Editorial Coimnent. 55 
other branches of the science are far from abundant. The 
scarcity of material at hand has been a factor in the develop- 
ment of the methods used by professor Calvin. 
Textbooks and other literature are recommended, and the 
students' reading is directed, but no definite assignments are 
made, nor is any attempt made to follow the text in the presen- 
tation of the subject. The department is stored with a great 
varietv of specimens illustrative of dynamical, physiographic, 
and historical geology. These materials are in daily use, and 
it is one of professor Calvin's maxims, that a lecture in geology 
without specimens to illustrate it, is an imposition. The lec- 
ture-room is furnished with table-like desks accommodating 
eight students each, and afifording room for the free use of spec- 
imens during the lectures. Rapid chalk-sketching and tabula- 
tion are used whenever the subject under discussion makes it 
possible. 
Perhaps the most unique featur&of the methods, is the con- 
stant use of camera and lantern. The camera had been made 
to bring the outside world into the classroom, and large col- 
lections of lantern slides and sets of photographs are used to 
illustrate the grander structural and physiographic phenomena. 
In addition to this use of photography, each student, during 
the course gets between sixty and seventy large kallitype plates 
to illustrate his permanent notebook. These plates include 
over five hundred figures of physiographic features, structural 
forms and fossils. The students furnish the paper, and it is 
sensitized and printed in the department laboratory. Students 
w^ho can do so, may use the negatives and make their own 
plates. 
The outlines of lectures taken in the classroom are elaborat- 
ed and the work is re-written on flat paper and bound with the 
plates in patent covers. These permanent notebooks are called 
in, corrected and graded twice a term. With classes that meet 
five times a week, written or oral reviews are given about once 
a week. 
Regular field trips are made as frequently as possible. Be- 
fore the close of the year, each student collects material from 
all sources in the neighborhood of the city and presents it in 
the classroom with a written sketch of the geology of the 
region. n. k. c. 
