I02 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 291 



a botanist he won such eminent renown. We feel that we have a 

 right to be among the chief mourners at his departure from the 

 field of labor he loved so well, and in a special degree to unite in 

 sympathy with the many thousands who miss him everywhere. 



" Resolved, That copies of these resolutions be forwarded to the 

 family of our deceased friend, and given to the botanical and other 

 scientific serials for publication." 



Mr. S. M. Tracy read an interesting paper by Prof. George 

 Vasey, which was finely illustrated by lantern-slides of the vegeta- 

 tion of the great American desert. A pleasant botanical excursion 

 occupied the afternoon. 



Prof. T. J. Burrill of Champaign, 111., was elected president for 

 the next meeting ; B. D. Hoisted of Ames, lo., vice-president ; and 

 D. H. Campbell of Detroit, Mich., secretary. 



The report of the committee on the Botanical Exchange Club 

 was accepted, with the thanks of the club for the valuable work 

 accomplished. 



The papers throughout the sessions were both valuable and in- 

 teresting. Prof. J. F. James presented specimens of remarkable 

 variations in Dentoria multifida and Asclepias tuberosa. Prof. 

 F. L. Scribner's ' Observations on Nomenclature ' brought up the 

 question of who shall have credit for a name. Prof. B. E. Fernow's 

 subject, 'What is a Tree?' called forth lively discussion. The 

 question has come to be of considerable importance to the United 

 States Land OIBce. Rev. Dr. Beauchamp's paper on ' The Names 

 given to Some Plants by the Onondagas,' was listened to with 

 great interest. 



The first paper in the Section for Economic Science was read by 

 B. E. Fernow, and treated of the necessity of a forest administra- 

 tion in the United States, in which he called attention to the vast 

 extent of American forests and the wasteful practices by which 

 this valuable property is being destroyed. He estimated the an- 

 nual loss to the amount of from ten to twenty million dollars. 

 These forests are situated mainly on the western mountain-ranges, 

 which supply the surrounding semi-arid plains with water for irri- 

 gation, necessary for the agricultural development of the soil. 

 The equalizing influence of the forest-cover upon waterflow makes 

 their preservation as continuous forests an absolute necessity. Mr. 

 Fernow recommended that an administrative bureau be formed 

 which should have exclusive charge of the timber-lands of the gov- 

 ernment. Mrs. Laura Talbot of Washington distinguished herself 

 by bringing the subject of industrial education, which has lately 

 excited so much interest, to the attention of the section. Her paper 

 was a vigorous plea for the establishment of industrial schools for 

 children who are now placed in public orphan-asylums and refor- 

 matory institutions. Mrs. Talbot denounced the present system of 

 caring for the waifs of the great cities of the country, asserting 

 that it was educating these unfortunates to idleness and crime. 

 She favored manual training in connection with these industrial in- 

 stitutions, as well as farming in all its branches. In the discussion 

 that followed, a number of well-known educators took part, who 

 expressed themselves in favor of manual training in connection with 

 these schools. 



Professor Atkinson's valuable paper on ' The Use and Abuse 

 of Statistics ' elicited a spirited reply from Col. E. Daniels on the 

 question of currency on which Atkinson had touched, maintain- 

 ing that a strictly metallic currency would greatly benefit the 

 country. Daniels, on the other hand, said that coined legal-tender 

 money, whatever its material, is of precisely the same purchasing- 

 power, whether of paper, gold, or silver. It will pay precisely the 

 same amount of debt. Coins are nothing else than tools of ex- 

 change. They vary in price or exchangeable value according to the 

 number of them offered in the market. Daniels set forth his favor- 

 ite views more fully on another day, when reading a paper on ' Our 

 Monetary System.' 



Discussion in the same line followed Edward N. Ammidown's 

 paper, ' Suggestions for Legislation on the Currency.' He summa- 

 rized his views in the demand that financial legislation in the United 

 States should aim to increase the use for gold and silver money 

 throughout the country, and to expand its volume in proportion to 

 the growth of population and business. It should encourage the 

 free issue of national bank currency under similar rules which now 

 prevail to secure the easy and rapid expansion and contraction in 



harmony with the fluctuating requirements of trade. Such a policy 

 would give the country a broad, substantial basis of metallic legal 

 tender, and, through the national bank currency, furnish the means 

 to maintain easily that equilibrium between demand and supply of 

 money which is essential to continuous national prosperity. 



The question of gold and silver was also the subject of a paper 

 by S. Dana Horton, which was read on Monday, in which he con- 

 sidered the opinion established that parity of metals can be main- 

 tained by concurrent laws of nations. The question is only a po- 

 litical one whether the European nations will pass these laws. 



E. Atkinson's paper, which was mentioned above, covered a wide 

 range of facts. He dwelt upon the abuse of statistics in the sepa- 

 rate comparisons of rates of wages and prices of goods, and empha- 

 sized the necessity of careful training in this branch of science in 

 order to avoid false deductions and conclusions. His prime object 

 was to show, that, unless statistics are made use of as a basis of 

 economic reasoning by persons competently trained, they become 

 a mere snare and pitfall, working more harm than good through 

 the false deductions that msy be made from them ; while, on the 

 other hand, the economist who attempts to reason on the condition 

 of men in their relation to each other without regard to the statis- 

 tics of prices, wages, volume of currency, and other elements by 

 which the exchange of services is contrasted or measured, will, of 

 necessity, be a mere theorist whose unsustained hypotheses may not 

 come near the mark. 



On the following day W. O. Atwater subjected the doctrine of 

 Malthus, and his views on the food-supply of the future, to a critical 

 study, and found that the prospects for a greatly increased supply 

 by the use of the discoveries of modern science are very hopeful, and 

 that we do not need to fear the ultimate starvation of mankind. Mr> 

 Charles S. Hill, in his paper on ' Ship-Building and Shipping,' re- 

 viewed the history of the decline of American shipping. He vigor- 

 ously denounced the action of Congress in withdrawing that national 

 aid from American shipping which enabled it to compete with the 

 British. He demanded that ship-building and shipping should be 

 revived in this country by all possible means, and showed how 

 many industries and trades would thus receive a new impulse. The 

 most important paper of this day was a report on the progress 

 made in the work of surveying the Nicaragua Canal route. It will be- 

 remembered that at the New York meeting a general sketch of the 

 work done up to that date was given, and the Nicaragua Canal 

 Association did not lose its opportunity at the present meeting of 

 again calling the attention of the public to its enterprise. A photo- 

 graphic reproduction of a bird's-eye view of Nicaragua, and a map- 

 (on Mercator's projection) showing the routes around Cape Horn 

 and through the projected canal, were exhibited. Commander 

 Taylor's general report on this subject went materially over the 

 same ground as many of his former lectures on the same subject, 

 but he added a report of the proceedings of the association during 

 the past year. He stated that t^he contract of 1887 with the repub- 

 lic of Nicaragua had been supplemented recently by one of similar 

 tenor with Costa Rica, perfecting the exclusive title of the Canal 

 Association. A bill to incorporate the Maritime Canal Company 

 of Nicaragua has passed the United States Senate, and now awaits- 

 action by the House of Representatives, having been favorably re- 

 ported by its committee on commerce, with the expression of the 

 committee's full satisfaction as to the financial standing of the 

 Canal Association. Next, Lieut. R. S. Peary gave a sketch of 

 the history of surveys, and of the work done during the present 

 spring. The methods of work were as follows : The expeditiorv 

 being divided into parties and the work into sections, the locations- 

 of 1880 m the western division, and of 1872-73 and 1885 in the 

 eastern, were taken as bases, and a main transit and level line run, 

 and bench-marks established about every thousand or two thou- 

 sand feet. These benches were then checked. From this transit- 

 line, compass, chain, and aneroid offsets were run from one thousand 

 to two thousand feet on both sides ; adjacent streams, valleys, and' 

 hills reconnoitred ; and the work plotted. With this chart in hand,, 

 the entire line was then gone over in the field by the engineer in 

 charge, accompanied by the chief of the section, and the location 

 decided upon. The location was then run in and levelled, checking 

 upon the benches of the preliminary line, and cross-sections run and 

 levelled from one hundred to four hundred feet apart, along the 



