SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The two latest issues of volumes of obser- 

 vations, astronomical and meteorological, made 

 at the U. S. naval observatory, to which we 

 refer in another column, were received at our 

 office presumably as soon as the}' were ready 

 for general distribution ; and we regret the 

 necessity of calling attention to the delay with 

 which the work of this institution is given to 

 the scientific public. We are informed that 

 this is due in no wise to neglect on the part 

 of anj T officer of the observatory, but to 

 the repeated exhaustion of the printing-funds 

 annually allotted to the navy department to 

 meet its current needs. However this may 

 be, it is noticeable that the last four volumes 

 — those issued since the delay at the govern- 

 ment printing-office is said to have been the 

 greatest hinderance — have only about half 

 the number of pages of man} T former issues, 

 owing largely to the abbreviated form of pre- 

 senting the details of observation which the 

 observatory wisely adopted in the volume for 

 1877. 



There would seem to be no good reason 

 why the printing of these volumes, requiring a 

 specific sum each year, should not be provided 

 for independent^ of the naval allotment of 

 the printing appropriation, just as is now the 

 case with many of the scientific publications 

 of the government which are issued at stated 

 intervals. It is to be hoped that the measure 

 already on foot to secure this result may not end 

 in defeat, as the gain will be great at no in- 

 crease of expense whatever. The observatory 

 is so far in arrears in this regard, that its fore- 

 most work should now be to bring the pub- 

 lication of its work up to date at any cost. 

 The chief reason for making certain classes 

 of observations lies in the expectation of their 



No. 113.-1885. 



immediate availability for scientific use ; and 

 the publication, in part, of mere results in 

 astronomical journals, does not relieve the in- 

 convenience and uncertainty attending one's 

 inability to refer, when desirable, to the ex- 

 tended details of the work as presented in the 

 complete volumes. 



' Flatland,' to which we referred a short 

 time ago, besides giving the general reader an 

 easy view of the road by which the mathema- 

 tician enters the world of n dimensions, con- 

 tains also a clever picture of the ludicrousness 

 of various social theories now under discussion, 

 when pushed to their legitimate consequences. 

 The inhabitants of that country have the shape 

 of various plane figures, — triangles, squares, 

 pentagons, and polygons, — and the degree of 

 their intelligence is in direct ratio to the num- 

 ber of their sides ; so that ' intellectuality ' be- 

 comes synonymous with ' angularity,' and the 

 circle is a member of the priestly order, — 

 the highest class of all. Beyond the soldiers 

 and the lowest class of workmen, who are tri- 

 angles with only two sides equal, — a figure so 

 irregular that it can hardly be considered 

 human, — it is a law of nature that each male 

 child shall have one more side than his 

 father. 



Evolution is thus a perfectly regular and 

 definite process ; and a man's remoteness from 

 the flat apes, his ancestors, can be known \>y 

 simply counting the number of his sides. 

 Any slight irregularity in a figure is equivalent 

 to a moral imperfection ; and to train up a 

 child in the path of virtue is to keep him 

 straight in a literal sense. If he is born with 

 any marked unevenness, he must be taken to 

 one of the regular hospitals for the cure of that 

 disease, or he is in danger of ending his days 

 in the state prison. There is no way of know- 

 ing whether a particular delinquency- calls for 

 punishment or reward as a means of reform. 



