December 5, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



315 



prize, of $200, to David H. Bergey, B.So., M.D., North Wales, 

 Penn. ; and the third prize, of $100, to James Bradford Olcott, 

 practitioner and writer upon the subject. South Manclie?ter, Conn. ; 

 and honorable mention, without reference to order, to Edwin 

 Satterthwait (president of the Cheltenham and Willow Grove 

 Turnpike Company, Jenkintown, Penn.), Charles Punchard (for- 

 mer surveyor of roads in England, Philadelphia, Penn.), George B. 

 Fleece, C.E. (Memphis, Tenn.), Frank Cawley, B.S. (instructor in 

 engineering, Swarthmore, Penn.), and Francis Fuller McKenzie, 

 C.E. (Germantown, Penn.). These, together with a careful digest 

 of the remaining papers prepared by Professor Lewis M. Haupt, 

 C.E., head of the civil-engineering department of the university, 

 and secretary of. the committee on better roads, and a short paper, 

 also written by by him, discussing the general features of the 

 contributions, with some notes on the adaptation of soils to founda- 

 tions (all of which has been copyrighted by William H. Rhawn, 

 chairman of the committee), will be published in one volume 

 by Henry Carey Baird & Co., Philadelphia. 



— The Canadian Gazette of Aug. 7, 1890, states that Sable 

 Island is disappearing. This island, which lies in latitude 44° 

 north, and longitude 60° west, was not very long ago forty miles 

 long, whereas it is now only twenty miles. Since 1880 three 

 lighthouses have been built on it, of which two have been washed 

 away, and the third is being rapidly undermined by the waves. 



— Two great authorities on social matters have lately expressed 

 their personal opinion on the results of modern education as to its 

 effects upon the well-being of the population. Prince Bismarck 

 thinks that higher education for the lower classes has been too 

 widely spread {British Medical Journal), and in a recent conver- 

 sation is reported to have said, " Over-education in Germany leads 

 to much disappointment and dissatisfaction; in Russia, to disaf- 

 fection and conspiracy. Ten times as many young people are ed- 

 ucated there for the higher walks of life as thei'e are places to 

 give them, or opportunities for them, in the liberal professions, 

 to earn a decent living, far less wealth and distinction. Perhaps 

 it is not quite the right kind of learning, too. What good does it 

 do them? When they have gone through it, in nine cases out of 

 ten there is nothing for them to do; and their learning is worse 

 than a superfluity to them, for it makes them discontented, nay, 

 miserable." Mr. Gladstone takes a different view, but believes 

 that classical education should only be given to these likely to 

 profit by it in after-life. He is strongly desirous to promote 

 physical and corporal education generally, and attaches much 

 Talue to the training of the eye and the hand. For this purpose 

 he urges that some branch of natural history should have a higher 

 place in the modern theories of education than it has yet obtained. 

 In these days, when many medical men see reason to believe that 

 education in too many cases exhausts and injures the nervous 

 system, in place of developing and strengthening it, it is interest- 

 ing to know the opinion of great statesmen of experience. The- 

 question is a very serious one, and demands inquiry as to the 

 effects of the present educational systems upon the brains of the 

 young. 



— A report has lately been issued by the Chinese commissioner 

 of customs at Newchwang, as stated in The Scottish Geograj^hical 

 Magazine for November, in which some interesting particulars are 

 given regarding the means of transport existing in Manchuria, 

 The roads are mere tracks of frozen mud, impassable in wet 

 weather. The late harvest has been exceedingly abundant, and 

 peas, beans, and oil have poured into Newchwang, as many as 

 two thousand carts arriving daily when the tracks were hard- 

 frozen, and about one thousand per day when the roads were in a 

 less favorable state for traffic. The smaller carts are drawn by a 

 cow with a couple of donkeys in the traces, and carry a load of 

 sixteen piculs (a little over 113 pounds). Medium-sized carts are 

 •drawn by five animals, and can make a journey of four or five 

 days with a load of thirty-three piculs. The largest carts are 

 dragged along by a small horse in the shafts, with six mules, 

 three abreast, and can make a twenty days' journey. They are 

 mostly used for the transport of beans. The oil carts are drawn 

 by mules only, under the care of a couple of driver^, - one walk- 

 ing beside the team, while the other, sitting on the top of the 



load, wields the whip. These teams generally make^a journey of 

 thirty or forty consecutive days, the animals resting all night in 

 the inn yards, without shelter or clothing, under a semi-arctic 

 climate. The commissioner confidently expects that railways 

 constructed to Newchwang will have their usual marked effect 

 on trade. Newchwang is situated near the Yellow Sea, and is the 

 most northerly port of China open to foreign trade. 



— The warmest place in Europe is Malaga. The Scottish Geo- 

 graphical Magazine states that it is warmer even than the Alge- 

 rian coast. The mean of the daily maxima is 66.4° P., and the 

 month of August enjoys the tropical temperature of 80.8°, while 

 the absolute maximum reaches 110°, and the minimum, in the 

 exceptionally cold year of 1885, was 32°. There are only forty- 

 eight rainy days in the year. The sugar-cane and the cherimoya 

 grow in the neighborhood. 



— Lieut. Ryder has given, in Petermann's Mitteilungen (Bd. 36» 

 No. viii.), details of the plan he intends to follow when he leads 

 the Danish Expedition to Greenland, as announced in The Scot- 

 tish Geographical Magazine, vol. vi. p. 270. The coast to be ex- 

 plored may be divided into two stretches. The first extends from 

 Franz Josef Fiord to Cape Brewster, latitude 70° north. Scoresby 

 drew a map of this coast in 1833; but, the main object of his voy- 

 age being to hunt whales, he could only land twice or thrice, and 

 did not explore the inlets which penetrate far into the land between 

 Franz Josef Fiord and Scoresby Sound. From Cape Brewster to 

 Angmagsalik the coast is hardly known at all: it was sighted by 

 Scoresby in 1832, and by the French naval officer, Jules de 

 Blosseville, in 1833. Capt Hobii draughted a map of it from sketches 

 and information supplied by the Eskimo, from which it appears 

 that the inland ice approaches very close to the coast, and for a 

 considerable distance descends into the sea. The expedition is to 

 consist of nine persons, — two naval officers, a scientist, four sail- 

 ors, and probably two Greenlanders from the Danish colonies on 

 the West Coast. They will be furnished with three boats (each 

 22 feet long by 6 broad), a house, sleighs, tents, fire-arms, etc. 

 They will leave Copenhagen at the beginning of June, 1891, and 

 endeavor to form a depot of provisions at about 69° north lati- 

 tude. The ship will then sail to Cape Stewart, the south-eastern 

 extremity of Jameson Land, which, being low and slightly undu- 

 lating, is well suited for winter quarters, besides having attrac- 

 tions for the mineralogist, and affording opportunities to the 

 sportsman of obtaining abundance of fresh meat. When their 

 equipment has been landed, most of the members of the expedi- 

 tion will go on board again, and spend the remainder of the arc- 

 tic summer in exploring the fiords between Scoresby Sound and 

 Franz Josef B'iord. after which the vessel will return home to 

 Denmark. During the winter, scientific observations of all kinds 

 will be taken, and, as soon as the young ice is strong enough, 

 short journeys will be made in sleighs around the neighboring 

 country. In the spring, longer excursions will be made up 

 Scoresby Sound and to the inland ice. Where possible, the ve- 

 locity of the glaciers will be measured, and other observations taken 

 which may have a bearing on the numei'ous questions relating to 

 the inland ice and glacial phenomena in general. At the end of 

 June, having left the collection.^ they may have made to be 

 brought away by the ship, the explorers will take to the boats and 

 follow the coast southwards. The steamer, after taking on board 

 the collections at Cape Stewart, will make hydrographical obser- 

 vations to the north of Iceland and in Denmark Strait, until the 

 time has arrived to seek the expedition at Angmagsalik. Accord- 

 ing to Capt. Holm and the statements of the Eskimo, the heavy 

 masses of the polar ice lie, during the end of autumn, at some 

 distance from the coast, and therefore September has been fixed 

 as the month in which the expedition is to be taken on board. 

 Should, however, the vessel be unable to reach the coast, or the 

 expedition arrive too late in the season, the explorers will have to 

 winter at Angmagsalik, and in the summer of 1893 make their 

 way by boat to the Danish colonies on the West Coast, vi'hence 

 they can take a passage home in the ships of the Konigl.-gron- 

 landischen Handel. A sum of 180,000 kroner (about $50,000) has 

 been voted by the Danish Government for the equipment of the 

 expedition. 



