SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 ' The geology of the Pittsburgh coal-region ' is 

 the title of an interesting paper, recently published, 

 by Professor Lesley. The amount of coal in the 

 Pittsburgh region is estimated at about thirty 

 billion tons, — an amount practically inexhausti- 

 ble, at least for centuries. During 1884, eleven 

 million tons were taken from the Pittsburgh bed, 

 — an output of about sixty per cent of the whole 

 bituminous coal-production of the state, and 

 about thirty-three per cent of the shipments of 

 anthracite. Concerning oil and gas, however, 

 the author has very different views. He says, 

 " I take the opportunity to express my opinion in 

 the strongest terms, that the amazing exhibition 

 of oil and gas which has characterized the last 

 twenty years, and will probably characterize the 

 "next ten or twenty years, is nevertheless, not only 

 geologically but historically, a temporary and 

 vanishing phenomenon — one which young men 

 will live to see come to its natural end. And this 

 opinion I do not entertain in any loose or unrea- 

 sonable form ; it is the result of both an active 

 and a thoughtful acquaintance with the subject." 



The Cornell university register for 1885-86, 

 which has just appeared, shows an institution in 

 a high state of efficiency. There are upwards of 

 60 professors, assistants, instructors, and similar 

 officers, and 638 students. Of this number, 604 

 are undergraduates ; and the marked difference 

 in numbers between the upper and lower classes 

 may be taken as evidence of the rapidly increas- 

 ing popularity and efficiency of the university. 

 As against 84 seniors and 97 juniors, there are 162 

 sophomores and 239 freshmen. The former fig- 

 ures are those of Amherst, Williams, and Brown, 

 while the latter are not far away from those of 

 Harvard. That this magnificent increase is due 

 to a liberal policy and the judicious use of a large 

 endowment, cannot for a moment be doubted ; 

 but it seems strange to find in this great univer- 

 sity so important a department as that of political 

 economy represented by an associate professor 

 only, and the whole instruction in philosophy 



No. 163. — 1886. 



devolving upon one man. We are aware that 

 Professor Schumann has been called to this de- 

 partment at Cornell, and will begin his work next 

 autumn ; but at that time Professor Wilson will, 

 we understand, retire from active duty, and phi- 

 losophy will yet have but a single representative. 

 The rapidly widening provinces of psychology 

 and ethics have long since made it impossible 

 for a man who must also teach the history of 

 philosophy and logic to keep up with then- prog- 

 ress ; and it is strange that so few of our great 

 colleges seem to recognize this fact. Harvard 

 and Princeton seem to us the only two colleges 

 in which the philosophical encyclopaedia is at all 

 adequately represented. 



BOTANICAL INSTRUCTION IN THIS 

 COUNTRY. 



By a slow evolutionary process, botanical in- 

 struction appears to be undergoing a radical 

 change in the United States, which concerns 

 both its nature and methods. Whereas only a 

 few years ago botany, as a college study, dealt 

 chiefly with the flowering plants and vascular 

 cryptogams, its scope has broadened, even in the 

 limited undergraduate curriculum, so that the 

 graduate of to-day is supposed to have been 

 taught more or less about each of the principal 

 groups of plants, from the lowest to the highest, 

 if he has studied botany at all. With this change 

 has come an earnest effort to make his knowl- 

 edge a working-knowledge, obtained in the labora- 

 tory so far as essentials are concerned, and merely 

 rounded out in the lecture-room. That Harvard 

 university should be prominent in planning and 

 introducing these changes is not surprising, for 

 nowhere has botanical research and instruction 

 been so favored in the possession of the neces- 

 sary means and of talented leaders in different 

 branches of the growing subject. 



A good library and herbarium form an admir- 

 able basis for much systematic work and for a 

 certain class of instruction, but they must needs 

 be supplemented by a garden and museum if the 

 latter is to meet the modern requirements. Bo- 

 tanical gardens are established either to aid in the 

 introduction of valuable economic plants, or as 



