April 2, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



553 



geographical periodicals into one publication, 

 with a department for teachers. The plan of 

 adding such a department to an existing journal 

 was proposed to the editors of the Journal of 

 School Geography and the offer declined be- 

 cause they believed: 



1. That the cause of geographical education 

 warranted a separate periodical. 



2. That teachers would not and could not 

 subscribe to so expensive a journal as a valu- 

 able scientific periodical must be. 



3. That educators would many of them shun 

 pedagogic assistance vended by a society whose 

 aims were primarily scientific. 



4. That the organ of no one society or com- 

 bination of societies could be advertised so as to 

 reach the greater number of teachers. 



5. That a journal for teachers should be 

 edited by teachers. 



I believe that the new journal has a legiti- 

 mate right in the educational world for all these 

 reasons and many more. The knowledge of 

 the world may be enlarged for the few by the 

 geographical societies, through the promotion of 

 exploration and research and the publication of 

 the results thereof. It may be enlarged for the 

 many by such a journal as the one in question, 

 if the editors sift and select new and old facts 

 and put them in a form and dress for the larger 

 public, who are not in touch with modern geo- 

 graphic progress. The increasing of the geo- 

 graphic knowledge of the world at large by 

 either of these methods is a proper aim for 

 those interested, and one may be as useful and 

 necessary a task as the other. It may be that 

 success can better be attained by specialization 

 than by a combination of eflEbrts. The Journal 

 of School Geography will continue to select facts 

 from the great mass of geographic information, 

 to try and express them in a simple and 

 straightforward manner, and do what it can to 

 help the geographic societies and publications 

 in the wider dissemination of knowledge of the 

 world. This work with the teachers and youth 

 in this generation may bear fruit in the next 

 generation in a larger demand for the consoli- 

 dation and improvement of the publications of 

 a scientific character. 



I agree with Professor Russell that there is 

 need of bettering all the scientific geographical 



publications in this country. I disagree with 

 him in his idea that there is no room for a 

 journal whose aim is not the publication of new 

 scientific results, but the broader dissemination 

 of geographical knowledge, expressed not in 

 childish, unscientific or pedagogic terms, but in 

 simple English, with a knowledge, on the part 

 of the editors, of the needs and tastes of the 

 readers to whom they would appeal. 



Richard E. Dodge. 

 Tbachees College, New York City. 



the drainage of the saginaw valley. 



To THE Editor op Science : Professor 

 Davis has asked me to add a few more in- 

 stances apropos of his note on the drainage of 

 the Saginaw Valley (p. 337, issue of Feb. 

 26, 1897). The peculiar circuitous drainage 

 due to moraines of retreat, in which streams do 

 not flow directly to the water of the bay near 

 by, but fetch a compass and make backhanded 

 branches, has numerous other examples in 

 Michigan. Among the most striking are the 

 Sturgeon, which heads in the Huron Mountains, 

 Sec. 9, T. 49N., R. 32E., and flows clear around 

 Keweenaw Bay to empty into Portage Lake, 

 and the region of Grand Traverse Bay, where 

 the Rapid River, Boardman River, Platte 

 River and the Betsie River show a similar 

 type of drainage, which we may call willowy. 

 For in discussing a relation of branches it 

 seems natural to use a term borrowed from 

 botany. A comparison of a drainage map of 

 the Saginaw Valley with the pendent branch- 

 ing of the willow will show the appropriateness 

 of the comparison, and the term can easily be 

 changed by those who prefer Latin terms into 

 salicious. 



Alfred C. Lane. 



SCIENTIFIC LITER A TUBE. 

 A Dictionary of Birds. By Alfred Newton, 

 assisted by Hans Gadow, with contributions 

 from Richard Lydekker, Charles S. Roy, 

 etc. London, A. and C. Black. [The Mac- 

 millan Company, 66 Fifth Avenue, New 

 York.] 1893-1896. 1 vol., 8vo, pp. i-xii + 

 1-1S4, i-viii + 1-1088. Map and unnum- 

 bered figg. in text. 

 The ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia 



