14. Define the following, giving an example of each fall line, canyon, interior basin, mature valley. What is a drumlin? Name a region in which drumlins are found. 15. Compare New England with the prairies of the upper Mississippi States as regards the influence on human life, of two or three of the following geographic conditions; geographic position, topography, climate, soils, mineral resources and opportunity for navigation and other modes of transportation. In this examination 30 counts will be based on the laboratory note book submitted by the candidate and 70 counts on the following questions. The candidate is to answer seven questions, as indicated below. Α 1. Answer two questions in this group. A glass tumbler may be filled with water till the surface of the water rounds up above the rim of the glass. Why does not the heaped up water spill over? Mention two other illustrations of the principle involved in your explanation. 2. What is meant by the moment of a force? How is the moment of a force measured? Illustrate the general law of moments by a number of forces in one plane acting upon a body in equilibrium. Give a diagram. 3. Briefly state the law of loss of weight of submerged bodies and the law of displacement of floating bodies. 4. If the specific gravity of a body be 2.0, how much will a cubic centimeter of it weigh in water? What volume of it will weigh 50 grams in water? B Answer two questions in this group. A ball is rolling up a smooth incline at the rate of 15 cm. per second and loses velocity at the rate of 3 cm. per second. How far up the incline will it move before coming to rest? 5. How may the weight of a stick be found by using a single weight, an edge upon which to balance the stick, and a meter rule? Explain your method. Give a diagram. 6. Approximately how deep must a bottle, neck downwards, be sunk in water in order to reduce contained air to half its initial volume? What law of gases applies to the case? C Answer two questions in this group. 7. If wind instruments were tuned cold, would the pitch of their tones be too high or too low after they had been warmed by the breath in playing? Give a reason for your answer. 8. Describe a laboratory experiment for determining the amount of heat given out by one gram of steam in changing from steam under normal pressure to water at a temperature of 100° C. What weights should be most carefully taken? Why? 9. A candle flame is 150 cm. from a screen which receives an image four times as wide as the flame itself. If a double convex lens is used to project the image, at what distance from the candle must the lens be placed and what is its focal length? D Answer one question from this group. 10. Describe a method of determining the resistance of a battery by means of an ammeter and a set of known resistances. 11. 12. With a diagram and discussion show the advantages of a shunt-wound motor over a series-wound motor. Make a drawing showing a bar electromagnet. Indicate the direction of the current by arrows parallel to the wire, and mark the ends of the bar "N" for north-seeking and "S" for south-seeking poles. Inasmuch as the bar derives all its magnetic strength from the current about it, why is the combination of bar and helix a more powerful magnet than the helix alone? EXAMINERS EDWARD L. NICHOLS FRANCIS C. VAN DYCK FRANK ROLLINS WORK OF THE PAST SEASON IN SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA. The investigations of the United States Geological Survey during the past season in southeastern Alaska were productive of several valuable results, but none of them is of more general and scientific interest than the survey of the ice fields in Glacier Bay. This work was in the hands of Messrs. C. W. and F. E. Wright, who were assisted by Mr. R. W. Pumpelly. With a few exceptions the glaciers are all receding very rapidly, and this fact is especially noticeable at Muir, the best known of the Alaskan glaciers. The front of this ice stream, which was confined to a narrow neck during the last decade, has receded, since 1899, a distance of 5 to 6 miles into much broader portions of the inlet, so that the present ice front, instead of being 2 miles across, forms a hemicircle nearly 7 miles around. This recession has been attributed to the earthquake of 1899, which may have had some effect upon the glacier, but the chief cause of this remarkable retreat is undoubtedly due to its recession into the much wider portion of the inlet, thus exposing a far broader ice front to the action of tidal currents. The other glaciers tributary to Glacier Bay have suffered similar changes, and owing to the vast number of icebergs that are constantly thrown off, the bay is no longer navigable, except in small boats along the shore line. Excursion trips to Muir Glacier, which in past years have been a feature of the Alaskan voyage especially attractive to tourists, will not be possible for a few years to come. The results of these investigations were most encouraging. Many stratigraphic and structural relations formerly in doubt were made definite. Certain mineral belts were determined, and deposits of nonmetallics such as gypsum, marble, and granite were studied with a view to ascertaining their economic value. The results of the Survey's investigations in this field will ultimately be embodied in a report on southeastern Alaska. In the meantime economic reports on restricted areas of the field or special subjects will be published as rapidly as the data become available.-U. S. Geol. Survey, Bulletin 260. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CO-OPERATION1 BY C. E. PEET, Lewis Institute, and W. S. MCGEE, Hyde Park High School, Chicago. In its report your committee has interpreted the resolutions of last year in a broad way and has sought to canvass the field to ascertain what benefits may be obtained through coöperation in gathering materials which will aid in the teaching of the earth sciences. The report makes no pretense to be exhaustive but the intention is simply to open up the field and leave to the future its full cultivation. The lines of profitable co-operation may be grouped into three main groups: I. The collection and exchange of informational, illustrative, and museum material. II. Co-operation in securing legislation. III. Co-operation in securing positions appropriate to the needs of the instructor. I. Collection and exchange of informational, illustrative and museum materials. There are already great organizations spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (in the aggregate) annually, in gathering and disseminating information that we need. Some of these organizations like the United States Geological Survey publish bibliographies of the literature of the subject, so that there is a way to find the information contained in these publications. (1). We need a bibliography of bibliographies. (2). We need also to extend the bibliographies to special subjects so that they will cover the literature adapted to the student as well as that adapted to the teacher. Such bibliographies should include magazine articles as well as books of travel, and scientific publications and should indicate the age of the student for which the literature is appropriate. If all the bibliographies were known and if they covered the field perfectly the fact would still remain that much of the material wanted is unobtainable and much of the material that is obtainable is in unavailable shape. From the vast reservoir of information within the United States Government and State survey reports we could be supplied with much material we need in our teaching of geology, physiography and geography. This vast amount of material should be drawn upon and put into shape adapted for the use of the student. It should then be published so that it will be within the reach of all. In an ideal cooperative organization the cost of such material should be the mere cost of paper and printing. We are confident that should a movement be set on foot to put this information into a form adapted to the needs of the young it would receive the hearty co-operation of not only the State Geologists but the heads of the great Government bureaus and 1 Read before the Earth Science Section of the Central Association of Science and Mathematics Teachers, December 1905. 2 Two books have recently appeared (1907) which make a step in this direction. They are Condra's Geography of Nebraska and the Geology and Physical Geography of Wisconsin by E. C. Case. other great institutions serving the public just as we are trying to serve it. We venture to say that there would be no difficulty in obtaining illustrations both from these institutions and from the railroads and other transportation companies. The possibilities of this means of supplying illustrative material at a very small cost do not begin to be appreciated. (3). Were all this done, gaps would still be found that need to be filled. In the study of various parts of the world through the topographic maps, detailed information which is not now available is frequently needed to understand the cause of the location and growth of villages and cities, peculiar forms of boundary lines, the historical significance of the names, and numerous other things. This information should be available so that the student can look up these things and satisfy himself that there are reasons for them. The information first supplied should be for those regions covered by the topographic maps commonly studied. Along with this literature should go pictures so described that the student would understand just what part of the region on the map the photograph represents. Such illustrations would greatly aid the student in picturing the features of the region. There are county histories from which some of the information desired could be extracted by those competent to judge of its value. By cooperation with the history teachers' associations such information should soon become available. Every teacher of the earth sciences or of history should be a source of definite information for his own locality as to the history of settlements and the growth of the cities and the causes therefor. This work should finally result in the publication of monographs on the different physiographic districts and their natural subdivisions, covering the topography and its history, the life of the district including the aboriginal inhabitants and their adaptions to environment, accounts of early explorations with their relations to the topography, accounts of the early settlements, the origin and significance of the names of places, the causes for the location of villages and cities including the successive factors in their growth and the changes in village sites and the causes, and finally the present industries and occupations of the people. Such a monograph as is planned by the Geographic Society of Chicago on Chicago might well be planned for every city of fair size and for groups of cities of smaller size. (4). While satisfying the demands for information in geology, physiography and geography is important, of still greater importance is the gathering of information bearing on the educational problems connected with the teaching of these subjects. A system of coöperation should result in the appointment of a special committee to gather information as to the needs of the student at each of the stages in which he is under our care. This investigation should seek to discover what are the interests of the student, what things appeal to him most, what things produce in him the greatest growth in the right direction, what his demands at each stage are, and the best means of creating in him 3 Such a committee was appointed at the Chicago meeting, December, 1906. it each stage the right demands. This committee might well raise the question whether the physiography as now taught (usually in the place in the curriculum appropriate for a general introduction to science), is broad enough to meet the needs of the young student; whether it would not be better to make it frankly a general introduction to science, which shall have its roots in those portions of physics, chemistry and astronomy which appeal to the young student, the portions full of demonstrations and laboratory exercises of the kind which de light the student's heart, arouse his enthusiasm, and increase his desire for more and deeper knowledge. Is this not indeed the time to open the door and let the student look in at the good things that are ahead and to start him happily on the way to acquiring the methods of science? The subject matter could not well stop with the roots of this tree of knowledge, as it were. We already have the trunk in the physiography as now taught generally. Should not the branches and foliage be permitted to grow in the form of geography so taught as to bring out the relations between the physical features of the earth and the life upon it and especially the human life of the present, with its manifold activities and institutions and the stages of growth of these institutions and activities? Such a committee might well get together for supplementary reading a list of books of travel, early exploration and adventure, which would stimulate in the student a desire to travel, create in him a thirst for greater geographic knowledge, widen his horizon and deepen his interest by giving him that background of knowledge which makes physiography interesting to us. Such a selection of books should be made through the students themselves so that it would include the books actually of interest to them, not those in which we think they should be interested. This work might well include the preparation of maps to accompany such books as are not properly supplied with them, and also the preparation of sets of questions that would call the attention of the student to important points in such a way that in answering the questions he will get the profitable points bearing on the geography and physiography. This work might go so far as either to arrange for, or actually include, the production of suitable literature to fill the gaps which now remain unfilled. Such a committee would no doubt receive the cordial cooperation of the public libraries in compiling the lists here suggested. Similar efforts on the part of teachers of other departments have received encouragement and financial aid in publishing the lists. There is danger indeed that the secondary schools will fall behind the grammar schools in this enterprise. (5). A subcommittee might well devise a system of correspondence similar to that in force among the students of foreign languages by which not only students but instructors would be able to get into communication with all parts of the world and thus gain desired information from those on the ground. That there are difficulties to be over 4 Such a list of books was prepared in 1906 and mimeographed copies are now in the hands of volunteers who are testing the books by placing them in the hands of the student and watching the result. It is proposed to print the list when the test is completed and a final selection has been made. The list should be extended to magazine articles answering the same purpose. |