tion of Edmands' Topographical Camera, an instrument by means of which mountain profiles may be drawn with great accuracy. The work done by the president himself includes between 6,000 and 7,000 measurements of the horizontal and vertical positions of the mountains. The "Department of Improvements" has constructed a substantial path which makes the peak of Mount Adams easily accessible to any good pedestrian. An excellent camp has been established on Mount Adams, which will doubtless soon be followed by others. The club at present has its headquarters in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but this arrangement is only temporary, and it is the intention of the Council, as soon as possible, to hire a room in which to collect a library of books, maps, photographs, and paintings of the mountains. A summer school of topography, under the auspices of the club, and with special reference to State surveys, is in contemplation.
Economy in Stock-Feeding.—We commend to the attention of such of our readers as are farmers a paper by Prof. Samuel W. Johnson, in the American Journal of Science and Arts for March, on "The Composition of Maize-Fodder." The paper is extremely valuable, and abounds in practical observations, for two or three of which we make room here. Regarding the influence of age upon the content of albuminoids in forage plants, the author states that quite young meadow-grass as it is found in pasturage contains in its dry matter twenty-four per cent, of albuminoids, cut just before bloom twelve per cent., and at the end of blossoming eight per cent. In case both of maize-fodder and meadow-grass the inferior quality of the older vegetation is compensated by the superior quantity. The author holds that in New England the farmers can raise or buy Indian corn, cotton-seed, meal, and other concentrated foods, and combine them with coarse fodder to make a cattle food equal or superior to the best of hay, at less cost than is involved in feeding the latter. But to throw cured maize-fodder out in the cattle yard, or to feed it in the stall as hay is fed, is highly wasteful. It cannot be fed alone or as an adjunct to hay: to use it profitably it must be finely cut and well mixed or alternated with maize or cotton-seed meal, bran, or some similar material. Maize meal and similar articles contain too much albuminoids, fat, and starch, for healthy and economical cattle food; maize-fodder contains too little of these and too much coarse fibre; the two should be mixed.
Where the Ancients got their Tin.—Shortly before his death, Karl Ernst von Baer contributed to the Archiv für Anthropologie a paper entitled "Whence came the Tin for Ancient Bronze?" The subject is one that has long engaged the attention of archæologists, but hitherto the only sources assigned for this tin have been Cornwall and the straits of Malacca. There has, however, been a vague notion that tin may also have been derived from Georgia, Armenia, or Persia. To decide this question, Von Baer addressed an inquiry to M. Semenow, Vice-President of the Russian Geographical Society, who obtained the desired information from a traveler named Ogorodinkow. According to his report, tin occurs and has been worked in two localities in Khorassan. It was the opinion of Von Baer that many of the bronzes of Assyria and Babylonia were made from tin obtained in this region.
The Christian Union has begun the publication of a series of articles, by distinguished writers, on "How to spend the Summer." Each writer will speak from personal experience, and, if the articles we have seen are a fair sample of those to come, everybody seeking health or pleasure, either at home or abroad, will be profited by reading them.
Admission to hospital for purposes of clinical instruction has at last been granted to female medical students in London. This removes the only remaining obstacle to a complete medical course for women in England; and the concession came just in time to prevent the break-up of their leading medical school.
During the coming summer a limited number of teachers of mathematics or astronomy will be permitted to spend a portion of their vacation at the Cincinnati Observatory, in the pursuit of studies connected with their special departments of instruction. Particular attention will be paid to the art of computing, in order to give an
