7H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station. Bul- 

 letin Mo. 55. Fruit Testing. Pp. 32. 



Miller, S. A. North American Geology and 

 Paleontology. Cincinnati : The Author. Pp. 664. 



Minnesota State Board of Health. Public Health 

 in Minnesota. Pp. . 



Minerva Publishing Company. New York. The 

 Exegesis of Life. Pp. 192. 50 cents. 



Myers, J. H. The Myers American Ballot Ma- 

 chine. Pp. 20. 



North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station. 

 Technical Bulletin No. 1. 



Ostrom. Kurre W. Massage and the Original 

 Swedish Movements. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, 

 Son & Co. Pp. 97. 75 cents. 



Parker, Francis W., Chicago. Report of the 

 Principal of the Cook County Normal School. Pp. 

 16. 



Eibot, Th. The Psychology of Attention. Chi- 

 cago : Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 121. 

 75 cents. 



Scudder, S. H. Work of a Decade on Fossil In- 

 sects. Pp. 9. 



Sickels, Ivin, M. D. Exercises in Wood-working. 

 New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 158. 



Truth-Seeker Annual for 1890. New York : 

 Truth-Seeker Company. Pp. 115. 25 cents. 



Tennessee State Board of Health Bulletin. Vol. 

 V, No. 5. Nashville. Pp.16. 25 cents a year. 



Texas, University of, Bulletin. December, 1889. 

 Pp. 39. 



Thayer, David. Aerial Railway for the Explora- 

 tion of the Polar Zone, etc. Boston : Alfred Mudge 

 & Son. Pp. 7, with Plate. 



Treat, Rev. Charles R., New York. Sanitary En- 

 tombment. Pp. 22. 



Vick's Floral Guide, 1890. Rochester, N. Y. : 

 James Vick. Pp. 90. 



Walker, Francis A. First Lessons in Political 

 Economy. New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 323. 



Washburn College Laboratory of Natural His- 

 tory. Bulletin. Topeka, Kansas. Pp. 4. 



West, James H.. Editor and Publisher. " The 

 New Ideal." Monthly. Boston. Pp. 48. 20 cents. 

 $2 a year. 



Wilson, Samuel. Annual Price List and Cata- 

 logue (Seeds and Plants) for 1890. Mechanicsville, 

 Bucks County, Pa. Pp. 112. 



Wisconsin, Natural History Society of. Occasion- 

 al Papers (Spiders). Pp. 113. 



Younsr. Prof. Charles A. Elements of Astronomy. 

 Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp. 430 + 42, with Maps. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



The Fnturc of our Weather Service. 



Everybody has been noticing that more and 

 more of our official weather predictions turn 

 out wrong, and in the hope of restoring their 

 former efficiency several bills have been in- 

 troduced into Congress within the last few 

 years for transferring the Weather Service 

 from the War Department to a civil bureau. 

 The reasons for such a change, as stated in 

 a pamphlet sent to us by Mr. H. H. Clayton, 

 are that military regulations hamper the 

 scientific work of the bureau, and cause 

 civilians, who have joined the service from 

 aptitude for science, to resign. The abler 

 military men, also, seeing no hope of pro- 



motion in the Signal Corps, generally pre- 

 fer the line. The natural result has been 

 that, as General Greely reports, the service 

 is full of incompetents, and the percentage 

 of successful weather predictions has de- 

 creased in the last five or six years from 

 eighty-seven to seventy-six per cent. Dur- 

 ing the same time the weather service in 

 European countries has been steadily gain- 

 ing in efficiency. The objections to the 

 transfer are : First, that military control is 

 claimed to secure superior promptness, accu- 

 racy, and continuity of record, which is met 

 by the statement that the European weather 

 services are entirely civilian, and our own 

 depends for some of its data upon observa- 

 tions telegraphed by civilian observers from 

 about twenty stations in Canada. Second, it 

 is claimed that only military discipline could 

 keep men in disagreeable or dangerous 

 places ; but civilian observers are found to 

 man the Canadian meteorological outposts in 

 Manitoba, and the mountain-peak stations 

 in Europe. Third, it has been urged that 

 the cost of the weather service would be in- 

 creased by civilian control ; but our military 

 weather service costs more than the civilian 

 services of all the governments of Europe 

 put together. The appropriations are now 

 about $900,000 a year, and some considera- 

 ble reduction that has been made in the cost 

 during the last few years has been due to 

 the employment of civilian aid. Fourth, it 

 has been urged that the military training of 

 the observers would be of value in case of 

 war ; but if this argument is valid, the postal 

 service and all the other Government de- 

 partments should be put under military con- 

 trol. A fifth objection is, that in a civil 

 bureau the appointments would be controlled 

 by political influence. But with the protec- 

 tion of the civil service rules, it is probable 

 that the bureau would be at least as free 

 from favoritism as the army is. It has also 

 been objected that the Government would 

 be breaking its contract with the men of the 

 Signal Corps if they were transferred to a 

 civil bureau. But this difficulty could be 

 met by allowing the military men now in the 

 bureau to choose whether they would go 

 with the Weather Service or stay with the 

 Signal Corps. The chief signal officer is even 

 better aware of the defects of the Weather 

 Service than any outside critic. But the 



