CORRESP ONDENCE. 



553 



tries are not yet surveyed, and some of the 

 surveys not yet patented.) Out of this sys- 

 tem endless confusion and litigation arose 

 in settling the disputed lines and overlap- 

 ping entries and surveys. 



This litigation was not wholly settled 

 until long after I came to the bar, in 1847, 

 and it was my fortune to be engaged in 

 many of these cases. In the trial of these 

 cases it very frequently became important 

 to show the date of the surveys These 

 dates were shown by the indorsement on the 

 survey itself, and corroborated by an ex- 

 amination of the hacks on the line and cor- 

 ner trees of the survey. These hacks in- 

 variably left a scar, which, to the practical 

 surveyor, was readily detected, even after a 

 lapse of sixty years. By "blocking" the 

 tree, as it was called, and taking the block 

 and counting the concentric rings, from the 

 hack made by the surveyor to the outside 

 of the tree, it invariably corresponded with 

 the dates as they appeared upon the returns 

 made by the surveyor, showing as many 

 rings as years had elapsed from the date of 

 the survey, thus proving that for each year 

 of the life of the tree an additional concen- 

 tric ring had been added. 



The prevailing timber was oak, in its 

 many varieties, and they were rarely marked 

 unless they were at least four inches and 

 upward in diameter. It will be very diffi- 

 cult to convince an old surveyor, or an old 

 lawyer who has tried many of these land 

 cases, that each concentric ring, on an oak- 

 tree at least, does not indicate a year's 

 growth only of such tree. 



Judge N. H. Swayne, late of the Su- 

 preme Court of the United States, but now 

 residing in New York city, practiced for 

 many years, before he was called to a seat 

 on the bench, in the Virginia military dis- 

 trict, and is familiar with these facts. If 

 you will drop a note to him, he will cor- 

 roborate me. P. C. Smith. 

 Cibcleville, Omo, January 8, 1S33. 



WOHLER AND "VITAL ENERGY." 

 Messrs. Editors: 



In the June issue of your magazine (vol. 

 xxiii, No. II), in the opening paragraph of 

 an article entitled "Darwin and Copernicus," 

 reference is made to Wohler as the " chemist 

 who by the first organic synthesis helped to 

 dispel the illusion of vital energy." Have 

 the artificial production of urea by synthe- 

 sis and subsequent achievements in that 

 line satisfied scientists that vital energy is 

 an illusion, or does Du Bois-Reymond so 

 characterize it upon the basis of his own 

 speculations and the conjecture of a school 

 of physicists ? If the non-existence of vital 

 energy has not been demonstrated beyond 

 question, does he not violate " scientific 

 candor" in his assertion? A well-known 



chemist, for several years pupil and assist- 

 ant of Wohler, familiar with his work, and 

 conversant with later chemical research, has 

 told me that in his judgment the expression 

 referred to above is unwarrantable. 

 Very respectfully, 



AusTrN B. Bassett, 

 Department of Physics, Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural College. 

 Amheebt, June 5, 18S3. 



TEACHING ENGLISH. 

 Messrs. Editors: 



Not long since the Board of Education 

 in this city decided to employ a teacher of 

 English and Elocution for their high-school, 

 one of the largest for places of equal size 

 in the country. But, although the Univer- 

 sity of Michigan, with its fourteen hundred 

 students, is situated here, no one could be 

 found among its graduates competent to 

 teach how to write the most important and 

 forcible of all languages, our own mother- 

 tongue, and at the same time speak it with 

 ease, grace, and the most artistic expression. 

 Hundreds are prepared to teach dead lan- 

 guages, none to write and speak the Eng- 

 lish, and hence a teacher had to be im- 

 ported. Herbert Spencer's question, " What 

 knowledge is of most worth ? " is very per- 

 tinent here. Why so much time on dead 

 languages, and none on speaking our own ? 



X. 



Ann Aeboe, Mich., June 26, 1S83. 



THE CASE OF THE DOG PLUTO. 

 Messrs. Editors: 



In your issue of the present month ap- 

 pears the article of Mr. Eugene N. S. Ringue- 

 berg, describing the strange actions of his 

 pointer Pluto. It seems to me a strained 

 explanation which attributes the conduct of 

 this dog, as described, to superstition or the 

 fear of ghosts, etc. 



In your number of April last was a pa- 

 per on " Perceptional Insanities," by Dr. W. 

 A. Hammond, and any person who has read 

 that article, or who is otherwise at all fa- 

 miliar with the subject of illusions and hal- 

 lucinations, must recognize the fact that all 

 which is related by Mr. Ringuebcrg is more 

 reasonably to be accounted for by suppos- 

 ing Pluto to have been a victim of percep- 

 tional insanity. 



The animals, sharing much with man 

 even as to mental or spiritual qualities, arc, 

 like him, subject to madness and insanity, 

 and there is no reason for supposing that 

 they do not occasionally suffer from decep- 

 tion of the senses. In the case of Pluto, 

 the first noticed attack followed immediate- 

 ly upon hearing the noise caused by the fall- 

 ing of a stick of wood in the stove behind 

 which the dog was sleeping. It seems prob- 



