Earth's Rotational Deflective Force. The simplest presentation of the effect of earth's rotation in deflecting winds, etc., seems to consist in trying to draw straight lines on a slated globe while it is revolving. It will be found that these lines always turn to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern. At Brockton a six-inch globe is used, mounted to revolve on an axis on a three-footed base. The teacher holds a crayon in the right hand and, before drawing, swings crayon close along the surface of the globe, aiming at one foot of tripod and calling attention to the fixed direction of the crayon sweep. Then the same thing is done with crayon touching and the globe rapidly revolved with the left hand. Whether the sweep of the crayon be toward north or south, east or west, the line will deviate according to its hemisphere. Of course the globe should only be rotated from west to east like the earth. It is fascinating to see the deviation change when the equator is crossed.

When this is supplemented with the Foucault Pendulum which Mr. Goode (see this JOURNAL, October, 1899, pp. 298-303) has recalled to our attention as more practicable than most of us had supposed, 13 and 14 year old minds become quite convinced that the thing is so, if it is queer.

M. S. W. JEFFERSON.

The Value of Winter.-Passing the Great Cedar Swamp in Houston, Mass., yesterday, I was reminded of a beneficence of our Northern winters which deserves to be dwelt on.

The soil of the swamp is black muck. One man who had long lived near said you could anywhere thrust down a fishing pole with ease, it is so soft and deep. The cedar is valuable for lumber, posts, fence rails and above all for shingles and excelsior, but the swamp can only be "worked" in winter when it is frozen hard.

A similar swamp in the tropics could either not be worked at all or at much increased expense.

All our lumbering in the northern United States and Canada gets material aid from the snow, both as facilitating the hauling of the logs on the snow itself and making possible the log-drives when the accumulated waters of the winter snows are released in spring freshets.

In Tucuman Province, northern Argentine Republic, I have

seen valuable timber and fuel rendered almost useless by the lack of a frost-bound season. The black mould of the forest is not bottomless-nor is that of the Great Cedar Swamp, I fancy-but it is commonly 3 or 4 feet deep, which makes hauling wood and lumber very costly. The rivers are of the arid region type, usually a trickle across a waste of sand and then, in a storm, raging, unmanageable and yards in depth. Thus it is more practicable in many instances to import lumber from the United States than a few miles across the forest.

ELMWOOD, Mass.

M. S. W. JEFFERSON.

Recent Explorations by Lieutenant Peary.-The Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, for October 31, 1899, publishes a somewhat detailed account of the exploration accomplished by Lieutenant Peary between August, 1898, and September, 1899. This report is accompanied by an outline map showing the coasts mapped in the Buchanan Bay-Bache Peninsula-Princess Marie Bay region of Grinnell Land, and showing the names that have been given by Lieutenant Peary to the features he has delineated.

Instruction to Teachers.-Superintendent Morrison, of Merrill, Wis., has sent out the following instructions to his teachers of geography. The suggestions are valuable and to the point.

TO TEACHERS OF GEOGRAPHY.

1. Carefully determine beforehand, each day, what work you will assign.

2. Locate only those places about which some important things are to be learned beside their location.

3. Don't teach geography by the "square inch" method.

4. Much of the geography (text-book) is useful for reference only. Do not think you must teach it all.

5. A difficult question for the teacher to decide is what to teach and what to omit in the great mass of material presented in the text-book, much of which is placed there only for reference.

6. Cultivate independence of the text-book, so that you can assign lessons and conduct recitations without consulting it.

7. The skillful teacher of geography will use, beside the textbook,

(a) Books on travel.

(b) An abundance of maps-most of which are the work of the teacher and pupil.

(c) A large number of pictures collected from every available

source.

(d) Railroad time cards.

(e) Geological and botanical specimens.

(f) Products from agriculture, manufacturing, etc.

(9) A globe, with no other harness than an axis upon which it will rotate freely.—Western Teacher, October, 1898.

A Russian City in China.-The Czar issued a proclamation in August announcing that the port of Talien-wan, eighty-five miles east of Port Arthur, had been opened to the commercial fleet of all nations. "We have now decided," he says, "to begin the erection in this port of a city which we shall call‘Dalny'” (Far Distant). He added that, in view of the commercial development of the future city, he conferred upon it the right of free trade, which belongs to free ports. All nations may import and export merchandise within the territory occupied by the city and port up to a fixed boundary line. This means the establishment of such a free port as that of Hamburg. American goods, for example, may be kept there for months, and then removed to their destination in some other part of China or elsewhere without paying duties, but they cannot be taken into parts of the Russian concession which the Czar has not included in the free zone without paying duties. The free port may therefore be a clearing-house for the trade of north China, as Hong Kong is for the trade of south China and Shanghai for that of the Yangtse valley. Dalny will be the terminus on the Yellow Sea of the branch of the TransSiberian railroad now building through Manchuria.-Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., XXXI., 4, 1899.

European Free Ports.-Danzig, Germany's largest port on the Baltic, became a free port in June last. The free harbor is in easy communication with the sea and the river Vistula, and is 1,830 feet long and 330 feet broad. The free area, land and water, is about 41 acres, but may be enlarged. Hamburg, Bremen, Danzig and Copenhagen are the chief free ports of Europe and, in part,

serve the same purpose that our bonded warehouses do. Goods sent to the free ports of Germany or Denmark do not come under the supervision of the customs laws. They may be kept there indefinitely and then removed to foreign lands. But they cannot be taken outside the free ports for consumption in the country to which the free ports belong without paying duty. In Hamburg 2,500 acres of land and water form the free port. Cuxhaven, at

the mouth of the Elbe, is also a free port, but the remainder of the State of Hamburg is included within the customs union. Hamburg's free port has wonderfully stimulated the importance of the city as a distributing center and a great international exchange. Goods are brought from all parts of the world and transhipped with little delay to other vessels that take them to their destination. Up to 1896 the new wharves, warehouses, bridges and other improvements in the free port had cost nearly $40,000,000, and the free port is one of the factors that have made Hamburg the third largest shipping center of the world. The free port of Bremen consists of a number of harbors along the Weser River, with sheds and warehouses, the whole separated from other areas by iron fences. The free port of Copenhagen was opened in November, 1894. It has a land area of 90 and a water area of 60 acres, the land being enclosed by two high fences, with two main entrances from the city. The port was established in the hope to make Copenhagen a distributing center for Scandinavian and Baltic ports. Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., XXXI., 4, 1899.

REVIEW.

Man and his Work, an Introduction to Human Geography. By A. J. and F. D. HERBERTSON. London, Black; New York, Macmillan, 1899. 118 pages. One shilling.

The attempt to develop intelligence in unintelligent children by giving them lessons to memorize is admittedly a failure. The things that used to be memorized are nowadays presented in more reasonable manner; but it often happens that the items chosen for study under a former educational régime remain still in vogue, although they are ill-fitted for rational treatment. The counties

along the eastern or southern border of New York seem to me to be such items; they are excellent things upon which to expend memory alone, but poor things upon which to develop intelligence when memorized in lists, as is still expected of those who aspire to pass certain official examinations in the Empire State.

In refreshing contrast to the list or locality method of studying geography, we have in the Herbertsons' little book on "Man and His Work," an abundant series of examples from which the real spirit of geography can be learned-concrete examples of the effects of physical environment which form the fundamental principles of human geography. Some preliminary ideas of places should precede the use of such a book as this; but it is my belief that the quantity of preparatory study will diminish as the value of human geography comes to be better appreciated; and that places will be learned and their importance appreciated far better by studying them immediately in their human relations than by studying the places alone. The best geographies in use to-day stand in a position between the old memoriter method and a possible future method in which the human element will be advanced even beyond its present importance; and, if this be true," Man and His Work" may be taken as a forerunner of many followers.

The text in this book exhibits three different methods of classification of its subject matter. The first method of classification follows the lead of inorganic environment and considers the human consequences that result from it; this treatment occupies five chapters (30 pages) concerning climates, and one chapter (4 pages) concerning land forms. A second method presents the human consequence first, giving five chapters (58 pages) to occupations, agriculture, arts, manufactures and trade; and three chapters (15 pages) to populations, governments and races. The review that is implied by the rearrangement of the facts of the first method render new headings in the second an excellent feature; one of which the alert teacher may often take advantage. There is finally a frequent illustration of the contrast between the elementary conditions of savages and the complicated conditions of more advanced communities; this order of progress from simple to complex is repeatedly introduced in various chapters.

It is perhaps a result of compression of much material into a