254 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 304 



1888,' by Dr. Win Johnson, secretary Mississippi State Board of 

 Health ; ' The Problems of Yellow-Fever Epidemics," by Dr. Je- 

 rome Cochran, State health-officer of Alabama ; and ' Some Per- 

 sonal Observations on Yellow-Fever and its Habitudes as Opposed 

 to the Fallacies and Dangers of Personal Quarantine,' by Dr. A. N. 

 Bell, Brooklyn, N.Y. 



The paper by Dr. Cochran was one of the best of the entire ses- 

 sion, and was most enthusiastically received. Dr. Cochran had 

 just come from Decatur, and his views were the result of years of 

 experience with yellow-fever. It was a concise and pithy state- 

 ment of his opinions, and any abstract that we could now give 

 would be entirely inadequate. We shall hereafter give a full report 

 of it. 



The closing session of the association for scientific business was 

 occupied by the reading of the following papers : ' Tuberculosis, its 

 Origin, Detection, and Control,' by D. E. Salmon, D.V.M., chief of 

 the Bureau of Animal Industry, Washington, D.C. ; ' Some Obser- 

 vations on the Origin and Sources of Disease Germ,' by Theobald 

 Smith, M.D., of the Bacteriological Laboratory of the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry, Washington, D.C. ; and ' Meteorological Observa- 

 tions as respects Disease Prevalence,' by Prof. W. W. Payne, direc- 

 tor of the Observatory, Northfield, Minn. 



The interest in many of the papers was greatly increased by 

 illustrations thrown on the screen by lantern-projection. 



Chairman C. A. Lindsley of the Lomb prize committee an- 

 nounced the award of the first prize, five hundred dollars, to the 

 essay on hygienic dietetics superscribed with the motto ' Five Food 

 Products illustrated by Practical Recipes.' On opening the sealed 

 envelope, it was found that the successful author was Mary J. Hin- 

 man, wife of John J. Abel, now resident at Strasburg, Germany, 

 where husband and wife are attending the university. Of the si.\ty- 

 nine other essays, not one was deemed worthy of being awarded 

 the second prize. 



A resolution was unanimously adopted recommending the pas- 

 sage by Congress of an act to establish anational health bureau 

 in the Department of the Interior. 



The following officers were elected for the ensuing year : Dr. 

 Hosmer A. Johnson, Chicago, president ; Dr. Jerome Cochran of 

 Alabama, first vice-president ; and Dr. F. Montizambert of Canada, 

 second vice-president. The secretary. Dr. Irving A. Watson of 

 New Hampshire, and the treasurer, Dr. J. B. Lindsley of Tennes- 

 see, were re-elected. The association will hold its next annual 

 meeting in Brooklyn, N.Y. 



SURVEYS. THEIR KINDS AND PURPOSES. 

 Mr. Marcus Baker read a paper on the above subject before 

 the National Geological Society of Washington, Nov. 2. 188S. He 

 classified surveys as follows : — 



I. Surveys for general purposes, or information surveys : i. Geo- 

 detic; 2. Geologic; 3. Topographic (ordinary and military); 4. 

 Agricultural ; 5. Magnetic ; 6. Nautical (hydrographic and physi- 

 cal). 



II. Surveys for jurisdictional purposes, or boundary surveys ; i. 

 For defining boundaries of nations, states, counties, towns, etc ; 2. 

 For defining property boundaries (cadastral, and partition of land 

 for sale). 



III. Surveys for construction purposes, or improvement surveys : 

 I. For constructing works, forts, arsenals, navy-yards, lighthouses, 

 fishways, etc. ; 2. For constructing routes of communication, roads, 

 railroads, electric lines, pipe-lines, canals, etc. ; 3. For reclamation 

 of land, flood-plains, arid swamps, etc. ; 4. For improvement of 

 natural waterways; 5. For water-supply to centres of population ; 

 6. For disposal of sewage from centres of population. 



Surveys are of various kinds, are made for various purposes, and 

 the results are exhibited in various ways. The kind of survey to be 

 undertaken in any given case, the mode of conducting it and of ex- 

 hibiting the results obtained, must depend primarily upon its pur- 

 pose. 



Numerous surveys are now in progress in the United States un- 

 der the auspices of the general government, of individual States, 

 of corporations, and of individuals. Large sums of money are an- 

 nually expended upon them, and the outcome is of practical moment 

 to many people. 



It is conceived, therefore, that it will be of scientific value and of 

 practical importance to take a general view of surveys, to enumer- 

 ate and to classify them, and to set forth their purposes. It is of 

 scientific value, because the bringing-together of a considerable 

 number of related facts or phenomena under one general view 

 gives rise to comparison, to study, and to deduction of general 

 principles ; and it is of practical importance, because the purpose 

 for which any work is undertaken should be clearly formulated, 

 that the work may be so done as to well and economically serve its 

 purpose. 



Surveys must be of various kinds, because they are made to serve 

 various purposes. A classification of kinds is, then, a classification 

 by purposes. The tentative schedule here suggested is one of the 

 various possible modes of classification. Whether better or worse 

 than other schemes of classification, is not important for the pres- 

 ent purpose. It may serve for enumeration, and afford the basis 

 for some study of the different kinds of surveys as determined by 

 their purposes. 



Now, the purpose of all surveys is twofold : viz., first, to acquire 

 certain information relating to the earth ; and, second, to spread 

 this information among the people for whom it is acquired. To 

 disseminate the information obtained among those for whom it has 

 been obtained, the results are set forth {a) in the manuscript or 

 printed page, accompanied by illustrations, diagrams, profiles, 

 sketches, photographs, etc., and (i) in maps. The results of cer- 

 tain surveys are almost completely exhibited without the aid of 

 maps, while in others the entire result of the survey is a map. Be- 

 tween these extremes we have surveys whose results require joint 

 use of text and map in varying proportions. 



In a geodetic survey the results are set forth in the printed text, 

 in tables, and in diagram or sketch of the triangulation. In a top- 

 ographic survey the result is a topographic map, and, if the survey 

 be purely topographic, the map is the only result. These two 

 kinds of survey, therefore, stand at the two extremes in manner of 

 exhibiting results. In a purely topographic survey all the results 

 are exhibited on the map ; in the geodetic survey all the results are 

 exhibited in the printed text and tables. 



Surveys may be conveniently grouped into three great divisions: 

 viz., I. Those made for general purposes, or information surveys ; 



II. Those made for jurisdictional purposes, or boundary surveys ; 



III. Those made for construction purposes, or improvement sur- 

 veys. And these again may be usefully subdivided into several 

 smaller groups, as set forth in the above schedule. 



The well-being and prosperity of a community is intimately re- 

 lated to and dependent upon the resources of the region in which 

 it lives. Recognizing this fact, civilized communities study their 

 surroundings and resources, in order, that, by a better knowledge of 

 and mastery over them, they may improve their condition. 



The general study of the earth, its size and shape, its structure, 

 its surface form, its surface quality, its forces, is the object and pur- 

 pose of information surveys. The organization of such surveys is 

 a matter of comparatively modern times, and an accompaniment 

 only of the highest civilization. 



When civilized man reaches that stage of development in which 

 he recognizes that his advantage over the semi-civilized or barba- 

 rous was due to his better acquaintance with, and mastery over, 

 nature, then was he stimulated to further study and research. Re- 

 search by single individuals, in private laboratories, led to discov- 

 eries of interesting and useful facts and principles. It led, further, 

 to the suggestion of principles of wide application, but which could 

 only be tested by the study of many and widely separated locali- 

 ties. Such study being often beyond the power of the individual, 

 and its outcome being of interest to the entire community in its 

 organized capacity to test, the State took it up, and organized e.x- 

 peditions to travel in distant parts, and collect information for the 

 benefit of the whole community. Such expeditions brought back 

 information respecting distant parts, that served to throv,' light upon 

 little-understood phenomena at home ; to establish principles of 

 higher value than the individual facts from which they had been 

 derived ; and led to the establishment of some, and rejection of 

 other, generalizations, based upon a knowledge of only a limited 

 area. The interesting, instructive, and useful facts brought to light 

 by such systematic exploration and general survey showed the 



