92 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI. No. 393 



SCIENCE: 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES, 



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Vol. XVI. NEW YORK, August 15, 1890. 



No. 393. 



CONTENTS: 



The Scientific Testimony of 

 " Facts and Opinions " 



W. G. Jenkins 85 

 Butter and Oleomargarine 



Edgar Richards 88 



Notes and News 90 



Slate Products 92 



Health Matters. 



The Wearing away of Teeth 92 



The Deficient Water Supply in 



Paris. 



98 



International Congress on Alco- 

 hol 



Letters to the Editor. 

 The Eskimo of Cape Prince of 

 Wales, Hudson^s Strait 



F. F. Payne 

 Movement of the Hioher Atmos- 

 phere, n. A. Hazen 



Book-Reviews. 



The Ethical Problem 



Among the Publishers 



SLATE PRODUCTS. 

 Eecognizing the value of prompt publication of statistics, a 

 report from the Division of Mines and Mining, under the charge 

 of Dr. David T. Day, of the United States Geological Survey, is 

 issued as a bulletin by the Census Office. It shows the product of 

 slate during the calendar j'ear 1889, as prepared by Dr. "WOliam C. 

 Day, special agent in charge of stone. The bulletin shows also 

 the value of slate, the number of men employed, the wages, and 

 other expenses, and the capital involved in this industry. This 

 statement is exact for the entire country, but is only a brief sum- 

 mary of the more important facts, which will be published in 

 detail in the complete report. The investigation was principally 

 pioneer work. When it was begun, eight months ago, there was 

 not even a good list of the producers of slate, and no investigation 

 so complete as even the brief results here presented had ever been 

 successfully prosecuted. The total value of all slate produced in 

 the United States in 1889 is $8,444,863. Of this amount, |2,775,271 

 is the value of 838,990 squares of roofing slate, and $669,592 is the 

 value of slate for all other purposes besides roofing. As compared 

 with the statement of the Tenth Census report of 1880 on stone, 

 the roofing-slate product of 1889 is nearly twice as great in num- 

 ber of squares and in value. A consideration of the slate use,! for 

 purposes other than roofing appears to hate been omitted from 

 the Tenth Census report. The total value of aU slate produced in 

 1889 is more than twice as great as that considered in the Tenth 

 Census. According to " Mineral Resources of the United States, 

 1888," the total number ot squares of roofing slate produced in 



that year is 663,400, valued at $3,033,440. Twelve states at present 

 produce slate. A line drawn on the map from Piscataquis County, 

 Me., to Polk County, Ga., and approximately following; the coast 

 outline, passes through all the important slate- producing localities. 

 According to amount and value of product, the most important 

 States are, in the order named, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maine, 

 New York, Maryland, and Virginia. In Georgia, Michigan, New 

 Jersey, Arkansas, California, and Utah productive operations are 

 of limited extent, and in the case of the latter three States, of very 

 recent date. Inasmuch as in slate quarrying the initial opera- 

 tions are those of stripping and excavating, preliminary to actual 

 output, some time must necessarily elapse before any returns for 

 labor can be realized. For this reason the expenses incurred in 

 Arkansas, California, and Utah exceed markedly the value of the 

 output in those Slates. The twelve States referred to do not in- 

 clude all those in which merchantable slate is known to exist, 

 since discoveries promising good results for the future have been 

 made in a number of other States, among which may be especially 

 mentioned Tennessee, where operations of production are begin- 

 ning. The slate quarrymen of the country, and to a considerable 

 extent the firms operating the quarries, are either Welsh or of 

 Welsh descent, many of them having learned the methods of 

 quarrying slate in the celebrated quarries of Wales. The quarries 

 are operated on an average of about 330 days in the year. The 

 idle days are the result of rainy weather and holidays. The first 

 day of every month is regarded as a holiday by the Welsh quarry- 

 men, and no work is ever done by them on Saturday afternoons. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



The Wearing away of Teeth. 



Me. MacLeod, at a meeting of the Odonto-Chirurgical Society, 

 said, according to the Lancet, that, having his attention drawn by 

 a single case, he had been led to examine the teeth of various 

 bag-pipers, and all of them represented wearing away of the cut- 

 ting edges of the six front teeth, in a greater or lesser degree, 

 varying with the density of the tooth structure and the time en- 

 gaged in pipe playing. He found on inquiry that, on the aver- 

 age, it took about four years to make a well-marked impression, 

 but that once the enamel edge was worn through the wearing 

 away was more rapid. Every one was aware of the way in which 

 the tobacco-pipe wore the teeth of the smoker, but this was not 

 to be wondered at, the baked pipe-clay being a hard and gritty 

 substance, but that a horn mouth-piece should have such appre- 

 ciable effect was, he thought, a matter of curious interest. He 

 mentioned, however, that the mouth-pieces suffered more than 

 the teeth, the average life of a horn mouth-piece being twelve to 

 eighteen months, that of a bone or ivory one being about two 

 years. The peculiarity noticed was a crescent shaped aperture on 

 the cuttinir edge of the front teeth in three localities, namely, be- 

 tween the central incisors and between the lateral and canine on 

 both sides. 



The Deficient 'Water-Supply of Paris. 



It is a matter of surprise, says The Lancet, to all visitors of this 

 gay city that the French, who assume to be in most things in the 

 van of all other nations, should be so very backward in their water 

 and sanitary arrangements in general. Each year as the summer 

 returns a notice is published by the Municipal Council of Paris to 

 the effect that owing to a scarcity of drinking water this latter 

 will have to be tempoiarily replaced by water from the Seine. 

 Although only temporarily, the Municipal Council seem to forget 

 that one single draught of this water may be sufficient to cause 

 death, as it is now generally admitted that river water is the 

 vehicle of the germs of typhoid-fever, cholera, and of many other 

 epidemic maladies. This arrangement does not extend to all 

 Paris at the same time, but three are four arrondissements in suc- 

 cession are submitted to it for a term of twenty days. The excuse 

 for this lamentable state of things is that the public coffers will 

 not admit of the outlay necessitated by the arrangements for 

 bringing spring water into the city, and yet millions are spent on 

 less necessary purposes. It is all very well to open boulevards and 

 squares, and to plant trees in all directions, but water is as indis- 



