488 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. , IV., No. 95. 



self-culture in an almost new sense, so far as 

 the majority of people are concerned. They 

 have shown that there is a practicable method 

 by which the average intelligence and self- 

 reliant character of the people outside of the 

 schoolroom, as well as in it, can be effectively 

 increased, and have taught thousands how to 

 work with whatever means were at hand, not 

 only for their own intellectual improvement, 

 but for that of their children and neighbors. 

 This must eventually affect the curriculum of 

 the public schools through the creation of a 

 demand for better and more natural methods 

 of instruction. Indeed, if Mr. Ballard were to 

 do nothing for the remainder of his life but 

 carry on and perfect the system he has origi- 

 nated, and so extend the influence of his 

 society, he could do nothing more desirable 

 for the interests of science in this country, 

 or more likely to secure future happiness and 

 personal satisfaction for himself. 



There is, however, in the path of this new 

 organization, a certain danger arising from 

 its necessarily intimate association with a 

 publishing enterprise like that of St. Nicholas. 

 Publishers and editors must do what will be 

 profitable, and cannot afford too much philan- 

 thropy in their business. This spirit appears 

 in the title, ' St. Nicholas Agassiz association,' 

 as it stands upon the titlepage of the ' Hand- 

 book.' The incongruity of names offends 

 good taste, and does not accord with the 

 purely unselfish nature of the whole enterprise. 

 There is also a real cause for apprehension in 

 one clause of the constitution, which places 

 the appointment of his successor in the hands 

 of the president and the editors of the St. 

 Nicholas. Most persons will translate it as 

 having but one object, — that of securing to the 

 publishers and editors, in the future, whatever 

 advantages may flow from the prosperity of 

 the society. However pardonable and strictly 

 honorable this may be from a business point 

 of view, it is not consistent with the scheme 

 of the association, and will finally excite com- 

 ment and dissatisfaction. It might have been 

 necessary to confine the power of appointment 

 and election in a societ} T of children ; but this 



association is no longer composed wholly of 

 young persons, and has admitted large num- 

 bers of adults. The proprietors of St. Nicholas 

 have a chance to lay the whole society under 

 obligations of a kind which such bodies of 

 people, in our experience, have never failed to 

 recognize with gratitude and appropriate ac- 

 knowledgments. We should earnestly advise 

 them to take advantage of their opportunity. 



THE 'POROROCAS OR BORE, OF THE 

 AMAZON. 



While travelling upon the Amazon in 1881, 

 I was fortunate in having an opportunity to 

 observe some of the effects of a remarkable 

 phenomenon which occurs at the northern em- 

 bouchure of that river, in connection with the 

 spring-tides. It is known to the Indians and 

 Brazilians as the porordca, 1 and is, I believe, 

 generally supposed to be identical with the 

 ' bore ' of the Hugli branch of the Ganges, of 

 the Brahmapootra, and of the Indus. I regret 

 very much, that like Condamine, 2 who passed 

 through this part of the country about 1740, I 

 could not observe this phenomenon in actual 

 operation ; but the gentleman whose guest I 

 was at the time, and upon whose boat I was a 

 passenger, was fairly horrified at m} T suggest- 

 ing such a thing, while his boatmen united in 

 a fervent k God forbid that we should ever see 

 the porordca I ' and ever afterwards doubted' 

 my sanity. I venture, however, to give some 

 of the results of my own observations, in order 

 that those who in the future visit this region, 

 concerning which so little is known, may be 

 able to see, and establish as far as possible, the 

 rate of destruction and building-up here being 

 carried on. 



I was upon a trip from Macapa, — a small 

 town on the northern bank of the Amazon, 

 and about a hundred miles from its mouth, — 

 down the river to the ocean, and thence up 

 the Rio Araguary as far as the last might be 

 found navigable. The one inhabited place on 

 the Araguary is a military colon3*, called the 

 Colonia Militar Pedro Segundo. At Macapa 

 I became acquainted with the then director, 

 Lieut. Pedro Alexandrino Tavares, and was 

 invited by him to visit the Araguary. 



1 This word, which is of Tupy or native Brazilian origin, is 

 the one invariably used by the Brazilians. Father Joao Tavares 

 says it is probably a frequentative form derived from the Tupy 

 word opoe, which means ' to break with a noise.' 



2 Condamine was sent by the Royal academy of sciences, of 

 France, to make astronomical observations in South America in 

 1735. His description of the pororoca is the one from which all 

 references to it have been taken until now. 



