Apeil 20, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



635 



FeA ALO3 79,431,250 



MnO 798,750 



CaO 8,120,625 



MgO 7,277,500 



Na^O 576,875 



K.0 5,591,250 



PA 1,109,375 



SO3 1,142,500 



Total N 665,625 



Water and organic matter. . . 31,062,500 



For most of these substances it is impossible 

 to assign any definite commercial value, but 

 for four of them it is possible to compute the 

 actual cost of restoring them to the soil in 

 the form of fertilizer. In the following table 

 such calculation has been made. It has been 

 assumed that the potash would be bought in 

 the form of K^SO^, the phosphoric acid as 

 superphosphate and the N as ]Sra]Sr03. The 

 figures are of course not absolute, but they 

 convey a good idea of the loss which the land 

 has sustained. 



Value of plant food removed in silt by the 

 Mississippi River during one year : 



CaO $ 40,603,125 



K2O 559,125,000 



PA 110,937,500 



N 222,984,375 



These figures are stupendous and worthy of 

 careful consideration, and when we consider 

 that this same process of denudation of the 

 land is being carried on by all the streams of 

 the country, to a greater or less extent, we 

 gather some faint idea of the loss to agri- 

 cultural interest from this cause. A sys- 

 tematic study of this question would be of 

 great value, and should it ever be made, it is 

 believed that it will lead in some localities at 

 least to the employment of measures to cheek, 

 in some degree, this vast pecuniary loss to 

 the country. 



C. H. Stone. 



QUOTATIONS. 

 THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 



The Royal Society, like every other asso- 

 ciation of himian beings, has from time to 

 time to provide itself with a new chief magis- 

 trate. More fortunate than the larger society 



of which we are all members it does this at 

 fixed periods and with dispassionate gravity 

 and decorum. Yesterday witnessed one of 

 these recurrent changes, when, at the anni- 

 versary meeting. Sir William Huggins sur- 

 rendered the presidency of the society into 

 the capable hands of Lord Rayleigh. The 

 astronomer, whose labors have done so much 

 to give English astronomical science the dis- 

 tinguished place it occupies in the astronom- 

 ical opinion of the world, is succeeded by a 

 physicist who, by the breadth and variety of 

 his research, the profundity of his knowledge, 

 and the skill with which he has carried on the 

 interrogation of nature, will rank among the 

 greatest of those who have promoted that in- 

 crease of natural knowledge which is the 

 fundamental object of the Royal Society. It 

 is worth noting — as Sir Henry Roscoe noted 

 last night — that both men belong to a class of 

 scientific investigators which, if not an ex- 

 clusively English product, has certainly found 

 more numerous representatives in this country 

 than in any other. That is the class of men 

 who live for science, not hy science — men 

 whose means render them independent of 

 exertion, whose position offers many tempta- 

 tions to inaction, and whose abilities, if 

 turned to remunerative pursuits, would ensure 

 rich rewards of the kind that satisfies vulgar 

 ambition. To men of this class — ^men who, 

 according to one definition of amateurs, would 

 have to be called amateurs, but who lift 

 the word high above all vulgar connotation 

 and restore its etymological significance — 

 English science owes a debt that is simply 

 incalculable. In that class, already suffi- 

 ciently illustrious, we must include men like 

 Michael Faraday, denied by fortune the power 

 to give of their wealth to the cause of science, 

 but nobly content to live in the utmost sim- 

 plicity upon a pittance less than the wages of 

 a skilled artisan, while working out discoveries 

 that have changed the face of the world. It 

 would be an evil day for England were the 

 succession of gifted enthusiasts to come to an 

 end, not only because their work is of a higher 

 and more vivifying kind than that of ordinary 

 men, but also because we are, and apparently 

 are likely for some time to remain, very far 



