FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



429 



ian, Mr. Scudder says, has numerous close- 

 ly related allies in all parts of the United 

 States, many of which often abound to such 

 an extent as to do serious damage to crops, 

 and a few of them have been known to mi- 

 grate in a similar fashion to the Rocky 

 Mountain species. The Melanopli are almost 

 exclusively an American group. A single 

 genus is represented in the Old World, north 

 of 35^ north latitude. With that exception, 

 almost all the genera and species of grass- 

 hopper are in North America ; although four 

 genera, not described by Mr. Scudder, with 

 twenty-four species, are found in South 

 America. Eleven of the North American 

 genera, with nineteen species, live exclusive- 

 ly in Central America and Mexico, passing the 

 border of the United States only narrowly, 

 and these countries also make two South 

 American species at home. Six genera 

 range over twenty degrees of latitude ; two 

 are known only in Florida. Most of the 

 genera are Western ; four are peculiar to the 

 Mississippi Yalley ; three are found on oppo- 

 site sides of the continent, and are therefore 

 presumed to range over the whole of it ; five 

 are characteristic of the extreme West ; and 

 four are confined, or nearly so, to the region 

 north of latitude 3.5". For the purpose of 

 his essay, Mr. Scudder examined nearly eight 

 thousand specimens, of which about seven 

 thousand belonged to the single genus Me- 

 lanoplus. 



The Invention of Printing. — From a 

 recent numl>er of The Chap Book we learn 

 that the much-discussed question of who in- 

 vented printing has been recently reopened 

 by Gilliodts-van-severen, curator of the Ar- 

 chives of Bruges, who claims that a Jean 

 Brito, of Bruges, printed from movable types 

 before Gutenberg or Coster. The volume 

 on which this claim is based, which is now in 

 the Biblioth^que National at Paris, is an edi- 

 tion of the Doctrinal of Jean Gerson, the cel- 

 ebrated chancellor of the University of Paris, 

 who died in 1429. There is no date on the 

 volume, but on the last page are some Latin 

 verses, the literal translation of which is 

 something as follows : " Notice the beauty 

 of this present writing ; compare this work 

 with other works ; put this book by the side 

 of another book ; see with what neatness, 

 with what care, with what elegance, this 



impression is made by Jean Brito, bourgeois 

 of Bruges, who discovered without teaching 

 from any one his marvelous art, and as well 

 his astonishing implements, no less worthy 

 of admiration." In ITYS the Abbe Ghes- 

 quiere called attention to these verses, but 

 the two schools of Mayence and Haarlem, 

 which had narrowed the controversy down 

 to Gutenberg and Coster, refused to admit a 

 third competitor. M. Gilliodts-van-severen, 

 who has reopened the controversy, has writ- 

 ten a large volume on Brito. He has dis- 

 covered many new documents in support of 

 the lattcr's rights and much interesting mat- 

 ter concerning his life. 



Women opposed to Woman Snffrage. — 



The energetic pressure of the agitation in 

 favor of woman suffrage has met its natural 

 reaction in the organization of women op- 

 posed to having the duty of voting thrust 

 upon them. An association of this kind was 

 formed in Massachusetts about fifteen years 

 ago and had the satisfaction of seeing a 

 woman-suffrage measure defeated by popular 

 vote in 1895. The New York State Associa- 

 tion opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to 

 Women was formed in April, 1896, and now 

 has a standing committee of more than one 

 hundred women, twenty thousand members, 

 and branches in some of the large cities. 

 The Illinois association, formed in May, 1897, 

 has issued a circular defining the position 

 and motives of the women who have taken 

 this stand, and answering some of the argu- 

 ments that have been put forward in favor 

 of woman suffrage. Exclusion from the 

 franchise, the circular says, does not imply 

 inferiority, but division of qualities. " A 

 little reflection shows that the kind of intelli- 

 gence which the lawmaker should possess, 

 the knowledge of the practical things of the 

 outside world, such as currency, banking, the 

 franchises granted to corporations, the gen- 

 eral control of vast commercial and manu- 

 facturing interests, with other details of 

 practical life, not easily enumerated, are af- 

 fairs which lie almost wholly within the do- 

 main of man, and which it would be a sad 

 waste of energy for women in general to be- 

 come familiarly acquainted with. . . . Does 

 it therefore follow that women are on the 

 whole inferior to men ? By no means. In 

 her own domain, which includes the most 



