SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, li 



The commissioners of public schools of Baltimore, Md., 

 have taken the initiative in the introduction into the public schools 

 of that city of a series of reforms which, if adopted, will be of great 

 benefit to the pupils. This action is the more noteworthy from hav- 

 ing originated in the school board, the proposition coming from its 

 committee on health, and not being forced upon it by the board of 

 health or public opinion. It is greatly to be hoped that the mayor 

 and common council of the city will give the necessary power and 

 money to carry these resolutions into effect. After a preamble to 

 the effect that sanitarians and teachers have proven that children 

 attending school are frequently subjected to influences prejudicial 

 to health, which often leave their effects upon the constitution for 

 life, and that it has been demonstrated, that, by expert sanitary 

 supervision of schoolhouses and of the pupils themselves, many of 

 these injurious influences can be mitigated and removed, the res- 

 olutions are, that the mayor and city council be requested to 

 authorize the commissioners of public schools to appoint an officer, 

 who shall be a physician and expert in sanitary science, to be known 

 as the sanitary superintendent of public schools, whose duty shall 

 be, I St, to carefully examine all plans submitted for the construc- 

 tion of new schoolhouses, and suggest such modifications as may 

 be necessary from a sanitary point of view ; 2d, to advise with the 

 commissioners with reference to necessary alterations in school- 

 buildings to improve their hygienic condition ; 3d, to examine all 

 text-books before adoption, in order that type, printing, or paper 

 injurious to the eyesight of pupils may be avoided in selecting such 

 books ; 4th, to satisfy himself, by personal examination if neces- 

 sary, that all pupils admitted tq the schools have been properly 

 vaccinated or are otherwise protected against small-pox ; 5th, to 

 take such other measures, in conjunction with the health com- 

 missioner of the city, as may be necessary to prevent the spread of 

 contagious diseases in, or through the medium of, the public 

 schools ; 6th, to examine annually the eyesight of all children at- 

 tending the public schools, and keep an- accurate record of such 

 examinations ; 7th, to report annually, or as often as may be re- 

 quired by the commissioners, upon the sanitary condition of the 

 schools, and of the pupils attending them, and to advise the com- 

 missioners upon sanitary questions connected with schools when- 

 ever required ; 8th, to give instruction, by lectures or otherwise, to 

 the teachers in the schools upon the elementary principles of school 

 hygiene. 



Assistant Charles A. Schott, assistant in charge of the com- 

 puting division of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, has addressed a 

 letter to the superintendent of that bureau which states that the dis- 

 covery of records of the magnetic declination, A.D. 1714, off the 

 coast of Mexico, by Assistant G. Davidson, and transmitted by him 

 to this office, Dec. 7, 1887, proved to be a matter of much impor- 

 tance by greatly increasing our knowledge of the secular variation of 

 the declination. By means of these observations we are able to 

 improve materially the expressions for San Bias and Magdalena 

 Bay, to add the new station Cape San Lucas, and to make their 

 influence felt as far north as San Diego and Santa Barbara. It is 

 the range which is greatly improved ; besides, the epoch of maxi- 

 mum declination is shifted in the right direction. Apart from the 

 fact that a region of west declination is here for the first time obser- 

 vationally indicated on the Pacific coast, the power of the newly re- 

 covered declinations is due to the circumstance, that, as far as 



known, they cover a time when the needle was in or near a phase 

 the opposite of the present one. For want of early observations, 

 these previously collected for San Diego and Santa Barbara, Cal., 

 were extremely difficult to handle ; and, while it was not an easy 

 matter to establish new expressions for these stations, their correct- 

 ness, or rather applicability over the whole period of time the obser- 

 vations cover, is quite re-assuring. He points out the desirability 

 of new observations (either using funds yet available before July 

 next, or providing funds to be used after that date) at San Diego, 

 Santa Barbara, and Monterey, and states that these stations have 

 received no attention for seven years. These observations are de- 

 manded to give greater precision to the computed variations on our 

 charts. 



ASA GRAY. 



Prof. Asa Gray died at his home in the Botanic Gardens, 

 Cambridge, Mass., on Monday evening, Jan. 30. He had been un- 

 conscious since last Thursday, and helpless for more than a month. 



Dr. Gray was born at Paris, N.Y., Nov. 18, 18 10. He took the 

 degree of M.D. at Fairfield Medical School, in 1831, but never 

 practised medicine. After a short time spent in teaching some 

 branches of natural history in a private school in Utica, he was 

 induced, through correspondence with Dr. Torrey of New York, a 

 professor of chemistry but more widely known as a botanist, to ac- 

 cept, in 1833, a position in his laboratory, and a little later that of 

 curator in the Lyceum of Natural History. By Dr. Torrey's side, 

 he began a career of ceaseless botanical activity. 



His botanical publications were begun with a description of 

 certain sedges and newly discovered plants of north-western New 

 York. In 1835 appeared ' North-American Grasses and Sedges,' 

 and in the following year ' The Elements of Botany.' This last 

 was more than a mere compilation of the materials available at 

 the time, and gave a good account of what was known of the prin- 

 ciples of morphology, histology, vegetable physiology, and of the 

 department in which Mr. Gray was more interested, botanical 

 classification. Although the young writer ventured to differ from 

 the authorities of the day, he was happy in after years in finding 

 that these expressions of his youth needed but little change. His 

 'Botanical Text-Book ' was published in 1842; and with thisjwe 

 may refer to the educational books written by him, which comprise 

 along list: 'How Plants Grow' (1858), 'How Plants Behave' 

 (1875), 'The Lessons' (1857), a new edition of ' The Elements ' 

 (1887), and the ' Text-Book,' issued during the past year, which is 

 a revised edition of ' The Lessons.' Besides these, we may men- 

 tion ' The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States ' 

 (1848), of which there were five editions, also 'Field, Forest, and 

 Garden Botany ' (1868). His ' Manual ' is probably the best known, 

 as it must have been in the hands of every American botanist 

 since the time of its publication. The ' Genera of North America ' 

 he began in 1848, but of this but two volumes have been published, 

 which, even in their unfinished condition, have been of great use 

 to botanical teachers. The great work of his life is the great 

 ' Synoptical Flora,' which had its beginning in Torrey and Gray's 

 ' Flora ' forty years ago. As far as published, it consists of a 

 volume of nine hundred and seventy-four pages on the gamopeta- 

 lous orders, but there are other portions which have been pub- 

 lished in the Proceedings of the American Academy. It would be 

 impossible to enumerate the numerous memoirs and papers which 

 have come from his pen, many of which have been tributary to the 

 ' Flora.' Dr. Gray regarded as his most important minor work 

 ' The Relations of the Japanese Flora to those of North America,' 

 published in 1859. This was based on the study of plants col- 

 lected by Wright, and he believed this paper gave him his reputa- 

 tion to a large extent in Europe. 



