POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



715 



remedy which General Greely proposes is to 

 replace the second lieutenants in the Weather 

 Service by officers of higher rank, and that 

 future vacancies in the lowest rank of com- 

 missioned officers in the service shall be 

 filled by transfer from the line of the army. 

 This latter provision, by taking away hope 

 of promotion from the sergeants and pri- 

 vates, would deter able men from entering 

 the lower grades, and gaining the experience 

 necessary for filling the higher positions. 

 Moreover, the Weather Service has so ab- 

 sorbed the Signal Corps that the major-gen- 

 eral in command of the army is now urging 

 the formation of a special Signal Corps for 

 actual army purposes. Both these schemes 

 would involve additional expense, but the 

 transfer of the Weather Service to, say, the 

 Department of Agriculture, would secure the 

 same ends by leaving the present Signal Corps 

 free for signaling service, and allowing the 

 meteorological work to be put in charge of 

 scientific men instead of soldiers, while the 

 cost of the work would be lessened instead 

 of increased. 



Open-air Travel for Consumption. Dr. 

 Henry L. Bowditch has given the Climato- 

 logical Association an account of the treat- 

 ment which seems to have counteracted a 

 strong tendency to consumption in his own 

 family. In 1808 his father, then thirty-five 

 years old, was undoubtedly threatened with 

 consumption. On August 29th of that year, 

 when thus ill, he started from Salem, Mass., 

 with a friend as his companion and driver, in 

 an open one-horse chaise, for a tour through 

 New England. The trip lasted thirty days 

 and covered 748 miles. During that time 

 he passed from the deepest mental discour- 

 agement and physical weakness through all 

 stages of feeling up to a real enjoyment of 

 life. His journey, though benefiting him 

 immensely, probably did not wholly cure 

 him, but it proved to him the absolute need 

 he had of regular, daily, physical, open-air 

 exercise. Afterward, under walks of one 

 and a half to two miles, taken three times 

 daily, all pulmonary troubles disappeared. 

 He died, thirty years after the journey, from 

 carcinoma of the stomach, his lungs being 

 normal except that one presented evidences 

 of an ancient cicatrix at its apex. He pre- 

 scribed for his children the same regular 



out-of-door exercise which had been so ben- 

 eficial to him. As soon as they were old 

 enough they were required to take daily 

 morning walks of about a mile and a half. 

 If at any time they were observed to be 

 drooping, they were taken from school and 

 sent into the country to have farm-life and 

 out-of-door play to their hearts' content. In 

 consequence of this early instruction, all 

 his descendants have become thoroughly im- 

 pressed with the advantages of daily walk- 

 ing, of summer vacations in the country, and 

 of camping out, etc., among the mountains. 

 Dr. Bowditch's father had married his cousin, 

 who, after long invalidism, died of chronic 

 phthisis in 1834. Certainly a consanguine- 

 ous union of two consumptives foreboded 

 nothing but evil. Yet, of their eight chil- 

 dren, six are either now alive or they arrived 

 at adult age, married, and have had children 

 and grandchildren, but not a trace of phthisis 

 has appeared in any of these ninety-three 

 persons. Dr. Bowditch sees nothing but the 

 influence of out-of-door life to which this 

 immunity of his family from consumption 

 can be attributed. He has prescribed it, un- 

 der proper precautions, in his practice for 

 years, and says, in conclusion : " I have no 

 objection to drugs, properly chosen, and I 

 almost always administer them ; but if the 

 choice were given me to stay in the house 

 and use medicines, or to live constantly in 

 the open air without them, I should infinitely 

 prefer the latter course in case of my being 

 threatened with pulmonary consumption." 



Precious Stones in the United States. 



Mr. George F. Kunz's report on precious 

 stones to the United States Geological Sur- 

 vey's Division of Mining Statistics shows 

 that the industries of our country in that 

 line, though not very extensive, are more 

 considerably developed than they are gener- 

 ally known to be. The principal localities 

 where gems are sought for systematically 

 are at Mount Mica, Paris, Me., and Stony 

 Point, N. C. Considerable quantities of tour- 

 maline and other gems are produced at 

 Mount Apatite, Auburn, Me. Several locali- 

 ties in North and South Carolina and Ken- 

 tucky have been opened and are worked for 

 the production of zircon and several other 

 comparatively rare minerals which have been 

 looked on heretofore only as gems, but are 



