June 6, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



345 



are full of sensational stories relating to the personal relations of 

 the testatrix, her husband, and the responsible officers of the uni- 

 versity ; the one side attempting to justify the action of the will- 

 breakers by asserting injustice on the opposite side, the other side 

 defending the action of the university authorities. The public are 

 not concerned in that phase of the matter, and the university 

 authorities evidently feel themselves unaffected by the gossip of 

 the newspapers. Mr. Sage, a year ago, began the erection of a 

 great library building to be given the university as a memoiial of 

 the originally intending giver if the suit should be lost, or to be 

 paid for by her bequest should the university hold its own in the 

 case. He gives also $300,000 as an endowment, the income to be 

 applied solely to the purchase of books. Most colleges would be 

 considered fortunate if given so much, even failing to obtain a 

 $3,000,000 library. Practically the university gains: it loses a 

 million which it never possessed; but it gains a positive quantity 

 in the half million and over, which is now actually passing into 

 its possession. It is the impression of some of its best-informed 

 friends that it will untimately actually gain through awakened 

 sympathy and interest, and the gifts likely to be the practical ex- 

 pression of that interest and sympathy, more than the amount 

 now seemingly so unfortunately lost. It is very certain, also, that 

 some of this scattered property will come directly back to the 

 university by the action of the receivers of what they regard as 

 unfairly acquired property. 



This affair seems to have no effect on the plans of the univer- 

 sity authorities. They will begin the next year with an enlarged 

 teaching force, new and distinguished professors in the faculty, a 

 $10,000 equipment in illustrations of the work of classical in- 

 struction, a new chemical laboratory to accommodate six hun- 

 dred, a physical laboratory of double the space now occupied, new 

 workshops doubling the present area and capable of handling six 

 hundred Sibley College men, new mechanical laboratory arrange- 

 ments of nearly proportional extent, a new foundery and new forge 

 large enough to meet a similar growth, and engines (experimental 

 and other), boilers of 600 horse-power, and dynamos more nu- 

 merous and powerful in the aggregate than can be found else- 

 where in the world. 



All this looks very much as if Cornell University and the Sib- 

 ley College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering were likely 

 to survive for a time still. 



Tillmanns thinks that the surgical treatment of pulmonary tu- 

 berculosis is proper if the disease is localized, but that in most 

 cases two operations will be required, — the first to expose the 

 affected part in order to bring about atrophy and contraction; the 

 second to remove the disease. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Another Forty Days' Fast. 



SiGNOB Scjcci, who is gaining the reputation of being a "hun- 

 ger virtuoso," completed in May a fast of forty days in London. 

 The medical journals of that city credit him with the genuine per- 

 formance of the feat. Signor Succi has done no more than our 

 own Tanner, but he has been subjected to a more careful physio- 

 logical study, and he has shown that a forty-days' fast is possible 

 to more than one human being. During the last days of his fast, 

 Succi lost about half a pound a day, his temperature remained 

 normal, but his pulse was more than ordinarily rapid. The les- 

 son of Signor Succi's experiment, says the Medical Record, is one 

 that has often been taught before, and it is that people eat too 

 much, and, in this country at least, drink too little. More dis- 

 eases come from excessive and intemperate feeding than from al- 

 cohol, for wrong feeding is the basis of gouty, rheumatic, diabetic, 

 and obese diatheses, as well as of an infinite number of gastro- 

 intestinal ills. 



Excision of Local Pulmonary Tuberculosis. 



At the recent congress of the German Society for Surgery, Pro- 

 fessor Tillmanns exhibited a man of about thirty years, from 

 whom he had removed a tubercular deposit involving a portion of 

 the left lung, pleura, and thorax. After the operation the lung 

 contracted in such a manner that by a second operation the re- 

 maining tubercular ai'ea was completely removed. The wound 

 was covered with cutaneous flaps and healed completely, and the 

 patient is now able to work. As the operation was performed 

 about two years ago, the cure may be regarded as permanent. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*#* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer^a name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



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

 of the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the number containing his communication will 

 be furnished free to any correspondent. 



Practical Applications of Meteorology. 



In the United States the making of weather predictions has 

 been the chief use of meteorological observations for so long a 

 time, that few persons have taken the trouble to consider the 

 manifold applications of this class of data. In order to bring this 

 matter to the notice of those who are interested in, but not in- 

 formed on, this practically very important question, I have given 

 below, in a roughly systematic manner, some few of the many 

 points which should be taken into consideration in the framing 

 of any future plans for extending the usefulness of meteorology 

 in our country. In order to show with any considerable degree 

 of fulness the exact relation of meteorology to practical life, it 

 would be necessary to devote the space allowed for a magazine 

 article to each one of the separate headings which I have assumed 

 as conveniently and appropriately marking the subdivisions of 

 the whole subject; so that, in the present paper, only a few lines 

 can be devoted to each topic. This is mentioned in order to ex- 

 plain the omission of many points which could be readily sug- 

 gested as being of equal importance with those mentioned. 



1. Agriculture. — We have but to note the gradual change in 

 the character of plant-life with the increase of latitude or alti- 

 tude, in order to see what an all-important factor climate is, in 

 marking the limits of individual plant-growth. Some plants re- 

 quire a preponderance of heat, others of moisture, and still others 

 of sunlight, in order to bring them to maturity. Civilized nations 

 have long since ceased relying on indigenous plants; but, in order 

 to transplant successfully from one country to another, it is 

 necessary to know something of the climates of the two countries. 

 Meteorologists are constantly extending their network of observ- 

 ingstations, and are thus reducing the areas the climates of which 

 are unknown. When the agricultural physicists .shall have deter- 

 mined the climatic constants of all our useful plants, it will be 

 possible to foretell the successful, or the probability of successful, 

 cultivation of any of these plants, when we know the latitude, 

 longitude, and altitude above sea-level, of the place of planting. 



We need better systems of estimating the condition of plant- 

 growth during the period from sprouting to ripening (or harvest- 

 ing). Reliable estimates of this kind would be a valuable crite- 

 rion for market prices of produce. The usefulness of storm pre- 

 dictions, frost warnings, and cold-wave predictions, is so well 

 established that we only take space to say that the non-fulfilment 

 of the latter causes great loss to farmers who slaughter their own 

 animals. 



3. Commerce. — In dictating what can or shall not be grown in 

 any particular country, climate controls indirectly the nature of 

 the articles carried from one country to another. Merchants will 

 not send articles intended for a hot climate to a cold climate, and 

 vice versa. Still, a great many sailing-vessels are employed in 

 trade, and their navigators pay the strictest attention to the laws 

 of winds which have been discovered to hold good for various 

 quarters of the globe. This knowledge often makes a saving of 

 months in a long voyage. Storm-predictions are of special im- 

 portance to our coast shipping and to fishermen ; but the recent 

 • inquiries instituted by the German Government show that storms 

 must be predicted considerably in advance to render such fore- 

 casting of real use. In shipping perishable produce it is of great 

 importance to know whether damaging weather is likely to occur 

 during the transit, frosts being the principal danger which the 

 shipper must guard against. A meteorological record extending 



