702 Scientific News. [ November, 
and constantly referred to them. In this manner only the laws of the 
earth’s surface-influence and action upon health will be derived from the 
philosophical and practical study of facts. 
_ The paper was discussed by Professor Pickering, who referred partic- 
ularly to the hay fever, and the immunity therefrom of several villages 
in New Hampshire. The income brought to the state from this very 
fact, he believed, would pay the cost of a state survey. 
Dr. T. Sterry Hunt also spoke on the same subject. He alluded to 
the advantages of surveys by boring to such a depth as to ascertain the 
exact character of the underlying soil, and thus to learn the conditions 
of underground drainage. In many cases where this had been done it 
had been found that there were often, where it was to be least expected, 
large basins in the underlying floor of the soil, in which stagnant waters 
collected. 
President Runkle thought that the greatest objection made by legis- 
latures was apt to be the expense of making them ; yet he believed that 
the expenses of the best topographical surveys would all be paid by en- 
tirely new industries, which they would create. 
The subject was further discussed by Dr. J. S. Billings, U. S. A., and 
Professor J. D. Whitney, of Cambridge. 
Dr. Harris, in behalf of the committee on the proposed sanitary survey 
of the United States, reported the following resolution : — 
Resolved, That it is the opinion of the American Public Health Asso- 
ciation that in every State, especially the more populous ones, a thor- 
oughly accurate topographical survey is so essentially necessary as 4 
basis of sanitary surveys and systematic drainage, and also the most de- 
sirable hygienic researches and works for prevention of disease, that the 
execution of such state surveys is a duty which should be undertaken 
by the States as a duty to the life and welfare of the people. 
The resolution was adopted. 
— The Zoölogical and Botanical Society of Vienna not only com- 
memorated its twenty-fifth anniversary by a festival, but erected an in- 
tellectual monument of the event in the form of a fine quarto volume of 
monographs on various zodlogical and botanical subjects, contributed by 
its leading members. The volume is well printed and illustrated with 
twenty plates. Of the more noticeable zodlogical memoirs is one on 
the morphology of the segments of the body of Orthoptera, by © 
Brunner von Wattenwyl. A. von Pelzeln contributes an essay, illus- 
_ trated by a map, on the geographical distribution of the mammals of the 
Malay Peninsula, while the lizards and snakes of the Galapagos Islands 
are described by Dr. Steindachner, the seven plates having been drawn 
by Konopicki, whose exquisite work is well known to American zoölo- 
gists. The large Iguana-like lizards (Amblyrhynchus cristatus and Con- 
olophus suberistatus) characterizing these islands are beautifully figured. 
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