86 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 498. 



the like-named structures in horses' teeth. 

 They profess ability to examine a river's 

 mouth and tell as shrewdly as any veterinarian 

 v?hether the animated stream belongs to the 

 colt stage, the four-year-old, or the decrepit 

 old equine condition. To the discerning eye 

 even pathologic conditions are revealed, for 

 has not one writer described a stream with 

 ' blind staggers ' ? Let any one cast a glance 

 over the recent literature, if one suspects the 

 simile overdone, and note, amongst other 

 things, the surprising array of anthropo- 

 morphic conceptions of nature. Take even a 

 master-craftsman like Professor Davis, orig- 

 inator, if I mistake not, of the terms ' pirate 

 stream,' ' captured tributaries,' ' drowned val- 

 leys,' etc. (the hybrid * peneplain ' belongs to 

 another story) — ^has he not said of Greece that 

 it 'is a country standing up to its knees in 

 the Mediterranean'? The fact may be liter- 

 ally true, but it is hardly decorous to specify 

 anatomical particulars. 



Another writer who believes in the virtue 

 of parables characterizes a rapidly eroded land- 

 surface as a ' precocious infant,' from which 

 the lay reader may surmise that it has just 

 graduated from kilts. But for delightfully 

 refreshing imagery we must refer to a short 

 article on ' The Aggrading Bar,' which ap- 

 peared in these columns some little time ago 

 (Science, V., p. 646), and begins as follows: 



" The little wriggling bar staggering blindly 

 along in a broad meandering valley is like a 

 small boy attempting to fill his grandfather's 

 boots. The waste ^supplied from the side of the 

 hills of the adolescent valley, cut by the ancestor 

 of the present stream, is much too great a load 

 for a little brook." 



Here the anthropomorphic suggestion is 

 very skilfully rendered, in fact so realistically 

 that the fate of this inebriate little brook, 

 after taking on its load at the aggrading bar, 

 might almost be said ' to point a moral or 

 adorn a tale.' As class-room illustrations, or 

 as intending to impart instruction by means 

 of allegory, figurative descriptions of this na- 

 ture may, perhaps, be tolerated, but it is 

 gratuitous to suppose that the method of 

 .5<^sop is better adapted to the needs of readers 

 of Science than the method of Zadig. Sully 



Prudhomme, in his essay ' On the Nature of 

 Things,' makes some pointed remarks on the 

 habit personifying inanimate nature, which it 

 may be well for physiographers to take to 

 heart. 



Other illustrations of the kindergarten 

 method might be given, but it is probably 

 unnecessary to prove that the standard of 

 most of our popular scientific magazines has 

 become lowered through the habit of ' talking 

 down ' to average readers, instead of raised 

 by talking just a little over their heads. Let 

 it be asked as a general question which style of 

 writing is the more helpful to students, that 

 which assumes too much on their part, or too 

 little? Does not there come a time in the 

 education of youth when suggestion by means 

 of nursery methods ceases to be a virtue? 

 When a student reaches the point where he 

 may be expected to dig for himself, let us put 

 a spade into his hand, taking care, however, 

 to call it a spade, and not a toy for making 

 mud-pies. C. E. Eastman. 



Hakvard Univeesity. 



'vegetable balls.' 

 Regarding the subject of ' Vegetable Balls ' 

 the following additional information may be 

 worthy of note. This curious formation is 

 characteristic of the section .^igagropila of 

 the genus Cladophora and is mentioned in 

 Engler and Prantl's ' Die Naturlichen Pfian- 

 zenfamilien,' De lonis ' Sylloge Algarum ' 

 and Hanck's ' Meeresalgen.' The most recent 

 work on the subject seems to be that of C. 

 Wesenberg on JEgagropila Sauteri (Overs, k. 

 dansk. Vidensk. Selsk. Eorh., IL, 1903, pp. 

 168-203), of which there is a very good sum- 

 mary in Jour. Roy. Micr. Soc, April, 1904. 

 The alga occurs in Lake Soro, Denmark, and 

 the balls attain the size of the fist or of a 

 child's head. J. Adams. 



EoYAL College of Science, Dublin, 

 June 29, 1904. 



A notable paleobotanical discovery. 



To the Editor of Science: Inasmuch as a 



note by the undersigned, entitled ' A Notable 



Paleobotanical Discovery,' in Science of July 



8, was delayed in publication it is only just 



