Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/535

Rh themselves, when they sit in church, by the dulness or length of the sermon, or other circumstances that offend against Nature, and which they sometimes soothe with fennel or hartshorn, or by changing of position, and not seldom with sleep. When children know they are not really deserving of punishment, the effect of whipping is to deaden the moral sensibilities, diminish self-respect, and render young natures rude, reckless, and desperate."

The report proper closes with a summarized statement of the more important features of the St. Louis school system, which, both for the intelligent care with which it is directed, and the excellent results attained, is worthy of the consideration of educators generally.

is an important contribution to the geography of the State of New York. All the maps of the Adirondack region hitherto published abound in inaccuracies, which are here, for the first time, authoritatively corrected. Even so prominent a landmark as Mount Marcy, the highest mountain of the State, is, in the usual maps, located miles distant from its true place. When a map of the Wilderness is constructed on the data of Mr. Colvin's survey, it will indicate a multitude of great streams, lakes, and mountain elevations, quite ignored by the map-makers. With regard to the future of the Wilderness, Mr. Colvin thinks that the whole water-shed of the Hudson, within the limits of the Adirondack region, should be preserved in its present condition, as a forest farm, and as a source of water-supply for the cities and great towns on the Hudson, from Troy to New York and Brooklyn.



Fossil Monkeys.—With the title "On the Primitive Types of the Orders of Mammalia Educabilia," Prof. E. D. Cope recently read a very remarkable paper before the American Philosophical Society. The professor referred to a previous description, by himself, of certain fossil remains under the name Anaptomorphus æmulus, in which he pointed out similarities of the teeth and other parts to like parts in monkeys and man. He also quoted Prof. 0. C. Marsh as saying that three fossil genera, previously described by himself, were all referable to the Quadrumana, or monkeys, saying that "they have the principal parts of the skeleton much as in some of the lemurs," the lowest of the monkey race. Some fossil remains, previously described by Prof. Cope, were referred to a genus Tomitherium, but with no suggestion as to the order to which they might belong. A reëxamination of this genus has caused it to be referred to the Quadrumana. A remarkable feature in the osteology of this genus is, the relationship shown also to the Coati (Nasua). "The first impression derived from the appearance of the lower jaw and dentition, and from the humerus, is that of an ally of the Coati (Nasua). The humerus, indeed, is almost a facsimile of that of Nasua. . . A comparison with Nasua reveals no distant affinity." The fossil remains of these ancient monkeys were obtained in Eocene strata in the Bridger beds on Black's Fork, Wyoming, and already some seven species are described.

As an example of remarkable scientific prescience, as regards this monkey-cousinship of the Nasua, or Coati-Mondi, we give the following foot-note on page six of this interesting paper: "Dr. Lockwood, of Rutgers College, in a recent number of expressed serious suspicions of the quadrumanous relationships of the Coati, little thinking at the time that the specimens to confirm his view were, at that moment, in the hands of palæontologists." It is also worthy of mention that Prof. Lockwood's singular induction was worked out of psychological considerations, he stating that the material basis was not at hand, although he insisted that such must exist. Results like the above cannot but give confidence in the processes of the science of comparative anatomy.

Light-Waves and Sound-Waves.—A curious instance of the analogies of light and sound is given in the Medical Times, from a German medical journal. Two brothers, named Nussbaumer, are said to receive 