i6o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 370 



SCIENCE: 



A WESKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES. 



47 Lafayette Place, New York. 



Vol. XV. 



NEW TOEK, Maech 7, 1890. 



No. 370. 



CONTENTS: 



An Electric Snow-Plough 155 



The Hale Patent Pavement 155 



Major Powell's Address to the 



Mining Engineers 156 



Electric Welding 157 



Health Matters. 



Cousumptlon in Hayti 158 



The Hour at which Death Occurs 158 

 Putrefaction at Great Depths in 



the Sea 158 



Notes and News 159 



Book-Reviews. 



Emigration and Immigration 160 



Letters to the Editor. 



The Cause of Bain 



Frank A. Velschow 160 



A New Meteorite H. L. Preston 167 

 Industrial Notes. 



A Novel Electric Bell 167 



The Robes Improved Shaft-Coup- 

 ling 168 



BOOK-EEVIEWS. 

 Emigration and Immigration By EiceMOND M. Smith. New 

 York. Scribner. 12°. 



The New England States were settled y a set of persons 

 with very fixed ideas as to the proper way of conducting Church 

 and State, and those who came later from the mother country 

 to settle found that they must follow exactly in the footsteps 

 of those already there, or be subject to abuse and even most 

 cruel persecution. Those early puritans must have looked on 

 the later comers as immigrants among themselves who had 

 colonized the land. 



We are now experiencing a somewhat similar condition of 

 affairs. Our author, with others, extends the colonization period 

 to the time of the Revolution, or. as few new-comers came 

 to the country from 1776 to 1820, even to this latter date. 

 Those who possessed the country did not by any means agree 

 among themselves as to what sort of a country, politically and 

 socially, it should be ; but still a very successful democracy 

 was established, with a fairly uniform conception among the 

 people of what was best for them. 



But since 1820, owing to the existence here of vast tracts of 

 unoccupied farming-land, and to the development of methods 

 of transportation with an accompanying enormous reduction in 

 the cost, millions of people have left Europe to make new 

 homes for themselves in this country. The result is, that, as 

 Richmond Smith puts it, nearly the half of our population is 

 made up of persons either of foreign birth or whose ancestors 

 came to this country since 1820. 



"What is to be the effect on our institutions?" is the query 

 to which this book on emigration and immigration is written. 



The need of such a book is obvious when one considers the 

 paucity of available literature on the subject. There are, of 

 course, numerous magazine and review articles, and numberless 

 newspaper squibs. The last are buried hopelessly, and the 

 former are by no means easily accessible even in the largest 

 libraries. Every one knows what repulsive volumes are the 

 government reports on any subject, published, as they mostly 

 are, without any intelligent editing. So it happens that 

 Richmond Smith has given us a most convenient and needed 

 summary of the facts on the subject under discussion. 



That the question of government regulation of immigration 

 has been a burning one, goes without saying. The immigrants 

 come here to earn a living, and a better living, as they believe, 

 than they have had in their old homes. But in going to work, 

 on arrival, Tom or Jerry appears to displace some one already 

 in possession of a good job: so over and over again a cry has 

 gone up from the laboring classes for a checking of this inflow 

 of rival workers. 



In the main, the immigrants come because their husbands, 

 families, or friends are already here; and no reason appears 

 why this process should not continue, so long as any induce- 



ment exists for them to come. This is what is happening as 

 the result of affairs as they have come naturally to exist. Now, 

 our author is one of that new school of economists who think 

 that the haphazard evolution of mankind should not be allowed 

 to go on longer unguided. This school would have all things 

 human guided, and, as the State, whatever that may be, is the 

 only body strong enough to enforce its guidance, guided by the 

 State. The State is doubtless wiser than it once was, but then 

 it has more difficult problems to deal with as it grows more 

 developed. But how is that acme of State wisdom to come 

 that shall make it possible for the State to deal intelligently 

 with the immigration of a million of people to this country 

 in a year? How is it likely that the State can wisely do more 

 than say that paupers and members of the other defective 

 classes shall not come, and possibly that the bringing in under 

 contract of bands of laborers is no longer necessary? 



That this influx of new population is going to have an effect 

 in changing our institutions is doubtless true; and let us hope 

 that the remnants of some of the institutions of our revered 

 pilgrim fathers may be swept away, now that we no longer 

 believe the devil is lurking beind every wood-pile, as did our 

 ancestors. 



Let us see that the immigrants coming are sound in body and 

 mind, that they are brought here in human fashion, and that 

 they are not fleeced after their arrival ; but let us not dread the 

 effect on the institutions of the future of sane men living in a 

 free countrv. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*** Correspondents are requested to be os bri^-f as possible. TIte writer's name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



Tile editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant ivith the character 

 of the journal. 



On request^ twenty copies of the number containing his communication loili 

 be furnished free to any correspondent. 



The Cause of Rain.' 



In a paper entitled ' 'On the Cause of Trade-Winds, ' ' which I 

 recently had the honor of reading before the society, I gave my 

 reasons for assuming that the actuality which lies behind the 

 really abstract term ' 'a centre of high pressure' ' is a body of un- 

 saturated or dry surface-air, or what may be called an air- 

 cushion. I now propose to continue this train of thought by 

 dealing in a similar way with low pressures, or cyclones, there- 

 by trying, if possible, to arrive at a definite conclusion as to the 

 actual cause of rain ; rain being the most prominent feature of 

 cyclones, or low pressures. 



The difficulty in approaching this subject lies perhaps herein, 

 that, as Sir. Scott says in his ' 'Elementary Meteorology, ' ' 1887, 

 ' 'almost every one imagines himself a born meteorologist, ' ' and 

 therefore in all likelihood almost every one of my present audi- 

 ence has formed for himself a more or less definite opinion of the 

 cause of such an every-day occurrence as rain. To shake this 

 faith a little, and to show you that we here really stand before a 

 problem which has not as yet been solved, I may commence by 

 quoting what a man of Mr. Scott's experience says. "We must 

 admit, ' ' says he, ' 'that the study of weather has made next to 

 no progress at all in gaining an insight into the agencies which 

 are at work in producing the various phases of weather ; ' ' and, 

 ' 'unless this be secured by careful and long-continued attention 

 to a few simple and obvious principles, the labor bestowed on the 

 most complete mathematical discussion of the results will be 

 throvra away." 



It is indeed a curious fact that the more pains meteorologists 

 have of late years taken in trying to bring the accumulated facts of 

 observations to agree with theory, the farther they seem to have 

 gotten away from their goal. They may not all admit this, but 

 it is a sign of a wise man that he admits when he knows nothing ; 

 and, as we have just seen, Mr. Scott for one is evidently fully 

 aware of the defects of his science, which he declares can hardly 

 be called a science as yet. 



To make you a little familiar with the difficulties we have to 



* The substance of this letter was read before the American Society of Civil 

 Engineers, Feb. 19, 1890. 



