SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The news-reporters of the dail}^ press are 

 trying to enliven the dull season by the inven- 

 tion of stories of fraud and irregularities in 

 the various scientific bureaus of the govern- 

 ment. Now it is a new find in the accounts 

 of the coast-survey, and now it is a start- 

 ling report upon the proceedings of the fish- 

 commission, or the work of the national 

 museum. These stories have the appearance 

 of being earnest endeavors to guess out things 

 which, from the point of view of the news- 

 reporter, might possibl}- be true, made by men 

 who do not know enough about the case to 

 make their guesses even plausible. Last week 

 the Boston Advertiser published a despatch 

 from Washington, purporting to give an 

 abstract of a report on the operations of the 

 geological survey. The despatch might have 

 passed muster but for an unfortunate endeavor 

 of the reporter to strike beyond his reach, by 

 saying that Professors Cope and Marsh had 

 been allowed to appropriate collections of the 

 value of 8150,000, belonging to the survey. 

 Had he known that Cope never had any con- 

 nection with the survey, and so had never had 

 an opportunity to possess himself of its speci- 

 mens, the inventor would, no doubt, have sub- 

 stituted some other name for his. That a board 

 of experts would accuse the director of the 

 Peabody museum of Yale college of unlaw- 

 fuU}" possessing himself of specimens handed 

 to him for examination and report, is a state- 

 ment fitted only to provoke a smile. The fact 

 that the director of the survey had just left 

 for a month's tour of inspection in the far 

 west, rendered almost unnecessary the denial 

 of the auditor that such a report existed. 



doubt, be found that the interests of the 

 government have suffered less than one would 

 suppose from the flaming head-lines which 

 introduced the treasury report on the subject. 

 If, as is said to be the case, the work unlaw- 

 fully paid for was all done outside of office 

 hours, and in addition to the regular duties, 

 the case maj^ admit of some palliation from a 

 moral aspect, even though we deplore such 

 a departure from the spirit of the wise and 

 necessary law that salaried government em- 

 ployees shall not receive extra paj' for real or 

 supposed extra work. The country will not 

 see any great wrong in loaning antiquated 

 transit instruments to institutions of learning, 

 when they no longer serve the purposes of the 

 surve3\ The disposition to show a newly dis- 

 covered evil in the strongest light, and to omit 

 palliating circumstances, is common to all men, 

 committees of investigation included. Let us, 

 then, reserve our judgment until we have heard 

 and weighed the other side. 



When the history of the irregularities in the 

 coast-survey is calmly reviewed, it will, no 



No. 138.-1885. 



The publication of his third report on the 

 insects of Illinois furnishes the state entomol- 

 ogist, Dr. S. A. Forbes, an opportunity to 

 prepare an index to the first twelve reports, 

 which is done in excellent manner, and to call 

 attention to the fact, that, in volume, the four- 

 teen reports of the entomologists of Illinois, 

 amounting in all to 2,358 pages, exceed the 

 literature of economic entomolog}' of any other 

 state. Commenced by Walsh, who died soon 

 after his appointment, and continued b}^ Le- 

 Baron and Thomas, the office has now fallen 

 into better hands than at any time since its 

 foundation, the reports of Mr. Forbes having 

 already become a standard b}^ reason of the 

 independent and original methods with which 

 he is pursuing the study of economic entomol- 

 ogy. The three reports which he has now pub- 

 lished, equal in value the larger bulk of their 

 predecessors. 



