no 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



TO OUR PATRONS. 



SIX volumes of The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly are now published, 

 and with this number it enters upon its 

 fourth year. We remind our friends 

 of this, that they may renew their sub- 

 scriptions, and we trust they will urge 

 their neighbors to join them in taking 

 the Monthly, as thereby it may be ob- 

 tained at a cheaper rate. The public 

 press has been saying these three years 

 that this is the most valuable and in- 

 structive magazine in the country. Yet 

 our subscription list by no means com- 

 ports with such a standard of excel- 

 lence ; for the best thing ought certainly 

 to be the best sustained. Although our 

 circulation is fair, it is still far behind 

 that of those periodicals which leave 

 science out or consign it to the depart- 

 ment of scraps. Let no one suppose 

 that in helping this Monthly to new 

 readers they are ministering to a specu- 

 lation; the time is a long way off when 

 a first-class scientific magazine will en- 

 rich anybody. We have before us the 

 more urgent question of making the 

 Monthly pay moderate prices for the 

 work that is done on it, and earn the 

 means of its own improvement objects 

 which can be secured exactly in pro- 

 portion as it is sustained by the public. 

 It should be remembered that The 

 Popular Science Monthly stands alone 

 in doing a special and important work. 

 It was not started merely to add another 

 to the list of magazines, the chief of 

 which are so nearly alike that they are 

 mutually replaceable ; but it was started 

 to furnish a very different magazine 

 from any the people could get. In so 

 far as our age is an age of ideas, the first 

 great fact about it undoubtedly is, the 

 ascendency of science as a power that 

 is moulding the mind of the period. 



The extension of scientific knowledge 

 is affecting all the interests of society. 

 Agriculture, the manufacturing arts, 

 locomotion, the physical conditions of 

 health, the economy of the vital and 

 mental powers, are all influenced by it 

 to a degree never before experienced. 

 These are confessedly within the circle 

 of interests embraced by science, but 

 that circle is steadily enlarging. Higher 

 questions are being constantly brought 

 under scientific treatment. To this 

 great movement of thought character- 

 istic of the time, our periodicals gave 

 no adequate expression ; and it there- 

 fore became necessary to begin a mag- 

 azine that would put its readers in hon- 

 est possession of the broadest conclu- 

 sions of scientific study, as well as the im- 

 mediate results of experimental research. 

 Without being an organ of propagand- 

 ism, or representing any clique or school 

 of doctrine, we shall continue, as we 

 have done, to give the fresh facts and 

 the advanced conclusions of science, 

 and we ask the earnest cooperation of 

 all who sympathize with this work. 



LACTOMETRY AND MORALS. 



There is an old disagreement be- 

 tween society and the milkman. The 

 latter is alleged to be depraved, and, as 

 a consequence, to adulterate his mEk 

 with water. Ethical considerations do 

 not seem to influence him. Though 

 commanded to sell unto others only 

 such milk as he Avould have others sell 

 unto him, he prefers what he considers 

 as a still more golden rule. 



Now, we are inclined to regard the 

 milkman with becoming charity. We 

 cannot believe that he is a sinner above 

 all other men. What he needs more than 

 any thing else is, to be delivered from 



