328 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



7. Economic Science and Statistics. 



H. E. Alvoed : Relative value of human foods. 



C. T. Riley: A new method of counteracting the ravages of locusts or so- 

 called "grasshoppers" (Acrididte); The present status and future prospect of 

 silk-culture in the United States. 



C. Reemelin : City Government. 



E. Atkinson: Insurance against loss by fire; Competition and cooperation 

 synonymous terms. 



E. B. Elliott : The silver question ; Electric lighting. 



J. W. Hott: On the need of a systematic reorganization of the executive 

 departments of the government in the interest of science and of public economy. 



C. W. Smiley: Some defects of our Savings Bank system and the need of 

 Postal Savings Banks in the United States. 



Mrs. Ellen H. Richards : An illustration of a method of teaching elementary 

 science in grammar schools. 



2. TI. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. — The resolutions with 

 regard to the United States Coast Survey, passed at the recent 

 meeting of the American Association at Ann Arbor, without a 

 dissenting voice, are in accord, we believe, with the views of 

 scientists throughout the. country. The survey has had great 

 influence in promoting the progress of high science in the land 

 through its demand for the best abilities in the departments of 

 mathematics, physics, hydrography and geodesy, in order to carry 

 forward its work, and through the investigations it has been com- 

 pelled to undertake for the improvement of its methods, the elab- 

 oration of its observations and the perfecting of its results. No 

 department of work under the government requires greater exact- 

 ness and a wider and profounder range of knowledge. For thirty 

 years and more, commencing under Professor Bache, its annual 

 reports have contained, not only charts of hydrographic work in 

 great numbers, but also papers of high scientific merit bearing on 

 the various questions arising out of the investigations in progress, 

 and others fundamental to those investigations ; and this has con- 

 tinued to be true to the latest issue under Mr. Hilgard. The work 

 of the Coast Survey, as outlined by Bache and carried forward 

 by his successors, has a unity and a completeness which should 

 be preserved in its future scope and management. Besides ele- 

 vating the science of the country, it has tended also to exalt in 

 foreign lands the standing of American science. Any crippling 

 of the Survey in the present unfinished stage of its work would 

 therefore be a national calamity. 



The demand, in the vote of the Association, that the head of 

 the Coast Survey (and by inference the superintendents of other 

 scientific work) should have the highest possible standing among 

 scientific men, and should command their entire confidence, is in 

 accordance with the "civil service" principles of the country. 

 Sure destruction to the usefulness and reputation of the scientific 

 departments — for example, those of the Coast Survey, the Smith- 

 sonian Institution and the Geological Survey — would follow their 

 subjection to the control of persons without thorough scientific 

 education, for it would be quite sure to end in subjection to the 

 debasing influences of political ambition. 



