Arts department and also in that of Mines and Mining, and have been heartily commended by many prominent geologists and educators, including the late Profs. James D. Dana, Alexander Winchell, and John S. Newberry, Profs. James Hall, E. D. Cope, and N. S. Shaler, and President D. C. Gilman.
The Davenport Academy of Sciences.—The Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences has Just received a legacy of ten thousand dollars from Mrs. Mary Putnam Bull, of Tarrytown. N. Y. It is given as a memorial to her brother, Charles E. Putnam, and his son, J. D. Putnam, who were, during their lifetime, among the chief promoters of the academy. Wisely the gift is made a Permanent Publication Fund. The academy has already published five volumes of Proceedings, and a sixth volume is in progress. Among many valuable papers in these volumes the entomological studies of Mr. J. D. Putnam and the archæological discussions of Dr. Farquharson are notable. Through exchange of its Proceedings the academy has acquired a valuable library comprising some forty thousand books and pamphlets. The last paper published by the academy was a seventy-two-page Summary of the Archaeology of Iowa, by Prof. Frederick Starr. The academy is now organizing a comprehensive archæological survey of that State, which if fully carried out will be one of the most important archaeological enterprises ever undertaken in this country. The academy is now working for a permanent fund of fifty thousand dollars, for the better equipment of its work. With its creditable past and its worthy present it may well hope for success in securing the funds necessary to insure a brilliant future.
The Growth of Preventive Medicine.—There came a time in the medical ranks, fifty odd years or so ago, says Dr. Cameron in a recent article in the Lancet, when the classification of disease threatened to become a mere cataloguing of the phenomena immediately preceding death. Indeed, a certain hopelessness, begotten of this mistake, threatened to sap the energies of the physicians. When Sydenham had, two centuries ago, introduced a rational and hygienic element into treatment, he had also, as it were, pointed in the direction to which, when the hopelessness referred to came upon us, we might look for the prevention of disease itself. A belief, therefore, in the value of cleanliness, fresh air, and reasonable diet, along with a certain not altogether unhealthy skepticism as to the need in every case of drugs, was not the least important weapon in the armament of the young physician of thirty years ago. And although new drugs always find new votaries, and many of them have great value, the absolute usefulness of all mere remedial measures is at the present time looked upon as very slight compared with the shielding influence which the physician exercises in placing his patient under the most favorable circumstances for Nature to effect her cure. And it is largely this belief in conquering Nature by obeying her, lighted up by a certain afterglow of the hopelessness already spoken of, which has caused so much of the energy of the medical profession and the sanitary authorities to be thrown into the preventive service. While, therefore, the ancient physician was strong chiefly in his acquaintance with and prophecy as to the probable results of the diseases which he was called upon to treat, the modern hygeist attempts to grapple with the remoter causes of those processes themselves, not in the individual alone, but also in the community.
Color Nomenclature.—In music and form we have specific and generally accepted terms for describing definite sense perceptions, but in the case of color nothing that can be called even a system exists. The terms vermilion and ultramarine, which have been used by many of our best authorities, for want of anything better, are nevertheless used for very variable concepts. The difference between a Chinese and a German vermilion in pigments is very noticeable. A Winsor & Newton chrome yellow and a German chrome yellow differ by more than twenty -five per cent of yellow. Among several samples of blue pigments a still greater variation is generally found; while such terms as olive, citrine, russet, crushed strawberry, baby blue, ashes of roses, peacock blue, and a host of others, have practically no exact significance whatever. This uncertainty and lack of a standard have caused naturalists much inconvenience in botanical, entomo-
