Vol. XXIV. No. 5.] 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
71 
Tlje Oit-Door morld. 
Edited by HARLAN H. BALLARD, 
President of the Agassiz Association. 
[P. O. Address, Pittsfield, Mass.] 
A SUCCESSFUL A. A. CONVENTION. 
k 
SCORES OF ENTHUSIASTIC DELEGATES HOLD 
A THREE days' MEETING. 
On February 27th and 28th, and March ist, 
very enjoyable Convention of those Chap- 
ters of the Agassiz Association that are within 
a hundred miles of New York City, was held 
there, under the auspices of the New York 
City and the New Jersey State Assemblies. 
On Thursday the regular quarterly meeting 
of the New York City Assembly was held at 
the Friends' Seminary, Rutherford place and 
Sixteenth street, and this was followed by a 
meeting of the Convention Committee. 
On Friday, at 2.15 P. M., the delegates 
assembled by invitation at the College for the 
Training of Teachers, where they first at- 
tended an interesting lesson in science, given 
by Prof; J. F. Woodhull to a grammar class. 
After this they were conducted through the 
scientific and manual training departments of 
the college ; and at 4 o'clock all gathered in 
the lecture room, where the Convention 
proper was opened by the President of the 
Agassiz Association, who spoke on the advan- 
tages of a thorough scientific training, and 
explained how such a training could be 
secured by means of the aid aflbrded by the 
Association. This address was followed by 
one on "The Relation of Science to the 
New Education," by Prof. Walter L. Hervey, 
Dean of the Faculty of tiie New York Col- 
lege for the Training of Teachers; after 
which Prof. Woodhull interested the audi- 
ence for half an hour by a delightful talk on 
"Some Simple Experiments in Natural Sci- 
ence," which he performed at the same time, 
in the most dextrous and graceful manner, by 
way of illustration. 
In the evening there was a remarkable 
exhibition at the rooms of Chapter 949 (Z), 
of New York, No. 49 W. Twentieth street. 
This Chapter is composed almost wholly of 
boys and young men between the ages of 
twelve and sixteen, and the collections they 
have made, classified, and Labeled are equally 
a credit to themselves and an honor to the 
society. The walls were covered with speci- 
mens of preserved plants, some of thhm of 
great rarity, and one or two never known in 
the localities where they were found until the 
bright eyes of the Agassiz boys discovered 
them. In one corner was a large collection 
of beautiful butterflies and moths, while in 
the center of the room was a really wonder- 
ful collection of the minerals of New York 
City, some of which were first discovered 
there by members of this Chapter. Fine 
specimens of crystals of garnet attracted 
special attention. One room was devoted to 
a inicroscopical exhibition. The large cabi- 
nets, with tier after tier of drawers, were 
made by the boys' own hands. The rooms 
were crowded during the evening by an 
admiring throng of visitors, among whom 
ladies and gentlemen fairly outnumbered 
boys and girls. After the visitors had de- 
parted, a camera was produced, and one of 
the boys took a flash-light photograph of the 
attractive rooms. 
We take the following account of the last 
day of the Convention from the JVeiv York 
Times of March 3 : 
The annual Convention of the Agassiz Associa- 
tion closed yesterday with the best programme of 
the week. A number of newly-arrived delegates 
reported in the morning, among whom were T. H. 
Porter and E. S. Evans, of Stamford, Conn. ; N. 
Ling, of London, England; Dr. M. D. Hussy, of 
Orange, N. J. ; S. E. Breed, J. Young, and M. 
Polk, of Cornwall-on-Hudson; S. Willard Bridg- 
ham, of Providence, R. L ; Prof. John Shallcross, 
President of the Philadelphia Assembly, and J. S. 
Taylor, Secretary; Miss L. P'aulks, of the Elizabeth 
Hill and Dale Club, and S. E. Barney of Orange, 
N.J. 
The session was held in the geological rooms of 
the Columbia School of Mines. Vice Chancellor 
MacCracken of the university delivered the opening 
prater, and the reports of the various Assemblies 
followed. The report of the New Jersey Assembly 
came from its President, the Rev. L. 11. Lighthipe. 
The report of the Rhode Island Assembly was pre- 
sented by S. Willard Bridgham, of Providence; 
that of the Philadelphia Assembly by Prof. John 
Shallcross; the New York City Assembly by Dr. 
C. II. Bushong; the Massachusetts Assembly by 
Prof. Harlan II. Ballard, President of the Associa- 
tion ; the Hill and Dale Club, composed of members 
of suburban Chapters, by Miss L. Faulks, of Eliza- 
beth, N. J. Reports were also made by President 
Ballard showing the progress made by the Agassiz 
Chapters of the Australian Royal Society, the Rus- 
sian Agassiz Chapters, the Chapters among the 
colored people of Alabama, and in the Indian school 
at Hampton, Va. President B.-Ulard also described 
the founding of the first Agassiz organization in his 
country school at Lenox, Mass., and showed how 
the work had increased and multiplied, until todiiy 
the Association contains 1,000 Chapters and 17,000 
members. 
President Seth Low of Columbia delivered the 
address of welcome, extending to the Association 
the courtesies of the college. He said that the 
disciples of Agassiz were doing a work of love 
which had few parallels in the history of scientific 
investigation. In concluding his remarks. Presi- 
dent Low recited Longfellow's verses immortalizing 
Prof. Agassiz and his work. 
Prof. J. S. Newberry delivered a lecture on " Early 
Man in America." A portion of his remarks were 
devoted to a discussion of the date of the birth of 
Christ, the speaker contending that the Biblical 
date is incorrect. According to the Bible, Christ 
was born 4,004 years after the creation, but Prof. 
Newberry challenged this statement as a "contribu- 
tion to theological science by an erratic writer." 
The chronology of the Bible is filled with irrecon- 
cilable difi'erences springing from this mistake. 
From stone relics and fossils found in the Swiss 
lake bottoms. Prof. Newberry held that the world 
was much older than is recorded in the Bible, and 
that the chronology aftecting the birth of Christ is 
correspondingly incorrect. 
At the afternoon session, Prof. N. L. Britton 
delivered an address on "The Geological History 
of Plants." The lecture room was crowded to the 
doors. While the stereopticon views were chang- 
ing, suddenly there appeared upon the screen a 
picture of snakes in every conceivable posture. 
"This," said the professor, waving his pointing- 
rod, "represents New Jersey in the cretaceous 
period." Everybody smiled. Continuing, Prof. 
Britton discussed the various stages of organic life 
and the formations of stratified rock in their rela- 
tions to primary vegetable life. The sequence of 
vegetable germs was traced from the bacteria of the 
remote Laurentian Age, through the fungi, lichens. 
and ferns of the Devonian and Tertiary Ages, up to 
the age of man. In describing terrestrial vegeta- 
tion, Prof. Britton described the coal formations of 
remote ages and of the present day. 
Prof. Jerome Allen delivered an address on "A 
Few Fundamental Principles in Science Teaching." 
"The great object in teaching children the mathe- 
matical sciences," he said, " is to instill in their 
minds habits of exactness and accurate observation 
by comparison. Without comparison the work will 
be valueless. The bringing together of two or 
more objects for purposes of comparison promotes 
discrimination and distinction." 
Mr. George F. Kunz, of the New York Miner- 
alogical Club, read a paper on "The Mineralogy of 
New York City and Vicinity." This paper was one 
of the most interesting features of the session. Mr. 
Kunz is the founder of the New York Mineralogical 
Club and the man to whom it owes its success. 
Although the club was organized only three years 
ago, it has the best-known collection of minerals of 
this locality, made up of the famous collections of 
the late Issachar Cozzens, the Chamberlain collec- 
tion, and Mr. Kunz'sown private collection. In his 
remarks yesterday Mr. Kunz said Manhattan Island 
contained one hundred varieties of minerals, repre- 
senting seventy-five species, more than can be found 
in any other known locality. He thought this a 
pretty good showing for a city without mines or 
quarries. His remarks were made doubly interest- 
ing by the production of specimens found in the 
city, notable among which was the famous garnet 
found in Thirty-fifth street, near Seventh avenue. 
This, Mr. Kunz said, was the finest specimen of 
garnet in the I'nited States. The minerals found 
in the vicinity of New York, notably at Bergen 
Hill, N. J., Sing Sing, and on Staten Island, were 
made the subjects of extended comment, and devel- 
oped facts of which few are aware. Datolite, "the 
pride of Bergen Hill," was shown side by side with 
the stalactites of Staten Island and the calcite crys- 
tals of tlie Hudson Valley. Hoboken and New 
Rochelle produce immense serpentine outcropinngs. 
The cuttings of the Pennsylvania and Erie roads 
reveal deposits of yellow zeolites and calcites. In 
the vicinity of Prospect Park forty distinct minerals 
are found. 
The afternoon session concluded with an address 
by Prof. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, of the Astor Library, 
on " Why We Study Nature." This was in the 
nature of a plea for the development of the study of 
natural history among children. 
At the evening session, Prof. A. S. Bickmore 
delivered a lecture on "British Columbia and 
Alaska," illustrated by stereopticon views. 
The success which has attended this Convention 
has awakened much enthusiasm in the local Agassiz 
organization, and before final adjournment it was 
decided to hold a seaside assembly on the New 
Jersey coast during the summer. 
[Note. — The Titnes reporter is wrong in his state- 
ment of Prof. Newberry's discussion of the "chro- 
nology of the Bible." He took especial pains to say 
that the dates which appear in our English Bibles 
are not Biblical, but merely the addition of Arch- 
bishop Usher, and that therefore the Bible is in no 
way responsible for them. Prof. Newberry did not 
discuss the chronology of the Bible at all. — Editor.] 
A PRIZE WORTH TRYING FOR. 
The editor of the Popular Science 
News, desiring to encourage the members 
of the Agassiz Association to increased dili- 
gence in the matter of the personal observa- 
tion of Nature, ofl'ers a fine microscope, 
valued at twenty-five dollars, to the member 
or Chapter of the A. A. sending the best 
record of personal observations to the Presi- 
dent of the Association before September i, 
1890. This recofd may be in the form of a 
note-book, or it may be on separate sheets. 
It may be illustrated by sketches or photo- 
graphs, or it may be a simple statement of 
what has been observed, without illustration. 
In awarding the prize, due weight will be 
