FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



137 



order to accomplish this result, the 

 State Board of Health has published 

 leaflets relating to the modes of spread- 

 ing and the best methods for the re- 

 striction and prevention of such dis- 

 eases. These leaflets have been printed 

 by tens of thousands, and whenever a 

 dangerous disease is reported to the 

 central office several copies of the leaflet 

 relating to the disease in question are 

 usually sent to the local health officer. 

 He is requested to place one of these in- 

 structive publications with the family 

 where the disease exists, and a copy 

 with each neighbor of the infected prem- 

 ises. The instruction comes at a time 

 when people are interested to know 

 about the disease in question, and in 

 this way their general co-operation is 

 sought and secured. Citizens are thus 

 educated and become familiar with 

 their duties in the premises, are taught 

 wherein the dangers lie and how to 

 avoid them, and are prompted by the 

 strongest considerations to do their part 

 in the matter. 



Death of Prof. Oliver Marcy. 

 Dr. Oliver Marcy, professor of natural 

 science in Northwestern University, 

 who died February 19th, in the eight- 

 ieth year of his age, was a native of 

 Coleraine, Massachusetts; was gradu- 

 ated from Wesleyan University in 1846, 

 became teacher of mathematics in Wil- 

 braham Academy, Massachusetts, and 

 later professor of geology, etc., in that 

 institution. In 1862 he was appointed 

 professor of geology in Northwestern 

 University, Evanston, Illinois, but 

 taught in addition, at times, other 

 branches of science and even some 

 branches in other lines. He was twice 

 acting president of the university. In 

 conjunction with Prof. Alexander Win- 

 chell, he prepared a monograph on Fos- 

 sils from the Niagara Limestone of 

 Chicago, which was read to the Boston 

 Society of Natural History. In 1866 he 

 was naturalist to a Government expedi- 

 tion to the Bitter Root Mountains in 

 Idaho and Montana, in which he col- 

 lected scientific material, and of which 

 he published an account in 1867. He 

 wrote papers concerning the geology of 

 the shore of Lake Michigan and of the 

 region about Chicago; brought two fos- 

 sil trees found in the university grounds 

 to scientific notice; and contributed 



considerably to geological publications. 

 He was curator to the natural history 

 collection of his university for nearly 

 thirty years. Two fossil species and a 

 mountain in Montana have been named 

 after him. 



Which is the Fittest to Survive? 

 Prof. A. W. Riicker spoke in his open- 

 ing address at the recent meeting of the 

 International Magnetic Conference in 

 Bristol, England, of what seems to be 

 a law of Nature, that the products of 

 an organism are fatal to itself; in ac- 

 cordance with which, he said, pure sci- 

 ence is threatened by the very success 

 of its practical applications. The smoke 

 of our cities blots the stars from the 

 vision of the astronomer, and now the 

 science of terrestrial magnetism is 

 threatened by the artificial earth cur- 

 rents of the electric railway. Prof. W. 

 E. Ayrton, in his welcoming address, 

 took another view of the subject and 

 answered the reference the electrical en- 

 gineers make to the principle of the 

 survival of the fitlest when they are 

 told of the ruin their wires are bring- 

 ing upon magnetic observatories " So 

 much the worse for the observatories " 

 " Can the system of electric traction 

 that has already destroyed the two 

 most important magnetic observatories 

 in the United States and British North 

 America be the best and fittest to sur- 

 vive? Again, do we take such care and 

 spend such vast sums in tending the 

 weak and nursing the sick because we 

 are convinced that they are the fittest 

 to survive? May it not be perhaps be- 

 cause we have an inherent doubt about 

 the justice of the survival of the strong- 

 est, or perhaps because even the strong- 

 est of us feels compelled modestly to 

 confess his inability to pick out the fit- 

 test, that modern civilization encour- 

 ages, not the destruction but the preser- 

 vation of what has obvious weakness, 

 on the chance that it may have unseen 

 strength? When the electrical engi- 

 neer feels himself full of pride at the 

 greatness, the importance, and the power 

 of his industry, and when he is inclined 

 to think slightingly of the deflection of 

 a little magnet compared with the whirl 

 of his one-thousand-horse-power dyna- 

 mo, let him go and visit a certain dark 

 storeroom near the entrance hall of the 

 Royal Institution, and while he looks 



