234 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XlV. No. 348 



— Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia has been elected presi- 

 dent of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, which 

 meets in Washington in September, 1891. 



— Herbert Spencer, according to a London correspondent of the 

 New York Sun, has returned to London with his autobiography 

 completed up to the present time. It is not to be published until 

 after his death, but he is making preparations for it to be produced 

 then on both sides of the Atlantic simultaneously. The manu- 

 script has been put into type, and three proofs only are taken, all 

 of which are sent to him. Before the type is distributed, two 

 moulds are taken for stereotyping, one of which is to be sent to 

 America, where Spencer is more widely read than in England, to 

 be used immediately upon his death. 



— Professor L. H. Bailey, of the Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion of Cornell University, sent a large number of circulars to lead- 

 ing fruit-growers in New York and Michigan, asking for definite 

 information in regard to windbreaks, and, as a general summary of 

 the result, makes the following statements : — i. A windbreak may 

 exert great influence upon a fruit plantation. 2. The benefits de- 

 rived from windbreaks are the following : protection from cold, 

 lessening of evaporation from soil and plants, lessening of wind- 

 falls, lessening of liability to mechanical injury of trees, retention of 

 snow and leaves, facilitating of labor, protection of blossoms from 

 severe winds, enabling trees to grow more erect, lessening of injury 

 from the drying-up of small-fruits, retention of sand in certain lo- 

 calities, hastening of maturity of fruits in some cases, encourage- 

 ment of birds, ornamentation. 3. The injuries sustained from 

 windbreaks are as follows : preventing the free circulation of warm 

 winds and consequent exposure to cold, injuries from insects and 

 fungous diseases, injuries from the encroachment of the windbreak 

 itself, increased liability to late spring frosts in rare cases : (a) The 

 injury from cold, still air is usually confined to those localities 

 which are directly influenced by large bodies of water, and which 

 are protected by forest belts (it can be avoided by planting thin 

 belts); (i) The injury from insects can be averted by spraying with 

 arsenical poisons ; (c) The injury from the encroachment of the 

 windbreak may be averted, in part at least, by good cultivation and 

 by planting the fruit simultaneously with the belt. 4. Windbreaks 

 are advantageous wherever fruit plantations are exposed to strong 

 winds. 5. In interior places, dense or broad belts, of two or more 

 rows of trees, are desirable ; while, within the influence of large 

 bodies of water, thin or narrow belts, comprising but a row or two, 

 are usually preferable. 6. The best trees for windbreaks in the 

 North-eastern States are Norway spruce, and Austrian and Scotch 

 pines, among the evergreens. Among deciduous trees, most of the 

 rapidly growing native species are useful. A mixed plantation, 

 with the hardiest and most vigorous deciduous trees on the wind- 

 ward, is probably the ideal artificial shelter belt. 



— By permission of the trustees of the Lowell Institute, Boston, 

 the curator. Professor Alpheus Hyatt, is enabled to distribute a 

 limited number of tickets to teachers of private schools and mem- 

 bers of the Boston Society of Natural History who desire to attend 

 the course of lectures described below. Applications for tickets 

 should be made immediately at the library in the society's building. 

 Professor W. O. Crosby will give a course of ten lessons during the 

 winter of 1889-90, upon the physical history of the Boston Basin. 

 The course of lessons on the geology of Boston and vicinity given 

 last winter was devoted to a general and systematic study of the 

 geological phenomena of the Boston Basin, in which the various 

 principles of dynamical and structural geology were taken up in 

 the order of the text-book, and studied in connection with those 

 localities in which they could be most satisfactorily illustrated, each 

 class of phenomena being referred only to that part of the basin in 

 which it had its finest development. This comprehensive course 

 in geology may therefore be regarded as having formed a suitable 

 preparation for the lessons to be given during the coming winter. 

 The principal object of this second series of lessons will be to apply 

 the principles of the first series to a thorough and detailed study of 

 the physical history of the Boston Basin. Each important locality 

 or natural division of the Boston Basin will form the subject of a 

 separate lesson, in which its structural features, and, so far as they 

 can be made out, the more important events of its history, will be 



presented as fully as the time will permit. Special attention will 

 be given to tracing the relations of the existing surface feature of 

 each district to its geological structure, and thus connecting the 

 physical geography and geology of the region. The concluding 

 lessons will summarize the results of these detailed studies; and 

 an attempt will be made to present a picture of the Boston Basin 

 at each principal epoch of its history. The course will be freely 

 illustrated by specimens, maps, and diagrams, and also by a relief 

 map or model of the Boston Basin, which will be colored to repre- 

 sent geological features. The lessons will be given, as usual, in 

 Huntington Hall, in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 beginning Oct. 12. Doors will be closed at 3 P.M. 



— A tramcar line is being constructed in the Argentine Repub- 

 lic which will connect Buenos Ayres with the outlying towns, and 

 will, when finished, extend over two hundred miles. The cars will 

 be drawn' by horses, which are cheap and plentiful in South 

 America ; while fuel, both wood and coal, is scarce and expensive. 

 The rolling-stock consists of five sleeping-cars eighteen feet long, 

 each with six beds, which in the day-time are rolled back to form 

 seats ; four two-storied carriages ; twenty platform-carriages ; six 

 ice-wagons ; four cattle-trucks ; and two hundred goods vans. 



— Professor J. B. Smith, entomologist of the New Jersey Experi- 

 ment Station, in a recent bulletin, tells the farmers and gardeners 

 of the State how they can help him in his investigation of insect- 

 pests. His first counsel is to be prompt, instead of waiting till the 

 damage is done and the pests have disappeared ; and he adds, 

 " Do not waste time in describing insects. Send specimens, and 

 send plenty of them. If an insect is really injurious, it is as easy to 

 get a dozen as it is to get one, and it makes it a great deal easier 

 for the entomologist. He wants two or three to put in alcohol, so 

 that he will know them next time ; the others he wants to bring to 

 maturity, or to describe or figure so as to complete his knowledge 

 of them. Such specimens, if dead, should be packed in some soft 

 material, as cotton or wool, and put into a stout tin or wooden box. 

 They go by mail for one cent per ounce. Never send insects loose 

 in a letter. The postal-clerk always smashes them flat, so that 

 they are never of any use as specimens, and frequently not recog- 

 nizable. With the specimen send also, so far as possible, a sam- 

 ple of the kind of injury caused by it, — a bored twig or root, or 

 gnawed stem, fruit, or leaf, — any thing to show how the insect 

 works. If at all possible, send the insects alive, along with a sup- 

 ply of their ordinary food sufficient to last during the journey. 

 Pack them in a tight box, and do not punch air-holes in it. In- 

 sects need very little air, and the tight box keeps the food moist. 

 Send with the insect an account of what you know of it, — how it 

 works, whether on leaves, twigs, or fruit, whether above ground 

 or under ground ; how long you have known it ; how much damage 

 it has done ; what experiments looking to its destruction have 

 been made, and what the result has been. Such facts are often not 

 only of the highest scientific interest, but also of the greatest prac- 

 tical importance." 



— Among other reports received by the United States Hydro- 

 graphic Office, we would call attention to two, — one from Capt. 

 James P. White, of the American schooner " Ada Bailey," who re- 

 ports that he used oil with wonderful effect in the late storm, and 

 did not ship any water after he got his oil-bag over the side of the 

 vessel. He always uses a cone-shaped bag stuffed half full of 

 oakum, and prefers kerosene to any other oil. He says that he has 

 been using it for five or six years, and believes that it is better than 

 a thicker oil, although he has mixed fishoil with kerosene, obtain- 

 ing good results. It is his custom to keep a supply of oil always 

 on hand for this purpose, and he uses from one to three barrels of 

 oil every long cruise. The other was from Capt. McCrae, of the 

 British schooner " Atwood," dated Sept. 9, in which he stated that 

 when about 45 miles south of Sandy Hook, wind north-east, and 

 a tremendous sea running, the jibs were washed away from off the 

 bowsprit and jibboom, and bowsprit and mainmast sprung. Tre- 

 mendous seas coming aboard smashed down the after-companion- 

 way, bent the stern boat-davits, carried away the boat, and broke 

 the rails. He used paint-oil mixed with kerosene and grease in 

 canvas bags, hung from forward aft on the weather side, keeping 

 them replenished every six hours. The oil proved a great benefit, 



