POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



859 



to denounce these laws or " doctrines," as 

 they are oddly called, " they ought to under- 

 stand what they mean, and might even be 

 expected to show that they are never guilty 

 of the unchristian practice of buying in the 

 cheapest market, and so in their degree keep- 

 ing down wages. Political economy, if these 

 vehement controversialists could only see it, 

 is nothing but common sense and common 

 observation thrown into a methodical and 

 systematized arrangement. If a man has 

 the materials, he need not trouble himself 

 very much about the system. Let the people 

 who demand a living wage in the name of 

 Christianity just begin with an exact inquisi- 

 tion into their own conduct and its conse- 

 quences. Are they in the habit of paying 

 two guineas for a hat when they can get one 

 as good for thirty shillings ? Do they ever 

 knowingly give forty shillings for a ton of 

 coals when they can get coals as good for 

 thirty-five ? Of course they do not. Nobody 

 does, but the execrated law of supply and 

 demand is nothing in the world except the 

 working out in the gross of the general habit 

 of getting the best value for one's money. 

 Every one who imagines that he sees a way 

 to get rid of this unchristian law ought to 

 try his panacea on a small scale with his 

 own income. When he is perfectly certain 

 that he uses nothing without being sure that 

 everybody employed in making it has had a 

 living wage, he will be in a better position 

 for lecturing coal-owners. He will also have 

 begun to see that industrial problems can 

 not be settled by invocation of undefined 

 Christian principles." 



Tbe Highest Meteorological Station in 

 the Worldt The highest meteorological sta- 

 tion in the world, before a still higher one 

 was established on El Misti, 19,200 feet, was 

 the Charchani station of the Arequipa Ob- 

 servatory, Peru, a branch of the Harvard 

 College Observatory situated on Charchani 

 Mountain, just below the permanent snow 

 line. As described by Prof. A. Lawrence 

 Rotch, it stands at an elevation of 16,650 

 feet above the sea, near the brink of a pla- 

 teau, 3,400 feet below the summit of the 

 mountain. From this brink a precipice 

 drops several hundred feet. Near the louvred 

 shelter in which the instruments are kept a 

 stone hut has been erected, where the person 



who ascends the mountain to care for the in- 

 struments can spend the night, if necessary. 

 The ascent of 8,600 feet from the observa- 

 tory can be made by mule in about eight 

 hours. Though it is intended to have one 

 of the assistants visit the station each four 

 weeks, regular ascents have not been prac- 

 ticable; consequently, during the year the 

 station has been occupied, only portions of 

 ten months' records have been obtained, and 

 unforeseen stoppages of the self-recording 

 instruments have further reduced the num- 

 ber of complete records to eight. The dis- 

 tance in an air line from the station to the 

 observatory is about eleven miles, and such 

 is the transparency of the air that on a large 

 white disk, which has been placed on the 

 edge of the plateau, a black spot, one inch in 

 diameter, can be seen with the thirteeu-inch 

 telescope at the observatory. It has not yet 

 been possible to place instruments on the top 

 of the mountain, though that would be de- 

 sirable. Two attempts have been made, 

 unsuccessfully, to ascend to that point. The 

 comparatively high temperature and small 

 snowfall on the high mountains of Peru offer 

 opportunities for the establishment of loftier 

 meteorological stations than are afforded by 

 any other country, and the establishment of 

 such a summit station by the Harvard Ob- 

 servatory is the crowning of its remarkable 

 series of stations, extending from Mollendo, 

 on the Pacific coast, along the railroad which 

 crosses the desert of La Joye (4,140 feet), 

 reaching the divide at Vincocaya (14,360 

 feet), and descending the watershed to Puno, 

 on Lake Titicaca (12,540 feet). Another 

 series, differing little in horizontal distance 

 but relatively greatly separated vertically, 

 for which the observatory at Arequipa and 

 the station on El Misti already furnish steps, 

 would make it possible to obtain data of the 

 greatest value for the study of meteorology. 



Anthropology at the University of Michi- 

 gan. The first work in anthropology at the 

 University of Michigan was begun in the 

 second semester of the college year 1891-'92, 

 with a course in museum laboratory work in 

 American archaeology, under the direction of 

 Prof. F. W. Kelsey. The course was at- 

 tended by two students. Provision was 

 made for the exhibition of the collections in 

 the possession of the institution, and soon 



