AT A MEETING of the Cosmos club of Washington on Monday, Feb. 1, it was decided to purchase the Wilkes' property, on the corner of Madison Place and H Street, a few doors north of the present quarters of the club. The club proposes to build an assembly-room, to be used for receptions and for meetings of scientific societies. The resolution to purchase the property was passed unanimously, and is a move in the right direction. The present quarters are very limited, and, as the club is growing so rapidly, pressing need was felt for more room. The newly acquired property is situated in one of the most desirable localities in the city, and will afford the club many conveniences and comforts hitherto denied them.

AMERICAN FISHERY INTERESTS.

THE fisheries-treaty question, which is now the subject of so much discussion, is a very complicated one; and it is not at all surprising that the secretary of state, following traditionary policy of more than a hundred years' standing, and acting upon the long-established theory that participation in the fishery privileges of Canadian waters is of great value, should have failed to satisfy the expectations of the New England fishermen, who know so well that these privileges have long been valueless. A general impression seems to exist that our fishing-fleet no longer visits the Gulf of St. Lawrence, only because there has been a temporary desertion of those waters by the species of fish which they seek. Such, also, is the idea of the Canadians. In his recent article in the North American review, Lord Lorne patronizingly suggests to his good friends' across the line that they should not be too hasty in throwing aside the right to fish in English waters, because the fish may before long return in their former abundance.

As a matter of fact, the abundance of fish in the Gulf has very little to do with the question as it now presents itself. Since 1871, when the Washington treaty was negotiated, a complete revolution has taken place, both in the fisheries and the fish trade of the United States; and, strangely enough, this revolution was effected chiefly in the six years which intervened between the completion of this treaty and the meeting in 1877 of the Halifax convention, by which $5,500,000 were awarded to Great Britain as a compensation for a concession to our fishermen, which had ceased to be of value

to them, in addition to the remission of duties on Canadian fish, which during the period of fourteen years have amounted to several millions of dollars. Our government has thus, unintentionally of course, been paying each year a large subsidy to the fisheries of British North America, and developing the Canadian fisheries at the expense of our own; and Canadian competition has become so great that our fishermen feel that they have a strong claim upon the government for some kind of protection. The fishermen therefore demand that the duty upon Canadian fish be restored, and that their own privileges shall be based upon the provisions of the treaty of 1818, which will again go into effect, if no new treaty arrangements are made. Our dealers in cured fish, on the other hand, mindful of the profits of handling the product of the Canadian fisheries, are clamorous for a continuance of the present free-trade policy.

The revolution in the American fisheries is so extensive that it can scarcely be discussed in a notice so brief as this. One of the principal changes is the adoption of the purse-seine in the mackerel fishery, by which the fish are caught far out at sea and in immense quantities by enclosing them in an immense bag of netting. Formerly they were taken solely with hooks by the 'chumming' process. This was in the best days of the Gulf of St. Lawrence mackerel fishery, when hundreds of American vessels would frequently lie side by side, throwing overboard vast quantities of oily, mushy bait, by which the schools of fish were enticed within reach. There is no reason to doubt that mackerel were as abundant then as now off our own coast, but the old method of fishing was not so well adapted to our waters. The purse-seine, on the other hand, cannot be used advantageously in the Gulf, nor is there any necessity for our fishermen to go so far from home for their fish. There does not appear to be any probability that our fishermen will ever return to the old methods. Chumming mackerel ' is essentially a lost art.

Another feature in the revolution is the introduction of improved methods of marketing fresh fish. With the extensive refrigerating establishments now in operation, and the facilities for rapid transmission of sea-fish inland, the demand for salted fish is relatively very much less than it was fifteen years ago. Then, too, the immense competition produced by the free entry of Canadian fish has lowered the price of cured fish, until a very decided depreciation in its

quality has resulted, with a consequent decrease in demand.

The present condition of the sea-fisheries of New England is a deplorable one. Whatever is to be done for their amendment, it is to be hoped that our diplomatists will not suppose that they will profit by the privileges of free fishing in Canadian waters.

ELEMENTARY SCIENCE-TEACHING.

FROM all sides comes the advice to study science. Teach science to children, put it in the kindergarten, double the amount of it at college, and foster it at the universities. The opinion seems to be current, that, by introducing a branch of science on the school curriculum, the magic effect is to be won. To give children objects to handle, to see, to describe, and to puzzle over, is certainly an excellent discipline.

But the far-famed benefits to be derived from science do not centre there, nor is it with the methods of teaching science that fault is to be found. The methods have been carefully worked out: models, diagrams, specimens, excursions,— all are pressed into service; and, though the results of this world-wide scientific movement have been great beyond all expectation, one will readily accept the statement that elementary science-teaching excepting to elementary learners, children just beginning their school education-is not always gratifying work. To school-children who have already received their formative training, who have swallowed, perhaps digested to a greater or less extent, the usual doses of book-learning, whose minds have been set in the rut of an arbitrary bookish study method, the introduction of a science course often brings more pain than pleas

ure.

A case in point recently came under my notice. At a school for girls, an able and interesting lecturer gave a course in physiology. The lectures were illustrated, and well-directed efforts were made to make things clear. Recently an examination was held, and perhaps it will be worth while sampling some of the more characteristic answers to the questions then asked. The stomach is put in the chest,' or 'is covered by a muscular bag called the pericardium,' or 'is mostly on the left side, just south of the heart.' The authority for the last statement also showed an indignant surprise at being told that her heart was nothing but a muscle. Another anatomical fact not yet recognized by the text-books is that the scapula has no shape.' 'Capillaries are small particles in the blood,' or 'are depressions in the arteries, and they

change the fatty parts into blood. Some feats of swallowing and digesting are described. The food passes from the mouth through the blood to the stomach,' or 'is attracted downwards, and then your Adam's apple slips over it :' 'it passes first to the small, then to the large, intestine.' The surgery is also peculiar. When an artery is partly cut, you are advised to cut it open so as to prevent the loss of too much blood,' or 'to cut it entirely so as to allow it to coagulate.' The terms, too, are caught up inexactly and without definite ideas vains,' venus.' 'gaul,' 'color-bone,' 'clerical' (for cervical'), 'ablutions' (for 'albumen'), humerous' (for 'humerus'). By a peculiar association of ideas, the young lady responsible for the last innovation states that this bone is commonly called the 'crazy' bone.

6

On the whole, the answers were very good. Those given above are purposely selected for their peculiarity. The girls too, with some exceptions (mostly from twelve to sixteen years of age), took great interest in the subject. Nor is the school to blame. The early training of these girls was entirely opposed to these new methods of teaching. It is not the science that is strange to them; but there is a struggle going on in their minds parallel to the battle between the 'new' and the 'old' educationalists in the reviews. This leads to a confusion of thought, a muddled-headedness, which perhaps is the most characteristic feature of the above answers. The whole moral can be summed up in one phrase. It is not in the direction of science-teaching, but of scientific teaching (and that, too, from the cradle onward), that the future of education is to develop.

With the above experience fresh in mind, I came upon a second example of elementary scienceteaching, of a most ingenious kind. It is nothing less than an attempt to give to children an account of the physiology of the brain (Frank Bellew, St. Nicholas, February, 1886). The firm of Big Brain, Little Brain & Co.' tends to the business affairs of the body. The cerebrum is the administrative department. There the head of the firm, old Big Brain, sits at his desk surrounded by papers and all the appliances of a modern businessoffice. At one side is a telegraph-key to bones; on the other, pigeon-holes and register cases. Below him, on one side, is Little Brain, (the cerebellum), a little elf tending to the machine; on the other, the ganglia, or gang of five clerks on high stools. These put down the accumulated expenses of Big Brain, and do the book-keeping. One of the little band is in the office receiving an order from Big Brain. In the middle is the Bridge (Pons), keeping up a continual clatter of telegraph-keys, transmitting messages from one part of the brain to

another, in all directions; and still farther down is Medulla. He has charge of the life department, and keeps working the bellows, and running the fire of life. And through this allegory you are to 'know more about the contents of your knowledge-box than you did before.' Only a reading of the article itself, and an enjoyment of the grotesque illustration, will convey an idea of its extreme clearness; and, after such a reading, no excuse will be necessary for calling attention to this effort as an illustration of modern elementary scienceteaching. JOSEPH JASTROW.

TOTAL-ABSTINENCE TEACHING IN THE

SCHOOLS.

IN 1884 the legislature of the state of New York, in response to forty thousand petitions, passed an act by which all schools supported by public money or under state control are required to instruct their pupils in physiology and hygiene, "with special reference to the effects of alcoholic drinks, stimulants, and narcotics, upon the human system," and prohibiting the granting of a certificate to any person to teach in the public schools except after passing a satisfactory examination in physiology and hygiene with special reference to the effects of alcoholic drinks, etc. A similar law has been passed in at least fourteen states of the union. This action, it is claimed, is due to the Woman's Christian temperance union.

It was at one time questioned whether such a law was constitutional, and how far it could be enforced. The state superintendent, W. B. Ruggles, in a letter to Commissioner Perrigo, at Potsdam, says that it is the duty of the local school authorities to provide for such instruction; the duty of the teachers to give the instruction; and the duty of parents to cause their children to conform to the course of study in these subjects, as in any other studies prescribed under the law. He goes still further, in declaring that a persistent refusal of a pupil to receive instruction in physiology or hygiene may justify the school authorities in excluding such pupil from the benefits of the public schools. A similar question has arisen in reference to the vaccination law in the state of New York, passed in 1860. In that law the legislature distinctly authorizes and directs the exclusion from the public schools of children not protected from small-pox; and, so far as we know, this power and duty have never been abridged or questioned by the courts. It would seem, therefore, that the conditions under which children may participate in the benefits to be derived from being educated at the public expense are lawfully within the power of the legislature to prescribe,

provided always that constitutional provisions are not violated.

The immediate result of the passage of these compulsory laws has been to cause a remodelling of the text-books of physiology and hygiene in order to meet the requirements of the legislatures. Some of these have been but little changed, except to be enlarged by a few chapters on alcohol and tobacco; while others have been entirely rewritten with the special object of making them conform to the new demands. It is the opinion of at least one lawyer, reputed to stand high in his profession, that the main object of these statutes is to provide for scientific temperance instruction in the schools; that the use of works on physiology and hygiene is a mere method of accomplishing this result; and that any instruction which, while making physiology and hygiene its leading feature, only incidentally bears upon alcohol and narcotics, is not a compliance with the law, and therefore school authorities are only justified in using as text-books those which make the effects of alcoholic drinks, stimulants, and narcotics upon the human system their special object. If this opinion is correct, very many of the books which have been recommended for introduction into the schools since these compulsory laws were passed would be discarded, as they are primarily works on physiology and hygiene, and secondarily teach temperance. The number of books which have thus far appeared to meet the new demand exceeds twenty.

One of the most prominent temperance writers thus explains the failure of temperance movements hitherto, and points out what he thinks to be the hope of the future.

"The temperance efforts of the past failed because all temperance decrees proceeded from the sovereign, and were as changeable as his whims and caprices, and also because it was not known that alcohol was always a poison. The modern temperance movement is based on knowledge and on a sentiment of fellowship and fraternity. The great advance made in physiological science has been applied to the study of the effects of alcohol upon the human system, and from this the most beneficial results may be expected. Based upon the statement of Tschokke, that all laws are powerless for extinguishing an evil which has taken root in the life of the people, it is from the people itself that the reform of morals must proceed, but no government is strong enough to bring it about." 1

It is as yet too early to judge of the wisdom of this new departure. The teachers themselves must first be taught; and the movement towards

1 Gustafson, in The foundation of death.'

temperance reform will therefore practically begin in the normal schools, to spread thence to all the public schools throughout the various states in which these compulsory laws have been enacted. The receptivity of the young mind is greater than most persons are aware of; and while, at first thought, the instructions of pupils of the age of six years as to the effects of alcohol and tobacco would not seem to promise very great results, still more may be accomplished than would be anticipated. Inasmuch as the end aimed at, if reached, would contribute beyond all calculation to the prosperity and welfare of the human race, the experiment is one which should receive every aid and encouragement possible. It would not be strange if the enforcement of the law demonstrated defects: when these become evident, they can be remedied. If legislators passed no law until it was perfect, the country would be deprived of much useful and needed legislation.

NOTES AND NEWS.

D.

COMMISSIONER COLMAN of the agricultural department left for St. Louis on Monday to preside over the conventions of the National sugar association and the Mississippi valley dairymen's association, which are to be held this and next week. At the latter convention the commissioner proposes to show the delegates the progress he is endeavoring to make in the investigations of the adulteration of food, especially of dairy products. Professor Taylor, the microscopist of the department, who claims to have discovered an unfailing test for pure butter as compared with the counterfeit article, will be present, and by means of a magic lantern and a series of micro-photographs will explain the discoveries, and make an address. It is understood that the department is not ready to indorse these discoveries as being absolutely without question; but the commissioner thinks that the convention is entitled to such information as he can furnish, and that the country ought to have the benefit of such suggestions as Professor Taylor has to make.

- A letter from Panama, under date of Jan. 24, states that a government commission, consisting of Professor Rockstrock and Mr. Walker, has been sent from Guatemala to report upon the probability of an outbreak of the Pacaya volcano. The report of these gentlemen announces the total destruction of the village of San Vicente Pacaya. Some forty-four tiled-roof houses completely collapsed, making such a cloud of dust as to create a belief that a new crater had opened. The hot springs surrounding Lake Amatillan emit a larger volume of water, at a higher temperature, than

usual. The crater of Pacaya remains unchanged, while that of Fuego has been very lively.

The invention of Mr. Edison for sending and receiving messages on a moving train was successfully tested, Feb. 1, on the Staten Island railroad. The operator sat in the middle of the centre car of the train, before a desk furnished with a Morse telegraphic key. He held a telephone at each ear. Under the desk was a battery. From this a ground wire was connected with the car-axle and the rail. Another wire passed through the key and to the roof of the car, which was connected with the roofs of the other cars by short pieces of copper wire. Parallel with the railroad were the telegraph wires of the Baltimore and Ohio company. The induction between the metal roof and the telegraph wires was sufficient to allow of the reception by telephone of Morse signals.

- Professor Fuchs, in his twentieth annual report on the seismological events of 1884, gives 123 shocks of earthquakes, distributed in time as follows: winter, 57 (Dec., 19; Jan., 28; Feb., 10); spring, 24 (March, 13; April, 7; May, 4); summer, 21 (June, 5; July, 9; Aug., 7); autumn, 21 (Sept., 8; Oct., 1; Nov., 12). Those deserving individual mention are, March 24, in upper and central Slavonia, where in Diakovar and other places numerous buildings suffered injury; April 22, in England; May 13, in Crevassa, where a church and other buildings were destroyed; May 19, on the Persian Gulf, in which two hundred persons fell victims by the overthrow of their houses; Aug. 10, in the eastern United States; and the Spanish earthquakes in December. In regard to the last, Dr. Fuchs believes the centrum was not a point, but a line parallel to the Sierras Tejeda and Almijara ; nor does he think they were of greater importance than those of Belluno in 1873, of Agram in 1880, and of Chios in 1881. There was very little volcanic activity throughout the year, and that only in Aetna, Vesuvius, and St. Augustin, in Alaska.

- Mr. R. L. Harris has lately read a paper on two Daft electric motors, used on the Baltimore street-railways, before the American society of civil engineers: he reports both of these motors as being very successful in all weathers and conditions of the track. The grades are very steep for motors, reaching three hundred and thirty feet per mile in some places; nevertheless these motors have at no time failed to pull overloaded cars with perfect ease. These motors do the work of fifteen horses each, at an average daily running expense of $4.62 for fuel and attendance.

The recent experiments of the Franklin institute, upon incandescent and arc lights, give the

following averages : one pound of anthracite burned under a good boiler yields, in the incandescent system of lighting, about 40 candles; the same weight of coal gives from the naked arclight about 158 candles; ordinarily arc-lights are shaded so as to lose about one-half their intensity, so that only 80 candles per pound of coal are available; one pound of bituminous coal will yield from five to six cubic feet of illuminating-gas; this gas will, in the standard argand burner, yield from 14 to 17 candles. Illuminating-gas is burned at once in the simplest manner, and the amount of machinery and care required by electric lighting offsets its greater economy of fuel, light for light. There is little room for improvement in dynamos, but the most important economies will arise from more skilful use and design of the steam-engines required to drive the dynamos. The steam-engine, although much the senior of the dynamo in the list of inventions, is not nearly so well understood. It is but very recently that the laws of condensation and expansion of steam in the engine actually at work have been grasped, and our limitations so clearly defined as to point out the logical way to greater economies, and prevent us from attempting economy under impossible conditions.

-The photograph of the normal solar spectrum, made by Prof. H. A. Rowland at the Johns Hopkins university, Baltimore, is now complete from wave-length 3680 to 5790; and the portion above 3680 to the extremity of the ultra-violet, wave-length about 3100, is nearly ready. Negatives have also been prepared down to and including B, and it is possible they may be prepared for publication. The plates, seven in number, all contain two strips of the spectrum, except No. 2, which contains three. They are three feet long and one foot wide. These can now all be furnished to order except No. 2, the negative of which is being made. The plates will be delivered in Baltimore or New York, or will be sent by express or mail, securely packed, at the charge and risk of the purchaser, at the following net prices the set of seven plates, unmounted, $10; mounted on cloth, $12; single plates, $2 each; mounted on cloth, $2.25.

- A telegram from Guayaquil, of Jan. 20, announces that indications of an earthquake were observed in Chimbo contemporary with a renewed outbreak of the Cotopaxi volcano.

-There are good reasons for supposing that a bill will pass both houses of congress, appropriating fifteen thousand dollars annually to Cornell university for the establishment of an agricultural experiment-station at that institution.

- The Norwegian ship Ferdinand at Philadelphia reports that near midnight of Jan. 8, in latitude 38° 20′ north, longitude 71° 20′ west, during a severe storm of rain and wind, the night being very dark, all the yard-arms and mastheads were suddenly lighted up with St. Elmo's fire, having the appearance of bright lanterns. The phenomenon lasted about three minutes.

- The opening of the third electrical exhibition at St. Petersburg, which took place on Jan. 1, is attracting much attention among the people, especially that portion devoted to the telephone. The exhibition is said to be noteworthy for the novelty, variety, and number of its objects. For illumination, all the known systems of electrical lighting are employed.

- The Kölnische zeitung for Jan. 14 states that at the preceding meeting of the Vienna geographical society was announced the discovery, by Dr. Stapf, of a hitherto unknown lake in the Persian desert. The lake, according to Dr. Stapf, is at least forty kilometres long, and is probably of recent origin. According to information obtained from Mohammedan sources, it appears that the lake dried up after a previous existence, and later re-appeared. The water is to a very considerable degree alkaline.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

**♦ Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith.

The competition of convict labor.

The

THE two articles which have appeared in Science on this problem (vii. Nos. 153 and 155) by Mr. N. M. Butler treat this subject after the manner of that system or school of political economy which is taught in the colleges, and which rules in business. Its aim and end is profit. It is science for revenue only.' and it ignores morality or humanity. It judges all human activity by the standard of profitableness. In reference to this particular question, Mr. Butler formulates that stand-point very characteristically by the following initiatory axiomatic phrase: "That convicts should be employed, if possible, in a manner profitable to the state, is a proposition that no sane man controverts."

To be sure, any thing humane is sentimental nonsense to this school; and any thing so unbusinesslike' as the greatest of virtues, charity, is insanity. But this form of insanity' is increasing rapidly in the world, and developing a new school of political economy, whose central principle is to further the welfare of all men. From the stand-point of that school, a prison should not be a slave-pen for grinding out 'profit' to the state, but either a refuge for moral cripples or a school for those who lack the moral training necessary to make them good citizens.

About the cause of the agitation of this question among workingmen, Mr. Butler makes some state