1870. | Scientific News. 535 
“ Evidence in corroboration of statements like this is so abun- 
dant and easily obtained that it cannot be successfully refuted, 
and the only conclusion that I can arrive at is, that the purity of 
the hydrant water can only be maintained by preventing the dis- 
charge of all impurities into the lake, or by extending the tunnels 
a sufficient distance from the shore to be beyond their influence.” 
MicroMetric Ruiinc.—Several observers now claim to have 
resolved the bands of lines 120,000 to the inch, by both Rogers 
and Fasoldt. Prof. Rogers’ recent work has been devoted to the 
methods and instruments for obtaining aliquot parts of the stand- 
ard yard and metre with great precision, rather than to the pro- 
duction of extremely close rulings. Mr. Fasoldt is now ruling 
twelve-band plates, with bands claiming from 12,500 to 150,000 
lines to the inch, 
3:0: 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
— Congress, at the recent session, transferred the cotton worm 
investigation from the Department of Agriculture to the Depart- 
ment of the Interior, adding it to the work of the U. S. Entomol- 
ogical Commission, Prof. C. V. Riley, the chairman of the Com- 
mission, having resigned his position as Entomologist to the 
Agricultural Department, owing to the inability of the present 
Commissioner to appreciate scientific energy and methods, and 
to give due credit for them, in a department where they are needed 
just at present more than in any other. Prof. Riley, who has the 
investigation of the cotton worm in special charge, is now in 
Texas, with the agent of the Commission, Mr. Schwartz, and has 
already determined that the cotton worm hybernates in the moth 
state in the Cotton States; that the worms in Texas appear as 
early as the middle of May of nearly full size, nearly six weeks 
before they had ever been seen by the planter; experiments will 
also be made as to the best means of destroying the worm, on a 
large scale. Prof. A. S. Packard, Jr., is spending the summer in Col- 
orado, Wyoming, Utah and Eastern Idaho, investigating the present 
Status in the permanent breeding places of the Rocky Mountain 
locust, and Prof. Cyrus Thomas is to make a trip to Dakota for 
the same purpose. A number of agents are also at work in the 
West, The Commission also designs, incidentally to this investi- 
gation, working up the Chinch bug, Hessian fly and Canker 
worms, and has sent out circulars asking for local information as 
to the habits and statistics of losses. Entomologists are desired 
to cooperate in the work this season. 
— Mr. King, director of the U. S. National Geological Survey, 
has secured the passage of a bill through Congress authorizing 
the extension of the operations of the survey over the several 
States of the Union. It is said that he proposes doing some 
