void of the oxides of carbon which are found present in small quantities in almost all natural gases? Is it possible that ground water absorbed the oxygen from a mass of air, leaving large quantities of nitrogen unabsorbed? Under ordinary conditions the ratio of absorption for oxygen and nitrogen by water is different from the ratio between the two gases in the atmosphere. It is possible that ground water simply absorbed the oxygen, leaving a residue of nitrogen unabsorbed. It must be confessed this hardly looks probable. But even if it is possible the most important question yet remains, namely, how did so large a volume of air become entombed in the ground? The writers hereof are unable to advance any views on this phase of the subject.

ERASMUS HAWORTH, D. F. MCFARLAND.

It will be seen from the above table that oxygen is present in small quantities in almost all the samples analyzed and that nitrogen is present in all of them, reaching to a little over seven per cent. in gas from Iola. It is possible, of course, that a small amount of air was left in the gathering flask, but not probable. If so the amount of oxygen present would correspond to a proportionate amount of nitrogen, much less than is given in the table. Therefore, we may conclude that traces of nitrogen are usually present in Kansas natural gas. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide also are present in small quantity, but almost all the volume is marsh gas, CH,, which reaches 97.63 per cent. in one sample. But in the Dexter gas no oxides of carbon could be found.

If we assume that the Dexter gas represents a volume of air which in some way was embedded hundreds of feet beneath the surface, then a number of interesting inquiries are presented, such as: What became of the oxygen? If it was consumed or absorbed by organic matter then why is the gas totally

COMMENT.

Under the view that the earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere represent volatile matter forced out from the interior of the shrinking globe, the Dexter nitrogen supply is simple and natural. It is one of many indications that the interior supply of gases is not exhausted and that the atmosphere is still growing. H. L. FAIRCHILD.

THE TEACHING OF AGRICULTURE IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

CLEMSON AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE of South Carolina has recently completed a commodious building for the purpose of teaching the sciences related to agriculture. This building was dedicated to its use on August 9, by appropriate exercises. On that occasion Hon. J. E. Tindal, of South Carolina, delivered an address and dedicated the building to the prosecution of agricultural sciences. There was present a large audience of farmers and prominent men from different portions of South Carolina and neighboring states. following is a synopsis of Mr. Tindal's speech: The dedication of the building, he said, marks the seeming completion of the college. This building was put up last because the work of agriculture could be carried on better than could the work of other departments

The

without separate buildings. The money was not available to erect all buildings at once. Those in greatest demand were built first. The college is now complete with six departments. These six departments represent the great industrial forces of our great state. We are making a new era, but that era did not begin with reconstruction. South Carolina

University was abolished and the South had nothing to do with that monstrosity. It began with 1876. The old South Carolina College was established. The negroes were given a college at Orangeburg, and the citadel was given to the whites at Charleston. But the old classical education, while good and while still good, did not go far enough.

The wonderful advance along industrial lines has wrought a revolution in all departments of life. These new forces of nature have been applied to all professions and trades. No education can be adequate that does not take these forces into consideration. Clemson College was founded to meet the very necessities of the times in which we live.

No individual can master the whole of the knowledge of this generation. But a man may master the world's thought in his own particular vocation. If a state has men who do this, then that state stands at the very forefront of progress. For a long time agriculture was neglected. But the learned men of Europe soon saw that the business of the world would collapse unless attention was given to agriculture. So experiment stations have been established where learned men pry into the secrets of nature as they affect human life. If any new discovery is made in any department of science, your professor of that particular line gets it and gives the benefit to our state.

Knowledge has so multiplied that men must specialize. The man who does so gains distinction and wealth and is a benefactor of the race. A man who masters the forces of nature and applies them to his vocation deserves respect. He deserves it when he is a farmer just as much as when he follows any other calling. When farmers begin to specialize then we shall have diversified farming.

You claim that we spend too much money.

Why, we don't spend an infinitesimal part of what we ought to spend to bring our state abreast the times. Japan, though not much larger than South Carolina, has 175 experiment stations.

Clemson has awakened thought in our state. The farmers are beginning to realize that there is something to learn besides what they already know. It has got them out of ruts.

The success of this college depends on you. If you have a bright boy and want him to become a doctor, you send him to college; so if you want him to become a lawyer. But if he is to farm you turn him loose in ignorance. Why not educate him too?

South Carolina depends on you. This land is your inheritance. It should be the inheritance of your children. If it is to be, you must get the best knowledge obtainable.

Here Captain Tindal addressed himself to the faculty of the college, impressing upon them the responsibilities that rested upon them, and complimenting them upon what they had done. He spoke of the contribution the other departments of the college had made to the nation, but the state must look largely to the agricultural department.

Captain Tindal's speech was scholarly and forceful and was listened to with interest.

The agricultural hall contains thirty laboratories and lecture rooms. The sciences have been well provided for general agriculture, geology and mineralogy, veterinary science, botany and bacteriology, horticulture, entomology and zoology, animal husbandry and dairying. The state experiment station is also located in this building. The board of trustees have endeavored to furnish these laboratories and lecture rooms with the best apparatus and appliances so that the teaching and experiments may be conducted in accordance with modern requirements There is also a large room in this building set aside for a museum, where the different divisions and departments will display for the use of the students scientific specimens which will also be of value to the casual observer, and to the man who is investigating some special topic in his line. The structure consists of three floors, and is built of the best

material available, finished in pressed brick and stone trimmings.

The work of Clemson Agricultural College in the line of agriculture has been greatly advanced within the last several years because of the active demand on the part of the farmers for information concerning their profession. They assemble here each year in large numbers during the middle of the summer, and spend a week with the professors of the institution and distinguished experimenters from other sections of the country, in the study of sciences relating to agriculture. The erection of this building, therefore, has been in accordance with this demand. The board of trustees are endeavoring to meet the requirements of the situation, and there is great desire on their part to give all the facilities, so far as the income of the college will allow, not only for the purpose of teaching agriculture, but at the same time for encouraging original research on the part of the gentlemen who have charge of the various divisions in the department. There seems to be a considerable awakening on the part of the people all over the state for knowledge in scientific agriculture, and in other lines of industry, and the erection of this building with its modern facilities will go far towards encouraging this awakening on the part of the industrial classes of the state.

The college was established in 1889 by an act of the state legislature, and opened for the admission of students in 1893. The first class graduated in 1896, and the college has sent out a total number of 295 graduates. The total number of students enrolled for session 1904-5 is 641, and the total number of the faculty is 44.

The college is engaged in work in the following lines of scientific and industrial activity-agriculture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, textile engineering, chemical science and the subjects of general literature necessary for an educational foundation.

The college is located on the estate of John C. Calhoun, his mansion being situated in the center of the campus. Mr. Thos. G. Clemson, son-in-law of John C. Calhoun, donated the property to the state for the purpose of a col

lege of this character, giving 800 acres of land and $58,539 in securities. The state has added to the land so that it now amounts to 1,136 acres. The board have spent in the fifteen years since the college was founded $656,721 in the preparation of the grounds, the installation of electric lights, water works, sewerage system and the erection of nine large buildings, 36 smaller structures for college purposes and 57 residences for the faculty. The departments are well equipped with appliances and apparatus for the prosecution of work along the lines required in modern colleges.

The income of the college is from several sources and amounts to $150,287. Besides the educational work, the college is required by law to carry on experiments in agriculture for the benefit of the farmers of the state and is in charge of the inspection of fertilizers, plants and animals, and is conducting elaborate courses of farmers' institute work. It will thus be seen that Clemson College is endeavoring to do for the industrial classes of South Carolina advanced and valuable work.

The limit of age for admission to the col

lege is sixteen years. Every year the author

ities are compelled to turn off a large number of applicants for the lack of the facilities to take care of the students who are striving for the scientific education given by colleges of this character. P. H. MELL.

CLEMSON COLLEGE, S. C.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS.

THE city of Berlin has arranged a competition for plans for a monument to Rudolf Virchow. It is to be placed at the intersection of Karl and Luisen Streets, a square which will henceforth be known as Virchow Platz.

PROFESSOR LEWIS Boss, astronomer of the Dudley Observatory of Albany, N. Y., has been awarded the medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

THE Botanical Society of America elected the following officers at the recent Philadelphia meeting: President, Professor R. A. Harper; Vice-President, E. A. Burt; Secretary, Dr. D. T. MacDougal; Treasurer, Dr.

Arthur Hollick; Councilors, Professors L. M. Underwood and William Trelease.

THE famous singing master, Manuel Garcia, of London, who invented the laryngoscope fifty years ago, will be 100 years old March 17, 1905. The London Laryngological Society is collecting subscriptions for a present to be given to him on that occasion.

DR. L. P. KINNICUTT, the head of the chemical department of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, has been appointed by President Roosevelt one of the commissioners to examine and test the fineness and weight of the coins reserved by the several mints of the United States during the calendar year 1905.

PROFESSOR H. MARSHALL WARD has been elected president of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

MR. R. V. ANDERSON, a student in the department of geology of Stanford University, has sailed from San Francisco for Japan, where he will make a special study of geological conditions.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR LEONARD E. DICKSON, of the department of mathematics of the University of Chicago, has completed his investigations as research assistant to the Carnegie Institution of Washington for 1904.

CAPTAIN JOHN DONNELL SMITH, of Baltimore, has given to the Smithsonian Institution his private herbarium consisting of more than 100,000 mounted sheets and his botanical library of nearly 1,600 bound volumes. Captain Smith's collection is probably the largest private herbarium in America, being very rich in tropical plants. As is well known Captain Smith has long been a student of the flora of the Central American countries, having published many systematic papers on the flora of Costa Rica and Guatemala. He proposes to continue these studies, and for this reason will retain for the present the custody of the greater part of his herbarium. This gift is the most important of the kind ever received by the Smithsonian Institution.

THE Research Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received from the William E. Hale Research Fund a second grant of $1,000, which

is being applied to an investigation upon the conductivity of fused salts carried out by Mr. R. D. Mailey under the direction of Professor H. M. Goodwin. The Carnegie Institution has also renewed the grant of $2,000 to Professor A. A. Noyes for the purpose of promoting the researches in progress in the laboratory upon the conductivity of salts in aqueous solutions at high temperatures, which are being executed by Professor W. D. Coolidge, Mr. A. C. Melcher and Y. Kato. Additional investigations are being carried on by four other research associates or research assistants as follows: upon the rate of decomposition of minerals by water by Dr. W. Böttger; upon the migration and coagulation of colloids by Dr. J. C. Blake; upon the physico-chemical properties of the solutions of metals in liquid ammonia by Mr. C. A. Kraus; and upon the dissociation relations of phosphoric acid by Mr. G. A. Abbott. Other researches-upon the dissociation-relations of sulphuric acid, upon the solubility of salts in water above 100°, upon the heat of solution of substances in relation to their dissociation, and upon the qualitative detection of certain rare metalsare being pursued by candidates for the Ph.D. degree.

RESEARCH Work in chemistry at the University of Michigan is represented among University organizations by the Chemical Colloquium, which meets twice a month through the year. Reviews are presented of recently published important researches, and. reports are made upon investigations carried on in the university laboratory. All instructors of the department are members of the colloquium, and graduate students and those advanced in chemistry are also eligible to membership. The following topics have been discussed at the meetings this year: October 24, 1904-Professor Edward D. Campbell,' A Review of Clifford Richards' Work on the Constitution of Portland Cement.' November 7-Dr. William J. Hale, 'Condensations with Nitromalonic Aldehyde.' November 21 -Professor S. Lawrence Bigelow, 'A Review of Some Recent Articles on Colloidal Solutions.' December 5-Assistant Professor Alfred H. White, The Decomposition of Am

fessor Moses Gomberg, 'A Review of the Literature in Tetravalent Oxygen.'

WE learn from The Botanical Gazette that the Botanical Society of America, the Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology and the American Mycological Society, through committees of conference, have agreed upon certain general principles, upon the basis of which they will fuse into one national society under the name of The Botanical Society of America. For some years the names of all the societies will appear upon official publications until the union is thoroughly known. There are to be two classes of membership, members and associates, the distinction being placed upon published work. The fees are to be $5 a year. Grants for research are to be made from the income. Meetings are to be annual with no permanently organized sections, but free opportunity for local meetings or temporary sections in charge of committees. A joint committee has been formed to prepare a constitution for the united societies, which shall embody the principles agreed to, and complete the reorganization.

A CABLEGRAM to the New York Herald says that Professor Curie has sent through the Austrian ambassador, a tube of radium to the Vienna Hospital for use in the cure of lupus. The gift is a recognition of the act of the Austrian government ́in furnishing Professor Curie with pitchblende for his original researches.

THE government of the northwest territories of Canada is establishing a new bacteriologic and pathologic laboratory and has appointed Dr. George Charlton, formerly of the McGill University pathologic department, chief of the laboratory.

THE department of geology of the American Museum of Natural History has recently received a series of fossils from the beds of Hudson River age near Cincinnati, Ohio. All the specimens are in beautiful condition and many

rare forms, especially of Echinoderms, are represented by several specimens.

THE king of Italy has given $20,000 towards the expenses of the exhibition to be held in Milan in 1906 in celebration of the opening of the Simplon tunnel.

AMONG the recent contributions received by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund are the following: the Duke of Bedford, £1,000 (third instalment of £3,000); Mr. J. A. Mullens, £100; the Clothworkers' Company, £50 and Mr. Archibald Walker, £50.

DR. W. BELL DAWSON, the engineer in charge of the Tidal and Current Survey of Canada, has been awarded the Gay prize of 1,500 francs, by the Academy of Sciences of Paris. This prize was offered for the best determinations of mean sea level on the coasts of the North Atlantic Ocean. Such determinations serve either to detect any gradual change of the land elevation relatively to the ocean, or to establish a plane of reference for general levels throughout the country. Although this is additional to the direct work of the Tidal and Current Survey as a marine undertaking, Dr. Dawson has evidently given special attention to this matter. As there are yet no general geodetic levels throughout Canada, he has established independent bench-marks at all the more important harbors and other localities where tidal observations have been obtained. These are at widely separated points, from Labrador to Nova Scotia, and from the St. Lawrence to Newfoundland. The resulting tide levels are described in his recent paper in the Transactions of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, entitled 'Tide Levels and Datum Planes in Eastern Canada.' It is the work there detailed, and explained in his other reports and papers on tidal subjects, that formed the basis of the award of the prize referred to.

MR. S. HARBERT HAMILTON announces that he has sold to the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pa., the famous W. W. Jefferis collection of minerals, with the understanding that it is to be known in perpetuity as the 'W. W. Jefferis Mineral Collection of the Carnegie Museum.'