792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gains to the people at large offer an inducement to capital, while 

 the many considerations of health and morals oft'er men who de- 

 sire to use their means for the benefit of their kind an opportunity 

 that has not existed in the past. From my knowledge of some of 

 the men who have been foremost in projecting lines of rapid tran- 

 sit, but who have been accused of doing it for entirely selfish 

 motives, I learn that public benevolence has influenced them to a 

 sufficient extent to induce them to take the great risks which are 

 apparently involved. I believe that could the real, underlying 

 patriotism of such men be known, and the confidence of the public 

 in their willingness to do work for the public benefit gained, the 

 solution of the rapid transit problem would be much easier. 



Capital is securing less and less margin of profit through its 

 investments, whether in manufacturing or in other enterprises. 

 The capitalist is satisfied with a safe and sure return of from 

 three to five per cent, and the spirit of altruism, which seems to 

 be growing more and more rapidly among our millionaires, and 

 which is leading them to the establishment of great institutions 

 for public good, will lead them ultimately to such operations as 

 those essential to secure the best results of rapid transit. Private 

 capital, encouraged and protected by public sentiment and mu- 

 nicipal enactments, may be capable of solving this problem. If it 

 is not, then public sentiment, interested in the welfare of the peo- 

 ple at large, not only from an economic point of view, but from 

 sanitary and ethical considerations, will insist uj3on a public solu- 

 tion of the question. It is an important study, and the officers of 

 the eleventh census are entitled to great credit for their efforts to 

 bring out the partial results they have published, and, later, to 

 give to the country the full data relative to rapid transit in cities. 



In a piiper on the Meteorological Results of the Challenger Expedition in rela- 

 tion to Physical Geography, Mr. Alexander Biichan expresses the conclusion that 

 the isobaric maps show in the clearest and most conclusive manner that the dis- 

 tribution of the pressure of the earth's atmosphere is determined by tlie geographi- 

 cal distribution of land and water, in their varying relation to the heat of tlie sun 

 through the months of the year ; and since the relative pressure determines the 

 direction and force of the prevniling winds, and these, in their turn, the temper- 

 ature, moisture, and rainfall, and in a very great degree the surface currents of 

 the ocean, it is evident that there is here a principle apidicable, not merely to the 

 present state of the earth, but also to different distributions of land and water in 

 past times. In truth, it is only by the aid of this principle that any rational at- 

 tempt, based on causes having a purely terrestrial origin, can be made toward the 

 explanation of those glacial and warm geological epochs through which tlie cli- 

 mates of northern countries have passed. Hence the geologist must familiarize 

 himself with the nature of these climatic changes, which necessarily result from 

 different distributions of land and water, especially those changes which influence 

 most powerfully the life of the globe. 



