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Vol. III. No. 3

JUNE, 1931

20 Cents

EUOLUnON

A JOURNAL OF NATURE

of Satuutl Hiit

HANDS OF COUSINS — MAN AND GORILLA

Page

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

Scientific Advisory Board

Henry E. Crampton
Martin Dewey
W'm. King Gregory
Paul E. Mann
Clihu Thomson

EUOLUTCON

A Journal of Nature

For popidar education in natural science

to combat bigotry and superstition

and develop the open mind

Science Editor
Allan Broms
Managing Editor
L. E. Katterfeld
Contributing Editors
Edwin Tenney Brewster
Pauline H. Dederer
Carroll Lane Fenton
Maynard Shipley
Horace Elmer Wood II.

^volution's staff of Contributing Editors is strength-
ened through two additional science writers: Dr. Pauline
H. Dederer is Professor of Zoology at Connecticut College
for Women and knows how to make Natural Science interest-
ing to beginners. Dr. Carroll Lane Fenton has taught at the
LJniversities of Cincinnati and Buffalo, has done field work in
Paleontology since 1908, is the iiuthor of 25 of the Little Blue
Books and of "Studies of Evolution in the Genus Spirifer,"
just published.

pRIENDS OF SCIENCE TEACHING should not be mis-
led because at the moment Fundamentalism isn't making

much public noise. It is very active with a preparatory cam-
paign of ''education." Hardly an issue of the numerous fun-
damentalist journals appears without articles attacking the
teaching of evolution, purporting to disprove evolution on
scientific grounds or arousing the passions of readers by blam-
ing evolution for crime waves, wars, "flaming youth," "degen-
eracy of civilization," etc. Of course, parents believing this t t i -l d . n j . ii l ^l l

' . ' ' F"'"-"" i^tin.v.i.g iii.o 1 eclinology, the Retiring President, will both be present

nonsense become convinced that the eternal welfare of their

THE GREATEST SCIENCE GATHERING

The American Association for the Advancement of Science,
with fifteen sections and twenty-five scientific societies, will
meet in Pasadena, Cal., from June 15 to 20.

Although most of this country's leading scientists are among
the 19,000 members of this Association it also invites to m.em-
bership all laymen interested in science, and many of the con-
vention sessions are open to the public. Readers of Evolution '
will certainly find them interesting.

Registration is at Throop Hall. Fee ^2. for non-members.

Reception, 2 P. M. Monday, June 15, at Huntington Li-
brary and Art Gallery. Five evenings. Public Lectures at the
Greek Theatre in Griffith Park. The day-time scientific sessions
are at the California Institute of Technology. There will be
a series of symposiums, the first on "The Antiquity of Man."

Dr. Franz Boas of Columbia University, President of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, and
Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan of the Cahfornia Institute of

children is involved.

The avowed purpose of fundamentalists is to force the
people to vote on this question in every State that has the
Initiative Law, and finally to control the nation. By popular
vote they could probably carry most of the States. If you wait
until they have put the question on the ballot, it is already too
late. Then passion and prejudice will not even hear the voice
of reason. The time to meet the situation is NOW.

And the way to meet it is Popular Education in Natural
Science. It is possible to give the people at least enough under-
standing so that they will realize how foolish it is to try to
settle such questions by majority vote at the ballot box. YOUR
help, the help of every friend of science teaching, is needed in
this great work.

QPPOSITION TO EVOLUTION teaching is not con-
fined to "backwoods," as some professors secure in the
serenity of their scholastic halls, seem to think. Because the
fact of evolution is taken for granted in all University circles
is no sign that it is accepted everywhere.

Right in Boston, in the very shadow of Harvard, the influ-
ence of superstitious bigotry is so strong in the school adminis-
tration that biology teachers in the Boston High Schools are
not free to explain evolution to their students. In thousands

More detailed announcements may be secured by addressing
Harry H. Main, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

RE-INFORCEMENTS WELCOME

The irregular appearance of Evolution the last year tells
you more eloquently than anything we could write what our
situation is. We have over 5,000 paid subscribers. But to
"break even" we must have at least 10,000. In the meantime
we must raise extra funds to publish and make the necessary
educational campaigns. Nowadays this is somewhat difficult.
If you can send re-inforcements, do so now, specifying whether
for Founders Fund or for Library Subscriptions.

HUXLEY ON EDUCATION

"That man, I think, has had a liberal education, who has
been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of
his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as
a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold,
logic engine with all parts at equal strength, and in smooth
working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any
kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the an-
chors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of
the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of
her operations; and who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and
fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigor-

of school districts all over the country the boards are so re- ous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to^
actionary that, for the sake of their positions, teachers leave the love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness,
subject of evolution alone. and to respect others as himself."

EVOLUTION, June 1931, Vol. Ill No. 3. (Whole No. 18) Published monthly by EVOLUTION PUBLISHING CORPORATION, 175
AJJ D ^ Entered as Second Class Matter Feb. 11, 1931 at Post Office, New York, N. Y. under act of March 3, 1879. Editorial

Address: Koute 4, Hempstead, N. Y. Subscription ?2.00 a year; in lists of five or more, ^1.00; Foreign, 10c extra; Single copy, 20c; bundles
ot 12 or more, 8 l/3c.

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page three

In the Land of the Gorilla

By WILLIAM KING GREGORY

Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology, Columbia Unirersity; Curator of Dept of Comparatire

Anatomy, American Museum of Natural History

'T~'HE African Anatomical Expedirion of Columbia Uni-
versify and the American Museum of Natural History was
initiated by Dr. Dudley J. Morton, Associate Professor of
Anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

For some time past Professor Osborn and the writer had
been engaged in a lively but always friendly scientific debate
bearing on the relative nearness or remoteness of man's rela-
tionships to the existing anthropoid ape stock. Professor Mor-
ton, Professor McGregor and others also had taken part in
the discussion, but all recognized the need for more compre-
hensive comparative studies on the anatomy of the anthro-
poid apes, especially of fully adult gorillas. Hundreds of
gorilla skulls and skins have been described by specialists, but
there is an almost complete dearth of well preserved adult
specimens in the anatomical laboratories of the world.

An expedition to secure this material would give to several
specialists whose interest centered more or less upon the grand
problem of man's origin, an exceptional opportunity to study
living anthropoid apes in their natural environment, and to
bring back to their laboratories and classrooms something of
the teeming pageant of Africa.

The leader of the expedition was Henry C. Raven, Asso-
ciate Curator of the Department of Comparative Anatomy
in the American Museum of Natural History and Lecturer
in Zoology in Columbia University. Mr. Raven is well known
in museum circles for his previous zoological expeditions in
Borneo, Celebes, Australia, Greenland and Africa.

only now completing its field work. Its launching encountered
serious initial difficulties. Owing to the praiseworthy policy of
the Belgian government to protect their gorillas, our expedi-
tion only after the greatest efi^orts received permits to kill two
adult mountain gorillas in some region outside the Pare Na-
tional Albert.

We decided to search for our gorillas in the mountains south-
west of Lake Kivu. If the hunter can get near enough it is
comparatively easy to kill a gorilla, even in the almost impene-
trable thickets in which they are often found. A dead gorilla
can easily be skinned with the help of natives and his dis-
membered carcass can be carried back to camp on poles or on
the heads of porters. But we were not after gorilla skins or
skeletons; we wanted only the complete animal. Thus it eventu-
ally proved necessary to carry a dead gorilla weighing about
four hundred pounds down a very steep, rough mountain side
through many miles of tangled jungle. This was successfully
done by Mr. Raven and his porters after he had stopped a
charge by an infuriated male gorilla within fifteen feet of his
rifle. Raven found, in fact, that this gorilla resented being fol-
lowed and did not hesitate to rush at the intruder, who fortu-
nately for himself was quick and sure with his rifle. He was
thus able to shoot the animal through the head, which was the
only way of avoiding injury to the main blood-vessels of the
body.

At the base camp, after tying off the arteries of the head,
Raven was able to inject the rest of the body with preservanve

Professor J. H. McGregor, of the Department of Zoology, fluid. This fluid, contained in a metal tank fastened on top of a
who may be called the senior naturalist of . the expedition, is stout pole, came down a long rubber tube and was forced by

well known for his carefully
considered reconstructions of
the external appearance of the
extinct races of man.

Associate Professor E. T.
Engle of the Department of
Anatomy, College of Physicians
and Surgeons, is an authority
on the anatomy and physiology
of the mammalian reproductive
system.

The present writer, besides
sharing in the interests of his
colleagues, is especially con-
cerned with problems relating
to the earlier history of the
^nthropoids: How are they re-
lated to the fossil anthropoids
whose jaws and teeth have been
found in various parts of
Europe, Asia and Africa? How
did they first get into Africa?

This expedition, which left
New York m May, 1929, is *excerpts from march. 1931, Columbia university quarterly.

Courtssy American Museum oj Natural History

One of two gorillas, captured in the Kivu, photographed
where he fell, after brush and vines had been cleared away.
Left, Dr. McGregor; right, Mr. Raven; standing. Dr. Gregory.

gravity into the great artery on
the inner side of the thigh,
whence it quickly penetrated to
all parts of the body. The head
was then separately injected
through the carotid artery. This
well preserved specimen was
subsequently shipped to New
York and is still in fine condi-
tion. Its anatomy is now be-
ing studied by several specialists.
The second gorilla, also a
male, was secured by Raven
near our camp in the same gen-
eral region (southwest of Lake
Kivu). It also weighed about
four hundred pounds and was
eight feet, six inches across the
tips of its outstretched hands.
Its digestive tract contained
many bucketsful of green vege-
table matter, as the gorilla is
exclusively a vegetarian. The
vermiform appendix was very

Page four

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

human looking. Carefully prepared molds of the head and
bust, hands and feet of this animal were made by Professor
McGregor in the field, while its finger and toe prints were
recorded by Professor Engle and the writer.

While in this mountain-forest region the members of the
expedition made many excursions into the jungle and forest
in the endeavor to get near enough to see the gorillas. Native
paths traverse the forest in various directions but the gorillas
in this neighborhood are as a rule exceedingly wary and diffi-
cult to approach. Nevertheless the members of the party
enjoyed a number of opportunities of seeing them, although
the photographic conditions proved very unsatisfactory. Late
one afternoon, for example, we saw and heard them making
their beds for the night. Some made a rough oval depression
in the thicket on the ground. Others, including one or more
adults, slowly climbed the tangle of vines and branches and
settled down in the large "nests" in the trees. The next morn-
ing our efforts to secure motion or still pictures of the same
party of gorillas were defeated by their persistent hiding in
the near-by thicket, although we could catch glimpses of one
of them beating its chest.

After a short side trip into the forest north of Stanleyville,
in the heart of the Belgian Congo, the expedition proceeded
down the river and by steamer up the west coast to Douala in
French Cameroon, thence inland into the rough, hilly country.

In this region the gorillas live in small bands, roaming at
will wherever the forests have not yet been destroyed and some-
times invading abandoned banana fields. As we did not ap-
prove of organized drives, which have often resulted in the
slaughter of a number of gorillas by the natives, Mr. Raven
preferred to rely solely upon his own efforts supplemented by
those of a few native hunters, who wandered with him in the
forest in search of the elusive gorillas. His task again proved
very difficult, partly on account of the wandering habits of
gorillas and the difficulty of locating them in hundreds of miles
of forest, partly because it was necessary to get close enough to
shoot the animal through the head, for reasons already ex-
plained. In the dry season the animals heard the crackling
of leaves long before the hunter could get near and when they
started off they left no visible track on account of the padded
surface of their soles. In the wet season the country is inun-
dated with an enormous rainfall, which changes the streams

into torrents and makes traveling very difficult. Thus it hajj-
pened that a collector of long experience and exceptional ability
was baffled month after month in his unceasing efforts to ac- ^
complish the objects of the expedition. In the end, however,
his patience and skill won through and the anatomists of the
world will be indebted to him for one of the rarest prizes that
could come into the laboratories, the well preserved bodies of
several full-grown gorillas.

That these gorillas may have found their way into the Congo
forest from the northeast is suggested by the following facts:
first, the jaws and teeth of fossil anthropoid apes have been
found in Spain, France, Austria, Egypt, India, in formations
of late Tertiary age; secondly, some of these fossil types (of
species named Dryopithecus fontani and Dryopithecus rhen-
anus) show certain significant resemblances on the one hand to
the teeth of the gorilla and on the other to those of the chim-
panzee; thirdly, many other modern African mammals appear
to be descended from, or closely related to, extinct species
known from fossil bones found in Tertiary deposits of southern
Europe may be found today in Africa; fourthly, it is known
from fossil remains that in Miocene times various mammals
apparently of European or Asiatic derivation lived in East
Africa. But although the African anthropoid apes, along with
other mammals, seem to have been derived from Europe or
Asia, we do not know why the lowland or West African gorilla
are now found only on opposite sides of the Congo forest,
or why there is today a long stretch of forest territory between
them which is occupied by the chimpanzees but not by gorillas.

In conclusion, it is much too early to summarize the ulti-
mate scientific results of the expedition. The material which is
now available is being studied in connection with a general
review of the comparative anatomy of the higher primates.
Later, from all the available data we shall attempt to compile
a revised and fairly compact account of the chief resemblances
and differences between the gorilla and other primates, includ-
ing man. It may reasonably be hoped that this analysis may
contribute somewhat to a more precise evaluation of conflicting
theories as to the time when, and the place where, and perhaps
some of the reasons why, man's ancestors became recognizably
different from their anthropoid cousins; but as in the case of
many another scientific inquiry, the unforseen results are just
as likely to prove to be the most important.

Hunting the Gorilla

By HENRY C. RAVEN
Associate Curator, Comparative and Human Anatomy, American Museum

A s soo.M as it was dawn we were up and shortly afterward
■**■ set out to hunt. Four Batwa pygmies, professional hunters,
accompanied me. It was delightful to go into the forest with
these little people, who understood the forest, whose home it
was. We first climbed up the moutain through a mass of cold,
wet bracken, then descended into a ravine through virgin for-
est so dark that it seemed like twilight. After about a half-
hour of walking, very difficult on accoimt of the steep and
slippery groimd, we came upon gorilla tracks and saw the re-
mains of chewed-up stems. About an hour from the time we
began to follow the trail we were passing diagonally down a

*EXCERPTS FROM MAY-JUNE, 1931, NATURAL HISTORY.

Steep slope toward a tiny stream. Across the ravine sixty ot
seventy yards away, we saw the vegetation move and we caught
glimpses of an animal between the branches. Then we must
have been seen or heard, for there was a sudden short bark.
We followed across the stream and up the steep slope, climb-
ing with difficulty where the gorillas could pass with ease. ItC
was much more difficult for me, with shoes, than for the bare-
footed, strong-toed, unclad natives, and still easier for gorillas
with powerful bodies, short legs, and long arms. Man's long
legs are suited to the erect posture and not well adapted for
going through underbrush, where he must often be doubled up.
We were now getting close to the gorillas; we knew there

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page five

was not a large troop, perhaps only three or four, but there
was one big male among them, as we knew from the tremen-
dous power in the bark he had given. The pygmies were nerv-
ous, saying that he would rush at us. We had gone less than
three hundred yards from the stream and were still going
through dense underbrush when suddenly the rush material-
ized with a terrific roar and shriek. The pygmy that was
crouched down ahead of me, cutting the vegetation, sprang

Courtesy American Museum of Natural History

Pigmy Hunters, who helped Mr. Raven hunt the gorillas,
carrying spears and brush-hooks.

back and raised his spear, while I stood ready to fire. But the
gorilla stopped short, and did not come into sight. We con-
tinued on the trail and in a short time he rushed at us again.
This time he was directly at our left, not ahead of us. Here
the forest was a little more open and we could see perhaps
ten or fifteen yards, but still he did not come within sight
though we could see the vegetation move.

Finally we started up the slope. One pygmy went ahead of
me, holding in one hand his spear and in the other his little
sickle. He passed beneath a fallen tree and I had just stooped
under this tree when the gorilla, closer than any time before,
gave a terrific roar. I was afraid I was going to be caught
under the tree but I managed to step forward and raise my-
self. As I did so I could see the great bulk of the gorilla above
me and coming straight at me. I fired at his head as I might
have fired at a bird on the wing. The impact of the bullet
knocked him down and I wheeled to the pygmies, yelling at
them not to throw their spears. I feared they would spoil my
specimen. But they in turn shouted at me, "Shoot! shoot!" The
gorilla was not dead. When I looked around he was standing
up like a man; it was plain to see that he was stunned. I fired
again and he dropped lifeless exactly fifteen feet away.

This animal was the most magnificent I had ever seen,
weighing 460 pounds. He was black and silver-gray, a power-
ful, courageous creature, determined to drive off intruders
from his domain. Upon closer examination I found this giant
primate as clean as could be. The long, shaggy hair on his
head and arms was as if combed only five minutes before. The
^ilver-gray hair on his back was short and rather stiff.

Then came the time for quick action, for the specimen must
be embalmed within a few hours. It must be got on to the trail,
the trail must be widened from a foot to ten feet up and down
steep mountains for about twelve miles. I sent a note to my
companions asking them to send more porters. While I ex-
amined the fallen gorilla, some of the pygmies were starting to
make a bed or framework of sapling on which to carry him.

By afternoon we had the gorilla out on the trail where I
could embalm him. We then wrapped him in a large canvas
tarpaulin and made him more secure on the litter. I refused
to leave him at night for fear a leopard or other animal might
attempt to eat the flesh; so the natives made a little grass hut
for me right there on the trail. More porters arrived the fol-
lowing morning and I detailed several to go ahead to widen
the trail. The gorilla and litter together weighed more than
six hundred pounds. However, the natives started off chanting
and went along for some distance at fairly good speed. After
getting my paraphernalia packed in the loads I followed and
caught up with them as they were trying to get up a very
steep incline, where there was scarcely any foothold among the
rocks and mud. I had told them that we must reach camp by
nightfall, but it was soon evident that this would be impossible.
As a matter of fact, it took two and a half days, during which
there were severe electric storms that the natives claimed were
caused by my having killed the "king of the mountain for-
ests." They said the same thing happened when someone killed
a very large elephant. At night we simply had to sleep in the
forest in whatever shelter we could make of leaves and branches
but it was always wet and cold.

Many of the natives ran away as soon as it got dark and I
never saw them again but as this was the main trail between
Lake Kivu and Nakalongi, there were natives passing along
at intervals, and some of these were persuaded to help carry
the gorilla.

The second gorilla was secured only three hundred yards
from our main camp six days later. All members of the ex-
pedition took part in the various details of preservation of the
specimen. There was material to be preserved for histological
purposes, casts to be made of the hand, foot, and head, de-
tailed measurements to be taken, etc. When we considered
that the embalming fluid had penetrated the body thoroughly,
the animal was bandaged, wrapped in blankets, and sewed up
in burlap bags, these in turn coated with paraffin wax, and the
whole again rolled in heavy canvas tarpaulin. A litter was again
used to carry this specimen from our camp about four miles,
and it was then placed in a motor truck and taken to Uvira,
where it was shipped by steamer across Lake Tanganyika,
then by rail from Kigoma to the coast, and put on an ocean
steamer for America.

Courtesy American Museum of Natural Hiteor

Carrying the Gorilla to camp, twelve miles over mountain trail.

Page six

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

How Evolution Work

By H. J. MULLER
Professor of Genetics, University of Texas

VIII. Multiplication and Selection:
Turning Accident into Order

TT does, at first sight, seem incredible
•^ that all the marvelous organizations in
the living things about us could have been
put together by anything partaking of the
nature of accident. But we must remember
that it did not fall together all at once, and
that it was all made possible by that ahnost
magical property which life owes to the
gene — the power of multiplication of mu-
tated individuals.

For many millions of years, blind chemi-
cal forces must have acted and interacted in
early times to build up ever different and
more complicated organic compounds and systems of com-
pounds. A turning-point was reached when from these shift-
ing combinations those self-multiplying yet mutable materials
which we call genes happened to become formed. From that
time on the different genes, or the little systems of organic
matter containing an association of genes, would necessarily
enter into a destructive competition for multiplication against
each other, until, step by step, through mutation, or the altera-
tion of the gene, and heredity, or the multiplication of the
gene, the complicated present day life became differentiated.

It will be worth our while now to examine more closely just
how it is really the peculiar power of multiplication of mutant
forms which turns this trick of converting accident into order,
by making such very extraordinary combinations of accidents
possible as could not otherwise occur. For some reason, this
fundamental feature of the matter does not seem to have been
fully realized.

In examining the process of evolution, let us be content at
first to make our case a very simple one, and to proceed for a
while in a very elementary fashion, in order to avoid con-
fusion. Let us first see how just a simple combination of ad-
vantageous changes, or mutations, may be obtained in an
organism. Suppose we start
with some extremely simple or-
ganism, represented by the
straight vertical line at the top

of Diagram I. We will now --;;r:

allow it to reproduce, and allow
enough time to elapse so that
some mutations or other will
have appeared in each of its
descendants (they need not be
regarded as first-generation off-
spring) . In our diagram these
descendants are shown as ver-
tical lines placed in a horizontal
row just below the vertical line
representing the ancestral indi-

This article concludes the
series. Previous chapters re-
viewed the various theories
of the causes of evolution,
proved the randomness of
mutations, traced their ori-
gin to the genes, and told
of X-ray experiments that
increased the number of
mutations 15,000 per cent,
indicating short wave radia-
tion as a natural cause of
evolution. We'll send these
chapters to any new sub-
scriber upon request.

Diagram 1.

How Multiplication allows the origination of a beneficial
combination of variations (gi g2)

/idual, their derivation from which is indi-
:ated by dotted connecting lines. We may
suppose that multiplication has brought
ibout the existence of seven of these des-
cendants, each with a different "chance"
mutation, indicated by a differently shaped
spot, and lettered from aj to g^. g^ may be
taken to represent the "good" mutation — •
the one of an advantageous nature, which
is in the path of progress, that happened to
occur amongst all the others of a disadvan-
tageous or neutral kind. Now allow a similar
length of time to elapse again, in which mul-
tiplication and chance mutations take place
much as before. The individual with the
"good" mutation, gi, thus multiplies to
form seven again, each carrying gj (i.e., the multiplication has
involved the variation itself), but, in addition to gi, each of
the individuals carrying it now carries a second mutation,
lettered from ao to g2. Among these second mutations we may
again suppose that only one of the seven, g2, is "good," in the
comLination in which it occurs. Thus we get a combination,
in one individual, of two good mutations, gi and g2, which
supposedly have properties that "fit well together," interacting
so as to work out advantageously in combination.

Some or all of the other individuals of the previous genera-
tion, bearing mutations ai to fi, may also have multiplied.
Whether or not they did would not affect our desired result —
the attainment of the gj go combination — at all, provided only
that the gi individual itself had been able to multiply and
mutate as indicated. If all the individuals of the previous
generation had multiplied to just the same extent as the one
having gj did, there would obviously have been 7 x 7 or 7^, ot
49, individuals formed bearing some combination of mutations,
and of these forty-nine different combinations just one would
be the "good" combination — gj g^- Accordingly, without any
"natural selection," there would be one individual in forty-nine
having the "good" combination. In still other words, the

"chance" of the good combina-

Ition being present in any par-
ticular one of these final indi-
._.^-,-._-.v:-» ;?-;.'■ : viduals, in the absence of natu-

.z-'-ZZ''-''',--'' ,■'' ' r^l selection, would have been

1/49. It is to be further <h-
served that, no matter how few
or how many of the above forty-
nine individuals were actuallw,
produced, the ancestors of the
gi gi individual (namely, the
gi -bearing individual and its
predecessor, the simple line)
had multiplied at the rate re-
quired for doing their share in
the production of these hypo-

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page seven

thetical forty-nine individuals.

We may now consider what would happen in the case of
seine kind of creatures, or objects, which did not have the
power of multiplication, but which were otherwise similar to
the organisms just discussed, and like them could mutate (or
in this case we should simply say, "change") . We may sup-
pose either that these beings produce just one offspring and
then themselves die, or that they are potentially immortal and
change directly from one form into another. In either case,
if their "mutational" possibilities are the same as those of the
multiplying organisms previously considered, then we should

iliiLiiliililLLlLLiLLlLLLLLLLLLliilLlliLLl

Diagram 2.

How a beneficial combination of variations (gi g^) might arise

without multiplication, and number required.

have to start with seven of them to get one having
a change equivalent to g^. But we should have to be provided
with seven already bearing gi in order to obtain one having g2.
* Since in the first place only one in seven come to have gi (or
its equivalent) , we should have to start with 7 x 7, or 7^, or
49, in order to get the required seven having gi (or its equiva-
lent) which would in turn yield the one finally having both
gi and g2 (or their equivalents) . This is indicated in the dia-
gram. (Here, for convenience in examining the diagram, simi-
lar types are grouped together, although chance would scatter
them indiscriminately. Also, all forms of "equivalent" type
are represented as though identical) .

On comparing these non-multiplying objects with the mul-
tiplying ones we then see that, to get a given kind of combina-
tion by means of a given incidence of "mutation," we have to
start with just as many, in the case of the non-multiplying
objects, as, in the case of the others, would have been produced
in the end by the entire process of multiplication, if all indi-
viduals had multiplied at the rate at which the selected indi-
viduals did. One out of this total number hence represents
the "chance" that our desired combination could have come
about purely fortuitously in any particular individual at the
end of the given lapse of time, no matter whether the indi-
viduals were of the multiplying kind or not. By the laws of
chance, if only a few times this total number are given, this
combination, or one equivalent to it in "excellence," is prac-
tically certain, under the conditions postulated, to be present in
one or more individuals.
% Organisms, however, represent many more than two advan-
tageous features in combination. By the same reasoning as
the above, we may find the chance of obtaining a combmation
of three features — gi g2 gs- We may assume again that the
g3 change is in itself, at its time of occurrence, about as rare
as either gi or g2 alone was: namely, of the frequency of 1 in
7. It will then be seen that the gi g2 individual must be al-
lowed to go through a period (the third period) of mutation

and of multiplication times 7, whereupon gj g2 g3 will arise.
Further, it is evident that the rate of multiplication of the
individuals in the line of descent that gave rise to the gi g2 gg-
bearing individual was such as to have given rise to 7 x 7 x 7,
or 7 3 or 343 individuals, after this lapse of time, if only all
descendants of these ancestors had multiplied at the same rate
as they themselves had. In the case of non-multiplying objects,
it would have been necessary to start with 7^ or 343 individuals,
in order to get a corresponding result — an individual with a
rare combination of three advantageous mutually adjusted
characters, gi go gs- Generalizing, we may say that if the
frequency of an advantageous mutation were 1 in r instead of
1 in 7, and the number of steps involved was s instead of 3,
the corresponding total number of individuals would be r^.
All this is, in fact, only a simple application of a well-known
and very elementary mathematical principle applying to the
formation of random combinations in general.

It is not, however, until we apply this little formula to the
natural conditions pertaining to our immediate problem that
its full significance for us becomes clear. What shall we take
as our "r" (the rarity of advantageous, or "organizational"
mutations) and what as our "s" (the number of such advan-
tageous mutational steps) ?

Undoubtedly r changes its value radically at different stages
in the evolutionary sequence, but it would seem quite con-
servative to represent r, in general, as being as small as 100.
In other words, it seems likely that at least 100 mutations
must usually occur before one occurs of such a special type that
it could take part in the improvement of the life-organization.
In flies (Drosophila) we find that there are something like
ten times as many "lethal" and "semi-lethal" as ordinary vbible
mutations, and even among the "visibles," the vast majority
reduce vitality or lessen the chances of survival in one or more
ways. It is certain that not 1 in 100 detectable mutations is
advantageous in flies; in fact, for all we know, the number
may be more Uke 1 in 100,000.

In the case of s there are almost equally wide limits of un-
certainty, but again we may arrive at a safe minimum figure.
In flies I have shown that there are at least 1,500 different
genes, and probably many times that number. There must
then have been at least 1,500 different mutations to produce
these genes from their predecessors. This figure, however,
seems absurdly small in view of the great complication of a
fly's anatomy, physiology and developmental processes. It is
very likely, then, that there are many more genes than 1,500
and that each gene has had a history of numerous mutations,
which step by step have differentiated it from one original type
of gene. Considering too that man is certainly much more
complicated than a fly, we might boldly guess that there may
have been a million or more advantageous mutational steps in
his ancestry (this would allow, say, 50,000 genes, in each of
which, on the average, 20 mutational changes had occurred).
Let us first, however, take s for man, at the undoubtedly far
too low minimum value of 1,500, and r at 100.

Our total number rS thus becomes (100) i5oo_ jhat then is
the minimum number of individuals we should have to start
with, in the case of non-multiplying objects, to arrive, by "pure
chance," at one having the complication and perfection of or-
ganization of a man. We shall examine later what the size
of this number implies. It is also the minimum number which

Page eight

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

the multiplication rate of the ancestors of man would have led
to, if all the descendants of these ancestors had continued
multiplying at this same rate, i.e., without selection.

It might here be inquired whether such a rate of multiplica-
tion would have been possible or likely to occur in these an-
cestors, in the time during which life has existed on the earth.
We know that life has been here for a period having an order
of magnitude of something like a thousand million years, that
b, a million millennia. If there were only 1,500 mutational
steps in this time, that would make only one step in each 670,-
000 years. Our postulate, r — 100, requires that an individual
in the line of descent of man should multiply at least a hun-
dredfold between each advantageous mutational step that be-
came incorporated in the germ-plasm, and the next one. It
is obvious that far more than this much multiplication could
easily happen in 670,000 years. For it only takes seven doub-
lings to make a hundredfold multiplication, and the slow-breed-
ing modern European has been able to double his population
merely in the space of the last century. The multiplying or-
ganisms, then, would have no difficulty in fulfilling these con-
ditions.

Suppose, now, we try the more extreme figures, r — 10,000
an 5—1,000,000, so that r= becomes (10,000) i'""""'"'. To go
through a million mutational steps in the course of a million
millennia would require one mutation to become incorporated in
each millennium, or thousand years. It would also be necessary
for the selected tyjje of mutant to multiply by 10,000 during
this period of time, and meanwhile to undergo another muta-
tion. There can be no reasonable doubt that a millennium is
plenty long enough for many another mutation to occur, in
all the descendant germ-plasms, but how about the large amount
of multiplication here required? Most lower organisms go
through a generation in not over a year's time, and are able,
when given the opportunity, to multiply many fold in a single
generation. If, however, we suppose that the "select" indi-
viduals, those with "good" mutations, only increase in numbers,
on an average, by 2 per cent, in each generation, then, at a
year to a generation, each such individual would increase from
unity to nearly two hundred million in the course of a thousand
years. This is far beyond our requirement of 10,000 times.
Thus we see that the multiplying organism could probably do
much better than accumulate 1,000,000 mutations during the
time that life has already existed here, even though each muta-
tion represented the selection of the best in 10,000. Allowance
must, however, be made for the fact that accidental elimination
wipes out the great majority of mutant genes within a few
generations after their origination. That is, the process of
"differential multiplication" or "selection" is very haphazard
until a sizeable number of individuals with the mutant gene
happens to become established.

There is another process which works in the opposite direc-
tion to the above, i.e., which hastens the "establishment" of
advantageous mutations in the selected lines of descent. This
process is the formation of new combinations of genes occur-
ring in sexual reproduction. For the sake of simplicity it has
been ignored in this account. By its means it is made possible
that various different advantageous mutant genes which have
been multiplying simultaneously in parallel, in as many dif-
ferent (but partially overlapping) sections of a population,
can be finally combined into one line of descent. Thus many
more mutant genes can be accumulated into one (final) line

of descent, in a given length of time, than if all the mutational
events and selections had to occur successively in a single line.
Owing to this factor, the number of mutational steps may well
have been of a considerably higher order of magnitude than
1,000,000. Multiplication hence has probably afforded the
opportunity of obtaining an individual that represents a
chance of even less than one in (10,000)'°°°°°'.

NATURAL SELECTION PRUNES LIFETREE

It should be noticed that, for the evolution of the multiply-
ing organisms, the only two required conditions have been the
occurrence of "chance" mutations (which need include only a
very minute proportion of "good" ones) , and the ability of the
individuals carrying the "good" mutations to multiply to an
extent which, within the limits of one generation, need be only
extremely limited, but which, continued over a great lapse of
time by something akin to a geometric progression, becomes
prodigious indeed. In this process the role of "natural selec-
tion" consists in just this: that by the elimination of the "unfit"
individuals, or the restriction of their numbers, room is made
to alloif the multiplication of the others at the rate required to
provide the "chance" for the remarkable 1 in (100)^^"" or 1 in
(10,000) I'""''""' combmation to appear. In other words, selec-
tion merely gives opportunity for the multiplication to proceed
in the adaptive or better-organized lines at such a rate as would,
if uniformly continued throughout, have given the total which
automatically contains the "desired" combination. At the same
time, we should not minimize the importance of natural selec-
tion in determining which individuals will be allowed to multi-
ply, and, therefore, which of the myriads of possible directions
evolution will be allowed to take. The old analogy to the pro-
cess of pruning a tree is very pertinent in this connection.
If we imagine a world in which, through some sort of miracu-
lous intervention, the combinations which we now call the "un-
fit" are all allowed to persist and reproduce like the others, the
evolution of the "fit" would nevertheless proceed much as in
our own world, so long as they too were granted the oppor-
ranity to multiply as they do here. Thus "natural selection"
would not be necessary for their production. But these "fit"
or "well-organized" individuals, and lines of individuals, though
in absolute numbers as numerous as here, would necessarily
form but an infinitesimal fraction of all the unthinkably vast
horde of other combinations that had come into existence
simultaneously (just as in the hypothetical case of the non-
multiplying beings, in which, if we started with this same final
number to begin with, we would eventually find included
among them by sheer accident creatures as complexly adapted
as ourselves). The fact that the fit owed their existence to
"chance" would then be obvious, owing to the relative small-
ness of the minority in which they existed. In our world, the
misfits are largely nipped in the bud, and yet, in the sense
just explained, we see that we too are really but the vanish- f^
ingly small, viable, visible fraction of a stupendous ghostly
army of potential creatures, involving a total of (100) *^'"' to
(10,000) '■"""■"'"', or more, possible combinations of misfits.

A little consideration may now be given to the size of this
theoretical total number, to show that actually it would be quite
impossible of physical attainment. Consequently, if there were
no selective elimination, multiplication could not possibly have

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page

gone on to anything like the required extent in the "good"
lines. Likewise, if we had had to do with objects that could
not multiply, there could not possibly have been anywhere near
enough of them provided in the beginning to allow an orgatiiza-
tion comparable with that of a higher or even lower organism
to be formed in any of them by mere "chance."

Even the admittedly far too low minimum figure, (100)"°°,
is of staggeringly great dimensions. If there were this many
beings actually produced, then, even if each being were as
small as an electron, and all the beings were packed tight to-
gether, there would not be nearly enough room in the entire
Einsteinian universe, packing them in a hundred times beyond
the limits of the farthest visible stars and spiral nebulae, for
even an insignificant tittle of them. If we allowed each of these
packed "creatures" to go through its entire evolution, of 1,500
steps, in the millionth part of a second, and then substituted
another "creature" for it and gave the latter a like chance, and
so on for a quintillion years, we still should not have begun
to make any appreciable impression on the above number.
Neither should we if, in addition, each of these packed beings
of electron size, present for each instant, were itself expanded
into an entire Einsteinian universe, and each of these universes
were then crammed with beings of electron size in its turn.
In fact, we might continue thus expanding and subdividing
worlds time and again without approaching sensibly close to
the required figure.

Hence, in beings without the property of multiplication of
variations, and its corollary, natural selection, any such in-
credible combination of accidents as ourselves would have been
totally impossible of occurrence within the limits of practically
any number of universes. We are thus really justified in
feeling that we could not have fallen together by any accident
of inanimate nature. But, given the power of multiplication of
variations resident in "living" things, due to their genes, and
all this is changed, and we are enabled to enjoy the benefits —
such as they may be — of being the select of the select, such as
it would have taken a surpassingly vast number of worlds to
search through, before our match could be found anywhere by
the ordinary processes of chance. In that way, I hope, the
metaphysician may reach his "philosophical satisfaction" in
the contemplation of his own frame and of the processes
whereby it came into existence.

IX. The Task Ahead
The biologist is not satisfied to stop there, however. The

real problems of the generation of new living things are only
commencing to open up. The occurrence of variations, although
"accidental" in the sense just explained, nevertheless is subject
to a mechanism, our knowledge of which is as yet in its most
elementary stage. Moreover, the biologist of broader view is
not so well satisfied with his own frame. He knows that there
never has been any one objective in the course of evolution,
and that every creature, including man, is only on probation,
and may give way before another in which a more advantageous
succession of mutations happens to come along. The vast
majority of species, in fact, have perished along the way, and
only a relatively few survive, through change, to form the
contmumg threads of life that branch out again.

Man, however, is now the first creature in the world to have
this advantage — he has reached some understanding of this
process of evolution in which he has hitherto been caught and
blown about, and with understanding there frequently comes
some measure of control. He can now produce mutations for
the first ti:ne, and I have no doubt he will soon experiment
with this knowledge and in time by its means greatly improve
and alter the forms and functionings of those domestic animals
and plants which he has taken under his care. Look at the
motley shapes of flies that have been made in the laboratory,
and you may more readily appreciate the possibilities thus
presented.

Despite these advantages, we are today almost as far as ever
from producing to order the exact mutations which we want.
Enough, for the plants and animals, simply to produce a great
many mutations and then take our choice, as nature has done
in a far slower and more halting fashion. But the research
must go on. Man must eventually take his own fate into his
own hands, biologically as well as otherwise, and not be con-
tent to remain, in his most essential respea the catspaw of
natural forces, to be fashioned, played with and cast aside.

If we have had a billion years of evolution behind us, and
have advanced from something like an ameba to something like
a man, then, in the many millions of years which are still in
store for our world, why may we not be able to make a fur-
ther great advance, perhaps far greater even than this, because
under our own increasingly intelligent guidance? At least, if
we are men as we like to think of men, challenging all things,
we must make the attempt, and die fighting if need be, with our
eyes open.

Boners front Zoology Exams

A scientist discovered an old cork
which he studied under the microscope.

Other discoveries were made of the
proprieties of protoplasm.

A Hydra is an animal that looks like
m plant and grows on a stork.

The eggs and ova fuss, and produce
a new individual.

Cuvier believed in a series of new
creations and catechisms.

Apes and bamboos are arborial types
of animals related to man.

Paloeontologists have discovered fossils

imal to which they have given the name
asterisk, representing a link beween
reptiles and birds.

Evolution is decent with modifications
from pre-existing forms.

Pauline H. Dederer.

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missing months. A year's subscription
means twelve numbers, and your sub-
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proving that there once existed an an-ceived. If you're in doubt, please renew.

Order "How Evolution Works"

Orders have already come from Pro-
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University for bundles of the three issues
of Evolution containing the enlighten-
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"HOW EVOLUTION WORKS."
Thinking that other readers might want
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Page ten

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

Improving On Nature

By RALPH H. McKEE
Professor of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University

■piGHTY YEARS ago Ncw York was the leading lumber pro-
■*-' ducing state in the Union and Pennsylvania was a close
second. Today these states have almost forgotten that they
once supplied the lumter or pulpwood for their own mills.
They use about twenty-five times as much as they produce.
About three years ago a commission was created by the New
York State legislature to make a survey of the wood industry
of the state. The commission found that, not only many mills
using tinber directly, but other industries as well, have moved
to locations nearer a source of wood supply. In fifteen years
New York lost more than 1200 wood-using industrial plants.

States such as New York and Pennsylvania have four to
five million acres each of abandoned lands, lands which con-
tribute nothing to the prosperity and welfare of the state and
which have become a liability instead of an asset. Many of
these abandoned farms and cutover areas can be purchased
for from three to eight dollars an acre. To what better pur-
pose can this area be devoted than to plant it with trees?

Growing trees appears to be a problem requiring genera-
tions rather than years or decades to give results. However,
using modern methods, this need not be so.

It is common knowledge that agricultural crops, such as
wheat, oats, rice, corn, and so forth, have been improved by
hybridization and selective breeding. Among tree crops hybri-
dization has yielded conspicuous results in certain fruit and

Three sister hybrid poplar seedlings, all from the same catkin.
Impossible to predict how crosses will turn out.

*EXCERPT FROM JOURNAL OF FRANKLIN INSTITUTE.

nut trees and in a few ornamental varieties. It is but logical to
expect similar improvement in forest trees suitable for pulp-
wood and lumber if we applied the methods of hybridization.

Hybridization is, as you know, the cross-breeding of indi-
viduals of different species. The loganberry is a cross between
the antwerp raspberry and an
ordinary blackberry. Hybrids,
in general, grow faster, are
freer from disease, than either
of the parents. This is known
to geneticists as "hybrid vigor."
Unfortunately, hybrids do not
breed true and are often sterile.

In considering the improve-
ment of trees for forest pro-
ducts the poplars seemed most
promising. There were five hy-
brid poplars in existence so we
knew that crosses could be ob-
tained.

Our first problem was to lo-
cate the different varieties of
poplars in this country. The
largest collection was found to
be at Highland Park in Roches-
ter, the second largest at New
York Botantical Garden. Other
locations which furnished par-
ticular trees were Arnold Ar-
boretum in Boston, and certain
Long Island nurseries.

Before the flowers on the fe-
male trees opened, paper sacks
were tied over the clusters to
prevent normal pollination.
Later, when the flowers opened,
pollen was obtained from the
flowers of the selected male tree.
The pollen was taken at once
to the female tree, and, by
means of a wad of cotton, diis-
ted over the female flowers.
The sacks were immediately re-
placed to prevent normal pollin-
ation. After about two weeks
the paper sacks were replaced
by green cheesecloth sacks.. I
might say that the only reason
for staining the sacks green
was to make them less conspic-
uous so that small boys would not throw stones at them.

Six weeks later when the seed had ripened, they were re-
moved, taken to the laboratory where the cotton was carefully
picked off and the seed planted in damp sand. Nature pro-

Hybridization, high in th<
tree, where flowers are.

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page eleven

vides cotton so that the seed may be carried by the wind. Un-
fortunately this cotton is a handicap to growth and must be
removed before the seeds are planted.

A large number of the hybrids were, of course, no more
vigorous than the parents, but fortunately many grew with
greater vigor than either parent. The trial was exceptionally
successful. About fourteen thousand seedlings were grown and
one hundred one new crosses were obtained.

There is little to indicate in advance of actual trial which
crosses will yield offspring of noteworthy vigor. Rather more
than one hundred of the best-growing hybrids were reserved
and the remainder, nearly fourteen thousand, discarded. Each
of these better seedlings was propagated by cutting it up into
pieces ten or twelve inches long and stored for the winter. In
the spring they were planted in the field nursery and by the
next September each piece had become a six or seven foot tree.

Quick growth, however, was not the only factor to be con-
sidered in the final choice of hybrids. The concern which is
going to invest in a reforestation project requires a good yield
per acre and wood of a quality that will suit both the lumber
man and the pulp manufacturer. Therefore, in selecting hybrids
for propagation from the hundred we chose the stocky trees as
against the slender ones of the same height, for the stocky
would produce the greatest yield per acre. The shape of the
tree was also important. A tree which is vertical and has few
branches is to be preferred over one that is crooked and has
heavy branches. Branches mean a distribution of the total
wood in the tree and many knots — a source of trouble to the
lumber man and pulp manufacturer alike.

In order to determine the quality of the wood, fibre studies
were made and we found, as expected, that the length of the
fibre varied in different hybrids. As longer fibre gives better
paper and stronger lumber, we wanted to propagate the best
quality possible. We were much pleased to find that fibre
length and speed of growth were correlated. Thus, the fastest
growing hybrids were those with the longest fibre.

Resistance to disease is also desirable and some of the hybrids
were tested for common forest tree diseases. The result showed
that many of the more vigorous hybrids were quite resistant
to the more common poplar diseases.

The common wild poplars, P. tremuloides and P. grandi-
dentata, from which much of the book and magazine paper is
made, were compared with the hybrids. The studies disclosed
that the speed of growth, that is, the weight of wood produced,
of the new hybrids is from ten to fourteen times as much per
year as the wild poplars growing under similar conditions.

After a tract of land is cut over it is customary to let the
saplings that remain grow to trees. Such natural reforesta-
tion, as it is called, yields about six cords of useful wood per
acre in sixty years, that is, an average of two hundred fifty
pounds of pulpwood, or one hundred twenty-five pounds of
cellulose, per acre-year. For cotton, the yield per acre-year is
one hundred and fifty pounds of cellulose, for flaxstraw — one
hundred pounds, and cornstalks, nearly five hundred pounds.

Well managed reforestation plantations of pulpwood using
wild species will produce about two thousand pounds of cellu-
lose per acre-year. From the new hybrid poplar plantations
we have every reason to expect eighty cords of pulpwood per
acre in twelve years, that is, an average of about sixteen thou-
sand pouncb of merchantable wood per acre-year, equivalent
to eight thousand pounds of cellulose per acre-year.

Cellulose Production Per Acre-Year

Flaxstraw 100 lb.

Cotton 150 lb.

Cornstalks 500 lb.

Reforestation — Natural 125 lb.

Reforestation — Managed 2000 lb.

Reforestation— New Hybrid Poplars 8000 lb.

When trees can be grown so rapidly, they become an agri-
cultural crop, but without the uncertainties of annual plants.

All calculations indicate that more dollars per acre-year of
wood can be grown than dollars per acre-year of wheat or other
common farm crops. But the whole value of reforestation is
not complete with the reckoning of the dollar value of the
wood grown. Such plantations protect the country from floods,
and from land erosion, and tend to preserve an even climate.

Comparing width of annuLir rings, common poplar and mediocre
hybrid. (Reduced 1/3). Best hybrids show much greater width.

Page twelve

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

New York in the Ice Age

By ALLAN BROMS

IN the Bronx Zoo stands the famous "Rocking Stone," a
thirty-ton boulder perched in such nice balance that a fifty
pound pressure can rock it two inches on its narrow base. It
is a typical ice-borne "glacial erratic" brought and left here
by the great ice sheet of the Glacial Period. LJnder it, the
bedrock of Manhattan Schist is planed level by the overriding
ice and a nearby rock knoll to the northwest has several clear
grooves, one or more of which may well have been cut by this
very boulder as the ice sheet, into which it was frozen, scraped
it over the surface.

Elsewhere in New York are many exposures of this and
other bedrocks similarly planed and scratched, and almost
anywhere one can see such erratic boulders brought by the
invading ice sheet. Many of these turn out to be derived from
the Palisades across the Hudson River, indicating that the ice
moved, not down the river valley, but southeasterly across it,
a fact confirmed by the direction of the glacial scratches or
striae on the bedrocks. Other erratics in the vicinity are known
to have come from the Catskills and points even farther north.

These and other ice signs are to be found all over New
England, Canada, the states bordering the Great Lakes and
all northwestern Europe. This fact was first discovered by
Louis Agassiz, who concluded that all these areas, totaling some
six million square miles, were at one time covered by thick ice
sheets, ever expanding from northern centers of snow accumu-
lation. Now that we have learned to read them, these ice
signs tell an eloquent story of repeated glacial invasions, all
the more interesting to the amateur because they are unmis-
takable and furnish the essential clues to most of our surface
geology.

Often these erratics are associated with a confused mixture
of smaller rocks, gravel, sand and clay, all heaped together in
the usual disorder of the glacial moraine, wherever the melting
ice happened to dump them. Here and there, the waters of
melting may have done some sorting of the gravel into irregu-
lar cross-bedded layers within the morainic confusion and
spread the sands out into level outwash plains before the
front of the ice. Long Island provides the perfect example.
Its north half consists of terminal and retreatal moraines
stretching its whole length, while the south half consists of
flat outwash plains.

Because the outflowing waters were unable to transport

heavy boulders, these outwash plains have no erratics whatever.
But in the morainic hill belt they are everywhere, though
usually buried in the earthy rubbish heap which we call glacial
"drift or till." These glacial dumps are most irregular in
form, being piled high into a hill here, being lacking so as to
leave an isolated pond there. This was partly due to irregular
melting, but also to uneven loading within and upon the glacier.

Moraines, showing where the ice sheet halted.

"Rocking Stone," New York Zoological Park, an ice-ttansported
boulder on a glaciated surface.

For as the ice slowly crept southward, it had frozen on to such
underlying rocks as it could loosen, carrying them along,
dragging them along its bottom, grinding them together within
its mass. But sooner or later it faced the onslaughts of the
hot sun, turned to water, dropped everything, and ran — as
water. Sometimes a great block of ice would be left buried
in the moraine heap, quite deserted by the retreating ice front.
When eventually the ice block melted, it left a deep hole in
the hilly landscape, a typical "kettle hole."

Because they are usually buried, erratic boulders are not so
conspicuous in the terminal moraine as they are over areas
scoured bare by the overriding ice sheet and then covered but
thinly with a scanty moraine left as the ice front rapidly
retreated. In such areas there would also be a generous flow
of waters from melting, tending to wash away the finer glacial
materials, not overly abundant at best. Consequently, the really
fewer erratics now stand out conspicuously in contrast to the
nearly barren bedrocks. LJp New England way they build
fences of them, which also gets them out of the way of their
plows.

Many bedrock masses have been smoothed and carved by
the overriding ice, being left as low elongated knobs called
"roche moutonnees," (rosh mootone), a name best remembered
by its French derivation, roche meaning rock, moutonnees
meaning mutton, because they looked like sheep's backs. Their
length is in the direction of the ice movement, the end towards
the oncoming ice normally rising with a smooth upward slope.

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page thirteen

while the other end is often abrupt and much broken because
the ice froze to and plucked away pieces of the rock mass.

This work of planing and carving the underlying hard rocks
could hardly have been done by the ice itself, it being too
yielding. But the hard rocks frozen into its bottom could
well serve as hob nails for the great heel of the ice. They
could plane, and scratch, and even groove the bedrocks. A
notable example of such grooving is found in the big slab from
a Lake Erie island which is displayed at the entrance to the
American Museum of Natural History. Lesser grooves are
to be found in many places throughout the city, and here and
there the once numerous glacial scratches. Originally, quite
'all the surface bedrocks were probably full of such scratches,
but long exposures to weathering have destroyed them. Only
where the top soil has been recently removed, do we find clear

Terminal moraine and directions of ice movement in New York
vicinity during last glaciation.

glacial scratches. In the Bronx Botanical Gardens are several
fine examples. In one place, the scratches cross each other at
an angle, indicating that the ice movement changed direction.
It is even possible to determine which were first made and
which later. The Botanical Garden also furnishes examples
of quite all the other signs of glacial action, even to a small
glacial valley, really a big glacial groove, gouged out by the
ice stream that forced its way through. Such a valley, usually
much larger, is Ul-shaped in cross-section, for the icy mass
tends to spread and fill it fully, cutting along the sides as well
as center. A stream-cut valley is instead V-shaped, the water
working only in the narrow central channel.

Then there are glacial pot-holes, some near the best ex-
posure of scratched bedrock, others along the gorge of the
Bronx River. They were undoubtedly caused by the eddying
waters of falls or rapids, which used rock fragments and
^ gravels as grinding tools, swirling them round and round
until holes were bored several feet deep and wide in the hard
bedrocks. These, and some channels over the rocks that are
plainly stream-worm, are very strangely placed, high up where,
it would seem, no stream could possibly flow. But the great
glacier helps us explain, for in it and under it were confining
ice tunnels in which flowed swift, gravel laden streams, milling
violently round each rock obstruction, with now and then a

waterfall plunging down some icy crevasse. The deepest of
these pot-holes is very obviously due to a waterfall; the next
largest has a big tree growing in it.

These two are near the upper end of the Bronx Gorge.
This gorge is obviously young, speaking geologically, for it is
deep and narrow, quite unlike the valley upstream, which has
had time to widen by long continued weathering and lateral
erosion. Judging by the rate at which streams elsewhere are
known to cut into such rocks as these, this gorge is only about
35,000 years old, which brings us back to the estimated date
for the close of the Ice Age. This, and the fact that we find
an old, abandoned stream valley to the west, which the rail-
road now follows, leads us to conclude that the ice sheet must
have dumped so much rubbish into the old channel as to dam
and divert the Bronx River to its present course, forcing it to
cut its new gorge through the hard rocks. This conclusion is
confirmed farther upstream when we come to a little roimd
lake at an old bend Ln the original river charmel.

More extensive and detailed studies have convinced the gla-
cial geologists that, at the close of the Ice Age, a series of big
lakes formed before the retreating ice front, covering much
of the country to the south and east of Bronx Park, and filling
other valleys to the west. One of these. Glacial Lake Passaic,
was formed between the Watchung mountains and the ice
front. With the retreat of the ice it was completely drained,
but we can trace its old shore lines by the beaches at its former
high levels, and the present clay beds represent its former bot-
tom deposits.

To the eyes that see, the Bronx Botanical Garden tells
another absorbing story of plant adaptations and migrations,
exemplified by the fine stand of Northern Hemlocks above
the gorge. These trees are native to Canada and a cooler cli-
mate, but when the cold, hard glacier crept down, these tall,
proud trees marched south in wise retreat, migrating slowly
by generation after generation throwing out their seeds in ad-
vance. Then when the hot sun chased the glacier out, they
marched back home again but left this outpost grove of those
that were lured to stay on in this garden spot.

BROMS ON THE AIR

r7ACH Saturday evening at nine o'clock Allan Broms broad-
^—^ casts popular science over station WOR, each subject,
though complete in itself, being also preparation for a field trip
or museum visit on the Sunday after. The June program is as
follows: —
June 6, WOR, 9 P.M. THE WAYS OF THE WILD.

June 7, 10:30 A.M. Meet at Bronx Park subway entrance

to N. Y. Zoological Park.
June 13, WOR, 9 P.M. THE TALE OF THE HORSE.

June 14, 1 P.M. Entrance American Museum of Natural

History.
June 20, WOR, 9 P.M. THE IRON HORSE.

June 21, 2 P.M. Lobby Museum of Science and Industry,

220 E. 42nd St., New York, N. Y.
June 27, WOR, 9 P.M. RESTORING ANCIENT MAN.

June 28, 1 P.M. Entrance American Museum of Natural

History.

The Saturday Radio talks by Mr. Broms will continue over
WOR. Details of the correlated field trips are announced dur-
ing each broadcast. Mr. Broms also broadcasts Saturdays at
7:15 P.M. over station WPAP.

Page fourteen

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

The Ethics of Evolution

By MAYNARD SHIPLEY

Mavnard Shipley

TT is impossible to emphasize too highly the ethical value of
-^ the evolutionary concept. The Fundamentalists reiterate
that "the evolutionary philosophy is brutalizing and essentially
immoral." As a matter of fact, the expounders of evolution
have been notable for their high moral qualities, while the worst
brutes on the face of this earth
never heard of evolution, much
less believed in it.

The unscientific anti-evolu-
tionist makes much of the
phrases "struggle for existence"
and "survival of the fittest,"
whereby the strongest live and
the weakest die. But "Each
for himself and the devil take
the hindmost" is not, by any
means, a safe maxim even in the
struggle for existence. A wild
horse, ass, musk-ox, elephant,
etc., which would happen to
vary in the direction of purely
selfish individualism would soon be devoured by its natural
enemies and thus leave no descendants. The same is true of the
social insects, of many species of birds, and of most of the
higher mammals, including man.

Man especially catmot live for himself alone. He could
never have evolved to his present high estate on the basis of
strict selfishness or individualism. The survival of the fittest
in the case of many animals involves the grand and ennobling
principle of mutual aid, as taught by Darwin and strongly em-
phasized by Kropotkin. Because no two individuals are exactly
and in all respects alike, variation often takes place in unpre-
dictable directions. Even in an apparently normal type of the
human family anti-social individuals sometimes appear, despite
the envirorunent, or, in some cases, because of it. The secret
of every moral aberration, say the geneticists, lies in the germ-
plasm. Some investigators lay the blame on mis-education in
infancy and in childhood. We even hear sometimes — from
non-scientists — that a moral pervert or a victim of dementia
praecox or some other malady becomes a criminal because evo-
lution is being taught in our schools and colleges! Yet of the
125,000 or more felons in our prisons, not five per cent, were
taught evolution, while from 65 to 85% have had religious
training, according to official statistics.

It is precisely because I am an evolutionist that I hold such
high hopes for humanity. Despite the ups and downs of hu-
man history, on the whole the human race has been growing
better and better. When boys and girls learn that they were
not born depraved and inherently sinful and vicious, but are
the survivors of a very old race which has been, on the whole,
forging onward and upward in proportion as its members have
learned that virtue is its own reward, that kindness, decency
and fair play alone can gain for them a high and secure place in
society — when they learn that meanness, selfishness and bru-
tality are evidences of reversion to a more primitive brute stage

in the evolution of man, they will value the beauty of the ideal
in conduct and do their best to make this our world a more
satisfying and more delightful place in which to live, or in
which, perhaps, to bring up beloved children of their own.

To learn the laws of the universe is to learn also that we
must obey those laws or perish. Morality consists, in the last
analysis, in obedience to nature's laws. To ignore these rules
of life is to court degradation and ultimately extinction. The
concept of evolution provides us with sanctions for right con-
duct which are based upon the unavoidable laws of nature itself.
From the consequences of violation of these laws no one can
escape.

We must conclude, then, that evolution not only gives a
unity and direction to the study of human culture as a whole,
and that modern science is unintelligible without it, but also
that this discipline has great value as an educational agency.

For the student who views in imagination the long and
difficult struggle of man upward through the ages there is a
real sanction for right conduct as well as a penalty for malad-
justed behavior. There is, moreover, ground for unfailing
optimism, for confidence in a happier and nobler future for
humanity. The enlightened evolutionist joyfully climbs the
heights of being, eager to advance, responsive to every uplifting
influence, scornful of the promptings of inherited brute emo-
tion, spurred onward by the lure of happiness, his face ever
turned toward the sunlight of a more glorious future. Behind
him hes the long ancestral night of ignorance and brutality and
superstition. Before him lies the pathway of perfection, the
guerdon of a heaven to be realized within us.

Many causes are involved in the processes of human evolu-
tion, some of them obscure, others still unknown; but among
all the factors that are clearly recognizable stands out this
salient principle or law of mutal aid, of friendly co-operation
as a means to higher life and fuller joy. Spreading out from
the limited circle of the immediate family of parents and
children, her wave of altruism and good will enlarges to encom-
pass the tribe, the nation, and, in the not distant future, let
us hope, all of the nations and all of the peoples. When we
look upon human beings as the inheritors of one comparatively
minute globe in the depths of boundless space, members of one
great hiunan family, it is not difficult for the evolutionist to
envisage an early realization of that dream of poet and philo-
sopher, the universal brotherhood of man.

Even were the ennobling concept of evolution not the in-
valuable guide that it is to further discoveries; even though it
did not, as it actually does, afford us a solution of many other-
wise insoluble problems, it must yet be taught in our schools
for its value as an ethical incentive to the highest and noblest *
aspirations of the human race.

SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA

Champions Freedom of Science Teaching. Every evolutionist
invited to join. Particulars from Maynard Shipley, Pres., 830
Market Street, San Francisco.

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page fifteen

What Is Man Becoming?

By ALES HRDLICKA
Curator of Anthropology, U. S. National Museum

'^^To SUBJECT has occupied attention more than the future
•*- ^ of the individual after death; but the amount of thought
given to the terrestrial future of man has been astonishingly
small. Even now, thoroughly conscious as scientific workers are
of human evolution in the past, they seldom attempt to pic-
ture what may happen with man during the' endless stretches
of time ahead of him.

Had we a perfect knowledge of the human past, our whole
mental attitude towards the human problem would be altered.
We should much more fully understand ourselves, could much
better appreciate and weigh the changes in man now going on,
and could to a considerable extent deduce validly at least the
nearer future of the human species.

The essentials of the knowledge of man's past are:

Man, in origin, is not apart from but belongs to the rest of
the living world.

Man has developed, in all probability gradually, from the
nearest subhuman forms, and under the exciting influence of
environmental conditions. He then progressed gradually,
though doubtless not regularly or at the same rate, towards
his present status. During this progress he diSFerentiated into
numerous types and races, the less successful of which have
become extinct. He is still substantially attuned to Nature,
though the relation is weakened through his artificialities.

Up to the end of the last main glaciation, man progressed
evidently but very slowly in numbers. In general he did seem-
ingly but slightly better than to sustain himself. His spread
was slow and sparse. But after the main part of the last gla-
cial invasion he begins to multiply much more effectively and
as his numbers increase there follows gradually a spread all
over the habitable earth, with an accentuated differentiation of
types and races. The latter proceeded all, according to the best
evidence, from but one human species, and those now living
date all from the later, post-glacial, parts of human prehistory;
earlier strains, such as doubtless there were, can no more be
traced among living men.

The main phenomena of human differentiation or "evolu-
tion" throughout the past, are on one hand a progressive men-
tality, on the other hand a progressive physical adaptation and
eventual refinement. It is a wonderful and, in general, sus-
tained progress from a more-or-less ape-like precursor to the
highest type of man and woman of today.

When we impersonally observe the present, it is seen, not-
withstanding its great complexities, to be merely a developing
continuation of the past. Man is still, it appears, as plastic in
body and mind as he ever was, probably even more so; he is
4^ still struggling with environment, though controlling it more
and more every day; and he still changes.

He lives longer and better. He suffers less physically. Elimin-
ation of the less fit has largely changed to elimination of the
unfit only. Less mother's and child's hard labor, more and bet-
ter food, with exercise, sport and personal hygiene, are bring-
ing about an increase in stature of civilized man, while less use

•Proceedings of American Phylosophical Society

of the jaws and muscles of mastication is reducing the teeth,
the jaws, the breadth, protrusion and massiveness of the face.
The head in general among the cultured is becoming slightly
broader and larger, the skull and facial bones thinner, the phy-
siognomy more lively and expressive.

The features, the hands, the feet, are becoming more re-
fined, and general beauty is on the increase, in both men and
women. The sensory organs and centers, particularly those of
sight, hearing and taste, are evidently growing more effective
as well as more resistant. And there is unquestionable advance
in civilized man of mental effectiveness and mental endow-
ments. Records in endurance and in accomplishments are ever
being surpassed, and in modern commerce, industry, finance,
science, applied arts, bring to light mental giant after giant.

Those and other progressive changes in the cultured man
of the present are resulting, it is true, in various weakenings
and consequent disorders. The hair, especially in the men, is
being lost prematurely; the teeth are weakened in resistance,
there are troubles of eruption, and some of the dental units
tend to disappear. The facial changes, while favoring a greater
variety and higher range of the voice, lead often to disturbing
irregularities of the nasal structures and palate. The weaken-
ings through less use of the feet and other organs (appendix,
muscles, etc.) result in difEculties, even dangers. Great mental
application favors digestive and other disorders; etc. But all
these disadvantages are being checked by new adaptations and
have but a moderate effect of retardation on the general evo-
lutionary progress of civilized man.

Such, in high lights, was man's past and such is his present,
in evolution. The important problem before us is what, on the
basis of what preceded and what is now observable, may with
approximate safety be expected for the future.

In general man's past and present permit the statement that
he is not yet perceptibly near the end of his evolution, and the
prediction that, according to all indications, he will for long
yet keep on progressing in adaptation, refinement and differ-
entiation. But this applies only to the main stream of human-
ity, the civilized man. The rest will be more or less brought
along, or left behind.

The progress of the advancing parts of the race may be
foreseen to be essentially towards ever greater mental efficiency
and potentiality. The further mental developments may be
expected to be attended by an additional increase in brain size;
but this gross increase will be of but moderate proportions.
The main changes will be in the internal organization of the
brains, in greater blood-supply, greater general effectiveness.

The skull will in all probability be still thirmer than it is
today. And the skull may on the whole be expected to grow
fuller laterally and also antero-posteriorly, due to developments
in the directions of least resistance. The hair of the head, the
indications are, will probably be further weakened. The sta-
ture promises generally to be even somewhat higher than to-
day among the best nourished and least repressed groups.

The face will, it may be expected, proceed slowly in refine-
ment and handsomeness and character. This partly through in-

Page sixteen

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

The Amateur Scientist

A Monthly Feature

WHAT SHARP EYES SEE

By PAULINE H. DEDERER

ing a shining path of slime. On these
small fry the birds feed, and so we find
a chain of nature or a web of life as
Darwin called it, which forms the fabric
of the community life.

Good examples of fresh water associa-
tions of animals may be found among
the inhabitants of swamps, bogs and
pools. Take a pool or small pond in a
meadow. Here is a miniature world in
the universe of the countryside — and
how may the inhabitants of its depths
speculate upon the "nature of the world,
and of bugs!" In this small world we
find several different levels of society.
The lowest stratum consists of small
creatures which burrow in the mud.
Scoop up a netful of mud and you will
find in the early spring, tadpoles of frogs,
nymphs of dragon-flies with huge trap-
door jaws. Here they swim about in com-
pany with thread-like worms, microscop-

THROUGH nature education, the joys
of hunting with a camera have been
extolled as a substitute for hunting with
a gun. Even without gun or camera, na-
ture hunting may have its lucky shots if
out mind's eyes can be trained in marks-
manship, alert to see, understand and
appreciate the country we are in, and its
plant and animal life.

A rotting log in the woodland is one
of the best examples of a self-sufficient
community, where each creature is solv-
ing somehow the problem of how to
make a living. Here are damp moulds,
fungi and lichens, food for animal life,
among which we find abundantly the
little gray pill-bug, humble cousin of the
lobster, centipedes untroubled by the
thought "to know which leg comes after
which," soft white grubs of beetles, cater-
pillars of moths, spider eggs in white
silken blankets, soft-shelled snails trail-

ic protozoa, small insects and large pred-
atory water beetles, water spiders and
snails which attach themselves to sub-
merged water plants. Near the surface
of the water, amusing waterboatmen ply
their feathery oars, and the little back-
swimmers dart about in apparent frenzy.
Mosquitoes leave the cast-off garments
of babyhood upon the surface of the
pool, and wing their way. Red-spotted
newts poke their noses up for air, and
green frogs sit serenely at the margin.
Darting above them all are the winged
insects, notably the dragon flies, which
had their birth in the pool below, and
the birds that alight on overhanging
branches.

The greatest interest of a small pond
or marsh in the spring is, to my mind,
in the various stages one may find of the.
development of several kinds of amphi-
bia (frogs, toads and salamanders) . The
eggs are familiar bunches of brown or
blackish spheres enclosed in a mass or
masses of transparent jelly. You may
identify the species with a Palmer chart
which explains the distinguishing char-
acteristics of the eggs, and the time of
year they are laid. In our eastern woods
we may see at the breeding season, which

tensifying intelligent sexual selection, partly through further
reduction of the bony parts consequent upon diminished masti-
cation, and partly through the further development of the
frontal portion of the skull. The eyes will, it is plain, be rather
deeper set, the nose prominent and rather narrow, the mouth
still smaller, the chin more prominent, the jaws even more
moderate and less regular, the teeth tending to smaller, dim-
inished mostly in number, even less regular than now in erup-
tion and position, and even less resistant. The future of the
beard is uncertain, but no such weakening as with the hair of
the head is as yet observable.

The body will tend to slenderness in youth, the breasts
towards small, the pelvis parts but little affected, the lower
limbs towards long, the upper rather towards short, the hands
and feet towards narrower, the fingers and toes towards more
slender, with the fifth toe probably further diminishing.

As to the internal organs, the only more plainly foresha-
dowed probabilities are a further weakening and diminution
of the appendix, and a shortening, with diminution in capa-
city, of the intestines. As food may safely be expected to con-
tinually be more refined and made more digestible, the neces-
sity of a spacious large intestine will diminish in proportion.

Physiologically, the tendencies indicate a rather more rapid
than slower pulse and respiration with rather slightly increased
than decreased temperature — in other words a livelier, rather
than more sluggish, metabolism. But substantial changes in
these as well as in other organic functions are not to be anti-
cipated for many millenniums; these functions are too firmly
established.

So much for normal conditions. There is, regrettably, also
the debit side to be considered. Man has ever paid for his ad-
vance, is paying now, and will pay in the future. Functional

disorders, digestive, secretive, eliminative, disorders of sleep
and sexual, can not but multiply with the increasing stresses,
exertions and absorptions. Mental derangements will probably
be more frequent. Destructive diseases such as diabetes, and
various skin troubles, will probably increase until thoroughly
understood and hindered. The teeth, the mouth, the nose, the
eyes and ears, will ever call for an increased attention. The feet
will trouble.

Childbirth will not be easier nor less painful; though assis-
tance will equally rise in effectiveness. Due to prolonged life,
heart troubles, apoplexies, cancer, and senile weaknesses of all
sorts, will tend to be more common, until mastered by medi-
cine. All this, with many abnormal social factors, will retard
but not stop man's progress, for the indications are that he will
rise equal to all his growing needs as they develop and begin
to hurt.

There is no life-danger to humankind to be apprehended on
these scores. If there is a danger to human future, it lies in
the birth rate of the torch-bearers. Already now the birth rate
in the families of the most intellectual is unsatisfactory.

To try to fathom what will happen with man in the distant
future would be to lose ourselves in unwarranted speculation.
Only a few facts seem certain. As man will advance in knowl-
edge, so he will advance in the understanding of what is truly
advantageous and what truly disadvantageous to him, which 0
will make it easier for him to follow the right road. He will
advance in the control of nature, which will aid him greatly
in shaping his own destinies. And he will ever more understand
disease with its antidotes and immunization. With these gains
in perception and power, notwithstanding the many difficulties
in the way and the many less fit that must be left behind, a
long human progress appears assured.

June, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page seventeen

lasts from March through June, abun-
dant specimens of the wood frog, green
frog, leopard frog, pickerel frc^, and
the tiny tree toad an inch long, that in-
flates its throat like an amber bubble
and gives its clear shrill "peep." The
garden toad also joins this gathering, for
practically all amphibians frequent the
water to lay their eggs. Salamanders also
issue from their hiding places under
damp stones, and crawl to the water's
edge on the same errand. Here in the
warmth of the spring sun, the egg masses
pursue their course of development —
mysterious even though all its history
may be known — into the tadpole stage
characteristics of the species, and finally
attain the adult form.

Next in the list of animal habitants
let us take land associations. Some of
these include animals of the surface
ground and animals living on vegeta-
tion. As you walk through the woods
you may be passing by some black-and-
white or yellow-spotted salamander hid-
den under a stone, or a tiny red-backed
salamander concealed under the bark of
a dead tree. Many forms of life can be
brought to light by turning over stones
and stripping bark from dead trees.
Your eyes will have to be sharp to find
signs of life upon bushes and trees.
Look for cocoons of moths, hanging like
dead leaves upon twigs. Examine green
leaves curled over to form the covering
for some insect eggs. You may find a
"walking-stick" which looks like a twig
until you see it move or discover dull-
colored moths resting upon the bark of
trees, perfectly camouflaged. Look for
cast-off skins of cicadas (incorrectly
called locusts) still adhering to the tree
trunks by ghostly claws, showing a split
down the back through which the iride-
scent adult burst its prison.

Sharp eyes will find these things. It is
something at least to have found your
quarry, but don't stop there. Find out
something about its life history. Can you
follow it from the cradle to the grave?
How does it make its living? Do you see
any special value in any of its parts for
the kind of life it has to lead? You will
find zest now in planning a small na-
ture library to aid you in your quest.
Charts and pamphlets published by vari-
ous nature organizations are helpful and
inexpensive. Use these at home to round
out your study. Observation may reveal
^what an animal does but not what it is.

Best Evolution Pamphlet

The clearest, simplest explanation of
Evolution is "The Proofs of Evolution"
by Henshaw Ward, excellent for be-
ginners and opponents. Sent postpaid
for 10c; 20 for ^1.

Question Box

Answers by Allan Broms, unless otherwise credited

Q. — How do such meteorites as those
at the American Museum of Natural
History originate, and how do you ex-
plain that peculiar crystal structure inside
them? F. P. J.

A. — These meteorites, as you know,
have fallen upon the earth from outer
space. Most "shooting stars" are much
smaller, mere grains of meteoric sand
that burn into ashes from the friction of
the air as they rush through it at speeds
up to 44 miles per second. The large
meteors can reach earth without burning
all up because the heat of friction on
their surfaces does not have time to
strike into the interior, but merely fuses a
thin outer shell. So this heat cannot
help us explain the internal crystalline
structure.

T. C. Chamberlin, in his "The Two
Solar Families", has given us a reason-
able answer to both your questions. It
is well known that the "shooting star"
meteors, and the comets with which they
are associated, travel in long elliptical
orbits that take them alternately out into
the cold depths of space and then close
to the hot sun. They stay long out in
the distant zone of darkness and cold
where the sun's gravitational pull is
very feeble. So the fine dust specks and
larger meteoric grains have a chance to
gather into loose clumps under their own
mutual gravitational pulls, even though
these be very weak. Their collisions are
gentle, for the motions are very slow,
both in their orbits about the sun and
in their falls towards each other . Besides
they are out there in the feeding grounds
a long time before they return to the
vicinity of the sun. But as they head
sunward they fall, slowly at first, then
faster and faster, until they reach enor-
mous velocities in passing the sun. They
might well be broken up and dissipated
by the melting heat of the sun, but if
they are largely metallic, they instead
fuse and hang together. This probably
explains why most large meteorites are
metallic, composed of an iron-nickel al-
loy, with only a mixture of stony matter.
Such molten metallic masses, as they
slowly cool through the months of their
retreat into cold outer space, stay toge-
ther and tend to crystalize, explaining
the characteristic interior structure, which
when polished and etched by acid, reveals
the formerly mysterious Widmanstatten
figures to which you refer. Of course,
each time they pass through the outer
feeding grounds, they will add to their

size, each sunward trip fusing the loose
matter so accumulated into the main

meteoric mass.

* * *

Q. — Why are crocodile tears? J. C.
A. — Of course, I realize that you are
"kidding" me, but my comeback is to
give a sensible anwser to a foolish ques-
tion. Tears came into the lives of
crocodiles, other reptiles and all other
higher back-boned land animals because
they serve a useful purpose, give advan-
tage in the struggle for existence. For
crocodiles, even though they spend so
much time in the water, are land animals
in their physical structure. They breathe
with lungs all through life, have legs
for walking on land all through life, and
have eyes fitted to land life all through
life. The emphasis on "all through Ufe"
is to distinguish them from the am-
phibians, the frogs, newts and salaman-
ders, who start off as water-dwellers,
breathing with fish-like gills, and who
must change both structure and ways to
fit them for their adult land life. Their
very name, amphibians, tells that they
lead this double life. Everyone knows
that they represent the evolutionary
transition from fishes to the land dwell-
ing reptiles. Though the reptiles preserve
many old fish and amphibian features,
they are fitted only as lung-breathers
and sometime land-dwellers. They al-
ways, for instance, lay their eggs on dry
land and they have tears.
Those tears are a dry-land adaptation.
They substitute for the water in which
the fishes live and with which they wash
the dirt out of their eyes. They are never
troubled, as the reptile is, by dry-land
dust that gets in their eyes to torment
and obscure vision. Their eyes are get-
ting a perpetual eye-wash. When the
reptiles took definitely to the land, tears
came into the world, for eye-flushing
purposes only. Well developed eye-lids
helped too, by keeping the dust out, by
loosening it mechanically. But the tears
came for prosaic use not for sentimental
purposes as a mere eye-wash. The croco-
dile has no use for sentiment in his life.
It would interfere with his method of
getting a living. But he does have use
for tears. Of course, this does not ex-
plain the origin of that saying about
"crocodile tears", but that happens to be
another story.

When you Renew, include an extra ^I.
for Evolution for some friend.

Evolution, 175 Varick St., N. Y. C.

Page eighteen

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

Fundamentalist Follies

In this Monthly Feature Edwin Tenney Brewster
will refute all fundamentalist objections to evolution.

SCIENCE AND THE
LEGAL MIND

The Theory of Evolution, by Nathan
G. Moore (Lakeside Press, Chicago)
has just come to its third edition, the
first only two years old. Written, as
the title page informs us, "from a
lawyer's point of view," the Fundament-
alist press has proclaimed it with one
voice as at once the exposure and the
refutation of the errors and the fallacies
and illogical vagaries of evolutionary
science. Here, at last, is a trained legal
mind, that can put two and two to-
gether, cross-examine testimony, point
out contradiction and fraud — in, short,
reason!

One reads as far as page fourteen,
and encounters "There are five hundred
thousand classified forms of mammalian
Hfe and two hundred and fifty thousand
cf plant hfe, says Prof. Kellogg (Evolu-
tion, p. 8) "

It sounds fishy! Mammalian species
are some what rare birds. Most of us,
running over those we know in our own
districts, can name something like fifty.
Adding all we have seen in museums
and read about, will double the number.
As a matter of fact, there really are
rather less than one percent of the
"five hundred thousand classified forms
of mammalian life" which Lawyer Moore
will have us suppose that Vernon L.
Kellogg thinks there are.

Yet, curiously enough, our learned
brother, further along in his book (p.
282) quotes — this time correctly —
another zoologist, "In round numbers,
there are . . . only 36,000 known species
of vertebrates." So we have Lawyer
Moore quoting an authority on one page
for 500,000 mammals; and on another
page, another authority for 36,000 verte-
brates! Can it be that this champion of
the Lord and smiter of evolutionary
Philistines does not know what either
a vertebrate or mammal really is?

The plot thickens. One turns to Kel-
logg's original text (Evolution, p. 8)
and there reads, "We have found and
described and clasified and named about
500,000 living kinds of animals and
250,000 kinds of living plants."

So it wasn't "mammals" after all that
Kellogg really said, but "animals." But
"animal" and "mammal" do sound a
good deal alike. An author might
easily substitute one for the other —

especially if he hadn't much idea what
either word means!

Our fundamentalist limb of the law,
in short, quotes a perfectly plain sentence
out of one zoologist; and in it, along
with other glaring inaccuracies, manages
to substitute "mammal" for "animal."
Quoting correctly another zoologist, he
gives his readers to understand that there
are fourteen times as many mammals in
the world as there are vertebrates. He
puts these absurdities in his manuscript;
which manuscript he revises the cus-
tomary number of times. Then he
corrects his proof, supposedly twice.
Finally, he reads the printed work — a
weakness that no author escapes. Later
he prepares a second edition. After this,
comes a third.

All three editions go out for review.
Fundamentalist editors laud the volumes
to the skies. Fundamentalist preachers
tap them freely for sermons. Fund-
amentalist parents purchase largely
hoping to get ahead of their offspring
who are taking high school zoology
under sinful pedagogs who believe in
evolution.

And nobody notices anything wrong!
Moreover, the work has in abundance
"more of same" — and some of them
are even more obvious and even more
absurd than the one selected here as a
sample of Fundamentalist science. But
no Fundamentalist has spotted any of
them, else the author would have been
informed of his blunders and corrected
them. For Fundamentalist reviewers and
editors and clergymen and parents, as
for Fundamentalist lawyers, mammals
and vertebrates are all "science falsely
so-called!" So far as they are not still
another invention of Evolutionists they
are too nearly the same thing for a
Fundamentalist to trouble himself over
distinctions!

What could proclaim with louder voice
than the Fundamentalist's own, the
mental level of anti-evolutionism?

BOOKS

THE STORY OF EVOLUTION. By
Benjamin C. Gruenberg. D. Van Nos-
trand Co., N. Y. ^4.00.
FROM DUST TO LIFE. By Burton
P. Thorn. Dutton & Co., N. Y. $5.00.
The title of Gruenberg's latest book is a
misnomer, for he discusses the Factors of Ev-
olution rather than its Story. Aside from this

and his old disposition to placate the Funda-
mentalists, he does a fine job of clear and
interesting popular writing of up-to-date _
accuracy. He is to be commended for speak-
ing up more courageously than heretofore
and for the way he has covered and condensed
a vast subject without loss in either clearness
or accuracy. The many illustrations maintain
the same high standard.

Thom really writes the Story of Evolution,
the whole of it at that, from the very origin
of things to Man's evolving mind. He makes
a vivid story of it too, almost romantic at
times without loss to its science. Here also,
the clear style is ably abetted by numerous
fine drawings. As a whole, the story is
panoramic in its scope, but there is interesting
detail and incident throughout. On the
scientific side only one exception need be
taken. Since the preparation of his opening
chapter, our rapidly developing science of
sub-atomic physics has greatly modified the
account here presented. Otherwise, the book-
is a remarkable review of our evolutionary past.
Allan Broms.

THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION. By
George Barry O'TooIe, Ph.D., S.T.D. 408

pp. Macmillan, N. Y.

Professor O'TooIe differs from all the
other authors of recent books opposing evolu-
tion, (except L. T. More) in having a
scientific training. He differs from all the
others in having some real acquaintance with
Biology. It is, therefore, interesting to see "
what sort cf case he offers.

There is a specious appearance of fairness
in his foreword, in the statement that he is
presenting only the negative evidence, as the
evidence in favor of evolution is fully presented
elsewhere. It is soon evident, however that
he is adopting the usual special pleading
employed by other authors of this type,
but in a more subtle form. For example, he
demands the experimental production of a
new species under controlled conditions, but
arbitrarily defines a species as one existing in
nature, which is hardly compatible with produc-
tion in a laboratory (p. 4-5.). He entirely
ignores the new forms, essentially of specinc
grade, which have been produced under con-
trolled conditions within the last fifteen years,
or those developed under domestication. Again
he garbles the meaning of quotations as
where he quotes Bather (p. 3) to imply that
phyletic series are now discredited, when the
actual meaning is that they are steadily
becoming more closely linked and more ex-
actly demonstrable.

Mendel, a fellow priest, is deservedly
praised, but there is no hint of the fact that
the field which he founded. Genetics, is re-
sponsible for the appearance, in the laboratory,
of distinct physiological species. Mullet has
proved that it is not true that all mutations
are disadvantageous (p. 44). Hence the ^
argument that mutations can have no evolu-
tionary significance falls of its own weight.

The treatment of the evidence from fossils
(chapter III) is particularly unsatisfactory.
Quotations, taken out of context, are used to
support labored misinterpretations (especially
pages 76-96). The existence of any positive
evidence contradicting Professor O'Toole's
thesis is ignored.

luNE, 1931

EVOLUTION

Page

NINETEEN

Professor O'TooIe is sufficiently acquainted
with the field of Biology not to take the

^ late Alfred McCann's book, "God or Gorilla"
very seriously. However, he is so innocent
of any knowledge of Geology that he takes
Price's fantastic catastrophism seriously, and
he bases a part of his argument on Price's
ideas, which, in turn, are based on a purely
reading knowledge of Geology (p. 96-112).
He follows Price in denying the existence of
overthrusts, which can be demonstrated, in
the field, to any averagely intelligent high
school student. (It is amusing that Price
has apparently never looked at any of the
phenomena, in the field, about which he writes
so glibly). On pages 111-112 and 335, Pro-
fessor O'Toole kindly tells us which of the
results of Geology he is willing to accept, on
a provisional basis.

The chapters on 'The Origin of the Human
Soul" may interest the pious reader, as may
the afterword. As they are essentially theo-
logical, rather than scientific, they do not
require discussion here. The chapter on 'The
Origin of the Human Body"' is based on the
same old methods the juxtaposition of ap-
parently contradictory quotations from various
authors, removed from their context, the
suppression of contradictory evidence, and
strained conclusions drawn on purely dialectic
basis. One is grateful, however, for his
logical statement (p. 268-9): '"the only choice
which sound logic can sanction is between

* fixism and a thorough going system of
transformism, which does not exempt the
human body from the scope of the evolution-
ary explanation." With this statement we
can have no quarrel.

Prof. OToole, while not a scientist (since
he has not produced original work) has a
respectable training quite enough to be held
fully responsible for what he says and how
he savs it. It is regrettable, but true, that
while on a more intellectual plane, his book
is as worthless as those of Bryan, LeBufre.
McCann, Price, Riley and Williams. It is
interesting, however, to see that an intelligent
and fairly well-trained individual, such as
Professor OToole, can only produce so feeble
an effort to disprove the fact of evolution.
Horace Elmer Wood, 2nd.

PARADE OF THE LIVING. By John
Hodgdon Bradley, Jr. Coward McCann,
N. Y. 308 pp. ^3.00.

This is the best-written survey of the
history of life which has appeared during the
present revival of popularized science. Dr.
Bradley is a skilled maker of striking phrases;
a stylist whose methods are those which most
readily give dead bones life, and even endow
them with speech. No one can complain that
Parade of the Living is a tedious book, and
its vivacity seems to meet material reward.
^ To the paleontologist, however, it suffers
somewhat from that very quality. The pro-
gress of life has been slow and blundering;
the parade which Dr. Bradley shows us so
breathlessly has failed to include a new
phylum in five hundred million years, while
most of its participants have died by the way.
There were gaudy costumes upon its bands
and queer assemblages in its cages; but the

bands were out of step and the procession
demoralized. Dr. Bradley's present tense and
active voice obscure the confusion, and indicate,
now and then, that the beasts themselves willed
to change.

Yet it is doutful that these defects will
make much difference to the non-paleonto-
logic reader. He may, however, justly
complain at the absence of pictures, which
either forces him to rely on word impressions
or to consult such a book as Lull's Organic
Evolution. The chances are that he'll do the
former, and thereby lose some of the reality
which Dr. Bradley has tried (so successfully)
to give his narrative.

Carroll Lane Fenton,

Funnymentals

"Such things as railroads and telegraphs
are impossibilities and rank infidelity. There
is nothing in the Word of God about them.
If God had designed that His intelligent crea-
tures should travel at the frightful speed of
fifteen miles an hour, by steam, he would have
clearly foretold through his holy prophets. It
is a device of Satan to lead immortal souls
down to hell." Christian School Board, Lan-
caster, O., 1828, quoted by Sprading in Sci-
ence Versus Dogma.

Evolution is "a theory that will completely
undermine our present civilization, sweep
away all present standards of morality and
turn the world back into barbarism, and all
founded on pure speculation." W. G. Bennett
m May, 1931, "Fax."

"It (Noah's flood), is the only explanation
of those great bone deposits that characterize
the eastern and western shores of North
America, and are found in heaps in other
portions of the earth. Animals do not die in
huddles, nor do they crawl to some grave-
yard and lay themselves upon the bones of
their ancestors to breathe their last, but such
a flood as is recorded in Genesis, drowning
the animals of the earth, would by the tidal
and translation waves thereof, tend to pile
them in exactly such ricks, on ocean shore
lines, with the final recession of waters to sea
beds ....

"It would wioe from the earth those great
saurians that feasted upon its luxurious vege-
tation, and pile them up in heaps of the dead,
exactly as the Wyoming excavations discovered
them a few years since, burying them in the
rock of the plateau, 7,000 feet above sea level,
since their great hulks would not tend to
drift away with the receding waves as did
those of lesser animal life .... The flood
is the solitary e.xplanation of all these facts."
Rev. W. B. Riley, Christian Fundamentalist,
May, 1931.

SEND MORE FUNNYMENTALS

Readers are in\'ited to help secure ammuni-
tion for the Funnymentals colunn. It you
have any fundamentalist statements, either
written or oral, that you think worttiy ot
being reprinted under FUNNYMENTALS,
send then a'onc;. But be sure you quote
ACCURATELY, and give exact authority.

New Address: 175 Varick St., N. Y. C.

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP,
MANAGEMENT, CIRCULATION,
ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF
CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24, 1912, of
Evolution, published monthly at New York,
N. Y., for April 1, 1931.

State of New York, County of New York, ss.

Before me, a Notary Public in and for the
State and county aforesaid, personally ap-
peared L. E. Katterfeld, who, having been
duly sworn according to law, deposes and says
that he is the Managing Editor of the Evolu-
tion, and that the following is, to the best of
his knowledge and belief, a true statement of
the ownership, management (and if a daily
paper, the circulation), etc., of the aforesaid
publication for the date shown in the above
caption, required by the Act of August 24,
1912. embodied in section 411, Postal Laws
and Regulations, printed on the reverse of
this form, to wit:

1. That the names and addresses of the
publisher, editor, managing editor, and busi-
ness managers are: Publisher, Evolution Pub-
lishing Corporation, 344 E. 16th St., New
York, N. Y.: Editor, none; Managing Editor,
L. E. Katterfeld, 344 E. 16th St., New York,
N. Y.; Business Managers, none.

2. That the owner is: (If owned by a
corporation, its name and address must be
stated and also immediately thereunder the
names and addresses of stockholders owning
or holding one per cent or more of total
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owners must be given. If owned by a firm,
company, or other unincorporated concern, its
name and address as we'I as those of each in-
dividual member must be given).

Evolution Publishing Corp., N. Y.; Allan
Broms, New York, N. Y.; Martin Dewey,
New York, N. Y.; Wm. King Gregory, New
York, N. Y.; L. E. Katterfeld, New York,
N. Y.; M. Mark, Swavzee, Ind.; A. Nie'en,
Cincinnatti, Ohio: Frank A. Sieverman, New
York, N. Y.; Elihu Thomson, Swampscott,
Mass.; Morris Weinberg, New York, N. Y.

3. That the known bondholders, mortga-
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4. That the two paragraphs next above,
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corporation has anv interest direct or indirect
in the said sto'k. bonds, or other securities
than as so stated bv him.

L. E. Katterfe'.d, Managing Editor.
Sworn to and subs'ribed before me this 15th
day of April 1931.

Charies S. HnFTER. Notary P:tVk.
My commission e.vjires March 30, 1933.

'AGE TWENTY

EVOLUTION

June, 1931

■■ ^ ^'

\^,.^i^-

I9ff

MAROONED!
On Friday- evening, May 29, 1931, the International Con-
vention of the World's Christian Fundamentals Association,
in Philadelphia again upheld "Noah's Flood versus the Dar-
vvin Philosophy!"

THE GREAT EVOLUTION DEBATE

Between Prof. Joseph McCabe and Rev. W. B. Riley, which
Riley would not publish in his fundamentalist magazine, ap-
peared in full in three issues of Evolution. Postpaid, 25c;
ten or more 15c. Sells like hot cakes at meetings. We'll mail
the three numbers containing this debate to any list of names
for 15c a set. Fire a Broadside at your friends.

THE TEST

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