* * * * * While American men of wealth have given freely of their means for the promotion of education and science, they have not so often devoted their own time to its service. This is natural, as the wealth has in most cases been acquired by the present generation, and it is in succeeding generations, when families have been established, that leisure and wealth will give a class similar to that which has accomplished so much for Great Britain and to a lesser extent for Germany and France. Still, it is the case that the heads of two of our chief universities are men of great wealth, who have devoted not only their means, but also their services to the cause of education, and there are in our universities and other institutions many who hold their positions purely out of interest in their work, not as a means for their support. In the next generation there will probably be more representatives of a class to which belonged the Duke of Argyll, whose death we were compelled to record last month. Another man has since died of a somewhat similar type. When Colonel Lane-Fox somewhat unexpectedly succeeded to large estates in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire and assumed the name Pitt-Rivers, his chief interest seemed to be in the earth works and tumuli of Cranbourne Chase, and the extensive memoirs he has published and the museum he has established show what good use he made of the excavations. Some of the results of his earlier work will be found at Oxford, but he built at Farnham, in Dorsetshire, a museum which contains collections of the greatest possible value. * * * * * The communication in this issue signed ‘Physicist’ is worthy of note. If what its writer says is true, it is evident that a reputation as a brilliant inventor does not insure that its possessor is a safe writer about general physics. Our correspondent, who represents fairly the opinion of scientific men in general, finds fault with Mr. Tesla’s article in the June _Century_ in many important particulars. During the years since Mr. Tesla’s notable invention of the polyphase alternate current transformer, he seems to have become less definite and exact in his thinking, and less productive as an inventor. The speculation and rhetoric of the _Century_ article are certainly disappointing to every one who is trying to bring about an intelligent and sound view of science on the part of non-scientific people. Men of science everywhere should certainly make it their business to instruct people in general about the progress, and even the prospects, of science through the press, but it takes wisdom on the part of both writers and editors to know what is instructive and what is misleading. Honest criticism such as that of our correspondent is therefore highly desirable. * * * * *