340 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No 437 



mation as it is thought farmers would like to possess. In order 

 that an attempt may be made to cover all points about which in- 

 formation is desired, farmers are urged to send to the station any 

 inquiries in this line in regard to which they desire specific infor- 

 mation. This series of bulletins is issued for the benefit of the 

 farmers of New York State. As each bulletin will be a continua- 

 tion of the preceding one, it will be well for those interested to 

 preserve the early issues for future reference. These and all other 

 bulletins issued by the station will be mailed to any citizen of the 

 State, on application. 



— The London correspondent of the New York Times writes 

 that the principal biologists and scientists of England, headed by 

 Lubbock, Lister, Lockyer, Play fair, Roscoe and others, to the 

 number of a bunded and fifty, and backed by strong letters from 

 Huxley and Tyndall. recently waited on Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, 

 president of the Board of Works, for a secopd time, to beg that a 

 license be found for the British Institute of Preventive Medicine, 

 and for a second time met with a refusal. Their eloquent speeches 

 laid stress upon the national disgrace of a situation in which Eng- 

 lish students of bacterial growths were compelled to go to Paris, 

 Berlin, and Vienna to study their science, and intelligent inquiry 

 and experimental research were forbidden on English soil, as it it 

 were an impious thing to seek for wisdom in the science of saving 

 human life. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach gave an evasive and round- 

 about reply, which tlie London Times editorially translates as 

 meaning that the anti-vivisectionists have many times more votes 

 in England than all its men of science put together. English 

 laws pay great attention to conserving the rights of rich men to 

 breed hares, rabbits, and game-birds for annual slaughter and 

 maiming by shooting parties, but they sternly punish a man of 

 science who chloroforms one of these rabbits for purposes of ex- 

 periments having no earthly purpose but to increase knowledge as 

 to saving human life. 



— " The last thing that it would be proper for me to do," said 

 Professor Huxley recently, in writing of himself and his aims, 

 " would be to speak of the work of ray life, or to say at the end 

 of the day whether I think I have earned my wages or not. Men 

 are said to be partial judges of themselves — young men may be, 

 I doubt if old men are. Life seems terribly foreshortened as they 

 look back, and the mountain they set themselves to climb in youth 

 turns out to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges when, 

 with failing breath, they reach the top. But if I may speak of 

 the objects I have had more or less definitely in view since I be- 

 gan the ascent of my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote 

 the increase of natural knowledge, and to forward the application 

 of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life to 

 the best of my ability, in the conviction, which has grown with 

 my growth and strengthened with my strength, that there is no 

 alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of 

 thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it 

 is when the garment of make believe by which pious hands have 

 hidden its uglier features is stripped off. It is with this intent that 

 I have subordinated any reasonable, or unreasonable, ambition for 

 scientific fame which I may have permitted myself to entertain, to 

 other ends, — to the popularization of science; to the development 

 and organization of scientific education ; to the endless series of 

 battles and skirmishes over evolution; and to untiring opposition 

 to that ecclesiastical spirit, that clericalism, which in England, as 

 everywhere else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, is 

 the deadly enemy of science." 



— An interesting discovery has just been made at Rome in the 

 process of excavation for the Tiber embankment. An oblong 

 column, or very thick slab, was uncovered, on which is inscribed 

 the official record of the public games celebrated by Augustus in 

 the year 17 B.C. The decree of the Senate and the regulations 

 enforced by the executive committee are followed by a list of the 

 necessary prayers and sacrifices and the order of the contests. 

 Then comes an announcement that a choir of twenty-seven youths 

 and as many maidens will sing the Carmen Seculare, written by 

 Quintus Horatius Flaccus. In the same locality the workmen 

 have discovered twenty-five additional fragments of the great map 

 of the old city which formerly stood in the Forum of Augustus. 



When this map was destroyed by fire or earthquake, many of the 

 pieces were thrown into a heap of broken building materials, and 

 finally found their way into the walls of the old Alfieri palace 

 which have just been unearthed. 



— The Kolnische Zeitung reports that the investigations which 

 the expedition sent out by the Vienna Academy of Sciences has 

 been carrying out in the eastern portion of the Mediterranean 

 have been very successful, and have given important results In 

 all, the investigations concerning the depth and general charac- 

 teristics of the sea, and the presence of life in it, were carried out 

 at seventy-two distinct points. The greatest depth (3,700 metres) 

 was found near the great depression which runs between Mola 

 and Cerigo, — a deep valley running in a north and south direc- 

 tion, and with a depth varying from 3,500 to 4,000 metres, the 

 descent being much more abrupt on the Greek side than on the 

 Italian and Sicilian side. Experiments as to light showed that 

 the waters are more transparent near the African coast than in 

 the northern portions. There, white metal plates were discernible 

 at a depth of nearly 144 feet. Sensitive plates were still found ca- 

 pable of being acted upon by light at a depth of nearly 550 yards, 

 at a point 200 nautical miles north of Benghazi: on being drawn 

 up they were found to have been blackened. The acid constitu- 

 ents of the sea-water seem to be the same at the greatest depth as 

 near the surface, nor is any difference in the quantity of ammo- 

 niacal constituents perceptible between the upper and the lowest 

 levels, with the exception that everywhere close to the bottom the 

 quantity of ammonia is notable. The deep sea region of the east- 

 ern Mediterranean is very poor in animal life. A dredge at a 

 depth of 3,000 metres brought up no animal specimens at all; but 

 at a depth of 2,000 metres leaf-formed algse were discovei-ed simi- 

 lar to those found at the same depth in the Atlantic by the Plank- 

 ton expedition. 



— The climatic conditions in Corea are imperfectly known; but 

 the Annalen der Hydrographie (i., 1891) publishes some valuable 

 meteorological observations {Scottish Oeog. Mag., June, 1891) 

 that were made at the Corean ports of Chimulpo, Juensan, and 

 Fusan. The two latter lie on the east coast of Uorea, and the 

 former is on the west coast. The chief features of the Corean 

 climate — if one may judge from observations extending over only 

 three years — appear to be the following : Atmospheric pressui-e- 

 at the three stations, mentioned above, is comparatively high 

 from November to February (winter), and low from May to Sep- 

 tember (summer) Whilst the west coast is somewhat cooler than 

 the east coast, the temperature of the air is rapidly lowered from 

 south to north. The mean annual temperature is much the same 

 as that of places in the same latitude on the east coast of North 

 America. The summer temperatures at the three stations are 

 much the same; but the winters at Chimulpo and Juensan are 

 much colder than at Fusan. At Chimulpo the mercury fell be- 

 low the freezing-point during the months of October to April; in 

 Juensan. from October to Jlarch ; in Fusan, from December tc> 

 May. The mean temperature of the warmest months (July or 

 August) was 26.2° C. in Chimulpo, 26.8" C. in Fusan and Juen- 

 san; and of the coldest months (January or February) 5°C. in Fu- 

 san, — 4.4*^ in Chimulpo, and 5.1" C. in Juensan. The prevailing 

 wings are of a monsoon character: on the east coast, easterly; on 

 the west coast, south-westerly. The rainfall decreases from south 

 to north, and is heavier on the east than on the west coast. The 

 rainy season is in summer, the dry season in winter. In Juensan 

 the rainfall was nil in January and February of the three observed- 

 years. There was no snowfall in Fusan. 



— According to the London Educational IHmes, Professor Jeatt 

 Servais Stas, who recently completed the fiftieth year of member- 

 ship of the Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences, Literature, and 

 Arts, has been congratulated on that event by the Chemical Soci- 

 ety of London in an address which refers to the researches that 

 have placed the name of Stas so high amongst scientific investi- 

 gators. Among the fundamentally important investigations- 

 which have helped to raise chemistry to the dignity of an exact 

 science, are mentioned his " incomparable determinations of the 

 atomic weights of a large number of the more important ele- 

 ments " Not only do the results supply numerical data of- the 



