Maech 18, 1898;] 



SCIENCE. 



389: 



It will be remembered that In Science of 

 February 19, 1897, Professor R. S. Woodward 

 noticed a book of mine entitled ' The Argen- 

 taurum Papers No. 1.' The notice was not a 

 review and made no attempt to deal with any 

 of the arguments in the book. It was merely 

 a personal attack upon myself in terms calcu- 

 lated to seriously injure me in the exercise of 

 my profession as a scientific expert. Self-de- 

 fense was, therefore, necessary ; and as I had 

 what I judged to be good reason for supposing 

 that the columns of Science were closed 

 against any reply on my part, I laid the matter 

 before my legal advisers, and, in accordance 

 with their counsel, I commenced an action for 

 libel against the ' responsible editor ' of Science 

 and Professor Woodward. I fully recognized 

 the inexpediency of such actions as a general 

 rule, and the desirability, in the true interests 

 of philosophy, of permitting absolute freedom 

 of criticism ; but I supposed, in this particular 

 case, that an appeal to the law was the only 

 remedy within my reach. I have recently been 

 led to understand that this supposition is er- 

 roneous, and that the right to be heard in self- 

 defense was not disputed by the editor of 

 Science. Under these circumstances I have 

 no intention of proceeding further with the ac- 

 tion for libel. 



Since writing the foregoing I have received a 

 letter from a very eminent Fellow of the Royal 

 Society informing me that he has performed the 

 crucial experiment suggested in my letter of 

 May 21, 1897, to Sir William Crook es. The 

 gold contained in a Mexican dollar after forty 

 hours of intense cold and continued hammering 

 was found to be 20.9 per cent, more than the 

 quantity of gold contained in the same dollar 

 before the test. 



S. H. E. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



Efidyclopedie scientifique des aide-memoire, Les 

 huiles minerales, Petrole, Schiste, Lignite, 

 par Francois Miron. Licenoie es Sciences 

 Physiques Ingenieur Civil. Publiee sous la 

 direction de M. Leaute, Membre de L'lnsti- 

 tut. Paris, Gautier-Villars et Fils. 

 There are no deposits of petroleum in France 



of commercial value. This fact may furnish a 



reason why no work upon petroleum of any 

 value has been published in France. 



When, a few years since, after a visit to 

 Trinidad, I published a paper on the celebrated 

 Lake, in the American Journal of Science, I sent 

 a copy of the paper to M. Alphonse Daubree 

 and asked him to secure its translation and 

 insertion in some reputable French scientific 

 journal. It was reprinted entire in the English 

 Geological Magazine and it was also translated 

 and inserted in one of the scientific journals of 

 Germany. M. Daubree replied that, while he 

 would like to comply with my request, the 

 French journals printed only original articles. 

 This statement may further explain why the 

 papers of Dr. Hunt, published thirty years ago 

 in French journals, are still quoted by French 

 authors as if they were the only papers extant 

 upon American petroleum. This fact may still 

 further explain why the work before us, which 

 forms a part of an ' Enclyclopedie des Aide- 

 Memoire,' is neither up to date nor correct to 

 any date. Although the title page is without 

 date, it appears to be just issued ; yet the 

 latest date mentioned in association with 

 American petroleum is 1888 and with Euro- 

 pean petroleum is 1892. 



Speaking of the distribution of petroleum, 

 our author says, ' ' In Ohio the deposits of Trum- 

 bull, Loraine and Washington were known 

 from time immemorial." These counties are 

 arranged inversely as to their importance, and 

 the Trenton limestone deposits of northwest 

 Ohio — by far the most important of all — are 

 not mentioned at all. He says further, ' ' In 

 Colorado at Caiaon City, in Michigan on the 

 shores of Lake Huron, the county of Cumber- 

 land in Kentucky and the environs of Santa 

 Clara county in California have yielded and 

 still yield an important production." There is 

 no production at all in Michigan, none of any 

 importance in Cumberland county, Ky., and in 

 California, while petroleum is found in Santa 

 Clara county, the large and important produc- 

 tion in that State, is yielded in Los Angeles and 

 Ventura counties, several hundred miles south, 

 between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. 



In his table which shows the geological dis- 

 tribution of petroleum the very important 

 Trenton limestone deposits are not mentioned ; 



