October 33, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



353 



Fourth, — Eesolved, That'this conference request the 

 colleg:es to unite in prescribing definitely the subjects 

 ■which may be offered at the partial or preliminary 

 examinations, the minimum number for which a 

 certificate will be given, and to decide whether a 

 final examination may be converted in any case into 

 a preliminary examination, or a preliminary exam- 

 ination into a final examination, and if so, on what 

 terms. 



Fifth, — Eesolved, That this conference urge upon 

 the colleges cooperation and comity, either in accept- 

 ing each other's certificates of examination, or in 

 establishing jointly an examining board, whose duty 

 it shall be to set papers, conduct examinations, and 

 issue certificates on their behalf, which certificates 

 shall be good in any college in the syndicate. 



Naturally the public at large is not so directly 

 interested in this particular subject of uniform re- 

 quisitions as the preparatory teachers, but certain 

 cognate topics of a general interest cannot fail 

 to be considered in connection with this matter. 

 First of all, and of the greatest importance in 

 view of the very bad state of affairs shown by 

 the paper upon prominent and prevailing defects 

 in the preparation of candidates for college, the 

 relative value of a thorough grounding in the 

 elements of each of the subjects on which the 

 candidate is required to be examined, as compared 

 with the present superficial attempt to perform an 

 excessive stint, cannot fail to be considered. 

 Science cannot fail to derive a direct advantage 

 from a change for the better in this particular. 

 If, as it appears, inaccuracy and lack of intellec- 

 tual independence are the striking defects notice- 

 able among college students, any reform which 

 shall tend to do away with such unscientific, as 

 well as unscholarly deficiencies, wiQ be of benefit 

 in increasing the number of educated men from 

 ^whom science has something to hope. 



AN ADVANCE IN FISH CULTURE. 



Notwithstanding the successes of fish culture 

 in replenishing the depleted waters of our Pacific 

 slope with quinnat sahnon, those of the great 

 lakes with white-fish, and the rivers of the east 

 with shad, little has resulted from the efforts to 

 restore Sahno salar to its native haunts in New 

 England, or to acclimate it in the Hudson, the 

 Susquehanna or the Potomac. The introduction 

 of the quinnat salmon into Atlantic waters has as 

 yet not been accomplished, and the attempts 

 toward this end must be classed as experimental, 

 rather than actual fish culture. In an infant art 

 like fish culture, the only road to success is 

 through scientific experimentation, and it is the 

 freedom with which tentative work has been done 

 by the U. S. fish commission, which has placed 

 American fish culture so far in advance of that of 

 the old world. 



Experimental fish culture has frequently led to 

 practical results in a manner not at aU anticipated; 

 never, however, more strikingly than in the re- 

 cent salmon work in the basin of the Hudson. In 

 1883, through the cooperation of the U. S. com- 

 mission with one of the commissioners of the state 

 of New York, 40,000 fry of sahnon were brought 

 from the Penobscot and placed in Clendon Brook, 

 near Glens Falls, N. Y. The brook was placarded 

 and policed, and this fall it is found to be ahve 

 with young salmon throughout its entire length. 

 There are numerous fish just ready to be trans- 

 formed from ' parrs ' into ' smolts;' these are about 

 six inches long, and will, doubtless, soon go out 

 to sea to return in about three years as adult 

 salmon. There are also numerous smaller fish, 

 representing the 60,000 fry which were planted in 

 the same stream last April. The larger ones take 

 the fly with great eagerness. 



Heretofore, in planting salmon, it has been cus- 

 tomary to place the little fish in the streams and 

 allow them to care for themselves, but the new 

 idea of placing them in protected preserves, 

 where they can be cared for by the people hving 

 near at hand, and their growth to the proper size 

 assured, will, no doubt, revolutionize salmon 

 culture. 



A similar experiment has lately been made at 

 the station of the U. S. fish commission at Wythe- 

 ville, Va., where 30,000 California trout have been 

 confined until they have become vigorous fish of 

 half a foot in length; they will be used, instead of 

 helpless fry just freed from the yolk sac, in stock- 

 ing the Atlantic slope with this fine species. 



The conclusion of the Clendon Brook experiment 

 wiU be eagerly looked for, not only by anglers 

 and economists, but by zoologists generally, to 

 whom the extension of the actual habitat of a 

 large river fish, some three degrees to the south- 

 ward, will be a matter of considerable interest. 



THE FLOOD ROCK EXPLOSION FELT AT 

 HARVARD COLLEGE. 



At a meeting of the American academy of arts 

 and science, held in Boston, Oct. 10, Prof. W. A. 

 Eogers, of the Harvard college observatory, gave 

 an account of his observations to detect any 

 trembling of the earth at the tune of the Flood 

 Eock explosion. Professor Eogei-s stated that at 

 11:17:30 by the chronometer a very decided com- 

 motion of the surface of the mercury was ob- 

 served. About 15 seconds later the rumble of an 

 ice wagon was heard at a distance of 1,000 or 1,300 

 feet from the observatory. From tliis instant the 

 effects of the disturbance by the wagon and of the 

 explosion were combined, but the distui'bance 



