press, and of careful reading of the proofs of the large amount of the Survey's publications, has made necessary the development of an editorial system. During the year 1886-'87 there was published an aggregate of 4,253 pages of text, illustrated by 350 plates and 327 figures. These publications consist of four classes, viz., annual reports, monographs, bulletins, and statistical papers. At the date of this statement, five annual reports, eleven monographs, thirty-five bulletins, and two statistical papers had been issued. The monographs are in quarto form, the other books in octavo. The custody of the documents distributed through the Survey is vested in the librarian, and accounts are kept of the number of copies received from the public printer, and sold, exchanged, or given away. A printed letter of transmittal, with a blank receipt and an envelope for its return, is sent out with each copy. The Survey maintains a geologic library for use in the prosecution of its work. The library last year contained 19,501 volumes, 26,100 pamphlets, and 8,000 maps. The facilities afforded by this collection are being utilized in the preparation of two geologic bibliographies by the library staff. The librarian has eleven assistants. In the principal office of the Survey, at Washington, there are employed in the work of the Survey from 70 persons in summer to 225 persons in winter, in a building of 78 rooms, on five floors.
"Feeding for Fat and for Lean."—Dr. Manly Miles, criticising the reports under the above title of experiments in pig-feeding made at the Missouri Agricultural College, and the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station, fails to find any practical results in them which are both new and reliable. He quotes some of the results obtained in the extended feeding experiments conducted by Sir John Lawes and Dr. Gilbert at Rothamsted, and points out, among the indications which they give, that the nitrogenous substance of the animal's increase in weight bears no direct relation to the amount of nitrogenous substance of the food consumed. Also, in the words of the experimenters, "that, with an excessive proportion of nitrogenous substance in the food of the fattening pig, we have found there was more of a tendency to grow in frame or flesh, than in other cases; and again, that the larger the proportion of flesh in the increase, the less will be the proportion in it of real dry substance." Further, when fattening foods contain an ordinary amount of nitrogenous substance, "it is their available non-nitrogenous constituents which rule both the amount of the food consumed and the increase in live weight produced." The pigs fed on corn-meal exclusively at Rothamsted did not do well until a mixture of coal-ashes, salt, and superphosphate of lime was given them, but this gave the most satisfactory results both as to the health of the animals and their progress in feeding. In the Missouri and Wisconsin reports of experiments, little attention is given to the proportion of mineral constituents m the food, which Dr. Miles deems an important omission, especially in the case of growing animals, that should make some increase in bony tissue. lie regards corn-meal as undoubtedly deficient in ash constituents, and his own experience has been that, when feeding it alone, the most satisfactory development of muscle as well as bone has been obtained when the pigs had access to some bone-ash, leached wood-ashes, or other similar mineral matters. It is likewise a common practice among farmers of his acquaintance to provide some mineral "relishes" for their pigs when their food consists largely of corn.
Execution by Electricity.—The new law of the State of New York substituting execution by electricity for hanging was drawn in conformity with the report of a commission, consisting of Elbridge T. Gerry, Alfred P. Southwick, and Matthew Hale, which was appointed by the Legislature to investigate the most humane method of inflicting the death-penalty. The report contains, first, a brief history of capital punishment from the time of Moses to the present day; second, objections to the five modes of execution now employed by civilized governments, followed by a discussion of proposed substitutes, with a recommendation of electricity. From the opinions of experts and the results of experiments on dogs, the commission concluded that "death produced by a sufficiently powerful electric current is the most rapid and humane produced by any
