses . 1,023,082 
New York, milch-cows 1,437,855 
Texas, other cattle 3,387,967 
Ohio, sheep 4,902,486 
lowa, swine 6,034,316 


Average yield per acre of cereals in the United 
States, 1880. 


Bush. Bush. 
Indian corn r 3 28+ | Barley E 3 3 5 22 
Wheat 13— | Rye . : ; : 5 Wot 
Oats . 25+ | Buckwheat p 3 alge 


Cereals raised in the United States in 1880. 


Bush. Bush. 
Indian corn 1,754,801 535 Barley 44,113,495 
Wheat - 559,479,505 | Rye . 19,831,595 
Oats . . 407,858,999 , Buckwheat 11,817,327 


On 
“I 
wal 


The leading states in the production of cereals. 


Bush. Bush. 

Illinois, Indian corn . 325,793,481 | lowa, oats 50,610,591 
Iowa, Indian corn . 275,024,247 | New York, oats 3755755500 
Missour1, Ind’n corn, ‘202,485,721 | Pennsylvania, oats . 33,841,439 
Indiana, Indian corn, 115,482,300 | Wisconsin, oats 32,905,320 
Ohio, Indian corn. 111,877,124 | California, barley 12,579,501 
Kansas, Indian corn, 105,729,325 | Wisconsin, barley 5,043,118 
Illinois, wheat . 51,110,503 | Pennsylvania, rye 3,683,621 
Indiana, wheat 47,284,855 | Llinois, rye 3,121,785 
Ohio, wheat 46,014,869 | New York, rye 2,634,690 
Michigan, wheat 35,532,543 | Wisconsin, rye . 2,298,513 
Minnesota, wheat 34,601,030 | New York,  buck- 

Iowa, wheat 31,154,205 wheat 4,401,200 


Pennsylvania, buck- 
wheat 


California, wheat 29,017,707 


Illinois, oats 63,189,200 355732320 


Average yield of corn and wheat per acre (in 


bushels). Corn. Wheat. 
Alabama . - : : 4 - 2 : ¥ Sipe) = 
California . g : ‘ : ‘ : - E eG ae aie 
Massachusetts . 9 5 : zi ° : : Aah athe 
New York . 5 Ei ; : ; é 5 7: 5 Geb DES: 
Tllinois : : : 2 : é : : é 5 eine 
Pennsylvania . : : 6 : j ; : 4 35 022s 
Florida : : 5 : é i : i : - oO 5+ 
Georgia . 3 F s “ : , : : See ye 
Minnesota . ‘ : : F : : : 3 5 26h Teh 


Implements and workmen. 


Agricultural implements, number and value 


(1880). 
Number of establishments : : , - 1,943 
Number of hands employed A : : : : 39,580 
Capital invested . $62,109,668 
Wages of workmen . : 3 c = - 15,359,010 
Value of material : . 31,531,170 
Value of implements manufactured . 68,640,486 
Number of reapers and mowers manufactured . 162,337 
Number of grain-cradles manufactured 167,492 
Number of scythes manufactured 1,244,264 
Number of horse-rakes manufactured 95,025 


Faris. 
Number of farms in the United States in 1880, 
4,008,907. 
States then having 200,000 and upwards. 


Illinois 255,741 | Missouri 215,575 
Ohio 247,189 | Pennsylvania 213,541 
New York . 241,058 


Cotton ratsed tin r88o. 


Total in the United States, 5,735.257 bales of 475 
pounds each. 


States producing 500,000 bales and upwards. 


Bales. Bales. 
Mississippi . 955,808 | Arkansas 608,256 
Georgia 814,441 | South Carolina 522,548 
Texas. 803,642 | Louisiana 508,569 
Alabama 699,654 


The extremes of production are Missouri, ;&% of 
a bale; Florida, 22, per acre. 


8S 


AWHW PERTINENT TINTS TO 
FARMERS. 


576 


Fences and farm-buildings. 


SEASON fence-posts one year before using. Cut 
oak and cedar in February, chestnut and most other 
woods in August. To insure durability, soak the 
lower ends of posts in brine before setting. In 
the east the cost of fencing is equal to the value of 
the live-stock. To tear down a fence without split- 
ting the boards, strike the side of the post near the 
top a sharp blow, in line with the fence, with a heavy 
sledge-hammer. To drive nails into very hard 
wood, dip their points in oil. Use steel nails for 
fencing. Paint in cool, cloudy weather. Use little 
lead and much oil for first coat. It does not pay 
to paint barns which are boarded vertically. Lime 
will remove moss from roofs. 


Care of cattle. 


Try standing and lying on a hard plank floor 
twenty-three consecutive hours, and you will use 
the stanchions for kindlings, and build a covered 
barnyard. Feed cattle but twice daily, always 
before milking: give water as often, at a tempera- 
ture of 55°; it is safer to scrimp food than water. 
Meal, if fed alone, especially to young calves, should 
be spread thinly on the bottom of troughs, so that 
it will be eaten slowly, and be insalivated. Allow 
one cubic foot of air-space for each pound of live 
weight. Temperature of cow-stables should range 
HOM 45° to 515°: 


Hints on breeding. 


Keep a mature thoroughbred bull at the head of 
the herd. Use selected common cows. Raise all 
female calves, and as many males as circumstances 
will admit, except badly marked or weak ones and 
those from two-year-old heifers. Uniformity in 
color, shape, and general characteristics, adds much 
to beauty and value. Heifers tried two years, if not 
satisfactory, should be fattened and sent to the sham- 
bles. Weigh the milk of each cow at least one day 
ineach week. Stop guessing, and get facts. Selec- 
tion, food, and care are the three great elements of 
success and improvement. Boys and cattle should 
be raised on the farm, not in the city. 


Suggestions about dairying. 


Procure a number of glass tubes, sixteen inches 
long, one inch in diameter, and closed at one end. 
With two strips of leather and tacks, fasten them 
upon a board two feet long and sixteen inches wide. 


[Vou. IV., No. 99. 


Place under them a paper ten inches wide, ruled with 


linesatenth of aninchapart. Fill each tube to the 
depth of ten inches with one cow’s milk. The lines 
will designate the per cent of cream. Provide a 
metal dasher for each tube, and attach the handles of 
them toacommon horizontal handle. Churn all the 
milk in the tubes at one operation, and note the per 
cent of butter in each tube. By this method it was 
proved, that, while one cow produced a hundred and 
eighty dollars’ worth of milk in a year, another pro- 
duced only forty dollars’ worth. Nitrogenous foods, 


uN 


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ANAIAIAIZ 
AANAANANZ 
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CAA ANZANANZ 
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EZZEDAB EE 
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A CREAM-TESTER. 


such as cottonseed-meal and clover-hay, tend to pro- 
duce large quantities of milk, the butter from which 
is inclined to be oily. Heat-producing foods, such as 
corn-meal, do not tend to largely increase the flow — 
of milk, but to improve the quality and quantity of 
the butter. Animals part with the fat of the body 
more easily than they extract fat from their food: 
hence it is economy to moderately fatten the cow 
whendry. Sweet skimmed milk is worth, to feed in 
connection with other food to a good breed of pigs, 
one cent per quart. Two quarts of milk drawn 
from the cow by the calf is worth three quarts fed 
to it from a pail. Calves are more cheaply raised 
in winter than in summer. . 


A few facts about manures. 
The value of the manure of a thousand-pound 
cow, liberally fed, ranges from five to ten cents 
per day, exclusive of bedding. Milch-cows take 


from their food about twenty per cent of its ma- 


nurial value; fattening stock, about five per cent.; 
young animals and dry cows, ten per cent. 


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Xx A ¥Jacksonville WITH DIALS SHOWING 


Aus? Standard Railway Time 


Proposep By W. F. ALLEN, 


(Secretary Railway Conventions and Editor Travelers® 
Official Guide.) 


ENDORSED BY GENERAL AND SOUTHERN TIME CONVENTIONS, 
APRIL 11 AND 18, 1883, 


ADOPTED BY THE CONVENTIONS OF 

oS OCTOBER 11 AND 17, 1883. 

AND ORDERED TO TAKE EFFECT ON 
NOVEMBER 18, 1883. 


* 
INTERCOLONIAL STANDARD TIME 60TH.MERIDIAN \emter 
EASTERN ” 75TH. ” veer 
\) CENTRAL ” 90TH. ” Pond 
MOUNTAIN v7 105TH. 0 — 
PACIFIC ” 120TH. > = 


COPYRIGHTED 1883 BY W. F. ALLEN, 


ENG'D BY AMERICAN BANK NOTE CO.NEW YORK Mexico o 


. -<. - 


a, 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


CHRONOLOGICAL CYCLES, 1885. 


Weummmeabtctter {os Se D 
Pease... =e Soe 14 
Lunar cycle or Golden number... . 5 
0 57 CUS LE AI Se S)) oe 18 
MeREHCHION - 86) ss ss ce fee 13 


Bemmmeriod. . . ss: : 6598 


FIXED AND MOVABLE FESTIVALS OF 
PRE CHURCH, 1335. 


TIDE 


TABLE. 


THE table of tides is limited to points on the 
Atlantic coast, as the tides on the Pacific coast are 
of so complicated a character that it would be 
impossible to refer to them by the simple table of 
reduction as given. The actual times of the oc- 
currence of high and low water are much affected 
by the force of the wind, a difference of fifteen 
minutes between prediction and observation often 
being brought about. 


Epiphany . Jan. 6. 
Septuagesima Sunday ‘ : seve: i, 
Quinquagesima (Shrove Sunday) . PQs 15. 
Ash Wednesday . aN melebs 1d: 
First Sunday in Lent. eHebs 22. 


St. Patrick March 17. 
Palm Sunday March 29. 
Good Friday. April 3. 
Easter Sunday  Aspril 5. 
Low Sunday . . April 12 
Rogation Sunday . . . May Io. 
Ascension Day (Holy Thursday) . May 14. 
Pentecost (Whit oleae : May 24. 
Trinity Sunday. . . ek ee May 31. 
Corpus Christi. . June 4. 
St. John Baptist (Midsummer Day). . June 24. 
Michaelmas Day . . . . , = Dept. 20; 
First Sunday in Advent . = INO. 20: 
Christmas Day . WCC. 25. 


MORNING AND EVENING STARS, 18585. 


MERCURY will be visible as morning-star about 
Jan. 26, May 25, and Sept. 15; and as evening-star 
about April 8, Aug. 6, and Nov. 30. 

VENUS will be morning-star till May 4, then 
evening-star the rest of the year. 

Mars will be evening-star till Feb. 
morning-star the rest of the year. 

JUPITER will be morning-star till Feb. 18, then 
evening-star till Sept. 8, and morning-star again 
the rest of the year. 

SATURN will be evening-star till June 18, then 
morning-star till Dec. 26, and evening-star again 
the rest of the year. 


II, then 


SEASONS, 1885. 
(Eastern standard.) 


Spring begins. 
Summer “ ; , 
[OSS a ee ey 
Winter “* 


March 20, 5> A.M. 
June 21, 2" A.M. 
Sept. 22, 4" P.M 
Dec. 21, 10° A.M. 


| Tere 
| @3052 | 
Aw 5ee 
era 2 bl es 
Intervals to be applied to the standard time of high 237 PE ee 
water at New York, found in the calendar pages. S wee cid oe = 
ESEsEs | & 
——_ 
I. M. | FEET. 
Eastport, Me. . Add 3 33 | 18.2 
Mount Desert Island, NewS aaeig aycg ee th Res 32 | 9-9 
Belfast, Me... A eee um ne 8 (012116 CY) 
Portland, IN co, CAC OIE oat ea NI Ce 55. ase 
Portsmouth, INEEAO si ica cohen beets oon ai | ce ae eee 
Newburyport, Mass. . : Tahaan GAIN Gh 
Ipswich, Mass. . Se GL UB ial Sr LS CRON < alee a em | 9.0 
Rockport, INDCeMne ee 5 oe eared Nica A eee anne aoe 36 8.6 
Gloucester, IMiaSSaee haan aie eT Ue 2)! tlie eli oe ara | 8.9 
MarblehneadheViassam a Sms in eine ee nih en ey ok | 9-3 
Salem, Mass. RSM Re Le ee eu | og walk oe ork ¢ oe ee 
Plymouth pNiassweus (yb eee ue A 8 eS ol bee | 10.2 
Provincetown, Mass. . Minotwis Bh abel wraile (<= ar GSO MIpERoEe 
Hyannis, TIERS ah, A Ue Ne a Ce 4. Vola 
INantucketalasses gs & «4 cafssath a case = 49 725 | 3-9 
Vineyard Haven, Mass. . Mis betes TS 6a ee 
Wood’s Holl (north side), Mass. . . . . .| Sub.o ax bi 4x0 
Wood’s Holl (south side), Mass. . .| Addo 14 1.6 
New Bedford entrance (Dumpling | IR, ) Mass. .| Sub. 0 20 a7) 
Fall River, Mass.. . . el Wakes Trees 4.7 
Newport, R.I. PAP ce lic eas Ratan ae Rheum Re aMarcge SIM 0 ener 3-9 
Point Judith, REI eo Np ccf ee SiO ko 4501 #eSa8 
MontankePomt RoI. ses) sb 302 4 ;.- 1 |-Addio 4) saxg 
Watch Hill, ell yates Seva sO; 148 2.7 
Stonington, Conn. | §f) JOP i5oa hake 
New London, Conn. . Ree Cree rc) 2.5 
Norwich, Conn. Sy, oer 
New Haven, Conn. . <2) sez eGto 
ibndgeporty@onn Wt. s Sh Sao. Sie iia 3) Ae | Ges 
INewsRochelleNEVeln is 3 en ee me 8) B40) 6 
West Point, N.Y.. Perce So Soe | 27 
Albany and Greenbush, N.Y. Subs2 46°) 2:6 
Brooklyn (navy- TEES N.Y. Diy, cul Addge 47 es 
Newark, N.J. j PRR CO ae ct wee eto BAO ESCO 
Sandy Hook, N Je feet eee et] Sab RO) aGnh mes 
Barnegat, N. I Sak, ff) eke sol Ad Get S80 gai 
Cape May Landing, N. ih. Me ies: a ee sO. TOM means 
Delaware Brcalavater, Dele ote 6 ok ce | Suh Se lig Su 
Welawarei@ity. Del. 2). «2 ss +,» «| Add’ 2 56 | 6.3 
New Castle, el ae Steen ea aye Ib POR Shee 6.5 
Philadelpiiarebenn.) 2 ak = SS US (42s 
ArinapolsmVidser sti, 4°.) spe is «ss «| ub: 3 xO 0.9 
Baltimore Midite, 26) 5. au ili tay wees. se oe 2 2! | I.3 
HayredeiGrace) Md) 2 .)2 2 4 © 4 = «| Add x -38 tS 
Point Lookout, Md. SPA ee ee er SO Tea! 
Washington (Long Bridge), BiGl oo scuche & tt SbMo /aork ae 
INorfolka(mavy-yard); Vas. 9.5 2. . 2 = .-| Addr 59) 2:7 
Richmond, Va._. nhs side Sa CUe eee OURS! 2571 ako 
Hatteras Inlet, NICs so 56x) Zo 
Beaufort, N. CrAdu | <Hato ischiie 28 
Wilmington, N.C. Addis: 15) 2i7 
Smithville, N.C. ‘ iSuble 35 | 4:4 
Charleston (new Custom- House wharf), S@PR KS Lo TG; t? 1 SEE 
Beaufort, S.C. . 33 SS os 42 7-3 
Savannah (dry dock), Ga. . HeShe R.Ge eo 25i> fay 
Fernandina, Fla. . Sst eae SS Oo - al eee 
St. John’s River (entrance), F Bee GA 3. bea: Telihgpes 
St. Augustine, Fla. . . MS es ce INNES @ -Tz7l MNase 
Capemiloridane la. fant Meee at eos) 5 al So 69 | gs 
Key West, FiO emery a Adder aces 
Ceda= Mews. Via Neh) Sic eee 4 32th Ges 


578 


ECLIPSES, 1885. 


In the year 1885 there will be four eclipses, —two 
of the sun, and two of the moon. 


I. An annular eclipse of the sun, March 16; 
visible in North America generally as a partial 
eclipse, — being annular within a belt 35 miles 
wide, drawn through Weaverville and Fort Bidwell, 
Cal.; Idaho and Boise Cities, Idaho; Bannack City 
and ‘Gallatin, Montana ; Hudson Bay and Green- 
land, — occurring as follows :— 


STANDARD TIME: Begins. Ends Annular. 
H. M. i. M. H. M 
Bangor, Me. 4 Pe Sonne) As 2 58 A. = 5 
Boston, Mass... . .| oO 20 A. 7 Sey VAN - - 
New York, N.Y. o 13 A. 2 46 A. =-s 
Philadelphia, Penn: ) ... | ‘o -aosAe 2 43 A. - - 
Buffalo, N.Y. 4 20 eh | PeOn com AN 2 42 A. - - 
Pittsburg, Pea... . .| 32 58 M. | 2 38 A. - - 
Cincipnati,O.. . . . .{ 10 48 M. t 29 A. - - 
Chicago, Til, 7, 2 -. 2 |) 20 45) ME t §30,Ac -  - 
Nashville, Tenn. . . . .| 10 41 M. T 22 A. - - 
StiLouis, Mo@ . =. .| 10 37 -M. rt 20 A. - - 
Omaha, Neb. . . . . .| 10 28 M. tr 15 A. - = 
Baltimore,Md. ... .| o0 7 A. 2 40 A. - - 
Washington, D:C. ... .| o 6 -A. 2 39 A. -  - 
Charleston, SiG. ~ 5 = «| 12 57° Me |) 2 24 AS - 
Savannah, Ga. Sie alpzor 54a Me 1 at A, - - 
Jacksonville, Blan Se wales 53 M. tr 17 A. - - 
Raleigh, NGG). 4 Oy Ao Pio wae 2 31 A. - - 
Mobile, Ala. . 0°. . .| 10 33 Mil] 2 ar vA. - - 
New Orleans, La. . .:.| 10 28 M.| xr 8 A. - - 
Memphis, Tenn. . . . .| 10 33 M. 1 15 A. - = 
Galveston, Tex. . . . .| 10 15 M. t o A, - - 
Sewbauly Minn: 451. 1 iy | to! 938) eNL: i 25S 4 
Denver, Col. 9 zo M. |/7o “x Av - - 
Salt Lake City, Utah 9 3 -M.} ar 52 M.| - ‘= 
Santa Fé, N. Mex. Ov 43M.) ar. 530M oe 
San Francisco, Cale: 7 48 M. | 10 30 M. - - 
Portland, Ore... 8 2M. |z0 qt M.| =: = 
Boise City, Idaho . 9 3 M. |-21 49.M. | 10; 29 MM. 
Bannack, Montana 9 8 M.|11r 57 M.| 10 30 M. 
Weaverville, Cal. . 7 52 M.|:10 33 M. 9 8M. 
Fort Bidwell, Cal. 7 57 M.| 10 39 M.| o 14 M. 


Duration of annulus, from 4 to 3 of a minute. 


II. A partial eclipse of the moon, March 30; 
invisible in America; visible in Asia, Australia, 
eastern portions of Europe and Africa, and the 
western Pacific Ocean. 


III. A total eclipse of the sun, Sept. 8; invisi- 
ble in North America; visible chiefly in the South 
Pacific Ocean. 


IV. A partial eclipse of the moon, Sept. 23, 24; 
visible in North and South America and the At- 
lantic and Pacific Oceans, happening as follows : — 


*STANDARD TIME: | Eastern. Central. | Mountain. | Pacific. 


Moon enters penum-| D- H. M. D. H. M D. H. M. D. H. M. 
bra . .|24 0 oM./2311 o A./23 10 0 A.|23 9 OA. 
Moon enters shadow 24 114 M.j24- 014 M.j23 11 14 A. [23 1014 A. 
Middle of the eclipse]24 248 M./24 148 M./24 048 M.\23 11 48 A. 
Moon leaves shadow|24 422 M.|24 322 M.|24 222M.\24 1 22M. 
Moon leaves penum- 
bra. . . . .|24 536M.J/24 436M.|24 336 M./24 236M. 


Magnitude of eclipse = 0.79(moon’s diameter = 1). 


{Vou IV. No. 99: 


SYMBOLS. 
Ou... The Sune d . Mars. 
q .'. . The Moon. a7 . . . Jupiter. 
Ot.) se Mencunye h «14 Sate 
9... .-:Venus. 6 ../. Uranwe: 
@. . . ihe Barth: w . >< Neptmnie: 
a... Moon runs high. 
wv... Moon runs low. 
6 ... Conjunction, or having the same longitude 


or right ascension. 
. Quadrature, or differing go° in longitude or 
right ascension. 
§ ... Opposition, or differing 180° in longitude 
or right ascension. 


O 


Qe a Agente node. 

23. . . Descending node. 

S ... Appended to the stars, ‘souths,’ or crosses 
the meridian. 

op... = Aries. ~~... Laibar 

gy... Taurus. m .°. 4 SCOrpro: 

Oo... Gemini. f ... Sagittarius. 

3. .- Cancer. vy . . . Capricornus. 

3.0. Leo: es: . . . Aquarius. 

HWS) 2 VILSO.  . . » Bisees: 


SUN-TIME AND CLOCK-TIME. 


ONE very often hears some friend say, when ex- 
tolling the merits of his watch, that he sets the 
sun by it. It is doubtless supposed by many that 
the sun is most regular in its habits, and crosses 
the meridian exactly at noon; and it was with a 
feeling of regret at parting company with a so- 
supposed faithful time-keeper, that many set their 
watches to standard time on the 19th of Novem- 
ber, 1883. If the orbit of the earth were perfectly 
circular, and the sun revolved around an axis per- 
pendicular to the plane of the orbit, then the sun 
would have the reliable character with which it is 
now credited; but, unfortunately, the orbit is. not 
circular, and the earth revolves about an axis in- 
clined to the plane of the orbit, so that the appar- 
ent motion of the sun varies in rate from time to 
time through the year. And as it is convenient for 
us to have our days of equal length, the mean time 
to which we set our clocks differs from solar time 
by as much as fifteen minutes on the 1oth of Feb- — 
ruary, and fully sixteen minutes on the 27th of 
October. The relation between mean time (the 
time we use on our clocks and watches) and solar 
or apparent time (that of the sun-dial) is readily 


3/9 


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ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MARCH 16 


RY 


eS 


TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1885. 


seen from the accompanying diagram; and what is 
meant by the equation of time, which is nothing 
more than the difference between mean time and 


RK 


ee ae 
APPARENT MOTION 
OF THE SuN. 


Zz 
oO 
i 
oO 
= 
x 
” 
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= 


Minutes Fasr. o Minutes Stow 
20 15 10 aeglD \s- 


DIAGRAM SHOWING COMPARISON OF MEAN (OR CLOCK) 
TIME WITH SOLAR (OR APPARENT) TIME AT THE 
SEVERAL SEASONS OF THE YEAR. THE PERPEN- 
DICULAR CENTRAL LINE REPRESENTS MEAN TIME, 
AND THE CURVED LINE SOLAR TIME, AT MEAN 
NOON. (Borrowed, by permission, from the Popular 
sczence monthly.) 


- [VoL. IV., No. go. 


solar time, may be seen by a glance, and is given 
by the length of a horizontal line running from the 
vertical line through the zero of the scale, to a 
point on the curve corresponding to the date for 
which the equation of time is desired. For all 
ordinary purposes, the diagram is sufficiently accu- 
rate; although, of course, it has not all the refine- 
ments which might be suggested, as, in fact, a 


fo) 
single diagram could not be given for all years. 


NEW MAPS OF THE HEAVENS. 


“ Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night. 
God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.” 
Pore. 


THE accompanying maps represent the heavens 
from the north pole to 30° south of the equator, 
and include all stars to the 43 magnitude inclusive. 
In some instances those of the 44 magnitude have 
been incorporated for the sake of configuration, 
and convenience of identification. 

The maps also include portions of the milky way, 
the paths of the planets during the year, with their 
location in these paths at certain definite intervals. 
From these the position of any planet for any date 
can be obtained with sufficient accuracy for finding- 
purposes. 

The numbers around the circumference of the 
circular map, and at the top and bottom of the rec- 
tangular maps, indicate hours of right ascension; 
and the other figures along the line of o and 12 
hours, every ten degrees of declination. The curv- 
ing line represents the ecliptic or apparent path of 
the sun in the heavens. 

The months at the borders indicate the part of 
the heavens that would be on the meridian at nine 
o’clock in the evening at the various times ex- 
pressed. Thus, on Jan. 1, the stars along the line 
of 3.7 hours would be crossing the meridian at nine 
o’clock in the evening, and on Feb. 1 those on the 
meridian of 5.8 hours, etc. 


RATES OF DOMESTIC POSTAGE. 


Letters and all other written matter, whether sealed or unsealed, 
and all other matter sealed, nailed, sewed, tied, or fastened in any 
manner, so that it cannot be easily examined, per half-ounce, or frac- 
tion thereof, 2 cents; fostal-cards, each 1 cent; printed matter 
(except newspapers and periodicals), in unsealed wrappers only, each 
two ounces, or fraction thereof, x cent (limit of weight four pounds, 
except for a single book, which may weigh more; prepayment com- 
pulsory); zewspapers and pertodicals, in unsealed wrappers, each 
four ounces, or fraction thereof, 1 cent; mailable szerchandise, in 
packages easily opened for examination, per ounce, or fraction thereof, 
1 cent (limit of weight four pounds; prepayment compulsory); regis— 
tration-fee on letters or other articles, 10 cents. 


4 


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+ 24 
4th, 


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+ 20 
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Magnitude 
42. 


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any 
MAP 1, THE NORTHERN HEAVENS WITHIN 60° OF THE POLE. 


ae 
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Pas Sg 
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= Pach_ 


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3.0" 
AUTUMNAL jugs 
a 


VERNAL 
EQUINOX 
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FORNAX 
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- J LEWIS ENG.CO. BOSTON. 


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I LEWIS ENG.CO.B0STON, 9 °° 


Maar 2 Feb / ot 
MaP II. THe EquatoriaL REGIONS BETWEEN O aND XII Hours. 


XVI 
i : | CORONA = ° 
| BOREALIS 


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PEGASUS 


LIBRA 
ypTIc 
ecilP me , 
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CORVUS 


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XXII XN XX Xt xvi XVII 


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Map Ill. THe Equatoriat REcions BETWEEN XII ANOXXIV HOURS 


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DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


STANDARD TIME. 


For the convenience of the travelling public, there have been adopted by the railroads of the United 
States and the Dominion of Canada, and to a certain extent by the municipalities of the two countries, 


- five different standards of time, extending from Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast, being as follows : — 


Intercolonial . 
Eastern . 
Central 
Mountain . 
jo SU ne 


. 


NAME. 


(74 


66 


6 


66 


Central meridian. 


6 


(74 


6c 


oe 


60° = 45 west from Greenwich. 
rl ey ae 
ae akaeh es aes go? =o" 
eee bOS” = "7e 
120° =o" 


The calculations.of this almanac are given in local mean time, except where otherwise stated. To 
change to ‘standard time,’ apply a flws or minus correction, to be found by subtracting the central 
feiiade of the adopted standard from the longitude of the place, reduced to time. 
the standard of Boston is ne ‘Eastern’ one, carrying (as per schedule above) the lon- 
gitude of 75°, or 5 hours, which, subtracted from Boston’s longitude, 71° 4’ = 4" 44™, gives a minus 
result of 3° 56/, or 16 minutes, to be subtracted from the printed mean-time values for Boston. _ 


For example: 


Again: 


the standard for St. Paul—the ‘Central’ one —is 6 hours, which, subtracted from St. 


Paul’s longitude of 6° 12™, leaves a correction of 12 minutes to be added, i in order to change to St. Paul’s 


standard. 


The following table gives the correction for a number of the principal cities of the continent : — 


STANDARD TIME-TABLE. 


Correction to be applied to local mean time to obtain standard time. 


Eastport, Me. 
Bangor, Me.. 
Augusta, Me, 
Portland, Me. . 
Concord, N.H.. . 
Manchester, N.H.. 
- Montpelier, Vt. . 
Burlington, Vt. . 
Boston, Mass. . 
Springfield, Mass. . 


Northampton, Mass. S. 


Newport, R.I.. 
Providence, R.I. . 
Hartford, Conn. 
New Haven, Conn. 
Albany, N.Y. , 


- New Vork, N.Y. 


Winer NEY... 
Syracuse, N.Y.. 
Rochester, N.Y. 
Buttalo, N.Y... 
Newark, N.J. . . 
' Trenton, N.J. . 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
-Harrisburg, Penn... 
Pittsburg, Penn. 
Wilmington, Del. . 
Baltimore, Md.. . 
Washington, D.C.. 
Norfolk, Va... 
Richmond, Va. . 
Lynchburg, Va. . 
- Wheeling, W. Va.. 
Wilmington, N.C.. 
Raleigh, N.C. . . 
Charleston, S.C. 
Columbia, S.C. . 


yy eee -« 


Se eee ee. |S 


Standard. 


. Intercolonial. 


Eastern. 


| | 
Cortee | Standard. WES Standard. 
M. | M. | 
+28 ||Erie, Penn... . Central. — 40 || Jacksonville, Fla. . | Central. 
—25 ||Cleveland,O. . . oe — 33 || Pensacola, Fla. | fe 
—2zr ||Columbus,O. . . oS — 28 Lexington, Ky. ee 
—19 || Toledo,O. . . fe —26 |! Louisville, Ky. . fe 
| —x4 || Cincinnati, O. . gf a) Knoxville, Tenn. . rs 
—14 |} Detroit, Mich. . os — 28 || Nashville, Tenn. i” 
=O Lansing, Mich. . if —22 Memphis, Tenn. 3 
— 7 || Grand Haven, Mich. va —15 || Montgomery, Ala. = 
—16 || Fort Wayne, Ind. . i —19 || Huntsville, Ala. . kd 
—1o || Indianapolis, Ind. . *e —16 || Mobile, Alas a 
—SeMmeacon ene ag a — 10 || Holly Springs, Miss. . S 
—x5 || Cairoy Ill. . 3 a — 3 || Jackson, Miss. . Ye 
Saas Springfield, Ut. 4 a — 2 || New Orleans, La.. << 
119) Galena, I. 5. 6 2 n + 2 || Shreveport, La. $6 
— 8 || Quincy, HU in, 4 + 6 || Little Rock, Ark... Meg 
— 5 || Milwaukee, Wis. . — 8 || Fort Gibson, Ind. Ter. . Lid 
— 4 || Janesville, Wis. be — 4 || Galveston, Tex. . > 
+ 1 || Madison, Wis.. . . a — 3 || Houston, Tex . es 
+ 5 || Superior City, Wis. . se + 8 || Dallas, Tex. % | 
'+ 1 || Dubuque, Io. . x + 3 || Austin, Tex. . . = 
+16 || Davenport, lo. . ic + 3 |;San Antonio, Tex. . nt 
— 3 || Des Moines, Io. +14 |; Cheyenne, Wyoming. Mountain. 
— 1 || Duluth, Minn.. f + 9 || Denver, Goaler2, : : 
+ 1 || St. Paul, Minn. e ¥ -- 12 || Santa Fé, N. Mex, a 
+ 7 || Minneapolis, Minn. . 4 +13 |! Helena, Montana. . 3 | 
EZo) St. Lous, Mo...) « ss + r || Salt Lake City, Utah <¢ 
-- 2 || Jefferson City, Mo. . SS + g || Virginia City, Nev. . Pacific. | 
6 | Kansas City, Mo. . is | +18 || San Diego, Cal. . i 
+ 8 || St. Joseph, Mo. : +19 ||Sacramento, Cal.. . td | 
+ 5 || Lawrence, Kan. “ + 21 || San Francisco, Cal. . 
+10 || Topeka, Kan. . $ +23 || Olympia, Wash. Ter. sf 
+17 || Omaha, Neb. + 24 || Portland, Ore. . 3 
+ 23 || Lincoln, Neb. : « +27 ss 
+12 || Yankton, Dakota . + 29 || Quebec, Quebec Eastern. | 
15 | Bismark, Dakota . SS | +43 |! Montreal, Quebec. .s 
+ 20 |} Savannah, Gays ¢ ra | — 36 || Ottawa, Ontario os 
+ 24 ! Milledgeville, Ga. ; Ht | —27 || Toronto, Ontario . rs 
' H 


582 [VoL. IV., No. 99. 


THE SUN AND THE PLANETS, THEIR COMPARATIVE DIMENSIONS. 


THE accompanying illustration (borrowed from Guillemin’s ‘ Le ciel’) shows at a glance the relative size of the sun and 
planets. The sun is represented in an abnormally spotted condition, it being doubtful whether he ever displays so pitted a face. 
The small planets, or asteroids, one or more of which are discovered each month, could not be represented on so small a scale, 
as they would be invisible, the actual diameters of some not being more than a few miles. The overwhelming size of the sun is 
well brought out; its volume is six hundred times that of all the planets ; and, if placed in a balance, it would outweigh seven 
hundred and forty times their total mass. The following table shows the relative masses and densities of the planets :— 


PLANETS, MASS. DENSITY. | PLANETS. MASS. DENSITY. | PLANETS. MASS. DENSITY. | PLANETS. MASS. DENSITY. 
Mercury . . 0.075 1.376 Earth) . =. ©.0ceo 1.000 Jupiter. . 309.028 0.243 Uranus. . . 18.542 0.220 

i 5 é 

Venus... . 0.787 0.905 Mars, = = «0:09 0.692 Saturn . . =. 92.394 0.133 Neptune . . 15.771 0.211 


as 


DECEMBER 26, 1884.] 


MAP OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 


THE orbits of the five inner planets and of many of the periodic comets are given in the accompany- 
ing diagram, which is drawn approximately to scale, the orbits of the satellites being enlarged to pre- 
vent confusion. Saturn would appear at a distance of 3-62 inches from the sun, if its orbit were drawn 
on the same scale, Uranus at a distance of 7-29 inches, and Neptune at a distance of 12.28 inches. The 
shaded portion indicates the region within which the asteroids, or smaller planets, are found; and the 
orbit of the largest of these, and those longest known, — Vesta, Ceres, Pallas, and Juno, —are given. 
The earth has one moon; Mars, two; Jupiter, four; Saturn, eight; Uranus, four; and Neptune, one. 
Ceres, the first asteroid, was found in 1801, Pallas in 1802, Juno in 1804, and Vesta in 1807. The 
first asteroids discovered ranged between 300 and 600 kilometres in diameter; while the smaller ones. 
which have been more recently found, often are not more than from 20 to 50 kilometres in diameter 
(10 to 25 miles). The distance of the sun from the earth is said to be 92,500,000 miles; and the distance 
of the nearest fixed star, if given on the same scale as the diagram, would be 78,000 inches (about a mile 
and a quarter). 


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“Che wintry west extends bis blast, 
And hal and rain does blaw ; 
Or the stormy north sends driting forth 
Che blinding sleet and gnaw,” 


“And once J learned how marvellous winter was, 


When past the fence-rails, downy-gray with rime, 


L creaked adventurous oer the spangled crust 
That made familiar fields seem far and strange.” 


BURNS. FEBRUARY, 1885. Lowe. 
Mean time is used unless LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF Hic WATER, 
otherwise specified. arteries BOSTON. WASHINGTON. | CHARLESTON, S.c.| New Yore. | Second Month. 28 Days. 
| Day | Day | Day | Moon’s PHENOMENA. Moon Sun Sun Sun | Moon ; : 
of of of | Constel- Rises. Sets. Rises, | Sets. | Rises. Hes OF SEN Ro: Connie 
Year. |Month.| Week. | lation. 7 ; ne H. H. M. H. M.|H. M.|H. M. H. M. s- 
5. Septuagesima Sun lay. Day’s Length: -zoh, 16m. toh, 39m. 
32 I Su. ©) ® in 0S. 7 qd spia © | s © sg ig a) 8 2 9 49 1813. — James D. Dana, American naturalist. 
33 2 M. @) } C. 7 9 gS ls O wig a Ones 37 1825. — John C. Dalton, American physiologist. 
34 3 ite Tip Venus rises 5.59 M. : 7 10 Dp a \ 0 Bg ad qe ~ A 21 1820, — Elisha K. Kane, Am. Arctic explorer. 
35 4 W. Li @ gr. Hel. Lat. S.; ¢@ in 2. 7 II fy By © 53/1 5 go re 2 : 1790. — John Bachman, American naturalist. 
36 5 ‘the pan Algol s. 5.56 A. 7 Morn. |) 7. 255 O- GO 3 ayy. lee gfe} 14 1770. — Alexandre Brongniart, French geologist. 
37 6 Fr. a >) 6th. Aldebaran s. 7.20 A. 7 °  iea|) & 6 5st {15 38 | Morn. 6 1825. — Joseph Winlock, American astronomer. 
38 | 7 Saale Capella s. 7.55 A. 7 I i OH 6» 50m] 5 3041 0° 52 7 
6. Sexagesima Sunde y. Day’s Length: toh, 31m. toh. 51m. 
39 | 8 Su. mM O wW ©. 7 2 6 5 I 6 Honea qoute auelis 3. 16 1739. — William Bartram, American traveller. 
40 9 M. mM ( im apogee. Ss | 2 6 Be 3262 6. -40;| 5 4re) 2. 34 | 4 4 23 |4 1827. — William D. Whitney, Amer. philologist. 
41 nae) altar tr Mars sets 5.26 A. 7 3 6 % 33 3 QO AWG ae sy wey (ls 5 22 1796. — T. de Ja Beche, English geologist. 
42 | 12 W. dt ©) ch OC ES 7 4 6 5 a | A O 47 | 3 23 4 oo || 8 (©) 1847-—Thomas A. Edison, American electrician. 
43 | 12 Th. LT 6 in aphelion. 7 5 6 Gas |) S 6m 4655) 44+| 4° 537] 6 6 49 1809. — Charles Darwin, English naturalist. 
44 ae) Fr. Vp a 2 3-0 OF 6 5 6 5 3 | 5 Op Msals 457 Se 35-1 7 7 26 | 1672. — Etienne Geoffroy, French physicist. 
45 | 14 Sas Vp @uth dc. ; 6 Sets. | 6 BR ate 6 4415 45 | Sets. | 7 7 59 || 1728.—J. Hunter, English physiologist. . 
7. Quinquagesima (£ hrove Sunday). Day’s Length: toh. 47m. rth, 3m. tee go Oe pmne epewae (Senate Gherst. 
~ 46 | 1s Su. SS Jupiter rises 5.51 A. 6 6 5 6 4315. 4616 33] 8 34 
49 || 9.16 M. = h stationary. 7 6 5 39 Gaweqd 5 47/7. su || 5 | 1801.—J. T. C. Ratzeburg, German naturalist. 
' 48 17 Tu. + C@ in 23. 8 6 Cees CAG Sena C roe Seon EO 39 | 1740. —H. B. de Saussure, Swiss physicist. 
49 | 18 W. + § YU ©. 9 6 G 2 640 | 5 40)) 69 28} 6 18 | 1564.— Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer. 
50 | 19 Th. pa Rigel s. 7.9 A. 10 6 5 43 6 39/5 50/10 30 |ro 4 |4 1473. —N. Copernicus, German astronomer. 
61 | 20 Fy. oP eo Wa II 6 Sg aa © BR ie je 2 jade 55 ea — Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist. 
62 | a Sa. Sp @ 22d. Saturn sets 2.15 M. Morn. | 6 5. 45 BOu87.15) 5) | Moma. 2 | 1822,— Wolcott Gibbs, American chemist. 
8. First Sunday in L:nt. Day’s L : h. : 5 : : 
ees: Atal et = eS 1 eet : enetl es Scat es ah Sagem iA he ____| (1784. — Major John E. LeConte, Am. zodlogist. 
53 22 | Su. 8 Go hy Ca 6 ° 5 Aono 6 36|5 52]0 35] 0 55)1 8 }4 1796.—L. A. J. Quetelet, Belgian astronomer. 
54 23 | M. 8 Uranus rises 7.52 A. Fin I 5 47 | 2 6 34/5 53|1 306}2 7/2 29] 1804.—C. Bremiker, German mathematician. 
55 Aer elite | Canopus s, 8.1 A. 6 2 Beds) |e 6 33/5 54/2 3513 24 | 3 54] 1801.— James Deane, American geologist. 
56 25 | W. 7 ( in perigee. 6 3 cio) |) 3} 6 32/5 55.13 \ar]4 36/5 8+ (1728.—A. Baumé, French chemist. 
57 26 AMaie bar Neptune sets 11.41 A. 6 4 fey 6 3118. 5614 24 ]5 38] 6 12] 41786.—D. F. J. Arago, French astronomer. 
58 27 | iii oar On 2a GeeN eve! 6 5 ces tulle 6 30/5 56|5 12]6 33/7 #424 | (1823. — Joseph LeConte, American geologist. 
59 | 28 Sa, ) © 28th. in perihelion. 6 Ris be aa alk 6 29 | 5 57 | Rises. | 7 22/7 531 1743.—R. J. Hatiy, French mineralogist. 
MOON’S PHASI'S. sate he >) THE DECADE 
; EASTERN. CENTRAL. MOUNTAIN. PACIFIC. A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE DECADE. 
(Standard Time.) : ' ib 
ic haa, yp | z |) Pebi ty resey tellion Sunday. Feb. 1, 1886, will fall on Monday, 
‘ t. WM, hy Wh, ide he J 9908 66 66 TWN day iS cee EE eday 
LAST QUARTER Bais G 143 AN (Se sy ie 6 237 A. aaa ae etd : Leas 
New Moon . i 14 9 22 A, 14 8 22 A, 14 Been: cAt “> 68a; “* “ Wednesday: *. 7888, “ “ “ Wednesday, 
First QUARTER : 22) 5 sami, 2) FA orev, 22 Seon SNe eS stiseaye ) WinEsdeyy. at@ttg, >) *.- <° 3° Bina 
Fut OON. Oe 28 4.1 ia} A, 28 10 Oo vA 28 8 0) VAG “ 1884, 6 Mriday. “ 1890, Se en Saturday. 


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Coway puppunjgs ) “-~20 6 . y eay AUVLANV Id ‘ ds asimda 20 
4 C ° O'S NOLSATAVHO NO.LONIHSVAA NOLSOd palfioa ! Yy 
sheq le G2U0OW PII aE Ho ay ACNLILV'T JO AGALILWT AO AGALILV'T ssajun pasn Ss! aul}? uvay 


‘INVANG = saueg fo apwys asoj2 a4} 40 wags Jaap ay] Uy -C gg YW NV W ‘auVAASAVHS 
Yisp mA 242 Ajuo aavs ‘mous Aysoyg 24 J 
fo pau suns aapzim pup ‘aasf yas ysnl aap 
suipaass Msiou ay uayan Quosvaig st jt PUP ,, 


(ce 1aGva ue que Suiddiu ve st If — ‘NOT, 
*QJOI HAIN Sl 3 S Ajgmaags sauig we aq —‘WVH},,, 


cL. | 


“ Lodged in sunny cleft, 


ith new himaberh wrttate qoutes Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone 
Mere uearueetue utyu, etme (Coes The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye 


Co springen bere and there in fielde and mede : fet z 
Do erp good and wholesome be the shouces.” Seaniaae cy aan ae 
® yg esome ces. Sta 


& 


« 


And everp plane was pelorhed faire 


rtling the loiterer in the naked groves 
_ ~: ; fe) o . 
CHAUC ER. APRI LL, 1885. With unex pected beauty.” BRYANT. 
Mean time is used unless LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF en ater, RF th Month 3 

otherwise specified. FARR BOSTON. WASHINGTON. | CHARLESTON, S.C. |, NEw York. | our onth. O Days. 
Day | Day | Day | Moon’s PHENOMENA. Sun | Sun | Moon| Sun | Sun | Moon] Sun | Sun | Moon], | q a= 

of of | of |Constel- Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. HNO, | lovee OF SearRAT TTL Ee BLES 

Year. |Month. | Week. | lation. (ne oo , eS _| H. M.| HH. M.|H. M.] H, M.|H. M.| H. M.]H. M.| H. M.| H. M. | H. M. | H. M. : eo eas ar 

91 | Peer Pay eee ese Regulus s. 9.20 A. R 42/6 B18 2O] 5 AL 1/6 BATS 26 )/3 42716 gaol e aslo & | @ wo 1744. — J. B. Lamarck, French zodlogist. 
Speer lae ar aims (ered) en's es Venus rises 5.33 M. Bm AO | G Bd} 26 1 ce O Bs hey Ba 1G GO eri © ae |e) cop Iie 1764. — E. F. Schlotheim, Ger. paleontologist. 
98 | 3 Fr. IN Pollux s. 6.48 A. 5° 38 | 6 29 |10 35] 5 41] 6 26 |10 28] 5 45 | 6 22 I10 16 |xo 26 |10 45 1793. — Dionysius Lardner, Irish physicist. 
94 4 Sak il | ~ Denebola s. 10.49 A. 536) On coultrersoules eso pOleo7 lime couleG =aq0 | 1Onees tue a7) (ED 7 |tt 205 oop even Peirce, Amer. mathematician. 
823. — Sir William Si ‘ , sicist. 
14. ‘Easter Sunday. Day’s Length: 12h, 56m. 12h, 50m. 2h. 41m. eee PEALE IUCR, bss Ob 
95 5 Su. Ny Spica s. 0.24 M. Ze s 3506.30 | Moma s 38niso 28) Morn: fos" AenlG 23 nn 50) )rr 53 |... | 1768.— Diedrich Karsten, Ger. mineralogist. 
96 6 M. ft | @ in apogee. 5 al © 22/6 27115 40 O 2 © OO) BR ce | O ot | Nom O wile ay, 
ux 7 Tu. Pe Duthie Oneinitel: lat. Ne 5 gf |O Siler £5 88] © golo Mig 40) 6 2 Oo Aik 9] 2 20 1727. ——M. Adanson, French naturalist. 
98 8 Ww. Vv & gr. elong. E. 19°26’. 5 30|6 34]/1 4r}5 33/6 31/2 35] 5 38|6 25/1 23 ]21 58] 2 53] 1732.— David Rittenhouse, Amer. astronomer. 
99 9 Th. Vp Mars rises 5.10 M. 5 28/6 35|]2 19] 5 32|6.32) 2 14] 5 37|6 26/2 4]2 59] 3 53] 1814.—C. J. Malmsten, Swedish mathematician. 
100 Io Fr. Vp Arcturus s. 0.56 M. 5 BO |B galls go. OF sell S Go|] 3 3 6 27 | 2 43°] 3 55 | 4 4o 
101 Il SEX WS | Alphacca s. 2.11 M. Ga | O Bg 29 || § 2] GO svi Seg lls B53 | © 23) 9 eoll A Bag a 1804. —O, L. Erdmann, German chemist. 

15. Low Sunday. Day’s Length: 13h. 16m. 13h. 8m. i2h. 55m. 

102 ne JueShoege sas Jupiter sets 3.19 M. 5 2316 3913 sols 27/6 35/3 58]5 3316 28] 3 56]5 48|6 74 1773.— Thomas Thomson, English chemist. 
1083 M. x Ore, C7 Gino: 5 21 |6 4o]4 31] 5 26|6 36/4 32]5 32|6 29] 4 3216 22] 6 49} 1743.— Thos. Jefferson, Am. statesman and nat. 
104 14 Tu. x e wath @n ge «Ce Bp 20m lt Om alee manasa 24a Ono: ee ROMmGumonelOupsOr oS 6 ite 7 5 )li7uean 1629. — (. Huyghens, Dutch physicist. 

105 15 W. oP Tt eG) Ch aCe 5 1816 42] Sets. | 5 23 | 6 38] Sets. | 5 30] 6 30] Sets. | 7 48 | 8 14 ]2{ 1772.—E. G. Saint-Hilaire, French zoologist. 
106 16 Th. ce (e) WH 5 1716 43/8 3115 21 | 6 38| 8 26] 5 29] 6 31 | 8 16] 8 33 | 8 58 | | 1800.— James C. Ross, Brit. Arctic navigator. 
107 | 17 Fr. 8 6 stationary. 5 5) | 6 "44)| 9 40 15 2onl 6 39 9 36.5 276 32 | 9 21-] 9 20 | 9 44 | t7o4.— Kk. FY Po Martins, German botanist, 

(108 | 18 Sa. 8 Oh C; C in perigee. 5 14/6 45 l10 45]5 19! 6 40 |10 37] 5 26| 6 32 10 24 |10 12 |to 34 | 1822.—A. Petermann, German geographer. 
16. 2d Sunday after Easter. Day’s Length: 13h. 34m. 13h. 24m. 13h, 8m. 

109 | 19 Staal Saturn sets 10.43 A. A. | 5 12) 6 46 |xx 43] 5 17 | 6 41 [xr 35] 5 25 | 6 33 |xx 22 ]rr 9 xr 30] 1795.—C. G. Ehrenberg, German naturalist. 
110 | 20 M. Oo Antares s. 2.28 M. 5 10] 6 48 | Morn.]| 5 16|] 6 42 |Morn.| 5 24 | 6 34 ]Mom.] ... | 0 15 1824. — Jules Marcou, Swiss and Am. geologist. 
111 21 Tu. O ( 2tst. 2 stationary. 5 OO =40 0 695 es 914 156) 9489/0 26 5 823 (96 35 | oO 16 [|o 32 |x 209 |) 1e07.—— la Palmieny [talanpnysicisn, 

112 22 Wise 0 Sp Vega s. 4.31 M. 5 7 | 6 so\'r 2215 1316 44] 7 I 5 22/6 35 |r 6] 4t |e 46 |) 1724.— Immanuel Kant, Gexman philosopher 
118 23 Th. car onl 5 6/6 51/2 215 12/6 45|1 58] 5 21/6 36/1 50] 2 52] 3 55 | 1798.—Sir W. E, Logan, Canadian geologist. 
114 24 Fr AG) Uranus sets 3.52 M. “1G Al BO oe BIB 10 | @ Ao | 9 |} we @ eh I sre |) coy | a ; 

115 25 Sa. § OuOn Gn ata ie etal 5 3/6 5313 1215 916 4713 12])5 19'6 37/3 9} 5 41°5 43] 1819. — Otto W. Struve, Russian astronomer. 

17. 3d Sunday after Easter. Day’s Length: 13h. 53m. 13h, 4om. 13h, 21m. 

Pig 126, |) Sa. I Cin 9. Ns ct] 6 5413 4515 8| 6 48] 3 46] 5 1716 38|3 47]5 56|6 29] 1774.—C. L. von Buch, German geologist. 
117 | 27 M. i) dO % © inferior. 5) OnINO GEN de DRGs Sep OT AO. ae 2ball Se sro" 0 — 36 4 2316 44|7 10] 1791.—S. F. B. Morse, American electrician. 
118 | 28 Tu. pas O 28th. GO @. 4 59/6 56/4 4815 5|6 50/4 5315 15|6 40|4 59|7 26|7 48] 1782.— William Darlington, American botanist. 
119 29 Ww. ae 29th. Neptune sets 7.46 A. 4 57 | 6 58] Rises.| 5 4/6 51 | Rises.| 5 14 | 6 41 | Rises.] 8 8] 8 28] 181r1.—J. W. Bailey, American microscopist. 
120 | 30 Th. sae Guim. 4 5616 59]8 2415 31/6 52/8 1845 13/6 4t|8 6]8 47|9 3] 1834.—Sir J. Lubbock, English naturalist. 


MOON'S PHASES. EASTERN, A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE DECADE. 
(Standard Time.) 


— ss a ; 1880, fell on Thursday. April 1, 1886, will fall on Thursday, 
es ee (ait 1881, “ “ Friday. * 1887, “ “ “ Friday, 


LAST QuARTER yp op ee 8 42 M. 
NEw Moon. . TS oO 52 A. 
First QUARTER 21 6 20 20 A, 

I M. 


7883, ‘* ‘* Sunday. 1889, “ * Monday. 
Futt Moon. . 29 14 14 M 


ah 1882, “ ‘* Saturday. 1888, “ ** ** Sunday. 
A, 
A, 1884, ‘* “ ‘Tuesday. 1890, “ ‘Tuesday. 


“ 


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* 


pf 


fs 


“Cis beaven alone is qinen awap, 
Cis onin God map be had for the asking, 
Wo price is get on the lavish summer, 
June map be had by the poorest comer.” 


JUNE, 1885. 


“ The ortole should build and tell 
f1is love-tale close beside my cell ; 


The idle butterfly 
Should rest him there, and there be heard 


Teewatne The housewtfe bee and humming-bird.” Bryant. 
3 : HicH WATER 
Mean time is used unless LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF ) . 
Saab : : New York. Sixth Month. D . 
otherwise specified. SA BOSTON, WASHINGTON. | CHARLESTON, S.C. | New York. | 30 Days 
Day | Day | Day | Moon’s PHENOMENA. Sun Sun | Moon} Sun Sun | Moon | Sun Sun | Moon 
of of of | Constel- Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. Morn. | Eve. OF SCIEN Ee Oe eae 

Year. |Month.|} Week. | lation. H. M.|H. M.|H. M.|H. M.| H. M.| H. M.] H. M.| H. M.| H. M.]H. M.| H. M. a 

152 I M. op: Spica s. 8.36 A. AS A | af so) Io) IS || AL = BJO) || 97 0) IO) |) AE eT Gp ey No) aH | oy SKS) ae) 

1538 2 Tu. Vp Venus sets 7.54 A. A257 Sie TOMS auido ON 72 con Lon eA Gailequees2i|e7 wamoh|TON e30)||TON 5 2))|TOT 64a 

154 3 W. Vp Arcturus s. 9.20 A. {We OYE GR Syy Nee FA) | Gy | oF ome ae POI YL GO Ig, VN ee ae bag ere Nae. yA 1726. — J. Hutton, Scotch geologist. 

155 4 Th SS Alphacca s. 10.35 A. A Oi | Ge ee nse BS | a BR eu ie FO IT Se | oP oy ime “Gu Seen etonmo ae 1787. — L. C. Prévost, French geologist. 

156 5 Fr. Ss D sth. 6 stationary; G W 9. Awe 2A a7 933)| Morneib4mea5ale 7 = 225 | Vlora |e4ee52 | 97 = 5) Morn |,o) 8) | 1 4 1819. — J. C. Adams, English astronomer. 

157 6 SES SS ( in 23. . Aes | O29 | a | 3 OBS |e oe | SO Ao | @ gS 1436. — Regiomontanus, German astronomer. 
23. xst Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 15h. 11m. 14h. 49m. 14h, 15m. , 

meme | Su | Sse Ta 9. = Mere lye) lees Oey sally or ce aa | ees em) co al 

159 8 M. x Mars rises 3.11 M. MB Gf Bs || we Be AE Sg on Ne at | A Be | yp Ole By |B Ba A 1821.— Sir Samuel W. Baker, Eng. traveller. 
160 9 Tu. Pp Antares s. 11.8 A. Ae 2ORe7 B50 ng 2= ale4s oA gi 7 Seng o TOE otal 7m 7 ae eG) Jed) s or le aur 

161 Io W. oP Ou gine MiGs aaa. JN OPI AGE BIO || Be PLN US ey I op dS se hoya ZC ig m | ay 7AM ORS SG rile i 1706. — J. Dollond, English optician. 

162 Ir ARhs is} 6 OG {OPI G By || 3 Be) || Ah ey | wy as Is S7 \| A Bie ll BP Sey ey || © xe | O vas} 1790. — J. E. Teschemacher, Am. mineralogist. 
168 12 Fr. 8 @rth dh... Age 22570 o7 1 SetsemeAmesdu 7a cone Setsealet msl SOul 9Ctsy |l7. To 7s ao 

164 13 Sa le 6 2 Cd; C in perigee. A. 14 22/17 3818 1714 3417 26)8 tof 4 5ri7 %8|7 56|8 o918 321] 1r773.— Thomas Young, English physicist. 
24. 2d Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 5h. 16m. 14h. 53m. 14h. 18m: 

165 I4 Su. UO Jupiter sets 11.17 A. A ge \q 38 | o ari) 4 ely arilo 8) 4 se lly oye ga iommayalnomens 

166 iis M. car) Vega s. 0.58 M. AO) Gf ahs) Wn) =@) || th By || OP BPO) 55) || Zh SIAR Moya G) UU] oye ey Ivey ace) 

167 16 Tu. car Altair s. 2.6 M. A225 a7 OMLO Ae aE Aas tall) 27s TOMNS On| quanta GeeeTON| TONES Irn oO) mre 1800. — Lord Rosse, Irish astronomer. 

168 17 We hi GU. 4 22 7 39 |1r “To 4 34 7 27 \tr 17 | 4 5x | 7 IO \rr 13 |rz 59 [zr 57° |< 182x.— E.G, Squiex, American archeologist, 
169 18 Th. iO ey lf rE . 4 23|7 39 |1r 5214 34|7 28 [tr 52) 4 52/7 IO |tr 51] ....]/ 1 © | 1791.— Denison Olmstead, American physicist. 
170 19 Fr. Im @€ roth. GSC; ¥inQ!}¥; OSO.] 4 23] 7 40 | Morn.| 4 34 | 7 28 | Morn.| 4 52] 7 xr | Morn.|o 56] 1 59] 1781.— George Stephenson, English engineer. 
171 20 Sa. mM @ in §. 4 2317 40/0 23|4 3417 28|0 25 14 52|7 3 |o 26/2 58|]3 2 Ff 18xx1.—Carlo Matteucci, Italian physicist. 

25. 3d Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 15h. 17m. 4h. 55m. 14h. 19m. 

172 21 Su. Ip (+) enters 25; summer begins. 4 23/7 40/0 5414 34/7 29|0 58/4 52/7 1r|r 2/3 4+ |4 3 4 1646.—G. W. Leibnitz, German mathematician. 
ae 22 He pas Soe 4.31 M. A237 40") t e204 e357 “29 | Posh a 52) 7 19 |) xz 35) 4 4 e Onl Mrzer.— cy DiePoiscon) brenem puysiist 

23 u. pas : ea pat A ON | Gp fie || ay |) ZAG pf to) EN Ze ge ay, 6 I 1815. — J. J. Oppel, German physicist. 

175 24 W. Mm $ in perihelion. A PAN Gp Ao | B® Bh || 4h SA oP Boy | cilley |) AL ey | oP Sine ey hs} 2 2 2 a 1777. — John Ross, British Arctic navigator. 
176 25 Th. mM Uranus sets 11.43 A. Ai 2 day hom eo ea Aen Onley a 2ON Samar sede 5a ile7 eID S 4G|96) Bal yo ty 1814. — Paul Daubrée, French geologist. 

177 26 Fr. Mm © in perihelion, SAne eo a7 dOnt dees Onl?) 20 Com ton ASA 7) Tah 4: On aN a6) lee ne 

178 27 Sa. wh © 27th. G % © superior. 4 25 | 7 401) Rises. 4 37 1 7 29 | Rises.| 4 54 17 12.| Rises.| 8 14 | 8 23 1806, — A. de Morgan, English mathematician, 
26. 4th Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 15h, 15m. 14h. 52m. 14h. 18m. 

179 28 Su. LT ( in apogee. Males | 7.mel 8 a8) 4 3717 26/8: a2 ]4 s4ly te8 of@ 48|8 so] 28re.—GC. G. Page American electrician, 
180 29 M. Fomalhaut s. 4.21 M. 4 20|7 40/8 55]4 37/7 29|8 49/14 55|7 12/8 39] 9 19] 9 14 |¥ 1804.—C. U. Shepard, American mineralogist. 
181 30 Tu. Neptune rises 1.59 M. Ae2O dN eAGs|Omm2O led eesan ey 20. OG Mas eds Se TO so GLO) AG | Oo oat sere. — Angelo Secchi, Italian astronomer, 


MOON’S PHASES. 


; EASTERN. CENTRAL. MOUNTAIN. PACIFIC. A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE DECADE. 
(Standard Time.) = ; ; 
7) Sac el ala ee el be cee ee alee a UNG Tpteeo, cell ond uesday. June r, 1886, will fall on Tuesday. 
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Putt MOON es ans 27 6 1 M. 27 5 18 M. 27 4 18 M. 27 3 18 M. “ 1884, GU NG Sunday, “ 1890, CCic€Ce atl Sunday. 


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*¢ Che tender speckled moth bere dancing seen, 
Che haulting grasshopper of glossy green, 
And all-protific summer's sporting train, 
Cheiv little tives by various pow’rs sustain.” 


AUGUST, 1885. 


“The sky is a drinking-cup that was o’erturned of old, 
And it poureth forth in the eyes of men its wine of airy gold. 
We drink of the wine all day, till the last drop is drained up, 
And are lighted off to bed by the jewels in the cup.” 


BLOOMFIELD. R. H. Sropparp. 

Mean time is used unless LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF en Eichth 
otherwise specified. Jaen BOSTON, WASHINGTON. | CHARLESTON,S.C.| 92" YORK. | Eighth Month. 31 Days. 
‘Day | Day | Day | Moon’s PHENOMENA. Sun Sun | Moon] Sun Sun | Moon] Sun Sun | Moon | : 

of of of |Constel- Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | Rises. | Sets. | Rises | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. Mloise | Janie: OF CCIE R TTC Cn enane 
Year. |Month.| Week. | lation. a H. M.|H. M.|H. M.|H. M.| H. M.| H. M.[H. M.| H. M./|H. M.|H. M./H. M. a a 

218 I Sa. | 3 Antares s. 7.40 A. 58 7 HO (nO |] SB ae] Gf ae RO © I ee | A |oy eet pe h@ 9 5fo) } 1778. — John C. Warren, American anatomist. 
31. Readawanac inninn 5 ins ik : ne ; ih : 1779. — Lorenz Oken, German naturalist. 
aise ib uoucay setter, Latnty. eysieenst nies saul sees (1818. — Maria Mitchell, American astronomer. 
214 2 Su. >€ | Venus sets 8.19 A. AS TSA e7e Len ILONNBO NS 27, =o) |LOn aa 15 Sd O57 ito: spre |1x 48.45 
215 3 M. cP D 3d. Vegas. 9.42 A. 4755 | 7) 1O)\nt) 1605 3) 7 8 \tr 2395-15 | 6 56 jar 32/5... | © 4341 1773.— Jeremiah Day, American mathematician 
216 4 Tu. Pp oy WwW @s Go abe 4 56/7 15 |1r 5815 41|7 #~7 | Morn.| 5 16/6 55 | Morn.|o 41r/|1 46 
217 5 W. is do ky #Geminorum; 6 2% Q. A op | Gp an | Mom |S §ily7 Glo OO] 5 lO Blo mille ug |e 7 1802. —N. H. Abel, Norwegian mathematician. 
218 6 eine is} 6 gr. elong. BK. 27°23’; 6 o ne A 3397 #1 @ a7 is Silo? Glo so]. 3 tIl1O Siar oO] eB Ww lv to 1766. — William H. tyallastont Eng. physicist. 
219 7 Fr. oO $ inaphelion; 6R¢€; dd CG. dh GONG ue le ABN OG Ale SHI S RING So lo Ol) cae) Gms 1727 — James Bowdoin, American physicist. 
220 8 Sas Oo ol oes 5 JO | 7 Ole AOS Fig 3/12 S815 rwloO Sia 85 m1 o wy 1799. — Benjamin Silliman, American chemist. 
| 2 roth Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 14h. 8m, 13h. 54m. 13h. 32m. 

291 <9 Su. o> ~6| im perigee. So £il7 O18 SNS S17 ea 2/8 x16 B24 gO 4277 to 1822. — J. A. W. Moleschott, Dutch physiologist. 
229 IO M. car @ roth, Mars rises 1.48 M. 5 2/17 7| Sets. 15 o| 7 O|| Sets. | 5 20] 6 50] Sets. | 7 43 | 8 x | (1779.— Joachim Barrande, Bohemian paleontol. 
223 | 11 ‘Abige, 1@) OU « 5 317 6/7 4615 10|6 59|7 44/15 2t | 6 49 | 7 40] 8 35 | 8 48 |< 1814. — Jeffries Wyman, American physiologist. 
224 | 12 W. QQ) oe seus Ore @ 5 417 418 22]5 11/6 58|]8 22]5 2t|6 48/8 at ]9 24] 9 34 | (1814.—A. J. Angstrém, Swedish astronomer. 
225 | 13 Th. It) 66d; Cin a 5 517 318 5615 22/6 56/8 58}5 22/6 47/19 of10 og |10 22 |< 1819.—George G. Stokes, Irish physicist. 

226 14 Fr, Ip Altair s. 10.10 A. 5 6) | 7 2uinon Boles) a3 10 S5ulno seals) 23°16 45] 9 38 iro SOu|nn 87) 0777. ——d Cs @ersted, Danish physicist, 

22 |. 25 Sas =a Fomalhaut s. 1.16 M. Ba 7 ON OA a ee An ONS 4 TOMMIONING N24 sO 4g. | LO en7 ILE 47 0reoe 

33. x1th Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 13h. 51m. 13h. 38m. Pees tom (1743. —A. L. Lavoisier, French chemist. 

228 |. 16 Su. Eas Jupiter sets 7.37 A. 5 8{|6 59 |ro 39] 5 15 |6 53 |xo 46] 5 24/6 43 \|l10 56]... | 0 4o |4 1821.—A., Cayley, English mathematician. 
229 17 M. =a a 17th. Markab s. 1.16 M. G TO} O oy fem wy lS us | © Be law Os i 5 Bs | © 26 Ie Sa |]O AS | cin 1699. — B. J. Jussieu, French botanist. 

230 18 gine m OW ©. 5 ir | 6 56 |rxr 58] 5 16] 6 so|Morn.] 5 26| 6 41 | Morn.] t 50/2 46 | ( 1646.—J. Flamsteed, English astronomer. 

231 19 W. m O § B Virginis. 5 te Geese Moris) 7, sO e4o) IO, 97) Is) 26 1X6 4or|-o eo) | 3) ce) |g eso len 7os,—— alisha: Mitchell, American naturalist. 
232 20 Th. qT % stationary. FH, || 3 29/0 Sel © de ils wd] G azo grils S716 aye FI A wha Zo (a — Bernhard Studer, Swiss geologist. 

233 21 Fr. it @ in apogee. GS iw lO geile ao) G tO “ole {1 5 e711 G Bh |e sally wo lg a 1820. — John Tyndall, English physicist. 

234 22 Sa. ak Saturn rises 1.2 M. 5 15 | 6 50) 2 21) 5 20/6 44)2 30/5 28/16 36|.2 4216 416 22 |4 1647.—D. Papin, Prench physicist. er? 
34. 12th Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 13h. 32m. 13h. 22m. 13h. 6m, \a706 — Baden Powell, English mathematician. 
235 23 Su Vp Algenib s, 2.0 M. 15 16/6 48/3 15] 5 21/6 43|]3 2315 29] 6 35|3 35 |6 44] 6 58] 1769.— George Cuvier, French naturalist. 

236. 24 M. Vp ONG oe BP tye | Oe edOn | PAmet tal ceeoenlG) de loi) eels so | 6 S40 a rage | To) 7o uae 1784. — Joseph EK. Worcester, American geogra- 
237 25 Tu. ne © 25th. Uranus sets 7.47 A. 5 COMO sais) RISGS ce seonO edon| INIseseih 5 So) iG 997) RISES) I 7) 56 |) 7 Su pher and philologist. 

238 26 W. ue Polaris s. 2.58 M. 5 ne) || 4) 7 iS BAO voy SiS wie ca ii2 © | we |S ¢ 

239 27 Th. se Gre orste del, lat, 9. Cutt eapcOn | Oeannliye eos 2h Oe she war Boast | 6. 50 (07 Houlmouente Ore sd fxz49- see von Goethe, Ger, poet and nat. 
240° 28 Fr, x W stationary. 5 860 sey 8 ne |} 29) O Bo pS ue fos B51 G wo Ph wy lo) xo || oe 2 1810, —O. M. Mitchel, Amer. astronomer. 

241 29 Sa, oad Achernar s. 3.3 M. Sueeen On she Oe 4g 5) 206 S4el 8 a7 ice 33,0 BBs 6, 5s) | 9) S4iitoeo {1270. =i af Berzelius, Swedish chemist. 

35. 13th Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 13h. 14m. 13h. 6m. i: 2h. 54m. 1809. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Am. physiol. 
242 | 30 | Su. ale Nept poe rises 9.58 A, 1s 23/6 3719 18|5 27/6 3319 2415 3316 2719 33 |10 35 |ro 40] f Oswald Heers, Swiss naturalist. 

243 31 M. We fe) iH Be4e 6 BGRIOn Bm Wess 20. Onan Ito coal 6 34 | 6 25 ro 15 |rr 23 |xr 29 | | 182x.—H. L. F. Helmholtz, German physicist. 

MOON’S PHASES. sabe ne : 7 ; 0 

eeniiond tas EASTERN, CENTRAL. MOUNTAIN, PACIFIC A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE’ DECADE. 
. biel pas" |i Ae oy) at Aug. 1, 1880, fell on Sunday, Aug. 1, 1886, will fall on Sunday. 
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“ Che swamp-oak, with his ronal purple on, “ Thou blossom, bright with autumn dew, 
Giareg red ag blood across the smking sun, And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
Che chestnuts, lavish of their Yong-bid goid, That openest when the quiet light 
Co the faint summer, beggard now and oid, pe ceeds oe ee eles Mh Ag : 
our back the sunshine boarded neath ber faoring ene.” ou wailest Late, ana com st atone, 
, oe b f 8 LowELL. OCTOBER, 1885. When woods are bare and birds have flown.” Bryant. 


HicH WATER, 


Mean time is used unless LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF 
otherwise specified. eo oe eae BOSTON. WASHINGTON. | CHARLESTON, S.C.|New Yore | Denth Month. 31 Days. 
Day Dar Da Moon’s PHENOMENA. Sun Sun | Moon] Sun Sun | Moon] Sun Sun | Moon 

ar of of Constel- Rises. | Sets. | Rises. | Rises. | Sets. | Rises. ] Rises. | Sets. | Rises. Morn. | Eve. OF SeRE TI CHL orn 
Year. |Month.| Week. | lation. H. M.|H. M.|H. M.]H. M.| H. M.|] H. M.| H. M.|H. M.|H. M.|H. M.|H. M. ibe 
Qt I eDhe oO Mase (BACs eC) la, Ws 5 58/5 4t lxrxr 26] 5 56/5 42 |1t 3515 54|5 44 [tr 48] 0 38|]21 oO | 1814.—H.A.E. A. Faye, French astronomer. 
275 2 Fr. oO Venus sets 7.13 A. Ee SOn| SaSOnl|) \lonne|=smes7mleseedon| Vom eGesssmlesemaae| Mormn~| 0 Son) 2.22 
276 3 Sa. oS Oo C; C in perigee. O TOUS BO 624-8 88 | SO at© | Oy 7 |e Ge | eh elo 
40. 18th Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: th. 35m. 1th, 38m. th. 44m, 
277 4 Su. car O © Go Oe | BO | ae PO) GS) ye GS GF Mose 6 || a SR ey ee —N. Maskelyne, English astronomer. 
278 is M. iQ Fomalhaut s. 9.52 A. QO DIS Vee oO so} 3 a0] @ GB ers Sera © |S aolese mn 1789. — William Scoresby, English explorer. 
279 6 Tu. Nr on 2G : 6 345 32/4 o]/6 15 3414 Si-5 58/5 38/4 516 x5 | 6 35] 1803.—H. W. Dove, German meteorologist. 
280 7 W. CD gee oy ON 4 5328 5 Sal Os a2 aS san) 5a 895 G95 30 | se 8 7 35| 7 23 
281 8 Th. Ip 8th. Mars rises 0.52 M. @ 5 | 3 29 | Sais || © ~8.| Sse bh Sense 1} O —O |e ae Sam, || 7 aS 1 8 6 = 
282 9 Fr. = Markab s. 9.44 A. G7) 5eee7 1 Oe SOnlpO) = 40 5302 OmrsOIhO) (onl 340) Op AatNS So) ES sAG 180r.— A. A. de la Rive, Swiss physicist. 
283 Io Sas a Algenib s. 10.48 A. O85) 525i 7a BO Om eon) Se 2c 7 tol Oo) mels. 3375 e519 12/0) 320) 1737, — El. Cavendish, English physicist, 
41. toth Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: 11h, 15m. rth, 21m. 11h, 29m. (aon == ©, GGmelin, Gomentchentien 
284 II Su Mm Oo 2 «: OF Yoh) 5 2a a7 | GCN 7 8 cee Ge 2" 5) ar 8 i77]o. s3cize rs" | | t802. — Hugh Miller, Scotch geologist. 
285 12 M. mM Jupiter rises 4.2 M. Geom e5pe22)| Suazo NO weal esses NSN 3816. 20 530 | 8 sr |toulsa lnr © |< 1827. — J, Ee CookeyAmencan| chemist, 
286 13 Tu mM Polaris s. 11.45 A. vy.|6 m]5 21/9 16/6 8/5 24]9 2516 3/5 29] 9 39 12 17 [12 49 | {1788.—Sir Edward Sabine, Irish geographer. 
287 14 W. LT Achernar s, 11.58 A. 613) || 5) LoNton aOs| Ome of) Ge ezniTOn TomlOme qu 5e9o8 \to) 28) |. J. |) Sui \ersior——ijpan E Platean, Beloianyphysicistas 
288 nis Woy, L @ rth. od % © superior. 6 14) 517 \104 58] 6 to | 5 et irr 9716 95 5 26 \tr ro] oO 45 | © 54 ||) 260d, —vangelista, Vorricelli, Italian physicist, 
289 16 Fr, Vp Q in aphelion; @ in apogee. 6 15 |5 16 |xt 52]6 x11 | 5 20|Morn.]6 5] 5 25 | Morn.| 1 47 | 1 48 |< 1803.— Robert Stephenson, English engineer. 
290 17 Sas Vp Hamel s. 0.17 M. 6 16|5 14 |Morn.|]6 12|5 18]0 of 6 6|5 24|0 11 ]2 49| 2 45 | \1824.— Hanns Bruno Geinitz, German geologist. 
42. 2oth Sunday after Trinity Day’s Length: toh. 56m. 1th. 4m. 1th, 16m, 
291 18 Su. Vp Algol s. 1.13 M. GO wm |ls wilo 2/6 ml 5 wilo BL ilG wilh asi we gig aa |S ae 
292 19 M. SS Saturn rises 9.24 A. O #3 |G mehr 4O||O 2a) § mie or lO 8] § wale sila gol A ay ( P é ; 
293 20 AN = h stationary; ( in 25. 6 19 |5 10|2 45|6 15/5 14|2 48]6 8/5 21 | 2 52]5 12] 5 21 | 1632.—Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, 
294 21 W. Bad peinspentheliony aay eB Vineiniste| Om 2te| NE SanCn| omedOMl One TOm nurse Sura 7eiNON GN 5) Zones AG is) 15a) 6 93 : 
295 22 Th. + Aldebaran s. 2.26 M. 6.2215 7/4 49|6 17) 5 tt |4 49|16 10] 5 19] 4 47] 6 33] 6 44 | 1729.—J. R. Forster, German voyager. j 
296 23 Fr. + Orsd sorin Oo. 60 B38 SiS Sei O #8] h woh s Gre iO me |S ly ae || op wa ly By ees — A. v. Leeuwenhoek, Dutch microscopist. 
297 24 Sa. Oe Uranus rises 4.12 M. 6 24|5 4|Rises.| 6 19] 5 9 | Rises.| 6 rz] 5 17 | Rises.}] 7 53 | 8 10 |< 1808.— Bernhard Cotta, German geologist. 
43, 21st Sunday after Trinity. Day’s Length: toh, 37m. toh. 47m. 1th, 3m 
298 25 Su. P SW. 6 25/5 2|6 37/6 20|5 7|6 45]6 r2/5 15 |6 57]8 35] 8 55 |< 1781. —Chester Dewey, American botanist. 
299 26 M. R Capella s. 2.49 M. GeeOn satya eon lO. eta) 5 405] 7) SAGmere ss eatdols) AP INO eerea sormal Tea — Franklin Bache, American chemist. 
300 27 Tu, 8 Rigel s. 2.46 M. A.1]6 28/5 o| 8 20/6 22/5 5|8 2916 4/5 13] 8 43 ]10 5 |10 38] 1728.— Capt. Cook, English navigator. 
301 28 Ww. Oo dh C; (€ in perigee. 6 29/4 58/9 2t]6 24/5 4]|9 30] 6 15/5 12] 9 43 ]10 56 |1r 39 | 1806.— Alphonse de Candolle, Swiss botanist. 
302 29 (ay, It Neptune rises 6.0 A. GEesOul dees 7a TOMe HI OmirnNGmE seTO aga vOm TOs!) Net aNicoe me inn ese) ea Ki mee —E. Halley, English astronomer. 
303 30 Fr. car D 30th. Canopus s. 3.46 M. (6) By ZL Gh ffm aye 6) fey Ee Moy YS} [ey anfey PG) dhe eI HG) SY ey Yo 1831. —O. C. Marsh, American paleontologist. 
304 31 Sa. car Of @. 6 3314 54 |Morn.!6 27 |5 o| Morn.!6 17 {5 10/Morm.!2 3/]2 #5! 1783,—K. W. G. Kastner, German chemist. 


MOON’S PHASES. EASTERN. CENTRAL. A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE DECADE, 


8 ime. e : ‘ 
(Standard Time.) 1, 1880, fell on Friday. Oct. 1, 1886, will fall on Friday. 
s mM. ( 88x, ‘© “* Saturday. te reee, SS So Saturday. 


4 1882, “ ‘* Sunday. “i ees ct SS SS Nionday. 


LAST QUARTER 
New Moon. . 


Futt Moon. . 
Last QUARTER 


22 


58 1884, “ ‘* Wednesday. “ , 3166, -" * Wednesday. 


M. M. 
M. M. 
First QUARTER A. 20 A. 1883, “* ‘* Monday. ba koa ** "Tuesday. 
A, A. 
A. M. 


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= aes ‘S8gl ‘MHANAAON bea: 


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$13aq3 ulunine sq ‘anjg s$alaiagqz-aBQal BYIIS 
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“Within the hall are song and taugdter, “ The snow-bird twittered on the beachen bough, 
. RE SN ee , ' And neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent 
. Che checks a ad ke a and jolly, Beneath its bright cold burden, and hept dry 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves 


With che lightsome green of iy and hotly,” DECEMBER, 1885 The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow 
: ’ © 


LowELL. The rabbit sprang away.” BRYANT. 


Mean time is used unless LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF LATITUDE OF HicH WaTER, : 
otherwise specified. PLANETARY BOSTON, WASHINGTON. |CHARLESTON, S.c.| New Yors. | Z’welfth Month, 381 Days. 


= es. ee : J a i (Standard Time.) <— 
Diy Day | Day | Moon's PHENOMENA. Moon | Sun Moon | Sun | Sun BIRTHDAYS 


oO of of |Constel- : Rises. | Rises. ‘ Rises. | Rises. | Sets. : an 7 LAR Tipe 
Year. |Month.| Week. lation. | H. M.|-H. M. : OF SCIENTIFIC CELEBRITIES. 
335 INE A6. : Gace 54 
336 W. Venus sets 7.55 A. 6 54 
337 Th. Dg ©: 6 54 1838. — Cleveland Abbé, American meteorologist. 
6 . 
6 


338 Fr. _ | Algenib s, 7.11 A. 54 1818. — John L. LeConte, Amer. entomologist. 
339 SEE Polaris s. 8.17 A. 54 


49, ed Sunday in Advent. Day’s Length: | toh. 5m. 


340 6 Su. 6th. Achernar s. 8.29 A. 
341 7 M. & ¢ ~) 
r 
t 


1778. — L. J. Gay-Lussac, French chemist. 
4 7786. — J. G. Charpentier, Swiss geologist. 
| 1804. — W. B. Rogers, American geologist. 
{ 1810. — Theodor Schwann, Belgian physiologist. 


54 
54 
54 
54 
55 


Gd Or 


342 8 eitre gr.el. E. 47°19/; 4 2 » Virginis. 
345 9 W. stationary. 

344 ae) ahs @ C; @ in apogee. 

345 I Fr. rises 11.20 A, 55 
346 12 Sas 55 


50. 3d Sunday in Advent. Day’s Length: toh, 1m. 


347 
348 
349 


178t. —Sir David Brewster, Scotch chemist. 
1731. — Erasmus Darwin, English physicist. 


SSSwHws5 

OO CON OW dp) 

OV DV OVO) OV OV OF} 
[op ) 

N OM cour OV 


H 
| AOD 


_}| (1743. — Sir Jos. Banks, English naturalist. 
56*| 4 1816. — Ernst Werner Siemens, Eng. electrician. 
37 1546, — Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer. 
28 1834. — Charles A. Young, American astronomer. 
26 ( 1403. — Paracelsus, Swiss chemist. ; 
20 1778. — Sir Humphry Davy, English chemist. 
87, 
4 


Algol s. 9.29 A. 

@ rath. € in 25. 
Jupiter rises 0.42 M. 
Aldebaran s. 10.46 A. 
§ in perihelion. 


dS & © inferior. Mi 


oWG. 41 | 2, Aa TRE 
S ; , ; a ; mae. — ard ~ | (1787. — O. von Kotzebue, Russian navigator. 
Stay unde nevent Day’s Length: : * Second morning tide. 


339) | 
39 
40 
40 
40 


18 


14 
1e1E c 


1797. — Joseph Henry, American physicist. 
1714. — John Winthrop, Am. math, and astron. 


NNNNNNN 
fH HHH HA 
| OV ON OV ON OV OV OF 
jn -—& ON Ow 


SAK K HH 


| 
| 


| 


| 


Saturn rises 5.6 A. 1805. — T. Graham, Scotch chemist. 
O 21st. ©ents. Y ; winter begins; 
(in perigee. NA Gy ley Wx 
Capella s. 10.57 A. 

Uranus rises 0.25 M. 

Rigel s, 10.50 A. 


Beko © to i 
‘ Day’s Length: 
CO onGyeo en HelyN.) (ino), Reta lita 


7 
Y2sth GIG, oad; Hoe. 7 4 36) Morn. Morn. f Morn. 
© stationary. 7 AAG IO. 540 o 48 Oo 45 
7 
7 


21 M. 
22 Tu. 
23 Ww. 
24 Th. 
25 Fr, 
26 Say 


Sunday after Chris 


20 | Su. 


yn 
fononmony 


(1790. — J. F. Champollion, French Egyptologist 
4 1792. —Charles Babbage, Eng. mathematician, 
1818. — J. P. Joule, English physicist. 
1813. — Joseph Lovering, American physicist. 
1756. — B,. G. Lacépéde, French naturalist. 


NNNNINNN 
NH ¢ 
DOL WA 


eq lielecce 


| 
| 
} 


(1571. — J. Kepler, German astronomer. | 
1822. — Louis Pasteur, French physiologist. 
1818. —C. R. Fresenius, German chemist. 
1796. — J. C. Poggendorff, German physicist. 
1784. — Major S. H, Long, American explorer. 
1796, — John E, Holbrook, American zodlogist. 


27 Su. r 
28 M. 
29 AM at 


NN 
Kee) 


P) 


wns ot 
OF | 


v. 
° 


Locate 
P PSS ® 


| 

| 5 
30 W. © perigee. Av 3 7 alates vw fo) I 45 
31 | ANoy Neptune sets 3.41 M. A Bhs) eee Sy || 9 ey lj 2 43/14 


, Reiein A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE DECADE. 
(Standard Time.) EASTERN. CENTRAL. MOUNTAIN. R 


Ww 
(2) 
w 
te 


a SE Pe ee Dec, 1, 1880, fell on Wednesday. | Dec. 1, 1886, will fall on Wednesday, 


New Moon. . . as | S on M. ss e ; M ee : ee Thursday. SS) rey, : . a, Thursday. 
First Quarter o 22 A, wal onan M. SS Cay. So ceca j Saturday, 
Futt Moon. . Pee 2) oe Ohta 2rI ot A, 5, ** ** Sattirday, 188, “ “ ** Sunday. 
LAST QUARTER. 6 22 28 5 M. « “© Monday. r8g0, “ “ “* Monday, 


‘SWUAHLOSI IVANNV NVAW 4At anv 


AWIL GUVGNVILS 20 
“MOIANAS IVNOIS FHL A0 SNOISIAIG >, a | ‘ 
aHL ONIMOHS dvVW ae ‘* 


ouugy, [e.T}FLAD "OULE], ULEFUNLOW, 3 ead OUEL OyIOM 


omly [Boop 4870],  auIE, Wl8yse ny a 


apex TO VOLUME: IV. 


x*x NVames of contributors are printed in small capitals. 


Abbe, C., on atmospheric electricity and 
earth-currents, 314. 

ABBOTT, C.C. Color-sense in fishes, 7J/. 
336; hibernation of the lower verte- 
brates, 7//. 36. 

Abbott, C. C., on hermit toad, 72; Nat- 
uralist’s rambles about home, reviewed, 
380; Scaphiopus solitarius, 262. 

ApsottT, Edward. Swarming insects, iJ. 
79. 

Aboriginal American languages, 522. 

Academic distinctions to Americans, 47, 
78. 

Acadian basin in American geology, 258. 

Acids, complex inorganic, 254. 

Adams, F.,on apatitbringer in Canada, 258. 

Adams, J. C., on moon’s latitude, 294; 
Newton’s theory of atmospheric refrac- 
tion, 295; obliquity of ecliptic, 295. 

Adirondacks, mammals of, 445. 

Aeronautics, discovery in, 464. 

Afghanistan, oil-bearing strata in, 266. 

Africa, archeology of, 438; expedition to, 
449; languages of, 310. 

African race in United States, 222. 

AGaAssiz, Alexander. Phosphorescence 
in the deep sea, 270. 

Agassiz association, 487. 

Agricultural chemists, association of, 312; 
convention of, 30; experiment-stations, 
scope of, 508; work of, 333; station, New- 
York, 519; statistics, 575. 

Ainos, graves of, 503. 

Air, navigation of, i//. 531; velocity of, 253. 

Alabama, cretaceous phosphates in, 78; 
weather-signals, 464. 

Fae coast-pilot, z//. 561; new river in, 

9. 

Albatross, winter expedition of, 481. 

Alcohols, production of, 30. 

Alden, G. I., on training for mechanical 
engineers, 323. 

Algerian coal, 267. 

Alglave and Boulard’s Electric light, re- 
viewed, 463. > 

Algonquin legends, 499. 

Allen, A. H., on valence, 321. 

Allen, J. A., on faunal areas, 375. 

Almanacs, history of, il/. 492. 

Almucantar, 293. 

Alps, flora of, 475. 

Altitudes, dictionary of, 481. 

Aluminium, soldering, 332. 

Amazon, pororéco of, ill. 488. 

America, geological maps of, 382; psychi- 
cal research in, 359, 369. 

American anthropology, aspects of, 217; 
problems of, 545; appliances for deep- 
sea investigation, i//. 146, 224, 400; as- 
sociation for the advancement of science, 
endowment of research by, 221; meeting 
of, 1886, in London, 298; meeting of, in 
Philadelphia, 2, 189, 192, 229; addresses 
to, 229; botanical club of, 358; chemical 
section, 76, 107; circular, 107; committee 
reports of, 357; delegates from foreign 
societies to, 140; economic science and 
statistics section, 121; eminent visitors 
to, 139; mechanical science section, 187; 
reports of proceedings of, 291, 320, 339; 
success of, 269; members of, 141; offi- 
cers of, for 1885, 298; organization of, 
221; coaster’s nautical almanac for 1884, 
reviewed, 20; contributions to memorials 
of European scientific men, 483; explo- 
rations, 110; geological railway-guide, 
396; historical association, 75, 301, 312; 
initiative in methods of deep-sea dredg- 
ing, 54; institutions, history of, 173; 


languages, 522; -classification of, 317; 
natural history, 5386; naturalist, rambles 
of an, 380; oriental society, 443; ornithol- 
ogists’ union, 374; pearls, 368, 470; per- 
manent railway, 288; public health asso- 
ciation, 440; science, discrediting, 303; 
scientific work, credit to, 301; society of 
civil engineers, meeting of, at Buffalo, 
11; students, interests of, 141; tribes, 
396. 

Americans, foreign academic distinctions 
to, 78. 

Amia, serrated appendages of throat of, 
511. 


Amphibian brain, 340, 348. 

Anaesthetic, new, 468; new administration 
of, 411. 

Andesite from New Bogosloff volcano, 
524, 

Andree’s Metallurgy of primitive nations, 
reviewed, 21. 

ANDREWs, Horace. 
368. 

Animal intelligence, 16. 

Animals, marine, recognition of time by, 
429; mental evolution in, 16. 

Annelid jaws, fossil, 263. 

Anthracite-burning locomotive, 290. 

Anthrax virus, virulence of cultivated, 276. 

Anthropological discoveries in Canada, 
318; section of British association, 46. 

Anthropology, American, 545; aspects of, 
PAL a 

Antiquities from Cyprus, 364. 

Apatitbringer in Canada, 258. 

Apes, anthropoid, 3389. 

Apprenticeship question, 347. 

Archean rocks, 259. 

Archeology, African, 438; prehistoric, 469. 

Archibald, D., on Krakatoa committee, 
253; on velocity of air, 253. 

Arctic expeditions, 409; exploration, 77, 
93; literature, 366. 

Arizona, topographical maps of, 188. 

ARMsBy, H.P. Special manures for par- 
ticular crops, 47. 

Art in shell, 26. 

Artesian borings, 268. 

Arthur, J.C., on nature of gumming, 359. 

Asiatic exploration, 328. 

Asserson, P. C., on Teredo nayalis, 12. 

Association of official agricultural chemists 
of the United States, 312. 

Associations, comparative study of Brit- 
ish and American, 271. 

Asteroid, new, 382; ring, 292. 

Astronomy, pending problems in, 192. 

Atkinson, E., on rate of wages, 283. 

Atlantic currents, 561; Ocean, level of, 326. 

Atmosphere, obscurity of, 94. 

Atmospheric electricity, 164. 

Atomic weights, 523. 

Atwater, W. O., on assimilation of nitrogen 
by plants, 322; chemistry of fish, 321; 
nutrients in foods, 347. 

Auchincloss, W.S., on balancing-machine, 
293. 

Auroras, artificial, 465. 

Australasian association for the advance- 
ment of science, 522. 

Authorship, recognition of, in publications 
of signal-service, 467. 

Automatic sprinkler system, 291. 

Axes, 344. 


The prime meridian, 


BappitT, Franc E. North-eastern and 
north-western Indian implements, 33; 
some implements of the Minnesota 
Ojibwas, ill. 527. 


Babirussa tusks from Indian grave, 34. 

Bacterium, comma-shaped, 92. 

Bad seeing, 94. 

Bailey, on Acadian basin in American ge- 
ology, 258. 

Baird, 8S. F., bibliography of, 45. 

Baker, B., on Forth Bridge, 287. 

Balancing-machine, 293. 

BALDWIN, Henry. Abnormal form of 
Trillium grandiflorum, 352. 

Baldwin’s Orchids of New England, re- 
viewed, 498. 

Balloon ascensions, map, 299. 

Baltimore, map of vicinity of, 518. 

Barnes, C. R., on fibro-vascular bundles in 
Pinus sylvestris, 348. 

Barnett, J. D., on anthracite-burning loco- 
motive, 290. 

Barrande, memorial tablet to, 77/7. 139. 

Bartlett, J. H., on steam-heating, 290. 

Bassalian fauna, 223. 

Bassnett’s True theory of the sun, re- 
viewed, 478. 

BATCHELDER, J. M. The lamprey as a 
builder, 469. 

Bate, C. §., on distribution of Crustacea, 
260. 

Beal, W. J., on torsion of leaves, 340. 

Beatricea, 341. 

Bell, A. G., on deaf-mutes, 346; possible 
method of communication between ships 
at sea, 296. 

BELL, A. Melville. 
United States, 351. 

Bei, Louis. Temperature of the sphe- 
roidal state, 5. 

BENNETT, W. Z. A wider use for scien- 
tific libraries, 368. 

Bentham, George, portrait, 352. 

Bergen’s Development theory, reviewed, 
311. 

Bering Sea, new volcano of, map, 482. 

Berlin academy of sciences, 460. 

Bessey, C. E., on Desmodium sessilifoli- 
um, 3898. 

Beyer, H. G., on Lingula, 343; oxygenated 
and unoxygenated blood, 339. 

Bianchi, unfavorable reports from, 366. 

Bibliographical work in scientific fields, 
31 


Book-postage in the 


Bibliography of meteorology, 449; of 
physical and historical writings, 150. 

Biological problems, 339. 

Bird’s Higher education in Germany and 
England, 502. 

Bird-collection of U. 8. national museum, 
496. 

Birds, coming of, 571; migration of, 374; 
nomenclature of, 265; North-American, 
86. 


_Bismarck family, 425. 


BLAKE, W. P. The Carson-City ichno- 
lites, 722. 273. 

BLANFORD, W. T. The correlation of 
geological formations, 208. 

Blood, oxygenated and unoxygenated, 339. 

Blooming-time for flowers, 573. 


Bogosloff voleano, 1388; andesite from, 
524. 

Bolton, H.C. See Julien, A.,and Bolton, 
Hees 


Book notices, minor, 311, 463, 520. 

Borneo, natives of, 332. 

Borum, C. The zero meridian of longi- 
tude, 32. 

Botanical club of American association, 
358. 

Botanists, value of time of, 301. 

Bot-fiies in a turtle, 511. 


998 


Bottomly, J. T., on loss of heat by radia- 
tion, 250. 

Boulard. See Alglave and Boulard. 

Bourdillon’s Report of the census of Ben- 
gal, 1881, reviewed, 557. 

Bourne, 8., on interdependence of portions 
of British empire, 286. 

BRAMWELL, Sir F.J. On the relation of 
ae science to other sciences, 

BRANNER, J.C. The porordca, or bore, 
of the Amazon, 7J/. 488. 

Brashear, J. A., on production of optical 
surfaces, 323. 

Brass-plating, 465. 

Brazilian port, 268. 

Brewster, W., on ptarmigan, 375. 

BrRinToN, D.G. Indian languages in South 
America, 159. 

Brinton, D. G., on aboriginal American 
Janguages, 522; North-African arche- 
ology, 438. 

British association for the advancement of 
science, distinctive features of, 203; hon- 
orary membership of, 155; meeting of, 
at Montreal, addresses at, 203; anthro- 
pological section, 46; appropriations by, 
263; aspects of, 157; delegates to, 188; 
effect of, on Canadian science, 221; emi- 
nent men at, 139, 186; geological section, 
73; Lord Rayleigh’s address before, 179; 
prominent mathematicians at, 121; re- 
port of proceedings of, 248, 279, 316; visit 
of, to America, 160; Empire, interde- 
pendence of portions of, 286; in North 
America and Australia, 285 ; statistics 
of, 214. 

Britton, N. L., on New-Jersey flora, 358. 

Brook, G., jun., on teleostean eggs, 340. 

Brooks, W. K. A new law of organic 
evolution, 532; the recognition, by ma- 
rine animals, of the hour of the day, 429. 

BucHanan, A. H. Time without instru- 
ments, 7/. 51. 

Buckland’s Record of Ellen Watson, re- 
viewed, 380. 

Building-stone collection of U.S. national 
museum, 505. 

Bureau of physical standards, 314; of 
scientific information, 108. 

BuraEss, Edward. <A wider use of scien- 
tific libraries, 396. 

Burton’s A B C of modern photography, 
reviewed, 464. 

Business depression, cause of, 348. 

Butterflies’ wings, preparation of, for al- 
bums, 26. 

Butter-making, scientific, 407. 


C., H. S. Wiedemann’s Electricity, re- 
viewed, 87. 

Calendar, floral, 574; Science, 1885, 584. 

Calorific power of sun’s rays, 30. 

Camera, vertical, in photography, 5. 

Canada, anthropological discoveries in, 
318; earthquakes in, 569; geologica! and 
natural-history survey of, 362; light- 
house system, 290. 

Canadian finances, 285; Pacific railway, 
289; science, stimulus to, 221. 

Canal, Corinth, 268; routes between Atlan- 
tic and Pacific, map, 434. 

Canons, formation of, 99. 

Carbon filaments, elasticity of, 410. 

Carbonic acid, solid, density of, 322. 

CarHart, H.S. Edison’s three-wire sys- 
tem of distribution, 524. 

CARPENTER, P.H. The bassalian fauna; 
Pentacrinus asteriscus, 223; the initia- 
tion of deep-sea dredging, 222. 

CARPENTER, W. Lant. Education at the 
international health exhibition, 353. 

Carpenter, W. L., and Stewart, B., on con- 
nection of sun-spots with terrestrial 
phenomena, 253. 

Spm, on new induction inclinometer, 

Carr’s Mounds of the Mississippi valley, 
reviewed, 151. 

Carson-City ichnolites, i//. 273. 

Casey’s revision of the Stenini, 561. 

Caste in India in 1881, 557. 

Catagenesis, 240. 


SCIENCE. — INDEX TO VOLUME IV. 


Caucasian petroleum, 365. 

Census of Bengal, 1881, report of, re- 
viewed, 557; of India, 280; report of 
United States, 1880, reviewed, 119; 
seventh volume of, reviewed, 421; eighth 
volume of, reviewed, 461. 

Cerebellum, 341. 

Chadwick, K., on preparation for cholera, 

99. 

Challenger, exploring voyage of, reviewed, 
all. 116, 176. 

Chamberlin, T. C., on glacier, 154. 

Chandler, 8. C., jun., on almucantar, 293; 
colors of variable stars, 293. 

Channing, E., on settlers of North-Ameri- 
can colonies, 313; town and county gov- 
ernment, 329. 

Chaumont, de, on cholera disinfectants, 
299. 

Cheepach, 448. 

Chemical affinity, 234; analyses, 500; 
changes in relation to micro-organisms, 
257; elements, report to American asso- 
ciation of committee on indexes of lit- 
erature of, 320; section of American 
association, 76, 107; text-books, 500. 

Chemistry, elements of, 500; of fish, 321; 
importance of, in biology and medicine, 
454; inorganic, 500; lessons in, 500; prog- 
ress of, since 1848, 206; of roller-milling, 
320. 

Chemists, association of, 312. 

Chemung group, 327. 

Chesapeake zodlogical laboratory, 122, 
423. 

Chester, F. D., on Delaware geological 
survey, 329. 

Chickering, J. W.,jun., and Gordon, J. 
C., on deaf-mute instruction, 347. 

Child-life among the Omahas, 348. 

Chile, aborigines of, 423. 

Chippewa Indians, bird nomenclature of, 
265. 

Chlamydoselachus, 340. 

Chlorine gas, solubility of, 256. 

Cholera, 144; bacillus, 554; disinfectants, 
299; preparation for, 299. 

Christie, on the Greenwich observatory, 
61. 

Christmas greeting, 563. 

Chronological cycles, 1885, 577. 

Chronology of Japan, 508. 

Clark, E. W., on exploration of the Kowak 
River, él. 551. 

Clark’s Indian sign-language, reviewed, 
556. 

Clarke, F. W., on vaience, 321; Elements 
of chemistry, reviewed, 500. 

CLAYPOLE, E. W. Fish-remains in the 
North-American Silurian rocks, 34; 
fish-remains in North-American rocks, 
270. 

Claypole, E. W., on fish-remains in Silu- 
rian rocks, 326; section across Pennsyl- 
vania, 258; transition of beds, 327. 

Climates of two hemispheres, 282. 

Clocks of precision, 121. 

Clock-time and sun-time, 7//. 578. 

Coal in Algeria, 267; German, 300. 

Coal-field, Langrin, 504; Pennsylvania, 
522; measures of Kentucky, 325; mine, 
photographs of interior of, 223. 

Coast-pilot of Alaska, i//. 561; signals, 
improvements in, 290. 

Cold-wave flags, 382, 559. 

Collections, care of, in museums, 539. 

College mathematics, 230. 

Collier’s Sorghum, reviewed, 479. 

Collimator, new, 74. 

Colonies, American, government of, 329; 
settlers of, 313. 

Colony, oldest, in America, 285. 

Color of the eye, change in, 452, 511. 

Colorado, rocks of, 521. 

Colors of stars, 291; of variable stars, 293. 

Color-sense in fishes, 7//. 336. 

Combustion of mixtures of carbon monox- 
ide, hydrogen and oxygen, 254. 

Comet, new, 92; new periodical, 381; 
Wolf, 332. 

Comma, use of, in scientific writing, 1. 

Commercial relations of United States, 
348. 


Communication between ships at sea, 296. 

Compass, magnetic, 250. 

Congress as affecting scientific interests, 
507; laws of, nullified by executive de- 
partments, 302. 

Conocephalus dissimilis, 448. 

Conocoryphean, primitive, 301. 

Contributors, word to, 270. 

Cook, A.J. Ergot nectar, 512. 

Cook, G. H., on geological survey of New 
Jersey, 326. 

Cooke’s Bird nomenclature of the Chip- 
pewa Indians, 265. ; 

Co-operation an element in development 
of science, 411; in scientific work, 125. 

CorE, E. D. Catagenesis, or creation by 
retrograde metamorphosis of energy, 
240. 

Cope, E. D., on affinities of saurians, 340; 
phylogeny of Mammalia, 339. 

Cornell university summer school of en- 
tomology, 111. , 

Correlation of geological formations, 208. 

Corthell, E. L., on South Pass jetties, 13. 

Cotterill’s Applied mechanics, reviewed, 


Coues’s Key to North-American birds, 
reviewed, 86. 

Crabs, strength of muscles of, é//. 521. 

Craigie, P. G., on supply of meat, 286. 

Crane, T. M., on mediaeval history, 313. 

Credit of United States, 347. 

Creek Indians, migration legend of, 499. 

Cretaceous phosphates in Alabama, 78. 

Crichton-Browne, on over-pressure in 
schools, 497. 

Croes, J. J. R., on water-rates, 13. 

Crystalline rocks, 327; of north-west, 238 ; 
schists, 327; specimens illustrating ori- 
gin of, 511. 

Crystallization, effect of, on sediment, 2/0. 
484. 

Culture periods, 345. 

Cuneiform inscriptions, 443. 

Currents, Atlantic, 561; North-Atlantic, 
all. 415. 

Curtis, J. S., on Ruby-hill mines, 459. 

Curtis’s Effect of wind-currents on rain- 
fall, 409. 

Cushing, F. H., on art among the Zunis, 
319. 

Cust’s Languages of Africa, reviewed, 310. 

Cyclone, use of word, 468. 

Cyclones, 381; study of, 363. 

Cyprus, antiquities from, 364. ; 

Cystophora cristata, hood of, z//. 514. 


Dati, W. H. Classification of the Mol- 
lusea, 148, 851; a Mussulman propagan- 
da, 457; a remarkable new type of mol- 
lusks, 50. 

Dall, W. H., on glaciers, 154; labrets, 345. 

Dallinger, on chemical changes in relation 
to micro-organisms, 257. 

Dana, C. L. A scientific study of lawn- 
tennis, 473. 

Dana, J. D., on synclinal in Taconic 
range, 259. 

Danish international polar station, 7//. 476. 

Davis, on Conocephalus dissimilis, 448. 

Davis, W.M. Drumlins, 7/. 418; light 
in the deep sea, 94; temperature and 
its changes in the United States, 7/2. 569 ; 
tornadoes, and how to escape them, 7//. 
572. 

Davis, W. M., on geographical classifica- 
tion, 328. 

Dawkins, W. Boyd, on connection of. 
North America with Greenland, 283; — 
range of Eskimo, 316. 

Dawson. See Tolmie and Dawson. 

Deaf-mute instruction, 347. 

Deaf-mutes, race of, 346. 

Death, 342, 398. 

Deaths, recent, 76, 123, 331, 409, 503. 

Debts of nations, 285. 

Deep-sea dredging, initiation of, 222 ;meth- 
ods of, 54; investigation, appliances for, 
ill. 146, 224, 400; life, physiology of, 2095 
light in, 8, 94; phosphorescence in, 270. 

Defiection of streams, 28. 

Delaware estuary, 329, 368; geological sur- 
vey, 325. 


are ei A 
PNT ae fue iy 


SCIENCH.— INDEX TO VOLUME IV. 


De Morgan memorial medal, 123. 
Desmodium sessilifolium, 358. 
Development theory, 311. 

Dewar, J., on chemical changes in relation 
to micro-organisms, 257; constitution of 
elements, 255; density of solid carbonic 
acid, 322; radiation, 250; storage-batter- 
ies, 392; valence, 321. See also Liveing 
and Dewar. 

Diller, J. S., on Krakatoa dust, 71; Ore- 
gon rocks, 71; Unalashka sands, 44; 
voleanic sand, 154. 

Dinosaurian reptiles, 261. 

Disinfection by gas, 503. 

Dissociation, 256. 

Distribution of Crustacea, 260; three-wire 
system of, i//. 477, 524. 

Dixon, H. B., on incomplete combustion 
of mixtures of carbon monoxide, hydro- 
gen and oxygen, 254. 

Dobell, on destruction of germs, 299. 

Dobson, G. E., on the geographical dis- 
tribution of animals, 261. 

Douglass, A. E., on Florida mounds, 344. 

Douglass, J., on coast-signals, 290. 

Douglass, W. A., on savings institutions, 
284. 

Dredges, i]. 146. 

Dredging, deep-sea, 54, 7//. 146, 222. 

Drift, remains of, 73. 

Drumlins, zd. 418. 

Dudley, P. H., on track-inspection car, 
348; wood-sections, 45. 

Duvuiey, W. L. Effect of crystallization 
on sediment, i//. 484. 

Diising, on organic evolution, 532. 

Dumas, bust of, 481. 

Dun, W. A., on Ohio floods, 44. 

Dury, C., on Micropterus, 263. 

Dutton, C. E., on glaciers, 154. 

Duveyrier, H., on Mussulman propaganda, 
457. 

Dwarf race of men, 410. 

Dyke, trap, 328. , 

Dynamo-electric machines, 314; recent 
progress in, 520; government of, 298. 


Earth, face of, 2/7. 535; and sun-spots, 7//. 
564; currents, 314. 

Earthquake of Aug. 10, 140, 144, 158; of 
Sept. 19, 332; of 1881, in India, 27; ob- 
servation in United States, 520; syste- 
matic, 352, 368; Ohio, 302; phenomena, 
observation of, 334. 

Earthquakes in the United States and Can- 
ada, 569; measurement of, 7z//. 516. 

Earthworm, gigantic, 426. 

EATON, John. Scientific methods and 
scientific knowledge in common affairs, 
246. 

Echinoderms, 261; dredged by the Talis- 
man, z//. 102. 

Eclipses, 1885, charts, 578. 

Ecliptic, obliquity of, 295. 

Economic science and statistics section of 
American association, 121. 

Eppy, H. T. College mathematics, 230; 
radiant heat, i//. 3. ; 

Edison lamp, radiant matter in, 374. 

Edison’s three-wire system of distribution, 
ill. ATT, 524. i 

Education and the masses, 53; in geog- 
raphy, 281; higher, in Germany, 502; 
industrial, 537; at international health 
exhibition, 353 ; technical, 425; workshop 
in, 395. 

Educaticenal convention, 112; methods in 
laboratory practice, 322. 

Egg-cocoons of Lycosa, 24. 

Eissler’s Modern high explosives, re- 
viewed, 278. 

Electric candle, 267; isolation, 350; light, 
463; circuits, i//. 123; economy of, 324; 
incandescent, for vessels, 561; tramway, 
Portrush, 324. 

Electrical commission, national, in Phila- 
delphia, 140; members of, 107; confer- 
ence, 313, 367, 383; questions for, 219; 
Paris, 126; exhibition, Philadelphia, 78, 
122, 356; testing establishments, 224; 
transmission of energy, 315. 

Electricians, national conference of, 127. 

Electricity, 19, 87, 232; atmospheric, 164, 


314; discharge of, 252; generation of, by 
water-power, 12; international exhibi- 
tion of, 464. 

Electrolysis of glass, 464. 

Electromotive forces in voltaic cell, 251. 

Elementary schools and manual training, 
5238. 

Elements, constitution of, 255. 

ppt HK. B., on credit of United States, 
347. 

Emblematic mounds, 343. 

Embryology, some facts in, 49. 

Emigration, Irish, 285. 

Emmons, 8. F., on glacier, 154. 

Endowment of research, 221. 

Energy, transmission of, 315. 

Engineers, training for, 523. 

Engraving-tool, 2d/. 105. 

Entomology, summer school of, 111. 

Eozoon canadense, 327. 

Equatorial coudé, 2/7. 101. 

Ergot nectar, 512. 

Erie Canal, enlargement of, 13. 

Errors, magnitude of, 293. 

Eskimo of Point Barrow, 319; range of, 
316. ' 

Ethnography, Fuegian, 27; Punjab, 360, 
597. 


Ethnologic publications, 15. 

Euclid as a text-book of geometry, 442. 

Europeans, form of face in, 522. 

Eurypteridae, discovery of, 327. 

Evaporation, 256. 

Evolution, law of organic, 532. 

Ewing’s earthquake measurement, éd/. 516. 

Exchange, media of, 285. 

Exhibition of goldsmiths’ work, 188. 

Experiment-stations, agricultural, 508. 

Explorations, American, 110; south-west- 
ern, 366. 

Explosive agents, 13; modern high, 278. 

Expositions, advantages of, 348. 

Kye, change in color of, 452, 511. 

Eyes, blue, gradual disappearance of, 367. 


F., L.S. <A possible danger to mariners, 
413. 

Face, form of, 522. 

Factory acts, 286. 

Fallacies, 152. 

Farmers, hints to, 7/7. 576. 

FARNSWORTH, P. J. Forgotten conclu- 
sions of science, 469; too big to swallow, 
53. 

FARQUHAR, Henry. 
dictions, 540. 

Fasting pig, 335. 

Faunal areas, 375. 

Faunas, ancient, 326. 

Fermentation, changes produced by, in 
milk, 405; without combined nitrogen, 
322. 

FERREL, W. The gyration of a vibrating 
pendulum, 53. 

Festivals of the church, fixed and movable, 
of 1885, 577. 

Fibro-vascular bundles, 358. 

FIELDE, Adele M. The meng-leng, 159. 

FinHout, H. The echinoderms dredged 
by the Talisman, 7//. 102; the lower 


Verification of pre- 


forms of life dredged by the Talisman,: 


es Wgile 
Firedamp, detection of, 425. 
Fish, chemistry of, 321; culture, 348; re- 
/ mains, 159; in Silurian rocks, 34, 270, 
326; swallowing a turtle, 53. 

Fisheries exhibition catalogue, 142. 

Fishery board, Scottish, 478. 

Fishes, color-sense in, 7//. 336; tail of, 341. 

Fiske’s Destiny of man, reviewed, 408. 

Fiske’s Electricity, reviewed, 19. 

Fletcher, Alice C., on child-life among the 
Omahas, 348; lands in severalty to Indi- 
ans, 347; pipes of friendship, 345. 

FLEXNER, 8. Crystallization of glucose 
in honey, 32. 

Flies walking on glass, i//. 219. 

Floods, Ohio, 44. 

Flora, fossil, 340; of high Alps, 475; of 
New Jersey, 358; of North America, 
308. 

Floral calendar, 574. 

Florida mounds, 344. 


599 


Flower, W. H., on size of teeth as race 
character, 538. 

Flowers, blooming-time for, 573. 

Fly, liver of, 72. 

Flying-machine, i//. 330, 482. 

Fog-horn, new, 155. 

Fou, H. The changes which fermentation 
produces in milk, 405. 

Folk-lore, Indian, 499. 

Foods, nutrients in, 347. 

Foraminifera from Gulf of Mexico, 24. 

Forbes, G., on velocity of light, 254. 

Forecasts, weather, 568. 

Forest-trees, Russian, 155. 

Forth Bridge, 287. 

Fossil flora of globe, 340. 

Foster’s Monthly reference-lists, 450. 

Foxwell, H. S., on rate of wages, 284. 

France, lightning-strokes in, 264; wine- 
production in, 264. 

Francis, J. B., on efficiency of turbine 
water-wheel, 12. 

Frankland, E., on chemical changes in 
relation to micro-organisms, 257. 

Frazer’s Geology of south-eastern Penn- 
sylvania, reviewed, 447. 

Freezing, shaft-sinking by, 445. 

French association for the advancement of 
science, 121; flying-machine, 7//. 482; 
scientific missions, 505. 

Fresh-water faunas, 260. 

Fuegian ethnography, 27. 


G. Tornado predictions, 126. 
G., A. George Bentham, portrait, 352. 
Gaffky. See Koch, R., Gaffky, and Loeff- 


ler. 

GaGE, 8. H. The inventor of the vertical 
camera in photography, 5. 

Galvanometer of twenty wires, 252. 

Gannett’s Dictionary of altitudes, 481. 

GARMAN, 8. The oldest living type of 
vertebrates, 484. 

Garman, S., on Chlamydoselachus, 340. 

Gas, disinfection by, 503; evaporation of, 
425. 

Gases, absorption of, by steel, 331. 

Gatschet’s Migration legend of the Creek 
Indians, reviewed, 499. 

Geographical classification, 328 ; discovery, 
recent, 211; distribution of animals, 261; 
work, Russian, 503. 

Geography of the Baltic Sea, 450; educa- 
tion in, 281; of Europe, 124; medical, 
220; of Palestine, 328; Ptolemy’s, 331. 

Geological and natural-history survey of 
Canada, 362; formations, correlation of, 
208; maps of America, 382; railway- 
guide, 896; section of British associa- 
tion, 738. , 

Geology of Europe, 124; of south-eastern 
Pennsylvania, 447; of Susquehanna- 
river region, reviewed, 120. _ 

Geometry, Euclid as a text-book of, 442. 

German and Austrian alpenverein, 409; 
coal, 300; engineers’ society, 331; expe- 
dition to Cape Town, 156; schools, over 
work in, 136. 

Germany, higher education in, 502. 

Germinating plants, rotation experiments 
on, 7d/. 51. 

Germs, 440; destruction of, 299. 

Ghosts, investigation of, 525. 

Giants’ Causeway, 324. 

Gibbs, W., on complex inorganic acids, 
254; constitution of elements, 255; elec- 
tromotive forces in voltaic cell, 251. 

Gilbert, G. K., on deflection of streams, 28. 

Gilbert. See Lawes, J., and Gilbert. 

Gill, D., on parallax of fixed stars, 75. 

GintL, T. Classification of the Mollusca, 
334; the eggs of Ornithorhynchus, 452; 
the oldest living type of vertebrates, 524. 

Gilpin, on Nova-Scotian coal-field, 258. 

Giraud, news from, 264. 

Glacial action, 258; period in New Zea- 
land, 426; pot-hole, i//. 560 ; submer- 
gence, depth of, 160. 

Glacier, what is a, 154. 

Glaisher, J., on Palestine exploration fund 
281. 

Glucose, crystallization of, 32. 

Gneiss, Vermont, 327. 


600 


Goldsmiths’ work, exhibition of, 188. 

GoopDE, G. Brown. The exploring voyage 
of the Challenger, reviewed, idl. 116, 176. 

Goode’s bibliography of Professor Baird, 
45 


Goodwin and Marshall, on solubility of 
chlorine gas, 256. 

Gordon, J. C. See Chickering, J. W., 
jun., and Gordon, J. C. 

Gordon’s expedition to Hudson Strait, 108. 

Gore, J. H., on U.S. coast and geodetic 
survey, 293. 

Government catalogue of fisheries exhibi- 
tion, 142; scientific appointments by, 
109; support of irrigation, 158; town 
and county, 329. 

Graves of Ainos, 503. 

Gray, Asa, Flora of North America, 155; 
on mode of exposing pollen in sunflower, 
358 ; North-American vegetation, 261; 
Synoptical flora of North America, re- 
viewed, 308. 

Greely party, rescue of, 77, map, 88; re- 
lief squadron, 122. 

GREENE, C.E. Shaft-sinking by freezing, 
443. 

Greene’s Lessons in chemistry, reviewed, 
500. 

Greenwich observatory, 61. 

Growth, 342. 

Guadaloupe, shells of, 366. 

Gulf of Mexico, level of, 326. 

Gumming, nature of, 359. 

Gun, machine, 449; question, 12. 

GURNEY, Edmund. Psychical research, 
509. 

Gypsum deposits, 325. 

Gyration of vibrating pendulum, 53. 

Gyrostatic working-model of magnetic 
compass, 250. 


HAGEN, H. A. Lawsuits against grubs 
and grasshoppers, 168. 

Hague, A., on Yellowstone national park, 
22. 


Hale, H., on wampum, 320. 

Haliburton, R. G., on oldest colony in 
America, 283; Vinland, 2838. 

Hall, A., on motion of Hyperion, 155. 

Hau, E.H. The Hall effect, 351. 

Hall, E. H., on Hall phenomenon, 297. 

Hall, J., on discovery of Eurypteridae, 
327; relations of Chemung and Waverley 
groups, 327. 

Hallauer, Octave, portrait, 306. 

Hampson, T., on apprenticeship question 
and industrial schools, 347. 

Handicraft, 537. 

Hands, instruction in use of, 452. 

Hange, L.J., on vegetable remains of drift, 
ee 

Harkness, W., on doubtful observations, 
292; storage-batteries, 386. 

Harrington, M. W., on asteroid ring, 292. 

Hartt, C. F., tablet in honor of, 25. 

Harvard college meridian circle, 293; phys- 
iological laboratory, il. 128. 

Hawkshaw, J. C., on Severn tunnel rail- 
way, 288. 

Haynes, H. W. The stone age in prehis- 
toric archeology, 469. 

Health association, public, 440; exhibition, 
international, 353, 410; national board 
of, 427. 

Heap’s Report on the International exhibi- 
tion of electricity, reviewed, 464. 

Heat, 39; loss of, by radiation, 250. 

Heavens, new maps of, maps, 580. 

Heer, O., on flora of high Alps, 475; 

Heilprin, A., on foraminifera, 24; tertia- 
ry geology and paleontology of the 
United States, 562. 

es popular scientific addresses, 

81. 

Hematite in Pennsylvania, 25. 

Henry’s library, 480. 

Herrick, C. L., on Protozoa, 73. 

Herschel, Sir William, memorial window 
of, 410. 

Hibernation of lower vertebrates, 7. 36. 

Hilfiker’s diameter of sun, 267. 

HiILtGarD, E. W. The steep slopes of the 
western loess, 302. 


SCIENCH.— INDEX TO VOLUME IY. 


Hilgard, J. E., on relative level of Gulf of 
Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, 326. 

Hirschfelder, C. A., on anthropological 
discoveries in Canada, 318. 

Historical association, 75, 301, 312. 

Hitchcock, C. H., on Vermont gneiss, 327. 

Hoadley, J. C., on driven wells, 324; 
steam-engine practice in the United 
States, 323. 

Hochstetter, Ferdinand von, portrait, 470. 

HoupENn, E.8. Eye-pieces of the meridian 
circle at Washburn observatory, 396. 

Holder, J. B., on house-sparrow, 375. 

Houmes, W.H. Burial-masks of the an- 
cient Peruvians, 7//. 10. 

Holmes’s Art in shell, 26. 

Honey, glucose in, 32. 

Honorary degrees, value of, 3. 

Hood of hooded seal, i//. 514. 

Hornblende, occurrence of, 48. 

H6tel des Neuchatelois, i2/. 360. 

Hoy, P. H., on stone axes, 344. 

HUBBARD, G. G. Canal routes between 
the Atlantic and the Pacific, map, 434. 

Hudson’s Cause of seasickness, 424. 

Hudson’s Strait, map of, 220; meteorologi- 
cal stations, 108. 

Human skull from Podbaba, 318. 

Hunt, A. R., on influence of wave-currents 
on fauna, 75. 

Hunt, T. 8., on Taconic question, 27. 

Hurlbert, J. B., on climates, 282; on 
storms, 282. 

Huron-Iroquois, 318. 

Hyades, on Fuegian ethnography, 27. 

Hyatt, A. The primitive Conocoryphean, 
351. 

Hyatt, A.,on Beatricea, 341; larval theory 
of origin of tissue, 341. 

Hydrographic basins of Quebec, 283. 

Hydrophobia, experiments with virus of, 
122. 

Hygienic congress, 74; institute, 410. 

Hygrometry, new departure in, 137. 

Hyperion, motion of, 155. 


Ibbetson’s Outlines of Punjab ethnography, 
reviewed, 360, 557. 

Iceland, voleanic island off, 506. 

Ichnolites, Carson-City, il/. 273. 

Igloo, implements of, z//. 81. 

Illinois state natural-history society, 125. 

Immersion apparatus, 342. 

Implements of Ojibwas, ill. 527. 

Incandescent lighting for naval vessels, 
561. 

Inclinometer, new, 253. 

India, caste in, 557; census of, 280; ink, 
manufacture of, 505. 

Indian ethnology, 499; folk-lore, 499; 
grave, Babirussa tusks from, 34; imple- 
ments, 33; languages, 122, 1388; in South 
America, 159; sign-language, 556. 

Indiana mounds, 344. 

Individuality, 398. 

Industrial education, 537; schools, 347. 

Infectious diseases, 144. 

Ink, India, 505. 

Innuit, Netschilluk, 7/2. 543. 

Insect crust, dynamics of, 341. 

Insects, light emitted by, 505; skins of, 
341; swarming, i//. 79, 111; of the year, 
565. 

Intelligence, animal, 16. 

International association, 269, 329; co-op- 
eration in scientific work, 125; electrical 
congress, 31; exhibition at Antwerp, 
1886, 426; of electricity, 464; geological 
congress, 156; health exhibition, 353; 
hygienic congress, 74; medical congress, 
75; polar expeditions, 367 ; polar stations, 
map, 870, ill. 476; scientific association, 
80, 106; congress, 140. 

Invilliers, E. V. d’, on hematite in Penn- 
sylvania, 25. 

Trish emigration, 285. 

Troquois customs and languages, 319; gram- 
mar, 412, 486; pronouns, 344, 351; words, 
346. 

Irrigation in Missouri and Yellowstone 
valleys, 166; in the west, 158. 

Irving, R. D., on crystalline rocks, 327; 
occurrence of hornblende, 43. 


Jablochkoff electric candle, 267. 

Jacobson, J. A., expedition of, 76. 

J pia Chemical analyses, reviewed, 
00. 

James. See Lesquereux and James. 

James, U. P., on fossil annelid jaws, 263. 

ee on new departure in hygrometry, 

ih 


Janssen’s report of solar eclipse of May 6, 
1883, 263. 

Japan, antiquated chronology of, 508; 
weather service, 521. 

Japanese lacquering, 505. 

Jelly-fish, phosphorescence of, 155. 

Jetties, South Pass, 13. 

Jewell, T. F., on storage-batteries, 393. 

Jewels, crown, of France, id/. 299. 

Jews, races of, 319. 

Johns Eopkins university studies in his- 
torical and political science, 502; re- 
viewed, 173; Thomson’s lectures at, 349; 
zoOlogical laboratory, 122. 

JOHNSON, A.B. North-Atlantic currents, 
all. 415. 

Johnson, J. B., on river physics, 325. 

Johnston, H. H., on the exploration of 
Kilimanjaro, 45. 

Jouffroy, statue of, z//. 300. 

Joy, D., on valve gear, 290. 

Julien, A. A., on Eozoon canadense, 327; 
immersion apparatus, 342. 

Julien, A. A., and Bolton, H. C., on musi- 
cal sands, 329. 

Jupiter, red spot on, 448. 


K., A., journey of, in China, 280. 

K., D. H. Metallic circuits in cables, 52. 

Kafiristan, 404. 

Keith, N. §., on storage-batteries, 386. 

KENNEDY, W.S. What’s in a name, 33. 

Kennedy’s Wonders and curiosities of the 
railway, reviewed, 520. 

Kent, W., on irregularities in railroad- 
building, 348. 

Kilimanjaro, exploration of, 45. 

Kinetic theory of matter, z//. 204. 
Kingsley, J. 8., on development of Limu- 
lus, 341. 

Kirkwood, D., on temporary stars, 291. 

Koch, R., Gaffky, and Loeffler’s Anthrax 
bacillus, reviewed, 276. 

Koch’s investigations, value of, 48; reply 
to his critics, 554; work on tuberculosis, 
59. 

Kolbe’s Inorganic chemistry, reviewed, 
500. 

Kongo, expedition to, 124. 

Korean curios, il/. 172, 270; customs, 345. 

Kowak River, 539; exploration of, é//. 551. 

Koyle, C. H., on storage-batteries, 387. 

Krakatoa, 135; committee, 253; dust, 71. 

Krishna’s journey in China, 280. 

Kunz, G. F. American pearls, 368; Ko- 
rean curios, 7//. 172. 

Kunz, G. F., on gem-engraving, @//. 105. 


Laboratory practice, educational methods 
in, 822. 

Labrets, 345. 

Lacquering, Japanese, 505. 

Laflamme, A., on hydrographic basins of 
Quebec, 283. ‘ 

La Fléche, on Omaha pipes of friendship, 
345. . 

Lamprey as a builder, 469. 

Lands in severaity to Indians, 347. 

LANGLEY, J. W. Chemical affinity, 234. 

Langley, J. W., on valence, 321. F 

Langley, S. P., on temperature of moon’s 
surface, 396. ~ 

Langrin coal-field, 504. 

Language, Indian, 122; Indian sign, 556. 

Languages, African, 310; American, 317, 
522; Indian, 159. 

LANKESTER, E. Ray. Classification of the 
Mollusca, 143. 

Lapland and the Lapps, 366. 

Larval theory of origin of tissue, 341. 

Lavallée, Alphonse, 10. ; 

Law, marriage, 471; of organic evolution, 
532; primitive, 436. z 

Lawes, J., and Gilbert, on composition of ; 
soils, 257. 


SCIENCE.— INDEX TO VOLUME IV. 


Lawn-tennis, 473. 

Lawsuits against grasshoppers, 168. 

Least squares, method of, 39. 

Leaves, torsion of, 340. 

— E. D.,jun., on pumping-machinery 

9. 

Leblanc, monument to, 504. . 

LEContvE, John. Points on lightning- 
rods, 413. 

Leeds, A. R., on composition of human 
milk, 322. 

LeFrroy, Sir J. H. Recent geographical 
discovery, 211. 

Lehman, A. E., on new protractor, 24. 

Lehmann, J., on crystalline schists, 327; 
origin of the crystalline schists, 511. 

Leipzig university, 156. 

Leland’s Algonquin legends of New Eng- 
land, reviewed, 499. 

Lendenfeld, on glacial period in New Zea- 
land, 426. 

Lesley, Prof. J. P., portrait, 190. 

Lesquereux and James’s Mosses of North 
America, reviewed, 446. 

Lewis, H. C., on trap-dyke, 328. 

Librarians, conference of, 505. 

Libraries, scientific, 335, 368, 396, 413. 

Lick observatory, completion of, 482. 

Life, painless extinction of, 366; saving by 
use of salt solution, 449. 

Light, 444; in deep sea, 8, 94; emitted by 
insects, 505; seen under water, 421; 
standard of, 126; velocity of, 254. 

Lighthouse system in Canada, 290. 

Lighthouses, illuminants for, 449. 

Lightning protection, 316; rods, points on, 
223, 413; strokes in France, 264. 

Limulus, development of, 341. 

Lindstr6m’s Silurian mollusks, 562. 

Lingula, 348. 

Liveing, on constitution of elements, 255. 

Liveing and Dewar, on spectral lines of 
metals, 254. 

Liversedge, on Monotremata, 261. 

Local names in France, 265. 

Lockwood, T. D., on long-distance tele- 
phony, 315. 

Lockyer on use of photography in astron- 
omy, 29. 

Locomotive, anthracite-burning, 290. 

Lodge, on electromotive forces in voltaic 
cell, 251. 

Loeffler. See Koch, R., Gaffky, and 
Loeffler. 

Loess, western, steep slopes of, 302. 

Lowl’s Valley formation, 365. 

Lubricants, theory of, 249. 

Lubrication, report of British association 
on, 291. 

Lupton, N. T. Sky-glows, 486. 

Lycosa, egg-cocoons of, 24. 

Lyneh’s Scientific butter-making, re- 
viewed, 407. 

Lyon, D. G. Semitic notes, 378. 

Lyon, D. G., on cuneiform inscriptions of 
Asia, 443. 


Macloskie, G., on dynamics of insect 
crust, 341. 

McCook, H. C., on egg-cocoons of Lycosa, 
24; habits of spider, 23; Tenants of an 
old farm, réviewed, 536. 

McCourpy, T. F. Change in the color of 
the eye, 452. 

MACFARLANE, James. American geologi- 
cal railway-guide, 396; the formation of 
canons and precipices, 99. 

McGee, W. J., on glacier, 154. 

mg university, degrees conferred by, 

Mackerel sky, formation of, 253. 

McLennan, J., on Canadian finances 285. 

MacLeod’s Dierkunde, reviewed, 311. 

Macnair’s journey into Kafiristan, 404. 

Magnetism, influence of, on discharge o 
electricity, 252. 

Maimon’s collection of orienta antiquities 
old. 

Mammals of Adirondacks, 445; phylogeny 
of artiodactyle, 339. 

Mammoth, discovery of remains of, 46. 

Man and mastodon, 112; future of, 408; 
in the tertiaries, 244. 


Manchester, science in, 555. 

Manilius, translation of, 266. 

Mann, B. P. A wider use for scientific 
libraries, 413. 

Manual training in elementary schools, 523. 

Manures, 57. 

Map of Hudson’s Strait, 220; vicinity of 
Baltimore, 518. 


-Marcoartu, A. de, on commercial relations 


of United States, 348. 

MaRrcovu, Jules. The earthquake of Aug. 
10, 144. 

Marcou’s Mapoteca geologica Americana, 
382. 

Mariners, danger to, 413. 

Marjan, H., on local names, 265. 

Marriage laws of aborigines, 319; in sav- 
agery, 471. 

Marsh, O. C., on dinosaurian reptiles, 261. 

Marshall. See Goodwin and Marshall. 

Marshall, A. M., on echinoderms, 261. 

Martin, on media of exchange, 285. 

Martin, J. B., on future of United States, 
347. 

Martin, Lillie J., on mitegall, 339. 

Masks, burial, of Peruvians, 7//. 10. 

Massachusetts topographical map, 3. 

Mastodon, 112. ‘ 

Mathematics, college, 280. 

Meat, supply of, 286. 

Mechanical engineers, training for, 323; 
science, relation of, to other sciences, 
215; section of American association, 2, 
187. 

Mechanics, applied, 406. 

Medals of Royal society, 561. 

Mediaeval history, 313. 

Medical congress at Copenhagen, 75, 300; 
geography, 220. 

Medina’s Aborigines of Chile,reviewed,423. 

Medulla oblongata, 341. 

MEEHAN, J. T. Minerals near Philadel- 
phia, 368. 

Meehan, T., on opposite leaves in Salix 
nigra, 24. 

Meldola, on jelly-fish, 155. 

Meng-leng, 159. 

Mental evolution in animals, 16. 

Merchantmen, defence of, 505. 

Meridian circle, Harvard college, 293; con- 
ference, 376, 406, 421; work of, 414; of 
longitude, zero, 32. 

Meridians of longitude in South America, 
561. 

MERRIAM, C. Hart. The coming of the 
robin and other early birds, 571; the 
hood of the hooded seal, Cystophora 
cristata, 7/7. 514; the star-nosed mole am- 
phibious, 429. 

Merriam, C. H., on bird-migration, 374; 
Mammals of the Adirondacks, reviewed, 
445, 

MERRILL, G. P. MHornblende andesite 
from the new Bogosloff voleano, 524. 

Merriman, M., on doubtful observations, 
292; Method of least squares, reviewed, 
39. 


Metallic circuits in cables, 52. 

Metallurgy of primitive nations, 21. 

Metals, diffusion of, 253; spectral lines of, 
254. 

Meteor, fall of, near Odessa, 188. 

Meteoric research, medal for, 49. 

Meteorological: observatory, 92; society, 
New-England, 30, 424. 

Meteorology, bibliography of, 449. 

Metre, relation of yard to, 296. 

Metric system, use of, 30; value of, 5387. 

Metz’s Modern palmistry, reviewed, 558. 

Mexican railway, 12. 

Micaria limnicunae, 23. 

Micharles, O. E., on heavy-guns, 12. 

Michelson, on velocity of light, 254. 

Micro-organisms, value of investigations 
on, 48 

Micropterus dolemieu, 263; nigricans, 263. 

Microscope for class-room demonstration, 
ill. 540. 

Microscopical journals, new, 365; science, 
244; structure of rocks, 505; technique, 
350. 

Milk, composition of, 322; effect of fer- 
mentation on, 405. 


601 


Minerals near Philadelphia, 368. 

Minnesota Ojibwas, implements of, 7/1. 527. 

Minot, C. 8. Death and individuality, 
398; the organization of an international 
scientific association, 80. 

Minot, C. 8., on biological problems, 339; 
growth and death, 242; skin of insects, 
341, 

Mitchell, H., on Delaware estuary, 329. 

Mitegall, 339. 

Mole, star-nosed, amphibious, 429. 

Molecular dynamics, 437; volumes, 246. 

Mollusca, classification of, 143, 334, 351; 
new type of, 50. 

Monotremata, 261. 

Montigny on scintillation of stars, 267. 

Monuments, American contributions to, 
483. 

Moon’s latitude, 294; surface, temperature 
of, 396. 

Morsz#, E. 8. Korean curios, 270; man 
in the tertiaries, 244. 

Morse, E. 8., on Korean customs, 345. 

MosELEY,H.N. The physiology of deep- 
sea life, 209. 

Moseley, H. N., on Utricularia vulgaris, 
262. 

Mosses of North America, 446. 

Mounds, emblematic, 343; Florida, 344; 
Indiana, 344; Ohio, 151, 317. 

Mount Roraima, 280. 

Mount St. Augustin, volcanic outburst on, 
538. 

Muir, W. K., on single-track railways, 
288. 

Muirhead, H., on mackerel sky, 243. 

Mulhall, M. G., on debts of nations, 285. 

MuNROE, C. E. Recent observations on 
explosive agents, 13. 

Munroe, C. E., on petroleum oils, 321. 

Muscles of crabs, strength of, i//. 521. 

Muskrat with round tail, 34. 

Mussulman propaganda, 457. 

Mythology of Wintuns, 345. 


Names and occupations, correspondence 
between, 33. 

Naples zodlogical station, American table 
at, 74. 

National academy of sciences and govern- 
ment, relations of, 428; October meeting 
of, 396; papers read before, 408; board 
of health, 427; conference of electricians, 
127; pride, 349. 

Natural history, American, 436; 
books, 395. 

Naturalist, rambles of, 380. 

Nautical almanac for 1884, 20. 

Naval war college, 424. 

Nebulae, 294. 

NELSON, E. T. The Ohio earthquake, 
302; swarming insects, 111; a viviparous 
pumpkin, 470. 

Netschilluk Innuit, 777. 548. 

Neubauer, A., on races of Jews, 319. 

NeEwcomp, 8. Can ghosts be investigated, 
525; psychic force, 372; psychical re- 
search, 509. 

Newcomb, S., on value of obliquity o 
ecliptic, 295. 

New England, Algonquin legends of, 499; 
meteorological society, 30, 424; orchids 
498. 

New-Jersey flora, 358; geological survey, 
326. 

Newport, old stone mill at, 7/2. 512. 

Newton’s theory of atmospheric refrac- 
tion, 295. 

New-York agricultural station, annual 
report of, reviewed, 519; gypsum de- 
posits, 325; state survey, termination of, 
2 


text- 


New Zealand, glacial period in, 426. 

Niagara water-power as generator of elec- 
tricity, 12. 

Nicaragua route, 328. 

Nicol, W. W. J., on theory of solution, 
256. 

Nile, navigation of, map, 456. 

Nipher, F. E., on electrical transmission of 
energy, 315. 

Nitrogen, assimilation of, by plants, 322. 

Noctuidae, structural modifications of, 44. 


602 


Nomenclature, development of, 109; tri- 
nomial, 123. 

Nordenski6ld’s book of his ESIC Eaou 
366. 

North America, birds of, 86; connection 
of, with Greenland, 283; mosses of, 446; 
races of, 345; synoptical flora of, 308; 
vegetation of, 261. 

North-Atlantic currents, 7//. 415. 

North pole, prize offered for nearest ap- 
proach to, 124. 

North-west, late news from, 474. 

Nova-Scotian coal-field, 258. 

Novaia Zemlia, result of meteorological 
station in, 188. 

Noyes, I. P., on weather map, 300. 

Nutrients in "foods, 347. 


Observations, adjustment of, 520; doubtful, 
292. 

Observatories, private, 266. 

Observatory, cetachthonic, 266; Green- 
wich, 61; Paris, 29; Pic du Midi, 30. 

Ohio agricultural experiment-station, re- 
port of, for 1888, reviewed, 279; earth- 
quake, 302; of Sept. 19, 332; mounds, 
317; origin of, 151; Wesleyan university, 
fifth report of museum of, 30. 

Oil, effect of, on water, 424, 506, 560; min- 
eral, 504. 

Oil-bearing strata, 266. 

Ojibwas, implements of, 7/2. 527. 

Omahas, child-life among, 343; friendship 
pipes, 345. 

Orchids, New-England, 498. 

Oregon rocks, 71. 

Oreodon, osteology of, 342. 

Oriental society, American, 443. 

Ornithological collections in 
States, 375. 

Ornithologists’ union, 374. 

Ornithorhyncus, eggs of, 452. 

Orton, E., on distribution of petroleum in 
Ohio, 325; Kentucky coal-measures, 
325. 

Osborn, H. F., on amphibian brain, 340, 
343. 

Ounalaska, schooner, 364, 

‘Overwork in schools, 136, 268, 497. 

Oxygen, liquefying, 266. 


United 


Palestine exploration fund, 281; geography 
of, 328; museum and library, 426. 

Palmistry, 558. 

Parallax of stars, 123; fixed stars, 75. 

Paris observatory, 29 

Parker, H. W., on discovery of mammoth, 
46. 

Pasteur’s experiments on hydrophobia, 

Pau, H. M. HEdison’s three-wire system 
of distribution, 7//. 477; the equatorial 
coude, ill. 101; Krakatoa, 135; measur- 
ing ear thquakes, ill. 516; aproposed new 
departure in hygrometry, 187; radiant 
matter inan Edison lamp, 374. 

Paul, H. M., on doubtful observations, 292. 

Peabody museum of archaeology, 110, 
UPATE 

Pearls, American, 368, 470. 

Peet, S. D., on emblematic mounds, 3438. 

PErIRcE, C.S. The numerical measure of 
the success of predictions, 453; the old 
stone mill at Newport, i//. 512. 

Pendulum, gyration of, 53. 

Pennsylvania coal-fields, 522; geology of, 
447; section across, 258. 

Pentacrinus asteriscus, 223. 

Periodicals, duties on, 269. 

Perry, on solar surface, 294. 

Personal items, 424; names, development 
of, 109. 

Peruvians, burial-masks of, i//. 10. 

Petals, evolution of, @20. 52. 

Petroleum, Caucasian, 365; danger from, 
503; distribution of, 325; oils, 321; in 
Sicily, 364; wells, i/. 364. 

Philadelphia academy of natural sciences, 
438; bureau of scientific information of, 
108; electrical conference in, 383; min- 
erals near, 368. 

Philosophical instruments, 451, 

Phonograph, new, i//. 124. 


SCIENCE.— INDEX TO VOLUME IV. 


Phosphates, cretaceous, 78. 

Phosphorescence, 270; of jelly-fish, 155. 

Photographic drop-shutters, speed of, 
454. 

Photographs, instantaneous, 265. 

Photography, A BC of modern, 464; color 
in, 29. 

Photometric tables, 311. 

Photometry of sun and moon, 528. 

Phylloxera, destruction of eggs of, 466; 
Silesia, 481. 

Physical standards, bureau of, 314. 

Physics, recent progress in, 179. 

Physiological laboratory, Harvard, é/. 128 

Physiology of deep-sea life, 209. 

Pic du Midi observatory, 30. 

PICKERING, E.C. Systematic earthquake 
observation, 352. 

Pickering, E.C., on colors of stars, 291; 
stellar magnitudes, 292. 

PICKERING, W. H. Measurement of the 
speed of photographic drop-shutters, é//. 
454. 


Pilot-chart for July, 92; November, 465. 

Pim, Bedford, on Nicaragua route, 328. 

Pinus sylvestris, fibro-vascular bundles in, 
358. 

Pipes of friendship, 345. 

Planets, dimensions of, i//. 582. 

Plating, brass, 465. 

Playfair, Lyon, on constitution of ele- 
ments, 255. 

PuumB, C.S. Increase in growth of young 
robins, 159. 

Poetsch, F. H., on shaft-sinking by freez- 
ing, 448. 

Point Barrow, explorations at, 282. 

Polar expeditions, 367; sea, open, 302, 485; 
stations, international, 7//. 476, map 
370. 

Pollen, exposure of, 358. 

Pororéca of Amazon, all. 488. 

PORTER, A. B. Points on lightning-rods, 
223. 

Portuguese lost colony, 34. 

Postage in United States, 351; rates of, 580; 
reduction of, 449. 

Postal transmission of dried plants, 359. 

Post-office savings banks, 284. 

POWELL, J. W. Certain» rinciples of 
primitive law, 486; marriagel aw in sav- 
agery, 471. 

Powell, J. W., on classification of Ameri- 
can languages, 317; culture-periods, 345; 
marriage laws of aborigines, 319; myth 
ology of Wintuns, 345. 

Precipices, formation of, 99. 

Predictions, measure of success of, 453; 
verification of, 540. 

Preece, W. H., on economy of electric 
light, 324; storage-batteries, 315, 383; 
telegraphing without cable, 297; tele- 
phoning through cable, 252. 

Prehistoric archeology, 469; 
America, 381. 

Prime meridian, 349, 368. 

Primitive law, principles of, 436; nations, 
metallurgy of, 21. 

Prizes of Berlin academy of sciences, 465; 
of Royal society of New South Wales, 
410. 

Professions, learned, and the public, 348. 

Pronouns, Iroquois, 344. 

Propylite question, 111. 

Protozoa, 73. 

Protractor, new, 24. 

Prussian hygienic institute, 410. 

Pseudo-science, 478. 

Pseudo-scientists, 467. 

Psychic force, 372. 

Psychical research, 509; proceedings of 
English society or, z//. 40; in America, 
359, 369. 


fishing n 


~ Ptarmigan, 375. 


Ptolemy’s geography, 331; bibliography 
of, 122. 

Publishing houses, duties of, 467. 

Pumice, floating, 331. 

Pumping-machinery in America, 289. 

Punjab ethnography, 360, 557; inhabitants 
of, 360. 

PUTNAM, F. W. Man and the mastodon, 
112. 


Putnam, F, W., on Indiana mounds, 3445 


Ohio mounds, 317. 
Putnam River, exploration of, 496. 


Quarantine, proper, 441. 
Quebec, hydrographic basins of, 283. 


Race-character, teeth as, 538. 

Radiant heat, i//. 3; matter in an Edison 
amp, 374. 

Radiation, 250. 

Raes Contemporary socialism, reviewed, 
534 

Rags, separation of, 464. 

Railway-building, 348; Canadian Pacific, 
-289; guide, geological, 396; permanent, 
288; Severn tunnel, 288; signals, 356; 
single-track, 288; wonders and curiosi- 
ties of, 520. 

Rainfall, effect of wind-currents on, 409; 
aw of maximum, 409; statistics, 267. 
Ramsay, W., on molecular volumes, 256; 

valence, 321. 

Ramsay, W., and Young, 8., on evapora- 
tion and dissociation, 256; vapor ten- 
sions, 250. 

Ranyard, on instantaneous photographs, 
265. 

Ratugeun, R. American appliances for 
deep-sea investigation, 7//. 146, 224, 400; 
the American initiative in methods of 
deep-sea dredging, 54. 

Rau’s Prehistoric fishing, 381. 

Rauch, on quarantine, 441. 

Ravenstein, E. G., on African maps, 280; 
teaching geography, 281. 

Ray, P. H. An open polar sea, 302. 

Ray, P. H., on Eskimo, 319; explorations 
at Point Barrow, 282. 

RAYLEIGH, Lord. Recent progress in 
physics, 179. 

Rayleigh, Lord, portrait, 161. 

Rayleigh, Lord, on galvanometer of twenty 
wires, 252. 

Refraction, atmospheric, 295. 

Remsen, f ., on educational methods in 
laboratory practice, 322; valence, 321. 

Repagination, 94. 

Research, endowment of, 221. 

Revoil’s explorations, 268. 

Reynolds, O., on second law of thermo- 
dynamics, 250; theory of lubricants, 249. 

Rhodes, B., on generation of electricity by 
water- power, 12. 


’ Rhyssa not lignivorous, 486. 


Richardson, C., on chemistry of roller- 
milling, 320. 

Ripeway, Robert. The bird-collection of 
the U.S. national museum, 496. 

RiLeEy, C. V. Change in the color of the 
eye, 511; the insects of the year, 565; 
Rhyssa not lignivorous, 486. 

Riley’s visit to Europe, 365. 

River physics, 325. 

Roark, R. N. American pearls, 470. 

Roberts, C., on diffusion of metals, 253. 

Roperts, I. P. A few pertinent hints to 
farmers, 2/7. 576; important agricultural 
statistics, 575. 

Robin, coming of, 571. 

Robins, increase in growth of, 159. 

Rocks of Colorado and Russia, comparison 
of, 521; crystalline, 238; microscopic 
structure of, 505; from Oregon, 71. 

Rockwoop, C. G., jun. Earthquakes in 
the United States and Canada, 569; sys- 
tematic earthquake observation, 368. 

Rogers, W. A., on doubtful observations, 
292 ; Harvard college meridian circle, 
293; magnitude of errors, 293; produc- 
tion of screws, 323; relation of yard to 
metre, 296. 

Roller-milling, chemistry of, 320. 

Romanes’ Animal intelligence, reviewed, 
16; Mental evolution in animals, re- 
viewed, 16. 


Roscor, H. E. Progress of chemistry ‘ 


since 1848, 206. 
Roscoe, Professor, knighted, 156. 
Rosse, Earl of, on polishing specula, 253. 
Rotation, terrestrial, 28. 
ROWLAND, H. A. Address before Electri- 
cal conference, 313. 


— = 


SCIENCH.— INDEX TO VOLUME IV. 


Rowland, H. A., on dynamo-electric ma- 
chine, 314; lightning protection, 316. 

Royal academy of Turin, centenary of, 
538. 

Royal society of London’s medals, 561. 

Rubber-tree, 465. 

Ruby-hill mines, 459. 

Russell, I. C., on glacier, 154. 

* Russian arctic expeditions, 409; geographi- 
eal works, 268, 503; hypsometric chart, 
156; observatories, 266; rocks, 521; tele- 
scope, 25; topography, 188. 

RYDER, J. A. The use and spelling of 
terms, and some facts in embryology, 
49. 

Ryder, J. A., on tail of osseous fishes, 341. 


$., C.S. Alphonse Lavallée, 10. 

S., E. F. A fasting pig, 335. 

Salix nigra, opposite leaves in, 24. 

SaLMon, D. E. Discrediting American 
science, 303. 

Salmon-supply, regulation of, 26. 

Salt solution, use of, in saving life, 449. 

Samarkand, discovery of ruins near, 465. 

Samoa, 378. 

Sands, musical, 329. 

Sarasin, E., on transparency of water, 421. 

Saunders, T., on Asiatic exploration, 328; 
census of India, 280; Dominion survey, 
282; geography of Palestine, 328; Krish- 
na’s journey, 280. 

Saurians, affinities of, 340. 

Savagery, marriage law in, 471. 

Savings banks, 284. 

Scaphiopus solitarius, 72, 262. 

School of application for navy officers, 108. 

Schools, over-pressure in, 136, 268, 497. 

Schuster, A., on connection of sun-spots 
with terrestrial phenomena, 252. 

ScHWATKA, Frederick. The implements 
of the igloo, i//. 81; the Netschilluk 
Innuit, i//. 543. 

gl map of Hudson’s Strait, map, 

20. 

Science calendar, 1885, 584; development 
of, 411; forgotten conclusions of, 469; in 
Manchester, 555; mission of, 236. 

Scientific appointments, 109; assemblies, 
conduct of, 451; interests and congress, 
507; methods in common affairs, 246; 
missions, French, 595; research, funds 
for, 125; societies, libraries of, 335; 
wider use for, 368, 396, 413; study of 
lawn-tennis, 473; use of word, 412; work, 
co-operation in, 125. 

Sclater, P. L., on ornithological collections 
in United States, 375. 

Scott, W. B., on osteology of Oreodon, 342. 

Scottish fishery board, researches of, 478; 
mineral oil, 504. 

Screws. production of, 323. 

Scudder’s History of United States, 450. 

Searle, A., on zodiacal light, 28. 

Seasickness, 424. 

Seasons, 1885, 577. 

Secondary batteries, 264. 

Seismology in old lands and new, 508. 

Sella, Quintino, portrait, 541. 

Semitic notes, 378; study in America, 367. 

Severn tunnel railway, 288. 

Sewer ventilation, 366. 

Shaft-sinking by freezing, 443. 

Sherburne’s translation of Manilius, 266. 

Shorthand-writing, 266. 

Shuster, on influence of magnetism on 
discharge of electricity, 252. 

Sicily, discovery of petroleum in, 364. 

Sidgwick’s Fallacies, reviewed, 152. 

Siemens, Sir Charles William, memorial 
to, 155. 

Silliman, B., on valence, 321. 

Silurian mollusks, 562; scorpion, 562. 

Skin of insects, 341. 

Sky-glows, 486. 

SLICHTER,C.S. Rotation experiments on 
germinating plants, i//. 51. 

Smiley, C. W., on fish-culture, 348. 

SmirH, Erminnie A. Iroquois grammar, 
436; Lroquois pronouns, 351. 

Smith, Erminnie A., on Iroquois pronouns, 
344; Iroquois languages, 319; Iroquois 
words, 346. 


SMITH, Eugene A. Cretaceous phosphates 
in Alabama, 78. 

Smith, F. J., on secondary batteries, 264. 

Smith, J. B., on structural modifications 
of Noctuidae, 44. ; 

Smith, J. Lawrence, medal, 49. 

Smith, L. A., on advantages of expositions, 
348. 

Smith, V., on Canadian Pacific railway, 
289. 

Smith, W., on lighthouse system in Can- 
ada, 290. 

Smith’s Centenary of science in Manches- 
ter, reviewed, 555. , 

Snyder, on bureau of physical standards, 
314, 

Social science congress at Birmingham, 92, 
410. 

Socialism, contemporary, 534. 

Society meetings, 562. 

Society for psychical research, proceed- 
ings of, vol. i., reviewed, 7/7. 40; of red 
cross, experiments of, 366. 

Soils, composition of, 257. 

Solar. eclipse of May 6, 1883, 263; surface, 
294; system, map of, 583. 

Sollas, W. J., on fresh-water faunas, 260. 

Solution, phenomena of, 256; theory of, 
256. 

Sorghum, value of, 479. 

Sound, production of, 298. 

South America, Indian languages of, 188, 
159; meridians of longitude in, 561. 

Sparrow, 375. 

Specialization in scientific study, 35. 

Spectral lines of metals, 254. 

Specula, polishing, 253. 

Spheroidal state, temperature of, 5. 

Spider, burrowing, 7/7. 114; habits of, 23. 

Springer, on fermentation, 322; torsion 
scales, 320. 

Squall, singular, 480. 

SquiER, G. H. Depth of the glacial sub- 
mergence on the upper Mississippi, 160. 

Standard of light, 126; time, 581; time- 
table, 581. 

Stars, colors of, 291; variable, 293; distri- 
bution of fixed, 425; morning and even- 
ing, 1885, 577; scintillation of, 267; tem- 
porary, 291. 

Statistics, agricultural, 575; of British 
empire, 214. 

Steam-engine practice, 323; theory of, 289. 

Steamer, fast, 382. 

Steam-heating, 290. 

Stejneger, L., on ptarmigan, 375. 

Stellar magnitudes, 292. 

Stenini, revision of, 561. 

Sternberg, G. H., on disease-germs, 440; 
tuberculosis, 342. 

Stewart, B. See Carpenter, W. L., and 
Stewart, B. 

Stewart, J. C., on post-office savings 
banks, 284. 

Stirling, A., on economy of electric light, 
324, 

Stockwell, J. N., on moon’s latitude, 294. 

Stokes, A. C. A burrowing spider, il. 
114. 

Stokes, A.C., on liver of fly, 72; Tarantula 
arenicola, 262. 

Stone age in prehistoric archeology, 469. 

STONE, Charles P. The navigation of the 
Nile, map, 456. 

Stone, O., on doubtful observations, 292; 
Leander McCormick observatory of the 
University of Virginia, 294. 

Stone mill at Newport, z//. 512. 

Stoney, G. J., on new collimator, 74. 

Storage-batteries, 315; before the Elec- 
trical conference, 367, 383. 

Storms, peculiar, 282. 

Stove, perfect-combustion, 331. 

Submarine telegraphy, limitations of, 7/. 
438. 

Sudan, 530. 

Suess’s Face of the earth, reviewed, 7. 
535. 

Sugar in milk, method of estimating, 322. 

SULLIVAN, J. A. The Delaware estuary, 
368. 

Summer school of entomology, 111. 

Sun, angular diameter of, 267; theory of, 


603 


478; and planets, comparative dimen- 
sions of, 7/1. 582. 

Sundry civil bill, 1, 47. 

Sunflower, exposure of pollen in, 345. 

Sun-spots, 453, ill. 460, 564; connection of, 
with terrestrial phenomena, 252. 

Sun-time and clock-time, i//. 578. 

Surfaces, production of optical, 323. 

Survey, Canada, 282. 

Susquehanna-river region, geology of, 120. 

Swarming insects, 7/7. 79, 111. 

Sweet, E., on Erie Canal, 13. 

Swift, L., on nebulae, 294. 

Symbols, astronomical, 578. 

Symonps, W.S. Fish-remains in North- 
American Silurian rocks, 159. 

Synclinal in Taconic range, 249. 


Tacchini’s studies of rainfall, 267. 

Taconic question, 27. 

Tait’s Heat, reviewed, 39; Light, reviewed, 
444, 

Talisman, echinoderms dredged by, 7//. 
102; lower forms of life dredged by, 7//. 
i7Al. 

Tangles, ill. 224. 
anis, discovery at, 266. 

Tarantula arenicola, 262. 

Taylor, R. W. C., on factory acts, 286. 

Teachers, improvement of, 142. 

Tea-insects, 426; plant, cultivation of, 365. 

Technical education, advancement of, 425; 
workshop in, 395. 

Teeth, size of, as race-character, 538. 

Telegraphing without cable, 297. 

Telegraphy, limitations of submarine, 7//. 
438. ' 


Teleostean eggs, 340. 

Telephoning through cable, 252; 
distance, 315. 

Telescope, Russian, 25. 

Temperature of atmosphere, 266; in the 
United States, 2/7. 569. 

TEMPLE, Sir Richard. The general sta- 
tistics of the British empire, 214. 

Tenants of an old farm, 536. 

Teredo navalis, 12. 

Terms, use and spelling of, 49. 

Tertiaries of eastern United States, 562. 

Tertiary man, 244. 

Testing establishments, 224. 

Thompson, Mrs., gift of, to science, 269. 

Thompson, Elihu, on storage-batteries, 390. 

Thompson, 8. P., on dynamo-electric ma- 
chine, 315; government of dynamo- 
machines, 298; Recent progress in dy- 
namo-electric machines, reviewed, 520. 

THOMPSON, W. G. The microscope for 
class-room demonstration, 7//. 540. 

TuHomson, Sir W., Steps toward a kinetic 
theory of matter, 7/7. 204. 

Thomson, Sir William, portrait, 450. 

Thomson, Sir W., address of, before Brit- 
ish association, 249; on electromotive 
forces in voltaic cell, 251; gyrostatic 
working-model of magnetic compass, 
250; Hall phenomenon, 297; lectures at 
Johns Hopkins university, 298, 349, 487; 
molecular dynamics, 437; stenographic 
notes of, 502. 

Thomson’s exploration of Kilimanjaro, 
map, 46, 279. 

Thunder-storms, 97. 

Thurn, E. F. im, on Mount Roraima, 281. 

THURSTON, R. H. The mission of science, 
236; the work of Octave Hallauer, por- 
trait, 306. 

Thurston, R. H., on theory of steam- 
engine, 289. 

Tide-table, 577. 

Tilden, W. A., on phenomena of solution, 
256. 

Time, standard, 581; sun, zd. 578; without 
instruments, 72d. 51. 

TISSANDIER, G. Navigation of the air, 
all. 531. 

Tissue, origin of, 341. 

Topp, Sun-spots, 453. 

Tolmie and Dawson’s vocabularies of 
Indian dialects, 122. - 

Topographical maps of Arizona, 188; of 
Massachusetts, 3. 

Topography of Russia, 188. 


long- 


604 


Tornado predictions, 126. 

Tornadoes, 381; and how to escape them, 
all. 572. 

Torpedo-boat, 410. 

Torsion of leaves, 340; scales, 320. 

Touche, de la, on Langrin coal-field, 504. 

Track-inspection car, 348. 

Traill, W. A., on Giants’ Causeway and 
Portrush electric tramway, 324. 

Transition of beds, 327. 

Trawls, iid. 224. 

Treasury department and philosophical 
instruments, 451; rulings, 302, 427; in 
regard to periodicals, 141, 269. 

TRELEASE, W. Blooming-time for flow- 
ers, 573. 

Trillium grandiflorum, abnormal form of, 
352. 

Trombolt’s work on Lapland, 366. 

TROWBRIDGE, J. Atmospheric electricity, 
164; thunder-storms, 97; what is elec- 
tricity, 232. 

Trowbridge, J., on telegraphing without 
cable, 297. 

TrRuE, F. W. Babirussa tusks from an 
Indian grave in British Columbia, 34; 
bot-flies in a turtle, 511; a muskrat with 
a round tail, 34; photographs of the in- 
terior of a coal-mine, 223. 

Tuberculosis, 59, 342. 

Tuke, J. A., on Irish emigration, 285. 

Tunnel, ancient, 464. 

Turbine water-wheel, 12. 

Turner’s Samoa, reviewed, 378. 

TyLor, E. B. How the problems of 
American anthropology present them- 
selves to the English mind, 545; some 
American aspects of anthropology, 217. 

Tylor, E. B., on American tribes, 396; 
North-American races, 345. 


Unalashka sands, 44. 

Underground wires, 350. 

United States, African race in, 222; census 
report of 1880, reviewed, 119 ; seventh vol- 
ume of, reviewed, 421; eighth volume of, 
reviewed, 461; coast and geodetic sur- 
vey, geodetic work of, 293; commercial 
relations of, 348; credit of, 347; earth- 
quakes in, 569; future of, 347; geological 
survey, annual report of, reviewed, 7. 
62; bulletin No. 5, 481; topographical 
sheets of, 188; hydrographic oflice, re- 
port of, 502; work of, 483; national mu- 
seum, additions to, 505; bird-collection 
of, 496; building-stone, collectionof, 505 ; 
postage in, 351; resources of, 421; Scud- 
der’s history of, 450; signal-service pa- 
pers, 266, 467; systematic earthquake 
observation in, 520; temperature in, 7//. 
569; tertiaries of, 562. 

University, ideal, 95; of Virginia, Leander 
McCormick observatory of, 294. 

Upton, Winslow. Weather forecasts, 568. 

Utricularia vulgaris, 262. 


Valence, 321. 
Valley formation, 365. 


Page 29, col. 
ee ee 


2, line 36, for ‘Bouvain’ read ‘ Louvain.’ 


SCIENCH.— INDEX TO VOLUME IV. 


Valve gear, 290. 

Van Dyck, F. C., on storage-batteries, 389. 

Vapor tensions, 250. 

Vashchenko-Zakharchenko’s Elements of 
Euclid, 442. 

Vegetable remains of drift, 73. 

Vegetation, North-American, 261. 

Veins, arrangement of, 410. 

Ventilation of cargoes, 426; sewer, 366. 

Venus, reduction of French photographs 
of transit of, 424. 

Vermont gneiss, 327. 

VERRILL, A. EK. Evidences of the exist- 
ence of light at great depths in the sea, 
8 


Vertebrates, hibernation of, iJ. 36; oldest 
living type of, 484, 524. 

Vidal’s Photometric tables, reviewed, 311. 

Vinland, 283. 

Vivarez, H., on limitations of submarine 
telegraphy, 7d/. 489. 

Viviparous pumpkin, 470. 

Volcanic island off Iceland, 506; outburst 
of Mount St. Augustin, 5388; sand, 154. 
Volcano, Bogosloff, map, 432; andesite 

from, 524. 


W.,S. The mosses of North America, 446. 

WADE, J.M. Perforations in wool fibre, 
52. 

WapswortH, M. EK. Some United-States 
geologists, and the propylite question, 
ital 

Wady el Arabah, 75. 

Wages, rate of, 283. 

Wagner, P., on special manures for par- 
ticular crops, 57. 

Waxpo, Leonard. 
Aug. 10, 144. 

Walker, F. A., on industrial education and 
handicraft, 537. 

Wampum, 320. 

Warp, L. F. Irrigation in the upper 
Missouri and Yellowstone valleys, 166. 

Ward, L. F., on fossil flora of globe, 340. 

Warren, C., on learned professions and 
the public, 348. 

Washburn observatory, eye-pieces of me- 
ridian circle at, 396. 

Water of steam-boilers, superheated, 424; 
transparency of, 421; rates, 13. 

Watson, Ellen, life of, 380. 

Wave-currents, influence of, on fauna, 75; 
ship, 382. 7 

Waverley group, 327. 

Wead, on production of sound, 298. 

Weather forecasts, 568; map, 300; review, 
monthly, 480; service in Japan, 521; sig- 
nals of Alabama, 464. 

WEED, C. M. The evolution of petals, 
ill. 52. 

Weed, W. H., on geyser eruption, 22. 

Wellington, A. M., on Mexican railway, 
12: 

Wells, driven, 324. 

WENDELL, O. C. 
ens, maps, 580. 

Weser hills, mineral wealth of, 365. 


The earthquake of 


New maps of the heav- 


He Heke TAY 


39, 1, 9th line from bottom, for ‘animalculae’ read 

‘animalcula.’ 
«Al, ** 1, line 26, for ‘from chance’ read ‘ pure chance.’ ce Oooo ees 
«* 162, “© 2, 10th line from bottom, for ‘angular’ read 

‘abrupt.’ ye Sign oe 
“© 281, “ 2, line 24, for ‘school boards’ read ‘board schools.’ COR ADT 7/8 
“© 285, * 1, line 18, for ‘ $68,500’ read ‘ $342,500.’ TARA ies 
¢ 301, ‘“* 1, 16th line from bottom, for ‘the’ read ‘his.’ 
© 366, ‘* 1, in last note, for ‘ Trombolt’ read ‘ Tromholt.’ HS AOS 88 


Page 390, col. 2, 16th line. 
fessor James Dewar: the correct name not 
known. 

2, 29th line, for ‘Prof. George F. Barker’ read 
* Lieut. Commander T. F. Jewell.’ 

2, last line, for ‘ May’ read ‘ April.’ ls 

1, line 8, for ‘ prescribing’ read ‘ proscribing.’ 

2, line 36, for ‘ Water of crystallization’ read 
fect of crystallization on sediment.’ 

2, line 34, for ‘ Kjellberg’ read ‘ Rjellberg.’ 


Westgarth, W., on British empir 

North America and Australia, 285. 
Whirlwinds at sea, 562. et 
Wiedemann’s Electricity, reviewed, 87. 


Wilder, B. G., on anthropoid apes, 339; — 


cerebellum and oblongata, 341. 

Wiley, H. W., on optical methods of esti- 
mating sugar in milk, 322. 

Wiuuiams, G. H. Specimens illustrating 
Lehmann’s Origin of the crystalline 
schists, 511. 

Williams, G. H., on apatitbringer, 258; 
Lehmann’s crystalline schists, 327. 

Williams, H. S., on ancient faunas, 326. 

Williams, S. G., on New-York gypsum 
deposits, 325. 

Wilson, D., on human skull from Podbaba, 
318; Huron Iroquois, 318. 

Wilson, Sir Erasmus, death of, 332. 

Wilson, J. H., on American permanent 
railway, 288. 

WINCHELL, N. H. The crystalline rocks 
of the north-west, 288. ' 

Wind-currents, effect of, on rainfall, 409. 

Wine-production in France, 264. 

WINLOCK, W. The long-continued 
bad seeing, 94. 

Winsor, J., on Ptolemy’s geography, 331.- 

Wintuns, mythology of, 345. 

WoEIKoF, A. An open polar sea, 485. 

Wolf comet, 381. 

Wolfe expedition to Chaldaea, 378. 

Wood-sections, study of, 45. 

Woodbury, C. J. H., on automatic sprin- 
kler system, 291. 

Wool fibre, perforations in, 52. 

Working-girls, condition of, in Boston, 
450. : 

Workshop in technical education, 395. 

WorMLEY, T. G. Microscopie science, 


244, 

Wright, C. D., on condition of working- 
girls in Boston, 450. 

WRIGHT, R. Ramsay. On the function of 
the serrated appendages of the throat 
of Amia; 511. [ 

Wright’s Adjustment of observations, re- 
viewed, 520. 


Wurtz, Charles Adolph, portrait, 6; 
Pictet’s acquaintance with, 74. 
Yard, relation of metre to, 296. / 


Yellowstone national park survey, 22. 

Youne, C. A. Pending problems in as- 
tronomy, 192; sun-spots and the earth, 
ill. 564. 

Young, 8. See Ramsay, and Young, 8. 


Zabriskie, J. L., on Appendicularia ento- 
mopbila, 25. 

ZiwET, A. Euclid as a text-book of ge- 
ometry, 442. 

Zodiacal light, 28. 

Zonites cellaria, discovered in Oregon, 
538. 

Zodlogical researches of Scottish fishery 
board, 478. - 

Zunis, art among, 319; customs of, 448. 


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