EDITORIAL NOTES. 



65 



The committee appointed by the National 

 Academy of Science to investigate and re- 

 port upon the sorghum- sugar industry, de- 

 clares sorghum to be the best sugar produc- 

 ing plant next to the sugar cane of Louis- 

 iana, and that it has a continental spread of 

 variableness and adaptation to various soils 

 and climates of the United States. 



About two years ago Mr. Leigh Smith, an 

 English gentleman, sailed in his own yacht 

 to penetrate the ice-barriers of the Polar Sea, 

 since when he has not been heard of. The 

 Geographical Society of England is going to 

 send a search expedition out after him. 



De Lessees has recently celebrated his 

 seventy-seventh birth day anniversary, at 

 which time he announced that the Panama 

 Canal would be completed by 1888, and that 

 he expected to be at hand on the occasion of 

 formally opening it. 



Prof. Trowbridge, of Glasgow, will give 

 up teaching at the end of the present session 

 and devote himself for a year to collecting 

 specimens of natural history. He already has 

 a very large collection which he wishes to 

 dispose of to some western institution, but 

 if he does not succeed in this it will go to 

 some eastern museum. No better opportun- 

 ity can be found for purchasing a first-class 

 collection. 



General Hazen, Chief Signal Officer U. 

 S. Army, promises to furnish the Review 

 with information, reports, etc., from the two 

 Arctic stations. Lady Franklin Bay and Point 

 Barrow, when received, probably in Septem- 

 ber or October. 



The number of distinguished scientists 

 and literary men who have died during the 

 present year is quite unusual. Draper, Dar- 

 win, Thomson, Longfellow and Emerson, 

 were all men of world-wide reputations, 

 though but one or two of them had reach- 

 ed touch beyond sixty years of age. In our 

 own State, Prof. J. T. Hodgen, of St. Louis, 

 who died last week was a most skillful sur- 

 geon and able writer. 



Prof. Reid, of BesMoines, Iowa, in offer- 

 ing an article for publication says: "If I 

 can in this way aid you in your arduous en- 

 terprise I wish to do it, for I know right 

 well how difficult it is to keep up such a 

 magazine as you are publishing, in this in- 

 tensely business-ridden country." 



Prof. C. A, Young, the astronomer at 

 Princeton College, took occasion in a recent 

 pulpit lecture, to correct Maedler's theory of 

 a central sun about which ours and all other 

 solar systems are revolving as a common 

 center. 



The Signal Service officers are collecting 

 data for a comprehensive report upon the 

 late flood in the Mississippi River which will 

 be published as soon as practicable. 



Dr. R. J. Brown's report upon the Medi- 

 cinal Plants of Kansas gives evidence of a 

 great amount of careful and well directed 

 personal labor which will be of especial im- 

 portance to the State as the subject is still 

 further developed. 



Prof. G. C. Broadhead says of the wood 

 being used in paving Wyandotte Street in 

 this city : " It seems to be the kind used 

 for telegraph poles, sometimes called white 

 cedar. In Prof. Sargent's catalogue of ' North 

 American Forest Trees,' he includes Chama^ 

 cyparis Spheroidea : wood reddish, light, soft, 

 easily split and worked, and very durable. 

 Still it seems too soft for my idea of paving- 

 blocks. I don't like it. Use granite — Mis- 

 souri Granite — and you will have a solidj 

 good street." 



Hon. D. C. Allen, of Liberty, Mo., calls 

 the attention of archseologists to certain an- 

 cient earthworks that he has observed in this 

 portion of the State ; the first in Cass County 

 about half way between Strasburg and Gunn 

 City and the other in DeKalb County, about 

 three miles from Maysville on the road to-, 

 ward Cameron. We shall be glad to publish 

 a full account of them in a future number. 



