Natural Science News. 



VOL. II. No. 11. 



ALBION, N. Y., APKIL 11, 1896. 



Weekly, $1.00 a Tear 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various branches of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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" Scienec in Schools. 



Dr. Morris Gibbs' article on 

 " Science in Schools," in Naural 

 Science News, of April 13th, 1895, 

 comes very near to my "hobby," 

 and I wish all parents and teachers 

 might read and act upon_it, .but it 

 seems very important that the 

 teachers should be competent as 

 well in this as in other branches of 

 study. 



The science of natural history is 

 one that can be so easily learned 

 at an early age, and the 

 truth of some statements are so 

 easily proved or disapproved, that 

 quite young students, who have a 

 taste for the study, are often 

 amused by things that are told 

 them by the teacher. 



A young boy, who spends most 

 of his time in out-door study, cop- 

 ied in his note-book some of the 

 strange things told him by the 

 teacher, and remarked that "he 

 chewed his lead pencil all to pieces 

 to keep from laughing." In regard 

 to insects, she said: "The larva 

 was small eggs deposited by in- 

 sects;" in describing the various 

 families of birds she put the Kill- 

 deer Plover among the scratchers, 

 and said of the woodpecker family 

 "most of them had long curved 

 bills. 



Of course this could hardly be 

 the fault of the teacher, as "Na- 

 ture Study" is of comparatively 

 recent date, and was not given in 

 her examination; but how much 

 can children learn of this subject 

 unless better taught? Almost any 

 bright, active boy has noted the 

 long, straight bill of the woodpeck- 



er, and knows the feet of the kill- 

 deer never were made for scratch- 

 ing. 



Now I have come at last to my 

 special "hobby," and that is that 

 parents should not only study the 

 subject more, but also teach it to 

 their children, or study it with 

 them, at a very early age. Go out 

 into the woods and fields with 

 them, teach them to notice, first of 

 all, and I care not if the first lesson 

 be of flower, insect, bird or animal, 

 one thing always leads to another 

 in this line, and the more they 

 learn the more they want to learn. 



Oh, mothers! refuse some de- 

 mands of society, neglect some 

 new style in clothing that would 

 require hours of labor, and 

 go out with your children into the 

 broad sunny fields, or cool shady 

 woods and let no song of bird es- 

 cape your ear, no delicately tinted 

 leaf or gorgeously colored flower 

 be lost to your eye's sight. If a 

 strange, sweet perfume comes to 

 your nostrils from flower or leaf, 

 hunt it out. Leave no stone un- 

 turned that may be the hiding 

 place for insects, or better still, 

 may contain the fossil remains of 

 some other insect or Mullusk, long 

 since become extinct. 



Of course you may not know all, 

 or even much, about these things, 

 but be sure your children will want 

 to know "all about it" and will 

 soon go far ahead of you, and that 

 is what you want; and good old 

 Kingsley's "Madame Why and 

 Lady How "are the best teachers a 

 child can have. 



Mrs. R. Sim, 

 Jefferson, Ohio. 



A Geological Expedition to 

 Patagonia. 



Princeton College has planned 

 another important geological ex- 

 pedition. Prof. J. B. Hatcher, Cu- 

 rator of the Museum of Vertebrate 

 Palaeontology, accompanied by 

 Mr. T. A. Patterson, formerly con- 

 nected with the American Museum 

 of Natural History in New 

 York, has sailed for Patagonia. 

 The explorations on the coast of 

 Patagonia which were conducted 

 by Prof. Darwin in his famous voy- 

 age in the Beagle, nearly half a 

 century ago, first directed the at- 

 tention of geologists to the great 

 scientific importance of that inhos- 



pitable land. In later years the 

 work he inaugurated has been pros- 

 ecuted by the Argentine palaeon- 

 tologists, Burmeister, Moreno and 

 the brothers Arneghino. 



The latter brought together a 

 large collection of fossil mammals 

 and birds and made important 

 studies upon them, although they 

 labored under great difficulties on 

 account of the absence of material 

 from the northern hemisphere for 

 comparison. Two years ago St. 

 Morens, the director of the Muse- 

 um of La Plata, invited Mr. Ly- 

 dekker from England to study the 

 collections of that museum and to 

 employ his extensive knowledge of 

 the collections of Europe and Asia 

 with the purpose of comparison 

 with the fauna of South America. 

 Mr. Lydekker has published two 

 large volumes as the result of his 

 studies, which though interesting 

 and important, show that a vast 

 amount of work remains to be done 

 on the geology of Patagonia. 



Princeton has now taken advant- 

 age of this opening and has sent 

 out a well-equipped expedition. 

 After studying the collection hi 

 Buenos Ayres, Mr. Hatcher will 

 sail for Patagonia and then strike- 

 inland; the principal objects of the 

 expedition are to make a thorough 

 study of the Patagonian geology, 

 which has not as yet been under- 

 taken by a competent observer, 

 and secondly to make as exhaust- 

 ive a collection as possible of the 

 fossils which are so abundant 

 there, and which will be brought 

 to Princeton for study and com- 

 parison with those of the North. 

 Though the principal objects of 

 the expedition are thus seen to be 

 geological and 'palaeontological, 

 the other natural sciences have 

 not been neglected. Preparations 

 have been made to form extensive 

 collections in the mineralogy, zo- 

 ology and botany of Patagonia and 

 Terra del Fuego to enrich the 

 Princeton Museum. A complete 

 photographic apparatus has been 

 taken along so as to get a large 

 collection of views illustrating the 

 geology of the country and the 

 customs of the natives. Mr. 

 Hatcher also holds two commis- 

 sions from the United States gov- 

 ernment, one from the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture and one from 

 the Bureau of Ethnology, and the 

 officers of the government have 

 done everything in their power to 

 render the expedition successful. 



