POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



427 



zations ; three thousand voluntary observers 

 are furnishing monthly reports of daily ob- 

 servations of temperature and rainfall ; and 

 over eleven thousand persons assist in the 

 work of distributing the weather forecasts 

 of the National Weather Service. This lat- 

 ter work has been more rapidly pushed dur- 

 ing the past year than any other feature of 

 State Weather Service work. With the con- 

 tinuation of the present liberal policy toward 

 these services there will be in a compara- 

 tively short time no important agricultural 

 community in the United States, with the 

 proper mail facilities, that will not receive 

 the benefits of the forecasts. 



The INatare of Scientific Trnth. The 



evidence, and the only evidence, to which 

 science appeals or which it admits, said Dr. 

 Brinton in his presidential address before 

 the American Association, is that which it 

 is in the power of every one to judge, that 

 which is furnished directly by the senses. 

 It deals with the actual world about us, its 

 objective realities and present activities, and 

 does not relegate the inquirer to dusty prece- 

 dents or the moldy maxims of commenta- 

 tors. The only conditions that it enjoins are 

 that the impei'fections of the senses shall be 

 corrected as far as possible, and that their 

 observations shall be interpreted by the laws 

 of logical induction. Its aims are distinctly 

 beneficent. Its spirit is that of charity and 

 human kindness. From its peaceful vic- 

 tories it returns laden with richer spoils 

 than ever did warrior of old. Through its 

 discoveries the hungry are fed and the 

 naked are clothed by an improved agricul- 

 ture and an increased food supply ; the dark 

 hours are deprived of their gloom through 

 methods of ampler illumination ; man is 

 brought into friendly contact with man 

 through means of i-apid transportation ; sick- 

 ness is diminished and pain relieved by the 

 conquests of chemistry and biology; the 

 winter wind is shorn of its sharpness by 

 the geologist's discovery of a mineral fuel ; 

 and so on, in a thousand ways, the comfort 

 of our daily lives and the pleasurable em- 

 ployment of our faculties are increased by 

 the administrations of science. Scientific 

 truth has likewise this trait of its own it is 

 absolutely open to the world ; it is as free 

 as air, as visible as light. There is no 



such thing about it as an inner secret, a 

 mysterious gnosis, shared by the favored 

 few, the select illuminati, concealed from 

 the vulgar horde, or masked to them under 

 ambiguous terms. Wherever you find mys- 

 tery, concealment, occultism, you may be 

 sure that the spirit of science does not dwell, 

 and, what is more, that it would be an 

 unwelcome intruder. Such pretensions be- 

 long to pseudo-science, to science falsely so 

 called, shutting itself out of the light be- 

 cause it is afraid of the light. 



A Lesson concerning Epidemics. An 



epidemic of typhoid fever which prevailed 

 in Buffalo, N. Y., in March, 1894, is the sub- 

 ject of a contribution by Prof. S. A. Latti- 

 more to the Rochester Academy of Science. 

 A noteworthy feature of the pestilence is 

 that it prevailed in those parts of the city 

 that draw from the water supply, while those 

 parts to which the supply system had not 

 extended and depended on wells were ex- 

 empt from it. The source of the disease 

 was therefore looked for in the water sup- 

 ply. This is pumped from the Niagara River 

 at such a distance from the shore as is sup- 

 posed to make sure against contamination by 

 sewage. There is, however, a secondary in- 

 let which sewage may reach, but which is 

 usually closed. During the latter part of 

 February the winds blew in such a way as to 

 force the water of the river back, making it 

 so low at the pumping station that the quan- 

 tity entering the tunnel was not sufficient 

 for the maintenance of an adequate pres- 

 sure. The secondary inlet was opened, and 

 the fever began. Upon analysis of the water 

 the typhoid bacillus was found in it. The 

 exclusive supply from the crib in the middle 

 of the river was resumed, the reservoir and 

 pipes were washed out and disinfected, and 

 the epidemic ceased. Prof. Lattimore draws 

 from the incident a forcible lesson on the 

 necessity of avoiding the pollution of lakes 

 and rivers on which cities and districts may 

 be dependent for supplies. "Has a city," 

 he asks, " any more right than a private citi- 

 zen to render itself a nuisance by discharg- 

 ing its waste upon their [its neighbors'] prop- 

 erty, and rendering odious, if not dangerous, 

 the air they must breathe and the water they 

 must drink ? Is it a premature question to 

 ask if the time has not almost come when 



