January 30, 1885.1 



SCIENCE 



95 



co-laborers working upon abundant material from 

 all parts of Europe, from the arctic regions, and 

 from the United States, multiplied several times 

 within a few years the number of fossil plants known 

 to science; so that by the time of the completion of 

 Schimper's ' Traite de paleontologie vegetale,' in 

 1874, he found that he had been able to describe 

 in that work about six thousand good species, after a 

 liberal exclusion of uncertain forms. But a thorough 

 inspection of this important work shows that even 

 then he came far short of gathering in all the data 

 extant at that date, while it is since then that most 

 of the solid work in this line has been done in Amer- 

 ica and in the polar districts. 



A catalogue of all the fossil plants that have been 

 described, down to the present year, is in prepara- 



ends nearly thirty years ago, soon after the accession 

 of the late Dr. Stearns to the presidency of the col- 

 lege, when, in the year 1859, the board of trustees 

 created the department of physical education and 

 hygiene. Prescribed physical training four times 

 weekly was constituted a part of the regular college 

 course, and has been maintained under the immediate 

 personal superintendence of a regularly educated phy- 

 sician, who exercises, in addition, a general oversight 

 of the health of the college. And it is worthy of note 

 here, that, while the experience of similar institutions 

 elsewhere has often been very different, no epidemic 

 has visited this college for the past twenty-five years, 

 nor has any serious or permanent injury ever hap- 

 pened from the gymnastic exercises, either required 

 or voluntary. From the outset the department which 



igfiilliP^ 



THE NEW AMHERST GYMNASIUM. 



tion at the National museum ; and, though still far 

 from complete, the work has sufficiently progressed 

 to warrant an approximate estimate of the present 

 number of species, which cannot fall far short of nine 

 thousand, and may considerably exceed that figure. 



PHYSICAL TRAINING AT AMHERST. 



The recent inauguration of the new health-build- 

 ing at Amherst college is a noteworthy feature in the 

 development of this department of collegiate insti- 

 tutions in general. Amherst college was, it will be 

 remembered, the first institution of the kind in 

 America to awaken to the practical necessity of a 

 competent physical culture proceeding simultaneously 

 with the intellectual development of its students; 

 and effective measures were taken to secure these 



had to do with the physical education of the student 

 has been on equal footing with the other departments 

 of collegiate instruction, and the facts of the relative 

 attendance upon the required exercises in light gym- 

 nastics show that this position of the department is 

 fully and cheerfully recognized by the students. 



While in the conduct of the affairs of the new 

 health-building, or Pratt gymnasium, — the gift of Mr. 

 Charles M. Pratt of Brooklyn, — no radical change 

 is contemplated, there is, with a greatly larger struc- 

 ture, more completely specialized apparatus, and all 

 the conveniences for promoting bodily health as well 

 as fostering physical development, a vast field for 

 amplification of the work of the department which 

 it is now in the strongest position to occupy. The 

 interior arrangements of this structure present much 

 that is new in college gymnasiums; and nothing has 

 been spared to provide the most suitable forms of 



