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POPULAR MISCELLANY.
School of Applied Ethics.—An institution with the above name is to hold its inaugural summer session, at some point on the sea-shore near Boston, during six weeks beginning early in July. The department of economics will be in charge of Prof. H. C. Adams, of the University of Michigan. He will treat of the history of industrial society in England and America; President Andrews, of Brown University, will discourse on the evils of our industrial system, and discuss proposed remedies. Prof. Taussig, of Harvard, will lecture on co-operation; Hon. Carroll D. Wright, on factory legislation; Prof. J. B. Clark, of Smith College, on agrarian questions; Albert Shaw will describe the housing of the poor in London and Paris, and examine General Booth's "Way out." Labor and industrial legislation in Europe will be treated by Prof. E. J. James, of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, is expected to present two chapters in the industrial history of the United States. Prof. C. II. Toy, of Harvard, will have charge of the department of religious history, for which he has enlisted a corps of eminent scientific lecturers. Prof. Felix Adler, of New York, who is the originator of the school, will preside over the department of ethics. His lectures will treat of personal and social ethics; the ethics of the family, the professions, politics, friendship, and religious association. Criminal and temperance legislation, and questions of like importance, are to be presented by other lecturers. The terms for the whole course are but ten dollars. Detailed information may be had from the dean, Prof. H. C. Adams, 1602 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
The Floods of the Amazons.—All the mighty tributaries of the Amazons west of the Madeira and the Rio Negro, according to Dr. P. Ehrenreich, present the same characteristics—viz., a course twisted into innumerable curvings, an uninterrupted navigability over many hundreds of miles, and low banks inundated during a great part of the year by high waters. The forest vegetation is remarkably luxuriant, and the India-rubber plant grows in the utmost profusion. Another characteristic feature of these rivers is the continual change in their course. The high water of the rainy season, exceeding by from fifty to sixty-five feet the low level of the dry season, under-washes the banks; the masses of soil thus detached are again deposited at the next bends of the river, and contribute in diverting the stream from its bed. In this way a labyrinthine system of canals arises, which accompanies the river along its whole course—the so-called igarapés. The old bends of the river, half or wholly shut off, form lagoons, which serve as mighty reservoirs and draw off immense quantities of water, so that the régime of high waters commences in the lower basin much later than in the upper part of the river. At the head-waters of the river the water-level is wholly dependent upon the rainfall in the Cordilleras; it rises and falls very suddenly, so that it not unfrequently happens that the steamer is obliged to be set right about quickly on account of the falling waters, if indeed it does not become stranded for a long time.
Hypnotism as a Therapeutic Agent.—A discussion of hypnotism as a therapeutic agent was held at a recent meeting of the Islington Medical Society, London, when Mr. Pridgin Teale and other speakers described some phenomena which they had witnessed. They were followed by Sir Andrew Clark, who characterized hypnotism as a "distortion of the partial sight of truth," and predicted that, like mesmerism years ago, it would have its day and follow into desuetude. Seeking for the physiological truth contained in the subject, he looked for the groundwork of many of the phenomena in the relation of will to the body. The communication of the will with the body, he said, brings about wonderful changes in it; and, independently of will, there is the exercise of attention, of expectation, and of concentration; and we know that without the introduction of any foreign agency—that is to say, the agency of any other person—attention, expectation, and concentration of will operating together bring about most remark-
