December 7, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



277 



of only 724 pages, all told. The imprints read, " Carlisle : From 

 the Press of A. Loudon (VVhitehill) i8o8," and " Carlisle : From the 

 Press of Archibald Loudon, 1811." Of this book the Harrisburg 

 Publishing Company proposes to reproduce an edition, limited to 

 one hundred copies, for subscribers, at ten dollars per set. Sub- 

 scriptions sent to Charles L. Woodward. 78 Nassau Street, New 



York, will be numbered, and will be good until the list is full. 



Mr. Charles T. Strauss has published a condensed translation of 

 ' Spelin,' a universal language, by Prof. George Bauer. The char- 

 acter of this new language may be understood from its name, which 

 is derived from .? (the prefix designating ' collectiveness '), pe (mean- 

 ing ' all ') and liii (' language ')• It is founded on principles similar 

 to those of Volapiik, but is claimed to be more euphonious, and 



simpler. The Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania has 



just published the second part of the 'Atlas of the Eastern Middle 

 Anthracite Field.' This part contains eight sheets relating to por- 

 tions of the Lehigh basins in Luzerne, Carbon, and Schuylkill 

 Counties. The cross-sections contained in this part form portions 

 of a series begun in the first part, and to be continued in a third in- 

 stalment. 



— From a reading of Darwin's biography, an Englishman has 

 compiled the following list of authors and books which Darwin 

 mentions as having given him the most pleasure and stimulus : 

 Thompson's ' Seasons,' Byron, Scott, Shakspeare, ' The Wonders 

 of the World,' White's ' Selborne,' Reynold's 'Discourses,' Hum- 

 boldt's ' Personal Narrative,' Herschel's ' Introduction to the Study 

 of Natural Philosophy,' Wordsworth, Coleridge, Milton's ' Paradise 

 Lost.' Gray, Shelley, Scott's novels, Miss Austen, Mrs. Gaskell, 

 George Eliot's ' Silas Marner,' and Tennyson's ' Enoch Arden.' 

 It was White's ' Selborne ' that first set him to watch the habits of 

 birds, and Humboldt and Herschel who first " stirred up in me a 

 burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble 

 structure of natural science." 



— The importance of the study of dialects and mixed languages 

 is well appreciated nowadays, and essays on these subjects are for- 

 tunately becoming more numerous. The Canadian Institute of 

 Toronto is pacing considerable attention to the French dialect of 

 Canada, as its recent numbers show ; and studies of the Negro 

 French of Louisiana have been published in the yotirnal of Ameri- 

 can Folk-Lore. The tenth bulletin of the Portuguese Geographical 

 Society contains a very interesting study of this character, — a 

 grammar and vocabulary of the Portuguese dialect of the Cape 

 Verde Islands, by A. de Paulo Brito, edited by the well-known stu- 

 dent of the Romance languages, A. Coelho. One of the most inter- 

 esting features of this study is a list of proverbs, conundrums, and 

 songs. Among the latter we mention the ' batuque,' a series of 

 improvised songs sung at certain entertainments. A group of young 

 men and women form a circle around a fiddler, beating time by 

 clapping their hands, singing at the same time. Suddenly one of 

 the group improvises a verse, which he or she sings, joined later 

 on by the chorus. It is a matter of congratulation that studies of 

 this character become more numerous, as the levelling influence of 

 civilization sweeps away the remains of ancient lore and ancient 

 customs. 



— The Clarendon Press has added to its list of valuable books 

 ' A Class Book of Elementary Chemistry,' by W. W. Fisher. The 

 author has attempted nothing especially novel in the scheme of his 

 book, but has given as briefly as possible some account of the most 

 important chemical phenomena, actions, and changes, with the laws 

 of chemical combination and the theoretical explanations of those 

 laws commonly accepted. The book will prove a valuable text- 

 book for high school or college. 



— The fourth part of J. Macoun's ' Catalogue of Canadian Plants ' 

 has just been issued by the Geological and Natural History Survey 

 of Canada. It forms the first part of the second volume of this 

 valuable work, and contains the Endogens. The foregoing parts 

 were issued in 18S3, 18S4, and 1886 respectively, and include the 

 Polypt-tahv, Gainopctahe, Apctahx. and Gynutospt-rins. Since the 

 publication of the third part, extensive collections have been made 

 by James M. Macoun on the shores and islands of James Bay, by 

 the author on Vancouver Island, and by Dr. G. M. Dawson on the 



upper Yukon on his great expedition. That part of this additional 

 information which is applicable to the Endogens is included in the 

 present part. The work will be completed by two further parts 

 treating the cryptogamous plants. 



— C. Wellman Parks, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, 

 N.Y., has undertaken the preparation of an exhibit of American 

 periodicals for the Paris Exposition of 1889, and requests help to 

 make it complete. He will provide wall space for copies of the 

 various publications and group photographs of the editorial staffs, 

 and tables and chairs for the use of those who care to examine the 

 periodicals. Publishers are requested to send their publications to 

 him in Paris as soon as issued, that the latest possible number may 

 always be on file. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



'iter's : 



*^* Correspondents are requested to be as brie/ as possible. The 

 in all cases required as firoo/o/ ^ood faith. 



Twenty copies o/ the number containing his communication luill be furnished 

 /ree to any correspondent on request. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of 

 tite journal. 



Pseudo-scientific Humbuggery. 



The more mysterious a thing is, the more do ignorant people 

 think they know about it. The learned man alone recognizes the 

 limitations of his knowledge. On our maps the thoroughly ex- 

 plored regions have strict boundaries : only the terrce incognilce 

 shade off into infinity. 



Now, of all the uncertain subjects at present passing under 

 scientific scrutiny, the etiology of infectious and contagious diseases 

 is probably the most occult ; but, for this very reason, it offers ir- 

 resistible attraction to all sorts of rash theorizers. At the same 

 time, the excitement occasioned by the visit of an awful plague, 

 like yellow-fever, discloses a ready soil of credulity for the recep- 

 tion of every wild dogma, and starts into life the germs of supersti- 

 tion everywhere lying dormant in men's mental substratum. 



If you care to see how charlatans take advantage of such a con- 

 catenation of circumstances, you have only to walk through upper 

 Broadway, and drop in at the headquarters of a certain ' microbe- 

 killer,' which you will have no difficulty in finding. Even if the 

 proprietor's explanation of his wonderful invention does not strike 

 you as being altogether lucid and ingenuous, you will surely be 

 impressed with his apparent knowledge of and faith in human 

 nature, as shown in the certainty with which he reckons upon a 

 paying market for his extraordinary nostrum. This is evinced also 

 by the fact of his occupying a conspicuous place of business, for 

 which I suppose he has paid a good rent, and, perhaps even more 

 indisputably, by his having risked the expense of a two-column 

 advertisement in one of the daily papers a few weeks ago. The 

 astonishing effrontery of that advertisement is manifested, not only 

 in the ingenious nonsense put forth as a histor)' of the alleged dis- 

 covery, but also in the impressive pictures with which the highly 

 imaginative article is adorned. These profess to be likenesses of the 

 " deadly microbes " for which the infallible " killer " has been provi- 

 dentially provided. Of course, there is not a microbe among 

 them. They are, however, with one exception, rude reproductions 

 of photographs of diatom valves. The exception is a representa- 

 tion of a part of the tracheal system of a butterfly or moth. 



This use of diatoms as catch-penny wonder-workers is nothing 

 new. Some years ago, an enterprising genius conceived the bril- 

 liant idea, that, if wheat or any other cereal were fed with diatoma- 

 ceous earth, the plant would take up the siliceous shells bodily 

 and build them into its cuticle with great economy of energy-. Ac- 

 cordingly he " invented " a fertilizer, which was extensively adver- 

 tised, both here and in Europe ; and into his advertisements he too 

 introduced drawings. These claimed to show diatoms, not as they 

 existed in his fossiliferous fertilizer, but as they were said to have 

 been obtained from the cuticle of straw by the disintegrating action 

 of nitric acid. But in his illustrative plate he was so indiscreet as 

 to figure not only siliceous diatom-valves, which would withstand 

 the power of acid, but also a certain entire diatom in a form in 

 which it could exist only in a living state, with its soft and perish- 

 able envelope in place ; and to these he had added sponge-spiculea 



