December 34, 1886.1 



SCIENCE, 



599 



to examinations for apothecary, on condition that 

 Latin has been an obligatory subject. 



VI. That of & pro-gymnasium, l*^, to admission 

 to the examination for apothecary ; 2'', to admis- 

 sion to industrial technical schools. 



VII. That of a higher-burgher school, 1", to 

 attend an industrial or technical school ; 2°, to 

 nomination for junior clerkships in the law courts ; 

 3°, to admission to the examinations for art 

 teachers ; 4°, to admission to the high school for 

 music in Berlin ; 5°, to nomination for junior 

 posts in the post-office. 



The high schools are supported by the state, by 

 the commune, or by both. If supported by the 

 state alone, they are known as royal high schools. 

 In the budget for 1885-86 the state subsidy for the 

 high schools amounted to 4,712,118 marks. 



THE SOURCE OF THE BIISSISSIPPL 



The readers of Science will recall our announce- 

 ment a few weeks ago, of the despatch of an ex- 

 ploring party to the head waters of the Missis- 

 sippi River to examine and locate all the streams 

 and lakes tributary to Lake Itasca. Our explorers 

 have now accomplished then- task, and we have 

 received from them a detailed report, and a map 

 of the entire region, which includes the basin of 

 Lake Itasca. 



This map, which we have engraved on the 

 scale of about one mile to the inch, divided into 

 sections corresponding with the U. S. land-office 

 surveys, is presented herewith. Other maps are 

 also presented for the fuller explanation of the 

 ■details of the report. 



Preliminary to the report, it is proper that we 

 should make some statement of the considera- 

 tions which led to the despatch of this party. 

 There have been a number of explorations and 

 excursions to the head waters of the Mississippi 

 during the present century. Of these, we have a 

 more or less accurate record of the trip of Mor- 

 rison in 1804 ; of Schoolcraft in 1832 ; of Nicollet 

 in 1836 ; of Charles Lauman in 1846 ; of the Ayers 

 in 1849 ; of William Bungo in 1865 ; of Julius 

 Chambers in 1872 ; of A. H. Siegfried and his 

 party in 1879 ; of W. E. Neal in 1880 and again in 

 1881 ; of Rev. J. B. Gilfillan and Professor Cooke 

 in May, 1881 ; and of Captain Glazier in July, 1881. 

 We also have the maps of the government survey- 

 ors who spent two weeks in this township in Sep- 

 tember and October, 1875, and the paper of Mr. 

 O. E. Garrison, contributed by him to the tenth 

 annual report of the State geological survey of 

 Minnesota, for the year 1880. 



Of these explorers, we know that Nicollet care- 

 fully explored all the feeders of Lake Itasca ; that 



Chainbers explored Elk Lake, which he called 

 Lake Dolly Varden ; and that Messrs. Gilfillan, 

 Cooke, and Morrison, proceeding from the south, 

 also visited the sources of the lake lying in that 

 direction. Therefore, as to the general facts re- 

 garding the size and character of the basin of the 

 lake, we did not hope to add any considerable 

 amount of information to that already possessed. 

 But of ail these parties of explorers and survey- 

 ors, it is safe to say, that, with the exception of 

 Nicollet and the government land-office survey- 

 ors, there has been little attempt at acciu-ate inves- 

 tigation. Only these two have added any tiling 

 material to what Schoolcraft told the world in 

 1832. It is well, therefore, to note the difference 

 in methods, of these two j)rincipal explorations of 

 the Itasca basin. 



"Nicollet was a trained scientist, but he worked 

 under limitations ; and very sensibly, also, with a 

 limited and definite purijose. His work was 

 mainly done alone, and his chief instruments 

 were the thermometer, the barometer, the sex- 

 taut, and the compass. Hence he gives us details 

 of temperature, elevation, latitude, longitude, and 

 the general direction of the parts he visited. He 

 rarely used the chain — if, indeed, he carried such 

 a piece of property. His details of distance were 

 either estimated — as in the case of a day's tramp 

 or of an object within sight — or figured out by 

 mathematical rules, as when he computed the 

 length of a section of the river from the data of 

 the latitude, longitude, and the direction from 

 each other of a given number of points in its 

 course. Hence his outline of the course of a 

 river or creek, or of the form of a lake or pond, 

 was only as accm-ate as might be expected from 

 a trained explorer, whose eye was accustomed to 

 take in and measure distance, direction, and form, 

 on a large scale, and under a thousand varying 

 conditions. In the matter of general relief forms, 

 and the genei'al trend and drainage of the country, 

 he was, without doubt, the best equipped and 

 most competent single explorer who has under- 

 taken the study of our country ; and his work has 

 been of inestimable value to hundreds of thou- 

 sands who never heard of his name. So far as 

 relates to the subdivision of areas, and the survey- 

 ing and platting of the surface of the land, con- 

 sidered as a horizontal plane, his work did not 

 profess to have any accuracy or value whatever. 



" On the other hand, this last is the chief, if not 

 the only, object of the government land surveyors. 

 Their instructions are limited and specific. They 

 take no note whatever of relief forms : they fol- 

 low up and trace only the streams and ponds in- 

 tercepted by the boimdary-lines of sections. In 

 the matter of horizontal area, in the meandering 



