FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



429 



owners to erect sea fish hatcheries on the 

 shores of their estates, and for rich mer- 

 chants to establish agriculture in neighbor- 

 ing estuaries, and so instruct the fishing popu- 

 lations, resuscitate declining industries, and 

 cultivate the barren shores, in all reasonable 

 probability to their own ultimate profit. 



The Sage School of Philosophy. The 



Sage School of Philosophy in Cornell Uni- 

 versity is devoted " to the free and unham- 

 pered quest and propagation of truth " in 

 regard to all those questions of human in- 

 quiry which are embraced by logic, psychol- 

 ogy, ethics, pedagogics, metaphysics, and the 

 history and philosophy of religion. Its aim 

 is to secare comprehensiveness and thorough- 

 ness. It is founded on an endowment by the 

 Hon. Henry W. Sage, the proceeds of which are 

 supplemented, when necessary, with appro- 

 priations from the general funds of the uni- 

 versity. Six scholarships and three fellow- 

 ships are open to graduates of Cornell and 

 other universities; four progressive courses 

 of study are given, corresponding with the 

 four years of the college course, and also 

 seminary courses in experimental psychol- 

 ogy, ancient and mediceval philosophy, mod- 

 ern philosophy, ethics, pedagogics, and the 

 history of religion. The students are further 

 free to select any of the courses given in the 

 university. A psychological laboratory is 

 attached to the institution; a philosophical 

 club has been formed ; and a periodical 

 the Philosophical Review is published under 

 the editorial direction of two of the professors, 

 assisted by their associates. 



Face-Reading. In the acquisition of the 

 art of speech-reading by sight, the eye of the 

 deaf pupil becomes accustomed to certain 

 positions of the organs of articulation, and 

 he thus learns to understand the spoken 

 words of others, although he does not hear 

 them. In teaching this art, Lillie Eginton 

 Warren has found that the forty odd sounds 

 of the English language are revealed in six- 

 teen outward manifestations or pictures, and 

 practice in following them as they rapidly 

 appear in a face enables us to understand 

 what is said. Some faces differ from others 

 in strength of expression, and thus many 

 show less action in the lower part. Never- 

 theless, there is in all persons a general ap- 



proach to a certain definite movement of 

 muscles, particularly when in animated con- 

 versation, and the trained eye notices what the 

 inexperienced one fails to discover. After at- 

 taining a degree of proficiency in this art of 

 expression-reading, persons seem to feel that 

 they hear instead of see the words spoken. 

 Reading our language in this way may be 

 said to be mastery of a new alphabet, the 

 rapidly moving letters or characters of which 

 are to be found upon the page of the human 

 countenance. 



A Dream of Railroad Development. 



Forecasting, in the Engineering Magazine, 

 the future of American railroading, Mr. H. 

 D. Gordon assumes that the lines on which 

 our inventors will have to do their work 

 hereafter seem to be far more clearly defined 

 than ever before. There is no engineering 

 reason why a speed of one hundred miles an 

 hour should not be maintained on fast trains ; 

 the objections are commercial rather than 

 technical. The chief obstacle lies in the 

 ponderous and wasteful mechanism needed 

 to generate the requisite amount of steam 

 under even the best methods. The remedy 

 may be found when electric energy can be 

 generated in a simpler and less expensive 

 manner than hitherto. In passenger trains 

 too many horse powers are needed to carry 

 each ticket-holder to his destination, and too 

 many hundredweight of dead material have 

 to be dragged along with him. Within the 

 carriage he is entitled to better ventilation 

 aad better light than he is apt to get, and 

 electricity is looked to to provide him with 

 both. Some benefit has been derived, and 

 much more may be reasonably expected, 

 from the experiments made in introducing 

 steel frames into cars, and otherwise improv- 

 ing their structural resistance to abnormal 

 shock or accident. Outside of the train, in 

 signaling, a considerable advance has al- 

 ready been made toward having the sema- 

 phore raised and lowered by directly applied 

 electric force; and the author anticipates 

 that it will not be many years before a train 

 may be seen through its successive blocks 

 by the glare of electric lights, leaving each 

 block in darkness as it enters and lights the 

 next. What has already been done in rail- 

 road invention in the United States is but an 

 earnest of what the future holds in reserve. 



