June 29, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



313 



Boston, to be published by Messrs. Lee & Shepard. The same 

 firm has now in press a new volume of travels entitled ' Mexico, 

 Picturesque, Political, Progressive,' the joint work of Mrs. Mary 

 Elizabeth Blake of Boston, and Mrs. Margaret F. Sullivan of 



Chicago. Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton will contribute a paper 



in the July issue of T/ie Atnerzcan Magazine on ' Spiritualism and 

 Like Delusions,' in which he will show that spiritualism is at best 



a form of mild insanity. The Popular Science Monthly for 



July contains the following articles: ' Safety in House-Drainage,' 

 by William E. Hoyt ; 'Gourds and Bottles,' by Grant Allen; 

 ' Darwinism and the Christian Faith ; ' ' The Teaching of Psychol- 

 ogy,' by M. Paul Janet ; ' Customs and Arts of the Kwakiool,' by 

 George M. Dawson ; ' Lines of Progress in Agriculture,' by Dr. 

 Manly Miles; 'Fallacies in the Trades-Unions Argument,' by J. B- 

 Mann ; ' Botany as it may be Taught,' by Prof. Byron D. Halsted \ 

 ' Arctic Alaska,' by W. L. Howard ; ' Manual or Industrial Train- 

 ing,' by Prof. G. Von Taube ; and a sketch of Paul Bert. 



Time, under which title Tid-Bits will hereafter be known, as being 

 more nearly answerable to the present character of the paper, will 

 be conducted on the same lines which have .won Tid-Bits its suc- 

 cess ; the changes made with the present issue being external only, 

 and not affecting the methods of the paper, which remains under 

 the same proprietorship and editorial management. 



— The Engiiieering and Mining Journal is authority for the 

 statement that the ' record ' in rapid machine-work has again been 

 lowered. Heretofore the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadel- 

 phia have held the first place with the record of an engine built in 

 twenty-four hours, but the Pennsylvania Railroad Company has 

 now taken the palm by constructing a full-sized (110,000 pounds) 

 anthracite-burning locomotive at the Altoona shops in sixteen 

 hours fifty-five minutes. The work was commenced on the morn- 

 ing of the 1 8th of June, and in five minutes less than seventeen hours 

 the engine was turned out ready for use. It is to run on the New 

 York division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This feat is, we be- 

 lieve, quite unrivalled in locomotive-building. 



— Prof. Simon Newcomb, superintendent of the Nautical Al- 

 manac Office, is seriously ill of spinal irritability, and, on the recom- 

 mendation of a board of medical officers, has gone to the Chelsea 

 Hospital for special treatment. 



— Dr. W. J. Hoffman of the Bureau of Ethnology has gone to 

 northern Minnesota to obtain some important historical informa- 

 tion which has been promised him by influential Indian chiefs who 

 live near the Canada line. 



— Mr. Arthur P. Davis of the Geological Survey Office, and Miss 

 Lizzie Brown of the Nautical Almanac Office, were married on the 

 evening of the 21st inst. Mr. Davis is a nephew of Major J. W. 

 Powell, director of the Geological Survey, and Miss Brown is one 

 of the most accomplished mathematicians in the country. Each 

 had been a member of the Corcoran Scientific School of the 

 Columbian University, and each had just received its degree of 

 Bachelor of Science. 



— The Signal Office has been making experiments in the court- 

 yard of the War Department building with a new machine for test- 

 ing anemometers. The device consists of several arms, each 

 twenty-eight feet long, on the ends of which are placed anemom- 

 eter-cups such as are used in the Signal Service. The arms 

 being revolved at a given rate of speed, the rate recorded by the 

 anemometer-cups is compared with the known rate, and any dif- 

 ferences noted. Professor Hazen, who has had charge of the ex- 

 periments, says that they have been satisfactory, although abso- 

 lutely still air has not been obtained in the War Department court- 

 yard. Even when there Was a dead calm outside, a very perceptible 

 movement of the air inside the court-yard was observed. This 

 phenomenon, which occurred early in the morning, was attributed 

 to the fact that the court-yard had become greatly heated the day 

 before, and the warm air was then rising and being forced out by 

 the cooler, denser atmosphere from the outside, that came into the 

 court-yard through the two carriage-ways. Similar experiments to 

 discover the exact relation between the movement of the wind and 

 the whirling of the cups were made about 1850, but in the machine 



used then the arm was only four feet long, instead of twenty-eight 

 as in the new one. When the short arms were whirled with great 

 velocity, they caused a very perceptible movement of the air. 



— The magnificent water-front of Staten Island is so important 

 a part of New York harbor, and access to it from the mainland is 

 so easy, that more or less definite projects for reaching it by rail- 

 road have been often brought forward. The Arthur Kill Bridge, 

 which is now practically completed, will, if it is allowed to stand,, 

 enable the lines now entering Jersey City to reach directly the deep 

 water on the Staten Island front, and will greatly increase the 

 available capacity of the harbor for handling freight. 



— In Bradstreei's of June 23 is given the message of Dr. Miguel 

 Juarez Colman to the National Congress of the Argentine Repub- 

 lic. In this message are presented important facts in regard to the 

 progress of this South American Republic. Argentine Republic 

 has an area of 1,125,086 square miles, with a population in 1887 of 

 3,935,286. It has made wonderful progress in the building of rail- 

 ways. Of the 17 railways conceded, 13 have the guaranty of the 

 government. The guaranteed lines report a length of 7,961 kilo- 

 metres, and the unguaranteed 1,272, making 9,233 kilometres. The 

 contracts for the following guaranteed lines are already prepared r. 

 Tartagal Reconquista to Formosa, Bahia Blanca to Ville Merce- 

 des, San Juan to Salta, Chumbreha to Tinogosta and Andalugata,. 

 Goya to Monte Caseros, Resistencia to Metan, and San Custobal to 

 Tucaman. The aggregate length of railways in operation is 6,306' 

 kilometres, equal to 3,9 18^^ miles. These roads have carried with- 

 in a year 7,657,406 passengers and 3,705.876 tons of freight. The 

 gross revenue from the yearly traffic is $23,805,722.15, against ex- 

 penses of $13,177,172.15, giving a net annual revenue of §10,627,- 

 950.14. The debt of the Republic March 31, 188S, was: internal,. 

 $47,100,000; and external, $92,427,000. The latter is expected to 

 be paid off within eight years. Argentine 5-per-cents issued in 

 1 887 at 851 were on March 3 1 quoted at 97, and the 6-pcr-cents at 1 02 

 @, I04-J-. In 1886 the import and export trade aggregated $194,- 

 000,000. In 1887 it had increased $24,000,000, of which $9,500,000 

 were imports, and $14,500,000 exports. The gain is due to the in- 

 creased production of cereals, hides, and frozen meats. The sup- 

 pression of export duties has also contributed to the increase in the 

 volume of exports. Import and export values in the first quarter 

 of 1888 show an increase, when compared with the first quarter in 

 1887, of $4,ooo.coo. In 1S84 the total revenue was $46,762,000. 

 The revenue for 1887 was early estimated at $50,522,000, but it 

 produced $58,135,000, or $13,372,000 in excess of the revenue of 

 1886. The budget of expenses in 1887 was $43,263,000, and $6,- 

 756,000 for special laws without special resources, leaving a re- 

 mainder of $8,116,000. In the fourteen provinces of the Republic 

 are 2,080 schools, with 142,471 pupils. There are 116 schools in the 

 capital of the Republic, including 24 graduated, 56 elementary, 20. 

 for infants, and 16 for adults. In the 116 schools are 746 teachers, 

 including 224 male and 522 female. In the national territories there 

 are at the present time 42 schools, with 64 teachers and 2,998 schol- 

 ars. The total immigration in 18S7 was 137,000, and for the first 

 quarter of 1888, 40,500. The expected immigration in all of 1888 

 is about 200,000. The cost of passage from Europe for 50,000 ag- 

 riculturists and artisans will be advanced to enable them to come- 

 to Argentine Republic in 1888. The commissary of immigration 

 has gone to Europe to establish the requisite appliances to promote 

 immigration. Immigration, colonization, and railways are rapidly 

 transforming the country, and as a consequence its productive 

 forces are being multiplied, and the comforts of life there are in- 

 creased. The field of labor is enlarged, the educational work is, 

 taking rapid strides, and internal improvements are receiving atten- 

 tion from the government. 



— The courses in physics which were proposed for this summer 

 at Harvard College have been given up because of the small num- 

 ber of applications for them received up to June i, which was the 

 date mentioned in the physics circular. On Saturday, July 7, and 

 on Saturday, July 14, an exposition of the apparatus and methods 

 which would have been used in the elementary summer course will 

 be given at the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, Cambridge, the 

 hours each day being from 10 to i and from 3 to 5. This exposi- 



