FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



287 



body of justice doctrine the iufluence of 

 kinship in legal evolution. "In point of 

 historical development intestate inheritance 

 precedes testamentary succession. The con- 

 ception of a will as a means of disinheriting 

 children and devolving an estate in accord- 

 ance with the excessive partiality, fleeting 

 caprice, or malignant temper of the testator, 

 is a conception of our modern times, and 

 was not familiar to the jurisprudence of 

 primitive antiquity. In fact, ancient law re- 

 garded a will as a means of perpetuating the 

 family in a succeeding generation by nomi- 

 nating a new chief on whom the headship 

 was to be devolved. Little power of free 

 testamentary alienation was recognized. The 

 patriarch was more like a trustee or steward 

 of common possessions belonging to the 

 family than an original proprietor. He could 

 not do as he saw fit with what seemed to 

 be his. Often a son, on coming of age, 

 could compel his father to make a partition 

 of the family holdings, as suggested by Je- 

 sus's parable of the prodigal son. 



The ninth of the series of annual ab- 

 stracts of the Linnican Society of New 

 York contains a paper on the Fishes of the 

 Fresh and Brackish Waters in the Vicinity 

 of New York City, by Eugene Smith. Mr. 

 Smith has found fifty native, eleven intro- 

 duced, and twelve probably occurring native 

 species, belonging to fifty-four genera and 

 twenty-four families, showing that while the 

 immber of species is not large, tlie families 

 are well represented. None of the species 

 are limited to a small area of near-by coun- 

 try. " The fresh-water species of New Eng- 

 land and of the Maritime Provinces as far as 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence are nearly all found 

 with us, the exceptions being mostly the 

 absence here of the more northern salmonids. 

 Our vicinity represents a sort of border land 

 between the very restricted fish fauna of the 

 New England ' Zoological Island,' as Agas- 

 siz called it, and the far richer fauna encoun- 

 tered in the Delaware basin immediately to 

 the west of us," with a few fishes that prop- 

 erly belong to the eastern Carolina basin. 



A SINGULAR lithological formation is de- 

 scribed by Prof. Persifor Frazer as exhibited 

 by the ore in the Coletta mines of the North- 

 ern Black Hills of South Dakota. Uneven 

 lenticular masses of ore have been deposited 



on the upper surface of the quartzite, sug- 

 gesting a resemblance to sausages strung 

 together by slender strings. The masses lie 

 approximately in the same plane at intervals 

 of thirty or forty feet, parallel with each 

 other, and are intersected by other similar 

 masses at right angles, the richness and 

 quantity of the ore being increased at the 

 junction. These corrugations, as they are 

 called, are broad and shallow masses from 

 five to twelve feet wide and from eight inches 

 to three feet thick. Where they are united 

 end to end, or at the parts analogous to the 

 connecting string of the sausages, the rock 

 becomes sandy and free gold is found. The 

 strange formation is supposed to be caused 

 by the existence of furrows or troughs in the 

 surface of the quartzite in which the con- 

 tents of the metalliferous solutions were de- 

 posited, but what caused the depressions is 

 not clear. 



NOTES. 



A two-weeks' Summer School of Sociol- 

 ogy, Economics, and Politics will be held at 

 Svracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y., June 

 27th to July 9th, when seven hours of class- 

 room work each day — five lectures and a 

 conference of two hours — for eleven days, 

 will be given ; with a sermon by an eminent 

 minister on the Sunday, both dealing with 

 the religious bearings of present-day social 

 movements. The lecture courses will be 

 given by John R. Commons, professor of 

 sociology, on Social Philosophy ; Chaiities, 

 Inebriety, Crime, and Child Serving, and City 

 Government; and by Dr. J. H. Hamilton, 

 professor of political economy, on Industrial 

 Problems and Money and Banking. A Co- 

 operative Boarding Club will be organized, by 

 the aid of which and other means of reducing 

 expenses the whole cost of sojourn at the 

 school, including tuition charges will not be 

 more than $14. Inquiries may be addressed 

 to J. H. Hamilton, 306 Waverly Place, 

 Syracuse, N. Y. 



At the summer quarter of the West 

 Virginia University, Morgantown, beginning 

 July 1st and continuing twelve weeks, the 

 teaching of sociology and allied subjects will 

 be a prominent feature. The quarter will be 

 divided into two terms of six weeks each, of 

 which students may enter either or for any 

 part of the quarter. Dr. Lester F. Ward will 

 give two courses of class lectures on Pure 

 and on Applied Sociology, and four public 

 lectures. Prof. J. H. Hamilton, of Syracuse 

 University, will deliver two courses on Money 

 and Bankintr, and on Industrial Problems 

 (July 11th to August 13th). Prof. J. H. 

 Raymond will deliver two full courses through 

 the quarter on the Piinciples of Economics 



