SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



An additional argument for the preservation 

 and care of the levees of the lower Mississippi is 

 afforded in an unexpected way. For many years 

 great damage to stock, and human discomfort, in 

 those regions, have been caused by small flies 

 known as ' buffalo gnats ' (Simulium). Very simi- 

 lar flies, with similar injurious habits, have long 

 been well known in the valley of the Danube and 

 elsewhere ; but as the species that have been 

 studied, breed, as a rule, in streams that are clear, 

 rapid, and rocky, it has been a question of con- 

 siderable importance how the insects bred in such 

 great quantities in the low alluvial Mississippi 

 country, — a question whose solution might, it was 

 hoped, afford a means of checking the increase of 

 the pest. The present spring Dr. Riley, and two 

 of his assistants, Mr. F. M. Webster and Mr. Otto 

 Lugger, have succeeded in determining the habits 

 of the two known species ; and it appears that 

 they breed in the more swiftly running portions of 

 the smaller creeks and bayous, which are perma- 

 nent, and do not dry up in midsummer. They are 

 foimd attached to the masses of driftwood and 

 leaves, which form at points, and which, by im- 

 peding the streams below, form a more rapid cur- 

 rent at the surface. The larvae and pupae have 

 been absolutely connected with their respective 

 adults, and a careful study of the general charac- 

 ter of the breeding-places already indicates that 

 the increase of the pests of late years is indirectly 

 due to the crevasses in the levees. 



Dr. Shufeldt, in a recent pamphlet published 

 by the U. S. bureau of education, calls attention 

 to the needs and shortcomings of anatomical mu- 

 seums in this country, and presents an outline of 

 how such museums should be formed and con- 

 ducted. The subject is of no little importance, 

 from the fact that we have so few anatomical 

 museums that serve as useful means of instruc- 

 tion, or indeed for any thing except as repositories 

 of anatomical odds and ends and curiosities, of 

 which medical students, as a rule, make no use. 



No. 167. — 1886. 



One cause of this condition is the general indiffer- 

 ence or neglect of comparative anatomy in medi- 

 cal instruction, and the non-recognition of the 

 principle that museums, to be educational, should 

 be largely comparative. The author rightly in- 

 sists upon greater attention being given to com- 

 parative morphology as a basis of medical progress, 

 and censures the lack of system. We are glad 

 also to see his protest against the misleading and 

 expensive dried preparations so common in collec- 

 tions. 



By the address of President Adams before 

 the Cornell alumni at their sixth annual dinner 

 recently held in New York, the controversy over 

 what shall be the character of the university work 

 was revived. Cornell was one of the colleges 

 established through the benefit of the Morrill 

 grant of 1862. The fundamental intent of that 

 grant was the endowment in each state of at least 

 one college where the leading object should be, 

 " without excluding scientific and classical studies, 

 to teach such branches of learning as are related 

 to agriculture and the mechanical arts, in order to 

 promote the liberal and practical education of the 

 industrial classes." The grant to New York con- 

 sisted of land scrip for 990,000 acres. This scrip 

 was bought by Mr. Cornell for about $500,000, 

 and to this he added an equal sum from his own 

 pocket. The land was located in the timber dis- 

 tricts of Michigan, and now, at the end of twenty 

 odd years, has realized to the college some three 

 millions of dollars. The question is, whether the 

 whole of this should be devoted in accordance 

 with the original grant, or whether, on account 

 of Mr. Cornell's additional contribution, and the 

 large amount realized through his foresight, the 

 college is only bound to devote a portion of the 

 fund to education in agricultural and mechanical 

 arts. We would call attention to what our corre- 

 spondent H. N. has to say upon the matter. 



SETTLEMENT OF LABOR DIFFERENCES. 



Whether the pamphlet 1 from the pen of Mr. 

 Joseph D. Weeks, which the Society for political 

 education has just published, was or was not timed 

 to the present crisis, we are not aware ; but, 



i New York, Putnam, 1886. 12°. 



