750 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



be attempted on the Woodruff Expedition, 

 and the facilities therefor, I must premise : 

 first, that the published list of professors 

 does not include several who are expected 

 to conduct special departments of botany 

 and zoology ; second, that the faculty have 

 had no official conference, so that I can 

 speak only for myself. 



My own duties will include 1. General 

 lectures on the habits and structure of ver- 

 tebrates. These will be nearly free from 

 technicalities, so as to be intelligible to all. 

 2. Special mstruction of those who may 

 wish to go more deeply in certain directions ; 

 this by superintendence of dissections, and 

 occasional lectures. 3. Instruction in meth- 

 ods of collecting, preparing, and preserving 

 specimens. 4. Preparation of, and research 

 upon, embryos, brains, hearts, and other 

 soft parts, which are usually neglected by 

 foreign collectors. 



The students will provide their own dis- 

 secting instruments, cans, and preserva- 

 tives ; but, as stated on page 21 of the an- 

 nouncement, the management engages to 



furnish a library and apparatus for instruc- 

 tion. 



I understand such requisite apparatus 

 to include nets, dredges, and sounding ar- 

 rangements, chemical and physical instru- 

 ments, microscopes, diagrams, blackboards, 

 stereopticon, and the means of preserving 

 certain typical forms for illustration of lect- 

 ures. 



To insure the fulfillment of the promises 

 made in the announcement, the trustees are 

 to control the transfer of the fees to the 

 director. The trustees are also members of 

 the faculty, and their interests are therefore 

 identified with those of the students. 



From what I know or have heard of 

 those concerned in the management of the 

 expedition and the instruction, I feel confi- 

 dent that all possible facilities will be af- 

 forded for the acquisition of general infor- 

 mation, and for the pursuit of special lines 

 of investigation. 



Respectfully yours, 



Burt G. Wilder. 

 Ithaca, New Tokk, September 1, 1ST7. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



CARPENTER ON SPIRITUALISM. 



THE recent publication of Dr. Car- 

 penter's little volume entitled 

 " Mesmerism, Spiritualism, etc., His- 

 torically and Scientifically Considered," 

 has given a renewed impulse to the dis- 

 cussion of this subject, and called out 

 the strongest champions of the doctrines 

 assailed. We have been accused of un- 

 fairness in not opening the columns of 

 the Monthly for the spiritualists to 

 present their side of the question ; and 

 so we print two replies to Dr. Carpen- 

 ter, one English and the other Ameri- 

 can, by distinguished representatives of 

 the spiritualist party. In The Popular 

 Science Supplement, No, V., appears 

 the answer to him made by Mr. A. E. 

 Wallace, in the Quarterly Journal of 

 Science ; and in our present number 

 the reader will find an original con- 

 tribution, to the same purpose, by 

 Dr. J. R. Buchanan, well known for 

 the last thirty years as an eminent 

 investigator and expositor of the so- 

 called spiritualist phenomena. Dr. Bu- 

 chanan is one of those who objected 



to our editorial course on this question 

 as one-sided and unjust. Not liking 

 this imputation, we offered him space 

 in our pages to answer Dr. Carpenter. 

 He accepted the offer, and we fulfill 

 our promise. How far his article is to 

 be regarded as a reply to the reasoning 

 of Dr. Carpenter, or as convicting him 

 of error, will probably be a contested 

 question with different classes of read- 

 ers ; hut he has, at all events, given us 

 his very decided opinion of that gentle- 

 man, his book, and his backers. We 

 fear, however, that the critic has for- 

 gotten, for once, that denunciatory epi- 

 thets, however profuse and peppery, 

 are not arguments. Dr. Buchanan 

 seems to have vividly remembered all 

 the hard hits that he and his coadjutors 

 have received from scientific writers, 

 and is bent upon using the opportunity 

 to get even with them. This is laud- 

 able enough, within judicious limits; 

 yet incontinence of vituperation is a 

 symptom of weakness. Besides, some- 

 thing is due to self-respect; and if we 

 thought Dr. Carpenter was the silly, 



