3io 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 307 



SCIENCE 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPEH OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES, 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



[Entered at New York Post-Office as second-class mail-matter.] 



Subscriptions. — United States and Canada $3.50 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4-5° a year. 



^Science Club-rates for the United States and Canada (in one remittance): 



1 subscription i year S 3.50 



2 *' I year 6.00 



3 " I year 8.00 



Communications will be welcomed from any quarter. Rejected manuscripts will be 

 urned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accompanies the 

 ■ipt. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name 

 and addressof the writer ; not necessarily for publication, but as a guaranty of good 

 faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for any view or opinions expressed in the 

 ; of our correspondents. 



ful raid into the upper valley of the White Nile. He seems to have 

 encountered Emin in October at Lado, and captured him and Stan- 

 ley. Undoubtedly Emin would not have been able to withstand 

 the attack of an expedition like the one referred to, and from his 

 former behavior it does not appear probable that he would have 

 retreated south-eastward. While the news is quite probable and 

 credible, we may still maintain a faint hope that it has been merely 

 invented to prevent the English from energetic action at Suakin. 

 It has been stated before that the only real means of helping Emin 

 would have been an attack upon the Mahdi from the north ; but 

 this, of course, was out of the question, since the English had given 

 up the Sudan. Stanley's expedition was a failure, as, on account 

 of his long delay and the destruction of his rear guard, he was un- 

 able to supply Emin with a sufficient amount of ammunition and 

 trustworthy men. Neither would the planned German expedition 

 have been of great account in a war with the Mahdi, as it would 

 hardly have succeeded in opening a route to Emin, which latter 

 would have been the only means of maintaining the rule over the 

 Equatorial Province. 



NEW YORK, Dec. 21, 18 



No. 307. 



The Hauss Electric Railway 301 



The Conduit System of Electric 



Railways 302 



Philosophy AND Specialties 303 



Scientific News in Washington. 



Causes of Configuration in Trees . . 306 



How Some Eskimo Measure 306 



J^ew Improved Freezing-Micro- 

 tome 307 



.Ethnology. 



Tales from Venezuela. 307 



■ The Races of the Babylonian Em- 



CONTENTS: 



Notes a 



) News 309 



Editor 



Thei 



ley. 



pin 



307 



'. Electrical News. 



Submarine Boats 308 



- Another New Storage-Battery .... 309 



Underground Conduits 309 



of Emin Pacha and Stan- 

 The Resources of the 

 Mackenzie Basin. 



Bacteria G.M.Sternberg 311 

 The Great Mackenzie Basin 31 



Book-Reviews. 



Memory 31 



Case of Emperor Frederick III.. . . 31 



Among the Publishers 31 



Letters to the Editor. 



Synclinal Mountains and Anti- 

 clinal Valleys. W. Sil. Davis 3; 



• The recent news from the Equatorial Province shows that 

 'the Mahdi's successor, Abdullah, has as strong a hold upon the 



Mohammedan peoples of Egyptian Sudan as had his predecessor. 

 While for some time the impression prevailed that the fanaticism 



• of these tribes had abated, the attacks upon the English at Suakin 

 iproved at least that the Mahdi still swayed over the region from 

 Khartum to Berber. It will be remembered that since the unex- 

 plained retreat of the Mahdi from the Equatorial Province Emin 

 Pacha had been comparatively undisturbed, but about the end of 

 last year rumors of a renewed attack reached the coast. It was 

 stated that in March the Mahdi contemplated sending four thou- 

 sand men on four of Gordon's old steamboats up the Nile, in order 

 to attack Emin. If Osman Digma's message to the English be 

 true, and not a trap, this expedition has been successful, and Emin 

 "has at last succumbed to the powerful religious movement which 

 •centres in Khartum, and with him Stanley, who had joined hands 

 with him since November last year; and both would share the 

 ifate of the unfortunate Lupton and Slatin. It is said that a der- 

 wish named Omar Saleh returned some months ago from a success- 



The select COMMITTEE of the Senate of the Dominion of 

 Canada, appointed to inquire into the resources of the great Mac- 

 kenzie basin, has collected a vast amount of information, which has 

 recently been published, and of which we give abstracts in another 

 place. Although much of the information contained in this report 

 is too vague to be of value, the greater part is founded on sound 

 reports of well-informed men, and our knowledge of the natural 

 productiveness of this vast area is greatly increased. In weighing 

 the economic value of the area under discussion, it must be consid- 

 ered that the northern limit of vegetable products and of pasture- 

 land does not coincide with the northern limit of profitable agricul- 

 ture and stock-raising. In the report of the committee, the anal- 

 ogy of those parts of Russia near the northern limit of possible ag- 

 riculture is frequently emphasized ; but it must be borne in mind 

 that the economic conditions of America and Russia are funda- 

 mentally different. Up to this time, agriculture in the new West is 

 founded on extensive culture, no attempt being made to make the 

 soil yield the largest possible continuous returns by intensive culture. 

 At the same time a great portion of the immigrants do not settle 

 there to make a living, but with the prospect of becoming wealthy. 

 In Canada as well as in the United States a great number of set- 

 tlers in the prairie territory are at the same time land-speculators. 

 For these reasons the limit of agriculture will not approach 

 as closely the limit of possible agriculture as it does in Russia, 

 where a native population, loving the native soil, makes a hardy 

 living. It is only when the economic conditions of the Western 

 States shall have undergone a complete change that these northern 

 districts, which are able to support a population, will become set- 

 tled. 



BACTERIA.i 



As director of the Hoagland Laboratory, I take advantage of 

 this opportunity to congratulate Dr. Hoagland, the city of Brook- 

 lyn, and my present audience, upon the completion of this building, 

 devoted exclusively to scientific research, and instruction in certain 

 departments of biology ; viz., in physiology, pathology, histology, 

 and bacteriology. Indeed, I may extend my congratulations much 

 further ; for such a laboratory as this is a centre from which the 

 rays of scientific learning will radiate to all parts of this great coun- 

 try, and which cannot fail to exercise an important influence upon 

 the progress of knowledge in these fields of research. I do not 

 know when Dr. Hoagland first conceived the idea of building and 

 equipping a laboratory devoted to these fundamental branches of 

 medical science, but it is now nearly two years since he made his 

 first visit to Baltimore for the purpose of inspecting the laborato- 



1 Portion of a lecture delivered by Dr. George M. Sternberg at the Hoagland 

 Laboratory, Brooklyn. Nov. T7, 188S. 



