EDITOR'S TABLE, 



555 



mechanics' pay. With the day's work rated 

 at one dollar, farming; here at the East 

 would be a remunerative occupation, but 

 ■with wages at twelve and fourteen shillings 

 agriculture in New England is dead. A 

 gentleman, whose little fortune of $10,000 

 brouglit Lim at 7 per cent an income of 

 ^'/OO just before the war, thought himself 

 on a somewhat hig'ier social plane than his 

 neighbor the carpenter who, working 240 

 days out of the 3()5 at $1.50 per day ob- 

 tained $360 for his year's labor; but nowa- 

 days receiving §720 for the same labor for 

 the same period, the mechanic looks down 

 condescendingly upon the possessor of ten 

 myriads of dimes, whose annual income at 

 4 per cent is reduced to $320 less than his 

 own; and, to beautify this picture by add- 

 ing the proper sidelights and shadings, the 

 property-holder is heavily taxed to educate 

 the carpenter's children while he, the car- 

 penter aforesaid, howls for higher wages 

 and less hours of work and weeps copious- 

 ly over the oppressive rapacity of capital. 

 One might proceed through all social grades 

 and all human occupations, and everywhere 

 find high wagjs eitecting disturbances in 

 some cases beneficial, in others disastrous, 

 but always attended by low prices for ev- 

 erything else and by circumstances which 

 should depreciate the price of labor also, 

 and yet it would seem that the workman is 

 most in demand and paid the best where 



his products aro Tno?t overproduced. TVhy 

 should this be so ? Will the lion. David A. 

 Wells attempt an answer ? 



W. B. Weed. 

 Daeien, CosTTECTictrr, December, 1SS7. 



OYSTER-FATTENING. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



SiK : I have only to-day had the good 

 fortune to see Professor Atwater's most in- 

 teresting paper on the chemistry of oyster- 

 fattening. I am induced to say that thirty 

 to thirty-five years ago it was common for 

 well-to-do families in the North of Ireland — 

 County Derry — to buy oysters by " the long 

 hundred," that is one hundred and twenty, 

 and to lay them down in tubs or pans in 

 fresh water, with a very little salt added. 

 When they had been so laid down a few 

 hours, some oatmeal was thrown into the 

 water, in pinches, and they were thus *' fed " 

 for two or three days when they were found 

 heavier, plumper, and more delicate in flavor. 

 If I recollect rightly, they were also made 

 whiter by this process. Was the effect 

 wholly imaginary, or did the oysters really 

 assimilate the oatmeal, which was always 

 of the finest, that is, the flouriest, sort ? 

 Yours truly, 



Charles Williams, F. R. G. S. 

 New Toek, A'cwcmier 22, ISST. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE " ACT OF GOD'" AND " HUMAN BE- 

 SPOSSIBILITY." 



"IVTOW and again, amid the rash of 

 -L^ modern progress, we catch a note 

 or sign of reaction. Such a note we 

 most distinctly have in the ai'ticlo pub- 

 lished a couple of months ago in " Sci- 

 ence " over the i^ignature of Mr. Ap- 

 pleton Morgan. Mr. Morgan is a law- 

 yer of distinction, whose talents have 

 been largely employed by railway com- 

 panies, and who has thus naturally 

 contracted a sympathy, very allowable 

 in its way, for those corporations. But 

 to say that Mr. Morgan is a lawyer in 

 active practice is almost tantamount to 

 saying that his line of thought and ar- 

 gument on any given practical subject 

 will be forensic, rather than scientific — 

 that is to say, that it will be skillfully 

 adapted to lead up to a prearranged 



conclusion rather than to bring out all 

 the truth that is obtainable in connec- 

 tion with the matter in hand, Mr. 

 Morgan writes a clever article to prove 

 that some railway accidents proceed 

 from causes so far beyond human con- 

 trol that we might properly apply to 

 them the old expression, " the act ot 

 God." The suggestion is that in such 

 cases the railway companies should 

 hardly be held accountable. AYhat we 

 are not given, however, is any clear 

 principle of distinction by which ac- 

 cidents for which railway companies 

 might, in Mr. Morgan's opinion, prop- 

 erly be held accountable may be sepa- 

 ated from those where all responsibility 

 fails, and " the act of God " must be 

 invoked as the only hypothesis suited 

 to the case. Yet, without some such 

 clear principle of distinction, the whole 



