SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 Twenty- NINE men, at an expense of ninety dol- 

 lars per diem, are employed in Chicago by the U.S. 

 government in quarantining cow-stables which 

 are infected with contagious pleuro-pneumonia. 

 Our federal authorities are wonderfully paternal 

 when they desire to be, and the U. S. laws are at 

 times remarkably flexible. Singularly enough, 

 however, the activity is usually displayed in a 

 direction which is suggestive of a desire to pro- 

 pitiate the farming interests. Thus a tax is put 

 upon oleomargarine, and local cow-stables, from 

 which disease might spread to other localities, are 

 quarantined at the national expense ; but when 

 the question of restricting the importation of pos- 

 sibly infected rags is broached, we are told that 

 the matter is one with which the general govern- 

 ment cannot interfere, and that it must be left to 

 the local authorities. We are far from deprecat- 

 ing governmental interference in this matter of 

 pleuro-pneumonia, but we would like to see the 

 same careful supervision exercised in all matters 

 which affect the public health, as much when they 

 concern the urban as when they affect the rural 

 population. 



The problem of how to deal with the financial 

 difficulties in the way of obtaining any very great 

 number of graduate students at ovir colleges and 

 universities, in spite of the great educational ad- 

 vantages offered, is one that has given and is giving 

 considerable trouble. When a young man takes 

 his bachelor's degree at twenty or twenty-one, he 

 is quick to see the advantages of a post-graduate 

 course of special study as a broader and deeper 

 preparation for his professional career, but he 

 hesitates to incur the necessary expense. Not only 

 must he be a non-producer dm:ing the extended 

 period of study, but his expenses, including usually 

 a considerable tuition fee, are heavy. When this 

 aspect of the question is considered and weighed 

 against the inducements to follow some career that 

 will provide self-support immediately, we cannot 

 wonder that the financial consideration is the 

 determining one in the minds of many young men. 

 President Barnard of Columbia sees this obstacle 



No. 192. — 1886. 



to the increase of students in our university 

 courses, and in his report for the past academic 

 year, which has just been published, earnestly 

 recommends that the tuition-fee now required of 

 graduate students be abolished. This is a step in 

 the right direction, and we tnist that it will be 

 taken by Columbia's trustees, and followed by 

 other institutions. A more efficient and advanta- 

 geous remedy is the foundation of numerous 

 graduate scholarships and fellowships, but to enter 

 upon this on any considerable scale requires more 

 spare funds than more than one or two of our 

 educational institutions can boast of. It is here 

 that private munificence should step in to aid 

 educational and scientific advance. 



The published reports from the English eclipse 

 expedition to the island of Grenada show, in 

 general, a very gratifying amount of success ; and, 

 although thus far the photogi-aphs of the corona 

 have failed to establish Dr. Huggin's method upon 

 the firm footing we had hoped for, a fuller ac- 

 count of the circumstances may throw some light 

 upon the matter. We shall also await with pecul- 

 iar interest the results of Mr. Pickering's work. 

 Photometric observations, and photographs of the 

 corona and of its spectrum, were obtained by the 

 different branches of the English party, and also 

 good spectra of the prominences, showing the 

 bright lines of highly incandescent vapors. " In 

 this respect the result resembles that obtained in 

 the two previous echpses, though it was thought 

 possible that this year, being one when sun-spots 

 are tending to a minimum, would be marked by 

 the more continuous spectrum that bespeaks lower 

 temperature." The bright lines of the promi- 

 nences were displaced in such a direction as to prove 

 that there was adownrush of gas towards the sun. 

 The observations of the corona also confirm those 

 of the last two eclipses. 



The lack of interest which is manifested by 

 public bodies in matters which pertain to the im- 

 provement of the public health has never been 

 better illustrated than by the common council of 

 Brooklyn in their treatment of certain proposed 

 amendments to the ordinances of that city relat- 

 ing to tenement-houses. While New York has, 



