dictata of consciousness to be the whole sphere of psychology, started with these and reasoned out a complete so-called science, the new psychology modestly starts with physiological experiments, and records the psychological results. It works from without inward. It begins with external conditions which it can control, and, by subjecting these to as exact and accurate measurements as are known in modern science, it observes the corresponding mental phenomena. We can conceive of almost any other criticism being brought against psychophysics than that it is unscientific or inaccurate. Whether it is a fruitful study, or has thus far repaid the immense labor expended upon it, may be questioned; but that it is characterized by the most patient research, the most precise measurements, the most cautious conclusions, and a scientific spirit that the old psychology never approached, cannot be reasonably denied.

As regards the psychophysic law of Weber, under the following statement it has been generally accepted, and found useful and suggestive: "The difference between two excitations, must, in order that the differences in sensation be equally appreciable, grow proportionally to the magnitude of the excitations." The mathematical statement of the same by Fechner" The sensation grows as the logarithm of the excitation" has given rise to the question whether differences in sensations can be expressed in terms of quantitative measurements. This objection is urged by Zeller, and rejected by Wundt. It implies the old error of a physical world without, and a spiritual world within, which have nothing in common. While Wundt's position here is theoretically correct, the question may nevertheless be raised, whether, ultimately, differences in sensations are not qualitative rather than quantitative differences. GEO. T. WHITE.

Science for a livelihood.

I have just read the communications of C. B. of New York and W. F. Flint of New Hampshire in Nos. 188 and 189 of Science, under the above heading, in which there is a strain of lament over the frugal table which the field of science has spread for ambitious young men who desire to live, or at least exist, on a purely scientific diet. As I deem the subject of vital interest to nearly every young man with scientific tendencies about to choose a profession, I desire to add a few words.

I graduated in the spring of 1884 from a scientific department of the Kansas state university. After taking a pretty thorough general course of study as an undergraduate, I finished my work by spending two years in the Natural history laboratory, under the direction of Prof. F. H. Snow. If I did not receive a 'good' or 'first-rate scientific education,' I did, at least, master a few principles, and laid a foundation for future work and study. During my last year in the laboratory, I had the refusal of two positions as teacher of natural history, both of which paid good living salaries. Within a year's time after graduation, I was offered three positions, with no salary less than twelve hundred dollars. Meanwhile I had not made a single application for a position.

George F. Gaumer, Annie E. Mozley, and Richard Foster graduated from the same department while I was in the lower classes, and all three have held good positions. Gaumer went to Cuba, then to Yucatan, and afterwards to various parts of Central

America. On his return, after an absence of three years, he reported fine success, particularly in a financial way. He cleared twenty-five hundred dollars by selling specimens of the golden turkey, and increased his finances in various ways as a collecting naturalist. But this was only a small part of his success. He collected many rare birds and insects, some of which were new to science, and returned with a reputation as a rising young naturalist, to receive an appointment as professor of natural history in the University of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Richard Foster speaks for himself as professor of natural history in Howard university, Washington, D.C.

W. C. Stevens graduated from the natural history department in 1885, and immediately received a good position as a teacher of natural history. J. D. McLaren graduated from the same department with the class of '86, and in less than a month's time his scientific training secured him a position as teacher at a hundred and fifteen dollars per month. W. H. Brown, member of the senior class, who has spent but a single year in the department, went to the Smithsonian institute to spend a month of his summer vacation, and learn what he could by observation, expecting to return, however, and resume his work in the laboratory. But, alas! news soon came that his enthusiasm and skill had secured him a good place with increasing wages.

As much, if not more, might be said of the students of the other scientific departments of the university. All the graduates from the course in chemistry and physics' are professors enjoying enviable positions as well as good salaries. Many of the advanced undergraduate students from this course hold respectable positions, and receive good wages.

I must be brief as possible, but not so brief as to omit the civil engineering department, the graduates of which receive larger salaries, perhaps, than those laboring in other scientific fields. The most surprising thing about this department is, that there is such

present demand for the young men, that nearly all of them are called into the field to hold responsible positions, and receive remunerative wages before they have finished their work in the department.

As regards the wealth' and 'friends' of the young men of whom I have spoken, allow me to say that all of the graduates, with a possible single exception, were farmer boys who earned with their own hands most if not all the money which kept them at the university. And the only friends' they had to forward them in their chosen fields' were those which industry and good progress won for them in those fields.

I think the facts will bear me out in saying that no class of Kansas young men are doing better, or have more brilliant prospects, than those which have done good work in the scientific departments of the university. L. L. DYCHE.

Lawrence, Kan., Sept. 20.

Photography of the solar corona. Accounts have appeared in your journal, of my attempts to photograph the corona of the sun without an eclipse. Many of the plates obtained presented appearances which, not to myself only, but to several scientific men who must certainly be considered to be among those who are exceptionally competent to give an opinion on this point, seemed to be most probably due to the corona. Plates taken in England about

the time of the eclipse of May 6, 1883, and drawn by Mr. Wesley before any information reached this country of the observations of the eclipse, presented not only a general resemblance to those taken during the eclipse, but showed the remarkably formed rift on the east of the sun's north pole, which is the main feature of the corona as photographed at Caroline Island. It is true that since the summer of 1883 I have not been able to obtain in England photographs which show satisfactory indications of the corona; but the abnormally large amount of air-glare from finely divided matter of some sort, which has been present in the higher regions of the air since the

regret greatly that a method which seemed to promise so much new knowledge of the corona, which, under ordinary circumstances of observation, shows itself only during total eclipses, would seem to have failed. At the same time I am not able to offer any sufficient explanation of the early favorable results to which I have referred briefly in the opening sentences of this letter.

Of course, the above statements leave untouched the criticisms I felt called upon to make on the imperfect methods employed by Professor Pickering. WILLIAM HUGGINS.

Upper Tulse Hill, London S. W., Sept. 11.

autumn of 1883, might well be considered a sufficient cause of the want of success. This well-known state of the sky rendered the plates taken by Mr. Ray Woods in Switzerland in the summer of 1884 inconclusive as to the success of the method. During the past year, photographs of the sun have been taken at the Cape of Good Hope, and are under discussion by Dr. Gill.

Such was the state of things before the eclipse of Aug. 29. The partial phases of this eclipse furnished conditions which would put the success of the method beyond doubt if the plates showed the corona cut off partially by the moon during its approach to and passage over the sun. As the telegrams received from Grenada, and a telegram I have received this day from Dr. Gill at the Cape of Good Hope, state that this partial cutting-off of the corona by the moon is not shown upon the plates, I wish to be the first to make known this untoward result. I

An ass with abnormally developed hoofs. A pair of very abnormal hoofs has been recently received by the Smithsonian institution from J. C. Baldwin, Esq, of Houston, Tex. They are the hind hoofs of an ass reported to have been bred at SanAntonio, Tex., and which was exhibited in Chicago and other cities of the union.

The right hoof is twenty-six inches in length, and is spirally twisted, like the horn of an Indian goat. The left hoof is in the form of a helix.

The front hoofs were not received, but, from the photograph which accompanied the hind pair, it appears that they were also abnormal.

The animal, as it appears in the photograph, is greatly emaciated. The neck and shoulders are clad with rather long, curled hair, while on the posterior half of the body the hair is short and smooth.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1886.

KHAM-I – AB.

THE accompanying map from the London Times of Sept. 3 gives with the greatest attainable accuracy, as it contains the most recent surveys of the engineers attached to the English commission, the relative positions of all the places of importance in the last part of the Afghan frontier. The frontier has been absolutely laid down and marked with pillars as far as Dukchi, which is forty miles from the Oxus; and, as a general statement, the reader may accept the fact that Afghanistan retains pasturages of from fifteen to twenty miles north of the road from Meruchak to this place. Andkoi and Kerki on the west, Mazar-i-Sherif, and Chushka Guzar ferry on the east, form the four limiting points of the tract of Afghan territory which is of importance in connection with the final stage of the Afghan frontier question. The district of still more immediate importance is the forty miles separating Dukchi from the Oxus. It is here that the commissioners have been unable to come to an agreement on the spot, and that the governments of England and Russia must devise some means of reconciling conflicting views so that the frontier delimitations may be brought to a clear end. The government of Russia has employed, during the recent exchanges of opinion, the most conciliatory language, and there does not seem at present any reason why the negotiation should not, after all, terminate in an amicable manner. At all events, it is a question calling, in the interests of both countries, for calm consideration and delicate handling.

Since the British commission has been on the Afghan frontier, and this, we may remind our readers, has been since November, 1884, it has been found that the existing frontier of Afghanistan and Bokhara on the Oxus, and the one recognized by the tribes and chiefs on the spot, lies between the border districts of Kham-i-Ab and Bosaga respectively. English officers discovered that in 1873 or thereabouts the local officials of Afghanistan and Bokhara actually marked out this boundary. No place of the name of Khoja Saleh was found to exist; but the tract of country from the shrine of the Saint, called Ziarat-i-Kwaja Salor, down the river to Kham-i-Ab, or for a distance of twenty-five miles in all, was known to the Afghans as Khwaja Salor, or Khoja Saleh. It

is thus marked on the map. The district is of some fertility, and forms a subdivision of the Akcha governorship, to which it has belonged for nearly a century. It is appropriate to observe that by the 1873 agreement, which has been so much referred to as the basis of the present negotiations, Akcha was declared part and parcel of the dominions of Afghanistan. The district of Khoja Saleh is inhabited by Karkins as well as Ersaris. The former are not Turcomans; and the latter, who reside in Akcha and other Afghan towns, as well as along the Oxus, are not nomads, although Turcomans. They have been cultivators of the soil for a very long time past, and have paid their taxes regularly, and given no trouble to the Afghans.

The confusion which has arisen with regard to Khoja Saleh must, no doubt, be attributed to the account given by Sir Alexander Burnes of his passage of the Oxus at this place. No subsequent traveller has visited this particular point on the Oxus (Vambéry crossed at Kerki; and the Russian envoys to Afghanistan, at either Kilif or Chushka), and the hasty impressions of the English traveller have guided geographers ever since. We have no knowledge of what reports the captains of the Russian vessels, which began to ascend the river as high as Kilif in 1879, may have sent in as to where they first came into touch with Afghan authority, and this would be a point about which the English government might usefully institute some inquiries; but it is encouraging to know that that government has something to say in reply to the demand that the frontier should be laid down in rigid accordance with the terms of the protocol which repeated the phrase of Khoja Saleh employed in 1884 at the time of the formation of the commission, as well as during the negotiations of 1872-73. Accompanying the protocol a Blue-book (Central Asia, No. 3, 1885), containing certain maps, was published, and among these was an extract from the Russian staff map of Afghanistan. This map was intended for the guidance of the commissioners; and a zone of investigation, as well as a line of a proposed frontier, was marked on it. Kham-i-Ab is not mentioned on this map, but the point marked 'Khodsha-Salor' on it corresponds as nearly as possible in latitude and longitude with the Khami-Ab of the Afghans. Thus it is a fair contention that the Khoja Saleh of the protocol and agreement of 1873 should be taken as indicating

a point on the Oxus corresponding to the western limit of the district called Khoja Saleh, and that, as the Afghans possessed this tract at the time of the earlier agreement, they should be allowed to retain it. This would, moreover, be in strict accordance with the principle laid down on that occasion; viz., that Afghanistan should be considered identical with the actual possessions of the Ameer Shere Ali.

To sum up the points presented by the Kham-iAb question, Russia has in her favor the specific mention of the name Khoja Saleh in the diplomatic documents. Beyond this fact, strong as it undoubtedly is, Russia does not seem to possess a weighty argument. On the other hand, there is the Afghan right of possession, unquestioned by anybody, going back for a long period, and confirmed in 1873. There is the recognition in 1873 of the Khanate of Akcha forming part of the dominions of Shere Ali, and consequently of Afghanistan. Finally, there is the practical fact that the Kham-i-Ab of the Afghans occupies almost the identical geographical site of the Khodsha Salor' of the Russians. Extraneous arguments may be easily introduced into the case by irresponsible writers; but these are really all the considerations that need affect the judgment of the two governments.

PACIFIC COAST WEATHER.

LIEUT. W. A. GLASSFORD, in charge of the Pacific coast division of the signal service at San Francisco, has lately presented a paper to the California academy of sciences on Weather types on the Pacific coast.' These types differ from those of the eastern United States in their relative lack of progressive motion, and consequently in their duration and in the less variability of the weather. Distinct areas of low pressure are rare in southern California, but increase in frequency northward, until they are most numerous about Vancouver's Island. The types recognized for the rainy season (winter) are, 1°, North Pacific cyclonic; low pressure over Oregon and Washington, high pressure in the Great Basin, with southerly gales along the coast, and general rains, heaviest in the north; 2°, interior anticyclonic; like the preceding, but with less distinct cyclonic conditions; the temperature is high with south-easterly winds; the warm Santa Anna' winds of Los Angeles occur under this distribution of pressures; 3°, North Pacific anticyclonic; high pressure in the north, and low in the south, giving clear weather with light, variable winds in the north, but with high winds and southerly gales on the coast of California; warm days and cool nights, often frosty;

the dreaded dry north wind' of the Sacremento and San Joaquin valley prevails at this time; 4°, general cyclonic; a rare type, with very low pressure on the coast, giving severe storms of high southerly winds and heavy rain; 5°, South Pacific anticyclonic; moderately high pressure along the south-western coast of California, and no distinct centre of low pressure visible, but giving southerly rain-bearing winds; 6°, sub-normal type; irregular isobars and no decided gradients, with variable winds and weather. During the dry season (summer), the weather is very constant, with high pressure to the north-west over the cool ocean, and low pressure over the hot land to the southeast, northerly winds and no rain. The change from the wet season to the dry is indicated when the air temperature on the coast rises permanently over the ocean temperature. Lieutenant Glassford has also compiled an extended table of the rainfall on the Pacific coast from all sources, including some two hundred stations with records varying from one or two years up to thirty-seven (San Francisco and Sacramento). This was published in the San Francisco daily Commercial news for July 1, 1886. The maximum precipitation is given for Neah Bay, Washington Territory, where the annual average of nine years' record is 110.12 inches. Many other stations in the north exceed fifty and sixty inches a year. In the south, the minimum falls nearly to two inches, being 2.56 at Yuma, Arizona, from an eleven-year record. The lowest of all is a three-years' average for Bishop Creek, Cal., where the annual precipitation is only 1.31 inches. The table gives the months separately, as well as the yearly total, so that the seasonal variation is well brought out. In July and August only nine and ten stations respectively have over an inch of rain, and these are all in the north or in the interior; while no rain at all is given for eighty-two and ninety stations, and a number more have only a trace or one or two hundredths of an inch.

DR. ROMANES ON PHYSIOLOGICAL
SELECTION.

DR. GEORGE J. ROMANES, who, in more than a literal sense, may be said to be the legatee of Darwin, publishes in Nature (Aug. 5, 12, 19) an abstract of a paper read before the Linnean society, entitled "Physiological selection: an additional suggestion on the origin of species."

The necessity of such an additional principle is made evident by considering three objections to natural selection as a theory of the origin of species. 1°. The difference between species and varieties in respect of mutual fertility. It is a fact