172 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1101 



first secretary of agriculture in the President's 

 cabinet. I based this statement upon the fact 

 that the yearbook of the Department of Agri- 

 culture for 1888 contained the last report of 

 IT. J. Oolman as commissioner of agriculture, 

 and the yearbook of 1889, the first report of 

 J. M. Rusk as secretary of agriculture. In his 

 report Husk states : 



I have the honor to respectfully submit my first 

 annual report as secretary of agriculture, and the 

 first report issued under the newly constituted 

 Department of Agriculture. I assumed the duties 

 of my ofiEice March 7, 1889, or twenty-six days 

 after the approval of the law creating an execu- 

 tive department of what had heretofore been a 

 bureau, in executive sense, of the government. 



As no mention was made in either report of 

 Colman having acted as secretary of agricul- 

 ture during this short interval, I took it for 

 granted that Rusk was the first secretary. I 

 have received a letter from Dr. L. O. Howard, 

 however, in which he states that Colman was 

 really the first secretary of agriculture. He 

 writes : 



Mr. Colman was commissioner of agriculture 

 when the bill passed, and was appointed first sec- 

 retary by President Cleveland on February 13, 

 1889, his services terminating with the outgoing 

 of the administration on March 6, 1889. 



G. P. Clinton 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Quantitative Laws in Biological Chemistry. 

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 The present volume is a restatement of the 

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