464 MoJiorial of George Brown Goode. 



vauia, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, lUinois, 

 and New Jersey. 



It has been stated that the average proportion of scientific men to the 

 population at large is i to 10,000. A more minute examination shows 

 that while fifteen of the States and Territories have more than the aver- 

 age proportion of scientific men, thirty-two have less. Oregon and Cal- 

 ifornia, Michigan and Delaware have very nearl}^ the normal number. 

 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, Colorado, and Florida 

 have about i to 4,000. West Virginia, Nevada, Arkansas, Mississippi, 

 Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Alabama, and the Carolinas are the ones 

 least liberally furnished. Certain cities appear to be absolutely without 

 scientific men. The worst cases of destitution seem to be Paterson, 

 New Jersey, a city of 50,000 inhabitants; Wheeling, West Virginia, with 

 30,000; Quincy, Illinois, with 26,000; Newport, Kentucky, with 20,000; 

 Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and Kingston, New York, with 18,000; 

 Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Zanesville, Ohio, with 17,000; Oshkosh, Wis- 

 consin, and Sandusk)', Ohio, with 15,000; lyincoln, Rhode Island; Nor- 

 walk, Connecticut, and Brockton and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with 

 13.000. In these there are no men of science recorded, and eight cities 

 of more than 15,000 inhabitants have only one, namely, Omaha, 

 Nebraska, and St. Joseph, Missouri; Chelsea, Massachusetts; Cohoes, 

 New York; Sacramento, California; Binghamton, New York; Portland, 

 Oregon; and lycadville, Colorado. 



Of course these statistical statements are not properly statistics. I 

 have no doubt that some of these cities are misrepresented in what has 

 been said. This much, however, is probably true, that not one of them 

 has a scientific society, a museum, a school of science, or a sufficient 

 number of scientific men to insure even the occasional delivery of a 

 counse of scientific lectures. 



Studying the distribution of scientific societies, we find that there are 

 fourteen States and Territories in which there are no scientific societies 

 whatever. There are fourteen States which have State academies of 

 science or societies which are so organized as to be equivalent to State 

 academies. 



Perhaps the most discouraging feature of all is the diminutive circula- 

 tion of scientific periodicals. In addition to a certain number of special- 

 i.sts' journals, we have in the United States three which are wide enough 

 in scope to be necessary to all who attempt to keep an abstract of the 

 progress of science. Of these the American Journal of Science has, we 

 are told, a circulation of less than 800 ; the American Naturalist less 

 than 1,100, and Science less than 6,000. A con.siderable proportion of 

 the copies printed go, as a matter of course, to public institutions, and 

 not to individuals. Even the Popular Science Monthly and the Scien- 

 tific American, which appeal to large classes of unscientific readers, have 

 circulations absurdly small. 



