SEPTKjrBEE 27, 1895. ] 



SCIENCE. 



407 



material is almost certain to be presented 

 among the papers read and in the discus- 

 sions. 



Papers were read by title in the section 

 on ' The Law of Chance Illustrated in Eail- 

 way Accidents,' by T. C. Mendenhall, and 

 on ' Suicide, ' by W. L. O'lSTeill. On the 

 morning of Fridaj^, August 30, Mr. Henry 

 Farquhar read a paper on ' An Interna- 

 tional Coinage, ' which contained argu- 

 ments for such a system and reviewed the 

 difficulties to be overcome before the system 

 could be put in practical operation. 



In the afternoon a joint session of Sec- 

 tions A, B, E and I was held to listen to 

 papers on meteorology, which will be re- 

 ported elsewhere in this journal. 



On Monday, September 2, the first paper 

 presented was by the Secretary of the Sec- 

 tion, W. R. Lazenby, whose subject was 

 ' Manual Training in Horticulture for Our 

 Country Schools.' The author said that in 

 the earlier educational history of this coun- 

 try, when the forests covered large sections 

 of the land and people lived in log bouses 

 built by their own hands, and the school- 

 houses were constructed in the same man- 

 ner, the boys and girls grew to be men and 

 women of great force of character and strong 

 personality. Nothing could be more useful 

 than manual training in horticulture to train 

 the eye and hand, to stimulate the power of 

 observation, to awaken an appreciation of 

 the beautiful, in short to develop all the 

 faculties of body and mind, which is the 

 aim of modern education. In a paper enti- 

 tled, 'Equality of Opportunity — How Can 

 We Secure It '? ' J. L. Cowles argued in 

 favor of government control of the means of 

 communication and transportation. Mrs. 

 Mary J. Eastman, an associate member, 

 was invited to read a paper on ' A Cottage 

 Settlement in Spain,' in which she advo-. 

 cated the extension of the university settle- 

 ment idea by the establishment of model 

 cottages. 



On Tuesday, September 3, E. L. Corthell 

 read a paper on ' The Growth of Great 

 Cities.' He traced the growth of cities, and 

 closed by predicting the population of some 

 of the world's greatest cities in 1920, as 

 based on past and present growth, and al- 

 lowing for a future decrease. His predic- 

 tions are as follows : Population of London 

 8,344,000 ; Paris, 3,808,586 ; New York, 

 6,337,500 ; Berlin, 3,422,221 ; Chicago, 

 7,797,600 ; Philadelphia, 1,838,160 ; St. Pe- 

 tersburg, 1,470,833. The last paper of the 

 meeting was on ' Taxation in the United 

 States,' by Edward Atkinson. The speaker 

 aimed to show the necessity of carefully in- 

 vestigating what proportion of taxes goes to 

 construction, to interest, etc. Other things 

 being equal, the country that spends the 

 most of its taxes for construction and the 

 least for military expenses is the best ad- 

 ministered. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



M. Ch. Bouchard announced to the Paris 

 Academj^ of Sciences, on September 2d, that 

 he had examined the gases from three sul- 

 phurous springs in the Prj^enees. In one 

 he found the characteristic lines of both 

 argon and helium, in one of helium alone, 

 and in a third helium together with an un- 

 known substance characterized by lines in 

 the orange and red. 



At the same meeting of the Academy, M. 

 J. Janssen reported on the work at Mont 

 Blanc Observatory. Measurements of the 

 force of gravity have been made at Chamo- 

 nix and at the Grand-Mulets, at an eleva- 

 tion of 3,050 m., and it is hoped to repeat the 

 measurements next year at the summit, if 

 it be found possible to transport the appa- 

 ratus. M. de Thierry has ascended to the 

 summit in order to study the ozone in the 

 air and make certain bacteriological exami- 

 nations. 



Professor C. V. Eiley, the entomologist, 

 was killed by a fall from a bicycle at Wash- 



