72 



SCIENCE. 



[YOL. VI., No. 129. 



one-thousandth of an inch in a year would account 

 for the difference. In stellar parallax we find the 

 important work of Gill and Elkin at the Cape of 

 Good Hope, and the surprising results of the Pul- 

 kowa observations, which, if confirmed, will place the 

 star Aldebaran among the three or four nearest of 

 the fixed stars. Professor Newcomb mentions the 

 spectroscopic investigations of the motions of stars 

 in the line of sight, observations of the companion 

 of Sirius, cataloguing stars by photography, and the 

 red sunsets, and concludes with a review of the con- 

 clusions of the International meridian conference, 

 and a notice in regard to the communication of 

 astronomical discoveries, and the recently founded 

 Watson and Draper astronomical prizes. 



WATER-SUPPLY FOR NEW YORK. 



Mk. J. T. Fanning, who is well and favorably 

 known to the profession by his valuable treatise on 

 • water-supply engineering, prefaces a study of the 

 present and future water-supply of New York i by a 

 couple of pages, giving a brief historical summary of 

 the establishment of the Croton aqueduct, which at 

 its opening in 1842 supplied the city, then having a 

 population of less than one-third of a million, with 

 an average of twelve million gallons of water daily. 

 The history of the rapid increase in the consumption 

 of water, next given, shows that by 1875 the demand 

 for wate" had reached the limiting capacity of the 

 aqueduct, which amounted to a daily average of 

 ninety-five million gallons. Since 1875 '' the public 

 fountains have ceased, one after another, to flow. 

 Drinkiug-fountains for either man or beast have been 

 almost unknown of late in the public streets. Meters 

 have been applied in charitable institutions, as well 

 as in manufacturing establishments, and the most 

 stringent measures taken to prevent waste, and at 

 times most urgent appeals made to save the consump- 

 tion, that the evils of an approaching water famine 

 might be lessened." The New- York water depart- 

 ment estimates that the works now in progress will 

 <iraw from the Croton watershed a daily average of 

 two hundred and fifty million gallons (see Science, 

 No. 124). 



On the basis of numerous statistical tables given 

 in the report, as to increase of population and of 

 water-consumption, the attempt is made to estimate 

 the period during which these new works will provide 

 a sufficient supply for the city, and for the population 

 which must draw its water from the city supply. 



In making this estimate, the needs of the city are 

 taken to include a sufficient supply for the ordinary 

 uses to which water is applied in our larger cities, not 

 excluding those uses in manufacturing establishments 

 for the lack of which business must be curtailed, or 

 settle elsewhere. 



The conclusion reached in this report is, that, before 



1 Report No. 2, on a water-supply for Keio York and other 

 ■cities of the Hudson valley. By J. T. Fanning, C.E. New- 

 York, 1884. 36 p., 3 maps. 8°. 



the year 1898, the regular increase of population and 

 the expansion of business will require the whole 

 of the projected average supply of two hundred and 

 fifty million gallons per diem, and that before 1930 

 four times that amount may be needed. 



Having thus determined that the total available 

 supply from the Croton watershed cannot in any 

 event answer probable legitimate demands for much 

 more than a single decade, the author, in looking to 

 other gathering-grounds from which to draw a suf- 

 ficient supply for future needs, regards the head 

 waters of the Hudson Kiver in the Adirondack region 

 as the most available source, provided the city is to 

 be supplied by gravitation with water of unexcep- 

 tionable quality, in adequate quantities, and at a 

 pressure due to a head of two hundred feet or more 

 above tide water, such as will carry water to the upper 

 floors throughout the city. 



Careful surveys show that a canal sixty feet wide, 

 thirteen feet deep, and somewhat over two hundred 

 miles long, would carry five hundred million gallons 

 of water per diem from near Fort Edward to New 

 York. The estimated cost of this conduit is nearly 

 thirty million dollars ; and the auxiliary structures, 

 storage-basins, necessary tunnelling, etc., twenty-five 

 million dollars: total, fifty-five million dollars. It is 

 proposed that the canal run on the highlands east of the 

 Hudson Kiver at an initial elevation of three hundred 

 and fifty feet above tide water, and that this source 

 be also used as the water-supply for the cities and 

 towns on both sides of the river, between Albany and 

 New York, having, according to the census of 1880, 

 an aggregate population of quarter of a million souls, 

 besides the million and three-quarters in New York 

 and Brooklyn. Detailed surveys and the statistics 

 of annual rainfall show that the Adirondack water- 

 shed is capable of furnishing an average of nearly 

 fourteen hundred million gallons daily without tres- 

 passing upon the river-supply available for canal and 

 manufacturing interests. 



This grand and beneficent project must evidently, 

 before many years, be put in process of actual con- 

 struction. It is greatly to be desired that the state 

 of New York should, as soon as may be, put a stop 

 to the destruction of the Adirondack forests, and re- 

 serve a principal part of that region for a park, thus 

 preserving this region as a sanitarium for the common- 

 wealth, as well as the source of a beautiful supply of 

 good healthful water for the entire Hudson valley. 



COMPARISON OF THE SKULLS OF AS- 

 SASSINS AND MEN OF NOTE. 



The material for Dr. N. BajenofE's studies of the 

 heads of assassins and distinguished persons {Bull, 

 soc. anthrop. de Paris) was of two kinds, — first, fifty- 

 five heads of assassins; second, nineteen heads of dis- 

 tinguished persons. This last series seeming too 

 small, he prepared another, composed of the heads of 

 twenty-five noted living men. His main studies were 

 carried on by means of the cephalometer of Anthelme, 



