i5?e 
POPULAR SOIEWCE l^EWS. 
[October, 1891, 
The impression of the value of the microscope 
in legal inquiries was deepened when Dr. Thomas 
Taylor, Microscopist, of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment, exhibited a means that he has been com- 
pelled to devise w Iiereby counsel and juries may 
examine many microscopic mounts without the 
loss of time involved in changing slides. Under 
his direction, (^ueen & Co., of Philadelphia, have 
made a circular disk of glass which will hold nine 
wedge-shaped slides. This, fastened to any mi- 
croscope, enables specimens of real and adulter- 
ated products to be expeditiously compared. The 
value of such an appaiatus in all microscopic ex- 
hibitions will be readily seen. Its want had been 
also realized by Dr. .James A. Flint, of the Ameri- 
can uavy, who exhibited two very ingenious pieces 
of apparatus of his own invention. The first, by 
a process of revolution, brings a huudred or more 
slides, fitted into brass holders, successively under 
an objective of high or low power; while the 
second is fitted for comparatively large objects 
only. As Dr. Flint exhiliited it, four hundred or 
more of the Furaminiferm were mounted on a large 
metal disk enclosed in a box, and brought in suc- 
cession under a microscope placed on the glass 
cover, with no more trouble to the spectator than 
the touching of a button. 
Of the five scientific societies which formed the 
local committee of the American Association for 
the .Vdvancenient of Science, none will be remem- 
bered more gratefully than the Woman's Anthro- 
pological. To it is due the comfort of the 653 
members who braved the heat and atteuded this 
meeting. Ice water was kept in the halls, section- 
rooms were ventilated and adorned with magnifi- 
cent bouquets, and for the visiting ladies an ordi- 
nary dressing-room was converted into a very 
bower of delight and repose. 
To the general member the Anthropological 
section was the center of interest, and heie arose 
tlie great discussion of the meeting, the exciting 
cause being the exhibition by Mr. Thomas Wilson 
of jade implements from Mexico and Central 
America. Jade implements always precipitate an 
argument on the source of the material forming 
them and o( the people using them, and Professor 
Putnam and Major Powell were both there to de- 
feud the opposite views they hold on these points. 
"The jadite came from Asia," maintained Profes- 
sor I'utnam, " brought over with the ancient peo- 
ple in their migration to this continent." "There 
is absolutely no evidence," couteuded Major 
Powell, "that the people did migrate from Asia, 
whereas, as jade has been discovered in Alaska 
and will undoubtedly be found in the Kocky 
Mountains, there is no need to look beyond Amer- 
ica for the source of the implements." Pinned 
down by Professor Putnam to the categorical 
question, "had jadite been found in Alaska — not 
nephrite or sausurite, or any otlier green mineral, 
but the actual jadite of the mineralogist?" Major 
Powell was compelled to answer, " no." 
On a subsequent occasion Professor Putnam 
strengthened his position with the photograph of 
a skull — the only skull — that has been found in 
Mexico under one of those gigantic ruins common 
to that country and .Japan. It is that of a young 
woman who, it was shown, had Undoubtedly be- 
longed to the ancient people who built and used 
these structures. The skull is broad, short, and 
moderately high. The artificially depressed fore- 
head and the filing of the front teeth, together 
with the place of burial, indicate a person of 
exalted rank, and, at the same time, one belong- 
ing to the ancient Coast Peruvians, whom Profes- 
sor Putnam derives from Asia, and whose migra- 
tions have been already traced into Central Amer- 
ica and Mexico, and even farther northward. 
A marked feature of the proceedings of the 
Anthropologists was the attempt made to estab- 
lish sympathetic relations between the white man 
and the red, and the repeated condemnation of the 
inhuman and unjust treatment received by the lat- 
ter at the hands of the United States government. 
Miss Alice Fletcher, who has lived for many years 
among the Nez Perces tribe, carried the audience 
into the daily life and elucidated the habits of 
thought of these much-enduring people ; people 
against whom Thomas Wilson, at one time their 
attornej-, testified we had committed every crime, 
and that it was only after bearing repeated in- 
sults, indignities, and wrongs, such as no white 
people would have submitted to for a day, that 
they took up arms against the United States. Mr. 
Frank Gushing, from the vantage ground of long 
residence among the Zunis and Initiation into 
their priesthood, described the essentially dra- 
matic and religio-sociologic character of their 
primitive dances. The Messiah religion, more- 
over, and Ghost Dance were explained by .James 
Mooney, who spent last winter and spring with 
the wild tribes of the Southwest, investigating 
their claims and their needs under the auspices of 
the Smithsonian Institution. 
The biologists were this year particularly prom- 
inent. The public address of the retiring Presi- 
dent of the association. Professor Goodale, of 
Harvard, discussed the numerous useful plants 
that we may hope to employ in the near future, 
many of which have not yet been used by man 
anywhere. The lecture offered the citizens of 
Washington by the association dealt also with a 
botanical subject; but, though it was illustrated 
by lantern views, Dr. Macfarlane, of Edinburgh, 
failed to arouse popular interest, by reason of 
confining himself to technical terms. Of all the 
Vice-Presidents, Professor Coulter drew the larg- 
est audience and elicited the most sympathetic 
hearing, as he made a plea for more careful work 
among botanical collectors and less readiness to 
increase the already overlarge number of species. 
The biologists are indefatigable workers, and 
not only discussed over forty papers in their sec- 
tion, but the entomologists and botanists each 
held meetings for an hour daily. The latter were 
the especial care of the Botanical Club of Wash- 
ington, and received from their hosts pressed 
specimens of plants from the neighborhood, a 
guide to the trees of the cit}', and a book of beau- 
tiful photographic views of the spots most inter- 
esting to botanists. 
The biologists sent up several resolutions for 
the consideration of the Council of the Associa- 
tion. One of these asked that the United States 
government be urged to fall into line with the 
jfovernments of European countries and provide 
means whereby at least one table may bo main- 
tained at the Naples Biological Station for the use 
of American students, who have now to depend 
on the courtesy of other nations and the chance 
of being able to hire some vacant place. 
That live questions should be discussed this 
year in the section of Economics and Statistics 
was to be expected under the leadership of Prof. 
Edmund James, of Philadelphia, who struck the 
keynote in his opening address on tlie present 
economic condition and future prospects of the 
American farmer. This useful member of the 
community was described to be in a bad way and 
likely to be in a worse one. Professor James, 
however, pointed out lines that may lead to im- 
provement. Railway policy must be altered at 
many points — at some of them fundamentally. 
The system of taxation must be re-adjusted, and 
the farmer relieved of unjust burdens. The tariff 
must be improved ; the banking and general mon- 
etary policy of the country changed in many 
respects. The farmer must also do sometliing for 
himself. He must cease to compete with the 
Russian peasant, the Indian ryot, and the South 
African boor in the production of wheat for the 
Loudon market, and seek new crops where intelli- 
gence and skill count for more than mere fertility 
of soil or juxtaposition to market. This calls 
again for a broad and liberal policy towards agri- 
culture in all its relations, and active aid for all 
those various means by which agricultural science 
and art may be extended and made more efficient. 
To this section Mr. J. S. Billings gave an exhi- 
bition of the census-counting machine. Cards 
were shown containing all the ordinary details 
found upon the census paper. These cards were 
then perforated over certain words to accord with 
the descriptions of individuals, and passed to the 
recording machine, where a few touches on an 
electiic button would register a man as white, 
twenty-five years of age, a butcher, the son of an 
Irish father and .Vmerican mother, with sundry 
particulars concerning his physical and mental 
condition. 
The two days set apart by the A. A. A. S. for 
sight-seeing and excursions were used by the 
geologists for the summer meeting of the Geo- 
logical Society of America. A memorial of the 
deceased President, Alexander Winchell, marked 
the opening of the proceedings. Many debated 
and still debatable questions were discussed dur- 
ing the sessions, those referring to the Glacial 
period being particularly attractive to the un- 
practiced hearer. There was pleasure, too, and 
profit for this same individual in the evening lec- 
tures by Henry M. Cadell, of Bo'ness, Scotland, 
and Bailey Willis, of Washington, who, with the 
help of lantern illustrations, explained their recent 
experiments in reproducing mountain structures. 
Some beautiful photographs of the Muir glacier 
and its vicinity were also projected on the screen, 
exciting in everyone the desire to accompany Mr. 
H. P. Gushing in his next exploration of that fas- 
cinating region. 
The names of many foreigners appeared upon 
the programme of the society, papers were read in 
English hard to follow, and unfamiliar forms and 
faces were seen in ever increasing numbers in the 
lecture-room. By Wednesday morning the hall 
was a veritable Babel of tongues, and one knew 
that the International Geologists were ready for 
their fifth triennial meeting. jVccording to rule 
and precedent, French should have been taken as 
the medium of official intercourse, but alas! 
American geologists do not, as a rule, understand 
that language, and only one or two had taken the 
precaution to learn enough to conduct a conversa- 
tion. For this meeting, therefore, every man was 
allowed to choose the language in which he pre- 
sented his commimication — which means that 
English prevailed, as most of the visitors could 
make themselves understood in that tongue, be- 
sides speaking German and French fluently, and, 
it may be, Russian and another language or two 
as well. The subjects for the consideration of 
this congress covered wide fields, such as the 
classification of glacial drifts, the correlation of 
all known strata, and the colors to be used in geo- 
logical maps representing the same, so that there 
may be one geological usage for the whole world. 
But it must not be thought that it was all work 
and no play with the scientists. The microscop- 
ists spent their afternoons in visiting the Depart- 
ment of the Interior, where the microscope is in 
daily use, and took an excursion togetlier to 
