October 23, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



361 



history of the United States' were drawn from 

 natiu'e on stone by Sonrel. 



WASHINGTON LETTER. 



The Chemical society, although one of the 

 youngest, is by no means the least active of the 

 scientific societies of Washington ; in fact it will 

 take a relatively high rank in that respect. It is 

 presided over by Professor F. W. Clarke and its 

 members number about forty. The first meeting 

 for the season was held on the evening of the 8th 

 of October. It happened that' both the president 

 and secretary were absent, but there was a good 

 attendance of members and an interesttag meeting 

 was held. Mr. Chatard gave an informal account 

 of his recent examination of the leading salt works 

 of the country, together with a general discussion 

 of the manufacture of salt in America. Mr. 

 Chatard has been engaged for some time under 

 the U. S. geological survey in the study of this 

 question, especially with a view of determining 

 whether any practical use can be made of the 

 great alkah deposits which are so abimdant in the 

 United States, and it is Hkely that the subject will 

 occupy his attention for some time to come. 



It has sometimes been found diflacult to provide 

 interesting material for the ' first meetings ' of 

 societies here, for the reason that many of the 

 active contributors to their proceedings have just 

 returned from their summer campaigns and have 

 had no leisure for working up the material which 

 they have accumulated. The Chemical society 

 was this year an exception to the rule and so, also, 

 was the Philosophical society, which held its first 

 meeting on the evening of Saturday, the 10th of 

 October. Dr. Bilh'ngs had provided an interesting 

 programme in the exhibition and discussion of a 

 large and valuable collection of anthropometric 

 apparatus recently received at the Army and navy 

 medical museum. A large part of it was a dupli- 

 cate of what had been used by Galton in his 

 laboratory, and a very interesting part had been 

 manufactured in Germany by Mr. Cattell. It was 

 understood that the latter involved some improve- 

 ments on forms devised by Mr. Stanley Hall for 

 the investigation of the time occupied in certain 

 simple mental processes. By means of a sort of 

 drop shutter, somewhat resembling a guiQotine, 

 the subject upon whom the experiment was being 

 made was permitted to see for only an instant the 

 object, the nature of which he was to determine 

 as quickly as possible. The thing to be seen may 

 be a card of a particular color, the subject being 

 required to decide what color it is, or but two 

 colors may be used and he may be required to 

 decide which of the two appears. Diagrams of 



different forms may be used, and the time occupied 

 in judgment of form determined. Cards with 

 various numbers of well defined dots on them 

 may also be displayed, and the subject required to 

 announce the number as determined from his in- 

 stantaneous view of the card. In this way some- 

 thing may be known in regard to the maximum 

 number of individual objects which one recognizes,, 

 or can correctly announce, without the operation 

 of counting. It was stated that experiments con- 

 ducted in this manner gave thi'ee as this maxi- 

 mum, which is 'Certainly less than the result ob- 

 tained by a different mode of experimentation. 

 The apparatus was arranged to register the time 

 intervals by means of a Hipp's chronoscope. Con- 

 siderable discussion resulted from the exhibition of 

 the instruments, and the use of a Hipp's chrono- 

 scope was criticised by several members. It is 

 unquestionably complicated in its form and re- 

 quires a good deal of skill and experience in its 

 use. There are several modern methods of time 

 measurement for small intervals which appear to 

 excel it in simplicity of construction, ease of oper- 

 ation, and accuracy of performance. So much 

 interest was manifested in this discussion that it 

 was found necessary to postpone a paper on 

 psychrometry by Mr. H. A. Hazen, which was on 

 the programme for the evening, and it ^\'ill be 

 taken up at the next meeting. 



Lieut. Cornwall of the Bureau of navigation, in 

 charge of the 'division of compasses,' has gone to 

 Mr. Roach's ship-yard at Chester, Penn. , to make 

 experiments on the magnetic constants of the new 

 steel cruisers, Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago. The 

 last is still unfinished and as its azimuth has 

 been constant for some months, the investigation 

 of its magnetism now, and again after launching, 

 will doubtless be of much interest. 



Within the past week the cai:)ital has been visited 

 by Mr. Clements R. Markham, secretary of the Royal 

 geographical society of London. His stay in the 

 city was necessarily short, and he was unable to 

 visit all of the centres of scientific activity in the 

 city ; but his brief visit was much enjoyed by those 

 who had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. 



Not everybody is aware of the interest which 

 Professor A. Graham Bell has long taken m the in- 

 struction of deaf-mutes, or that he has for some 

 time maintained an ' experimental ' school for deaf 

 children in this city. Mr. Bell has recently taken 

 a very important step in the organization of a 

 normal or training school for teachers m connec- 

 tion wdth this school for children. He is desh-ous 

 of training young ladies who are thoroughly inter- 

 ested in this work, in the methods wliich he has 

 devised, tested, and approved for msti'ucting deaf- 

 mutes, and especially in the methods of teaching 



