544 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



desert, and swamp lands, a thorough inves- 

 tigation and classification of acreage of the 

 public domain are imperatively demanded. 

 The Committee, therefore, recommends that 

 Congress establish, under the Department 

 of the Interior, an independent organization 

 to be known as the United States Geological 

 Survey, to be charged with the study of the 

 geological structure and economic resources 

 of the public domain." And the Committee 

 recommends a discontinuance of the present 

 Geographical and Geological Surveys and 

 the present Land Surveys. " The effect of 

 the above changes," says the Committee, 

 "will be to maintain within the Interior 

 Department three distinct organizatians : 1. 

 The Coast and Interior Survey, whose func- 

 tion will embrace all questions of position 

 and mensuration ; 2. The United States 

 Geological Survey, whose function will be 

 the determination of all questions relating 

 to the geological structure and natural re- 

 sources of the public domain ; 3. The Land- 

 Office, controlling the disposition and sale 

 of the public lands, including all questions 

 of title and record. With this division 

 should be secured a perfect coordination 

 and cooperation between the three branches. 

 The Land-Office should call upon the Coast 

 and Interior Survey for all surveys and 

 measurements required for the sale and dis- 

 position of land. The Land-Office should 

 also call upca the United States Geological 

 Survey for all information as to the value 

 and classification of lands. The results of 

 all the mensuration surveys, as soon as com- 

 pleted, should be immediately available for 

 the Land-Office and for the Geological Sur- 

 vey, and for other branches of the Govern- 

 ment as required. The Geological Survey 

 should be authorized to execute local topo- 

 graphical surveys for special purposes, such, 

 for instance, as the subterraneous surveys of 

 mining districts and metallic deposits, etc." 



Hnxley on tlic Hand.— Professor Hux/ey 

 chose for the subject of a recent lecture at 

 the Workingmen's College, of which he is 

 President, the human hand. He looked on 

 the hand as not second in importance even 

 to the brain itself. He pointed out the 

 great diversity of operations for which man 

 is dependent on the hand, and observed how 

 it performs all its important functions by 



virtue of certain very simple facts in its 

 form of construction. He referred to that 

 famous work, Paley's " Natural Theology," 

 and the argument which it enforces — that 

 if a person were to find the whole machin- 

 ery of a watch he must needs infer from the 

 works of it that it must have been intended 

 to serve a certain purpose. But Professor 

 Huxley pointed out that, whatever the force 

 of the argument of analogy in the case of 

 the hand, it most assuredly does not apply 

 in the sense in which it was used by Paley, 

 because it can easily be shown that a man's 

 hand was not put together in that way, but 

 that it came about in quite a different man- 

 ner. It was not a process in any way anal- 

 ogous to human means of construction, be- 

 ing, in fact, as different from the latter as 

 the taking of a piece of iron and making it 

 into an engine differs from taking it and let- 

 ting it grow to an engine. This difference, 

 he remarked, is highly important, as show- 

 ing the danger of arguing from mere anal- 

 ogy — it shows that Paley's argument is not 

 consonant with fact. Paley could not con- 

 ceive that so complicated a structure as the 

 human frame might, as a matter of fact, be 

 developed or evolved by a purely natural 

 operation. 



Vehicles of Malaria. — Ague is commonly 

 supposed to be due to the entrance into the 

 system of a miasmatic organism. But no 

 microscopist has ever seen this organism, 

 neither can we account for the intermit- 

 tency of the ague-paroxysms, nor can we 

 say for certain through what medium it 

 finds an entrance into the system. The 

 majority of writers hold the opinion that 

 tlte air of marshes is the sole cause of in- 

 termittent fever. But there exists strong 

 evidence going to show that water, too, is a 

 carrier of the poison. Take, for instance, two 

 or three cases cited in the " Lancet " ; and, 

 first, the case recorded by Boudin, of three 

 vessels sailing from Algiers to Marseilles, 

 conveying eight hundred soldiers, who on 

 shore had all been exposed to the same at- 

 mospheric conditions. Two of these vessels 

 were supplied with good water, but the 

 third with water from a marsh. The two 

 former arrived at Marseilles without a sick 

 man, but the third ship lost thirteen men, 

 and had one hundred and twenty sick, nine- 



