144 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No, 423 



The advantages to the profession of deaf-mute instruction in 

 this country, growing out of the normal fellowships now estab- 

 lished, are many and obvious. 



First of all, opportunities will be furnished to schools for the 

 deaf to secure the services of young men and women possessed of 

 all their faculties, of the highest education and character, with a 

 knowledge of the natural language of the deaf, and capable of 

 teaching by either the manual or the oral method, as circum- 

 stances may require. 



These young teachers will have had not only good academic and 

 collegiate training, but also, besides all they will gain at Kendall 

 Green, at least a year's residence in Washington, where valuable 

 opportunities are found for culture in the public libraries, museums, 

 legislative halls, courts, and many other places where contact with 

 men of high attainments is possible. 



In our " new departure "' the training of " deaf teachers of the 

 deaf" will have its proper share of attention, but not that posi- 

 tion of exaggerated importance to which it has been assigned by 

 certain persons who have been self-appointed to speak for the 

 college. 



Those of our own students whom it may seem wise to encourage 

 to become teachers will have all needed help in their laudable en- 

 deavor; and it is believed that the future will show, as the past 

 has done, many of our graduates doing as good and as useful work 

 in the instruction of their fellow deaf-mutes as can be accomplished 

 by the best hearing and speaking instructors. 



In closing this circular, the writer desires to say that the plans 

 for increasing the usefulness of the college herein unfolded are 

 precisely those that have been in his mind for many months, hav- 

 ing suffered no modification by recent events. 



It did not seem besc to give them to the public until the ability 

 to carry them into effect existed. 



They are now communicated in the hope that they will be ac- 

 corded the sympathy, the approval, and the co-operation of in- 

 structors of the deaf of all methods, of the deaf themselves, and 

 of those friends of the cause of deaf-mute education who believe 

 in trying to attain the greatest possible good for the greatest 

 possible number. 



Edward M. Gallaudet, 



President. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A PRESS despatch from Panama states that the United States 

 Fish Commission steamer "Albatross" arrived at that port on 

 Feb. 17, eighteen days from San Francisco via Acapulco. She 

 went there to meet Professor Agassiz, who arrived from New 

 York on the "Newport," and under his direction will make a 

 scientific cruise in tropical waters. The area under investigation 

 comprises the Gulf of Panama, the Galapagos, and thence to 

 Acapulco. 



— An ihteresting paper on the destruction of wolves in France 

 appears in the current number of the Revue Scientifique, says 

 Nature of Feb. 13. The law in virtue of which rewards are given 

 for the killing of wolves was passed on Aug. 3, 1883, and during 

 the last four months of that year 433 were destroyed. In 1883 

 the number killed was 1,316, the sum paid in rewards being 

 104,450 francs. The number was 1,035 in 1884, 900 in 1885, 760 

 in 1886, 701 in 1887, 505 in 1888, 515 in 1889. The departments 

 in which most animals have been slain are Dordogne and Charente. 

 It is believed that very soon no specimens will be left in France 

 except those which occasionally reach it from neighboring coun- 

 tries. 



— During the present season, according to Nature (Feb. 19), an 

 attempt is to be made to extend our knowledge of the wild tribes 

 inhabiting the borderland of Bui-mah, between Bhamo and the 

 Chinese frontier on the one hand, and between the Northern Shan 

 States and the Chinese frontier on the other. Lieut. Daly, super- 

 intendent of the Northern Shan States, and Lieut. Eliott, assistant 

 commissioner, will spend the greater part of the next six months 

 exploring these regions. The former will have with him an escort 

 of fifty men of the military police, and will be accompanied by 

 Mr. Warry of the Chinese Consular Service, and Lieut. Penny 



Tailyour of the Survey Department. He starts from Lashio, and 

 will visit the states on the Salween, including the important state 

 of Kyaingyanyi, and will then return along the supposed Chinese 

 border, ascertaining its situation as accepted on the spot, and the 

 nature of the country and the tribes inhabiting it. Mr. Eliott will 

 start from Bhamo, and will be accompanied by Major Hobday of 

 the Survey Department. These officers also will be supplied with 

 an escort of military police. They will probably proceed up the 

 right bank of the Irrawaddy to the bifurcation of the river, aifd 

 then will cross and examine the country on the Chinese border on 

 the left bank. The country is practically unknown at present, 

 and it is expected that much information of an interesting nature 

 will be collected by the exploring parties. The explorers will, of 

 course, confine their attention to the British side of the border, and, 

 when the time comes for the formal demarcation of the frontier by 

 a joint commission of Chinese and British ofiicials, the information 

 now to be collected will, no doubt, prove useful. 



— The Journal of the Society of Arts (London) states that the 

 production of wine in France for the year 1890 amounted ap- 

 proximately to 27,416,000 hectolitres, or 603,000,000 gallons, — a 

 proportion of 330 gallons to each hectare of land (a hectare is 

 equivalent to 3.47 acres) under vine-cultivation. This shows an 

 increase of 92,000,000 gallons over 1889, and a falling-off of 50,- 

 000,000, when compared with the average production of the last 

 ten years. The increase is observable in 45 departments. Per 

 contra, a falling-off was noticed in 31 departments. Viticulturists 

 appear to have employed, as compared with 1889, much larger 

 quantities of low-class sugars to improve the quality of their prod- 

 ucts, or to increase the yield. The quantity of wine declared for 

 sweetening, which amounted in the first ten months to 19,561,618 

 kilograms, exceeded, in the period ending Oct. 31, 1890, 32,000,000 

 kilograms. It was necessary, as usual, to have recourse to large 

 importations of foreign wines. During the first eleven months of 

 last year, the quantity purchased from abroad amounted to 319,- 

 000.000 gallons. Spanish wines figured in the list to the extent 

 of 150,000,000 gallons; Italian, 396,000; Portuguese, 4,180,000; 

 Algerian, 38.000,000; and Tunisian, 198,404. In Algeria, wine- 

 cultivation continues to make progress. The area under vines has 

 increased by 3,699 hectares, in 1890; and the yield amounted to 

 63,568.000 gallons in that year, as compared with 55,264,000 gal- 

 lons in 1889. As regards cider, the yield in France, in 1890, ex- 

 ceeded that of 1889 by 162,000,000 gallons, and only falls short of 

 the average production of the last ten years by 34,000,000 gallons. 

 In Briltany and Picardy the yield was generally greater than that 

 of an average year; in Normandy it was not so good, and the same 

 remark applies to Mayenne and La Sarthe. 



— Among the appropriations made by the Sundry Civil Bill 

 passed at the close of the last session of Congress are the items, 

 aggregating $430,000, for the purchase of the Butler and Richard 

 buildings for the use of the United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey of the Treasury Department. The survey has occupied 

 the latter building as an office since its erection in 1873, also one 

 tenement (of the three) of the Butler building; but the increased 

 demand for charts has rendered it necessary to greatly enlarge its 

 printing-plant by the addition of more presses, etc. The triangu- 

 lation, astronomical, magnetic, gravity, levelling, tidal, and 

 sounding records, and the original maps of the sm-vey, form a 

 very valuable collection, both for reference and for comparative 

 study. These lia\e been steadily accumulating until they have 

 reached such a magnitude that it has been almost impossible to 

 handle the current work of the office. The Weights and Measures 

 Office is also included in this bm-eau, and, as science advances, 

 the demand for increased accuracy keeps pace with it ; and this 

 office is called upon to verify for colleges, manufacturing firms, 

 and many other business institutions, as well as for the govern- 

 ment bureaus and the several States, weights and measures of 

 many and diverse descriptions. The question of space has long 

 been a serious drawback and hinderance to the ready prosecution 

 of the work intrusted to it. The bureau has reason to be con- 

 gratulated upon the acquisition of a home which belongs to the 

 government, and not being longer dependent upon landlords for 

 keeping in repair even the roof over its head. The property ac- 



