m 



SGIENGE, 



[Vol, IX., No. 207 



favor of commemorating the centennial of the 

 constitution at Washington in 1889. The com- 

 mittee has not reported upon the manner of the 

 proposed celebration, and also in regard to the 

 quadri-centennial of 1892 ; but the action now 

 taken furnishes sufficient assurance that the entire 

 programme as contemplated by the board of pro- 

 motion, and including its exposition features, will 

 receive the indorsement of congress. 



The department of agriculture estimates of area, 

 product, and value, of corn, wheat, and oats for 

 permanent record, are completed. The corn-crop, 

 in round numbers, aggregates 1,665,000,000 bush- 

 els, grown on 75,000,000 acres of land, and has a 

 farm value of $610,000,000. The yield is 32 

 bushels to the acre, or 4^ bushels less than last 

 year. There is an increase of area of over 3 per 

 cent, and a decrease in product of 14 per cent ; 

 while the average price has increased 12 per cent, 

 or from 32.8 to 36.6 cents per bushel. The aggre- 

 gate product of wheat is 457,000,000 bushels from 

 an area of nearly 37,000,000 acres, having a farm 

 value of 1314,000,000. The average value is 68.7 

 cents per bushel, against 77.1 for the previous 

 crop, and 64.5 cents for the great crop of 1884. 

 This is 35 per cent reduction from the average 

 value between 1870 and 1880. The product of 

 oats is 634,000,000 bushels, 5,000,000 less than last 

 year, from an average of over 23,000,000 acres, 

 producing a value of #186,000,000. The average 

 yield is 26.4 bushels against 27.6 last year. The 

 average value is 29.8 cents per bushel ; last year, 

 28.5 cents. 



An effort is being made in Washington to secure 

 the hall of the house of representatives for the 

 opening session of the ninth triennial meeting of 

 the International medical congress on the 5th of 

 next September, About two thousand delegates 

 are expected, including some three hundred from 

 Europe. After'the opening meeting the congress 

 will be divided into seventeen sections, meeting in 

 the different halls of the city. 



An invitation has been received at the depart- 

 ment of state, asking the government to appoint 

 a delegate or delegates to the Fourth international 

 prison congress, to meet at St. Petersburg in the 

 year 1890. The President transmitted a message 

 to congress on this subject last week, favoring the 

 appointment of delegates, and they will probably 

 soon be named. 



The following bulletins of the U. S. geological 

 survey are now in the hands of the printer : 

 'Physical properties of iron carburets,' Barus 

 and Strouhal ; ' Subsidence of small particles of 

 insoluble solids in hquid,' Barus ; ' Types of Lara- 

 mie flora,' L, F. Ward ; ' Peridotite of Elliott 

 county, Ky.,' J. S. Diller ; 'The upper benches 



and deltas of the glacial Lake Agassiz,' Warren 

 Upham ; ' Fossil faunas upper Devonian Genesee 

 section,' H. S. Williams ; ' Report of work done 

 in chemical division U. S. geological survey dur- 

 ing fiscal year 1885-86,' F. W. Clarke ; ' On the 

 tertiary and cretaceous strata of the Tuscaloosa, 

 Tombigbee, and Alabama rivers,' E. A. Smith 

 and L. C. Johnson ; 'Historical sketches of gen- 

 eral work in Texas,' R. C. Hill ; • Nature and ori- 

 gin of phosphates of lime,'R. A. F. Penrose, jun.; 

 ' Bibliography of American Crustacea,' A. W. 

 Vogdes. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The literature of spiritualism has recently been 

 increased by an historical sketch of the subject by 

 Dr. Paul Gibier (' Le spiritisme,' etc., Paris, 1887). 

 The author is not a spiritualist, and takes great 

 pains to state his disbelief in the supernatural 

 in big letters. As a further guaranty of the 

 scientific spirit which prompts his inquiry, he 

 appends a list of his contributions to medical 

 science. For the most part. Dr. Gibier con- 

 tents himseff with the role of historian. He 

 gives a rapid sketch of the spiritual theories from 

 the ancient Hindoos down to the researches of 

 Crookes and Zollner. His account of the mod- 

 ern developments in this strange field is quite 

 convenient and readable. An outsider would 

 hardly credit the statement that in Paris (by no 

 means a stronghold of spiritualism) there are not 

 less than 100,000 spiritualists. The statistics 

 of the periodical literature of spiritualism is also 

 astonishing : 13 such periodicals are in French, 

 27 in English, 36 in Spanish, 5 in German, 

 3 in Portuguese, 1 in Russian, 2 in Italian. Be- 

 sides, a Franco-Spanish journal is published at 

 Buenos Ay res, and a Franco-Dutch at Ostend. 

 While the main portion of the work is histori- 

 cal, a few chapters are devoted to the account 

 of seances mainly with the famous slate- 

 writing medium, Slade. These have convinced 

 the author that there are genuine facts in these 

 phenomena which spiritualistic hypothesis, as well 

 as current scientific knowledge, is unable to ex- 

 plain. More research is necessary before the final 

 verdict can be given, and it is cowardly forscience 

 to refuse to study all such facts, and seek their 

 explanation. 



— The Indiana state teachers' association began 

 its annual meeting in Indianapolis Dec. 28, extend- 

 ing its sessions through the two succeeding days. 

 The high school section, and country and village 

 school section, held the sessions on the 28th, and on 

 the other days the association held meetings as a 

 whole. A number of papers were presented in 



