256 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 189 



ridge-pole of a rather steep roof : 3", the tracing 

 must exhibit the serration effect for at least one 

 hour, and must have in that hour not less than two 

 downward motions of the pencil at least .050 of an 

 inch below the general trace of the pressure at the 

 time. Gan. 



Sept. 10. 



'Communistic leanings.' • 



In your reports of papers read at the Buffalo meet- 

 ing of the American association for the advancement 

 of science, you refer, in the following terms (Science, 

 Sept. 3, p. 219), to a paper read by me before the 

 section of political economy and statistics : " The 

 theory of rent and its practical bearings was dis- 

 cussed by Edward T. Peters of Washington, and with 

 such communistic leanings as to meet little approval." 



This language is calculated to convey to the reader's 

 mind an entirely erroneous idea of the paper referred 

 to. That it is not based upon knowledge will appear 

 from the fact that the title quoted is one which I sub- 

 mitted when my paper was only in part written, and 

 for which I afterwards substituted a title better suited 

 to the narrower ground to which, on the score of 

 time, I found it necessary to confine myself. That 

 title, as may be seen by referring to the programme 

 of proceedings for Aug. 24, was ' Errors in the 

 Eicardian theory of rent.' In the treatment of this 

 subject I was not conscious of any ' leanings ' except 

 a leaning to scientific truth, my paper being simply 

 an attempt to determine whether certain proposi- 

 tions embraced in the Eicardian doctrine logically 

 flow from the assumptions upon which the doctrine 

 is supposed to be founded, and also to compare them 

 with certain very conspicuous economic phenomena, 

 in order to ascertain how far the theory agrees with 

 the facts of experience. 



I will not ask space for a statement of my views 

 on the general subject in question ; but it would 

 interest me to know whether Science, which may be 

 supposed to appreciate the significance of words, and 

 to use them responsibly, — which, moreover, has of 

 late done itself honor by the breadth of its hospitality 

 to various shades of economic thought, — would stig- 

 matize as ' communistic ' the proposal of John Stuart 

 Mill " to intercept by taxation for the benefit of the 

 state the unearned increase in the rent of land ; " 

 -whether it would apply a like epithet to the proposal 

 of Dr. Adolph Wagner, the distinguished professor 

 of political economy in the University of Berlin, 

 " that municipalities [I quote from ' Land and its 

 rent,' by President Walker] should purchase all town 

 property, in order to realize therefrom the progres- 

 sive increase of values ; " or, finally, whether the 

 character of an opinion, and the epithets fitted to 

 describe it, depend entirely on the degree of promi- 

 nence of the person from whom it emanates. 



I observe, in the first paragraph of your report of 

 the proceedings of Section I, the statement that the 

 section had, at the Buffalo meeting, " been compara- 

 tively free from the attacks of socialistic and eco- 

 nomic cranks, to which it is especially subject." I 

 trust it will always be successful in keeping off 

 ' cranks ' of every description ; but I quite as 

 earnestly hope that no sickly fear of giving audience 

 to unpopular opinions will induce it to set up a nar- 

 row philistine standard of economic orthodoxy, and 

 brand as ' communists ' or ' cranks ' all who fail to 

 conform to it. The ' approval ' of a body conducted 

 upon such principles could be readily dispensed with. 



Political economy, as Prof. H. C. Adams, in one of 

 the excellent economic papers recently published in 

 Science, has well said, might be appropriately defined 

 as the science which ' treats of industrial society .'^ 

 Its especial province is, therefore, in a large degree, 

 the arena of clashing interests ; and unless Section I 

 of the American association proposes, as a section of 

 ' economic science,' to enact the play of Hamlet with 

 the part of Hamlet left out, it must always, from the 

 very nature of its functions, be ' especially subject ' 

 to the introduction of disturbing social questions, and 

 must often hear views advanced which, however 

 sound in themselves, and however disinterestedly 

 scientific in their origin and spirit, will meet but 

 ' little approval ' from the men or classes whose inter- 

 ests or prejudices they may happen to antagonize. 



E. T. Peters. 

 Washington, D.C., Sept. 9. 



An electric log. 



In May, 1883, I sailed from Marseilles for the 

 Piraeus on the steamship Ava ; Capt. Aug. Bretel, of 

 the Compagnie des messageries maritimes, command- 

 ing. A short time after going aboard, I noticed a 

 small rope running through the saloon over the cabin 

 doors to the after skylight, and thence along the side 

 of the ship to the stern, where it was made fast. 

 The next day I saw the captain and the first officer 

 looking at a curious instrument, which looked some- 

 thing like an aerometer, except that the cups revolved 

 in a vertical position. This instrument was fastened 

 to the rope which I have mentioned, and thrown over- 

 board, the captain meanwhile watching the revolu- 

 tions of the wheel through a powerful field glass. 

 As it did not seem to work satisfactorily, it was 

 hauled in ; and I noticed that the captain, in making 

 some repairs to the rope, used a stick of Chatterton's 

 compound. This led me to believe that there was a 

 copper conductor in it, and that electricity in some 

 form was being employed. There was no opportu- 

 nity at that time to make inquiries ; but a few days 

 later the captain kindly permitted me to see the in- 

 strument, which he called a ' loch-moulinet,'or ' elec- 

 trical-mill-log.' After throwing it again into the 

 water, he took me forward and showed me the earth 

 connection, which was soldered fast to one of the 

 iron beams of the ship. Thence the wire went 

 through the chart-room to the wheel-house, where 

 there was a telephone. This electric log, it seems, 

 was the joint invention of Capts. G. Fleuriais and 

 Bretel, and was so arranged, that, when connected 

 with the cable, it formed part of an electric circuit, 

 which was opened and closed with every revolution 

 of the copper shaft to which the four cups or hemi- 

 spheres were attached. The number of revolutions 

 made by the shaft in a given time was of course 

 dependent upon the speed with which the cups were 

 dragged through the water ; in other words, regu- 

 lated by the rate of motion at which the ship was 

 moving. A table had been prepared by the inven- 

 tors, showing the number of knots per hour corre- 

 sponding to the number of revolutions of the shaft in 

 a half-minute. On placing the log and telephone, so 

 arranged that it could be switched, in circuit, every 

 revolution of the shaft, and consequent closing of the 

 circuit, caused a click, plainly audible to any one 

 listening at the telephone. The log having been 

 allowed to run out to such a distance as to be practi- 

 cally free from the influence of the screw, I listened 



