has allowed to hold them, is entitled to deal with its own in whatever way seems best calculated to promote the public weal; that those communities which, though unprepared to veto the liquor traffic, desire to reduce the consumption of alcohol, should be granted the option of local management. The "company" feature of the Gothenburg system is sharply attacked by W. S. Caine, M. P., who, while admitting that there has been a sweeping reduction in the intemperance of Scandinavia, in consequence of the Swedish law of 1855, asserts that this is not in consequence but in spite of the company system, "the ingrafting of which upon the law of 1855 has been followed by an increase of drunkenness in every large city in which it has been adopted. Undoubtedly," Mr. Caine continues, "the drunkenness of Norway and Sweden is very greatly reduced from that prevailing thirty years ago; but it is due entirely to other causes than the company system, was realized before the company system came into operation at all, and has reverted to a steady increase since the company system prevailed." The most important evidence adduced in favor of this proposition is derived from the statistics of convictions for drunkenness, which appear to have increased since the company system went into operation. Mr. Bennett replies that the small increase remarked in the number of convictions indicates increased vigilance, activity, and efficiency in enforcing the law quite as much as increased violation of it, and he quotes strong counter-evidence against other allegations that drunkenness has increased.
Flowers and their Unwelcome Visitors.—Having, in a lecture on the pollenization of flowers, considered the means by which the plants secure the aid of insects in that work, Prof. L. H. Pammel mentions a few of the methods by which flowers are protected from the invasions of unwelcome insects. Aquatic plants are protected by their isolation in water. Land plants have occasionally secured the same advantages for themselves by certain leaves forming cups around the stem; some have a leaf-cup at each joint; in others there is a single basin formed of the rosette of leaves at the base, in which rain and dew collect, and are retained for a considerable time. Some plants have slippery leaves, with often a curved surface, over which it is impossible for ants to climb; others are covered with hairs and spines, especially in the parts near the corolla, which often point downward. Some plants are distinguished by viscid and gelatinous secretions. Kerner believes that the milky juices of such plants as lettuce, asclepias, euphorbia, apocynum, chelidonium, etc., serve to keep ants away. Relative to hybridization, Prof. Pammel finds that hybrids between widely separated species are usually tender, especially in their early life, so that it is hard to grow such seedlings. Hybrids of species of closer relationship on crosses of races are usually strong and productive. Such plants are characterized by their greater size, rapid growth, early maturation of the flowers, longer life, greater productiveness, and unusual size of the separate organs.
Abrasive Substances.—The growing importance of abrasives is such as to suggest inquiry concerning our future supply, and that is one of the topics considered by T. Dunkin-Paret in his paper on Emery and other Abrasives. At present we depend for the larger part on Turkey and Greece. Emery occurs also in Sweden, Spain, Saxony, and Greenland, but the lands named are apparently the only foreign countries that afford a commercial supply. Our supply of native emery has come thus far from New York and Massachusetts, while the corundum has come from Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. While small specimens of corundum, in the form of imperfect sapphires, have come from Montana, where the existence of this mineral has long been known, no other locality has yielded corundum except the belt which reaches from Massachusetts to Georgia, and seems to have its center in the corner where North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee come together. In this belt the localities where the mineral occurs are innumerable, but its prevalence is a poor indication of its quality. Corundum occurs in pockets, seams, sand veins, narrow streaks, and detached crystals, seldom in large mass. Chester County, Pennsylvania, is apparently the only locality where large, solid masses have been found. The largest annual prod-
