November 4, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



635 



telescope must have beeu an uncommoDly sen- 

 sitive and well-behaved attachment, the name 

 of the maker of which should not be concealed. 

 It cannot be that these measurements are in 

 any degree doubtful, for, otherwise, Mr. Taylor 

 would hardly use them, as he has, in com- 

 puting the constant of his instrument, in which 

 operation he carries results to eight significant 

 figures, the unit of the last place in his final 

 mean standing for about one part in thirty mil- 

 lions. A 'sudden drop' is experienced, how- 

 ever, in the very next paragraph, where he says 

 that the same calculation has been made by 

 other people and by a different method, result- 

 ing in a quantity differing from the former by 

 about one part in five or six hundred, and 

 which he proceeds to use instead of the result 

 of his own labors. 



But it is not in linear measurement alone 

 that marvelous skill is shown in this piece of 

 work. There is weighing which must also ex- 

 cite admiration. A movable coil of the same 

 kind of wire, which must have weighed not 

 much less than a kilogram, was suspended from 

 the arm of a balance ; and the ' pull ' on this 

 coil, amounting, it is inferred from the tables, 

 to about 23 grams in one case and about 45 

 grams in another, was weighed to within one- 

 tenth of a milligram. This, of itself, is not, 

 perhaps, remarkable, but it becomes so when it 

 is remembered that this coil is anchored to solid 

 ground by two thin slips of ' crimped ' sheet 

 copper, 7 mm. in width. The getting of a tenth 

 of a milligram under such conditions implies 

 rare skill. But the reader is again doomed to 

 bitter disappointment when he is informed that 

 the result of all this exquisite work is to give a 

 value for the E. M. F. of a Clark cell differing 

 from all of the many good determinations that 

 have been made before by more than one part 

 in two hundred and fifty or nearly one-half of 

 one per cent., and that the author himself con- 

 cludes that, as absolute measurements, his re- 

 sults ' don't count.' 



'Figuratively speaking,' Mr. Taylor's paper 

 is, or ought to be, almost unique, but it is only 

 justice to him to add that it really contains 

 much that is interesting and valuable from 

 points of view other than that of metrology. 



X. 



LIFE-ZONES IN NEVT MEXICO. 



A NEW bulletin by Dr. C. H. Merriam has 

 just come to hand from the Department of Agri- 

 culture, entitled 'Life-Zones and Crop-Zones.' 

 It contains a colored map showing the zones, 

 and a great deal of valuable information about 

 the agricultural products of each zone. On p. 

 13 it is stated : 



" The colored maps prepared by the Biological 

 Survey furnish the first rational basis the Amer- 

 ican farmer and fruit grower has ever had for 

 the intelligent distribution of seeds and the only 

 reliable guide he can find in ascertaining before- 

 hand what crops and fruits are likely to prove 

 successful on his own farm, wherever it may be 

 located." 



On p. 7 it is stated that " great care has been 

 taken to make the lists accurate and trustworthy 

 as far as they go." Also, "the intention in the 

 present report is to omit doubtful records." 



On p. 42 we find these words : " Baisins and 

 wine grapes, oranges, lemons, olives, prunes, 

 peaches, apricots, English walnuts and almonds 

 are among the important products of the Lower 

 Sonoran area, and the fig ripens several crops 

 each year." Immediately following is a list of 

 the crops of the Lower Sonoran, including even 

 guavas and the loquat, among a variety of other 

 things. 



On p. 41 it is said that the Lower Sonoran 

 "sends an arm northwest to a point a little 

 north of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Another 

 arm reaches up the valley of the Pecos." The 

 map shows these arms, the Pecos valley one 

 going about to Eddy. These arms are colored . 

 as typical Lower Sonoran, and no word appears 

 in the text to suggest otherwise. 



On pp. 15-17 the special value of these arms 

 is insisted upon, because " by growing particu- 

 lar crops at points remote from the usual 

 sources of supply, and at the same time conven- 

 iently near a market, the cost of transporta- 

 tion is greatly reduced and the profit corre- 

 spondingly increased." 



After all this, the reader will be surprised to 

 learn that heavy frosts occur annually in the 

 supposed Lower Sonoran arms in New Mexico, 

 and that the cultivation of oranges, lemons or 

 olives is totally out of the question anywhere 

 within the bounds of the Territory. The fig, 



