March 30, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



301 



issues of the day. It was this extermina- 

 tion that made the Panama Canal possible, 

 and has rendered Havana a justly favored 

 health resort. 



The acreage of unreclaimed and prac- 

 tically worthless swamp land in 1908, was 

 stated by Hon. James "Wilson, Secretary 

 of Agriculture, to be 79,007,023 acres, and 

 he estimated that reclamation would make 

 these lands worth nearly $1,600,000,000, 

 and that the value of their annual produce 

 would amount to $273,000,000. 



For the development of commerce, water- 

 ways play a most important part and the 

 work done in this direction would fall in 

 line with that carried on in drainage and 

 irrigation. Our great natural waterways 

 must be constantly supplemented, and 

 their usefulness as channels of commerce 

 must be increased. Nothing has so power- 

 fully fostered the interior commerce of cen- 

 tral Europe as the great canals uniting and 

 extending the natural waterways, and in 

 our own land we have striking examples 

 of this. In such undertakings our citizen 

 soldiery, with their special training, could 

 be utilized in a way most valuable for the 

 commercial interests of our land. 



The great war has shown us what won- 

 ders scientific training can accomplish in 

 destruction and devastation. Let us hope 

 that the United States may continue to 

 offer the world an object lesson of the value 

 of peace arts, and that the magic wand of 

 science may continue to be used by us for 

 the works of peace, or, at the worst, for the 

 defense of the freedom of our fair land 

 against any and all ruthless aggression. 

 George F. Kunz 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



DECLINE OF GERMAN BIRTH RATE 



The Amsterdam correspondent of the Lon- 

 don Times writes that although it is difficult 

 to sift the truth from the reports which con- 

 stantly reach Holland of increasing mortality 



in Germany, there is enough evidence in them 

 to indicate a decline in the national vitality. 

 Apart from causes connected with the war, 

 there are others affecting the birth-rate to 

 which attention is drawn by the German 

 press, which comments on the " shameless " 

 extent to which recourse is had to artificial 

 means of restricting the natural growth of the 

 population. Strong measures, it would appear^ 

 are being contemplated by the authorities to 

 counteract the fatal effects of a policy of cal- 

 culated sterility. In addition there is an enor- 

 mous falling off in the number of marriages. 

 In Berlin the number of marriages has been 

 declining; in 1915 there were 16,622, and in 

 1916 13,966. With this decline there goes a 

 decline of births and a large number of deaths. 

 The Amsterdam Bureau of Statistics in its 

 weekly report compares the vital statistics of 

 several large German towns with those of 

 Amsterdam for the 10 weeks from I'J'ovember 

 5 to January 13. The following table, com- 

 piled from the Dutch figures, will be found 

 instructive : 



It will be observed that in one week, Decem- 

 ber 24-30, the nmnber of births in Berlin was 

 only 45 in excess of the number in Amster- 

 dam, although the population is only 80,000 

 short of three times the size of that of Amster- 

 dam. 



Two other large German cities are included 

 in the comparative statistics of the Amster- 

 dam Bureau. They are Leipzig and Dresden. 

 Leipzig has a population of 676,289, or 50,000 

 more than the population of Amsterdam. In 

 the week ended November 5-11 the births in 

 Leipzig were 108, compared with 255 in Am - 



