BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 449 



answered by Professor Winlock at the time of their appcar.ince. The 

 " Criterion " has been used considerably in this country, though not, 

 perhaps, in Europe. The uniform testimony of our computers is, we 

 believe, that it has given excellent discrimination, and that it does not 

 come into conflict with proper judgment based upon experience. This 

 shows the good working of it in actual practice. 



That the " Criterion " has not come into use in Europe may in some 

 degree have been due to the excessive brevity of the argument by 

 which Professor Peirce established the equations to be used. Perhaps 

 no one has read that argument for the first time without finding diffi- 

 culty in understanding some parts of the reasoning. A want of con- 

 fidence may thus have easily resulted. Professor Chauvenet has given 

 us a simpler rule for use in rejecting a single divergent observation ; 

 but it is only an approximate solution, since one important element is 

 left out of account. Computers need some such rule to guide them, 

 and it would seem almost certain that " Peirce's Criterion," or possibly 

 some modified form of it, will in time secure general acceptance. In 

 any case, it will ever stand as the first, and as a satisfactory solution of 

 this delicate and practically important problem of probability. At 

 present it is the only solution we believe that claims to be complete. 



After the death of Professor Bache, Professor Peirce was in 1867 

 made Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey, and he dis- 

 charged the duties of that office for the next seven years. Soon after 

 his ajipointment, he made a tour of inspection among the parties at 

 work in the field. Notwithstanding his previous intimate relations 

 with the survey as adviser to Professor Bache, he was very much sur- 

 prised and delighted with the practical skill which many of the officers 

 had acquired. " I recognize, at once," he said, " the masters of the 

 profession." Unfortunately he recognized also the awkward and ineflS- 

 cient, and the presence of these, which even the admirable executive 

 abilities of his predecessor had not been able to eliminate, gave him 

 great concern. Yet he determined to hold to the broadest line of 

 policy, and introduce no rigid discipline that might damp the ardor and 

 spontaneity of the faithful. " The lame and the lazy are always pro- 

 vided for," says the adage ; and in the public service they are found, 

 practically, to have the most friends from without, because needing 

 them most. In a scientific service like the Coast Survey, which unlike 

 many of the departments of the civil service furnishes absolute criteria 

 from which to judge the merits of an ofllicer, the task of discrimination, 

 if undertaken by a superintendent well versed in the mathematics and 

 physics underlying the manoeuvres of the surveyor, would seem to be 



