140 



divisions, and combines these in such manner as to make them 

 throw most light upon one another. Its adaptability to our condi- 

 tions, and its acceptability to our best educational opinion, is shown 

 by several facts, by its adoption as the unit by the college entrance 

 examination board which has been holding examinations upon it 

 all over the country for six years past, by its use in innumerable 

 high schools, by the agreement between its plan and that of all 

 of the recent and successful text-books, by the final disappearance 

 of all influenbial opposition to it, and lastly by the substantial con- 

 currence of the unit now in formulation by the teachers of the 

 middle west. With so firm a foundation in a plan we ought to 

 be able to unite on perfecting details. There is no inconsistency 

 between such standardization as this and the greatest freedom in 

 teaching. The optical power of the microscope has not been in- 

 jured by the standardization of its form and screwthreads. 

 {To be continued^ 



The April Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club contains an 

 illustrated paper by Philip Dowell on the violets of Staten Island, 

 with a simple key and named habits of all the island forms. 

 Thirty hybrids are also named or described. 



The Russian Agricultural Commission has a representative here 

 studying the hardier American fruits and agricultural methods 

 and machinery, with a view to introducing them into the Russian 

 steppes; two representatives from Denmark — one from an agri- 

 cultural college and one from an experiment station — are investi- 

 gating our production and pathological treatment of forage crops. 



A paper read at the Boston meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science showed the effect of various 

 gases on sweet pea seedlings (mhibition of growth, swelling of 

 the growing region, and horizontal placing of the stem). The 

 authors. Knight, Rose, and Crocker suggest the use of these 

 seedlings in detecting traces of illuminating gas, it being well 

 known that gas leakage (in amounts too small for the usual chemi- 



