92 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 603. 



much the more likely, for the reason that all 

 the conditions are more completely satisfied. 

 No hysenodont is known in which the molars 

 are reduced, whereas among the Oxysenidae 

 molar reduction is one of the most pronounced 

 characters. In fact all the primitive char- 

 acters are identical with those of this group. 

 I take this occasion, therefore, to reaffirm the 

 opinion I expressed on this subject some 

 twelve years ago and I do so without modi- 

 fication or emendation. 



J. L. WORTMAN. 



McMuKviLLE, Oregon, 

 June 6, 1906. 



DEW-POINT AND HUMIDITY CHART. 



The chart shows dew-point and relative hu- 

 midity in a room whose temperature is kept 

 at about 68°. These are readily calculated 

 from the readings of a wet-bulb thermometer 

 kept in the room. So long as the tempera- 

 ture is kept near 68° — say between 66° and 



D E W-P I NT 



AND 

 HUMID I T Y 



d r y^ bulb 



70° — the difference between the readings of 

 the dry-bulb theraiometer and the dew-point is 

 always about 1.8 times the difference between 

 the readings of the dry- and wet-bulb ther- 

 mometers. The percentage of humidity, 

 which corresponds approximately to these 

 readings, is shown in the curved line below. 

 John F. Woodhull. 

 Teachers College, 

 Columbia University. 



QUOTATIONS. 



THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK IN THE WORLD. 



The bringing of scientific agriculture into 

 general practise is, we presume, the most im- 

 portant economic task that awaits us; and it 

 is more than an economic task. In labora- 

 tories and on small experimental areas, meth- 

 ods have already been worked out which, if 

 universally applied, would so increase the 

 yield and the quality of our great crops, and 

 consequently the profit of growing them, that 

 the culture of the earth would become more 

 profitable than commerce and manufactures. 

 The ambitious young men have left the farms 

 for the cities, from Abraham's day, if they 

 had cities then, till our own, because they 

 could make more money in trade and in sim- 

 ilar pursuits; and the farmer, as a rule, has 

 been the left-over man; and he will be so, till 

 this economic situation is changed. 



Great hopes were entertained a generation 

 ago that the agricultural colleges would teach 

 men scientific farming; and so they have; but 

 most of the men who have thus been taught 

 have themselves become teachers and have 

 taught others who in turn have become teach- 

 ers; and the man on the soil has, as a rule, 

 not yet been reached with the new knowledge 

 and with new methods. 



Agricultural bulletins, too, have done good, 

 but they have instructed those who least need- 

 ed instruction; for the typical farmer does 

 not learn farming by reading about it. Ex- 

 periment stations have had a more direct in- 

 fluence and have caused better methods to be 

 used in their neighborhoods. 



But all these good agencies have yet failed 

 to reach the mass of men who till the earth, 

 the thousands and hundreds of thousands of 



