July ii, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



19 



working of an inscrutable providence; and we must be re- 

 signed to our fate if we do not insure against it. The fire 

 iazard has been very accurately computed, and it is known 

 ^approximately just how many persons will insure their 

 property, and how high it is necessary to put the premium 

 in order to pay the losses and expenses. Whenever a tre- 

 mendous conflagration like that of Chicago or Boston breaks 

 forth, these estimates are entirely wrong, and many com- 

 panies are forced to the wall. It is impossible, however, to 

 allow for such calamities; and it is probable, that, excepting 

 some minor changes, no radical change in Are insurance has 

 occurred on account of those fires. 



Tornado Risk. 

 If we knew, approximately even, just the loss from torna- 

 does, and could place the insurance where the loss of houses 

 blown down and the expense of insurance would not be 

 greater than the gain in premiums, we would have an ideal 

 state of insurance, and we could tell just the amount each 

 householder should pay. Or if we knew just the average 

 loss per year in the tornado States, and could persuade 

 enougli people to take up this kind of insurance, it is plain 

 the business could be carried on profitably. One difficulty 

 now encountered is, that people do not ordinarily see that 

 the risk is any thing like that represented (which is true), 

 and consequently only a small fraction of this kind of insur- 

 ance is taken as compared with fire insurance. It would 

 take a great many years to determine tornado risks with 

 sufficient accuracy to estimate the amount of premium 

 needed ; but we can make a comparison with the risks and 

 losses by fire, and thus arrive at an approximate solution of 

 the question It should be noted, however, that these risks 

 are of very difl'erent characters. The fire risk is ever 

 present and a perpetual menace. Moreover, it is one which 

 is in great danger of propagating itself, or becoming enor- 

 mously great by communication from house to house. A 

 tornado is more like an accident: it happens at the rarest 

 intervals, and there is no spreading. We might compare 

 these risks as those coming to a man's life in going to a fever 

 •district and in going to a tornado district respectively, as was 

 ■done above It may be objected that we cannot compare 

 fire insurance with that for tornadoes, in that fire losses are 

 much greater in large cities, where the population is denser 

 than in the country. The objection is not a serious one, for 

 the reason that the greatest destruction from tornadoes has 

 been in our large cities ; and, again, the protection against 

 ■fire is much more perfect in the city than in the country; in 

 fact, insurance premiums are less in the city than in the 

 country on a great many kinds of property. 



[Continued on p. 32.] 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The Open Court of Chicago has republished in a volume ch- 

 titled "Wheelbarrow" a series of articles and discussions on the 

 labor question that have been appearing in its columns for some 

 time past. The anonymous author of the work tells us in his in- 

 troductory chapter that be was for a considerable part of bis life a 

 manual laborer, though he has since risen to higher positions. 

 Hence he speaks of the workingman's life from actual experience, 

 and so far is qualified for the work he has here undertaken. But 

 unfortunately he has not taken the trouble to study the scientific 

 aspect of the subjects he deals with, and even confesses his mental 



incapacity to do so. He has, however, many sound and sensible 

 ideas, though none of them are new. He is opposed to all forms 

 of communism and anarchism, and equally so to Henry George- 

 ism, and animadverts severely on the monopolistic spirit of the 

 trades unions. But be writes in a coarse style, and often in a 

 tone of arrogance and of bitterness towards capitalists that repels 

 the reader. On the whole, we cannot see that he has contributed 

 any thing to the solution of the labor problem. 



— It is a well-known fact in biology that bacteria and bacilli 

 absorb aniline and are killed by it. Two German observers — 

 Stilling and Wortmann — have recently considered the possibiUty 

 of utilizing this property in medical treatment (Humboldt). The 

 diffusibihty and harmlessness of violet aniline dyes (called, for 

 brevity, "methyl- violet'') without arsenic, in small doses, were 

 first demonstrated on rabbits and guinea-pigs, as we learn from 

 Nature of June '36, Then certain eye-disorders were produced in 

 those animals, and treated with aniline solution, the results being 

 excellent. The authors proceeded to operate on the human sub- 

 ject. A skin ulcer on a scrofulous child, which had been treated 

 for a month with the ordinary antiseptic agents without success, 

 was gradually healed by daily dropping a liitle aniline solution on 

 the sore, and similar good results were had with bad cases of eye- 

 disease. It soon appeared that many surgical cases were open to 

 successful treatment in this way, and that, in general, wounds 

 and sores developing suppuration could be sterilized with aniline. 

 It is also thought that cases of internal inflammation, as in pleu- 

 ritis and peritonitis, may prove to be not beyond the reach of this 

 order of treatment. 



— The commission appointed to consider the question of coal- 

 waste in the State of Pennsylvania, — J. A. Price. E. B Coxe, 

 and P. W. Sheafer, — who may be addressed at Scranton, Penn., 

 are desirous of making the investigation as comprehensive and as 

 exhaustive as possible. It is of course absolutely necessary to 

 obtain the results of all the best practical experience upon the 

 subject, so as to, as far as possible, diminish in the future the 

 waste, and to encourage the utilization of what are now waste 

 products. This commission would be very glad to have a full 

 expression of views upon any of the following divisions of the 

 subject which they have adopted for the study of this most im- 

 portant problem. The divisions are as follows: geological and 

 statistical waste, including estimate of the original geological 

 coal-field and waste of erosion, estimate of existing coal-field be- 

 fore coal-mining began, estimate of amount worked to the present 

 year, and estimate of the total amount that it is possible to take 

 from the earth by any known system of mining (giving the 

 amount that must be left in the ground in shape of pillars, etc., 

 or what may be regarded as permanent structural waste); waste 

 of producing and marketing, including investigation of the un- 

 derground waste of mining, investigation of the waste of prepara- 

 tion (including all processes in which the commercial size has 

 been continually reduced, the amount of culm in sight at place of 

 preparation, and the annual product of culm), and investigation 

 of the marketing of the pea, buckwheat, bird's-eye or rice, and 

 dust, and the uses to which the several sizes or conditions are 

 put; utilization of coal- waste, including examination of the whole 

 briquette system, duly recorded tests under responsir-le super- 

 vision, patent office records, specimen forms, and chemical analy- 

 ses, accumulation of the record of all the practical mechanical 

 appliances by which the waste is utilized without mechanical 

 preparation (such as devices of furnaces, grates, blowers, etc.), 

 investigation of the use of waste after mechanical preparation for 

 combustion (as in pulverized conditions, etc.), and examination of 

 the gasifying proces.'^es into water-gas and producer-gas, also in 

 the destruction of garbage or cremating work, also in agricultural 

 experimentation. 



— According to a newspaper bulletin just issued by Br. C. M. 

 Weed, entomologist of the Ohio Experiment Station, the maple 

 bark-louse has become destructively numerous over a large por- 

 tion of Ohio, and is creating much alarm by its presence. It is 

 especially at work upon the shade-trees of cities and villages, and 

 unless checked there is every indication that the trees will be se- 

 riously injured. The insect has been reported as very abundant 



