708 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



and carrying ofif the sediment. If this problem is insoluble, then the outlet plan 

 is chimerical, otherwise it is sensible and practical. 



Theoretically, the engineers may seem to have the best of it, but if actual ex- 

 perience shows the facts to be as stated by Captains Cowdon and Leathers, then 

 the discussion ends and the choice lies with the least expensive and quickest plan. 

 If it succeeds, millions will be saved to the government and it will take but a short 

 time and a moderate sum to find it out. It cannot be a total failure, at the worst, 

 as the experiment at Cubitt's Gap some twenty years ago has shown; and the 

 probabilities are that with the improvements in modern engineering it will be 

 a success. At all events, it will be many years before Lake Borgne can be filled 

 up, and in the mean time Congress will be enabled to render some adequate relief 

 to the Upper Mississippi and the Missouri, which cannot be expected should the 

 levee system be continued at the vast expense required. Even with this object 

 alone in view the bill introduced by Hon. R. T. VanHorn is a wise one and one 

 calculated to be of infinite service to the people of the New West. 



SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY. 



THE SCIENTISTS OF COLORADO. 



BY MRS. FLORA ELLICE STEVENS. 



The State of Colorado is admirably adapted for a general, broadcast scien- 

 tific knowledge, boys and girls who do not know a Greek verb, and cannot con- 

 strue a Latin sentence, talk familiarly and yet intelligently of " stamp mills," 

 smelters, or concentrators; of galena, and know a granite formation wherever 

 they see it, though doubtless this knowledge is in an inverse ratio to Mr. Louis 

 Agassiz' neat conclusion upon scholars; these study nature in the open air, and 

 in books they cannot find her. You may trip them up with learned terms, but 

 they know that a difference exists between the rocks of Morrison and of the 

 Garden of the Gods ; and again, betweoi these and those in the mountains of 

 Georgetown, and they will stubbornly hold to it. So I repeat that it is a State of 

 rare popular advantages for the growth of scientific thought. 



Geology and mineralogy hold the leading places, but chemistry and philos- 

 ophy are necessarily integral parts of their practical study. However, in this way 

 it will be understood that most of the attention of scientists in this State is directed 

 to those two divisions. 



As well known a scientist as there is in the State, by reason of his researches 

 in various fields and his sound and vivid observations, is Capt. E. L. Berthoud of 

 Golden. An old army officer, he has been connected with the School of Mines 



