66 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 338 



University of North Carolina was largely patronized by the young 

 men of that State, is clearly shown. The sketch which is given of 

 the University of North Carolina is the first full account of that 

 institution which has ever been written. The writer thinks no in- 

 stitution of this country has a more honorable record ; and it is 

 claimed, that, in proportion to the number of its alumni, it stands 

 second to none in the number of the distinguished public men it 

 has given to the State and nation. 



— Judge Benjamin F. Burnham has published through Messrs. 

 Macdonald & Co. of Boston a little pamphlet bearing the title 

 " Elsmere Elsewhere." What meaning there is in this title we are 

 unable to see ; but the book has considerable interest as marking 

 the rapid change now in progress in this country in men's views of 

 Christianity. The author's standpoint is essentially that of iVIrs. 

 Humphry Ward and other liberal English thinkers, and will proba- 

 bly seem pretty radical to many people in this country. He re- 

 views the leading points of the Christian creed, and shows what 

 changes are taking place or have already taken place in the inter- 

 pretation of them ; and all these changes he holds to be wise and 

 beneficial. The style of the work is generally clear, and always 

 concise, so that it presents a large amount of matter in a small 

 compass. The appendix contains extracts from Mrs. Ward, Pro- 

 fessor Huxley, and others, and also some curious notes about " de- 

 moniacal possession'' and other "occult '' phenomena. 



— Of his purpose in building the Eiffel Tower, Mr. Eiffel says in 

 the July number of the New Review (Longmans, Green, & Co.), 

 " The beginning was difficult, and criticism as passionate as it was 

 premature was addressed to me. I faced the storm as best I 

 could, thanks to the constant support of M. Lockroy, then minister 

 of commerce and industry ; and I strove by the steady progress of 

 the work to conciliate, if not the opinion ot artists, at least that of 

 engineers and scientific men. I desired to show, in spite of my 

 personal insignificance, that France continued to hold a foremost 

 place in the art of iron construction, in which from the earliest 

 days her engineers have been more particularly distinguished, and 

 by means of which they have covered Europe with the creations of 

 their talent. Doubtless you are not ignorant that almost all the 

 great engineering works of this nature, in Austria. Russia, Italy, 

 Spain, and Portugal, are due to French engineers ; and the traveller 

 discovers with pride, as he passes through foreign countries, the 

 traces of their activity and their science. The tower, i,ooo feet 

 high, is, before every thing, a striking manifestation of our national 

 genius in one of its most modern developments ; and this is one of 

 the principal reasons for its existence. If I may judge by the in- 

 terest which it inspires, abroad as well as at home, I have reason 

 to believe that my efforts have not been unavailing, and that we 

 may make known to the world that France continues to lead the 

 world, that she is the first of the nations to realize an enterprise 



often attempted or dreamed of : for man has always sought to 

 build high towers to manifest his power, but he soon recognized 

 that the laws of gravity hampered him seriously, and that his 

 means were very limited. It is owing to the progress of science, 

 of the engineer's art, and of the iron industry, that we are en- 

 abled to surpass in this line the generations which have gone be- 

 fore us by the construction of this tower, which will be one of the 

 characteristic feats of modern industry." 



— The Quarterly Journal of Economics for July opens with a 

 paper by Edward Cummings on " The English Trades-Unions," 

 the special object of which is to show the present character and 

 tendency of these associations. The writer points out that the 

 policy of strikes is much less favored by the unions than it was a 

 few years ago, and more care and intelligence shown in ordering 

 strikes. On the other hand, the unions are assuming more and 

 more the character of benefit societies, much to the gratification of 

 the best friends of workingmen, and much to the dissatisfaction of 

 the socialists, who charge the members of the unions with " apos- 

 tasy to the cause of labor." Mr. Cummings also calls attention to 

 the fact that the English unions really comprise but a small por- 

 tion even of the skilled workmen of the country, but thinks these are 

 " the flower of their respective trades." To students of the labor 

 problem this article will be useful ; and the same may be said of 

 another in this number of the journal, that on " The International 

 Protection of Workmen." It is a summary by A. C. Miller of a 

 work by Dr. Georg Adler of Freiburg, with some account of the 

 discussion the work has raised. Dr. Adler is anxious for legisla- 

 tion restricting the hours of labor, prohibiting the employment of 

 children, and otherwise protecting workmen and their families 

 against some of the evils they now suffer ; but he thinks t^is can- 

 not be enacted by any one nation independently, since the effect 

 would be to raise the price of tabor, and thus impede the nation in 

 its competition with foreigners : hence he wants an international 

 agreement on the subject, and believes that the end in view can be 

 attained in no other way. Still another article on the labor ques- 

 tion is " A New View of the Theory of Wages," by Stuart Wood, 

 being a continuation of one published by him in the journal last 

 October. We noticed the former article briefly at the time, and 

 this one merely develops somewhat further the theory there laid 

 down. The remaining article in this number is by Professor Dun- 

 bar, on " The Direct Tax of i85i." It gives a full and clear ac- 

 count of the levying and collection of the tax, so far as it was col- 

 lected, and advises against refunding it to the States. The writer 

 thinks it will be refunded, however, and he is probably right ; for 

 Congress appears to be searching for every available means of 

 spending the money in the national treasury. Besides these longer 

 articles, the journal has some interesting " Notes and Memoranda," 

 including an account of the rise and fall of the French Copper Syn- 

 dicate, which forms a curious chapter in industrial history. 



INDUSTRIAL NOTES. 



Natural Memory Method. 



We take the following extract from an editorial in the Journal 

 of Education, Boston: " We have taken no part in the Loisette- 

 Fellows-Pick memory controversy, because we have not thought 

 the advantage to be had from all systems of mnemonics sufficient 

 to make it of interest to the world. Systems of the past have often 

 required more effort to remember senseless things than would be 

 required to remember the desired things. Any system based upon 

 sounds, upon having letters stand for special figures, is impracticable 

 for every-day affairs or educational uses. So long as mnemonics meant 

 any thing of this kind, we merely examined them as curiosities ; 

 but within the past year John A. Shedd of New York City has dis- 

 covered a purely original system, which is high above any unnatu- 

 ral system. It is simple (it may be understood in fifteen minutes), 

 natural (all its principles may be learned in an hour by the dullest 

 student), suggestive (two hours' practice makes it easy to use it 

 every day, and alrnost literally every hour of life), comprehensive 

 (it adapts itself to various subjects and branches of knowledge). 

 There is not a moment's drudgery in learning it, not a feather- 

 weight's burden in remembering it, and no perplexity in applying 



it. It is educational and helpful, entirely apart from the memory 

 phase of the subject." 



Electrical Accumulators. 



Judge Coxe, in the United States Circuit Court for the southern 

 district of New York, rendered a decision on July 22, re-afifirming 

 his former judgment in favor of The Electrical Accumulator Com- 

 pany, in its suit against The Julien Electric Company to establish 

 the validity of the Faure secondary battery patent, and denying 

 The Julien Company's motion for a rehearing. 



The Julien Company, in its argument, claimed, among other 

 things, that it could manufacture batteries by the " dry-powder " 

 process as good as or better than it was possible to manufacture 

 under the Faure process by the use of a " paste ; " and in this con- 

 nection Judge Coxe very aptly says, " If it be true that Faure's 

 batteries are inferior to or no better than others, the question 

 naturally suggests itself, ' Why are not defendants content to use 

 other batteries.' ' A rehearing is denied." 



According to the views of The Electrical Accumulator Com- 

 pany, this gives the complete control of the manufacture and use 

 of secondary batteries to that company, which owns the Faure- 

 Sellon-Volckmar patents. 



