SCIENCE. 



FEIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1885. 



C0M3IENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The New York Evening post of Oct. 21 pub- 

 lishes an editorial on the underground wire prob- 

 lem, in which a magnificent solution of the 

 problem of burying the wires is offered. Along 

 Broadway, just outside the curb line of the street, 

 there is to be constructed a capacious underground 

 gallery, wherein all the present impedimenta must 

 be placed, and any obstruction which the work- 

 men may encounter in the building of this gallery 

 is to be removed. Herein are to be placed the 

 steam, gas, sewer, pneumatic, hydraulic, and 

 various other pipes, in addition to the wires of the 

 various electric companies. The other streets of 

 the city are to be tunnelled on a similar though 

 less elaborate plan. 



Magnificent as this plan may seem, it is hardly 

 an exaggeration of what the underground com- 

 mission actually proposes to require. They have 

 caused it to be understood that they will consider 

 no plan of placing the wires rmderground which 

 does not combine all kinds of wires in a single 

 conduit, with an arrangement by which access to 

 every house may be obtained without excavation 

 of the street. The question that interests the 

 various electrical companies is, "Who is to under- 

 take this extensive piece of engineering, and who 

 is to pay for it?" Certainly, the commission has 

 no power to construct such conduits, and, even if 

 it had, it is dhficult to see how the various elec- 

 trical companies could be compelled to make use 

 of them, or to pay for such use. 



That it is not only technically possible, but 

 economically practicable, to put the large mass of 

 city wires underground, was admitted by the 

 electrician of the American Bell telephone com- 

 pany. Dr. W. W. Jacques, in an article published 

 in Science of July 3 of the present year, and the 

 Metropolitan telephone company, whose mileage of 

 wire in New York City is greater than that of any 

 other company, has actually asked permission of 

 the commission to put a part of its wires under- 

 ground, and such permission has been refused. 

 No. 143. — 1885. 



The reason why the wires in New York are not 

 placed underground, and why they are not likely to 

 be placed underground at present, is, not that it is 

 technically impossible, and not that the parties 

 operating them do not desire to place them under- 

 ground, but because the commission insists upon 

 its being done in accordance with an entirely im- 

 practicable plan. 



It would be interesting to know just what 

 evidence Mr. St. Pierre, the Canadian lawyer, who 

 has recently given a theory of small-pox to the 

 newspapers, has found, which leads him to the 

 conclusion that small-pox is " indigenous to 

 Canada," and "is to Montreal what yellow fever 

 is to New Orleans, or ague to New Jersey." That 

 it is to Montreal what yellow fever is to New 

 Orleans we can well believe, for it is now conceded 

 by the best sanitarians that yellow fever never 

 appears in this country anywhere except when 

 imported from abroad. And unless Mr. St. Pierre 

 can give us something more reliable than Indian 

 tradition, even though it comes from the oldest 

 inhabitant, we shall be inclined to the now weU- 

 established opinion that small-pox was brought to 

 this country shortly after its discovery by Colum- 

 bus. 



From the well-known aversion to vaccination 

 which characterizes the French Canadian, we can 

 well believe that small-pox has prevailed there in 

 a more or less epidemic form so long that history 

 fails to tell its first appearance, but we have no 

 doubt that its termination would be very soon re- 

 corded if the vaccinators were permitted to have 

 their way. 



Again the papers are flooded with paragTaphs 

 concerning great mortality of fishes in the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and such headings as ' Twenty- miles of 

 dead fish,' or 'A fish pestilence in the Gulf.' Sen- 

 sational as such notices at first sight appear, they 

 can scarcely be pronounced to be exaggerations. 

 Records show that as far back as 1844 a wide- 

 spread destruction of all sorts of salt-water hfe 

 occurred along our southern coasts ; again in 1854, 

 1878, 1879, and 1880. It was in the whiter of 1881-2 

 that a catastrophe of similar nature took place off 



