426 
accompanied by definitions. There is also a list of 
subjects suitable for theses, — rather an extraordinary 
array, on the whole, and requiring in a number of 
cases amuch more elaborate equipment than that rec- 
ommended on aprevious page. The tabular view of 
the vegetable kingdom would better have been omitted 
altogether, as it is antiquated and faulty in several re- 
spects : desmids and diatoms are protophytes, and 
what coccoliths may be we are unable to say. 
— Under the auspices of the Paris geographical 
society, a course of lectures is being given on the fol- 
lowing subjects: Mr. Faye, The connection of astrono- 
my and geography at the principal periods of history; 
Mr. de Lapparent, Reliefs of the globe; Mr. E. Fuchs, | 
Distribution of minerals; Mr. Mascart, director of 
the weather-bureau, Climate; Mr. Velain, Glaciers, 
and their action on the reliefs of the globe; Mr. 
Bureau, Geographical distribution of plants; Mr. Ed. 
Perrier, The depths of the sea, and their inhabitants; 
Mr. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, Geographical distribu- 
tion of animals. The first was given Feb. 11, and 
the last is put down for March 31. The course will 
be continued next year. 
—From observations of the weather of the past 
seventeen winters, taken at Lawrence, Kan., by Prof. 
F. H. Snow, it appears, that, during this period, five 
winters have had a lower mean temperature and a 
larger number of zero days than the winter just 
closed, six winters have had a larger number of winter 
days, but only one has had a lower minimum tem- 
perature. The rainfall (including melted snow) of 
the past winter has been three-fourths the average 
amount; the fall of snow has been slightly above the 
average depth; the cloudiness has been more than 
two per cent above the mean; the wind has exceeded 
its average by more than five thousand miles; there 
has been a single thunder-shower (the average num- 
ber); there has been one more fog than usual; and 
the barometer has exceeded its average height. 
—Dr.C. V. Riley, of the Agricultural department 
of Washington, states that the rust which is often 
seen on oranges, and which decreases their market 
value by about a dollar a crate, is produced by a mite. 
He finds that this mite is very susceptible to sulphur 
and kerosene and milk, which, if judiciously applied 
early in the season, will preserve the brightness of 
the fruit. 
—Mr. Francis Speir, whose address is South 
Orange, N.J., has sent out a circular, asking for re- 
plies to eleven sets of psychological questions, whose 
aim is ‘‘ to cover the field of conscious mental activi- 
ty in its relations with a possible unconscious cerebral 
activity.’’ He desires to collect facts of personal ex- 
perience from those who answer the circular, and to 
use these facts for the purposes of a classification and 
co-ordination of the phenomena. 
The questions seem to us of very unequal value 
and definiteness. When Mr. Speir asks, ‘‘ What is the 
greatest number of distinct ideas you can consciously 
have before your mind at one time ?’’ he asks a ques- 
tion that seems to us hopelessly vague. Wundt has 
tried to give such a question a definite meaning, and 
SCIENCE. 
“Cree. en 
to investigate it systematically. 
seem to us somewhat ambiguous. For the ordinary 
observer of subjective states, the question may mean 
almost any thing or nothing; for what ideas shall he 
call distinct ? and what is onetime? Still, Mr. Speir 
may get some intelligible answers to this inquiry; but, 
as we venture to say, they will not all really refer to 
the same question. The question, ‘‘Can you wake 
precisely at a given hour determined upon before go- 
ing to sleep ?’’ is an example of a definite and fair 
question. But to ask of people in general, ‘* Have 
you ever dreamed a dream precisely like one your 
parents or ancestors have dreamed ?”’ seems to us to 
invite mere idle gossip. The answers, if negative, 
interest nobody: if they are affirmative, they might 
interest a collector of folk-lore; for, in telling his 
dream-experiences, who is very accurate at the best ? 
In remembering and repeating them over and over, 
who is free from the manifold errors of memory? 
But in comparing one’s own dreams with the tradi- 
tions of the dreams of one’s grandmother, who will 
be able to give answers that can be called scientific ? 
The more confident the reply, the less useful, in such 
a case, the supposed fact. ‘There is a whole folk-lore 
of family traditions, as yet little known to science, 
because it is the private amusement of the fireside. 
Let us leave it all, for the present, to the poets, to the 
story-tellers, and to our aged female relatives. There 
are psychical facts nearer to observation, and less 
subject to whimsical, incalculable sources of error. 
We suggest these criticisms because this work of 
collecting facts by means of psychological circulars is 
yet in its infancy, and its very life is threatened by 
any injudicious use of it. Mr. Speir’s questions are, 
in the most of these cases, very fair; but the few in- 
judicious ones endanger the success of his work. 
Plainly, in asking questions about subjective states, 
we are in perpetual danger of bad observations as 
the basis for the answers that we get. What are our 
safeguards? Plainly, as Mr. Galton’s success has 
shown us, the necessary safeguards are, to ask only 
perfectly definite questions, to ask questions in whose 
answer our subject has no disturbing personal inter- 
est, and to be careful not to ask questions that popu- 
lar tradition has already answered by some poetical 
or Otherwise interesting myth. Best of all are the 
questions whose answer our subject will never before 
have thought of at all, so that he will have no theory 
of hisown. Unless we take some such care as this, 
our latest effort at the collection of psychological 
facts will degenerate into the most tedious of disas- 
trous wanderings. We await with interest Mr. Speir’s 
paper on the results of his inquiry, for most of his 
circular is promising enough. 
— The following singular advertisement appears in 
the Deutsch-Kroner zeitung of Dec. 11: ‘*‘ Magpies 
shot between Dec. 24 and Jan. 6 are used for a remedy 
against epilepsy. The undersigned, with whom this 
medicine is prepared, will be greatly obliged to every 
one who will send him at that time as many magpies 
as possible, provided that they have been shot, and 
not killed by poison or caught in traps. — Castle Titz, 
Dec. 5, 1883. Signed: Theodor, Count Stolberg.’’ 
[VOL IIL; No. 61. 
Even his results — 
