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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



enforcement of easy precautions. The cost 

 is reducible to a very small amount by means 

 of the modern appliances. " In the im- 

 proved furnaces of to-day the body does not 

 come in contact with the fire at all, only 

 with an intense heat of 2000 or more. At 

 this temperature the body simply withers 

 away into a pure white ash. The gases gen- 

 erated are burned in a separated chamber 

 adapted to the purpose, and no smoke, odor, 

 or other unpleasant phenomena occur, to 

 offend the sensibilities of any one, be they 

 ever so acute. To attain these nearly per- 

 fect results, of course, costs money. The fur- 

 nace can not be erected in this country for 

 less than from three to five thousand dollars 

 a mere bagatelle compared with the cost 

 of some of our cemeteries. The fuel neces- 

 sary to attain this high temperature, with 

 the necessary attendance, makes the ex- 

 penses of the incineration of a single body 

 about fifteen dollars. The apparatus used 

 by the Danish society at Copenhagen effects 

 the cremation in about an hour, and costs 

 only from five to seven shillings. After all, 

 the costliness of cremation does not seem to 

 be such a very great objection. Of course, 

 if we are forced to send the body to Wash- 

 ington, Pennsylvania, to Milan, to Padua, 

 or any other of the existing crematories, the 

 privilege is placed beyond the means of any 

 but the rich. But when the crematories are 

 more numerous and accessible, as they no 

 doubt soon will be, the necessity for an ex- 

 pensive lot in an expensive cemetery, an ex- 

 pensive casket, and all the pride, pomp, and 

 circumstance of a funeral d la mode, may be 

 dispensed with." 



Instruction in Physics. The quality 

 and best methods of education in physics 

 may be stated as the subject of the address 

 of Vice-President Mendenhall before Section 

 B of the American Association at its recent 

 Montreal meeting.* Presupposing that the 

 diffusion of information, or instruction, is an 

 important means of advancing science wor- 

 thy of a place by the side of original re- 

 search, and that teaching should be accom- 

 panied not taking the place of it or sur- 

 rendering itself to it by experimental work, 

 he suggests that quantitative work, and that 

 the best possible under the circumstances, 



* Printed at the Salem Press, Salem, Massa- 

 chusetts. 



should occupy the attention of the student, 

 while illustrative experiments and the quali- 

 tative work necessary to a good understand- 

 ing of the subject should be relegated to the 

 lecture-table of the instructor. That which 

 the pupil gets which is of most worth in his 

 course in a physical laboratory is not a fa- 

 miliarity with the principles of the science, 

 but a training in the methods of investiga- 

 tion in use among physicists, including a 

 knowledge of the use and abuse of experi- 

 ment and the necessary limits of our knowl- 

 edge derived therefrom. The study which 

 he ought to make of errors, instrumental 

 and accidental, will be of great value in va- 

 rious fields. It is better for the laboratory 

 to contain a few instruments of precision 

 than a large number of inferior performance 

 and accuracy. It is not a matter of great 

 importance upon what particular department 

 of physics a student shall spend his time 

 and strength. The underlying principles of 

 the method are common to all, and skill in 

 one begets facility in the others. To sum 

 up, the course of study in physics for the 

 undergraduate collegian should include a suf- 

 ficient training in mathematics to enable 

 him to apply his knowledge with ease and 

 facility to the more common physical prob- 

 lems; a thorough and exacting course of text- 

 book and lecture-work, in which the appli- 

 cation of his mathematical knowledge would 

 be made, and during which all illustrative 

 experiments necessary to a complete under- 

 standing of the text should be exhibited by 

 the instructor from the lecture-table; and, 

 finally, this to be supplemented by a course 

 in the laboratory in which more attention is 

 paid to the quality than to the quantity of 

 work done ; during which every problem is 

 discussed, as far as possible, both mathe- 

 matically and experimentally, and especial 

 attention is given to the discussion of the 

 results of experiment and of the more ele- 

 mentary portions of the theory of errors. 

 " Considering the work as thus divided into 

 three parts," says Professor Mendenhall, "I 

 am unable to see which is the least essen- 

 tial." 



Work for Amateur Astronomers. Pro- 

 fessor Edward C. Pickering, of the Harvard 

 College Observatory, invites amateurs who 

 have small telescopes to the observation of 

 the variable stars, and assures them that by 



