July 15, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



83 



speedily and almost totally ruined. The cases 

 cited and the illustrations shown to prove the 

 contention are, for the most part, taken from 

 non-glaciated regions where the soil is, in gen- 

 eral, a loose homogeneous residual sand or 

 clay such, for example, as in Kentucky and 

 North Carolina, or homogeneous, incoherent 

 sediments such as occur on our eastern coastal 

 plain; the implication being that this effect is 

 universal. In the regions cited there seems 

 to be no question that the erosive power of the 

 streams has been greatly increased as the 

 vegetal covering has been removed and that 

 large areas, formerly more or less fertile, have 

 become so gullied and denuded of their soil as 

 to render them of little value. 



In New England, however, this is true only 

 to a ver^ limited extent. In the Berkshires of 

 western Massachusetts, where the relief is so 

 strong that landslides occasionally occur, one 

 often sees a mountain side so thoroughly de- 

 nuded of its trees and brush that at a distance 

 it looks like a hay field with the hay in wind- 

 rows. Under such conditions — a steep slope 

 and lack of vegetation — the conditions are ex- 

 tremely favorable for erosion. However, in 

 spite of these conditions, the mountain 

 streams are beautifully clear except immedi- 

 ately after a heavy rain and are never like the 

 muddy streams of the southern Appalachians 

 where erosion is proceeding rapidly. 



The reason for this difference in the amount 

 of erosion under similar conditions of slope 

 and vegetation between glaciated New Eng- 

 land and the non-glaciated regions to the 

 south is to be found in the soil and climate. 

 The heterogeneous character of the till of 

 New England is not favorable to erosion be- 

 cause the pebbles and boulders of the till are 

 constantly diverting the water of the run off 

 and are, consequently, lessening its velocity; 

 and also because after gullying has begun the 

 bottom of the gully is protected from further 

 excessive erosion by the pavement of stones 

 derived from the tiU in which it was cut. 

 Moreover, the moister climate of New Eng- 

 land favors a rapid growth of vegetation 

 which soon again binds the soil. In many 

 places in the Berkshires and in Vermont and 



New Hampshire mountain slopes which rise 

 from 700 to 1,000 feet in one quarter of a mile 

 have been several times stripped of their forest 

 growth with little, though doubtless some, in- 

 jury to the soil. 



Herdman F. Cleland 



WiLLIAMSTOWN, MaSS., 



June 24, 1910 



QUOTATIONS 



THE FIGHT ON THE COLLEGES 



" There is no spectacle in American life 

 to-day more pitiful than the contrast between 

 what the college advertises to do and what it 

 performs." " The teaching by our college 

 professors is the poorest in the country." 

 " The average third-year boy in the high 

 school is more able to think, discuss, and ex- 

 press an idea than the average college student 

 two years older." " The young man learns in 

 college that he need not work, he comes to re- 

 gard his college as a social and sporting 

 club." " Colleges with their narrow and false 

 ideals of culture, . . . their denomination has 

 reached a degree of intolerable impertinence." 

 " The high schools in desperation have been 

 drawing a line of cleavage between those fit- 

 ting for college and those who are not. This 

 is unnecessary, unfitting and undemocratic." 



These are not extracts from an article in a 

 muckraking magazine; they are taken from 

 two addresses delivered yesterday at the meet- 

 ing of the department of secondary education 

 of the National Education Association in Bos- 

 ton; one by the principal of a New York high 

 school, the other by the state superintendent 

 of public schools in Wisconsin. What was in 

 view in the last of the above quotations may 

 be judged from a resolution almost unani- 

 mously adopted at the meeting, declaring in 

 favor of the recognition as electives in col- 

 lege-entrance requirements " of all subjects 

 well taught in the high schools " ; some of 

 the subjects especially mentioned in the 

 preamble being manual training, " commer- 

 cial branches," and agriculture, and the re- 

 quirement of two languages other than Eng- 

 lish being expressly objected to. And the 

 situation presented both by the addresses 



