322 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
the same section, is a matter of some convenience for travelers and 
great advantage for the railroads ; but it is secured by sacrifices 
which not only outweigh these advantages, but are in fact quite 
needless, since the desired end can be better attained by the total 
abandonment of any attempt to force an erroneous standard of 
time upon the community, and the adoption of the recommenda- 
tion of the Geodetic conference. 
“The facts of Nature demand a certain recognition; and the 
absurdity of the attempted change differs in degre e only, not in 
kind, from that of a division of the year into a given number of 
equal Saaiotin or the month into a round number of equal days. 
The large deviation from the truth, in the standard of time thus 
imposed upon the inhabitants of regions near the boundaries of the 
proposed sections, can som: .mes amount to three-quarters of an 
hour; and the moment to which the name of noon is thus give 
would divide the day into two unequal parts, whose inequality 
would, at certain seasons of the year, be very little less than an. 
hour and a half. man visiting his next door neighbor might 
find his watch to be an hour wrong. Such incongruities embar- 
rass the affairs of daily life. ee 
“Only some very strong necessity ap justify such age: 
lences a violations of ‘natural laws; and no necessity € 
and co at of a distinct system of time 
of tim 
reduced toa minimum w they are so different as to preclude 
all danger of scietadon when they are so easily convertible, and 
when one of them is identical for all the world. The metho now 
ard time? of the North aenieeican railroads and it cannot fail 
to afford practical, commercial and sc ientific ‘sdvantanes while 
adding one more to the various bonds “whe are, of late years, 
se the nations of the earth in closer relations.” 
he National Dispensatory, cones, J the echt History, 
Chemisiry, Pharmacy, Actions and Uses of Medicines; by A. 
Srittf, M.D., LL.D. and J. M. Ma tbs, Phat .D. ei ,756 pp. 
Philadelphia, 1884 (H. °C. Lea’s Son & Co o.).—A third edition . 
this standard work has been just issued, in which it has been — 
thoroughly revised and much enlarged. The very large veka 
is handsom mes printe irs has many illustrations. 
Report on the Crustacea of Minnesota, included in the orders Cladocera 
and Famoler 9 se, wh with a proche of = described species in North America 
and keys to the known species of the m portant genera, by L. 0. Herrick. 
_ 192 pp. 8vo, illustrated by 22 plates. an ges 12th Ann. Rep. Geol. and Nat. 
Survey of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1884. 
