Septbmbbb 25, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



451 



employment. He suggests that in the 

 higher schools one hour a week be given to 

 ethnographic lectures, and that in uni- 

 versity courses a double line of instruction 

 be followed, one adapted to all students, 

 setting forth the general principles and aims 

 of the science, another suited to those who 

 would take it as a major or make it a 

 specialty. This plan would, he believes, 

 soon result in that general appreciation of 

 its value which the true ethnologist now 

 claims for it. D. G. Brinton. 



University of Pennsylvania. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERT. 



Under the title ' The Imperiled Dignity of 

 Science and the Law,' Prof. John Trowbridge 

 contributes to the October number of The At- 

 lantic Monthly an account of the difficulties of 

 the expert witness before legislative commit- 

 tees and courts of justice. Scientific questions 

 are usually too complex to be answered by 

 ' yes ' or ' no,' and the man of science is apt to 

 become a partisan in the bands of the counsel 

 who employs him, and then in turn to be dis- 

 credited by the opposing counsel. There is of- 

 ten room for difference of opinion in regard to 

 scientific questions ' that must be settled by 

 legislatures and courts, but it is unfortunate for 

 science and justice when experts can be found 

 who will testify for money on the side for which 

 they are paid As Prof Trowbridge writes : 



' ' The Judge, after hearing the arguments of the 

 learned counsel, is left alone with the voluminous 

 affidavits in which the scientific statements have 

 been pared thin by the lawyers to enable one with no 

 scientific training to see through them. One expert 

 is balanced against another, and the Court is plunged 

 into a state of great perplexity. What wonder that, 

 in a recent case, a Judge remarked that one side hav- 

 ing brought forward four experts and the other side 

 five, and the learned professors on one side having 

 testified in direct opposition to those on the opposing 

 side, he would give a verdict to the side which 

 brought the greater number of experts; and he there- 

 fore ordered an injunction to be issued in favor of 

 the latter." 



If the man of science is to be paid at all for 

 expert opinion, it seems evident that he should 



be employed as a judge and not as an advocate. 

 Prof. Trowbridge concludes : 



"The most practical remedy, it seems to me, for 

 the existing evils of expert testimony, would consist 

 in making it customary for a Judge to call to his as- 

 sistance any professor of science of high attainment 

 who is not engaged by either of the parties in dispute. 

 If the Judge appealed to the State to provide him 

 with scientific advice, and if men eminent in science 

 were selected by the State to aid the Judge in his en- 

 deavor to arrive at the truth on scientific points, both 

 the bench and the professional chairs would gain in 

 dignity, and the pursuit of truth would again be con- 

 sidered one of the chief characteristics of a scientific 

 life." 



THE U. 8. S. 'BROOKLYN.' 



The performance of the U. S. S. 'Brooklyn,' 

 on her recent trial trip, August 27tb, admirably 

 illustrates the high state of efficiency attained 

 by our new navy, and, perhaps, even more 

 satisfactorily, that reached by our naval con- 

 structors and engineers. The trial was made 

 in deep water, outside Boston harbor, on a 

 course eighty-three miles long, and well out at 

 sea. It is only in water fifteen or twenty fath- 

 oms deep that the full sea speed of these heavy 

 and fast vessels can be brought out. 



The 'Brooklyn' is a ship of about 9,200 tons 

 displacement — 8,250 tons without armament or 

 stores, as on the trial — and was designed, as to 

 bull, by the Bureau of Construction of the 

 Navy Department at "Washington, and, as to 

 machinery, by the Bureau of Steam Engineer- 

 ing, of which Commodore Melville, the famous 

 Arctic explorer and no less distinguished naval 

 engineer, is chief. On the trial so perfectly 

 were the engines and boilers proportioned to 

 each other that all the steam that could be 

 made by the latter was worked off by the for- 

 mer, and enough was made at a pressure of 160 

 pounds per square-inch to drive the engine up 

 to 135 revolutions per minute and to give the 

 ship the unexampled mean speed of 21.92 knots 

 — equivalent to over 25 miles an hour. This is 

 claimed to be the highest speed ever attained 

 by any iron-clad, of any type. It is only ex- 

 ceeded by some uuarmored ships of our own 

 navy, as the 'Columbia ' and the ' Minneapolis,' 

 and by no other war vessels of any navy 

 in the world. 



