730 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 593. 



which, fortunately, may now be found; 

 these should include either one or both of 

 the new towns west of Yuma, Calexieo and 

 Mexicala, together with Caborea, the west- 

 ernmost town in Altar District, Sonora (to 

 which the Mexican government telegraph 

 line has recently been extended), and 

 Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora. Doubt- 

 less cooperative stations might be estab- 

 lished at these points ; at the latter two per- 

 haps in accordance with the law author- 

 izing observations at points outside of the 

 United States on Gulf of Mexico and 

 Caribbean Sea. It would be well, too, io 

 establish a record station on Rio Colorado 

 between Yuma and Parker, and if prac- 

 ticable also at Quitobaquito (or Humboldt 

 post-office) on the international boundary, 

 some ninety miles east of Tinajas Altas. 

 Records at these points would serve both to 

 determine the limits and define the nature 

 and influence of the vapor zone above the 

 Californian Gulf. 



W J McGee. 



A SYMPOSIUM ON CHEMISTRY BEQUIBE- 



MENTS} 



That charming and discerning essayist 

 of to-day, Samuel M. Crothers, in a recent 

 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, calls our 

 attention to the delightful ease with which 

 one may cultivate a good crop of fallacies 

 by employing a heavy mulch of statistics. 

 "The best way," he suggests, "is to pre- 

 pare circulars containing half a dozen ir- 

 relevant questions, which you send to sev- 

 eral thousand persons — the more the better. 

 If you enclose stamps, those who are good- 

 natured and conscientious will send you 

 such odd bits of opinion as they have no 

 other use for, and are willing to contribute 

 to the cause of science. When the contri- 

 butions are received, assort them, putting 



* Paper read at the meeting of the American 

 Chemical Society at New Orleans, December 30, 

 1905. 



those that strike you as more or less alike 

 in long straight rows. Another way, which 

 is more fanciful, is that of arranging them 

 in curves. This is called 'tabulating the 

 results. ' When the results have been thor- 

 oughly tabulated, use them in the manner 

 I have described for the protection of your 

 favorite arguments." 



And yet it is less Crothers that speaks 

 than his Seholastieus, a rather prosy, old- 

 fashioned gentleman whose evident aver- 

 sion for the times in which he lives and for 

 the manners of those times forbids our 

 taking him too seriously. 



The symposium method may, I think, 

 like any other method under the sun in the 

 wide field of thought-husbandry, be made 

 to stimulate and protect the groAvth of 

 sound arguments as well as of fallacies. Of 

 what kind it has brought forth on this oc- 

 casion I must leave it to my patient hearers 

 to determine. 



It is both trite and untrue to assert that 

 the south is backward in methods, but 

 rather in lack of money to execute and 

 realize methods. By careful inspection of 

 the curricula of a list of southern institu- 

 tions, even the smaller fresh-water colleges, 

 we shall find that mention is nearly always 

 made of the laboratory and of the library. 

 Besides, a majority of these colleges are 

 manned by competent instructors — young 

 men educated after the most approved 

 orthodox modern methods in American and 

 European universities. This is especially 

 true in the departments of the natural sci- 

 ences, and particularly in chemistry. The 

 crux of the situation is the poverty of all 

 of our colleges, including state institutions, 

 private foundations, and church colleges 

 alike. 



Of the three requisites for a good coUege, 

 competent teachers, eager students and 

 adequate equipment, naming them in the 

 order of their importance — I take it that 



