January 30, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



189 



was able to show, from curves of magnetic 

 variation based on the records of the mag- 

 netic observatory, an apparent variation of 

 the rate of motion of the north magnetic pole. 

 J. R. Collins, 



Secretary. 

 Toronto, December 23, 1902. 



DISCUSSION ASD CORRESPONDENCE. 



GUESSES ON THE RELATIVE WEIGHTS OF BILLS 

 AND COINS. 



The question raised in Science for Novem- 

 ber 7 as to whether women are capable of 

 making closer estimates than men is an inter- 

 esting one, but the comparison of results from 

 different colleges is somewhat uncertain.- 

 Some of the errors can be eliminated by test- 

 ing young men and young women from the 

 same state who have always been educated 

 together. The question ' How many one- 

 dollar bills will equal in weight a five-dollar 

 gold piece ? ' was asked of 76 male and 58 

 female students of the University of Wy- 

 oming with the following results : 



Male students : Average guess, 391 ; me- 

 dian, 56; average variation from the average 

 guess, 516 ; average variation from the me- 

 dian, 366. 



Female students: Average guess, 1,324; 

 median, 50 ; average variation from the 

 ■average guess, 2,125; average variation from 

 the median, 1,299. 



Since the true number is 7, the guesses of 

 the women are slightly better if we take the 

 median, but the most noticeable point is the 

 much greater variety in the guesses of the 

 women, which is in accordance with the re- 

 port of Mr. Messenger in Science for April 

 25. This agrees well with common observa- 

 tion. Probably most grade books of classes 

 nearly equally divided between the two sexes 

 would show that the highest and lowest marks 

 were given to women. 



In the West coin is usually preferred to 

 paper and five-dollar gold pieces are more 

 common than one-dollar bills in Wyoming. 

 E. E. Slosson. 



UNrvEESiTT OP Wyoming. 



the publication of rejected names. 

 Within the last few days I have received 

 two papers in which rejected manuscript 

 names are published in such a way as to 

 render them valid, as I understand the rules. 

 As there is evidently a misconception or 

 divergence of opinion, it is worth while to 

 discuss these cases. 



1. Mr. Nathan Banks, in his most interest- 

 ing paper on the ' Arachnida of the Gala- 

 pagos Islands' (Proc. Wash. Ac. Sci., 1902), 

 cites on p. 50 Filistrata oceanea and Loxos- 

 celes galapagoensis Marx MS., n. spp. On 

 p. 51 he states that these were nomina nuda, 

 but that they are identical with his species 

 of the same genera described below. On p. 

 55 the Filistrata is described as F. fasciata, 

 and the Loxoceles as L. longipalpis. It is evi- 

 dent that the Marxian names have ' priority 

 of place,' and it is clearly stated that they 

 pertain to the two species described; it seems 

 to me, therefore, that they are valid. 



2. Mr. F. H. Knowlton {Bull. Torr. Bot. 

 Club, November, 1902, p. 640) gives an ac- 

 count of a fossil fruit from "Vermont which 

 he says Lesquereux named in manuscript 

 Carya glohulosa. A description of the fruit 

 immediately follows the publication of this 

 name; but on the next page we are told that 

 the fruit belongs to Cucumites, and ' in view 

 of the fact that Carya glohulosa was never 

 actually published, it may be appropriate to 

 name it in honor of Lesquereux, who first 

 detected it. It may be called Cucumites les- 

 quereuxii.' On the contrary, C. glohulosa 

 was just then published, and I do not see how 

 we can avoid calling the plant Cucumites 

 glohulosus. T. D. A. Cockerell. 



E. Las Vegas, N. M. 

 December 6, 1902. 



THE IROQUOIS BOOK OF RITES. 



I HAVE before me the La Fort manuscript 

 from which my old friend, Horatio Hale, 

 took the text of the condolence song of the 

 ' Younger Brothers.' It varies considerably 

 from his version, partly from haste in copy- 

 ing, and partly because he made the spelling 

 more consistent in some cases. The differ- 

 ences are mostly in the vowels, but some con- 



