644 
bucolic readers, and they doubtless serve their 
purpose: it is, however, a fair question, whether 
a scientific man has the right to bury his dis- 
coveries, or even the confirmatory results of 
his researches, by giving them only to publica- 
tions of this character. The wheat may be 
served up with chaff as provender, if need be; 
but a portion of the same wheat, judiciously 
winnowed for presentation in the journals of 
our learned societies, or in the established peri- 
odicals which are widely accessible to scientific 
men, would doubtless yield a fairer return to 
science. It is, in short, exasperating to find 
important facts regarding the structure and 
the life of domestic animals and cultivated 
plants published only in the midst of details 
which are of little interest to any one, except 
as they may have a remote influence upon pos- 
sible appropriations by a legislature. We sub- 
mit, that it is the duty of experimenters, who 
are obliged to publish in such ephemeral, not 
to say trashy pages, to present the scientific 
features of their useful work also in a more 
worthy manner. 
THE account given in our notes, of an engi- 
neering work planned in western New York, 
may serve to convince those cautious legislators 
who look chiefly for immediate results from the 
forces which they set in motion, that even so 
theoretical an affair as a state topographical 
survey may have direct and practical ends. A 
large swamp occupies a district that might be 
valuable agricultural land, and spreads its un- 
healthy exhalations over the adjoining country. 
The farmers thereabouts, impatient at the slow- 
ness of the outlet-stream in cutting down the 
rocky barrier that holds up the swamp, ask for 
state aid to hasten the deepening of the channel. 
The state surveyor is called to their aid: he 
examines the ground, and reports that the 
undertaking is entirely feasible, and that, while 
thus to discount nature’s work will cost some- 
what over one hundred thousand dollars, the 
operation may nevertheless commend itself 
even to the most careful counter of the cost, 
for the value of the drained land will be in- 
creased over one million dollars. 
SCIENCE. 
[Vot. III., No. 69. 
ny 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
The cranial ribs of Micropterus. 
In No. 65 of Science, Mr. Shufeldt has called atten- 
tion to a pair of rib-like structures articulating with © 
the ‘base of the occiput ’ in Micropterus salmoides. 
He is apparently inclined to refer them to an occipi- 
tal vertebra. Sagemehl has lately (in the Morpholo- 
gisches jahrbuch) advanced a theory to the effect, that, 
in the occipital region of all teleostean skulls, there 
are a certain number of vertebrae which are to be 
compared to the anterior spinal vertebrae of the elas- 
mobranchs, and which have fused more or less com- 
pletely with the true coalesced occipital vertebrae; 
i. e., those corresponding to the vagus branches. 
Without either condemning or supporting this the- 
ory, I may point out, that, even though spinal verte- 
brae should have been taken up into the skull, there 
is no apparent reason why their ribs should persist. 
The ribs of teleosts are ossifications of the internal 
portions of the myocommata, and on the disappear- 
ance of these, consequent on the abortion of the seg- 
ment, one would naturally expect the disappearance 
of the ribs also. 
I have, unfortunately, not been able to examine a 
black bass osteologically, and therefore cannot speak 
with any degree of certainty as to the nature of the 
structures described by Mr. Shufeldt. There is, how- 
ever, a very possible explanation for them; and that 
is, that they are portions or rudiments of the supra- 
claviculae. In -many fish these are two T-shaped 
structures, the portion corresponding to the perpen- 
dicular limb of the T being, in each, horizontal, and 
articulating with the lower portion of the occipital 
region; while one end of the portion corresponding 
to the transverse limb articulates with the pterotic 
and epiotic, and the other end with the mesocla- 
vicula. If the perpendicular limb were to ossify sep- 
arately, or if the transverse limb should become 
rudimentary, a condition would result, apparently 
similar to what Mr. Shufeldt describes. 
This is, of course, merely a suggestion, thrown out 
for the purpose of arriving, if possible, at a correct 
identification of these peculiar structures. 
J. PLAYFAIR MCMURRICH. 
Ontario agricultural college, Guelph, Can., 
May 13. 
A singular optical phenomenon. 5 
The phenomenon described by ‘F. J. 8S.’ in Science, 
No. 57, and which I at first thought must have been 
a binocular phantom image, I now think has been 
truly explained by Mr. Oliver in No. 63. If so, it is 
only one of aclass, examples of which may be seen 
on every side. I never pass a picket-fence, with 
another similar fence beyond, without observing and 
admiring the broad waves of interference running’ 
rapidly in one direction or the other. I never look 
through two fly-screens, one behind the other, with- 
out remarking the tortuous shifting waves of inter- 
ference, like waves of watered silk. <A lady’s silk 
veil loosely folded shows the same effect beautifully. 
Of course, the phenomenon is well known and un- 
derstood; but I was misled by the fact that‘ F. J. 8.’ 
described it as in mid-air, and nearer the fly-screen.° 
I suppose it may be imagined at any distance, but is 
usually referred to the plane of one of the objects. 
JOSEPH LECONTE. © 
Berkeley, Cal., April 28. 
Popular names of California flowers. 
A botanist, coming to the Pacific coast, may be sur- 
prised at the large number of plants that are generally — 
