EDITORIAL NOTES. 
Correspondence. 
Popular 
mann. (With Portrait.) 
Editor’s Table. Literary Notices. 
Miscellany. Notes. 
THE Journal of the Franklin Institute com- 
pleted its one hundred and ninth volume in 
June, 1880, and is now in the fifty-ffth year 
of its existence. Under the direction of the 
Committee on Publication, with its list of 
able scientists and engineers, as contributors, 
largely increased, and with the fact that it is 
the only technological journal published in 
the United States without any private pecu- 
niary interest, sufficient assurance is given 
that it will maintain its high position as a 
leading organ of technology and a standard 
$5 per annum. 
work of reference. 
THE American Journal of Science, now in the 
twentieth volume of the third series, or the 
one hundred and twentieth from the com- 
mencement, is an acknowledged leader in sci- 
entific periodical literature all over the world. 
The names of its edltors, Professors J. D. and 
EK. S. Dana and B. Silliman, are synonyms 
among all scholars for the highest erudition 
in scientific lore and the greatest skill in 
physical investigation and research, while itS 
associate editors, Professors Asa Gray, Josiah 
P. Cooke and John Trowbridge, of Cam- 
bridge, Professors H. A. Newton and A. E. 
Verrill, of New Haven, and Professor Geo. 
F. Barker, of Philadelphia, have no superi- 
ors in their respective lines of study and ex- 
ploration. $6 per annum. 
THE Engineering aud Mining Journal, edit- 
ed by Professors Richard P. Rothwell, C. E., 
M. E. and R. W. Raymond, Ph. D., and pub- 
lished by the Scientific Publishing Company 
of New York, is now in its thirtieth volume, 
and has justly earned the reputation of being 
the most reliable periodical devoted to these 
subjects in the country. 
Pror. S. N. FELLows, of the State Uni. 
versity of Iowa, has a short and sensible arti- 
cle in the latest issue of the Vatzonal Journal 
of Education, upon ‘*Didactics vs. Pedagog- 
ics,”’.in which he proposes to substitute the 
former word for the latter in college curricula, 
on the ground that it is euphonious, has a re- 
O17 
spectable origin and expresses better the 
meaning that is intended to be conveyed by 
the term. The Professor has our sympathy 
in his effort to rid the English language of a 
barbarous, cacophonous and_ inexpressive 
word, and the /ournal of Education should 
exercise its usual good taste and correct judg- 
ment in aiding the effort. 
THE Western Educational Review for Octo- 
ber contains, as usual, many good and appro- 
priate articles, among which we notice two 
by Kansas City writers, the first upon Pre- 
historic Man, by Miss Fanny E. Hall, and 
the other on The Education of the Judgment, 
by Prof. E. C. Crosby. The Revdew is well 
conducted and deserves success. 
ACCORDING to the Monthly Weather Review, 
published by the Signal Service Bureau, the 
verification of weather predictions for Octo- 
ber amounted to the very creditable and 
gratifying percentage of 88.9. 
THE Sczentific American of Oct. 13 contains 
two full page illustrations of Capt. Eads’ pro- 
posed railway for transporting ships, with 
their cargo, across continents. Capt. Eads 
claims, by his plan, to be able to take loaded 
ships of the largest tonnage from one ocean 
to the other across the Isthmus of Panama, as 
readily as can be done by a canal after the 
Lesseps plan, and at a much less cost for en- 
gineering construction. The project is cer- 
tainly bold and ingenious, and the projector 
anticipates no serious difficulties in carrying 
forward his enterprise. The engravings re- 
ferred to in the Sczentzjic American show the 
proposed construction of not only the rail- 
road, but the appliances for transferring the 
ships from the water to the rail. 
WE have received the prospectus of The 
Platonést, a monthly periodical, devoted chief, 
ly to the dissemination of the platonic phi- 
losophy in allits phases. The editor, Thos. 
M. Johnson, of Osceola, Mo., is a ripe scholar, 
who has recently published translations of 
several of the Treatises of Plotinus, and who 
possesses an eminently philosophic mind. 
The subscription price of the Platonzs¢ is $2 
per annum. 
