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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 709 



evening hours in order to keep alive. The 

 details, however, upon which this common 

 knowledge is built must bring it home with a 

 sting to the alumni of almost every alma 

 mater. The policy of many colleges resembles 

 only too faithfully that of the " university " 

 which, while building a gymnasium with 

 $400,000 raised by mortgaging its campus, 

 pays its full professors an average yearly 

 salary of $1,806 and employs only one in- 

 structor for every twenty undergraduates. On 

 the other hand, Haverford College finds 

 scarcely an imitator courageous enough to 

 foreswear stadia and a hundred pompous 

 " special courses " for the sake of paying its 

 professors an average of $3,440 and having an 

 instructor for every 6.5 students. 



Every college man is invited to learn from 

 the statistics how his old teachers are being 

 treated. Publicity is the first step toward the 

 overthrow of the painful policy which makes 

 one professor give twenty-five lectures a week, 

 forces another to house his family of four in a 

 sis-room flat five flights up and compels a 

 third to do typewriting in order to pay for a 

 small insurance policy. If the Carnegie 

 Foundation could only send its bulletin to 

 every man who ever emitted a class yell, col- 

 lege trustees might soon be dissuaded from 

 building marble halls with teachers' salaries. 

 In saying this we do not forget the many in- 

 stances in which the almost necessary accept- 

 ance of a gift or legacy is embarrassing be- 

 cause of the expense which results from the 

 conditions attached to it. College faculties 

 might also abandon the fatuous plan of multi- 

 plying courses to allure freshmen and prevent 

 professors from indulging in research and con- 

 structive work. Perhaps this would be at- 

 tained still more easily if the bulletin were 

 supplemented by a table showing what per- 

 centage of college instructors enjoy private in- 

 comes. If there is any evidence that the well- 

 to-do, simply by virtue of their being well to 

 do, have conspicuously superior chances of 

 getting and holding academic places, the ques- 

 tion of professorial salaries may have to be 

 faced and answered as a problem of de- 

 mocracy. — New York Tribune. 



8CIENTIFIG BOOKS 



EVOLUTION OF NUGARA FALLs' 



The latest and most elaborate study of the 

 physical history of Niagara is issued by the 

 Geological Survey of Canada. Dr. J. W. 

 Spencer, who decades ago had made im- 

 portant contributions to the subject, renewed 

 his attention in more recent years and was 

 commissioned by the Survey to give it mono- 

 graphic treatment. The outcome is an at- 

 tractive volume of five hundred pages, illus- 

 trated by excellent and appropriate views and 

 maps. It deals primarily with the history of 

 the recession of the cataract from end to end 

 of its gorge. As a foundation for that his- 

 tory it describes with much detail the local 

 physical features, and discusses the con- 

 temporaneous distribution and discharge of 

 waters in the region of the Upper Lakes, as 

 well as the sequence of water levels in the 

 Ontario basin. As a sequel to the history it 

 computes in years the time that has elapst 

 since the river and cataract came into exist- 

 ence. Subsidiary to the question of time are 

 chapters on the present rate of recession of 

 the falls and on the rainfall and run-off of 

 the Erie and Huron basins. Less closely re- 

 lated to the central theme are chapters on 

 pre-glacial drainage, the origin of the Lauren- 

 tian Lakes, the utilization of the river for 

 the generation of power, and the position of 

 the international boundary line. There is a 

 discussion of the present stability or in- 

 stability of the land in the Great Lakes 

 region, with the conclusion that no earth 

 movements have occurred in modem times. 



In the study of local features a series of 

 soundings were made with apparatus of the 

 Kelvin type — the only type adapted to the 

 exploration of waters in violent commotion. 

 These showed a depth in the Whirlpool of 126 

 feet and a maximum depth, near the foot of 



'"The Falls of Niagara; Their Evolution and 

 Varying Relations to the Great Lakes; Charac- 

 teristics of the Power, and the Effects of its 

 Diversion," by Joseph William Winthrop Spencer, 

 M.A., Ph.D., F.G.S. 1905-6. Geol. Surv. Canada; 

 Ottawa, 1907. 



' The recommendations of the Simplified Spell- 

 ing Board are followed in this paper. — G. K. 6. 



