28o 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which had the substance of their flesh per- 

 fectly preserved, and the bones in place 

 within the flesh. The remains showed dif- 

 ferent conditions of development. This 

 was the only case that had ever occurred of 

 the mineralization of the muscular substance 

 and the preservation of the external form of 

 these animals; and so perfectly had they 

 kept that the circle of the eye was pre- 

 served and the constituent bones could be 

 distinguished. 



Hints aboHt Local Mnseums.— The Brit- 

 ish Association's Committee on Provincial 

 Museums advises in its report that each such 

 institution ought to be a fully illustrated 

 monograph of its own district. If the en- 

 tire history of the district and its inhabit- 

 ants is represented in it, with special atten- 

 tion to any group of objects for which the 

 district is remarkable, this will be almost as 

 much as any local institution can accomplish. 

 But science is daily becoming more exacting 

 in its demands. Details which were thought 

 ample in any provincial museum twenty 

 years ago, would now be regarded as quite 

 insufficient. In order that the scientific sta- 

 tistics of the country may be thoroughly in- 

 vestigated and made known as quickly as 

 possible, a more business-like system of col- 

 lection should be adopted. The district 

 should be divided into sections, and a paid 

 collector appointed for each of them, whose 

 whole time should be occupied for several 

 years in obtaining specimens and records in 

 every branch of science represented in the 

 museum. This would require a more liberal 

 supply of funds for the first few years than 

 museums usually enjoy, but the value of the 

 museum would be immensely enhanced, and, 

 when the local collections were made tolerably 

 complete, the permanent income required 

 for maintenance would be very much less. 

 The town museum should be the place to 

 which all students and teachers of science in 

 the district would naturally go for assist- 

 ance. 



The Teaching of Chemistry.— The ad- 

 dress of Prof. Tilden, as President of the 

 Chemical Section of the British Association, 

 was on the teaching of chemistry. In re- 

 viewing the present position of this instruc- 

 tion in England, the author thought the ap- 



parent inactivity of the chemical schools was 

 not generally the fault of the professors, but 

 was chargeable in the main to the ignorance, 

 and partly to the indifference, of the public. 

 There exists as yet no intelligent feeling in 

 favor of learning, nor indeed in favor of any 

 sort of education, unless there is expectation 

 of direct returns in the form of obvious 

 practical results. That teachers ought to 

 engage in research at all is by no means 

 clear to the public and to those who are 

 charged with the administration of the new 

 institutions. A popular mistake consists in 

 regarding a professor as a living embodi- 

 ment of science — complete, infallible, mys- 

 terious ; whereas, in truth, he is or ought to 

 be only a senior student, who devotes the 

 greater part of Lis time to extending and 

 consolidating his own knowledge for the 

 benefit of those who come to learn of him, 

 not only what lies within the boundaries of 

 the known, but how to penetrate into the 

 far greater region of the unknown. More- 

 over, the man who has no intellectual inde- 

 pendence, and simply accepts other people's 

 views without challenge, is pretty certain to 

 make the stock of knowledge with which he 

 sets out in life do service to the end. That 

 one may be fitted to form a sound judgment 

 concerning new theories, he must be familiar 

 with the methods by which progress is ac- 

 complished. The work of investigation then 

 reacts beneficially upon the work of teach- 

 ing ; that is to say, teachers should be en- 

 couraged, nay, even required to investigate, 

 and not because their discoveries may haply 

 prove to be practically useful. Every teacher 

 who has attained eminence as a teacher, who 

 has drawn men after him, who has founded 

 a school of thought, and has left his mark 

 upon his generation, has been an industrious 

 worker in research of some kind. 



A Law of Marriage Customs. — With the 

 view of applying direct numerical method to 

 anthropology, Mr. E. B. Tylor has compiled 

 schedules of the systems of marriage among 

 some three hundred and fifty peoples of the 

 world, so as to ascertain by means of a 

 '? method of adhesions " how far each rule 

 coexists or not with other rules, and what 

 have been the directions of development 

 from one rule to another. The barbaric 

 custom which forbids the husband and his 



