VE DILORIAL. 
Gerotoaists who are interested in the more obscure problems: 
of the physics of the earth will welcome with peculiar gratifica- 
tion the appearance of a monographic periodical devoted to one 
of the most neglected phases of the earth’s phenomena, ‘‘ TER- 
RESTRIAL MacGnetisM, An International Quarterly Journal,’’ pub- 
lished under the auspices of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory of 
The University of Chicago. The journal is edited by Dr. L. A. 
Bauer, with the codperation of thirty-four eminent students of 
terrestrial magnetism, representing sixteen countries, among 
which the European states naturally predominate, but China, 
Java and Australia appear as representatives of the antipodes. 
The magazine will perform a valuable service in bringing together 
matter which is now so widely scattered as to be difficult of 
access even to specialists, and quite beyond the reach of most 
geologists. Without doubt it will also greatly promote the 
organization of the matter and the evolution of the science. 
Not a few geologists have looked with some measure of hope to 
terrestrial magnetism for a valuable contribution to the dark 
problems of the earth’s interior. We have long felt that there 
should be discoverable some medium which could be operated 
upon by some inventible device in such a way as to serve as a 
stethoscope, so to speak, to declare the conditions and the 
changes in the heart of the earth. Magnetism is one of the sug- 
gested media, and, even if it shall not prove an agency of any 
great moment in itself, it may reveal conditions of the interior 
now quite hidden from us. The editorial greeting pertinently 
quotes Maxwell’s eloquent words—referring to the sensitized sheet 
of the self-registering magnetograph —‘On that paper, the never 
resting heart of the earth is now tracing in telegraphic symbols, 
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