July 24, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



115 



identification was, however, regarded by many 

 as an indignity fit only for criminals, and the 

 law has been repealed. 



UNIVEBSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The Archaeological Museum of the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania has received a gift of 

 $10,000 from Mr. B. N. Farren. 



A riRE occurred last week in the Boylston 

 Chemical Laboratory of Harvard University. 

 No series damage was done to the building, 

 but as the fire occurred in the storage room 

 through self combustion of chemicals its cause 

 should be carefully investigated in order that 

 similar accidents may be avoided. 



The nineteenth session of the Martha's Vine- 

 yard Summer Institute was opened on July 

 13th, with an attendance of nearly 800 teachers 

 and other pupils. 



At a meeting of the executive committee of 

 the board of trustees of Cornell University in 

 Ithaca, on June 15th, the chair of the principles 

 and practice of veterinary surgery, zootomy, 

 obstetrics and jurisprudence in the New York 

 State Veterinary College was filled by the elec- 

 tion of Walter Williams, D. V. S., professor of 

 veterinary science and physiology in the Mon- 

 tana College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, 

 and veterinarian to the Montana Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. 



Dr. v. Buchka, professor of chemistry at 

 the University of Halle, has resigned to take a 

 position in the Imperial Patent Office. Dr. 

 Karl Miiller has been appointed professor of 

 botany in the Technical High School, Berlin. 

 Dr. J. V. Gerlach, professor of anatomy in the 

 University of Erlangen, and Dr. Carl Claus, 

 professor of zoology in the University of 

 Vienna, have retired. 



It is stated that the total number of students 

 on the books of the 21 Italian universities in 

 1895-96 is 21,161, showing a slight increase as 

 compared with the previous year. Adding to 

 these the students, male and female, of the in- 

 stitutes of higher education, a total of 23,962 

 is reached. Of these 6,786 are students of 

 medicine. The most frequented university is 

 that of Naples, which has 4,956 students, Turin 

 coming next with 2,434; then come Rome with 



1,911, Padua with 1,664, Bologna with 1,375, 

 Pavia with 1,345, Palermo with 1,343, Genoa 

 with 1,089, Pisa with 1,066, Catania with 890, 

 and Messina with 551. All the others have 

 fewer than 500, those of Urbino and Ferrara 

 having fewer than 100. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



AN INHERITED BLUNDER. 



It has been interesting to me for a number of 

 years to notice how easily a blunder may be 

 paraded and handed on from book to book in 

 high honor, when a single careful thought 

 would prove to any scientific person its absurd- 

 ity. 



The special case in mind is the conventional 

 iceberg, as pictured in our school geographies 

 and higher scientific texts. The first geography 

 I ever saw had this physical monstrosity in it, 

 and it is the common property of such texts up 

 to date. 



When we stop to think that an iceberg is 

 merely a floating piece of ice, free to move in 

 the mobile liquid water, we shall see at a glance 

 that to be in stable equilibrium, the shortest 

 dimension must be vertical. But notice the 

 berg as shown in the conventional picture, 



"5 



V 



partly in diagram, as if seen through the water 

 from the side. A berg as large as shown in 

 some of these amusing cuts could not be kept 

 in position by a whole fleet of great ships with 

 grappling hooks and cables. 



It is true that in some cases the artist has 

 fitted blocks of stone into the ice near the bot- 

 tom. But this has been done, very probably, to 

 show the ice as an agent in transportation, and 

 not in any case has he put ballast enough there 

 to hold the berg down. 



Here are some recent geography texts per- 

 petuating this blunder. Appleton's Physical, 

 p. 85, 1887; Butler's Physical, p. 79, 1887; 



