Editorial Department.

THE NEXT ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION, which will convene at Kansas City, August 23d, promises to be very largely attended, not only from the Western States, but on account of the low railroad fares at present prevailing a large number of delegates and members from the Atlantic States will undertake the journey. The round trip from New York, Philadelphia and farther south will not exceed in cost $28. Two routes have been selected, one passing by way of Niagara Falls through Canada, the other through Washington City, along the Potomac and crossing the Alleghenies into the Ohio Valley, stopping over night at the Grand Hotel, Cincinnati, and over Sunday at the Southern Hotel, St. Louis. The various lines between St. Louis and Kansas City offer very low fares, and special accommodations have been offered by the Chicago and Alton Railroad, both from Chicago and St. Louis. Reclining chairs will be provided for all who, going by way of Chicago, will notify Mr. R. H. Cowdrey, of that city, and those going by way of St. Louis notify the Permanent Secretary. These trains are also provided with hotel cars. The fare for the round trip between Chicago and St. Louis will not exceed $10. Particulars concerning the reduction secured by the Local Secretary, Mr. William T. Ford, may be obtained by addressing him; these reductions from the regular fares apply to all, or nearly all, the railroads west of the Alleghenies, and are secured for the return trip upon a certificate from the Local Secretary.

This will be the second time the Association will meet in the Mississippi Valley. Since the very successful meeting in St. Louis, in 1871, ten years have elapsed, and the Association, very properly, enters upon new territory, several hundred miles further west, to hold its meeting on the western border of Missouri; and with the view of invading still farther western territory, the Kansas Pharmaceutical Association delegated Messrs. Robert J. Brown, of Leavenworth and George Lets, of Lawrence, to arrange an excursion which is to take place after adjournment. The route of this excursion will be through Kansas, Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico to Santa Fe, and will occupy not over ten days; the fare for the round trip, including Pullman cars, will be $30. Concerning the attractions of this excursion, we copy the following from a Western paper:

"No other locality on the Western Continent offers such inducements to an expedition of this kind as does New Mexico. In addition to the cool, bracing and invigorating air of these dry and elevated regions—which acts as nature's tonic and not only restores the invalid to health but wonderfully invigorates and rejuvenates the strong and healthy—there is here found a vast region which is almost a terra incognito to science. The vegetable productions of New Mexico are peculiar and strongly marked, the dryness of the climate giving greater aroma and pungency to plants than is found elsewhere, and producing a large number of strikingly original forms of vegetation. There are in these mountains and elevated valleys many plants and herbs supposed to possess wonderful medical virtues which are unknown to the medical fraternity, and we shall look for some valuable discoveries to be made by the botanists, chemists and other scientists of the expedition. (What a joke: the good pharmacists would have stayed at the La Fonda Hotel on the Plaza in Santa Fe, bought some trinkets from the Pueblo Indians in front of the Palace of the Governors, maybe visited an Anasazi ruin, and no-one (least of all the railroad "chaperones") would have had the knowledge to take them up the Acequia Madre to talk to some curanderas or médicas, filled with knowledge the PH.G.s could have REALLY used. Ah well.—MM)

"New Mexico is at once the oldest and the newest region of America and is peculiarly the land of wonders. Here are found the latest and fullest remnants of the wonderful Aztec and Toltec civilization, the ruins of their ancient cities offering an inexhaustible field of research to the archaeologist and of speculation to the thoughtful student of history. Long ere the white man had planted settlements even at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, the Spanish Jesuits had commenced building churches among the Indians of this region, some of the oldest buildings on the continent being still standing in excellent preservation. It was from New Mexico that Coronado started on his wonderful expedition, in the year 1543, in search of the seven fabled cities of Cibola, and the details of the historians of his great march show that even then the Spaniards had made a permanent lodgment and considerable progress in settling this region. Here, too, may now be seen the civilization of centuries ago, the forked stick plow and the most primitive methods of working and living.

"The mineral productions of New Mexico are well known to be varied and include many rare varieties and unique specimens."

The American Journal of Pharmacy, Vol. 53, 1881, was edited by John M. Maisch.