Fkbeuaey 18, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



241 



steel Company have in a single day produced 

 204 'heats' in twenty-four hours, and 1,928 

 tons of ingol-steel in the converting and 1,700 

 tons in the finishing mill. This is said to ex- 

 ceed anything reported previously in the United 

 States and to he vastly in excess of anything 

 known in Europe. 



On motion of Senator Cantor, the Assembly 

 resolution calling on the Representatives of New 

 York State in Congress to secure the establish- 

 ment of a national park on the Palisades of the 

 Hudson was taken from the table by the Senate 

 at Albany on February 9th and adopted. A 

 bill designed to protect the Palisades from fur- 

 ther injury was introduced into the House of 

 Assembly at Trenton, N. J. , on February 8th, 

 by Mr. Marnell, the provisions of which are as 

 follows : " Every person or corporation which 

 shall, within a distance of 2,000 feet from any 

 navigable river forming the boundary line of 

 this State, explode or cause to be exploded, for 

 the purpose of blasting, breaking or loosen- 

 ing rock, any high explosive, shall be guilty 

 of a misdemeanor, and on conviction there- 

 of shall be punished by imprisonment not ex- 

 ceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding 

 $1,000, or both." 



Governor Black, of New York State, ad- 

 vocates the passing of a bill that would lease 

 to Cornell University for twenty-five years 

 about twenty thousand acres of State land out- 

 side of the limits of the Forest Preserve. By 

 the aid of an annual appropriation, which this 

 year may be $25,000, the University authorities 

 would be enabled to engage in forest culture. 

 The best methods of forest preservation and 

 cultivation in France and Germany would be 

 followed on this tract of twenty-five thousand 

 acres. The trees would be trimmed at the 

 proper time; ' ripe ' trees would be cut down 

 and sold, and young trees would be planted. 

 The aim would be to make the tract a paying 

 investment for the State. If this model forestry 

 park should be a successful experiment, the 

 same method of management could be applied 

 to the eight hundred thousand acres of forest 

 land the State now owns in the Adirondacks. 



Natural Science asks : ' ' How many copies of a 

 printed book need be issued to constitute a pub- 



lication ? This question seems to be raised as 

 a side issue in a paper by Mr. Davies Sherborn 

 on Thomas Martyn's ' Psyche,' in the January 

 number of the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History. Mr. Sherborn states that only ten 

 copies of the book were issued ; and the names 

 of the species were, with six exceptions, written 

 in ink either below the figures themselves or on 

 fly leaves. The fact that the names were not 

 printed is sufficient for Mr. Sherborn to stamp 

 them as manuscript, despite the fact that they 

 have been used by entomologists. We wonder 

 what entomologists will say. One interesting 

 fact in connection with the matter is that the 

 author of this paper had actually three out of 

 the ten copies, side by side for comparison, and 

 has been able to trace five out of the original 

 ten. Mr. Sherborn does not mention the copy 

 of Part I. in the Hope collection at Oxford, but 

 that evidently falls under his ' specimen ' 

 copies, of which it is likely others may turn up. 

 Now let us suppose this to be a printed book. 

 What happens? Four entire copies of the 

 original ten are in England, one is in Holland, 

 the rest are unknown. What possible chance 

 has an American or an Australian of seeing 

 such a book ? Without seeing it his work must 

 be imperfect. We offer no decision of the difSl- 

 culty ourselves, but think the point sufficiently 

 interesting to call attention to it." 



The Auk for January contains, as frontispiece, 

 the portrait of the late Charles E. Bendire, ac- 

 companying a memorial article by Dr. J. C. 

 Merrill, presented at the 15th Congress of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union. 



Dr. T. J. RoTHROCK, State Forestry Com- 

 missioner of Pennsylvania, states in his report 

 to the Department of Agriculture, quoted from 

 advance sheets from the Public Ledger, that 

 while the rainfall last year was greater than 

 in previous years the streams seem to have 

 been lower. Dr. Rothrock considers that there 

 can be no doubt but that in the periods of an- 

 nual minimum water flow our rivers are deliv- 

 ering less water each year. Thus the most 

 reliable statistics available show that in periods 

 of least annual flow the water sent]down by the 

 Schuylkill river at Philadelphia in 1895 was only 

 39 per cent, of the amount available in 1816. 



