OCTOBEE 12, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



479 



Campbell, at Lick Observatory, stating that 

 the seventh satellite of Jupiter v?as reobserved 

 by Perrine Sep. 25.9962 G. M. Y. Its posi- 

 tion angle was 119.1° and its distance was 

 2578". 



We learn from The Auk that the annual 

 meeting of the Maine Ornithological Society 

 will be held at the rooms of the Portland So- 

 ciety of Natural History, Portland, Maine, on 

 Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving 

 day. 



There will be a civil service examination 

 on November 14, to fill the position of aid 

 (male) in zoology, in the department of biol- 

 ogy of the U. S. National Museum at a salary 

 of $720; there will also be a civil service ex- 

 amination on November 7 and 8 for topo- 

 graphic draftsman on the Isthmus of Panama, 

 at salaries of $100 and $125 a month. 



At the meeting of the ' Conference on 

 Home Economics ' held at Lake Placid during 

 the second week of September a letter was 

 read from Mr. LeBosquet proposing that the 

 Public Health and Marine Hospital Service 

 should issue popular bulletins for the informa- 

 tion of the public on health matters. Extracts 

 from the letter proposing a National Board of 

 Health were read. The conference voted that 

 its secretary should communicate with Presi- 

 dent Roosevelt expressing the approval of the 

 conference both of the plan for the distribu- 

 tion of circulars of information by the Public 

 Health and Marine Hospital Service and for 

 the establishment of a National Department 

 of Health to coordinate and extend the work 

 already being done by the national govern- 

 ment. At this conference Professor Irving 

 Eisher, of Yale University, presented the re- 

 sults of experiments made at Yale University 

 during the last college year directly to ascer- 

 tain the effect of change of diet upon working 

 power. The experiment was conducted on 

 nine healthy students who volunteered for the 

 purpose and was based upon the previous ex- 

 periments of Professor Chittenden. After 

 four and a half months it was found that the 

 men on the average had doubled their physical 

 endurance, as shown by gymnasium tests, 

 which they had at the beginning of the experi- 



ment in January. This great increase is as- 

 cribed entirely to dietetic causes, as no other 

 factors which were likely to increase endu- 

 rance were known to be present. The change 

 in diet was not through any food prescription, 

 but was brought about by following in an en- 

 tirely natural manner three rules, the first two 

 of which are Mr. Eletcher's; first, thorough 

 mastication of food, with the attention on the 

 taste and enjoyment of food, not on the mech- 

 anical act of mastication; second, implicit 

 obedience to the appetite, both in regard to 

 the kind of foods consumed and quantity; 

 third, when appetite consented, but not other- 

 wise, the fullest benefit of the doubt was given 

 to low proteid foods rather than meats and 

 other high proteid foods. At the end of the 

 experiment the men had reduced their proteid 

 to about the level shown by Professor Chit- 

 tenden to be the normal required. 



An interesting address on educational meth- 

 ods and their relation to science and industry, 

 with particular reference to pottery, was de- 

 livered by Professor H. E. Armstrong in the 

 Town Hall, Longton, on September 19. In 

 the course of his remarks, according to an ab- 

 stract in Nature, he said that workers in sci- 

 ence have evolved a method, the scientific 

 method, involving the gradual and cautious 

 passage from the known to the unknown. 

 Workers in politics have no such method at 

 their disposal. Too often they are more or 

 less ignorant of the real nature and extent of 

 the problems which they deal with and seek 

 to solve; sentiment masters their actions. 

 The application of scientific method to public 

 affairs is, consequently, becoming a matter of 

 paramount importance. In all manufacturing 

 districts science and industry must be brought 

 into an effective alliance. On no other basis 

 are prosperity and happiness possible, for the 

 simple reason that, in these days, an industry 

 that does not repose on a scientific basis is one 

 which has no proper knowledge of itself, science 

 being nothing more than organized systematic 

 knowledge. Scientific training, training in 

 method, is required by all. Scientific knowl- 

 edge, true knowledge, must be public posses- 

 sion. The feeling is becoming general that 



