EDITORIAL NOTES. 



475 



j^ear. The autumn meeting is peripatetic, 

 and has generally been held in New York 

 ■or Philadelphia. The National Academy- 

 acts as an advisory scientific council to the 

 government, and its members are required 

 to perform such tasks as the government 

 may give them without compensation. The 

 number of members is limited to 100, and 

 membership is considered a high honor not 

 easily to be obtained. Among those present 

 were: President O. C. Marsh, professor of 

 palaeontology of Yale; Home Secretary 

 Asaph Hall, astronomer of the National ob- 

 servatory ; Treasurer J. H. C. Cof&n, United 

 States navy; W. H. Brewer, professor of 

 agriculture, Yale; G. J. Brush, professor of 

 metallurgy, Yale ; Josiah P. Cooke, profes- 

 sor of mineralogy, Harvard ; Edward S. 

 Dana, professor of physics at Yale ; Walcott 

 Gibbs, professor of chemistry at Harvard ; 

 Julius Hilgard, superintendent of the coast 

 survey; Samuel P. Langley, astronomer in 

 charge of the Allegheny observatory ; A. S. 

 Packard, professor of zoology at Brown Uni- 

 versity ; Edward C. Pickering, director of 

 the United States geological survey ; Samuel 

 H. Scudder, editor of Science, of Cambridge, 

 Mass.; Wm. P. Trowbridge, professor of 

 mechanics at Columbia College, and 

 Francis A. Walker, president of Massachu- 

 setts Institute of technology. 



The Cattle Grower's Convention held at St. 

 Louis in the latter part of November recom- 

 mended, among other things, that congress 

 at an early day relieve the department of 

 the Interior from the supervision and care 

 of the bureau of public lands, and that 

 it, as well as the care of all public 

 lands and their belongings, be trans- 

 ferred to the department of agricul- 

 ture; and that the Fish Commission, 

 now in the charge and direction of the 

 Smithsonian Institute, be also transferred to 

 the care of the department of agriculture; 

 and that the bureau of meteorology now in 

 the charge of the War department, be also 

 put under the direction and charge of the 

 department of agriculture, and further that 

 the department be then advanced to the 



full rank and dignity of other departments 

 of our government, and further, that the 

 secretaries of agriculture should be selected, 

 not only for their capacity for organization 

 and administration of public aifairs, but 

 also as a pre-requisite requirement that they 

 be familiar with practical agricultural 

 operations and interests, and such officers 

 should, by prefertnce, be selected from that 

 ■section of country which is pre-eminently 

 agricultural and not from a section the 

 greater interests of which are centered in 

 manufactures or commerce. 



Fob three years past there has been con- 

 siderable excitement over alleged discoveries 

 of gold in Northern Michigan. It now ap- 

 pears that gold has really been found in 

 paying quantities in the upper peninsula, 

 in the vicinity of Ishpeming, and that a 

 number of companies have been formed for 

 mining and reducing the ores, mills with the 

 most modern machinery erected, etc. A 

 rush of prospectors to these diggings is pre- 

 dicted for the next spring. 



ITEMS FKOM PERIODICALS. 



Subscribers to the Review can be furnished 

 through (his office with alt the best magazines of 

 this Country and Europe, at a discount of from 

 15 to 20 per cent off the retail price. 



To any person remitting to us the annual sub- 

 scription price of any three of the prominent liter- 

 ary or scientific magazines of the United States, 

 we will promptly furnish the same, and the Kan- 

 sas City Review of Science and Indus- 

 try, besides, without additional cost, for one year. 



The Atlantic Monthly for December, 1884, 

 presents the following attractive table of 

 contents: In War Time, XXIIL, XXIV., 

 S. Weir Mitchell. Over the Andes, Stuart 

 Chisholm. Francois Coppee, Frank T. Mar- 

 zials. Penelope's Suitors, Edwin Lassetter 

 Bynner. Two Harvests, Helen Jackson. 

 The Lakes of Upper Italy, IV. Combina- 

 tion Novels, George Parsons Lathrop. These 

 are Your Brothers," Olive Thorne Miller. 



