Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/593

Rh blue and others red, and twelve serpentheads, "exquisitely sculptured and painted in bright colors." The decorations on the outside of the building are chiefly representations of the face of the mastodon, and between the eyes of twelve of those faces is a human face surrounded by an aureole, or halo, of life-size. Dr. Le Plongeon claims to have discovered the key to the Maya hieroglyphics, and assumes to interpret all these figures, carvings, and inscriptions, to which he gives definite historical significance. We are not aware that the validity of his theory and interpretations has been critically passed upon.

A "Nearly Perfect" Civil-Servics System.—Mr. Gordon Gray has attempted, in the "Fortnightly Review," to estimate the value of the competitive examinations which prevail in the British official service, as it is shown by their workings. His general conclusion is that "we have no sufficient evidence as to the working of open competition in the Home Civil Service, but that in the Indian Civil Service and the army we have a balance of testimony, official and independent, to the effect that the officers selected under it have shown themselves not unworthy of their positions. But as much as this could surely be said for their predecessors. There is no evidence that the new men are superior to the old, no positive evidence even that they are altogether their equals, for their opportunities have been fewer; and it yet remains to be seen whether when the opportunities do come the men will rise to the occasion." Earl Salisbury said in 1874, writing to the Indian Government: "With respect to the principle of competition itself, the evidence you have collected sufficiently shows that it can not be disturbed without injury to the public service. The expressions of opinion which I have received from competent judges in England lead me to the same conclusion. Of its success as a mode of selecting persons fit to serve in the Indian Civil Service there seems to be no reasonable doubt. The ability which it collects is not the same in kind as that which distinguished the servants appointed under the previous system, and there may be truth in the allegation for which some of your officers contend, that under it instances of conspicuous ability are rare. ... On the other hand, it is generally admitted that if exceptional powers are rarer than in olden times, exceptions of an opposite kind have almost entirely disappeared." Since this was said, wholesome improvements have been introduced into the examinations. Mr. Gray sees defects in the British system, and objects to it that it does not profess to discover the best men "all round," but "only professes to discover those who can pass the best literary examination in a limited number of subjects. Whether these men are inferior or superior to their competitors, in physical and moral qualifications, it neither knows nor inquires. It indeed inquires rigorously into those qualifications to the extent of discovering absolute unfitness, and occasionally a successful competitor at the literary examination is rejected for unfitness under one of these heads, but the test is only one of minimum qualifications. The authorities have only a right of excluding a candidate who fails to satisfy them that he just reaches the minimum; they have no power to give preference to conspicuous merit over mediocrity." Mr. Gray adds that a system of selection which should bring all the three elements—the mental, the moral, and the physical—that compose the human individual into competition, "would indeed be perfect." The civil-service examinations conducted under our Civil-Service Commission are intended to satisfy this requisition. They are not literary, but comprehensive and practical; and they are varied for each position to which they are applied, for the purpose of bringing out the evidence of fitness in the peculiar qualities which it demands; they are, therefore, wisely directed to approach what the author characterizes as a "nearly perfect" system.

Increase of Temperature in Lake Superior Mines.—H. A. Wheeler has made observations of the differences of temperature in the copper-mines of Keweenaw Point, Lake Superior, which, being now among the deepest mines in the United States, present an excellent opportunity for obtaining data as to the rate of thermal increase with descent into the earth. While the usual thermic gradient is from fifty to fifty-five feet