:So 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 365 



AMONG THE PUBLISHERS. 



In the February Atlantic the Bering Sea question is dis- 

 cussed by Charles B. Elliott; and Mr. K. Kaneko, the head of 

 the Japanese commission which has been visiting various coun- 

 ti-ies to compare their legislative assemblies, in order to establish 

 a Japanese parliament, has a paper on ' 'An Outline of the Japan- 

 ese Constitution. ' ' The article which will arouse the most dis- 

 cussion is by Gen. Francis Walker, about Mr. Bellamy and the 

 new Nationalist party. There are four articles devoted to recent 

 books on political and historical subjects. 



— Messrs. J. B. Lippincott Company publish immediately the 

 long-looked for book concerning Henry M. Stanley and his rescue 

 of Emin Pacha. This work, entitled "Stanley's Emin Pacha 

 Expedition, ' ' will be entirely authentic in every particular, as 

 it is compiled from Stanley's own letters to the president of the 

 society which was mainly instrumental in sending him on the 

 journey. The book contains about four hundi-ed pages, together 

 with numerous illusti'ations and maps. 



— Public Opinion has issued No. 3 group of ' ' Representative 

 Moulders of Public Opinion. ' ' The first two contain porti-aits of 

 the editoi-s of daily papers. Tlie third is confined to the weeklies 

 and monthlies, of which the following is a list: E. L. Godkin 

 of the Nation; H. Clay Trumbull of the Philadelphia Sunday 

 School Times ; A. E. Winship of the Boston Journal of Educa- 

 tion; Prof. W. J. Youmans of the Popular Science Monthly; 

 Heiu-y C. Bowen of the Independent; Mrs. Martha J. Lamb of 

 the Magazine of American History ; Rev Edward Bright of The 

 Examiner, New York; J. N. Hallock, Christian at Work, New 

 York; Rev. A. E. Dunning, The Congregationalist, Boston; 

 Rev. C. W. Leffingwell, Tlie Living Church, Chicago; F. M. 

 Somers, Current Literature, New York; Rev. Samuel J. Bar- 

 rows, The Christian Register, Boston ; F. M. Hexamer, American 

 Agriculturist, New York; George William Curtis, Harper's 

 Weelcly ; Rev. Charles Parkhurst, Zion's Herald, Boston; Rev. 

 Lyman Abbott, Christian Union, New York ; William H. Hills, 

 The Writer, Boston; Joseph Keppler, Puek; Rev. Jolm Talbot 

 Smith, The Catholic Review, New York ; Rev. O. P. Fitzgerald, 

 Christian Advocate, Nashville, Tenn. ; R. H. Edmonds, Manu- 

 facturer' s Record, Baltimore; David M. Stone, Journal of Com- 

 merce, New York; Albert C. Stevens, Bradstreets, New York; 

 Rev. Simeon Gilbert, The Advance, Chicago ; Richard H. Clarke, 

 Catholic Quarterly, New York; T. C. Martin, The Electrical 

 World, New York; Joseph B. Gilder, The Critic; Rev. J. W. 

 Mendenliall, Methodist Review, New York ; W. J. Ai-kell, Judge, 



. New York; L. S. Metcalf, The Forum; B,. W. Gilder, The Cen- 

 tury Magazine; E. L. Burlingame, Seribner's Magazine; Lloyd 

 Bryce, North American Review; Allan Forman, The Journalist, 

 New York; John A. Mitchell, Life, New York; E. H. Talbott, 

 The Raihvay Age, Chicago; William H. Park, Banker's Monthly, 

 Chicago; Howard M. Jenkins, The American, Philadelphia; 

 John Boyle O'Reilly, The Pilot, Boston; Rev. A. T Pierson, 

 Missionary Review of the World, Philadelphia; DeWitt J. Selig- 

 man. The Epoch, New York ; Rev. Wendell Prime, The Observer, 

 New York; N. D. C. Hodges, Science, New York; Charles W. 

 Price, Electrical Review, New York; Rev. I. K. Funk, Voice, 

 New York ; and Rev. David H. Moore, Western Christian Advo- 



■ cate, Cincinnati. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



An Insect Destructive to Wheat. 



On p. 41, No 363, of Science, you tell that "an insect 

 destructive to wheat, but previously unknown in this country, 

 has appeared in considerable numbers in the Cornell University 

 farm at Ithaca." We beg to say that so long as thirty -five to 

 forty years ago, and probably longer, an insect similar in 

 appearance and behavior to the foregoing was common in the 

 wheat-fields of middle Tennessee, though we never knew them 

 to be sufficiently numerous to seriously reduce the yield of 

 grain. That it was the same insect, we have no doubt. 



Q. C. Smith. 



Austin, Tex., Jan. 22. 



The Fiske Range-Finder. 



In Science of Jan. 24 there is a full and comprehensive descrip- 

 tion of the Fiske range-finder, which, although interesting and 

 very ingenious in regard to its electrical arrangement, is not so 

 clear in its mathematical principles. I refer particularly to Fig. 

 4, p. 59. The error being so apparent, it cannot be conceived 

 that the inventor has overlooked it, and I write more in a spirit 

 of inquiry than of criticism. 



Let the continuous lines in the following figure represent the 

 essential conditions of Fig. 4, p. 59. Moving the index along 

 the scale mn, op (Fig. 6, p. 59) , a distance corresponding to the 

 angle DAE, the bridge becomes balanced, and the reading will 

 give the distance AT. Now let us suppose that from the position 

 T, the object moves to T', AT' being equal to AT. The resulting 

 diagram is indicated in broken- lines. Moving the sliding index 

 along the scale mn, op, as before, a distance corresponding to the 

 angle XAY, the bridge is balanced, and the reading of the 



scale will indicate the distance AT' ; but this reading will by no 

 means be the same as that obtained when the object was at T, 

 because the angle XAY is smaller than DAE. In other words, it 

 is impossible to construct a scale giving true distances of objects 

 from A in terms of the angle DAE, unless we impose as a con- 

 dition that one of the sight lines shall make a fixed and constant 

 angle with the base. 



The angle DAE will vary for different positions of the point 

 T, in a circumference drawn with A as a centi-e and AT as a 

 radius, having its maximum value when the triangle ATB is 

 isosceles, and becoming O when T is in a rectilineal prolongation 

 of the base. Thos. L. Casey. 



New York, Jan. 27. 



INDUSTRIAL NOTES. 

 The Anglo-American Storage-Battery. 



A FORM of storage-battery invented by Mi-. Charles Sorley, and 

 manufactured by the Anglo-American Storage Battery Company 

 of this city, is shown in Figs. 1 and 3. In the construction of 

 the cell, the object aimed at by the inventor is to get as large an 

 amount of active material as possible, with a correspondingly 

 large conducting and contact surface. With a view to attaining 

 this object, the plates of the cell are consti'ucted as sho-svn in 

 Trig. 1, being built up of strips of lead bent into convolutions, as 

 shown, and secured together so as to form a plate. The thick- 

 ness of the plate, of course, depends upon the width of the strips. 

 All the plates of the same sign are connected by means of the 

 projecting ends of the lead sti'ips, as shown in Fig. 1. The 

 plates are separated and supjiorted by insulating strips, and 

 bound together by insulating rods, which pass through the centre 

 of the plates. The complete cell is shown in Fig. 2. 



A battery of these storage-cells has been in constant use in 

 the Schermerhorn building in this city since May 30, 1889. Of 

 this battery the superintendent of the building reports as follows : 

 ' 'In every respect it has exceeded the claims made for it, and is 



