SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 322 



company's affairs by the government, within the past year, that 

 was made the most serious charge in the inspector's report. It is 

 too soon to say what the outcome of all this will be, though it 

 seems highly probable that the company's charter will be modified, 

 and its administration re-organized. 



Mexico was a long time in cutting loose from the old Spanish 

 ideas of national exclusiveness. Various slight changes were made 

 from time to time in the laws of the colonial period, aimed at for- 

 eigners ; but it was not until 1842 that foreigners were allowed to 

 own real estate in Mexico, and even then they were hedged about 

 with many restrictions, such as the prohibition of holding more than 

 two pieces of property in the same political department. Yet the 

 country has long been desirous of enjoying the benefits of immi- 

 gration. Efforts to secure them have been made along two lines. 

 Many contracts have been made for the survey and opening of un- 

 occupied lands, payment for the work being partly made in grants 

 of lands, with the hope of inducing colonization to take them up ; 

 and the government has directly undertaken to plant and support 

 colonies. Both methods have resulted, in the words of Minister 

 Pacheco in a special report on the subject made last year, " only in 

 bitter disappointment and the loss of large sums to the national 

 treasury." 



Particularly costly and disastrous were the attempts at coloniza- 

 tion made by President Gonzales during the term of his adminis- 

 tration. Italian immigration was the thing he aimed at. Large 

 bodies of immigrants were induced to come from Italy ; many Ital- 

 ians went to Mexico from New York, the Mexican consuls getting 

 so much a head for every one shipped, and were located on govern- 

 ernment lands selected for the purpose. But the plan was wretch- 

 edly conceived, and came to nothing except great suffering to the 

 immigrants, and immense expenditures to the treasury. The min- 

 ister of public works, in the report alluded to, referring to these 

 experiments, says that the outlay upon them amounted to upward 

 of $1,500,000, and that there is practically nothing to show for it 

 all to-day. 



It would be easy to assign reasons for this long series of failures. 

 The unsettled condition of the government, bad systems of taxa- 

 tion, poor methods of farming, and lack of means of transportation, 

 have undoubtedly had much to do with the unsatisfactory results ; 

 but perhaps a deeper cause than any other is the lack of demand 

 for small holdings of land. The system of great ranches seems to 

 be the only one possible or profitable in the case of the land at 

 present unoccupied. Small farming can be carried on successfully 

 only in the neighborhood of cities, and there all the available land 

 has long since found owners. A farm of a few acres in a remote 

 location is practically of no value to its owner. This was pretty 

 thoroughly shown in the experiments tried by Juarez. He had the 

 French communal system made obligatory in certain localities, in 

 the hope of raising up a generation of small proprietors ; but in a 

 very short time it was found that all the owners of small holdings 

 had sold out, so that the land was again in the hands of one or two 

 ranchmen. That there is really no demand for small properties 

 anywhere along the American frontier, is also shown in the ridicu- 

 lously low prices set upon government lands in the border States. 

 According to a presidential decree of last December, the price of 

 public lands in those localities for 1889 and 1890 was fixed at an 

 average of about fifty cents the hectare, or say twenty-five cents an 

 acre. With thousands of acres for sale at such prices, and no 

 bidders, the difficulties in the way of Mexican colonization are of 

 themselves apparent. 



Notwithstanding the Viumerous failures at colonizing portions of 

 Mexico, we cannot but consider the prospects of a great part of the 

 area owned by the International Company as favorable. The rapid 

 progress of Southern California cannot fail to have a beneficial in- 

 fluence upon the adjoining region, which is very similar to it in 

 character. Formerly the whole of the peninsula was considered a 

 desert ; but it has been shown that in its northern portion there is 

 an abundant supply of water. This is derived from the great chain 

 of mountains indicated on the accompanying sketch-map. the high- 

 est parts of which are said to be more than ten thousand feet in 

 height. Mr. C. Nordhoff, in his pamphlet "Peninsula California," 

 quotes the following description of this mountain-range from a re- 

 port of its explorer. Col. D. K. Allen : " This great mountain region 



lies about one hundred miles south-east of Ensenada, seventy-five 

 miles east of San Ouintin, and from thirty to thirty-five miles west 

 of the Gulf of California. The range is about one hundred and ten 

 miles in length, and from fifteen to thirty in width. Water is 

 abundant everywhere, and only has to be husbanded in order to 

 furnish a great supply for all the lands on the north end of the 

 peninsula. These streams can be easily and cheaply dammed, and 

 all of the pine can be put into them and floated down to the heads 

 of the valleys. This can be done with the San Rafael, which is a 

 grand stream with five large branches, draining nearly all of the 

 north end of San Pedro ; also with the San Domingo, which drains 

 the western side of the mountains ; and the logs or timber can be 

 taken out at the upper end of San Rafael valley near Colnett, or at 

 the upper end of San Ouintin valley near San Ramon. Either 

 water route is perfectly feasible." 



The peninsula is undoubtedly rich in minerals, but its great de- 

 velopment in this direction can come only with a denser popula- 

 tion. Gold, silver, and co'pper are at present worked by various 

 companies. With these possibilities of irrigation, with a healthful 

 climate favorable to the carrying-on of valuable cultures, with good 

 pastures in the mountainous region and an ample supply of timber, 

 and with rich mineral deposits, there can be no doubt that the 

 country will be developed as soon as its political state appears suffi- 

 ciently stable. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 

 The Use of Tobacco. 



In a communication to the New York Medical Record, Dr. F. 

 H. Bosworth discusses the effect of the use of tobacco on the 

 health. He says that the Anglo-Saxon races have been smoking 

 and chewing now for nearly four hundred years. They contracted 

 the habit from a race which, as far as history and tradition teach 

 us, were remarkable for their vigor of body and mind as well, and, 

 as far as we know, were an unusually long-lived people. In the 

 time that we have been using the weed there is no evidence to show 

 that the race has in any way deteriorated, but, on the contrary, it 

 is abundantly shown that the average duration of life has increased 

 nearly fifty per cent. There is no evidence to show that in this 

 time the race has been more subject to disease, but rather that 

 they are less so. There is no evidence to show that the race has 

 lost any thing in its intellectual activity, but, on the contrary, it has 

 been a time of most marvellous fecundity in all that is great in lit- 

 erature. 



He gives the following analysis of tobacco, that of Passelt and 

 Reinmann, which is accepted as correct by authorities : — 



Analysis of the Leaf. 



Nicotine 0.060 



Volatile oil o.oio 



Bitter extractive matter 2.870 



Gum and malate of lime 1.740 



Chlorophyl 0.267 



Albumen and gluten 1.308 



Malic acid 0.510 



Salts of pot. ammonia, etc 0.734 



Silica 0.088 



Water 88.280 



Leaving out from this analysis the volatile oil, extractive matter, 

 albumen, gluten, and chlorophyl, and negative and inert matter, 

 and we have left a substance containing I part of nicotine, 4 parts 

 of salts of lime, ammonia, etc., with 88 parts of water in 100. The 

 percentage of nicotine in various kinds of tobacco varies ; Havana 

 tobacco containing but two per cent of this poisonous element, 

 while Virginia tobacco contains about seven per cent, according to 

 some analyses. The moral of this is that we should always smoke 

 the choicest brands of Havana cigars. In smoking, the ammonia 

 salt may become the source of considerable discomfort in the 

 burning and smarting tongue which results from excessive and 

 continuous practice of the habit : of course, in chewing, this action 

 is not noticeable. We thus are reduced to the action of nicotine for 

 the possible deleterious influence of the plant. This element, as 

 before stated, is present in varying proportions in the tobacco-leaf ; 



