June 8, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



269 



ing $65,000 additional a year to man the military telegraphs, which 

 will then be left without an operator, instead of saving $125,000. 



Is it any wonder that the weather-predictions are not always 

 verified ? General Greely, confident that the Signal Ofil'ice will soon 

 be transferred to a civil department, in loyalty to the government, 

 began, at the opening of the present fiscal year, some preparation 

 for it, especially by training civilians in weather-predictions, de- 

 tailing one on each alternate month. Professor Abbe was per- 

 forming this duty in March; and although years ago, when he had 

 long-continued practice, he was remarkably successful, he failed to 

 foretell the great blizzard, of which something certainly ought to 

 have been known in advance. Similar conspicuous failures this 

 year may be e.xplained in the same way. 



A word ought to be said about the cold-wave predictions. These 

 are an extension of the service within the past few years, and, as a 

 knowledge in advance of sudden great changes of temperature is of 

 great importance on account of its bearing on the health of the 

 people and the safety of many kinds of property, these reports, a 

 very large percentage of which have been verified, have become 

 very popular. 



THE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE.' , 

 Every middle-aged inhabitant of the British Islands must recall 

 more than one occasion when the mind of our country has been 

 strongly stirred on the question of national defence. The adverse 

 evidence of an expert, a rousing article in a newspaper, has often 

 -awakened general an.xiety of more or less continuance, and been 

 followed by more or less adequate results. But it is far more diffi- 

 cult to awaken any widespread concern on behalf of those great 

 ^abiding national interests which it is our charge and heritage to 

 defend. And yet there are signs of no uncertainty which must to 

 1- all thoughtful and instructed minds, from many directions, suggest 

 the question whether that industrial leadership which has hitherto 

 made our small and crowded country the world's workshop, and 

 almost the world's mart, is not slipping from us. This is a ques- 

 tion not of more or less wealth or luxury, but of very livelihood to 

 the masses of the people under the special conditions of our na- 

 tional existence. If work ceases to come to a workshop, there is 

 nothing for it but prompt dispersal of the workmen. All authori- 

 ties seem agreed that the population of five or six millions inhabit- 

 ling England and Wales in the time of Queen Elizabeth represents 

 pretty nearly what their areas can sustain as agricultural, self-sup- 

 porting countries. But the population of England and Wales alone 

 -was shown by the census of 1881 to have reached nearly twenty- 

 six millions ; so that seven years ago there was in the southern half 

 of Great Britain an excess of twenty millions above what the coun- 

 try could reasonably support, except as a community of artificers 

 and traders, and general carriers, by import and export, of the 

 world's merchandise. It needs only a glance into past history to 

 see that this, while an enviable position for a nation while pros- 

 perity lasts, is practical extinction when the channels of commerce 

 are turned, or lost advantages have transferred production to new 

 •centres. Macaulay's fancy picture of the New-Zealander sketching 

 the ruins of St. Paul's from the broken arches of London Bridge 

 seems of very little concern to the present citizen, whose ears are 

 deafened with the ceaseless roar and traffic of the streets. And 

 yet precisely that doom of silence and decay has befallen many a 

 :proud mother-city of which now " even the ruins have perished." 

 It would far exceed present limits to show in detail how many arti- 

 cles of our own immemorial production we ourselves now largely 

 import, because the foreign workman produces them better, or 

 produces them at less cost. The evidence will be fresh in the rec- 

 ollection of the readers of this journal. Neither can they fail to re- 

 -call with what persistence we have pointed out the remedy. There 

 is but one real remedy, — the better training of the workman, and 

 — if we maybe allowed to say it — of his employer too. Every 

 ■one who, without prejudice, has opportunity to watch a fair speci- 

 men of the British workman at his work must admit that the raw 

 material is as good as ever it was ; that, in the quantity and quality 

 of the work he can turn out in a given time, few of any nationality 

 can equal, and none surpass him. But in the training he receives, 

 and in the opportunities of his receiving it, there is much left to be 



1 From Nature of May 24, 1888. 



desired. And meantime there is not only the grave fear, but in 

 many branches of industry the accomplished fact, that other na- 

 tions may and do outstrip us in the race. 



Perhaps there is some belated merit in seeing that now ; but all 

 honor to those who, with heart and means to labor towards the 

 better training of our artisans, devoted themselves to the endeavor 

 when the need for it was less comparatively obvious. Honor es- 

 pecially to one man, Mr. Ouintin Hogg, who, close upon a quarter 

 of a century ago, at an age when most young men are concentrat- 

 ing their best energies on cricket, or foot-ball, or lawn-tennis (all 

 good things in their way), made it his life's task to raise the skilled 

 workman of London, and furnish him more fully for his labor, for 

 his own sake and for ours. Probably most of our readers know 

 how that small enterprise has become a great one indeed, with the 

 old Polytechnic for its present home and centre, and with a fuller 

 variety of classes and branches, and with a greater comprehensive- 

 ness of scheme, than we can now attempt to describe. But all has 

 hitherto rested on the shoulders, and been sustained by the purse, 

 of Mr. Hogg himself, who, during the past six years, has spent, 

 speaking broadly, some ^100,000 in establishing and sustaining 

 these admirable schools. But the time has now come when so 

 great a burden, for the work's sake as well as for his own, should no 

 longer depend upon the means and life of a single man ; and there 

 is now an opportunity of securing for the institute something like 

 an adequate endowment. The charity commissioners have offered 

 to endow it with ^2,500 per annum on condition that the public 

 find ^35,000 as a supplementary fund. ^18,000 have already been 

 promised by the personal friends of the founder ; but £17,000 still 

 remain to be raised, — a large sum, no doubt, but a small one com- 

 pared to our still unrivalled resources, and the national value of the 

 institute, not only for its own immediate results, but as a model for 

 similar efforts in all the great centres of our industry. Those who 

 believe in science — that is, in faithfully accurate and exact knowl- 

 edge — as the only sure basis for any national prosperity that is to 

 bear the stress of the fierce competition of our times, are earnestly 

 invited to make themselves acquainted with the work of the insti- 

 tute, and to contribute to its funds. Eighty-one thousand mem- 

 bers and students have joined since it was moved to the Polytech- 

 nic, 309 Regent Street, in 1882. All donations or subscriptions 

 will be thankfully received there, or by Mr. Ouintin Hogg, 3 Cav- 

 endish Square, W. 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON. 



Tricks of Indian Jugglery. — -The May Fogs on the Atlantic. 



Indian Jugglery. 



The feature of the evening at one of the late meetings of the 

 Anthropological Society was a paper by Col. Garrick Mallory on 

 ' Algonkin Glyphs on Bark and Stone.' The paper also dealt 

 briefly with some related subjects, and will form a part of the an- 

 nual report of the Bureau of Ethnology. The following is a brief 

 chapter on ' Indian Jugglery,' extracted from this paper: — 



" Paul Beaulieu, an Ojibwa of mixed blood, present interpreter 

 at White Earth Agency, gave me his experience with a Jossakeed, 

 at Leech Lake, about the year 1858. The reports of wonderful 

 performances reached the agency, and, as Beaulieu had no faith in 

 the jugglers, he offered to wager one hundred dollars, a large sum, 

 then and there, against goods of equal value, that the juggler 

 could not perform satisfactorily one of the tricks of his repertoire 

 to be selected by him (Beaulieu) in the presence of himself and a 

 committee consisting of his friends. 



" The wager was accepted, with the result to be described. 



" A medicine lodge was made. Four strong poles were planted 

 deep in the ground, rising to an elevation of at least ten or twelve 

 feet ; one of them having the branches remaining and rising a little 

 beyond its fellows, this being the indication of a Jossakeed as dis- 

 tinguished from a Mede lodge. The interior diameter was less 

 than four feet. The frame, which was inclined to the centre, was 

 then filled in with intertwined twigs, and covered with blankets 

 and birch-bark from the ground to the top, leaving an orifice of 

 about a foot in diameter open for the ingress and egress of spirits 

 and of the objects to be mentioned, but not large enough for the 

 passage of a man's body. 



