THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Only one misstatement was found in Web- 

 ster's Dictionary, and only two in Prof. 

 Fiske's Civil Government in the United 

 States. Another offer, on slightly modified 

 terms, has been sent out by the same house, 

 which will doubtless lead to a still more 

 thorough examination of the books. From 

 the present outlook, whatever may be the 

 shortcomings of our school books, they do 

 not lie to any great extent in outright mis- 

 statements of fact. 



Expenses at Harvard. The cost of liv- 

 ing while at school is a very important item to 

 most college students. Since Prof. Palmer, of 

 Harvard University, showed how it was possi- 

 ble for a student to live there on four hundred 

 and fifty dollars a year, or a little less, many 

 changes have taken place in college life and 

 its surroundings, and aids to economizing 

 have been introduced that did not exist then. 

 In the Foxcroft Club, with its bill of prices 

 ranging from two slices of bread or two 

 cookies for a cent, to ten cents for roast 

 meats, many have been able to board for as 

 little as two dollars a week. The Twenty- 

 one Club has been an active force in lowering 

 the average of student expenses ; the Furni- 

 ture Loan Club, which began in 1890, has 

 been another. The list of rooms in private 

 houses, published at the opening of each 

 college year, has aided, by directing students 

 to the cheapest rentals ; and an employment 

 bureau, established in 1887-'88, helps stu- 

 dents who may wish to earn their way or a 

 part of it. In order to ascertain the present 

 conditions as to expense, Secretary Frank 

 Bolles recently requested a number of Har- 

 vard men to prepare, each in his own way, 

 a statement of his necessary expenditures 

 during the time of his residence at the uni- 

 versity, selecting men known to be very poor, 

 earnest, and scholarly, eager to secure re- 

 munerative work, and likely to be methodical 

 and accurate in money matters. He pub- 

 lishes, in a pamphlet entitled Students' Ex- 

 penses, the replies received from forty of 

 them. These replies show that "students 

 of the most intelligent kind are able to meet 

 the expenses of an academic year by a sum 

 appreciably smaller than the four hundred 

 and fifty dollars which was the normal mini- 

 mum in 1887." As a rule, the letters have 

 a cheerful tone, showing that the student 



who lives economically " is not necessarily 

 dreary," though he may have less of pleasure 

 and ease than many of his associates. While 

 some of the men have been forced to devote 

 too much time to making money to attain 

 the very highest grade of academic scholar- 

 ship, few of them have records below the 

 average ; and the number of those having 

 conspicuously high records is greater than 

 that of those having poor grades. Several 

 of them have taken active part in athletic 

 supports, and have found time to enjoy them- 

 selves in other ways. 



The First Climbing of an Alp. Accord- 

 ing to Mr. Edwin Swift Balch's interesting 

 paper on Mountain Exploration, the first 

 real Alpine ascent took place in the same 

 year as the landing of Columbus, when 

 Chamberlain Julien de Beaupre, by order of 

 King Charles VIII of France, and with the 

 help of ropes and ladders, climbed Mont 

 Aiguille, " a long narrow wedge, six thou- 

 sand and eighty feet high, flat at the top, 

 where there are grass and trees." The con- 

 temporary account reads that " on June 26, 

 1492, Fran9ois de Bosco, almoner to the 

 Seigneur Julien de Beaupre, in company 

 with other hardy adventurers, ascended the 

 Mont Eguille, or Mount Inaccessible, and 

 the day following, having said mass on the 

 said mountain, ate, drank, and reposed there- 

 on. The Seigneur Julien de Beaupre 

 changed the name of the mountain from 

 Eguille, or Montagne Inaccessible, to Eguille 

 Fort, causing it to be baptized in the name 

 of the Holy Trinity by a certain Sebastian de 

 Carect, one of the royal chaplains, and 

 afterward chanting the Te Deum, Salve He- 

 ffina, and many other anthems." They saw 

 numerous chamois on the summit, where 

 they spent six days, and found the descent 

 still more horrible than the ascent. 



The Zoological Garden of Philadelphia. 



The Directors of the Zoological Society of 

 Philadelphia say in their report for the last 

 year that they have been confined in the ad- 

 ministration of the affairs of the society to 

 its legitimate purposes, by the provisions of 

 its charter and their sense of a proper con- 

 duct of the trust confided to them. Their 

 constant object has been to place the garden 

 purely as a zoological garden in the 



