SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 50. 



in place of C. A. Eggert, Ph. D., who resigned 

 at the close of the last session. W. H. Kirk, 

 Ph. D., of Johns Hopkins University, has been 

 elected instructor in Latin in the place of Frank 

 E. Bradshaw, M. A., who died last month. 



A NEW school of technology is to be estab- 

 lished at Hartford, as a department, of Trinity 

 College. 



The University of the State of New York 

 has published a Bulletin on Extension of Uni- 

 versity Teaching in England and America, by 

 Dr. James E. Russell. In July, 1893, on recom- 

 mendation of some of the leading members of 

 convocation, the regents appointed Prof. James 

 E. Russell, then of New York but now profes- 

 sor of pedagogy in the University of Colorado, 

 a special commissioner to visit European educa- 

 tional institutions and report on whatever he 

 might find of most importance to educational 

 institutions in New York, and the results of his 

 investigations are embodied in the present re- 

 port. 



Dr. B. E. Fernow has been appointed 

 special lecturer on forests and forestry in the 

 school of economics, political science and his- 

 tory, in the University of Wisconsin. This 

 course of lectures will probably be the first one 

 of the kind to be given in a school of this char- 

 acter. The following may be mentioned among 

 the topics of which Dr. Fernow will treat: The 

 state of natural resources, the nature of the 

 forest and of its products; an idea as to what 

 forests are, how they grow, how their materials 

 enter into human use, the forest influences on 

 climate, water and soil conditions; history and 

 statistics; methods and requirements of forest 

 management; forest yield a financial calcula- 

 tion; principles of forest legislation, with special 

 reference to the United States, including the 

 history of the forestry reform movement. 



COBBESPONDENCE. 



THE PERCEPTION OF DIRECTION. 



The ' inverted image ' discussion in Science 

 suggests a number of questions that have a 

 bearing on the pertinence and validity of purely 

 physical solutions of the problem under con- 

 sideration. 



Have we a special sense of direction ; and if 



so, to what extent can its indications be trusted 

 without constant supervision and correction by 

 the other senses? Can the range of the lines 

 d^a^vn from particular cones of the retina to 

 the lens be determined by this hypothetical 

 sense of direction to give any accurate notion 

 of their real projections in space? Does the 

 short base line from the cones to the lens re- 

 main constant in its indications under the con- 

 ditions presented in the movements of the eye 

 to secure the best adjustment for distinct vision ? 

 Would not any slight variations in this base 

 line, resulting from movements of the eye, give 

 a confused outline of distant objects if there 

 were no other means of correcting the impres- 

 sions received from them? Without further 

 detail of specific inquiry the whole may be 

 summarized in general terms, can a satisfactory 

 solution of biological problems be obtained by 

 an appeal to purely physical or chemical con- 

 siderations ? 



From our present knowledge of phj'siological 

 processes, it must be admitted that the physical 

 conditions under which the impressions are 

 made on the retina by external objects repre- 

 sent but a single factor in the series of complex 

 biological activities involved in our final inter- 

 pretation of visual sensations. The mutuality 

 or reciprocity of the special senses in their re- 

 lations to the cerebrum must be recognized as 

 essential factors in the conclusions arrived at as 

 to the real significance of the impressions re- 

 ceived by the peripheral elements of the special 

 sense organs. 



The inverted images on the retina are evi- 

 dently not directly concerned in the judgments 

 we form in regard to the position and character- 

 istics of the external objects that produce them. 

 These peripheral images on the retina are tele- 

 graphed, as it were, to the central nerve organs 

 of vision and brought into relation with cerebral 

 activities, in connection with impressions trans- 

 mitted in like manner from other sense organs 

 to their appropriate nerve centers, and the re- 

 sulting correlation of these complex interde- 

 pendent processes are the basis of the judg- 

 ments we habitually form in regard to the 

 nature and position of objects in the field of 

 vision. 



That we have, no specific physiological sense 



