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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ISTS, and was so accounted for — may occur 

 when buzzards, having gorged themselves 

 with carrion, disgorge it as they fly in the 

 air. " Thus easily " — in the Kentucky case 

 it was the flesh of a horse, and the buzzards 

 were seen — " was a modern prodigy disposed 

 of ; and quite as rationally, we now see, might 

 we dispose of all ancient prodigies which were 

 not mendacious fabrications, if only we could 

 catechise witnesses and apply scientific meth- 

 ods to the examination of such facts as were 

 found to remain." 



Stndy out of School. — On the question 

 of study out of school-hours, Mr. L. W. Par- 

 ish, of the Iowa State Teachers' Associa- 

 tion, maintains that education should look 

 to the most natural, complete development 

 of physical, mental, and moral qualities. 

 Neither side should be preferred at the ex- 

 pense of another, but all three should be 

 developed baud in hand. To secure the 

 proportionate and therefore most effective 

 training of the intellectual powers, little or 

 nothing is required, during the first three 

 or four years of school-life, which a skillful 

 and faithful teacher can not accomplish 

 without forcing book-work upon the chil- 

 dren during the evening hours, or during the 

 time that belongs of right to physical devel- 

 opment, or the performance of home duties. 

 But, that the work may be done thus, unfa- 

 vorable circumstances must be removed, and 

 both pupil and teacher must do their parts. 

 The pupil must be regular and industrious, 

 and the teacher must show herself mistress 

 of the best methods of presenting topics of 

 instruction. On account of some irregular 

 and unwholesome influences operating upon 

 8chools, more out-of-school study than is 

 necessary or good is demanded, but an in- 

 telligent co-working of teachers, parents, 

 physicians, and the local press ought to 

 cause a steady decrease of it, and an in- 

 crease in systematic physical and moral 

 training. 



Tlie Soarth for the Traus-lVcptnnian 

 Planet.— 5Ir. David P. Todd, of the Law- 

 rence Observatory, Amherst, Massachusetts, 

 has published a memoir on his search for 

 the trans-Neptunian planet. He uses the 

 definite article — the — in speaking of this 

 body, hypothetical though it still may be, 



because he regards the evidence of its exist- 

 ence as well-founded, while, during all the 

 time he has been engaged in the search of 

 it, nothing has weakened his conviction of 

 its existence in about that part of the sky 

 he has assigned to it. The independent re- 

 searches in cometary perturbations by Pro- 

 fessor Forbes have furthermore conducted 

 him to a result identical with Mr. Todd's — 

 a coincidence, it is suggested, not to be 

 lightly set aside as pure accident. That 

 five years have elapsed since this coinci- 

 dence was remarked, and the planet is still 

 unfound, docs not make it evident that the 

 existence of the planet is merely fanciful, 

 for the particular spot in which its presence 

 is suspected has received very little scrutiny 

 with telescopes competent to such a search. 

 The time has now come when, by the help 

 0^ the developments and improvements that 

 have been made in astronomical photog- 

 raphy, the search can be profitably un- 

 dertaken by any observer having the rare 

 combination of time, enthusiasm, and the 

 necessary appliances. In aid of any such 

 search, Mr. Todd has published a record 

 of his observations of the indicated region, 

 with the twenty-six-inch refractor telescope 

 of the Naval Observatory, accompanied by 

 exact transcriptions of the " finder " dia- 

 grams, and of diagrams showing the rela- 

 tive positions of objects. 



Distribntion of Trees in Canada. — Mr. 



A. T. Drummond, in a paper read before the 

 British Association last year, on " The Distri- 

 bution of Canadian Forest-Trees," ascribes 

 an important part to the existence of large 

 bodies of water in the eastern part of the 

 country, and of conditions under which a 

 much milder climate is given, with a higher 

 range of trees, on the western side of the 

 continent. Then, in the United States and ■ 

 Canada the mountain-ranges are somewhat 

 continuous, and have a northern and south- 

 ern trend, affording an opportunity to the 

 northern trees to extend southward on their 

 flanks, and to the southern trees to range 

 northward in the valleys ; and this has given 

 rise to a more extended distribution than 

 could otherwise occur. Another important 

 clement in the distribution is the chain of 

 the lakes, which forms a barrier to the free 

 extension into Canada of the southern forma 



