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NOTHING is more greatly needed just now, in any discussion of the proper methods of control of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, than a proper point of perspective and a reasonable sense of proportion. The area covered by the watershed of the Mississippi is so vast, and the localities affected by the floods are separated by such great distances, that the point of view, even of the most serious and earnest lay student of the problem, has been altogether too limited--too much affected by what the thinker or writer or speaker happens to see with his own eyes. In the presence of such a flood as that at Dayton, Ohio, we are apt to believe that the rainfall was absolutely unprecedented. As a matter of fact, it is probable that from time immemorial the rainstorms of the Mississippi watershed, both in the intensity and the duration of the precipitation, have been just about the same as they are to-day. The Dayton flood was in no sense the act of God--rather it should be termed the price which we pay, in this particular direction, for our modern civilization. The floods are the result of the industry of the pioneer with his ax and plow, and of the modern farmer and road-builder, with the ditching and drainage and the constant effort, direct or indirect, to get the water which falls from the clouds as quickly as possible into the river channels. In olden days, when the districts affected by the recent rainfall were covered with dense forests, and denser undergrowth, it took from two to three weeks for the water to get into the rivers. To-day, thanks to the general clearing up and cultivation of the country, the water from rainstorms of the same magnitude will be in the rivers within two or three days' time. On the other hand, while the farmer has been smoothing the way for a rapid run-off of the water, the dweller in the cities has been encroaching steadily upon the channels which nature has prepared and found sufficient to carry the flood waters comfortably down to the sea. By piling and bulkheading, areas, which properly belong to the high-water channel, have been mulcted therefrom for the erection of factories, wharves and warehouses. Bridges have been thrown across the channels, frequently with massive piers and lengthy abutments, reducing the total cross-section available for the flow of the water fully fifty per cent below that which nature had found to be necessary at a time when the run-off of the rainstorms, in any given period of time, was only from one fifth to one tenth of what it is to-day. Can the floods be prevented by reforestation? Yes-- provided the farmers will vacate their lands and the Government will replant them and allow the flood lands of the upper Ohio to return to nature's wilderness conditions, and if the citizens of Dayton and other towns subject to floods will blow up their bridge piers and approaches, and raze all artificial structures until the river is restored to its original capacity. We are not prepared to do that, of course. Therefore, the only way to restrain the river under the new conditions bought about by civilization, is to build levees of sufficient height to contain the flood waters and guide them safely to the Gulf. Reforestation, we heartily believe in. It should be done for the sake of the future timber supply of the country, and it should be done on all areas which are not suitable for agriculture. Can such floods as that at Dayton be prevented by building reservoirs of such capacity as to hold back the flood waters and let them into the rivers, in such volume and over such periods of time as we might wish? Yes; the thing could be done; but it would involve an equal wiping out of cultivated lands to that demanded for adequate reforestation. Let us consider a few figures. At the height of the recent flood, the amount of water to be taken care of was such that if a reservoir of the size of Lake Erie had been available for storage, twenty-four hours of that rainstorm would have caused a rise of six inches over the whole surface. Think of that--sufficient water falling in one day to raise Lake Erie six inches! Furthermore, if our Lake Erie storage basin were built to cover the area concerned in the flood of last month, it might happen that the next great rainstorm, say the following year, would fall not in the upper Ohio, but in the upper Mississippi, or in the central Mississippi, or elsewhere, and our reservoir of the size of Lake Erie would be merely a costly testimonial to the fact that we had not taken a proper bird's eye view of the whole situation. Reforestation can help a little; and reservoirs can help a little; but the true solution of the problem lies in pushing to completion an adequate system of lofty, strongly-built, and properly reveted levees throughout the districts that are subject to overflow. OUR civilization has brought with it evils of its own. We teach the young to enable them to earn a living, to appreciate art, and to make reasonably good citizens. But in the matter of sexual enlightenment our attitude is almost wholly negative. We treat the subject as something "not quite nice to speak about," and leave the young generation to discover the truths of life at haphazard--with the result that their information is gained through any but good channels. In the primitive state of society, competent authorities tell us, due attention was paid to these things. We, with our "higher civilization," leave it to the coarser elements to "enlighten" the rising generation, while the "better" elements maintain a prudish silence. And thus vice is bred of ignorance. These things are not as they should be, and many voices are being raised to-day, calling for a reform of our customs. The problem is a difficult one, its solution calls for our most thoughtful efforts. The phenomena of sex are so complex in their influence upon the life of body and soul, and affect so many phases of our being, that a well-balanced attitude toward these things is absolutely essential if we are to escape the danger of a one-sided and distorted point of view. Thus, the extremist, who would elevate free love upon a pinnacle of glory, and make all things else subservient to this one principle, forgets the exigencies of practical life. On the other hand, any plan which proposes utterly to disregard deep-rooted instincts of our nature can but lead to failure. In this the advocates of eugenics have shown their good judgment, that they have for the main restricted their plans to negative measures: they urge us to prevent obviously undesirable unions, the marriage of imbeciles, criminals, habitual drunkards and other burdensome and harmful elements of the population. How much good such negative measures alone would do, if enforced, is obvious to any one familiar with the history of such nests of vice and crime as the Jukes and Zero families. What we need is frank and sincere discussion. Let not those who by their sense of the sanctity of the issues involved are best qualified to speak, be held in silence by an exaggerated or false modesty. It is in this spirit that we welcome the expressions of V. Jefferson Watts on the subject of "Knowledge and Morals" in the current issue of our SUPPLEMENT. Possibilities of the Home Laboratory IN these days of magnificent endowment, by means of which every field of science is so ideally developed and brought to fruition, one is apt to discount the possibilities of the home laboratory. There may be some who are deterred from entering those Elysian fields by the reflection that isolated contributions to science would be lost in the vast output of our splendidly equipped institutions. The consideration of a few instances will demonstrate that there is no occasion for any individual enthusiast to be deterred because he may not be so fortunate as to be associated with a great scientific enterprise; given brains and industry it is amazing what can be done with a very modest equipment indeed. For example: When Koch in 1882, announced his discovery of the tubercle bacillus, Dr. Edward L. Trudeau was living at Saranac Lake, whence he had gone to cure himself (how beneficient has the result since proved to thousands!) of tuberculosis. Saranac Lake was then but a guide's settlement, remote from civilization, desolate in its surroundings, forty miles from any railroad. Dr. Trudeau secured a copy of Koch's epochal paper; and, being without special training, he went to New York to receive a few lessons from a colleague in the essen- tial principles of bacteriology, and how to stain the tubercle bacillus. At Saranac Lake, then, without paraphernalia other than his microscope, without access to great libraries containing manifold treatises on the subject, the water often turned to ice in his house (his wood stove would not generally burn all night, nor was there at that time any coal in that region) Dr. Trudeau devised a homemade thermostat which had no regulating apparatus and was heated only by a small kerosene lamp. For protection against violent changes in temperature he inclosed his thermostat in a series of wooden boxes, the doors of which could be opened or closed at will, according to the intensity of the cold. His guinea pigs he kept in a hole under the ground, heated by an oil lamp, this being the only spot in Saranac Lake where they could escape freezing at night. (The Saranac temperatures may be lower than that which Amunsden experienced at the South Pole.) Under such circumstances as these did Dr. Trudeau obtain the tubercle bacillus in pure culture, being the second observer in America to do this; and with these cultures he repeated all of Koch's inoculation experiments. Since then the Laboratory of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium has held and holds a place in science of primary importance as to its contributions and influence. As to Koch himself: At seventeen he persuaded his father to get him a microscope, as another youth might strive for a fowling piece or another for a motor car. Possessed of this most congenial companion he set about perfecting other technical means of investigation. Even genius cannot work effectively without tools; so Koch himself took a hand in the making of just such tools as he wanted and needed. After obtaining his degree in medicine he became a simple country doctor, utilizing his spare time (what young doctor has not of this commodity aplenty) in scientific study, experimentation, research and writing; but not until he had something to write about. In those obscure years, as yet unenrolled in any world-famous institution, he laid the foundation of all that noble work which earned for him the title The Father of Preventive Medicine. The Abbe Mendel, a simple priest, experimenting on peas in a cloister garden, evolved the most valid theory of heredity known to science. The Curies revolutionized the physical sciences by their discoveries in most unpretentious laboratories. The clergyman, Spellanzani, started physicians investigating digestion by making a dog swallow a perforated wooden ball into the hollow of which meat had been introduced, in order to learn if this is digested in the stomach by means of a ferment or through attrition by the gastric muscles. It is good for example to have richly equipped physiological laboratories, and we should be grateful for them, but their fruits come essentially from the geniuses working in them; a wonderfully successful teacher of physiology got that science through even the thickest head in his classes by the agency of his personality, half a yard of string, a blackboard and some colored chalks. The Scientific American in the House of Representatives SPEAKING recently on the subject of the Mississippi River problem, the Hon. Benjamin G. Humphreys, Representative from Mississippi, included an editorial from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of February 15th, 1913. The Representative said: "Mr. Speaker, under the leave granted to me to extend my remarks in the Record I include an editorial from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN on the subject of the problem of the Mississippi. Since the digging of the Panama Canal this is the most serious and most important problem which Congress will have to deal with. All three of the political parties represented on this floor are committed by specific declarations in their several platforms to the task of preventing floods on the Mississippi River and I commend unreservedly to their careful consideration this editorial, which states the problem and the sole method of its solution more pointedly and concisely than I have ever seen it stated before. "Every man here will concede that the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is one of the most conservative, accurate, and well-advised journals on all technical subjects published in this country, and its conclusions on this particular problem will certainly carry weight, if not conviction, to every open mind. Few gentlemen here have the time which it is necessary to devote to the study of the Mississippi River, and I hope, therefore that you will read this editorial, which will cover less than two pages in the Record, and yet which covers the whole subject. "Reservoirs, outlets, and other kindred theories are studied and their fallacies exposed, and the levee theory, which all who are informed on this subject agree is the only feasible way to control the floods, is-fully endorsed. I do hope that every member here will read this editorial, because it illumines a subject that we will soon be called upon to consider and finally settle." Engineering Progress on the Cape Cod Canal.--It is estimated that the 25,000,000 tons of shipping which rounds Cape Cod during the year will be so far benefited by the opening of the Cape Cod Canal that it will be perfectly willing to pay a toll for the use of the canal. The 11,-000,000 tons of coal shipped annually to eastern ports will find the inner and sheltered route of great advantage and probably the greater part of this, or such part as is carried in barges, will avail itself of the canal. Decline in Relative Strength of the American Navy.-- Already the United States Navy has lost the second position in rank among the naval powers. Germany has surpassed us, and now we are confronted with the probability of having to give place to France, whose navy under the new administration has taken on new life and is advancing by leaps and bounds. The relative positions of the two fleets in 1916 will be France, ten dreadnoughts, the United States, eight; France, seven superdreadnoughts, the United States, five. In that year the total displacement of dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts will be 376,000 tons for France and 310,000 for the United States. Switzerland Buys the St. Gothard Railroad.--The acquisition of the St. Gothard railroad by the Swiss government has been advanced by the ratification by the National Council of the St. Gothard Railway Convention of 1909, by which the St. Gothard railway passes into the hands of the Swiss government. The company is paid $42,500,000 for the railroad, and in addition the government takes over the debt of the company, which amounts to $23,418,000. This line, one of the most famous engineering works in the world, was the first to introduce those famous loops built entirely within the body of the mountain. A School Which Pays Its Scholars.--For six years the apprentice school at the Lehigh Valley Coal Company's shops at Drifton has been in successful operation. It is held for one hour twice a week during working hours, and a novel feature is that the scholars are paid at their regular rates for this time. Attendance is compulsory for all apprentices. They are instructed in the applied mathematics of mechanics, freehand drawing, correspondence, and all subjects useful to them in their craft. One of the earliest scholars could neither read nor write, yet to-day he is considered one of the best workmen in the shop. The average attendance is about twenty, and the course is pronounced by visitors from nearby institutions of learning to be both efficient and complete. Over-taxation Limits Size of Cities.--In a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal, attention is drawn to the fact that the final determining factor in the growth of cities is the taxation, which history has shown us tends to run to very high and burdensome limits in the greatest and most rapidly growing cities of the world. Attention is drawn to the fact that Mommsen has shown that the water-tax receipts proved that in the time of Hadrian the population of Rome was not less than 1,400,000. To-day it is less than 400,000, and our contemporary draws the conclusion that the people were taxed out of the city. London has slowed down in its rate of growth, and attention is drawn to the fact that increasing taxation, due to the very costly works of improvement now being undertaken, may ultimately act with similar effect on the city of New York. Sixteen-mile Tunnels Through the Rockies.--One of the most striking developments of present-day engineering is the great expense which the railroad companies do not hesitate to incur in building tunnels of unprecedented length with a view to decreasing their grades across the mountain summits. The latest announcement in this connection is that of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which states it is going to undertake the construction shortly of a tunnel that will be by far the longest yet constructed. It is to be built below its pass through the Rocky Mountains. It will be 16 miles in length and will cost $14,000,000. This is some four miles longer than the well-known Simplon Tunnel through the Alps and the estimated time of construction is seven years. Figures of a Four Days' Rainstorm.--The Weather Bureau estimates that in the four days' rainstorm which devastated certain towns and villages in the upper watershed of the Ohio River, sufficient water fell to cover fifteen million acres of land to a depth of one foot. This represents between five and six thousand billion gallons of water. In the presence of such eccentricity of nature, the works of man, whether they be restraining reservoirs or artificial banks or what not, become mere pygmies and utterly futile for restraint. A four-day rainfall which will cover such a State as Ohio with a depth of seven inches, is a phenomenon of nature which is beyond all possibilities of control by any appliances that are known in the present stage of engineering knowledge. All we can hope for is to mitigate disaster. Absolutely to prevent it would probably call for works of a magnitude which is utterly be-youd our present ingenuity and resources. Electricity Wireless Telegraphy Across the Bering Sea.--It is reported that arrangements are being made between our Government and that of Russia to maintain a wireless telegraph service across the Bering Sea. This will complete the girdle of radio-telegraphic communication around the world. Electricity from Sawdust.--The city of Vancouver, British Columbia, has been greatly annoyed by the smoke from sawmills and lumber mills. To overcome this nuisance, a company has been formed to supply these mills with electric power. As fuel for the generating plant, however, it is planned to use the sawdust from the lumber mills' waste heaps. As the power is obtained in this way from a waste product, electricity can be furnished at greatly reduced rates, and not only is the smoke nuisance abated, but the problem of disposing of enormous piles of sawdust is also solved. Threading Conduits Pneumatically.--A new apparatus has been designed for threading conduits. It has the advantage of being able to pass around several bends which would be difficult if not impossible with the ordinary fish-tape method. A "traveler" is provided which consists of a series of washers loosely fitting the interior of the conduit. This traveler is connected to a string or cord which passes through a tube into a compressed-air tank where it is coiled up on a reel. In service, the tank is first filled with air to a pressure of about 20 pounds by means of a hand pump, then the traveler is inserted in the conduit, the end of which is sealed by a plug on the end of the tube, and a valve is opened, permitting the air to pass out into the conduit and blow the traveler through, drawing the string with it. This string is then used to draw wire which, in turn, may be used for hauling a heavy cable through the conduit. Sterilizing Milk with Ultra-violet rays.--The Bureau of Animal Industry has been carrying on a number of experiments at Washington, D. C, in the use of ultraviolet rays for the sterilization of milk. The milk is spread out in a thin layer by means of a drum revolving at high speed, which picks up the milk from one trough and conveys it to another. While on the drum it is subjected to the ultra-violet rays. Then it is picked up from the second trough by a second drum and conveyed to a sterile flask. A quartz mercury-vapor lamp generates the ultra-violet rays to which the thin film of milk is exposed. It has been found that by this treatment the bacterial contents is greatly reduced. However, when the milk is exposed for a sufficient length of time or in a film thin enough to produce a much larger reduction in the bacteriae content, it is given a disagreeable flavor whieh renders it unfit for the market. Electrolysis and Concrete Reinforcing.--The effect of electrolysis on the iron reinforcing rods of concrete was demonstrated at the recent Cement Show in Chicago, by an exhibit of the National Bureau of Standards. It was shown that local currents are set up in the iron due to moisture and impurities, producing iron oxide, which, as it occupies a much larger volume than the iron, exerts a pressure that eventually results in cracking the concrete. To determine the amount of this pressure, a steel cylinder with a bore of 1.5-inch internal diameter was fitted with a steel rod of one-inch diameter and the space between was filled with cement. This was then immersed in water and the iron core was connected to an electric circuit. By measuring the expansion of the outer cylinder it was found that the oxidation of the iron core produced a maximum pressure of 4,700 pounds per square inch. A column of concrete, one foot long and six inches in diameter and provided with an iron core, was immersed in water and subjected to fifty volts with the iron core as the anode. In three hours time the specimen was cracked. A bulletin on these experiments is being prepared by the Bureau of Standards. Self-lighting Kinetoscope.--By the use of a small dynamo mounted along with the crank mechanism of a moving picture machine, the Pathe firm of Paris are now able to produce a machine which is self-contained and furnishes its own current for the lamp. This makes an independent apparatus which can be set up anywhere and is at once ready for use. Where a current supply is not at hand, this will be very convenient. The idea is being applied in a simplified apparatus of recent design, and it is intended to be used extensively in homes or schools, as the picture machine is now recognized to have an educational value, besides giving recreation. One point which lessens complication is the use of an over-volted metallic filament lamp, and by increasing the current much above the standard the lamp gives a very bright light, thus projecting a good image on the screen. Such a lamp will burn for 8 or 10 hours and can be replaced very cheaply. Thus the usual arc lamp, which amateurs may find more difficult to work, is not needed here. The new machine also has incombustible films of prepared celluloid, of somewhat smaller size than the standard. In this way the machine is well within the reach of amateurs, as now there is scarcely anything to be attended to. Science The Tercentenary of Logarithms.--The Royal Society of Edinburgh is planning to hold an international mathe-matical congress in June, 1914, to celebrate the tercentenary of the publication of John Napier's "Miriflci Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio." The entertainments will include a garden party at Merchiston, of which Napier was laird. The Names of the Minor Planets, or Asteroids, since the number of known bodies of this class began increasing by leaps and bounds, with the introduction of photographic methods of search, have furnished astronomers with the opportunity of commemorating all sorts of persons and things, mythical and otherwise. One of them, No. 594, has just been named Mireille, after the heroine of a celebrated Provencal poem by Frederic Mistral. This name was proposed by Camille Flammarion (of course!) and has been accepted by Dr. Max Wolf, who discovered the planet in question in 1906. Meteorological Work of the "Scotia."--In connection with the forthcoming ice-patrol of the North Atlantic which is being organized by the British Board of Trade and several steamship companies, it is announced that the vessel to be used for this purpose, the "Scotia," will carry a trained meteorologist, and that upper-air observations will be made by means of kites and kite-meteorographs, which have been supplied by Dr. Assmann, director of the Lindenberg Observatory. It is also announced that the wireless equipment of the vessel has been furnished free by the Marconi Company. Two wireless operators will be carried. The vessel will be stationed off the east coast of North America, to the north of the usual shipping routes, to watch the break-up of the ice and report on its movement toward the shipping routes. A "German-South American Institute" has been founded, with headquarters at the Technical High School in Aix-la-Chapelle, for the purpose of furthering both intellectual and commercial relations between Germany and Latin America. The ambitious programme of this institution includes the interchanges of literature, especially periodical publications; the publication of directories and handbooks for the countries concerned; the preparation of German, Spanish and Portuguese editions of appropriate works on the arts and sciences, and so on. The Institute will be divided into a large number of sections, according to countries and subjects, and each member will affiliate with one or more of these. Further information on this subject may be obtained by addressing the " Geschaftsstelle des Deutsch-Sudameri-kanischen Instituts," Kgl. Techn. Hochschule, Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. The Highest Mountain Climb.--The account of the Duke of the Abruzzi's expedition to the Karakoram and Western Himalaya in 1909, just published, reports some remarkable altitudes attained by the party. According to the Geographical Journal, the Duke undertook this expedition chiefly to contribute to the vexed problem as to how high it is possible for human beings to climb. He and his guides, after living for 37 days at or above 16,000 feet, spent another 17 above 18,000 feet, of which 9 were spent at or above 21,000 feet. In an attempt on Bride Peak, the party camped at 22,483 feet, and the next morning climbed to 24,600 feet--thus carrying the "man-level" 700 feet higher than any previous mountaineer. Only a heavy mist prevented them from reaching the summit (25,110 feet). The most remarkable part of the story is that the party did not suffer from mountain sickness, and were little the worse in any way for their exertions. Apropos of this fact an interesting series of letters on the subject of mountain sickness, from correspondents in various parts of the world, has been appearing for some months in the Geographical Journal. There are few subjects on which opinions differ more widely. Primitive Art.--The numerous discoveries in the way of mural paintings and drawings of paleolithic caverns which have been made in Europe of late are well resumed and illustrated in the recent publications made under the auspices of the Prince of Monaco, and the two volumes relate to pictorial art of the epoch known as Magdelenian. The first discoveries made at Altamira, Spain, in 1872, were followed by many others, and these confirmed the existence of a quaternary art of remarkable value. Systematic researches in a great number of caverns showed that this art was spread over other regions, for instance in France, where M. Riviere published the drawings from the La Mouthe cavern in the Dordogne region. Handsome and large-sized polychrome frescoes then came to light in the Combarelles and other caves which belonged to the same family. Then a careful study of the subject was taken up and the publication decided upon, owing to the Prince of Monaco's liberality. Messrs. Capitan, Breuil and others who were active workers, now determine the form and position of the caverns, then give a description of the ornamentation, and draw a parallel between the animal forms and those of existing animals or of animal remains whieh we possess.
