June 21, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



479 



during 1888. Of the total cases, 210 in number, one-third occurred 

 in the seventh ward, whose population is one-tenth of the entire 

 city. Dr. Williston states that this ward is known to be in poor 

 sanitary condition. The greatest factor in the mortality of the 

 city was pulmonary consumption, which caused 217 deaths; next 

 comes pneumonia, with 142. From infantile diarrhoea there were 

 137 deaths ; from old age, 50; cancer, 40 ; and typhoid-fever, 38. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The meeting of the Society of Microscopisis will be held at 

 Buffalo, N.Y., beginning on Aug. 21. Professor T. J. Burrill, 

 Champaign, 111., is the secretary. 



— The peasant proprietors in Russia, says a writer in the Nine- 

 teenth Century, can neither pay the money owing to the govern- 

 ment for their land, nor even the state and communal taxes, and 

 are flogged by hundreds for non-payment. In one district of Nov- 

 gorod, fifteen hundred peasants were thus condemned in 1887. 

 Five hundred and fifty had already been flogged, when the inspect- 

 or interceded for the remainder. Widespread famine is found 

 over a great part of the country. Usurers, the bane of peasant 

 proprietors in all countries, are in possession of the situation. The 

 Koulaks and Jew " Mir-eaters " supply money on mortgage, then 

 foreclose, and, when the land is in their possession, get the work 

 done for nothing as interest. These bondage laborers, as they are 

 called, are in fact slaves, and are nearly starved, while the small 

 pieces of land are often re-united into considerable estates, and 

 their new owners consider they have only rights, and no duties. 

 Meantime, as forced labor is at an end, and free labor is of the worst 

 possible kind, the old land-owners can get nothing done. They 

 have tried to employ machines, bought by borrowing from the 

 banks, and are now unable to repay the money. The upper class 

 has been ruined, with no advantage to the peasant. 



— The thirty-eighth meeting of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science will be held at Toronto, Ont., beginning 

 on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 1889, at noon, by a meeting of the council 

 at the Queen's Hotel, where will be the hotel headquarters of the 

 association. On Wednesday, Aug. 28, the first general session of 

 the meeting will begin at ten o'clock in the forenoon in the Convo- 

 cation Hall, University Buildings. After the adjournment of the 

 general session, the several sections will organize. In the after- 

 noon the vice-presidents will give their addresses before their re- 

 spective sections ; and in the evening there will be a general ses- 

 sion, when the retiring president. Major J. W. Powell, will deliver 

 his address. The sessions will continue until the Tuesday evening 

 following, and on Wednesday morning, Sept. 4, a meeting of the 

 council will be held. Saturday, Aug. 31, will be given to excur- 

 sions. The meeting will close with excursions extending to Sept. 

 7. The general sessions and the meetings of the sections will be 

 held in the University Buildings, where also will be the offices of 

 the local committee and of the permanent secretary during the meet- 

 ing. Board and lodging for members and their families may be had 

 at moderate rates in several hotels and boarding-houses within easy 

 reach of the place of meeting ; and, as the local committee will pro- 

 vide a lunch, members will not be obliged to return to their lodg- 

 ings during the heat of the day. In the evening, when not other- 

 wise engaged, it is expected that the members of the association 

 and of the local committee will meet socially in the reception- 

 rooms at the hotel. A special circular in relation to railroads, 

 hotels, excursions, and other matters, will be issued by the local 

 committee, and members who are about changing their address 

 for the summer should notify the local secretary at once. It can 

 now be stated, however, that arrangements have been made by 

 Mr. Dudley and the special committee on transportation by which 

 members and their families will be, in general, able to obtain 

 return tickets for one-third the regular rate, provided members are 

 particular in complying with the conditions of the agreements with 

 the passenger agents of the several railroad associations, which 

 will be given in detail in the local committee circular. Without 

 obtaining such a certificate as will be described in the local com- 

 mittee circular, to be countersigned at the meeting, the reduced 

 rate for return ticket cannot be secured. For all matters pertain- 



ing to membership, papers, and business of the association, address 

 the permanent secretary at Salem, Mass., up to Aug. 22. From 

 Aug. 22 until Sept. 9, his address will be A.A.A.S., Toronto, Ont. 

 Members remitting back assessments before Aug. 22 will receive 

 their receipts and volumes of " Proceedings " at once from Salem ; 

 those paying by mail after that date (and not present at Toronto) 

 must not expect their receipts and volumes until after the meeting. 

 The Cleveland volume of " Proceedings" will be sent during this 

 month to all members who have paid the assessment for that 

 meeting. The assessment receipt for the Toronto meeting must 

 be shown at the time of registering, in order to obtain the associa- 

 tion badge, which entitles the member to the privileges of the 

 meeting. If members pay the assessment for the Toronto meet- 

 ing in advance, and remember to take the assessment receipt to 

 Toronto, they will save standing in the crowd before the secretary's 

 desk, and can register at once on arrival after the opening of the 

 register on Aug. 27. Under the rule which took effect in 1884, 

 members have the privilege of registering members of their fami- 

 lies (not including men over twenty-one years of age) by paying 

 the sum of three dollars for each individual to be registered. 

 These associate members will receive badges entitling them to all 

 the privileges extended to members generally by the local com- 

 mittee. Special information relating to any of the sections will be 

 furnished by their officers. Arrangements have been made for a 

 discussion in Section B on the " Relative Merits of the Dynamo- 

 metric and Magnetic Methods of obtaining Absolute Measure- 

 ments of Electric Currents." Professor Thomas Gray of the Rose 

 Polytechnic Institute will open the discussion with a paper on the 

 subject, and he will exhibit one or more of Sir William Thomson's 

 most recent forms of electric balance. Arrangements have been 

 made by the local committee for the proper care and exhibition of 

 instruments and specimens, for the details of which, and for all 

 other local matters, members should address the local secretary. 

 In anticipation of the circular to be issued by the local committee, 

 it is only necessary here to give the names of Charles Carpmael, 

 Esq., president of the committee ; and of Professor James Loudon, 

 local secretary, Toronto, Ont. Members of the association arriv- 

 ing in Toronto before the meeting should call for information at 

 the temporary office of the local secretary, near the Union Railway 

 Station. 



— The Entomological Club of the American Association will 

 meet at 9 A.M., Aug. 28, in the room of Section F, University 

 Buildings, where members of the club will register, and obtain the 

 club badge. Members of the club intending to contribute papers 

 will send titles to the president, Mr. James Fletcher, Government 

 Experimental Farms, Ottawa, Can. The Botanical Club will hold 

 a meeting, as usual, on Tuesday, Aug. 27, in the room of Section 

 F, University Buildings. Communications should be sent to the 

 president, Professor T. J. Burrill, Champaign, 111., or to the secre- 

 tary, Douglas H. Campbell, gr Alfred Street, Detroit, Mich. • The 

 Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science will hold its tenth 

 annual meeting in Toronto, beginning on Monday evening, Aug, 

 26, in the room assigned to Section I in the University Buildings, 

 and continuing on Tuesday. For further information address Pro- 

 fessor W. R. Lazenby, secretary. Ohio State University, Columbus, 

 O. The American Geological Society will hold its meeting in 

 Toronto on Aug. 28 and 29. Professor James Hall. Albany, N.Y., 

 is the president ; and Professor J. J. Stevenson, University of City 

 of New York, secretary. 



— Mr. Samuel Butler concludes a whimsical article in the May 

 number of the Universal Review — an article which he hopes may 

 give his readers absolutely no food whatever for reflection — with 

 words which, though themselves whimsical, are not without their 

 salt of truth, and might perhaps frustrate the very hope which he 

 expresses. " I have sometimes thought," he says, " that, after all, 

 the main use of a classical education consists in the check it gives 

 to originality, and the way in which it prevents an inconvenient 

 number of people from using their own eyes. That we will not be 

 at the trouble of looking at things for ourselves if we can get any 

 one to tell us what we ought to see, goes without saying ; and it is 

 the business of schools and universities to assist us in this respect. 

 The theory of evolution teaches that any power not worked at 



