250 
essary to use for rubber smoking the nuts of 
the Urucury palm, botanically known at At- 
talea excelsa.1 
Of Rio de Janeiro it is said that a person 
who visited that city twenty-five years ago 
would hardly recognize the city to-day, and 
that “the traveler who was so unfortunate as 
to be obliged to stop there held to his nose a 
handkerchief saturated with disinfectant as he 
made his way through narrow, dirty, un- 
drained streets” (p. 93). Such statements 
may make an effective background for refer- 
ences to the present healthfulness of that city, 
nevertheless, they are gross exaggerations. 
The statement (p. 93) that the people of Rio 
“learned from the United States how to make 
the city a pleasant healthful place to live in” 
is misleading to say the least. The fact that 
malaria was transmitted by. mosquitoes was 
discovered by a surgeon in the British army. 
And as for Rio’s beautiful Beiramar, we re- 
egret to say that there is no such a water 
front drive in the whole United States from 
which it could have been copied. 
Both maps and text keep up the ancient 
myth about the forests of the Amazon valley 
being called selvas (pp. 105, 125). Asamatter 
of fact they are called mattas by the people, 
and the forest map of Brazil by Dr. Gonzaga 
de Campos calls them mattas. But why must 
a foreign word be used at all? They are 
simply tropical forests. 
But errors of statement that may be matters 
of oversight are of less importance than the 
attitude of teachers who think it necessary to 
use extravagant language in order to awaken 
the interest and to hold the attention of 
pupils. At page 123 we are informed that 
Indians have gathered the rubber, the sailors 
have manned the ships, and the workmen in 
the factories “have spent their time in order 
that you may be protected from the wet.” 
There is not a workman in that list who 
doesn’t know better. And when attention 
flags, something more startling than usual 
must be injected into it. “ Did you hear that 
loud report? Look at the column of smoke 
1 Wallace’s ‘‘Palm Trees of the Amazon,’’ p. 
118. 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Von, XLVIII. No. 1236 
rising in the field over to the right” (p. 267). 
It turns out to be nothing more serious than 
the workmen blasting out the rocks in the 
nitrate fields. And though the nitrate regions 
of Chile are in low hills along the western 
margin of a flat ancient lake bed she says the 
“surface of the country is all upheaved” 
(p. 266), and gives a picture of waste rock 
from the quarries as evidence of the upheaval. 
Fictitious resemblances between the United 
States and Brazil are discovered (p. 78) ; while 
“Lying in its wide mouth, as the prey might 
lie in the open jaws of a great serpent, is the 
island of Marajo” (p. 104). 
Some of this writing down to students is 
harmless enough, but one wonders why it is 
necessary to use a platitude instead of plain 
English; for example, coffee is called “our 
morning cup,” and she “explores” the streets 
of Buenos Aires (p. 164). All of which is in 
keeping with certain other hackneyed expres- 
sions, such as: Bahia bay is “large enough 
to hold all the navies of the world” (p. 86) ; 
“every part of the animal, except the bleat 
and the bellow, is made use of ” by the meat 
packers (p. 181). The pity of it all is that 
when the author forgets these antics and sticks 
to facts and to plain English she is an inter- 
esting writer, a fact which leads one to con- 
elude that it is the system that is at fault 
rather than the author of the book. 
There are legitimate ways to hold the at- 
tention of students, and there is a reasonable 
mean between buffoonery and the dry-as-dust 
way of presenting instruction. The idea that 
studies must be made entertaining has so 
penetrated our schools, our teachers, aud our 
text-books, that the seriousness of education is 
well nigh lost sight of in the sensationalism, 
extravagance, and unwholesome lack of sin- 
cerity that naturally springs from such false 
conceptions. 
Joun C. BRANNER 
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, 
CALIFORNIA 
PATENT REFORM PROSPECTS 
Tue following letter is published for the in- 
formation and suggestions it contains: 
