angle sides of the net. The juniors have the topography. The base line is first measured with a tape, and afterwards with the base line apparatus made by the Coast Survey and improved and compared at the college. One end of the base line is usually made an astronomical station, from which the latitude and longitude of the place, and the azimuth of the base are determined. The primary stations are made the starting and ending points for all topographical work. The seniors only have charge of the astronomical, geodetic, hydrographic, gravimetric and magnetic work. The lakes of Central New York are generally selected, for they offer, providentially, a fine country for this sort of work. They represent a variety of surface, and difficulties and advantages of all kinds for studies of this nature. In the topographic work of the seniors, the distances are measured with the stadia. It has been found impracticable to do otherwise, since the triangle sides vary from one or two to twelve miles, and all errors of measurements are balanced between primary stations. Secondary stations are located with much care, for they are often found in the shores of the lakes, and serve as the starting points of lines of soundings.

The advantages derived from this experience are incalculable. In the first place the young men enjoy it heartily. They work from about seven o'clock in the morning, often until past midnight. It is wonderful to see what a large amount of work students can do under these conditions. They lose weight, but gain in strength, health, and buoyancy of spirits. This work has been going on at Cornell for the past twenty

four years; and, aside from the University of Kansas, the speaker knew of no other institution where a similar method has been pursued with the same or an equivalent organization. Few portions of a college course are as suitable as these surveys to develop in young men self-reliance, independence, versatility of resources, the solving quickly of difficulties, and the art of learning how to obey, which is possibly one of the hardest lessons to learn; the man who cannot obey will never be able to command.

The speaker desired to give the floor to some one else; and would end by adding that he would be glad to mail to anyone a pamphlet containing the "Field Instructions" used by the Cornell engineering classes, if any of the professors present should be willing to take the trouble to write for them.

PROFESSOR M. E. WADSWORTH wished to speak about a point which does not affect the method of Professor Marvin as presented, nor the one Professor Fuertes had spoken of, but which simply describes an attempt to solve the question of field work in surveying in a special situation. Every institution must have its own methods. At the Michigan Mining School the question that presented itself to the institution at first, was some method of taking care of the practical as well as of the theoretical work. Also, in the time that was allowed the student, to give him an amount of experience that would enable him to apply his knowledge after graduation. That is, while he might know the theory, if he could not adjust his instruments and practically meet the different problems likely to come before him, his previous study was

worthless to him until he had learned later, by practice, how to apply it. The question was solved in this way: The ordinary summer vacation work is by most students taken as a vacation, a general good time; they do the work when they are compelled to, but they will not do it well unless absolutely obliged to. The failure of the summer school to impart real instruction becomes strongly marked if there happens to be in charge of it an instructor who is what students term "a good fellow," but who has no idea of real discipline or systematic instruction. The method that the Michigan college employed was this; all of the practical work was put in the regular year, or made part of the regular system. Thus the student's work in the summer time is as much a constituent part of the school course as it is in the winter term. To do this the regular school year was increased to 45 weeks. In the field surveying, the practical work covers various different subjects, like plane surveying, topographical work with stadia and plane table, geodetic work, railroad surveying, etc. The practical work in surveying, exclusive of mining surveying, occupies eleven weeks of the year, nine hours a day for five days a week; Saturday is taken usually in making up for the rainy days, for draughting, for making up back work, etc. by many of the students, for while some are rapid workers, others are slow. The student in the field, in his surveying, is under the ordinary drill and discipline of the school, and he is made to work just as a young surveyor is required to work when he commences his practice subsequent to graduation. The

The extra day is needed

instruction in theoretical surveying has, heretofore, been given during the fall and winter terms. That has been found to be disadvantageous, owing to the fact that the student forgets the theory before he has time to apply it. Consequently during the school year 1896-7, the theoretical instruction will be given in connection with the field work of eleven weeks; that is, the student will hear the lectures and have his recitations in the morning at eight o'clock, going into the field immediately after, and applying the principles directly in practice.

PROFESSOR C. F. ALLEN remarked that one point was suggested to him by reason of something that Professor Wadsworth said: the speaker had just a bit of doubt as to the advisibility, or as to the necessity of always setting the men at their field work while the class work is fresh. The field work is better done at that time, and yet it is not sure but that the student is better off if his field work in some subjects comes in the way of a review of his class work. In certain parts of the work nothing suited the speaker better than to get hold of the men when they had forgotten all about the subject in hand. Take them without warning, put them at work on something where they cannot use a book of tables, where they have no opportunity to get at their formulas, but where they must derive them, and let them do the work at a time when the whole thing has been laid aside and when they are not expecting it. The work that the men do in that way is work that is much more likely to stand by them than work that they do under any other circumstances. If you can put a stu

dent where it is absolutely essential that he shall use his thinking apparatus instead of his memory, you have done a wonderfully good thing for him. It is very hard oftentimes to do this. At least one student more than twenty-five years of age who had spent more than two years in a prominent technical school, was very much surprised at the idea that the thing for him to do was to use his good sense instead of his memory, and this in work essentially geometrical.

PROFESSOR WADSWORTH explained that he believed all that Professor Allen said in regard to the value of practicing students in surveying during the later portions of their courses; but in the case of the Michigan Mining School the mining surveying, which is done underground in the mines in the spring, requires that the plane and railroad surveying preparatory to it shall come during the preceding summer. Further, since the mining surveying is preliminary to the mining engineering, the order in which the three subjects naturally fall is as follows: First Year: Plane and Railroad Surveying, Principles of Mining; Second Year: Mining and Mine Surveying, Theory and Practice; Third Year: Mining Engineering, Mine Managements and Accounts.