SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, JULY 22, li 



The session of the National Educational Association at 

 Chicago last week was a notable occasion. It was estimated 

 by a competent authority that sixteen thousand teachers were as- 

 sembled in the Exposition building when the opening session was 

 held. Coming as they did from all parts of the country, — several 

 of the Southern States excepted, — they were representative of the 

 American public school in all its grades and phases. They were 

 assembled to listen to the discussion of important questions, to talk 

 together informally of school matters, and to view the great exhibi- 

 tion of educational material that was prepared for them. Despite 

 the fact that several of the prominent speakers were not able to be 

 present, the discussions were well sustained and attentively fol- 

 lowed. The majority of the teachers present took more interest in 

 the meetings of the sections devoted to matters of special interest 

 than in the general meetings. It was very satisfactory to notice the 

 ground gained by the advocates of manual training during the past 

 year. This was clearly evidenced by the approval accorded to all 

 references to it, by the character of the address by the President of 

 the Chicago Board of Education, and by the great interest dis- 

 played in the exhibits of the work done at Chicago, Toledo, Cook 

 County Normal School, and elsewhere. The exhibition was very 

 complete, and well worth going a long distance to see. The States 

 of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were particularly well repre- 

 sented. One fact was thoroughly demonstrated by the convention ; 

 namely, that despite the excitement and enthusiasm attendant on a 

 large assembly, the Association's annual meeting has grown so 

 large as to be unwieldy. Very many cannot hear what is going on, 

 and very many more are dissatisfied at being afforded no proper 

 opportunity to participate in the proceedings, while a few others 

 who have long ago said all that they had to say that was worth 

 hearing, continued to read papers and lead the discussions. In 

 consequence of these facts, as well as because many teachers are 

 unable to afford the expense necessary to attend a national conven- 

 tion, the proposal has been made to divide the Association into 

 several, say four or five, each of which shall have its annual meeting 

 and elect a quota of representatives to a central body, which shall 

 meet annually and be deliberative, instead of hortatory and polemic, 

 as the Association's meeting now is. This seems to us a most 

 excellent plan, and we trust it may be soon adopted. The new 

 president of the Association is Superintendent Aaron Gove of 

 Denver, Colorado. 



The economic benefits of the work performed by the U. S. 

 Geological Survey are just beginning to be appreciated by railway 

 men who are laying out new lines of railroad. The officials of the 

 Survey are of the opinion that within the next ten years the centre 

 of all the railroad-building in the country will be located in the 

 Southern States. They base this opinion on the fact that the 

 calls for maps of the southern mountain ranges is increasing very 

 rapidly. The maps thus far prepared by the Geological Survey 

 cover the eastern coast-line from the Maryland boundary to the 

 Georgia coast, with the exception of a small section of Virginia. 

 They are at present issued only to those directly interested in the 

 topography of the Appalachian range, yet there have been issued 

 already upwards of three thousand five hundred maps of the region. 

 That is to say, about a hundred different sets. These maps have 

 all been distributed to those directly interested in the building of 

 new railroads. It is said that there are somewhere about twenty 



different roads in course of construction between the coal-fields of 

 the South and the seaboard or the Ohio River. One gentleman, 

 who is interested in the construction of a road between Charleston, 

 S.C, and the mouth of the Big Sandy on the Ohio, called at the 

 office of the Survey a day or two ago and said that the maps which 

 had been furnished to his company had saved the corporation at 

 least ten thousand dollars in preliminary surveys. From all sec- 

 tions of the South, reports are constantly received of the enormous 

 value of the maps furnished by the Survey to topographical and 

 civil engineers. Besides the work which has been done in the 

 Southern States, the survey has been extended well into many sec- 

 tions of the North and West. Massachusetts has been mapped on a 

 scale of a square mile to the inch, through the joint work of the 

 State and the general government. A field-party has just begun 

 operations in south-eastern Iowa for the purpose of mapping that 

 State on a similar scale. Illinois and Indiana will, in all probability, 

 be the next States in which the surveys will be undertaken. There 

 is a great difference in the cost of the work in the various States. 

 In the South, where the country is broken by, mountain ranges, the 

 cost is about twelve dollars a square mile ; while in the prairie 

 States of the West, where the country is flat, the work can be per- 

 formed at about five dollars a square mile. It is the ultimate inten- 

 tion of the bureau to prepare topographic maps of the entire 

 country. Owing, however, to the necessary slowness of the opera- 

 tions, it will be many years before the entire scheme of operations 

 is perfected. As fast as the field-operations in each case are per- 

 fected and verified, the original maps are sent to the engraver, and 

 a few copies are made for immediate use. Eventually there will be 

 prepared an atlas of each State. These atlases will be of enormous 

 value, not only to railroad engineers but to all municipalities who 

 have use for an accurate topographic map of the country surround- 

 ing them. 



AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 



The nineteenth annual session of the American Philological As- 

 sociation was held in the Marsh-Billings Library of the University 

 of Vermont, at Burlington, on July 12-14. In the absence of 

 President Merriam, who is on his way to Athens, to take charge of 

 the American School there for the ensuing year, the Vice-President, 

 I. H. Hall of New York, occupied the chair. The attendance was 

 not as large as usual, but this did not hinder the meeting from 

 being an exceedingly interesting one, marked by the animated dis- 

 cussions which some of the papers aroused. 



The reading of papers was begun, after the transaction of routine 

 business, by Dr. C. K. Nelson of Brookeville, Md., who presented 

 some interesting facts gleaned from a study of ' Murray's New 

 English Dictionary,' Part iii. This part embraces the letter B from 

 baiter to bozzom, and contains 8,765 words. If we add to this 

 about 3,000 words under B in Part ii., and estimate the remaining 

 words at the same figure, we have, for entire B, 14,765 words, or 

 more than twice the number given by ' Webster's Unabridged,' 

 which has only 6,750 words. Of the 8,765 words in Part iii., 5,323 

 are main words, 1,873 compound, and 1,569 subordinate words ; 

 and of these main words, again, 3,802 are in current use, while 

 1,379 are obsolete. A feature of this letter is the small proportion 

 of Latin and Greek words found under it, aggregating not quite 

 twenty-five per cent. In summing up. Dr. Nelson said that " this 

 part of the great English Thesaurus impresses philologists more 

 and more with the fact that the creative period of language is by 

 no means arrested. Sanscrit, and Latin, and Greek have crys- 

 taUized linguistic forms, which afford splendid specimens of immu- 

 table structure, but it is in the living language, where words are 



