EDWARD 8. MORSE.

THE

j

POPULAE SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

CONDUCTED BY E. L. AND W. J. YOUMANS.

VOL. XIII.

MAY TO OCTOBER. 1878.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1878.

COPYRIGHT BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1878.

io*f-3f

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MAY, 1878.

THE RADIOMETER: A FRESH EVIDENCE OF A
MOLECULAR UNIVERSE.1

By JOSIAH P. COOKE, Jr.,

ERVING PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

~~VT~0 one who is not familiar with the history of physical science can
-L i appreciate how very modern are those grand conceptions which
add so much to the loftiness of scientific studies ; and of the many who,
on one of our starlit nights, look up into the depths of space, and are
awed by the thoughts of that immensity which come crowding upon
the mind, there are few, I imagine, who realize the fact that almost all
the knowledge, which gives such great sublimity to that sight, is the
result of comparatively recent scientific investigation ; and that the
most elementary student can now gain conceptions of the immensity of
the universe of which the fathers of astronomy never dreamed. And
how very grand are the familiar astronomical facts which the sight of
the starry heavens suggests !

Those brilliant points are all suns like the one which forms the cen-
tre of our system, and around which our earth revolves ; yet so incon-
ceivably remote, that although moving through space with an incredible
velocity they have not materially changed their relative position since
recorded observations began. Compared with their distance, the dis-
tance of our own sun — 92,000,000 miles — seems as nothing; yet how
inconceivable even that distance is when we endeavor to mete it out
with onr terrestrial standards ! For, if, when Copernicus — the great
father of modern astronomy — died, in 1543, just at the close of the
Protestant Reformation, a messenger had started for the sun, and trav-
eled ever since with the velocity of a railroad-train — thirty miles an
hour — he would not yet have reached his destination !

1 A lecture delivered in the Sanders Theatre of Harvard University, March 6, 1878.

VOL. XIII. — 1

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Evidently, then, no standards, which like our ordinary measures
bear a simple or at least a conceivable relation to the dimensions of our
own bodies, can help us to stretch a line in such a universe. We must
seek for some magnitude which is commensurate with these immensities
of space; and, in the wonderfully rapid motion of light, astronomy fur-
nishes us with a suitable standard. By the eclipses of Jupiter's sat-
ellites the astronomers have determined that this mysterious effluence
reaches us from the sun in eight minutes and a half, and therefore must
travel through space with the incredible velocity — shall I dare to name
it — of 186,000 miles in a second of time! Yet inconceivably rapid as
this motion is, capable of girdling the earth nearly eight times in a
single second, the very nearest of the fixed stars, a Centauri, is so remote
that the light by which it will be seen in the southern heavens to-
night, near that magnificent constellation the Southern Cross, must have
started on its journey three years and a half ago. But this light comes
from merely the threshold of the stellar universe ; and the telescope re-
veals to us stars so distant that, had they been blotted out of existence
when history began, the tidings of the event could not yet have reached
the earth !

Compare now with these grand conceptions the popular belief of
only a few centuries back. Where we look into the infinite depths, our
Puritan forefathers saw only a solid dome hemming in the earth and
skies, and through whose opened doors the rain descended. They
regarded the sun and moon merely as great luminaries set in this
firmament to rule the day and night, and to their understandings the
stars served no better purpose than the spangles which glitter on the
azure ceiling of many a modern church. The great work of Copernicus,
" De Orbium Ccelestium Revolutionibus," which was destined, ulti-
mately, to overthrow the crude cosmography which Christianity had
inherited from Judaism, was not published until just at the close of the
author's life in 1543, the date before mentioned. The telescope, which
was required to fully convince the world of its previous error, was not
invented until more than half a century later, and it was not until 1835
that Struve detected the parallax of a Lyra?. The measurement of this
parallax, together with Bessel's determination of the parallax of 61
Cygni, and Henderson's that of a Centauri, at about the same time,
gave us our first accurate knowledge of the distances of the fixed stars.

To the thought I have endeavored to express I must add another,
before I can draw the lesson which I wish to teach. Great scientific
truths become popularized very slowly, and, after they have been
thoroughly worked out by the investigators, it is often many years
before they become a part of the current knowledge of mankind. It
was fully a century after Copernicus died, with his great volume — still
wet from the press of Nuremburg — in his hands, before the Copernican
theory "was generally accepted even by the learned ; and the intolerant
spirit with which this work was received, and the persecution which

THE RADIOMETER. 3

Galileo encountered more than half a century later, were due solely to
the circumstance that the new theory tended to subvert the popular
faith in the cosmography of the Church. In modern times, with the
many popular expositors of science, the diffusion of new truth is more
rapid ; but even now there is always a long interval after any great
discovery in abstract science before the new conception is translated
into the language of common life, so that it can be apprehended by the
mass even of educated men.

I have thus dwelt on what must be familiar facts in the past history
of astronomy, because they illustrate and will help you to realize the
present condition of a much younger branch of physical science : for in
the transition-period I have described there exists now a conception
which opens a vision into the microcosmos beneath us as extensive and
as grand as that which the Copernican theory revealed into the macro-
cosmos above us.

The conception to which I refer will be at once suggested to every
scientific scholar by the word molecule. This word is a Latin diminu-
tive, which means, primarily, a small mass of matter ; and although
heretofore often applied in mechanics to the indefinitely small particles
of a body between which the attractive Or repulsive forces might be
supposed to act, it has onty recently acquired the exact significance
with which we now use it.

In attempting to discover the original usage of the word molecule,
I was surprised to find that it was apparently first introduced into
science by the great French naturalist, Buffon, who employed the term
in a very peculiar sense. Buffon does not seem to have been troubled
with the problem which so engrosses our modern naturalists — how the
vegetable and animal kingdoms were developed into their present con-
dition— but he was greatly exercised by an equally difficult problem,
which seems to have been lost sight of in the present controversy, and
which is just as obscure to-day as it was in Buffon's time, at the close
of the last century, and that is, Why species are so persistent in
Nature ; why the acorn always grows into the oak, and why every
creature always produces of its kind. And, if you will reflect upon it,
I am sure you will conclude that this last is by far the more fundamen-
tal problem of the two, and one which necessarily includes the first.
That of two eggs, in which no anatomist can discover any structural
difference, the one should, in a few short years, develop an intelligence
like Newton's, while the other soon ends in a Guinea-pig, is certainly a
greater mystery than that, in the course of unnumbered ages, monkeys,
by insensible gradations, should grow into men.

In order to explain the remarkable constancy of species, Buffon ad-
vanced a theory which, when freed from a good deal that was fanciful,
may be expressed thus : The attributes of every species, whether of
plants or of animals, reside in their ultimate particles, or, to use a more
philosophical but less familiar word, inhere in these particles, which

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Buffon names organic molecules. According to Buffon, the oak owes
all the peculiarities of its organization to the special oak-molecules of
which it consists ; and so all the differences in the vegetable or ani-
mal kingdom, from the lowest to the highest species, depend on fun-
damental peculiarities with which their respective molecules were pri-
marily endowed. There must, of course, be as many kinds of molecules
as there are different species of living beings ; but, while the molecules
of the same species were supposed to be exactly alike and to have a
strong affinity or attraction for each other, those of different species
were assumed to be inherently distinct and to have no such affinities.
Buffon further assumed that these molecules of organic Nature were dif-
fused more or less widely through the atmosphere and through the soil,
arid that the acorn grew to the oak simply because, consisting itself of
oak -molecules, it could draw only oak -molecules from the surrounding
media.

With our present knowledge of the chemical constitution of organic
beings, we can find a great deal that is both fantastic and absurd in
this theory of Buffon, but it must be remembered that the science of
chemistry is almost wholly a growth of the present century, while Buf-
fon died in 1788 ; and, if we look at the theory solely from the stand-
point of his knowledge, we shall find in it much that was worthy of this
great man. Indeed, in our time the essential features of the theory of
Buffon have been transferred from natural history to chemistry almost
unchanged.

According to our modern chemistry, the qualities of every substance
reside or inhere in its molecules. Take this lump of sugar. It has cer-
tain qualities with which every one is familiar. Are those qualities at-
tributes of the lump or of its parts ? Certainly of its parts. For, if we
break up the lump, the smallest particles will still taste sweet and show
all the characteristics of sugar. Could we then carry on this subdivi-
sion indefinitely provided only we had senses or tests delicate enough
to recognize the qualities of sugar in the resulting particles ? To this
question, modern chemistry answers decidedly : No! You would before
long reach the smallest mass that can have the qualities of sugar. You
would have no difficulty in breaking up these masses, but you would
then obtain not smaller particles of sugar, but particles of those utterly
different substances which we call carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, in a
word particles of the elementary substances of which sugar consists.
These ultimate particles of sugar Ave call the molecules of sugar, and
thus we come to the present chemical definition of a molecule, " The
smallest particles of a substance in which its qualities inhere,'''' which,
as you see, is a reproduction of Buffon's idea, although applied to mat-
ter and not to organism.

A lump of sugar, then, has its peculiar qualities because it is an
aggregate of molecules which have those qualities, and a lump of salt
differs from a lump of sugar simply because the molecules of salt differ

THE RADIOMETER. 5

from those of sugar, and so with every other substance. There are as
many kinds of molecules in Nature as there are different substances, but
all the molecules of the same substance are absolutely alike in every
respect.

Thus far, as you see, we are merely reviving in a different associa-
tion the old ideas of Buffon. But just at this point comes in a new
conception, which gives far greater grandeur to our modern theory :
for we conceive that those smallest particles in which the qualities of a
substance inhere are definite bodies or systems of bodies moving in
space, and that a lump of sugar is a universe of moving worlds.

If on a clear night you direct a telescope to one of the many star-
clusters of our northern heavens, you will have presented to the eye as
good a diagram as we can at present draw of what we suppose would,
under certain circumstances, be seen in a lump of sugar if we could
look into the molecular universe with the same facility with which the
telescope penetrates the depths of space. Do you tell me that the ab-
surdities of Buffon were wisdom when compared with such wild specu-
lations as these ? The criticism is simply what I expected, and I must
remind you that, as I intimated at the outset, this conception of mod-
ern science is in the transition period of which I then spoke, and, al-
though very familiar to scientific scholars, has not yet been grasped by
the popular mind. I can, further, only add that, wild as it may appear,
the idea is the growth of legitimate scientific investigation, and express
my conviction that it will soon become as much a part of the popular be-
lief as those grand conceptions of astronomy to which I have referred.
Do you rejoin that we can see the suns in a stellar cluster, but cannot
even begin to see the molecules ? I must again remind you that, in fact,
you only see points of light in the field of the telescope, and that your
knowledge that these points are immensely distant suns is an inference
of astronomical science ; and further that our knowledge — if I may so
call our confident belief — that the lump of sugar is an aggregate of mov-
ing molecules is an equally legitimate inference of molecular mechanics,
a science which, although so much newer, is as positive a field of study
as astronomy. Moreover, sight is not the only avenue to knowledge ;
and, although our material limitations forbid us to expect that the
microscope will ever be able to penetrate the molecular universe, yet
we feel assured that we have been able by strictly experimental meth-
ods to weigh molecular masses, and measure molecular magnitudes, with
as much accuracy as those of the fixed stars.

Of all forms of matter the gas has the simplest molecular structure,
and, as might be anticipated, our knowledge of molecular magnitudes
is as yet chiefly confined to materials of this class. I have given below
some of the results which have been obtained in regard to the molecular
magnitudes of hydrogen gas, one of the best studied of this class of sub-
stances ; and, although the vast numbers are as inconceivable as are
those of astronomy, they cannot fail to impress you with the reality of

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the magnitudes tbey represent. I take hydrogen gas for my illustra-
tion rather than air, because our atmosphere is a mixture of two gases,
oxygen and nitrogen, and therefore its condition is less simple than
that of a perfectly homogeneous material like hydrogen. The molecu-
lar dimensions of other substances, although varying very greatly in
their relative values, are of the same order as these.1

Dimensions of Hydrogen Molecules calculated for Temperature of Melting Ice
and for the Mean Height of the Barometer at the Sea-Level.

Mean velocity, 6,099 feet a second.

Mean path, 31 ten-millionths of an inch.

Collisions, 17,750 millions each second.

Diameter, 438,000, side by side, measure Ti„ of an inch.

Mass, 14 (millions 3) weigh ^Vo of a grain.

Gas-volume, 311 (millions3) till one cubic inch.

To explain how the values here presented were obtained would be
out of place in a popular lecture,2 but a few words in regard to two or
three of the data are required to elucidate the subject of this lecture.

First, then, in regard to the mass or weight of the molecules. So
far as their relative values are concerned, chemistry gives us the means
of determining the molecular weights with very great accuracy ; but
when we attempt to estimate their weights in fractions of a grain — the
smallest of our common standards — we cannot expect precision, simply
because the magnitudes compared are of such a different order ; and
the same is true of most of the other absolute dimensions, such as the
diameter and volume of the molecules. We only regard the values
given in our table as a very rough estimate, but still we have good

1 As some of the readers of this journal may be interested to compare these values,
we reproduce the " Table of Molecular Data " from Prof. Clerk Maxwell's lecture on
" Molecules," delivered before the British Association at Bradford, and published in Na-
ture, September 25, 18Y3.

Molecular Magnitudes at Standard Temperature and Pressure, 0° C. and 16 c. m.

RANK ACCORDING TO ACCURACY OF KNOWLEDGE.

Rank I.

Relative mass

Velocity in metres per second

Rank II.

Mean path in ten billionths f10-'°) of a metre.
Collisions each second — number of millions . .

Tydrogen,

Rank III.

Diameter in hundred hillionths (,0-u) of a metre [

Mass in ten million million million millionths(10-26) of a gramme;

1
1,859

965
17,750

58
46

Oxygen.

16
465

560
7,646

76
736

Carbonic
Oxide.

14

497

482
9,489

83
644

Carbonic
Dioxide.

22
396

379
9,720

93

1,012

Number of molecules in one cubic centimetre of every gas is nineteen million mill-
ion million on 19 (,„' 8).

Two million hydrogen molecules side by side measure a little over one millimetre.

2 See Prof. Maxwell's lecture, loc. cit. ; also Appletons' " Cyclopaedia," article " Mole-
cules."

THE RADIOMETER. 7

grounds for believing that they are sufficiently accurate to give us a
true idea of the order of the quantities with which we are dealing ; and
it will be seen that' although the numbers required to express the rela-
tions to our ordinary standards are so large, these molecular magnitudes
are no more removed from us on the one side than are those of astron-
omy on the other.

Passing next to the velocity of the molecular motion, we find in that
a quantity which, although large, is commensurate with the velocity of
sound, the velocity of a rifle-ball, and the velocities of many other mo-
tions with which we are familiar. We are, therefore, not comparing,
as before, quantities of an utterly different order, and we have confi-
dence that we have been able to determine the value within very nar-
row limits of error. But how surprising the result is ! Those molecules
of hydrogen are constantly moving to and fro with this great velocity,
and not only are the molecules of all aeriform substances moving at
similar, although differing, rates, but the same is equally true of the
molecules of every substance, whatever may be its state of aggregation.

The gas is the simplest molecular condition of matter, because in
this state the molecules are so far separated from each other that their
motions are not influenced by mutual attractions. Hence, in accord-
ance with the well-known laws of motion, gas-molecules must always
move in straight lines and with a constant velocity until they collide
with each other or strike against the walls of the containing vessel,
when, in consequence of their elasticity, they at once rebound and
start on a new path with a new velocity. In these collisions, however,
there is no loss of motion, for, as the molecules have the same weight,
and are perfectly elastic, they simply change velocities, and whatever
one may lose the other must gain.

But if the velocity changes in this way, you may ask, What meaning
has the definite value given in our table ? The answer is, that this is
the mean value of the velocity of all the molecules in a mass of hydro-
gen gas under the assumed conditions ; and, by the principle just stated,
the mean value cannot be changed by the collisions of the molecules
among themselves, however great may be the change in the motion of
the individuals.

In both liquids and solids the molecular motions are undoubtedly as
active as in a gas, but they must be greatly influenced by the mutual
attractions which hold the particles together, and hence the conditions
are far more complicated, and present a problem which we have been
able to solve only very imperfectly, and with which, fortunately, we
have not at present to deal.

Limiting, then, our study to the molecular condition of a gas, pict-
ure to yourselves what must be the condition of our atmosphere, with
its molecules flying about in all directions. Conceive what a molec-
ular storm must be, raging about us, and how it must beat against
our bodies and against every exposed surface. The molecules of our

8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

atmosphere move, on an average, nearly four (3.8) times slower than
those of hydrogen under the same conditions ; but then they weigh, on
an average, fourteen and a half times more than hydrogen-molecules,
and therefore strike with as great energy. And do not think that the
effect of these blows is insignificant because the molecular projectiles are
so small ; they make up by their number for what they want in size.

Consider, for example, a cubic yard of air, which, if measured at the
freezing-point, weighs considerably over two pounds. That cubic yard
of material contains over two pounds of molecules, which are moving
with an average velocity of 1,605 feet a second, and this motion is
equivalent, in every respect, to that of a cannon-ball of equal weight,
rushing along its path at the same tremendous rate. Of course, this is
true of every cubic yard of air at the same temperature ; and, if the
motion of the molecules of the atmosphere around us could by any
means be turned into one and the same direction, the result would be a
hurricane sweeping over the earth with this velocity — that is, at the
rate of 1,094 miles an hour — whose destructive violence not even the
Pyramids could withstand.

Living as we do in the midst of a molecular tornado capable of such
effects, our safety lies wholly in the circumstance that the storm beats
equally in all directions at the same time, and the force is thus so
exactly balanced that we are wholly unconscious of the tumult. Not
even the aspen-leaf is stirred, nor the most delicate membrane broken ;
but let us remove the air from one of the surfaces of such a membrane,
and then the power of the molecular storm becomes evident, as in the
familiar experiments with an air-pump.

As has already been intimated, the values of the velocities both of
hydrogen and of air molecules given above were measured at a definite
temperature, 32° of our Fahrenheit thermometer, the freezing-point of
water ; and this introduces a very important point bearing on our sub-
ject, namely, that the molecular velocities vary very greatly with the
temperature. Indeed, according to our theory, this very molecular
motion constitutes that state or condition of matter which we call tem-
perature. A hot body is one whose molecules are moving compara-
tively rapidly, and a cold body one in which they are moving compara-
tively slowly. Without, however, entering into further details, which
would involve the whole mechanical theorj' of heat, let me call your
attention to a single consequence of the principle I have stated.

When we heat hydrogen, air, or any mass of gas, we simply in-
crease the velocity of its moving molecules. When we cool the gas, we
simply lessen the velocity of the same molecules. Take a current of
air which enters a room through a furnace. In passing it comes in con-
tact with heated iron, and, as we say, is heated. But, as we view the
process, the molecules of the air, while in contact with the hot iron,
collide with the very rapidly-oscillating metallic molecules, and fly back
as a billiard-ball would under similar circumstances, with a greatly-in-

THE RADIOMETER. g

creased velocity, and it is this more rapid motion which alone consti-
tutes the higher temperature.

Consider, next, what must be the effect on the surface. A moment's
reflection will show that the normal pressure exerted by the molecular
storm, always raging in the atmosphere, is due not only to the impact
of the molecules, but also to the reaction caused by their rebound.
When the molecules rebound they are, as it were, driven away from the
surface in virtue of the inherent elasticity both of the surface and of the
molecules. Now, what takes place when one mass of matter is driven
away from another — when a cannon-ball is driven out of a gun, for
example? Why, the gun kicks! And so every surface from which
molecules rebound must kick; and, if the velocity is not changed by the
collision, one-half of the pressure caused by the molecular bombardment
is due to the recoil. From a heated surface, as we have said, the mole-
cules rebound with an increased velocity, and hence the recoil must be
proportionally increased, determining a greater pressure against the
surface.

According to this theory, then, we should expect that the air would
press unequally against surfaces at different temperatures, and that,
other things being equal, the pressure exerted would be greater the
higher the temperature of the surface. Such a result, of course, is
wholly contrary to common experience, which tells us that a uniform
mass of air presses equally in all directions and against all surfaces of
the same area, whatever may be their condition. It would seem, then, '
at first sight, as if we had here met with a conspicuous case in which
our theory fails. But further study will convince us that the result is
just what we should expect in a dense atmosphere like that in which we
dwell ; and, in order that this may become evident, let me next call
your attention to another class of molecular magnitudes.

It must seem strange indeed that we should be able to measure
molecular velocities, but the next point I have to bring to your notice
is stranger yet, for we are confident that we have been able to deter-
mine with approximate accuracy for each kind of gas-molecule the
average number of times one of these little bodies runs against its
neighbors in a second, assuming, of course, that the conditions of the
gas are given. Knowing, now, the molecular velocity and the number
of collisions a second, we can readily calculate the mean path of the
molecule — that is, the average distance it moves, under the same con-
ditions, between two successive collisions. Of course, for any one
molecule, this path must be constantly varying; since, while at one
time the molecule may find a clear coast and make a long run, the very
next time it may hardly start before its course is arrested. Still,
taking a mass of gas under constant conditions, the doctrine of aver-
ages shows that the mean path must have a definite value, and an illus-
tration will give an idea of the manner in which we have been able to
estimate it.

io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The nauseous smelling gas we call sulphide of hydrogen has a
density only a little greater than that of air, and its molecules must
therefore move with very nearly as great velocity as the average air-
molecule — that is to say, about 1,480 feet a second ; and we might
therefore expect that, on opening a jar of the gas, its molecules would
spread instantly through the surrounding atmosphere. But so far from
this, if the air is quiet, so that the gas is not transported by currents, a
very considerable time will elapse before the characteristic odor is per-
ceived on the opposite side of an ordinary room. The reason is obvious
— the molecules must elbow their way through the crowd of air-mole-
cules which already occupy the space, and can therefore advance only
slowly ; and it is obvious that, the oftener they come into collision with
their neighbors, the slower their progress must be. Knowing, then,
the mean velocity of the molecular motion, and being able to measure
by appropriate means the rate of diffusion, as it is called, we have the
data from which we can calculate both the number of collisions in a
second and also the mean path between two successive collisions. The
results, as we must expect, are of the same order as the other mo-
lecular magnitudes. But inconceivably short as the free ' path of a
molecule certainly is, it is still, in the case of hydrogen gas, 136 times
the diameter of the moving body, which would certainly be regarded
among men as quite ample elbow-room.

Although, in this lecture, I have as yet had no occasion to mention
the radiometer, I have by no means forgotten my main subject, and
everything which has been said has had a direct bearing on the theory
of this remarkable instrument ; and still, before you can understand
the great interest with which it is regarded, we must follow out another
line of thought, converging on the same point.

One of the most remarkable results of modern science is the discov-
ery that all energy at work on the surface of this planet comes from
the sun. Most of you probably saw, at our Centennial Exhibition, that
great artificial cascade in Machinery Hall, and were impressed with the
power of the steam-pump which could keep flowing such a mass of
water. But, also, when you stood before the falls at Niagara, did you
realize the fact that the enormous floods of water, which you saw
surging over those cliffs, were in like manner supplied by an all-power-
ful pump, and that pump the sun ? And not only is this true, but it is
equally true that every drop of water that falls, every wave that beats,
every wind that blows, every creature that moves on the surface of the
earth, one and all, are animated by that mysterious effluence we call
the sunbeam. I say mysterious effluence ; for how that power is trans-

1 There is an obvious distinction between the free and the disturbed path of a mole-
cule, and we cannot overlook in our calculations the perturbations which the collisions
necessarily entail. Such considerations greatly complicate the problem, which is far
more difficult than would appear from the superficial view of the subject that can alone
be given in a popular lecture.

THE RADIOMETER. n

mitted over those 92,000,000 miles between the earth and the sun, is
still one of the greatest mysteries of Nature.

In the science of optics, as is well known, the phenomena of light
are explained by the assumption that the energy is transmitted in
waves through a medium which fills all space, called the luminiferous
ether, and there is no question that this theory of Nature, known in
science as the Undulatory Theory of Light, is, as a working hypothe-
sis, one of the most comprehensive and searching which the human
mind has ever framed. It has both correlated known facts and pointed
the way to remarkable discoveries. But, the moment we attempt to
apply it to the problem before us, it demands conditions which tax
even a philosopher's credulity.

As sad experience on the ocean only too frequently teaches, energy
can be transmitted by waves as well as in any other way. But every
mechanic will tell you that the transmission of energy, whatever be the
means employed, implies certain well-known conditions. Let it be that
the energy is to be used to turn the spindles of a cotton-mill. The
engineer can tell you just how many horse-power he must supply for
every working-day, and it is equally true that a definite amount of
energy must come from the sun to do each day's work on the surface
of the globe. Further, the engineer will also tell you that, in order to
transmit the power from his turbine or his steam-engine, he must have
shafts and pulleys and belts of adequate strength, and he knows in
every case what is the lowest limit of safety. In like manner, the
medium through which the energy which runs the world is transmitted
must be strong enough to do the immense work put upon it ; and, if
the energy is transmitted by waves, this implies that the medium must
have an enormously great elasticity, an elasticity vastly greater than
that of the best-tempered steel.

But turn now to the astronomers, and learn what they have to tell
us in regard to the assumed luminiferous ether through which all this
energy is supposed to be transmitted. Our planet is rushing in its
orbit around the sun at an average rate of over 1,000 miles a minute,
and makes its annual journey of some 550,000,000 miles in 365 days
6 hours 9 seconds and TB7 of a second. Mark the tenths; for astro-
nomical observations are so accurate that, if the length of the year
varied permanently by the tenth of a second, we should know it ; and
you can readily understand that, if there were a medium in space which
offered as much resistance to the motion of the earth as would gossa-
mer threads to a race-horse, the planet could never come up to time,
year after year, to the tenth of a second.

How, then, can we save our theory, by which we set so much, and
rightly, because it has helped us so effectively in studying Nature ? If
we may be allowed such an extravagant solecism, let us suppose that
the engineer of our previous illustration was the hero of a fairy-tale.
He has built a mill, set a steam-engine in the basement, arranged his

12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

spindles above, and is connecting the pulleys by the usual belts, when
some stern necessity requires him to transmit all the energy with cob-
webs. Of course, a good fairy comes to his aid, and what does she do ?
Simply makes the cobwebs indefinitely strong. So the physicists, not
to be outdone by any fairies, make their ether indefinitely elastic, and
their theory lands them just here, with a medium filling all space, thou-
sands of times more elastic than steel, and thousands on thousands of
times less dense than hydrogen gas. There must be a fallacy somewhere,
and I strongly suspect it is to be found in our ordinary materialistic
notions of causation, which involve the old metaphysical dogma, "nulla
actio in distans" and which in our day have culminated in the famous
apothegm of the German materialist, " Kein Phosphor kein Gedanke."

But it is not nry purpose to discuss the doctrines of causation, and
I have dwelt on the difficulty, which this subject presents in connection
with the undulatory theory, solely because I wished you to appreciate
the great interest with which scientific men have looked for some direct
manifestation of the mechanical action of light. It is true that the
ether-waves must have dimensions similar to those of the molecules
discussed above, and we must expect, therefore, that they would act
primarily on the molecules and not on masses of matter. But still the
well-known principles of wave-motion have led competent physicists to
maintain that a more or less considerable pressure ought to be exerted
by the ether-waves on the surfaces against which they beat, as a par-
tial resultant of the molecular tremors first imparted. Already, in the
last century, attempts were made to discover some evidence of such
action, and in various experiments the sun's direct rays were concen-
trated on films, delicately suspended and carefully protected from all
other extraneous influences, but without any apparent effect ; and thus
the question remained until about three years ago, when the scien-
tific world were startled by the announcement of Mr. Crookes, of Lon-
don, that, on suspending a small piece of blackened alder-pith in the
very perfect vacuum which can now be obtained with the mercury-
pump, invented by Sprengel, he had seen this light body actually re-
pelled by the sun's rays; and they were still more startled, when, after
a few further experiments, he presented us with the instrument he
called a radiometer, in which the sun's rays do the no inconsiderable
work of turning a small wheel. Let us examine for a moment the con-
struction of this remarkable instrument.

The moving part of the radiometer is a small horizontal wheel, to
the ends of whose arms are fastened vertical vanes, usually of micaj
and blackened on one side. A glass cap forms the hub, and by the
glass-blower's art the wheel is inclosed in a glass bulb, so that the cap
rests on the point of a cambric needle ; and the wheel is so delicately
balanced on this pivot that it turns with the greatest freedom. From
the interior of the bulb the air is now exhausted by means of the
Sprengel pump, until less than y^Vo" °^ the original quantity is left,

TEE RADIOMETER. 13

and the only opening is then hermetically sealed. If, now, the sun's
light or even the light from a candle shines on the vanes, the black-
ened surfaces — which are coated with lamp-black — are repelled, and,
these being symmetrically placed around the wheel, the several forces
conspire to produce the rapid motion which results. The effect has
all the appearance of a direct mechanical action exerted by the light,
and for some time was so regarded by Mr. Crookes and other eminent
physicists, although in his published papers it should be added that Mr.
Crookes carefully abstained from speculating on the subject — aiming,
as he has since said, to keep himself unbiased by any theory, while he
accumulated the facts upon which a satisfactory explanation might be
based.

Singularly, however, the first aspect of the new phenomena proved
to be wholly deceptive; and the motion, so far from being an effect of
the direct mechanical action of the waves of light, is now believed to
be a new and very striking manifestation of molecular motion. To
this opinion Mr. Crookes himself has come, and in a recent article he
writes : " Twelve months' research, however, has thrown much light 011
these actions ; and the explanation afforded by the dynamical theory of
gases makes, what was a year ago obscure and contradictory, now rea-
sonable and intelligible."

As is frequently the case in Nature, the chief effect is here obscured
by various subordinate phenomena, and it is not surprising that a great
difference of opinion should have arisen in regard to the cause of the
motion. This would not be an appropriate place to describe the nu-
merous investigations occasioned by the controversy, many of which
show in a most striking manner how easily experimental evidence may
be honestly misinterpreted in support of a preconceived opinion. I
will, however, venture to trespass further on your patience, so far as to
describe the few experiments by which very early in the controversy I
satisfied my own mind on the subject.

When two years ago I had for the first time an opportunity of ex-
perimenting with a radiometer, the opinion was still prevalent that the
motion of the wheel was a direct mechanical effect of the waves of
light, and therefore that the impulses came from the outside of the in-
strument, the waves passing freely through the glass envelope. At
the outset this opinion did not seem to me to be reasonable, or in har-
mony with well-known facts ; for, knowing how great must be the mo-
lecular disturbance caused by the sun's rays as shown by their heating
power, I could not believe that a residual action, such as has been re-
ferred to, would first appear in these delicate phenomena observed by
Mr. Crookes, and should only be manifested in the vacuum of a mer-
cury-pump.

On examining the instrument, my attention was at once arrested
by the lampblack coating on the alternate surfaces of the vanes ; and
from the remarkable power of lampblack to absorb radiant heat it was

i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

evident at once that, whatever other effects the rays from the sun or
from a flame might cause, they must necessarily determine a constant
difference of temperature between the two surfaces of the vanes ; and
the thought at once occurred that, after all, the motion might be a direct
result of this difference of temperature — in other words, that the radi-
ometer might be a small heat-engine, whose motions, like those of every
other heat-engine, depend on the difference of temperature between its
parts.

But, if this were true, the effect ought to be proportional solely to
the heating power of the ra3'S, and a very easy means of roughly testing
this question was at hand. It is well known that an aqueous solution
of alum, although transmitting light as freely as the purest water, pow-
erfully absorbs those rays, of any source, which have the chief heating
power. Accordingly, I interposed what we call an alum-cell in the
path of the rays shining on the radiometer, when, although the light on
the vanes was as bright as before, the motion was almost completely
arrested.

This experiment, however, was not conclusive, as it might still be said
that the heat-giving rays acted mechanically ; and it must be admitted
that the chief part of the energy in the rays, even from the most brill-
iant luminous sources, always takes the form of heat. But, if the action
is mechanical, the reaction must be against the medium through which
the rays are transmitted, while, if the radiometer is simply a heat-
engine, the action and reaction must be, ultimately at least, between
the heater and the cooler, which in this case are respectively the black-
ened surfaces of the vanes and the glass walls of the inclosing bulb ;
and here, again, a very easy method of testing the actual condition at
once suggested itself.

If the motion of the radiometer-wheel is an effect of mechanical
impulses transmitted in the direction of the beam of light, it was cer-
tainly to be expected that the beam would act on the lustrous as well
as on the blackened mica surfaces, however large might be the differ-
ence in the resultants producing mechanical motion in consequence of
the great absorbing power of the lampblack. Moreover, since the
instrument is so constructed that of two vanes, on opposite sides of the
wheel, one always presents a blackened and the other a lustrous surface
to an incident beam, we should further expect to find in the motion of
the wheel a differential phenomenon, due to the unequal action of the
light on these surfaces. On the other hand, if the radiometer is a heat-
engine, and the reaction takes place between the heated blackened sur-
faces of the vanes and the colder glass, it is evident that the total effect
will be simply the sum of the effects at the several surfaces.

In order to investigate the question thus presented, I placed the
radiometer before a common kerosene-lamp, and observed, with a stop-
watch, the number of seconds elapsed during ten revolutions of the
little wheel. Finding that this number was absolutely constant, I next

THE RADIOMETER. 15

screened one-half of the bulb, so that only the blackened faces were
exposed to the light as the wheel turned them into the beam. Again,
I several times observed the number of seconds during ten turns, which,
although equally constant, was greater than before. Lastly, I screened
the blackened surfaces so that, as the wheel turned, only the lustrous
surfaces of mica were exposed to the light, when, to my surprise, the
wheel continued to turn in the same direction as before, although much
more slowly. It appeared as if the lustrous surfaces were attracted by
the lio-ht. Again I observed the time of ten revolutions, and here I
have collected my results, reducing them, in the last column, so as to
show the corresponding number of revolutions in the same time :

CONDITIONS.

Time of Ten
Revolutions.

No. of Revolutions
in same Time.

8 seconds.
11 "
29 "

319

232

88

It will be noticed that 88 + 232 equals very nearly 319. Evidently
the effect, so far from being differential, is concurrent. Hence, the
action which causes the motion must take place between the parts of
the instrument, and cannot be a direct effect of impulses imparled by
ether-waves ; or else we are driven to the most improbable alterna-
tive, that lampblack and mica should have such a remarkable selective
power that the impulses imparted by the light should exert a repulsive
force at one surface and an attractive force at the other. Were there,
however, such an improbable effect, it must be independent of the
thickness of the mica vanes ; while on the other hand, if, as seemed to
us now most probable, the whole effect depended on the difference of
temperature between the lampblack and the mica, and if the light pro-
duced an effect on the mica surface only because, the mica plate being
diathermous to a very considerable extent, the lampblack became heat-
ed through the plate more than the plate itself, then it would follow
that, if we used a thicker mica plate, which would absorb more of the
heat, we ought to obtain a marked difference of effect. Accordingly
we repeated the experiment with an equally sensitive radiometer, which
we made for the purpose, with comparatively thick vanes, and with this
the effect of a beam of light on the mica surface was absolutely null,
the wheel revolving in the same time, whether these faces were pro-
tected or not.

But one thing was now wanting to make the demonstration com-
plete. A heat-engine is reversible, and if the motion of the radiometer
depended on the circumstance that the temperature of the blackened
faces of the vanes was higher than that of the glass, then by reversing
the conditions we ought to reverse the motion. Accordingly, I care-
fully heated the glass bulb over a lamp, until it was as hot as the hand

16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

would bear, and then placed the instrument in a cold room, trusting to
the great radiating power of lampblack to maintain the temperature of
the blackened surfaces of the vanes below that of the glass. Immedi-
ately the wheel began to turn in the opposite direction, and continued
to turn until the temperature of the glass came into equilibrium with
the surrounding objects.

These early experiments have since been confirmed to the fullest
extent, and no physicist at the present day can reasonably doubt that
the radiometer is a very beautiful example of a heat-engine, and it is
the first that has been made to work continuously by the heat of the
sunbeam. But it is one thing to show that the instrument is a heat-
engine, and quite another thing to explain in detail the manner in
which it acts. In regard to the last point, there is still room for much
difference of opinion, although physicists are generally agreed in refer-
ring the action to the residual gas that is left in the bulb. As for my-
self, I became strongly persuaded — after experimenting with more than
one hundred of these instruments, made under my own eye, with every
variation of conditions I could suggest — that the effect was due to the
same cause which determines gas-pressure, and, according to the dynami-
cal theory of gases, this amounts to saying that the effect is due to
molecular motion. I have not time, however, to describe either my
own experiments on which this opinion was first based, or the far more
thorough investigations since made by others, which have served to
strengthen the first impression.1 But, after our previous discussions, a
few words will suffice to show how the molecular theory explains the
new phenomena.

Although the air in the bulb has been so nearly exhausted that less
than the one-thousandth part remains, yet it must be borne in mind
that the number of molecules left behind is by no means inconsiderable.
As will be seen by referring to our table, there must still be no less
than 311,000 million million in every cubic inch. Moreover, the abso-
lute pressure which this residual gas exerts is a very appreciable quan-
tity. It is simply the one-thousandth of the normal pressure of the
atmosphere, that is, of 14T7y pounds on a square inch ; which is equivalent
to a little over 100 grains on the same area. Now, the area of the black-
ened surfaces of the vanes of an ordinary radiometer measures just
about a square inch, and the wheel is mounted so delicately that a
constant pressure of one-tenth of a grain would be sufficient to produce
rapid motion. So that a difference of pressure on the opposite faces of
the vanes, equal to one one-thousandth of the whole amount, is all that
we need account for ; and, as can easily be calculated, a difference of
temperature of less than half a degree Fahrenheit would cause all this
difference in the pressure of the rarefied air.

But you may ask, How can such a difference of pressure exist on

1 See notice of these investigations by the author of this article, in American Journal
of Science and Arts, September, 18T7 (3), xiv., 231.

THE RADIOMETER. i7

different surfaces exposed to one and the same medium? and jour
question is a perfectly legitimate one ; for it is just here that the new
phenomena seem to belie all our previous experience. If, however, you
followed me in my very partial exposition of the mechanical theory of
gases, you will easily see that on this theory it is a more difficult ques-
tion to explain why such a difference of pressure does not manifest
itself in every gas medium and under all conditions between any two
surfaces having different temperatures.

"We saw that gas-pressure is a double effect, caused both by the
impact of molecules and by the recoil of the surface attending their
rebound. We also saw that when molecules strike a heated surface
they rebound with increased velocity, and hence produce an increased
pressure against the surface, the greater the higher the temperature.
According to this theory, then, we should expect to find the same at-
mosphere pressing unequally on equal surfaces if at different tempera-
tures ; and the difference in the pressure on the lampblack and mica
surfaces of the vanes, which the motion of the radiometer-wheel neces-
sarily implies, is therefore simply the normal effect of the mechanical
condition of every gas medium. The real difficulty is, to explain why
we must exhaust the air so perfectly before the effect manifests itself.

The new theory is equal to the emergency. As has been already
pointed out, in the ordinary state of the air the amplitude of the mo-
lecular motion is exceedingly small, not over a few ten-millionths of an
inch — a very small fraction, therefore, of the height of the inequalities
on the lampblack surfaces of the vanes of a radiometer. Under such
circumstances, evidently the molecules would not leave the heated sur-
face, but simply bound back and forth between the vanes and the sur-
rounding mass of dense air, which, being almost absolutely a non-
conductor of heat, must act essentially like an elastic solid wall con-
fining the vanes on either side. For the time being, and until replaced
by convection-currents, the oscillating molecules are as much a part of
the vanes as our atmosphere is a part of the earth ; and on this sys-
tem, as a whole, the homogeneous dense air which surrounds it must
press equally from all directions. In proportion, however, as the air is
exhausted, the molecules find more room and the amplitude of the mo-
lecular motion is increased, and when a very high degree of exhaustion
is reached the air-particles no longer bound back and forth on the
vanes without change of condition, but they either bound off entirely
like a ball from a cannon, or else, having transferred a portion of their
momentum, return with diminished velocity, and in either case the force
of the reaction is felt.1

1 The reader will, of course, distinguish between the differential action on the opposite
faces of the vanes of the radiometer and the reaction between the vanes and the glass
which are the heater and the cooler of the little engine. Nor will it be necessary to re-
mind any student that a popular view of such a complex subject must be necessarily par-
tial. In the present case we not only meet with the usual difficulties in this respect, but,
VOL. xiii. — 2

18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Thus it appears that we have been able to show by very definite
experimental evidence that the radiometer is a heat-engine. We have
also been able to show that such a difference of temperature as the radi-
ation must produce in the air in direct contact with the opposite faces
of the vanes of the radiometer would determine a difference of tension,
which is sufficient to account for the motion of the wheel. Finally, we
have shown, as fully as is possible in a popular lecture, that, according
to the mechanical theory of gases, such a difference of tension would
have its normal effect only in a highly -rarefied atmosphere, and thus we
have brought the new phenomena into harmony with the general prin-
ciples of molecular mechanics previously established.

More than this cannot be said of the steam-engine, although, of
course, in the older engine the measurements on which the theory is
based are vastly more accurate and complete. But the moment we at-
tempt to go beyond the general principles of heat-engines, of which the
steam-engine is such a conspicuous illustration, and explain how the
heat is transformed into motion, we have to resort to the molecular the-
ory just as in the case of the radiometer ; and the motion of the steam-
engine seems to us less wonderful than that of the radiometer, only be-
cause it is more familiar and more completely harmonized with the rest
of our knowledge. Moreover, the very molecular theory which we call
upon to explain the steam-engine involves consequences which, as
we have seen, have been first realized in the radiometer ; and thus it

moreover, the principles of molecular mechanics have not been so fully developed as to
preclude important differences of opinion between equally competent authorities in regard
to the details of the theory. To avoid misapprehension, we may here add that, in order
to obtain in the radiometer a reaction between the heater and the cooler, it is not neces-
sary that the space between them should actually be crossed by the moving molecules.
It is only necessary that the momentum should be transferred across the space, and this
may take place along lines consisting of many molecules each. The theory, however,
shows that such a transfer can only take place in a highly-rarefied medium. In an atmos-
phere of ordinary density, the accession of heat which the vanes of a radiometer might
receive from a radiant source would be diffused through the mass of the inclosed air.
This amounts to saying that the momentum would be so diffused, and hence, under such
circumstances, the molecular motion would not determine any reaction between the vanes
and the glass envelope. Indeed, a dense mass of gas presents to the conduction of heat,
which represents momentum, a wall far more impenetrable than the surrounding glass,
and the diffusion of heat is almost wholly brought about by convection-currents which
rise from the heated surfaces. It will thus be seen that the great non-conducting power
of air comes into play to prevent not only the transfer of momentum from the vanes to
the glass, but also, almost entirely, any direct transfer to the surrounding mass of gas.
Hence, as stated above, the heated molecules bound back and forth on the vanes without
change of condition, and the mass of the air retains its uniform tension in all parts of the
bulb, except in so far as this is slowly altered by the convection-currents just referred to.
As the atmosphere, however, becomes less dense, the diffusion of heat by convection
diminishes, and that by molecular motion (conduction) increases until the last greatly
predominates. When, now, the exhaustion reaches so great a degree that the heat, or
momentum, is rapidly transferred from the heater to the cooler by an exaggeration, or,
possibly, a modification of the mode of action we call conduction, then we have the reac-
tion on which the motion of the radiometer-wheel depends.

THE RADIOMETER. 19

is that this new instrument, although disappointing the first expecta-
tions of its discoverer, has furnished a very striking confirmation of
this wonderful theory. Indeed, the confirmation is so remote and yet
so close, so unexpected and yet so strong, that the new phenomena
almost seem to be a direct manifestation of the molecular motion which
our theory assumes ; and when a new discovery thus confirms the ac-
curacy of a previous generalization, and gives us additional reason to
believe that the glimpses we have gained into the order of Nature are
trustworthy, it excites, with reason, among scientific scholars the warm-
est interest.

And when we consider the vast scope of the molecular theory, the
order on order of existences which it opens to the imagination, how can
we fail to be impressed with the position in which it places man midway
between the molecular cosmos on the one side and the stellar cosmos
on the other — a position in which he is able in some measure, at least,
to study and interpret both ?

Since the time to which we referred at the beginning of this lecture,
when man's dwelling-place was looked at as the centre of a creation
which was solely subservient to his wants, there has been a reaction to
the opposite extreme, and we have heard much of the utter insignifi-
cance of the earth in a universe among whose immensities all human
belongings are but as a drop in the ocean. When now, however, we
learn from Sir William Thomson that the drop of water in our compari-
son is itself a universe, consisting of units so small that, were the drop
magnified to the size of the earth, these units would not exceed in mag-
nitude a cricket-ball,1 and when, on studying chemistry, we still further
learn that these units are not single masses but systems of atoms, we
may leave the illusions of the imagination from the one side to correct
those from the other, and all will teach us the great lesson that man's
place in Nature is not to be estimated by relations of magnitude, but
by the intelligence which makes the whole creation his own.

But, if it is man's privilege to follow both the atoms and the stars in
their courses, he finds that while thus exercising the highest attributes
of his nature he is ever in the presence of an immeasurably superior in-
telligence, before which he must bow and adore, and thus come to him
both the assurance and the pledge of a kinship in which his only real
glory can be found.

1 Nature, No. 22, March 31, 1870.

20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF SOME DECEASED

SAYANTS.

By CAKL VOGT.

THEY die in such rapid succession ! You hardly have time, after
returning from a funeral, to think about who is to be the suc-
cessor of the lamented dead, when you hear of the demise of another
illustrious colleague. The members of the Paris Academy of Sciences
can scarcely find competent successors for the dead celebrities among
the few representatives of the new generation ; yet the places of those
celebrities must be filled, although everybody knows that the new men
will but poorly fill those places. Leverrier, Becquerel, Regnault, Claude
Bernard — where are the names among the younger savants that equal
them, or that might be hoped one day to eclipse their predecessors ?

I was fortunate enough to be personally acquainted with these four
men, and hence I may be permitted to add to the numerous notices
that have been written of their signal scientific achievements some
impressions which I have retained from my personal intercourse with
them.

In the years 1834 and 1835 I worked as a very young student of
medicine in Liebig's laboratory at Giessen — in the summer of 1S34 only
now and then, but later continually — with the firm determination of
turning my back upon medicine as soon as possible, and of becoming a
professional chemist. The former resolution I succeeded in carrying
out, but I had to leave the chemical career, originally from want of
means. At that time only a few young men worked in the laboratory
— among them a mercurial, gay Frenchman, who was known all over
Giessen on account of a large yellow spot upon his elegantly-made blue
coat. Demarcay — that was the name of our Parisian — refused to re-
move the spot, which had been caused by some sort of acid, nor would
he cast the coat aside. In Giessen, he said, there was no tailor com-
petent to mend or only to imitate a Paris-made garment. One day
Liebig entered the laboratory with a slender little Frenchman, who
wore the same kind of blue coat, but without a spot, and introduced
him to us as M. Regnault, a student of the Paris School of Mines, who
was to familiarize himself here with organic analysis, then the hobby
of savants. Demarcay was of dark complexion, with raven-black hair,
witty, and fond of practical jokes ; Regnault was ruddy and fair, with
long, light-colored hair, grave, but confiding. He spoke German very
well, and, as he had a seat by my side, we were not long in becoming
good friends. He was the perfect type of a rather delicate North-Ger-
man or Scandinavian youth whom you might have almost taken for a
boy of fifteen, so slight and fragile was his form, so amiable and pleas-

REMINISCENCES OF DECEASED SAVANTS. 21

ing his whole bearing. After a few weeks he disappeared as he had
come. "I must go," he said, "but I hope to be back soon." We were
surprised to discover now that Demarcay had had his yellow spot re-
moved— it was owing to Regnault's urgent representations — and, at the
same time, we learned that the time granted for scientific journeys to
every engineer of the School of Mines had expired in Regnault's case,
but that Liebig, who had immediately discerned the eminent talents of
the young man, had interceded in Regnault's behalf in Paris, in order
that another sojourn at Giessen might be allowed to him. The request
was granted, and Regnault came back.

Ten years later my destiny brought me to Paris. Agassiz, with
whom I had worked five years at Neufchatel, had emigrated to America,
whither I did not want to accompany him. I was indebted to him for
letters of introduction to some of the prominent members of the Acad-
emy of Sciences, which was then split into two great parties : one,
headed by Arago, embraced the few republicans, the mathematicians
and physicists ; the other, led by the elder Brongniart, embraced most
of the naturalists, the chemists, and the Orleanists. I had been recom-
mended to the latter group ; with Arago I was brought into closer con-
tact by several radical Alsacians, whose acquaintance I had made partly
during my flight from the gendarmes of his royal highness the Grand-
duke of Hesse, and partly afterward in Switzerland. I was to make
my living in Paris by reporting the proceedings of the Academy of
Sciences for the Augsburg Universal Gazette. Upon entering the
gloomy hall for the first time, I immediately noticed Regnault ; he sat
with his dreamy gaze before a few papers, as before the retorts in
the laboratory; and, after the lapse of ten years, looked as young
and fresh as at Giessen. Thus I saw him for three years in Paris, and
again after long intervals ; and when, during the Franco-German War,
he came to Geneva, broken-hearted because of the death of his excel-
lent son, who, in his youth, had caused him many a pang by his mad
freaks, but had afterward filled his heart with just pride and joy, the
deep furrows of suffering, and the consequences of a dangerous fall
several years before at the porcelain-factory of Sevres, had been unable
to obliterate his youthful appearance completely. But his last years
were a long, slow agony ; death had made the most cruel gaps in his
family already, prior to the death of his son ; the war had rudely de-
stroyed the instruments which he had patiently collected for many
years at Sevres, and this destruction had affected him the more pain-
fully, as the utmost precision and the most conscientious calculation
formed the most essential peculiarity of his labors. Ever studious to
detect the most insignificant sources of errors, to reduce miscalcula-
tions to their very minimum, to bring his apparatus and instruments
to the highest degree of efficiency and technical perfection, Regnault
will always be a shining model for those moving in similar paths of
experimental physics.

22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The elder Becquerel, who died about the same time, at an advanced
age, after life-long toils, was already a gray-haired man when I became
acquainted with him in the Societe Philomatique at Paris. His son,
who had a seat beside him in the Academy, was then a zealous member
of that society, whose meetings I attended regularly, because it was the
favorite debating-ground of the younger savants, who displayed more
zeal in their discussions than was witnessed in the Academy. The old
gentleman frequently accompanied his son, but I never became intimate
with him.

Before Haussmann had revolutionized the appearance of Paris, and
prior to the Revolution of 1848, there existed a Rue Copeau, leading
from the Rue Mouffetard, the headquarters of the rag-pickers, to the
small entrance-gate of the Jardin des Plantes, and upon which the
grand portal of the Pitie Hospital abutted. Diagonally across the
street from this portal there was a house bearing the number 4, where
most of the foreign naturalists, who worked for some time at the Jardin
des Plantes, had rooms. A well-known anatomist, Strauss-Durkheim,
author of an excellent anatomy of the cockchafer, upon which he had
toiled for twenty years, presided at the table of the house, and knew
how to ingratiate himself with the proprietresses, two spinster ladies,
who were as gaunt and slender as Papa Strauss was broad and fat. The
rooms had special names, derived from the illustrious zoologists, anato-
mists, and botanists, who had inhabited them. For one hundred francs
a month I had the two rooms of Johannes Milller on the first floor,
overlooking the gardens, together with board. Besides the naturalist
boarders, many old friends from the neighboring streets took their
breakfast and dinner there. They were mostly quiet people, living on
the interest of a small capital, and who attended all lectures at the Jar-
din des Plantes, at the College de France, and even at the more distant
Sorbonne, solely because they there found warm rooms in the winter-
time. The conversation at the dinner-table was rarely very animated.
Papa Strauss, whose bald head emerged from behind a very large green
lamp-shade, like the full moon from behind a dark wreath of clouds,
grunted discontentedly whenever louder tones fell upon his ears.

But, at times, all Papa Strauss's grunts were fruitless, and such
was especially the case when the young medical students of the Pitie
Hospital came to visit us, and conversed with the naturalists of the
house about the scientific questions of the day. Two of them were
remarkably tall. One, a very long, slender, lively, witty, and sarcastio
young man, was a nephew of Cloquet, the celebrated surgeon, and, to
distinguish him from his uncle, the students called him only "Le Grand
Serpent." He went afterward, as physician of the shah, to Persia, and
was, during a chase, assassinated by unknown murderers, whom the
shah himself had probably hired. The other, by far graver, with a
melancholy expression of countenance, wTas Claude Bernard. Magen-
die's experiments, Longet's investigations of the physiology of the ner-

REMINISCENCES OF DECEASED SAVANTS. 23

vous system, were at that time most eagerly discussed. Claude Bernard
said very little, but what he did say was terse and to the point. He
only became excited when anybody undertook to question the experi-
ments and achievements of his teacher Magendie, whose assistant he
afterward became at the College de France.

While he afterward rose step by step from one dignity and distinction
to another, ever steadily pursuing those memorable researches which
made him the foremost physiologist of our times, I lost sight of him as
a personal acquaintance. I came to Paris only in vacation-time, and
then Claude Bernard was at his country-seat in the environs of his
birthplace, Lyons. If after a youth of terrible privations — very often
he did not know in the morning how to get his dinner — he could now
feel happy, seeing that everything which the ambition of the savant
could wish for was offered to him, the highest positions at the univer-
sities and in the learned societies, a seat in the Senate, for which he
was indebted to his scientific eminence, and not to any political ser-
vices, he was weighed down, on the other hand, by serious bodily ail-
ments and by the saddest of domestic misfortunes. At first I did not
recognize him when, pleasantly and kindly, as of old, but gray-haired,
and with his head inclined on one side, he stepped up to me at a
provincial meeting, and reminded me of the old times in the Rue Co-
peau and the Pitie Hospital. " I have passed through a great deal
since that time," he said to me, " which may have left some traces in
my appearance — for I notice that you look at me in surprise — but let
us chat a little about those times and about our old friends ; it does
me good ! "

At the same time I became acquainted with Leverrier. As I
have said already in this article, I had been brought into contact with
the leaders of the two great parties in the Academy of Sciences, and
had been kindly received by both. In the salons of Brongniart and
Milne-Edwards I saw most of the naturalists ; at the house of Martin
de Strasbourg, as the well-known deputy was called, I frequently met
Francois Arago, who was then intent upon learning German in order
to be able to distinguish the pronunciations of Encke and Hencke,
whom, as official reporter of the Academy, he had often occasion to
mention. But that genuine son of La Provence was eminently unsuc-
cessful in that respect, nor did he ever learn to pronounce my own
name correctly ; but, as his German teacher had him to read Schiller's
" William Tell," the vogt ' of the tragedy became confounded in his
head with the living Vogt, and to the great merriment of everybody he
called me " Gessler," to which name he obstinately clung.

One day a young man entered my room. From his appearance I
should have unhesitatingly taken him for the son of a Westphalian
peasant ; for he was fair-haired, rosy-cheeked, and solidly built. It
was Leverrier, who delivered a sort of address to me, confounding Vogt

1 Governor.

24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and Gessler all the time, and finally held out to me a quarto volume
filled with figures, with the request to promote his election to the
Academy. I stared at him as a cow will stare at a new stable-door,
and then burst into loud laughter, which almost dumfounded the
young candidate. The idea that I should be able to do anything for
the promotion of his candidature seemed as ridiculous as he looked
upon it as a matter of course. But, when I told him that I deemed
my assistance utterly superfluous, and that I had heard all my friends
of the Brongniart party talk about his election as a foregone conclusion,
he almost embraced me for joy, and said that his visit to me was the
most agreeable he had paid for a long time. He urged me to visit him,
to see his wife and his little son, and so on. Thus he left me, flushed
with excitement, and, when I told a friend at the Jardin des Plantes
that the whole affair seemed utterly incomprehensible to me, he said :
" You are a novice in such things. Do you know what a candidate for
the Academy is ? The unhappiest man in the world. He has to hire a
carriage for a month ; he rides out early in the morning to pay visits,
and comes home late in the evening, fearfully tired. He has no time
for eating and sleeping ; for of nights he dreams of fresh essays, and
finally sinks half dead into his easy-chair. He visits everybody, even
the cousin of the dress-maker who sews for the aunt of the wife of an
academician ; and you are surprised that Leverrier should come to see
you ? After a while, when I am a candidate, I shall also pay you a visit,
although I see you every day at the Jardin des Plantes. Otherwise
you might take offense."

Leverrier had, at that time, a very pleasant home. His wife was a
handsome, amiable woman, his son was a fat, rosy-cheeked boy, and
his daily visitor was Arago, who knew how to interest the smallest as
well as the largest circles by his lively and witty conversation. He was
a republican, like Arago, to whom he was indebted for everything, and
whom he afterward treated in a manner which was justly and harshly
criticised. For he became a rabid reactionist, and he whom everybody
had taken for a frank, noble character was soon looked upon as the
most rancorous man in Paris. People admired the astronomical calcu-
lator and the indefatigable student ; but they hated and even despised
the colleague and the superior. I am inclined to think that all the
members of the Academy together were not so cordially execrated
during their lifetime as Leverrier alone. I was averse to renew my
intimacy with the man who had become repugnant to me.

I do not propose to analyze here the scientific merits of the men
whom France has recently lost. If Becquerel and Regnault were known
only in professional circles, the name of Leverrier is familiar to all who
have heard of the planet Neptune, which he so ingeniously discovered ;
and Claude Bernard is not unknown to cultivated people, as his fertile
pen has popularized physiological knowledge and investigations. Only
one of the four, Becquerel, was popular as a lecturer ; Claude Bernard

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 25

was the only one among them whose views reached far beyond his spe-
cial field of knowledge, and, for this reason, he knew how to adapt the
style of his writings to the requirements of cultivated society.

In conclusion, I should like to draw attention to one thing. None
of these four men, who achieved lasting fame in so many different
branches of science, had been originally destined for scientific pursuit.
What they were and what they achieved were due to themselves and
to their iron will. Becquerel had left the Polytechnic School in 1808,
in his twentieth year, had become a lieutenant of engineers, had been
promoted to the command of a battalion in the Spanish campaigns, and
left the service after the battle of Waterloo in order to devote himself
to the study of physics ; Leverrier and Regnault had originally been
clerks in stores, and had studied in their leisure hours until they were
able to gain admittance to the Polytechnic School; Claude Bernard
had come to Paris with hardly anything in his pocket but a tragedy,
and he had first dabbled in literature. Hard, indescribably hard work,
untold privations, and struggles of all kinds, enabled these men to
attain the high position which they will always hold in the history of
science. To them may be applied what one of my friends once said in
regard to an eminent savant : " Dans sa jeunesse il a tire le diable 2?ar
la queue et mange de la vache enragee ; mais il a reussi, parce qu'il
avait le feu sacre ! "

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT.

By HERBERT SPENCER.

IT. PRESENTS.

WHEN we read that Cook " presented the king [of Otaheitej with
two large hatchets, some showy beads, a looking-glass, a knife,
and some nails ; " or when Speke, describing his reception by the King
of Uganda, narrates — " I then said I had brought the best shooting-gun
in the world — Whitworth's rifle — which I begged he would accept, with
a few other trifles " — we are reminded how travelers in general, coming
in contact with strange peoples, propitiate them by gifts. Two concom-
itant results are achieved. There is the immediate gratification caused
by the worth of the thing given, which tends to beget a friendly mood
in those approached ; and there is the tacit expression of a desire to
please, which has a like effect. It is from the last of these that the de-
velopment of gift-making as a ceremony proceeds.

The alliance between mutilations and presents — between offering a
part of the body and offering something else — is well shown by a state-
ment of Garcilasso, respecting the ancient Peruvians ; which, at the
same time, shows how present-making becomes a propitiatory act apart

26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from the value of the thing presented. Describing people who carry-
burdens over the high passes, he speaks of them as unloading them-
selves on the top, and then severally saying to the god Pachacamac :

" 'I give thanks that this has heen carried,' and in making an offering they
pulled a hair out of their eyehrows, or took the herb called cuca from their
mouths, as a gift of the most precious things they had. Or, if there was nothing
better, they offered a small stick or piece of straw, or even a piece of stone or
earth. There were great heaps of these offerings at the summits of passes over
the mountains."

Though, coming to us in this unfamiliar form, these offerings of parts
of themselves, or of things they prized, or else of worthless things, seem
strange, they will seem less strange on remembering that at the foot of
a way-side crucifix in France may any day be seen a heap of small
crosses severally made of two bits of lath nailed together. Intrinsically
of no more value than these straws, sticks, and stones, the Peruvians
offered, they similarly force on our attention the truth that the act of
presentation passes into a ceremony expressing the wish to conciliate.
How natural is this substitution of a nominal giving for a real giving,
where real giving is impracticable, we are shown even by intelligent
animals. A retriever, accustomed to please his master by fetching
killed birds, etc., will fall into the habit at other times of fetching some-
thing to show his desire to please. On first seeing in the morning, or
after an absence, one he is friendly with, he will join, with the usual
demonstrations of joy, the seeking and bringing in his mouth a dead
leaf, a twig, or any small available object lying near. And this example,
while serving to show the natural genesis of this propitiatory ceremony,
serves also to show how deep down there begins the process of sjun-
bolization ; and how, at the outset, the symbolic act is as near a repe-
tition of the act symbolized as the circumstances allow.

Prepared, as we thus are, to trace the development of gift -making
into a ceremony, let us now observe its several varieties, and the social
arrangements eventually derived from them.

In headless tribes, and in tribes of which the headship is unsettled,
and in tribes of which the headship though settled is feeble, the making
of presents does not become an established usage. Australians, Tas-
manians, Fuegians, are instances; and on reading through accounts of
wTild American races that are little organized, like the Esquimaux,
Chinooks, Snakes, Comanches, Chippewas, etc., or organized in a demo-
cratic manner, like the Iroquois and the Creeks, we find, along with
absence of strong personal rule, scarcely any mention of gift-making as
a political observance.

In apt contrast come the descriptions of usages among those Amer-
ican races which in past times reached, under despotic governments,
considerable degrees of civilization. Torquemada tells us that in Mex-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 27

ico, " when any one goes to salute the lord or king, he takes with him
flowers and gifts." So too of the Chibchas we read that, " when they
brought a present in order to negotiate or speak with the cazique (for
no one went to visit him without bringing a gift), they entered with the
head and body bent downward ; " and among the ancient Yucatanese,
<; when there was hunting or fishing or salt-carrying, they always gave
a part to the lord." People of other types, as the Malayo-Polynesians,
living in kindred stages of social progress under the undisputed sway of
chiefs, exemplify this same custom. Speaking of the things they bar-
tered to the Tahitian populace for food, native cloth, etc., Forster says :
"However, we found that after some time all this acquired wealth
flowed as presents, or voluntary acknowledgments, into the treasure
of the various chiefs ; who, it seems, were the only possessors of all
the hatchets and broad-axes." In Feejee, again, " whoever asks a favor
of a chief, or seeks civil intercourse with him, is expected to bring a
present."

In these last cases we may see how this making of presents to the
chief passes from a voluntary propitiation into a compulsory propitia-
tion ; for, on reading that " the Tahitian chiefs plundered the planta-
tions of their subjects at will," and that in Feejee "chiefs take the prop-
erty and persons of others by force," it becomes manifest that present-
making has come to be the giving of a part to prevent loss of the whole.
It is the policy at once to satisfy cupidity and to express submission.
" The Malagasy, slaves as well as others, occasionally make presents of
provisions to their chiefs, as an acknowledgment of homage." And it
is inferable that, in proportion to the power of chiefs, will be the anx-
iety to please them, both by forestalling their greedy desires and by
displaying loyalty.

In few if any cases, however, does the carrying of gifts to a chief
become so developed a usage in a simple tribe. At first, the head-man,
not much differentiated from the rest, and not surrounded by men ready
to enforce his will, fails to impress other members of the tribe with a
fear great enough to make present-giving an habitual ceremony. It is
only in compound societies, formed by the overrunning of many tribes
by a conquering tribe, of the same race or another race, that there comes
a governing class, formed of head-chiefs and sub-chiefs, sufficiently dis-
tinguished from the rest, and sufficiently powerful to inspire the re-
quired awe. The above examples are all taken from societies in which
kingship has been reached.

A more extended form is, of course, simultaneously assumed by this
ceremony. For, where along with subordinate rulers there exists a chief
ruler, he has to be propitiated both b}r the people at large and by the
subordinate rulers. Hence two kinds of gift-making.

A case in which the usage has retained its primitive character is
furnished by Timbuctoo. Here " the king does not levy any tribute

28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

on his subjects or on foreign merchants, but he receives presents."
But Caillie adds : " There is no regular government. The king is like
a father ruling his children." When disputes arise, he "assembles
a council of the elders." That is to say, present-giving remains vol-
untary where the kingly power is not great. Among another African
people, the Caffres, we see gifts losing their voluntary character. " The
revenue of the king consists of an annual contribution of cattle, first-
fruits, etc. ; " and " when a Koossa [Caffre] opens his granary he must
send a little of the grain to his neighbors, and a larger portion to
the king." In Abyssinia, too, there is a like mixture of exactions
and voluntary gifts : besides settled contributions taking the form of
pieces of cloth and corn, the prince of Tigre receives annual presents.
And a kindred system of partially-settled and partially-unsettled do-
nations from people to kings is general throughout East Africa. How,
in addition to presents which, having become customary, cease in so
far to be propitiatory, there is a tendency to make presents that are
propitiatory because unexpected, will be understood on remembering
that, where the kingly power has become great, subjects hold their prop-
erty only on sufferance. When Burton tell us that, in Dahomey, " there
is scant inducement to amass riches, of which the owner would assured-
ly be ' squeezed' as often as he could support the operation ; " and when
we read of the ancient kings of Bogota that, " besides the ordinary trib-
utes paid several times a year and other numberless donations, they
were absolute . . . lords of the property and life of their subjects " — we
may see why, beyond donations which at first voluntary and irregular
have become compulsory and regular, there tend ever to grow up new
voluntary donations.

If, when a private person brings an offering to his chief or king, the
act implies submission, still more does the bringing of an offering by a
subordinate ruler to a supreme ruler ; here, where disloyalty is more to
be feared, the significance of the ceremony as proving loyalty becomes
greater. Hence the making of presents grows into a formal recognition
of supremacy. In ancient Vera Paz, " as soon as some one was elected
king ... all the lords of the tribes appeared or sent relations of
theirs . . . with presents. . . . They declared [at the proclamation]
that they agreed to his election and accepted him as king." Among the
Chibchas, when a new king came to the throne, " the chief men then
took an oath that they would be obedient and loj-al vassals, and as a
proof of their loyalty each one gave him a jewel and a number of rab-
bits, etc." Of the Mexicans, Toribio says: "Each year, at certain festi-
vals, those Indians who did not pay taxes, even the chiefs . . . made
gifts to the sovereigns ... in token of their submission." And so in
Peru. " No one approached Atahuallpa without bringing a present in
token of submission ; and, though those who came were great nobles,
they entered with the presents on their own backs, and without shoes."
The significance of gift-making as implying allegiance is well shown

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 29

by two contrasted statements in the records of the Hebrews. Of Solo-
mon it is said that " he reigned over all the kings from the river even
unto the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt ; " and also
that " all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon . . .
and they brought every man his present ... a rate year by year."
Conversely, it is written that, when Saul was chosen king, " the chil-
dren of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they despised
him, and brought him no presents." Throughout the remote East, the
bringing of presents to the chief ruler has still the same meaning. In
Japan it was " a duty of each lord to visit and pay his respects at the
imperial court once a year, when they offered presents ; " and, further,
" the secular monarch pays bis respect and duty once a year to the
mikado ... by a solemn embassy and rich presents." In China the
meaning of the act as expressing subordination is extremely marked.
Along with the statement that " at the installation of the great khan
four thousand messengers and embassadors who came loaded with pres-
ents assisted at the ceremony," we read that the Mongol officers asked
the Franciscan friars dispatched by Innocent IV. " whether the pope
knew that the grand-khan was Heaven's son, and that the dominion of
the earth belonged of right to him . . . what present they had brought
from the pope to the great khan." And equally pronounced is the in-
terpretation put upon gift-making to the monarch in Burmah, where,
according to Yule, strenuous efforts were made " on former occasions
to introduce foreign envoys as suppliants on ' beg-pardon days ' among
the vassals and dependents of the empire : their presents being repre-
sented as deprecatory offerings to avert deserved punishment for of-
fenses against their liege lord."

Nor does early European history fail to exemplify the meanings of
present-giving, alike for general propitiation, for special propitiation,
and as signifying loyalty. We learn that during the Merovingian
period " on a fixed day, once a year, in the field of March, according
to ancient custom, gifts were offered to the kings by the people ; "
and that this custom continued into the Carolingian period : the pres-
ents being of all kinds — food and liquor, horses, gold, silver, jewels,
garments. We have the fact that they were made alike by individuals
and communities : towns thus expressing their loyalty. And we have
the fact that from the time of Gontram, who was overwhelmed with
gifts by the inhabitants of Orleans on entering it, onward, it long con-
tinued the habit with towns thus to seek the good-will of monarchs who
visited them, until eventually such presents became imperative. In
ancient England too, when the monarch visited a town, present-mak-
ing, at first by free-will but at length of necessity, entailed so heavy
a loss that in some cases "the passing of the royal family and court
was viewed as a great misfortune."

Grouped as above, the evidence will suggest to every reader the in-

3o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ference that from propitiatory presents, voluntary and exceptional to
begin with, but becoming as political power strengthens less voluntary
and more general, there eventually grow up universal and involuntary
contributions — established tribute ; and that with the rise of a currency
this passes into taxation. How this transformation tends ever to take
place, and what are the motives which continually press it on, and
change extra voluntary gifts into extra involuntary ones, is well shown
by Malcolm's account of the usages in Persia. Speaking of the " irreg-
ular and oppressive taxes to which they [the Persians] are continually
exposed," he says: "The first of these extra taxes may be termed
usual and extraordinary presents. The usual presents to the king are
those made annually by all governors of provinces and districts, chiefs
of tribes, ministers, and all other officers in high charge, at the feast of
Nourouze, or vernal equinox. . . . The amount presented on this occa-
sion is generally regulated by usage ; to fall short is loss of office, and
to exceed is increase of favor."

That under such kind of pressure regular tribute originated from
irregular presents, is in various cases implied both by the nature of
the things given and by the growing periodicity of the giving. Sup-
posing them to be acceptable, gifts will naturally be made from among
those things which people have that are at once the best and the most
abundant. Hence it will happen that when they become regular in an
extensive kingdom, they will represent the products of the respective
districts ; as in ancient Peru, where from one province the people sent
fragrant woods, from another cotton, from another emeralds and gold,
from another parrots, honej7, and wax ; or as in ancient Mexico, where
the towns paid " what the country afforded, as fish, flesh, corn, cotton,
gold, etc. ; for they had no money." In other cases where the arrange-
ments are less settled, the gifts from the same place are miscellaneous ;
as, for instance, those made by towns to early French kings — " oxen,
sheep, wine, oats, game, wax-torches, confections, horses, arms, vessels
of gold and silver, etc." Clearly, if the making of presents passes into
tribute in kind, there will result these varieties of articles ; determined
sometimes by the character of the locality and sometimes by the abili-
ties of individuals.

The passing of present-making into payment of tribute as it becomes
periodic, is well exemplified in some comparatively small societies where
governmental power is well established. In Tonga " the higher class
of chiefs generally make a present to the king, of hogs or yams, about
once a fortnight : these chiefs at the same time receive presents from
those below them, and these last from others, and so on, down to the
common people." Ancient Mexico, formed of provinces subjugated at
various times and dependent in various degrees, exhibited several stages
of the transition from presents to tribute. Speaking of the time of Mon-
tezuma I., Duran sa)-s : " The list of tributes included everything. . . .
The provinces . . . made these contributions . . . since they were con-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 31

quered, that the gallant Mexicans might . . . cease to destroy them : "
clearly showing that they were at first propitiatory presents. Further
we read that " in Meztitlan the tribute was not paid at fixed times . . .
but when the lord wanted it. . . . They did not think of heaping up
the tribute, but they asked what was wanted at the moment for the
temples, the festivals, or the lords." Of the tributes throughout the
country of Montezuma, consisting of " provisions, clothing, and a great
variety of miscellaneous articles," we are told that " some of these were
paid annually, others every six months, and others every eighty days."
And then of the gifts made at festivals by some " in tokens of their
submission," Toribio says : " In this way it seems manifest that the
chiefs, the merchants, and the landed proprietors, were not obliged
to pay taxes, but did so voluntarily."

The transition from voluntary gifts to compulsory tribute is trace-
able in early European history. Among the sources of revenue of the
Merovingian kings, Waitz enumerates the free-will gifts of the people
on various occasions (especially marriage), besides the yearly presents
made originally at the March gatherings, but afterward at other periods
about the beginning of the year — voluntary when they began, but in-
creasingly becoming a fixed tax. And then, speaking of these same
yearly presents of the people in the Carolingian period, the same writer
says they had long lost their voluntary character, and are even described
as a tax by Hinckmar. They included horses, gold, silver, and jewels,
and (from nunneries) garments, and requisitions for the royal palaces;
and he adds that these dues, or tributa, were all of a more or less pri-
vate character ; though compulsory, they had not yet become taxes in
the literal sense. There is evidence that the voluntary presents, made
by towns to potentates on their entry, similarly passed from the volun-
tary to the compulsory. According to Leber, the express orders of the
king were needed to make Paris give presents to the Duke of Anjou in
1584, as also on other occasions to embassadors and foreign monarchs.

In proportion as money-values became more definite, and payments
in money became easier, commutation resulted : instance in the Caro-
lingian period, " the so-called inferencla — a due originally paid in cattle,
now in money ; " instance in our own history, the giving of money in-
stead of goods by towns to a king and his suite making a progress
through them. The evidence may fitly be closed with the following
passage from Stubbs :

" The ordinary revenue of the English king had been derived solely from the
royal estates and the produce of what had been the Folkland, with such com-
muted payments of feormfultum, or provision in kind, as represented either the
reserved rents fron ancient possessions of the crown, or the quasi-voluntary trib-
ute paid by the nation to its chosen head."

In which passage are simultaneously implied the passage from volun-
tary gifts to involuntary tribute and the commutation of tribute into
taxes.

32

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

If voluntary gifts, made to propitiate the man who is supreme, by-
and-by become tribute and eventually form a settled revenue, may we
not expect that gifts made to subordinate men in power, when their aid
is wished, will similarly become customary, and at length yield them
maintenance ? Will not the process above indicated in relation to the
major state-functionary repeat itself with the minor state-function-
aries ? We find that it does so.

First, it is to be noted that, besides the periodic and ordinary pres-
ents made in propitiation and acknowledgment of his supremacy, the
ruling man in early stages commonly has special presents made to him
when called on to use his power in defense or aid of an aggrieved sub-
ject. Among the Chibchas, " no one could appear in the presence of a
king, cazique, or superior, without bringing a gift, which was to be de-
livered before the petition was made." In Sumatra, a chief "levies no
taxes, nor has any revenue, ... or other emolument from his subjects,
than what accrues to him from the determination of causes." There is
a kindred usage in Northwestern India. Of Gulab Singh, a late ruler
of Jummoo, Mr. Drew says : " With the customary offering of a rupee as
nazar [present] any one could get his ear; even in a crowd one could
catch his eye by holding up a rupee and crying out, . . . 'Maharajah,
a petition ! ' He would pounce down like a hawk on the money, and,
having appropriated it, would patiently hear out the petitioner." There
is evidence that among ourselves in ancient days a like state of things
existed. " We may readily believe," says Broom, referring to a state-
ment of Lingard, " that few princes !.n those [Anglo-Saxon] days de-
clined to exercise judicial functions when solicited by favorites, tempted
by bribery, or stimulated by cupidity and avarice." And, on reading
that in early Norman times " the first step in the process of obtaining
redress was to sue out, or purchase, by paying the stated fees," the
king's original writ, requiring the defendant to appear before him, we
may suspect that the stated amount paid for this document represented
what had originally been the present to the king for giving his judicial
aid. There is support for this inference. Blackstone says, " Now in-
deed even the royal writs are held to be demandable of common right,
on paying the usual fees : " implying a preceding time in which the
granting of them was a matter of royal favor to be obtained by propi-
tiation.

Naturally, then, when judicial and other functions come to be de-
puted, gifts will similarly be made to obtain the services of the func-
tionaries ; and these, originally voluntary, will become compulsory.
Ancient records from the East yield evidence. Thus, in Amos ii. 6, it
is implied that judges received presents ; as are said to do the Turkish
magistrates in the same regions down to our day : the assumption of
the prophet, and of the modern observer, that this usage arose by a cor-
ruption, being one of those many cases in which the survival of a lower
state is mistaken for the degradation of a higher state. Thus, again, in

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 33

early times in France judges received " spices " as a mark of gratitude
from those who had won a cause. By 1369, if not before, these were
converted into money; and in 1402 they were recognized as a due.
The usage continued till the Revolution. In our own history the case
of Bacon exemplifies not a special and late practice, but the survival of
an old and usual one ; local records show the habitual making of gifts
to officers of justice and their attendants ; and the facts are summed up
in the statement that " no approach to a great man, a magistrate, or
courtier, was ever made without the Oriental accompaniment — a gift."
That in past times the propitiatory presents made to state-functionaries
formed, in some cases, their entire revenues, is inferable from the fact
that in the twelfth century the great offices of the royal household were
sold ; the implication being that the value of the presents received was
great enough to make the places worth buying. Russia in early days
seems to have exemplified the state in which the dependents and depu-
ties of the ruler subsisted chiefly, if not wholly, on presents. Karam-
sin " repeats the observations of the travelers who visited Muscovy in
the sixteenth century. 'Is it surprising,' say these strangers, 'that the
grand-prince is rich ? He neither gives money to his troops nor his
embassadors ; he even takes from these last all the costly things they
bring back from foreign lands. . . . Nevertheless these men do not
complain.' " Whence we must infer that, lacking wages and salaries
from above, they lived on gifts from below. Moreover, we are at once
enlightened respecting the existing state of things in Russia; for it
becomes manifest that what we now call the bribes, which the miserably
salaried officials require before performing their duties, are the repre-
sentatives of the presents which formed their sole maintenance in times
when they had no salaries. And the like may be inferred respecting
Spain, of which Rose says: "From judge down to constable, bribery
and corruption prevail. . . . There is this excuse, however, for the poor
Spanish official. His government gives him no remuneration, and ex-
pects everything of him."

So natural has habit now made to us the payment of fixed sums for
specified services, that, as usual, we assume this relation to have existed
from the beginning. But when we read how, in little organized soci-
eties, such as that of the Bechuanas, the chiefs allow their attendants
" a scanty portion of food or milk, and leave them to make up the de-
ficiency by hunting or by digging up wild roots ; " and how, in societies
considerably more advanced, as Dahomey, "no officer under government
is paid " — we are shown that originally the subordinates of the chief
man, not officially supported, have to support themselves. And since
their positions give them powers of injuring and benefiting subject per-
sons— since, indeed, it is often only by their aid that the chief man can
be invoked — there arises the same motive to propitiate them by pres-
ents that there does to propitiate by presents the chief man himself ;
whence the parallel growth of an income. The inference that the sus-

VOL. XIII. — 3

34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tentation of political officials begins in this way will presently find
verification from its harmony with the inference more clearly to be
established, that the sustentation of ecclesiastical officials thus origi-
nates.

Since at first the double of the dead man is conceived as being
equally visible and tangible with the original, and as being no less liable
to pain, cold, hunger, thirst ; he is supposed similarly to want food,
drink, clothing, etc., and to be similarly propitiated by providing them
for him. So that, at the outset, presents to the dead differ from pres-
ents to the living neither in meaning nor motive.

All over the world, in lower forms of society, past and present, we
find gifts to the dead paralleling gifts to the living. Food and drink
are left with the unburied corpse by Papuans, Tahitians, Sandwich-
Islanders, Malayans, Badagas, Karens, ancient Peruvians, Brazilians,
etc. Food and drink are afterward carried to the grave in Africa, by
the Sherbro people, the Loango people, the inland negroes, the Daho-
mans, etc. ; throughout the Indian hills by Bhils, Santals, Kukis, etc. ;
in America, by Caribs, Chibchas, Mexicans ; and the like usage was gen-
eral among ancient races in the East. Clothes are periodically taken as
presents to the dead by the Esquimaux. In Patagonia they annually
open the sepulchral chambers and reclothe the dead ; as did too the
ancient Peruvians. When a potentate dies among the Congo people,
the quantity of clothes given from time to time is so great " that, the
first hut in which the body is deposited becoming too small, a second, a
third, even to a sixth, increasing in dimensions, is placed over it." The
motive for thus trying to please the dead man is the same as would
have been the motive for trying to please the man while alive. When
we read that a chief among the New Caledonians says to the ghost of
his ancestor : " Compassionate father, here is some food for you ; eat
it; be kind to us on account of it;" or when the Veddah, calling by
name a deceased relative, says: "Come and partake of this! Give us
maintenance, as you did when living ! " we see it to be undeniable that
present-giving to the dead is the same as present -giving to the living,
with the sole exception that the receiver is invisible.

Noting only that there is a like motive for a like propitiation of the
undistinguished supernatural beings which primitive men suppose to be
all around them — noting that whether it be in the fragments of bread
and cake left for the elves, etc., by our Scandinavian ancestors, or in the
eatables and drinkables which at their feasts the Dyaks place on the
tops of the houses to f :ed the spirits, or in the small portions of food
cast aside and of drink poured out for the ghosts before beginning their
meals by various races throughout the world — let us go on to observe
the developed present-making to the developed supernatural being.
The things given and the motives for giving them remain the same;
though the sameness is slightly disguised by the use of different words

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 35

— oblations to a deity and presents to a person. The original identity
is well shown by the words of Guhl concerning the Greeks : "Gifts, as
an old proverb says, determine the acts of gods and kings ; " and it is
equally well shown by a verse in the Psalms (Ixxvi. 11) : " Vow and
pay unto the Lord your God : let all that be round about him bring
presents unto him that ought to be feared." Moreover, we shall find a
parallelism in the details that is extremely significant.

Food and drink, which constitute the earliest kind of propitiatory
gift to a living person, and also the earliest kind of propitiatory gift
to a ghost, remain everywhere the essential components of an obla-
tion to a deity. As, where political power is evolving, the presents
irregularly and then regularly sent to the chief, at first consist main-
ly of sustenance ; so, where ancestor-worship, developing, has expand-
ed the ghost into a god, the offerings, becoming habitual, have as
elements common to them in all plaoes and times, things to eat and
drink. That this is so in low societies at large, no proof is needed ;
and that it is so in higher societies is also a familiar fact, though a
fact ignored where its significance is most worthy to be marked.
If a Zulu slays an ox to secure the good-will of his dead relative's
ghost, who complains to him in a dream that he has not been fed
— if among the Zulus this private act develops into a public act
when a bullock is periodically killed as " a propitiatory offering to
the spirit of the king's immediate ancestor " — we may, without im-
propriety, ask whether there do not thus arise such acts as those of
an Egyptian king who by hecatombs of oxen hopes to please the ghost
of his deified father ; but it is not supposable that there was any kin-
dred origin for the sacrifices of cattle to Jahveh, concerning which such
elaborate directions are given in Leviticus. When we read that among
the Greeks " it was customary to pay the same offices to the gods which
men stand in need of — the temples were their houses, sacrifices their
food, altars their tables " — it is permissible to observe the analogy be-
tween these presents of eatables made to gods and the presents of
eatables made at graves to the dead, as being both derived from like
presents made to the living ; but that the presentation of meat, bread,
fruits, and liquors, to Jahveh had a kindred derivation, is a thought not
to be entertained — not even though we have a complete parallel be-
tween the cakes which Abraham bakes for the refreshment of the Lord
when he comes to visit him in his tent on the plains of Mamre and the
showbread kept on the altar and from time to time replaced by other
bread fresh and hot. Here, however, recognizing these parallelisms, it
may be added that though in later Hebrew times the original and gross
interpretation of sacrifices became obscured, and though the primitive
theory has since undergone gradual dissipation, yet the form survives.
The offertory of our Church still retains the words, "accept our alms
and oblations ; " and at her coronation Queen Victoria offered on the
altar, by the hands of the archbishop, " an altar-cloth of gold and an

3 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ingot of gold," a sword, then bread and wine for the commmunion,
then a purse of gold, followed by a prayer " to receive these oblations."

Looked at without bias, the evidence coming from all parts of the
world thus proves that oblations are at first literally presents. Animals
are given to kings, slain on graves, sacrificed in temples; cooked food
is furnished to chiefs, laid on tombs, placed on altars ; first-fruits are
presented alike to living rulers, to dead rulers, to gods ; here beer, here
wine, here chica, is sent to a visible potentate and poured out as liba-
tion to an invisible deity ; incense, in some places burned before distin-
guished persons, is burned before gods in various places ; and, besides
such consumable things, valuables of every kind, given to secure good-
will, are accumulated in the treasures of kings and in the temples of
gods.

There is one further remark of moment. We saw that the present
to the visible ruler was at first propitiatory because of its intrinsic
worth, but came afterward to have an extrinsic propitiatory effect
as implying loyalty. Similarly, the presents to the invisible ruler,
primarily considered as directly useful, secondarily come to signify obe-
dience ; and their secondary meaning gives that ceremonial character
to sacrifice which still survives.

And now we come upon a remakable sequence. As the present to
the ruler eventually develops into political revenue, so the present to
the god eventually develops into ecclesiastical revenue.

Let us set out with that earliest stage in which no definite organi-
zation, either political or ecclesiastical-, exists, and in which the last is
represented by the medicine-man, whose function is more that of ex-
pelling malicious ghosts than propitiating ghosts regarded as placable.
At this stage the present to the supernatural being is often shared
between him and those who propitiate him : the supposition, commonly
vague and unsettled, being either that the supernatural being takes a
substantial part of the food offered, or else that he feeds on its supposed
spiritual essence while the votaries consume the material shell. The
meaning of this, already indicated in the case of some other early usages,
is that while the supernatural being is propitiated by the present of
food, there is, by eating together, established between him and his pro-
pitiators a bond of union : implying protection on the one side and al-
legiance on the other. The primitive notion that the nature of a thing,
inhering in all its parts, is acquired by those who consume it, and that
therefore those who consume two parts of one thing acquire from it
some nature in common which binds them together — that same notion
which initiates the practice of forming a brotherhood by partaking of
one another's blood, which instigates the funeral rite of blood-offering,
which suggests the practices of the sorcerer, and which gives strength
to the claims established by joining in the same meal, originates this
prevalent usage of consuming part of the present of food made to the

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 37

ghost or the god. In some places the people at large participate in the
offering ; in some places the medicine-men or priests only ; and in some
places the last practice is habitual while the first is occasional, as in
ancient Mexico, where communicants " who had partaken of the sacred
food were engaged to serve the god during the subsequent year."

Here the fact which concerns us is that, from the presents thus used,
there arises a maintenance for priests. When we read that the Chip-
pewayan priests "are supported by voluntary contributions of provi-
sion," and that the priests of the Khonds have certain perquisites, and
receive gifts, we vaguely see how in these rude societies there begins
the support of a priesthood out of sacrifices ; and in other cases we see
this distinctly. Among the Kukis the priest, to pacify the angry deity
who has made some one ill, takes, it may be a fowl, which he says the
god requires, and, pouring its blood as an offering on the ground while
muttering praises, " then deliberately sits down, roasts and eats the
fowl, throws the refuse into the jungle, and returns home." In like
manner the Battas of Sumatra sacrifice to the gods, horses, buffaloes,
goats, dogs, fowls, " or whatever animal the wizard happens on that day
to be most inclined to eat." And again we read that, by the Bustar
tribes in the Mahadeva hills, Kodo Pen " is worshiped at a small heap
of stones by every new-comer, through the oldest resident, with fowls,
eggs, grain, and a few copper coins, which become the property of the
officiating priest." More developed societies in Africa show us a kin-
dred arrangement. Burton says that, in Dahomey, "those who have the
' cure of souls ' receive no regular pay, but live well upon the benevo-
lences of votaries ; " and Forbes more specifically states that in their
temples " small offerings are daily given by devotees, and removed by
the priests." Similarly in the adjoining kingdom of Ashantee, " the
revenue of the fetichmen is derived from the liberality of the people.
A moiety of the offerings which are presented to the fetich belongs to
the priests." It is the same in Polynesia. Ellis, describing the Tahi-
tian doctor as almost invariably a priest, states that he received a fee,
part of which was supposed to belong to the gods, before commencing
operations. So, too, was it in the ancient states of America. A cross-
examination, narrated by Oviedo, contains the passage :

" Fr. Do you offer anything else in your temples ?

" Ind. Every one brings from his house what he wishes to offer — as fowls,
fish, or maize, or other things — and the boys take it and put it inside the temple.

" Fr. Who eats the things thus offered ?

" Ind. The father of the temple eats them, and what remains is eaten by the
boys."

And then in Peru, where worship of the dead was a main occupation
of the living, and where the ecclesiastical system was elaborately devel-
oped, the accumulated gifts to ghosts and gods had resulted in sacred
estates, numerous and rich, out of which the priests of all kinds were

3 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

maintained. A parallel genesis is shown us by ancient historic peo-
ples. Among the Greeks " the remains of the sacrifice are the priests'
fees," and "all that served the gods were maintained by the sacrifices
and other holy offerings." Nor was it otherwise with the Hebrews.
In Leviticus ii. 10 we read, " And that which is left of the meat-offer-
ing shall be Aaron's and his sons' " (the appointed priests) ; and other
passages entitle the priest to the skin of the offering, and to the whole
of the baked and fried offering. Neither does the history of early
Christianity fail to exhibit the like development. " In the first ages of
the Church, those deposita pietatis which are mentioned by Tertullian
were all voluntary oblations." Afterward "a more fixed maintenance
was necessary for the clergy; but still oblations were made by the
people. . . . These oblations [defined as ' whatever religious Christians
offered to God and the Church '], which were at first voluntary, became
afterward, by continual payment, due by custom." In mediaeval times
a further stage in the transition is shown us : " Besides what was
necessary for the communion of priests and laymen, and that which
was intended for eulogies, it was at first the usage to offer all sorts of
presents, which at a later date were taken to the bishop's house and
ceased to be brought to the church." And then by continuation and
enlargement of such donations, growing into bequests, nominally to
God and practically to the Church, there grew up ecclesiastical revenues.

Doubtless sundry readers have made on the foregoing statements
the running criticism that they represent all presents as made by infe-
riors to propitiate superiors ; and that they ignore the presents having
no such purpose, which are made by superiors to inferiors. These,
though they do not enter into what can be called ceremonial govern-
ment, must be noticed. The contrast between the two kinds of pres-
ents, in meaning, is well recognized where present-making is much
elaborated, as in China. " At or after the customary visits between
superiors and inferiors, an interchange of presents takes place : but
those from the former are bestowed as donations, while the latter are
received as offerings ; these being the Chinese terms for such presents
as pass between the emperor and foreign princes."

Naturally it happens that as the power of the political head de-
velops, until at length, with little or no check, he assumes universal
ownership, there results a state in which he finds it needful to give back
to his dependents and subjects part of that which he has monopolized.
And having been originally subordinated by giving, these are now, to a
.certain extent, further subordinated by receiving. People of whom it
can be said, as of the Kukis, that "all the property they possess is by
simple sufferance of the rajah," or people who, like the Dahomans, are
owned in body and estate by their king, are obviously so conditioned
that property having flowed in excess to the political centre must flow
down again from lack of other use; and hence in Dahomey, though no

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 39

state-functionary is paid, the king gives his ministers and officers royal
bounty. Without traveling further a-field for illustrations, it will suffice
if we note these relations of causes and effects from early European
times downward. Of the ancient Germans, Tacitus says : " The chief
must show his liberality, and the follower expects it. He demands at
one time this war-horse ; at another, that victorious lance imbrued with
the enemy's blood. The prince's table, however inelegant, must always
be plentiful ; it is the only pay of his followers." That is, a monopoliz-
ing supremacy had, as its sequence, gratuities to dependents. Medi-
aeval times were characterized by modified forms of the same system.
In the thirteenth century, " in order that the princes of the blood, the
whole royal house, the great officers of the crown, and those ... of
the king's household, should appear with distinction, the kings gave
them dresses according to the rank they held and suitably to the season
at which these solemn courts were celebrated. These dresses were
called liveries because they were delivered," as the king's free gifts ; a
statement showing clearly how the reception of such presents signified
subordination. Down to the fifteenth century on a feast-day, the Duke
of Burgundy gave to the knights and nobles of his household " presents
of jewels and rich gifts . . . according to the custom of that day ; "
such presents, in addition to maintenance, house-room, and official
dresses for themselves and their servants, probably constituting the sole
acknowledgment for their attendance. It need scarcely be added that,
throughout the same stages of progress in Europe, the scattering of
largesse to the people by kings, dukes, and nobles, was similarly a con-
comitant of that servile position in which such return as they got for
their labor in addition to daily sustenance was in the shape of gratui-
ties rather than in the shape of wages. Moreover, we still have, down
to our own day, in vails and Christmas-boxes to servants, etc., the rem-
nants of a system under which fixed remuneration was eked out by
gifts — a system itself sequent upon the earlier system under which gifts
formed the only remuneration.

Thus it becomes tolerably clear that, while from presents offered by
subject persons there eventually develop tribute, taxes, and fees, from
donations made by ruling persons there eventually develop salaries.

Something must be added concerning presents passing between
those who do not stand in acknowledged relations of superior and inferi-
or. Consideration of these carries us back to the primitive form of pres-
ent-making, as it occurs between strangers or members of alien societies;
and, on looking at some of the facts, there is suggested a question of
muVn interest : whether from the propitiatory gift made under these
circumstances there does not originate another important kind of social
action ? Barter is not, as we are apt to suppose, universally under-
stood. Cook, speaking of his failure to make any exchange of articles
with the Australians of his day, says, " They had, indeed, no idea of

4o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

traffic." And other statements suggest that, when exchange begins,
there is little idea of equivalence between the things given and received.
Speaking of the Ostiaks, who supplied them " with plenty of fish and
wild-fowl," Bell says, " Give them only a little tobacco and a dram of
brandy, and they ask no more, not knowing the use of money." Re-
membering that at first no means of measuring values exists, and that
the conception of equality of value has to grow by use, it seems not im-
possible that mutual propitiation by gifts was the act from which bar-
ter arose ; the expectation that the present received would be of like
worth with that given being gradually established, and the exchanged
articles simultaneously losing the character of presents. One may, in-
deed, see the intimate connection between the two in the familiar cases,
instanced at the outset, of presents from European travelers to native
chiefs; as where Mungo Park writes, "Presented Mansa Kussan [the
chief man of Julifunda] with some amber, coral, and scarlet, with which
he appeared to be perfectly satisfied, and sent a bullock in return."
Such transactions show us both the original meaning of the initial
present as propitiatory, and the idea that the responsive present should
have an approximately-like value, implying informal barter.

Leaving this speculation, however, we have here to note the way in
which the propitiatory present becomes a social observance. Like
every other kind of ceremony which begins as an effort to gain the
good-will of some feared being, visible or invisible, gift-making descends
through successive stages, until it becomes an act of civility between
those who, while not actually subordinate one to the other, please one
another by simulating subordination. That along with the original
form of it, signifying allegiance to a chief or king, there goes the spread
of it as a means of insuring the friendship of powerful persons in general,
we see in ancient Peru, where, as already said, " no one approached
Atahuallpa without bringing a present in token of submission," and
where also " the Indians . . . never thought of approaching a supe-
rior without bringing a present." And then in Yucatan the usage ex-
tended to equals. " At their visits the Indians always carry with them
presents to be given away, according to their position ; those visited
respond by another gift." In Japan, so rigorously ceremonious, the
stages of the descent are well shown : there are the periodic presents
to the mikado, expressive of loyalty; there is the fact named by Mitford
that " the giving of presents from inferiors to superiors is a common
custom ; " and there is the further fact he names that " it is customary
on the occasion of a first visit to a house to carry a present to the owner,
who gives something of equal value on returning the visit." Among
other peoples we see this mutual propitiation between equals taking
other forms. Markham, writing of Himalayan people, states that ex-
changing caps is " as certain a mark of friendship in the hills as two
chiefs in the plains exchanging turbans." And, referring more espe-
cially to the Iroquois, Morgan says, " Indian nations, after treating,

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 41

always exchanged belts, which were not only the ratification, but the
memorandum of the compact."

How gift-making, first developed into a ceremony by fear of the
ruler, and made to take a wider range by fear of the strong or the
influential, is eventually rendered general by fear of equals who may
prove enemies if they are passed over when others are propitiated, we
may gather from European history. Thus, in Rome, "all the world
gave or received New- Year's gifts." Clients gave them to their pa-
trons ; all the Romans gave them to Augustus. " He was seated in the
entrance-hall of his house ; they defiled before him, and every citizen,
holding his offering in his hand, laid it, when passing, at the feet of
that terrestrial god. These gifts consisted in silver money, and the
sovereign gave back a sum equal or superior to their presents." Be-
cause of its association with pagan institutions, this custom, surviving
into Christian times, was condemned by the Church. In 578 the Council
of Auxerre forbade New- Year's gifts, which it characterized in strong
words. Ives, of Chartres, says, "There are some who accept from
others, and themselves give, devilish New-Year's gifts." In the twelfth
century, Maurice, Bishop of Paris, preached against bad people who
" put their faith in presents, and say that none will remain rich during
the year if he has not had a gift on New-Year's-day." Notwithstand-
ing ecclesiastical interdicts, however, the custom survived through the
middle ages down to modern times ; until now priests themselves, as
well as others, participate in this usage of mutual propitiation. More-
over, there have simultaneously developed kindred periodic ceremonies;
such as, in France, the giving of Easter-eggs. And present-makings
of these kinds have undergone changes like those which we traced in
other kinds of present-makings : beginning as moderate and voluntary,
the presents have become extravagant and in a measure compulsory.

It thus appears that, spontaneously made among primitive men by
one member of a tribe to another, or to an alien whose good-will is
desired, the gift becomes, as society evolves, the originator of many
things.

To the political head, as his power grows, the making of presents is
prompted partly by fear of him and partly by the wish for his aid ; and
the presents made, at first propitiatory only from their intrinsic worth,
come presently to be propitiatory as expressions of loyalty ; from the
last of which there results present-giving as a ceremonial, and from the
first of which there results present-giving as tribute, eventually devel-
oping into taxes. Simultaneously, the supplies of food, etc., placed on
the grave of the dead man to propitiate his ghost, developing into
larger and repeated offerings at the grave of the distinguished dead
man, and becoming at length sacrifices on the altar of the god, differen-
tiate in an analogous way. The present of meat, drink, or clothes, at
first supposed to propitiate because actually useful to the ghost or the

42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

god, becomes, by implication, significant of allegiance. Hence, making
the gift grows into an act of worship irrespective of the value of the
thing given ; while in virtue of its substantial wrorth, the gift, affording
sustenance to the priest, makes possible the agency by which the wor-
ship is conducted ; from the oblation originate church revenues.

Thus we unexpectedly come upon further proof that the control of
ceremony precedes the political and ecclesiastical controls ; since it
appears that from actions which the first initiates eventually result the
funds by which the others are maintained.

When we ask what relations present-giving has to different social
types, we note, in the first place, that there is little of it in simple
societies, where chieftainship does not exist, or is unstable. In wander-
ing, headless tribes it manifestly cannot become established and system-
atized ; nor in simple settled tribes of which the headships are nomi-
nal. But we find it to prevail in compound and doubly-compound
societies, as throughout the semi-civilized states of Africa, those of
Polynesia, those of ancient America, etc., where the presence of stable
headships, primary and secondary, gives both the opportunity and the
motive ; and, recognizing this truth, we are led to recognize the deeper
truth that present-making, while but indirectly related to the social
type as simple or compound, is directly related to it as more or less
militant in organization. The desire to propitiate must be great in
proportion as the person to be propitiated is feared ; and therefore the
conquering chief, and still more the king who has made himself, by
force of arms, ruler over many chiefs, is one whose good-will is most
anxiously sought by acts which simultaneously gratify his avarice and
express submission. Hence, then, the fact that the ceremony of making
gifts to the ruler prevails most in societies that are either actually mili-
tant, or in which chronic militancy during past times has evolved the
despotic government appropriate to it. Hence the fact that through-
out the East, where this social type exists everywhere, the making of
presents to those in authority is everywhere imperative. Hence the
fact that in early European ages, while the social activities were mili-
tant and the structures corresponded, loyal presents to kings from indi-
viduals and corporate bodies were universal ; while largesse from supe-
riors to inferiors, also growing out of that state of complete dependence
which accompanied militancy, was common.

The like connection holds with the custom of making presents to
deities. In the extinct militant states of the New World, sacrifices to
gods were perpetual, and their shrines were being ever enriched by
deposited valuables. Papyri, wall-paintings, and sculptures, show us
that among ancient Eastern nations, highly militant in their activities
and types of structure, the oblations to deities were large and con-
tinual ; and that vast amounts of property were devoted to making
glorious the places where they were worshiped. So, too, in early
militant times throughout Europe, gifts to God and the Church were

HOW SOUND AND WORDS ARE PRODUCED. 43

more general and extensive than they have become in later industrial
times. It is observable, too, how, even now, that representative of the
primitive oblation which we still have in the bread and wine of the
mass and the sacrament (offered to God before being consumed by com-
municants) recurs less frequently here than in Catholic societies, which
are relatively more militant in type of organization ; while the offering
of incense, which is one of the primitive forms of sacrifice among vari-
ous peoples, and survives in the Catholic service, has disappeared from
the authorized service in England. Nor in our own society do we fail
to trace a kindred contrast ; for, while within the Established Church,
which forms part of that regulative structure developed by militancy,
sacrificial observances still continue, they have ceased among those
most unecclesiastical of dissenters, the Quakers ; who, absolutely unmili-
tant, show us also by the absence of an established priesthood, and by
the democratic form of their government, the type of organization most
remote from militancy and most characteristic of industrialism.

The like holds even with the custom of present-giving for purposes
of social propitiation. We see this on comparing European nations,
which, otherwise much upon a par in their stages of progress, differ in
the degrees to which industrialism has qualified militancy. In Ger-
many, where periodic making of gifts among relatives and friends is a
universal obligation, and in France, where the burden similarly entailed
is so onerous that at Christmas and Easter people not unfrequently
leave home to escape it, this social Usage survives in greater strength
than in England, less militant in organization.

Of this kind of ceremony, then, as of the kinds already dealt with,
we may say that, taking shape with the establishment of that political
headship which militancy produces, it develops with the development
of the militant type of social structure, and declines with the develop-
ment of the industrial type.

-♦•♦-

HOW SOUND AND WOEDS AEE PEODUCED.

By GEORGE M. SHAW.

npHE recent appearance of those remarkable devices the telephone
-*- and the phonograph has given such a new interest to the gen-
eral subject of voice, music, and sound, and the conditions and mechan-
isms by which they are produced, that a familiar explanation of some
of the points involved may be useful at the present time.

Prof. Tyndall, in his work " On Sound," speaking of a tremendous
powder-explosion which occurred at Erith, England, in 1864, shattering
the windows on every side, though the village was some miles from the
magazine, says : " Lead sashes were employed in Erith church, and

44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these being in some degree flexible, enabled the windows to yield to
pressure without much fracture of the glass. Every window in the
church, front and back, was bent inward. In fact, as the sound-wave
reached the church, it separated right and left, and for a moment the
edifice was clasped by a girdle of intensely-compressed air, which forced
all its windows inward."

Now, was this " sound-wave " of compressed air, that struck the
church, a wind-storm from the place of explosion ? If not, whence all
this force ? That there was no wind is plain from the fact no dust was
raised, nor a leaf stirred from its place. We must look for another
explanation.

Suppose that, in the middle of a closely-packed crowd, " room " were
suddenly made by pushing back the by-standers. These, thus suddenly
losing their balance, would fall back on those behind them, and these
in turn on others, and so on to the outsiders. It is easy to see that
each one would recover his own balance by pushing against the one
behind him, and so the fall-back movement would be seen to pass like a
wave through the crowd, each one passing it on as it reached him. In
like manner, the push of the expanding gases, at the explosion, was
transmitted to the church, the intervening air only passing the push
along. If the windows of the church had been elastic, they would have
swayed with the air ; as it was, they were pushed in, but had no
back-spring.

The impulse which struck the church struck many ears in the same
way, but their drums taking up the air-push and its back-snap, sent it
to the brain, where it was put down as a tremendous sound. Sound,
then, is only the beating of air-waves in the ear.

Now, a sound is either a noise or a musical tone. We take a noise
to be the blow of a single wave, or an irregular succession of waves
striking the ear, while a tone is the sound made by the beating of the
same kind of a wave, at regular intervals, in such rapid succession as to
form a sound-blend in the ear akin to the spoke-blend presented to the
eye by the spokes of a fast-turning wheel.

We have divided sound into noise and musical tones, and have
spoken of a tone, distinguished from noise, as being a sound-blend

Fig. 1.

made in the ear by the beating of the same kind of a wave, at regular
intervals, in rapid succession. Let us prove this. We will strike mid-
dle C on a piano. We get a musical tone from its string, which is set
a-vibrating, as shown in Fig. 1. But how shall we determine the num-

HOW SOUND AND WORDS ARE PRODUCED. 45

ber of vibrations, for we cannot begin to count them ? We will take a
tuning-fork, _Z>, Fig. 2, that gives the same tone as middle C, thus having
the same number of vibrations, and attach with a bristle fastened to one
prong by a little wax. This will trace the vibrations, P, on the smoked
paper L. The wave-forms of the marking, counted along either one side,
indicate the number of vibrations. We count these wave-forms, and
divide by the number of seconds the vibration lasted, and we have the
number of vibrations per second corresponding to the tone of the fork.
In this case we find " middle C " to vibrate 264 times in a second. In

Fig. 2.

the same way, we find D to vibrate 297 ; E, 330 ; F, 352 ; G, 396 ; A,
440 ; B, 495 ; and C, again, 528 times per second, just double of " mid-
dle C" below. In the same way each of the other tones doubles its vi-
brations going up, and halves them going down. Thus, from the first
A of the bass of a seven-octave piano, to the last A of the treble, we
have a range of from 27 vibrations, or pulses, per second to as many as
3,520. The number of vibrations is the same for the same note on any
instrument.

We have thus proved, in a simple way, that a musical tone is pro-
duced by rapid, regular vibration, as shown by the marking — the air-
waves, set up by the vibration, seeming to blend in the ear in a manner
similar to that in which the vibrations of the string blend to the eye,
which makes the tone seem continuous. In this experiment we notice
that tones are high or low, according to the number of their vibrations —
the higher the tone the greater the number of its vibrations per second.
Again, we observe that we can make the same tone loud or soft, without
making it higher or lower. We notice that loudness is obtained by
striking with greater force, making the string or fork swing farther from
side to side, but still swing the same number of times in a second. This
force of the swing is given to the air, and carried to the ear, beating it
with greater violence than before, but still only the same number of
times a second. This width of swing, which makes the loudness of a
sound, by a greater compression in the air-wave, is called the amplitude
of vibration, and corresponds to the height of water-waves, where the
amplitude is up and down. In water, the greater the force the higher
are the waves. Now, let us turn to the sound-wave in the air, which we
will study by the aid of Fig. 3. Here we take an ordinary A tuning-

46

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fork, having an elasticity of 440 vibrations per second, and set it a-vibrat-
ing. The prong of the fork, in moving from a to a', pushes the la}'er of
air in front of it, which, in its endeavor to recover from this huddling,
pushes against the next layer, which is thus in its turn compressed, the
compression or push passing in this way, from layer to layer, through the
air — the wider the swing of the prong the greater the compression in the
air, and the louder the sound ; meanwhile the prong moves back from a'

a (l o,_

liiltliillllliiiiipiiiiiiiiiiiia'iiiiiii;.'.: '■ iiiilimli

t !j|i:

1

hi!

Fig. 3.

to «, causing a vacuum, which is instantly filled up by the return of the
air which it had just pushed awaj^. But the fork now swings back to
a", causing the layer of air not only to return to its ordinary density
at a, but causing it to expand, in order to fill up the vacuum from a
a'\ thus producing a rarefaction, or stretch, in the air, which draws
back on every other layer, causing a pulse of rarefaction to follow every
pulse of compression; in other words, causing a stretch-gap to fol-
low every push. A clear idea of this may be had by again using our
illustration of a crowd : the place where some are just falling back
on those behind them illustrates the wave of compression, while the gap
between those falling back and those who have just recovered their
balance illustrates the wave of rarefaction which follows it. An air-
wave is made up of a compression and a rarefaction — a push and a
stretch — the two being produced in one vibration of the prong, the
compression by the motion from a to a', and the rarefaction by the re-
active motion from a to a". On its way back to a, the prong lets up
on the stretch, and goes on to a' with another push, and so on as long
as it vibrates. These compressions and rarefactions, represented in the
figure by its shadows and lights, correspond to the crests and hollows
of water-waves.

In water we measure the length of waves (that is, the distance be-
tween them) from swell to swell. Sound-waves are measured from
huddle to huddle. Now, how are we going to measure this ? Let us
take the case of water. If we knew that in 100 yards of water there
were 100 equal waves, we would know that each wave was one yard
in length — that is, that the wave-swells were thus far apart ; or, if
there were 50, each wave would stretch two yards. We would find
the length of wave by dividing the distance covered by the number
of waves stretched over it. The length of sound-waves is measured in
the same way. We will measure the length, or distance apart, of the
waves of our A-fork experiment. Sound travels, in round numbers,

BOW SOUND AND WORDS ARE PRODUCED. 47

1,100 feet in a second. Now, our A-fork, vibrating 440 times a second,
sets 440 sound-waves in motion in a second, so that, at the end of a
second, there would be 440 air-waves afloat, and the first one would
have reached a distance of 1,100 feet away. Now, there being 440 equal
air-waves in 1,100 feet, how far apart are they — in other words, how
long is each wave ? Dividing the 1,100 feet by the 440 waves, we get
two and a half feet, or 30 inches, as the length of the air-waves of the
first A-tone above "middle C" — the A-string of a violin. In the same
way we find that the first A of the bass of our piano produces air- waves
about forty feet in length, while the waves of the last A of the treble
are not quite four inches long. We find the length of the air- waves of
any musical note — that is, the distance apart of the pushes in the air —
by dividing 1,100 feet, the distance which the waves would cover in a
second, by the number of the note-vibrations per second, which repre-
sents the number of air-waves it would make in that time.

One thing we notice in all sounds, and that is their character, or
peculiarity. They may be as near alike as they can be made, but
each different kind will have something about it which distinguishes it
from every other, and it is by this means that we distinguish different
instruments or voices. The cause of this is the peculiar shape in which
the wave comes from different sources, a sort of individual stamp by
which a sound carries the telltale mark of its maker. These different
stamps or trimmings of air-waves may be illustrated in Fig. 4, and will

Fig. 4.

be explained presently. The heavings represent the compressions, and
the hollows the rarefactions, in the air. Let A represent the wave-form
of the purely ideal tone of the note A with no stamp or quality given
to it. B might represent the wave-form given it by a piano ; and C,
that given to it by a violin. In each case the wave-length, or distance
between swells, and therefore pitch of tone, and the amplitude, or
size of swells, and therefore loudness of tone, are the same ; the only
difference is, that the last two tone-waves seem to be trimmed with
feather-waves, so to speak, the trimming varying with the source of
the wave.

48

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A simple noise being a sound-wave, has its wave-form or make-
mark. The blending of many such would produce a tone in that like-
ness ; hence, a musical note is a blending of like noises, and every
noise is really the first wave, the key-note of a musical tone. Take the
ringing of a door-bell. Here the ear hears not only a musical tone, a
sound-blend, in the ring of the bell, but also the noise of the clapper's
clang, clang, clang. The vibrations of the bell throw the air into
musical waves, shown in Fig. 5, while a huge clang-wave will sweep

Fig. 5.

along among the Ww^r-waves every time the clapper strikes. If these
clang-waves were to come along fast enough to blend, and at regular
intervals, they would produce a tone of their own. The clanging of
the clapper would not be a noise, but a deep tone, perhaps making a
chord with the ring-tone. But, as it is, the clang-waves come irregular-
ly and slowly, and only a noise is the result. The clang-wave is not
represented in the figure, but may be easily imagined. From this we
see that different sets of air-waves can move along together, and,
though they should conglomerate, the ear can single them out. And
now we can explain the peculiar character of different sounds, repre-
sented by the different forms of waves in Fig. 4. If the string in Fig.
1 would really vibrate in a clean sweep as it appears to, it would make

Fig. 6.

a smooth wave-form, like A in Fig. 4 ; but, while it vibrates as a whole,
in starting the vibration of the string the sudden jerk on it will run
along the string in a sort of wabble-wave to its ends and back again, as
long as the string vibrates.

These wabble-waves, in passing each other as they run back and
forth on the string in opposite ways, will form stand-still crossing

HOW SOUND AND WORDS ARE PRODUCED. 49

points at distances apart corresponding to the length of the wabble-
waves ; thus dividing the string into vibrating parts, as in Fig. 6.

These make their own little swift air- waves, while the whole string
is making its large and comparatively slow ones, and thus produce what
are called overtones — waves within waves. These form the feather-wave
trimming spoken of, and shown in Fig. 4. These over-vibrations chord

g7

e" g" W c'"

:c2:

5=^:

:^

D

3 4

Fig. 7.

or harmonize with the vibrations of the whole string, and are drowned
in it, forming a conglomerate air-wave. They are two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, etc., times the vibration of the whole string, and it is
according to which of these over-vibrations is the fullest, that the
sound takes its peculiar quality. Sounds without overtones are dull ;
with too many, harsh and grating; and, with the first six in fair propor-
tion, are rich and sweet. Fig. 7 represents in musical language the
overtones of the note C of 132 vibrations; number 1 being the whole
string, the other numbers denoting the overtones up to the eighth, the
first six being those that give rich-
ness to the tone, and of these, one
or another being the most promi-
nent according to the source from
which the note comes.

We have said that the over-
tones are drowned in the tone —
only stamping or trimming it, but
they can be picked out. Let us see
now how we can pick these over-
tones out of the conglomerate.

It is found that a column of air
one-fourth the wave-length, of any
note's air-waves, will resound to
that note and to no other. Let us
take our A-fork again with 440 vi-
brations per second, making a wave-
length of 30 inches, and when vi-
brating hold it over a tall jar as in
Fig. 8. The column of air may not
be the right length. By pouring in water a point will be reached at
which the jar will burst into the tone A with the fork. By pouring in
more water it stops. A certain length only will resound A. Measur-

TOL. XIII.

Fig. 8.

5°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing the resounding column of air, from the water to the top of the jar,
we find it to be 7i inches, one-fourth the length of the A-wave. Now,
by making a resounder of this size, with an ear-opening in the bottom,
we shall have an instrument that will pick out A every time from a sea
of sound. This resonator is shown in Fig. 9 ; and Fig. 10 shows an-
other form of the same instrument. Resonators tuned to the different

Fig. 9.

notes are made, and by their aid any sound can be analyzed, and each
overtone brought out like the throbbing of a single string.

In this way it has been found that the peculiar character, or stamp,
of any sound depends on its overtones, and furthermore on exactly
what ones, so that by reproducing them any sound can be imitated.
Of all sounds those of the human voice are the sweetest. None others
are so rich in harmonic overtones, and this brings us to Words.

The vocal mechanism is made in two pieces. One, a wonderful
musical instrument with only one vibrator — the vocal chords, Fig. 11 —
which can tune itself at once to any note. The other, the mouth, as
an echo-cave or resonator, no less wonderful in its power of forming
itself to resound the harmonics of the vocal tones. This gives the

Fig 10.

Fig. 11.

voice its power of imitating any sound within its reach. We will
analyze the voice.

Let the vocal chords sing or vibrate any note, and by merely chang-
ing the hollow of the mouth the purely musical sound will turn into
what are called the vowe^-sounds of speech, the closest position of the
mouth making it ee, the deepest oo. Why is this, since the musical
note is the same in each ? It is because the different positions of the
mouth resound to different overtones. While some vowel is sung we

HOW SOUND AND WORDS ARE PRODUCED, 51

hold different resonators to the ear until we find the overtones. They
must be the cause of the vowelizing of the tone sung. To prove it we
take a tuning-fork vibrating the note of that vowel's overtone as found
by the resonator, and, holding it in front of the mouth, we shape the
mouth until it resounds to the tuning-fork. Keeping the mouth in this
position, we sound the vocal chords, and the result is the vowel, thus
proving that that particular overtone is its stamp. And so each vowel-
sound is found to be due only to different overtones of the tone sung,
brought out by the resonance of the mouth. Mixing in some of the
other overtones forms the distinguishing peculiarity of individual voices.

Vowel-sounds, then, are really an exquisite musical harmony, being
nothing but " chords" of the tone with its different overtones, different
" chords " making different vowels. The common musical scale is de-
rived from a tone and its overtones, by making, on separate strings, full
tones corresponding to the overtones of some fundamental string-tone.
That which produces a " chord " in music, where the harmony is made
by full tones, would produce a vowel if the main tone only were full,
and the " chording " tones overtones. When, then, a vowel is sung,
high or low, it is still the same vowel at a different pitch — that is, the
same "chord" in another key. But "chords" are music, and music
means air-waves, so that vowels are musical air- waves. But vowels
alone, which are only musical tones, will not make speech. Yet, by
breaking into the vowel-tone with certain expressive noises called con-
sonants, we can give the vowel-tone such a turn as to make its motion
a copy of a motion of sensation, which, reaching the mysterious mech-
anism of an ear, will be changed back into a sensation.

It seems strange that words should be nothing but music broken up
by different expressive noises, but we all know how differently we are
affected by different noises. And in music it is recognized that different
keys produce different effects ; certain keys better than others, exciting
certain emotions. But what are certain keys but certain vibrations,
and these vibrations but certain motions ? And, again, what are emo-
tions but derived motions, which again are but vibrations ?

To illustrate, let us follow the transmutations of a sensation. Let a
" consciousness " be excited. That means motion, and from that tense
focus the emotion rushes through the nerves, losing, in intensity as it
gains more room — that is, the more nerves there are that are set in
vibration the slower the vibration becomes — music still and in the same
key, but lower down the scale. Suppose the key of the emotion or
sensation to be the one that moves the hand, then the hand will act.
Suppose the key to be the one whose " chords " the vocal mechanism
plays in, then that will take up the nerve-waves, which will thus be
transformed into air-waves, but who can tell how many octaves below
the pitch of the sensation-waves in the nerves ? The waves have passed
as through a lens, and been magnified like mites in a magic-lantern.
Suppose the sensation to have made one speak the word " hope." We

52

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cannot explore the nerve-waves, but, projected in the air, they become
a picture that we can study. First there is the rough breathing or
tremor A, then the mouth tunes itself for the musical tone o. Suppose
the o to be made in a man's voice at a pitch A, below middle C. The
o-making overtone is its octave overtone or second, which in this case
will be A above middle C, the pitch to which the mouth will resound.
Besides this prominent overtone, o has some feeble third and fourth
overtones, and for the personal peculiarity say a little fifth. What is

Fia. 12.

v\\vNv :

this o, then ? A tone-vibration of 220 per second, frilled with overtone
vibrations of 440, 660, 880, and 1,100 per second. In the air, on its
way to an ear, this o is a matter of air-waves 5 feet in length, filled in
with waves of 30, 20, 15, and 10 inches in length, and — let us be thank-
ful that we do not have to understand o before we can exclaim it.
Following this, the mouth suddenly shuts up and pushes off the vowel-
ripples with a noisy billowy. Fig. 12 will give an idea of the "hope"
waves going through the air, end-foremost, of course, as they were spo-
ken. And so words follow each other in sets of waves like the above,
with rests between the sets made by the pauses between words.

Now, how far will these waves be loud enough to be heard — that

is, how long will they
keep strong enough to
beat the drum-head of
an ear ? The farther they
go the more they spread,
and the weaker they be-
come. A strong voice
may be heard at an eighth
of a mile, or about 700
feet. As sound travels
1,100 feet per second, it
follows that, in less than
a second after being spok-
en, the waves become too
weak to make words. Let
us be quick, then, to find
what they are saying. Sun-waves, spreading from a focus, may be
brought again to a focus by condensing them with a lens. So the

Fig. 13.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 53

sensation-waves, which spread from a focus, may be brought again to a
focus by condensing them with an ear (Fig. 12). Here, across a little
echo-cave, is hung a curtain, Ty. M., which is blown in and out as each
air- wave beats against it ; and, though the air- waves vary from 40 feet to
4 inches apart, they jump the distance quickly, and this curtain, taking
an exact copy of each, in vibrations less than the thousandth part of an
inch, sends them, through the tapping bones, Mall., Stp., to an inside cur-
tain, F.o., where they are condensed again, and thrown through a liquid
which fills the hollow inside of it. Here three thousand tuned nerves
take up, each, its own acchording waves, and bear them to the brain ;
and thus the wild waves of an emotion passed from one " conscious-
ness " to another in less than a second, proving that the " quickness of
thought " is no metaphor. Through pipes, the sound of the voice may
be heard nearly four miles, and conversation carried on at nearly a
mile. Through the wire of the telephone, which has become literally
the " thread of a conversation," sound, with all its qualities, is conveyed
hundreds of miles, as we have already shown in a former article.

-♦♦♦-

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY

By GEORGE M. BEAED, M. D.

" Of what account are the most venerated opinions, if they be untrue ? At best they
are only venerable delusions." — Sir William Hamilton.

ABOUT two years ago I chanced to call on an educated profes-
sional man, who was much interested in the subject of delusions.
He said, " I have been long wishing to see you, in order to get an expla-
nation of some strange things that have happened under my observa-
tion." I inquired what these strange things were. He replied, as usual
in such cases, by giving a detailed account of certain performances of a
well-known trickster, to which I listened as politely as I could, and he
concluded with this conundrum : " Now, how do you explain that ? "
I replied : "I do not know what happened, for there was no expert
there to report. If I knew what happened, I could very likely explain
it, for a knowledge of what happened would itself be the explanation."
" But I have just told you what happened," he interposed, some-
what excitedly. " My wife and I both were there, and we saw it all,
with our own eyes. Can't we trust our senses ? " " Trust our senses ? "
I replied ; " not at all. In science we never trust our senses." My
friend was as much astonished and indignant as though he had been
personally insulted, and I felt it to be prudent to withdraw from the
house.

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Quite recently, while conversing with a scholar and logician of far
more than usual powers, we chanced to talk of the alleged feats of
levitation, and he asked me how they were to be explained. I told him
that there was no evidence that they had ever occurred ; and that it
was known deductively, by the established laws of physiology, that they
had not and could not occur. I furthermore stated that claims of this
sort could be and should be only studied by experts ; that experiments
with living human beings could only be conducted by experts in cere-
bro-physiology, and that probably there were not half a dozen persons
in the world capable of making experiments of that kind. My friend
failed to see the justness of this view, and confessed himself unable to
understand how so simple a matter as the rising of a body in a room
could not be settled by the eyes of any honest, well-balanced man.
" Why," said he, " if a dozen George Washingtons should testify that
they had all seen a man rise in the air, I should be compelled, by the
rules of evidence, to believe them. What is the need of an expert in
a matter of simple eyesight and common honesty ? "

I refer to these conversational experiences, because they represent,
in a concrete form, the present attitude of scholars and logicians toward
the principles of evidence.

That these instances are not exceptional is proved by the literature
of science, of religion, of logic, and of law, in all of which departments
the subject of human testimony is more or less discussed. Neither in
Whewell's " History of the Inductive Sciences " nor in Jevons's " Prin-
ciples of Science " do we find a correct or thorough analysis of human
testimony, on which all science depends ; by these authors, as much as
by religious, apologetic writers, it is assumed that the senses are to
be trusted. In the department of logic we do not find, either in Mill
or Hamilton, any attempt even to build up a science of human testi-
mony which must everywhere constitute the premises of reasoning, and
by which the results of reasoning are to be determined. Constantly
Sir William Hamilton reiterates that logic deals only with the forms of
reasoning, and is not at all responsible for the premises ; but nowhere
does he point out, in a satisfactory manner, the principles on which
premises are to be obtained. It is true that Bacon, under the fantastic
titles, " Idols of the Tribe," " Idols of the Den," " Idols of the Forum,"
and " Idols of the Theatre," first pointed out some of the more obvious
sources of error, and writers on logic repeat his views ; but other sources
of error, equally important but far more subtile, are not referred to even
in the most recent treatises on reasoning. Students of science, par-
ticularly of physiological science, and, above all, experimenters with
living human beings, must either trust to their instincts, as many do, or
find out for themselves, by study and experience, the special sources of
error in researches of this character, and guard against them.

Coming to law, we find that Prof. Greenleaf, one of the most valued
writers on the principles of evidence, says that " the credit due to the

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 55

testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty ; secondly,
their ability ; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testi-
mony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience;
and, fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circum-
stances." Here we observe that honesty is placed before ability, while
under ability no distinction is drawn between general and special abil-
ity— in other words, between the non-expert and the expert. In the
formulated statement of the principles of evidence from which this ex-
tract is taken, not only is there no distinction made between expert and
non-expert, but no recognition of the fact that the senses of honest and
unbiased witnesses may be, through a variety of causes, untrustworthy.

The mistakes in the administration of justice are already numerous,
but they would have been more so if judges and juries had not in-
stinctively rejected the principles of evidence thus taught by the high-
est authorities in jurisprudence.

All modern science is the product of exclusively expert evidence :
until an expert develops, there can indeed be no science ; and yet, one
may look in vain through all the authors on logic for a satisfactory
definition of an expert, or for any detailed arrangement of tests by
which expertness is to be estimated.

The subject of human testimony has, in short, never been scientifi-
cally studied ; practical rules for the guidance of those who employ it
are all that either logic or law has yet given to the world. As some of
these practical rules are based on incorrect assumptions in regard to
the value of human testimony, they frequently lead to serious error, and,
as they fail to draw just distinctions between the good and bad in evi-
dence, or to give special suggestions for special cases, they are often-
times of no assistance whatever. This criticism is not made in the wav
of complaint, for only within the past few years has it been possible to
even begin the scientific study of human testimony, while nearly all of
our writers on this subject belong to the past generations,1 and the few
later authors mostly copy the errors and imperfections of their prede-
cessors.

Human testimony comes from the human brain : the scientific
study of human testimony is only possible through a knowledge of the
human brain in health and disease, and is therefore a department
of cerebro-physiology and pathology. Only recently have the laws of
cerebro-physiology and pathology been sufficiently understood, even by

1 It may perhaps be objected to this statement that many so-called apologetic and
skeptical writings are of recent date; but writers of this class, on both sides, as well as
the controversialists on the spiritualism question, assume, without discussion, the princi-
ples of evidence as taught in logical and legal text-books. On every page of the writings
of the Tubingen school, as De Wette, Bauer, Paulus, Straus, as well as of their opponents
in Germany and in the Bampton Lectures, we find evidences of the imperative need of a
reconstruction of the principles of evidence. This need is fully admitted by the late Mr.
Mozley, in the preface to the third edition of his " Lectures on Miracles."

5 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the very few who cultivate that specialty, to enable them to formulate
principles for the scientific study of that most important product of the
human brain — human testimony. If, then, Bacon and Descartes, Hume
and Hamilton, Whewell and Jevons, Greenleaf and Wharton, have
failed to adapt their analyses of the principles of evidence to the needs
of our time, their failure is due to the backwardness of physiology and
pathology that must constitute the basis of the study of evidence, and
on which the foundations for a reconstruction must be laid.

We do not yet know all of the human brain, either in health or dis-
ease; but our knowledge of it is sufficiently advanced to make it possible
to see, with considerable clearness, its relation to testimony. If we do
not know just how the cerebral cells evolve thought, we do know that
thought is evolved by them or through them, and that various diseases
of the brain and nervous system — now pretty well understood, but of
which, twenty years ago, little or nothing was known — may utterly de-
stroy the objective worth of thought, and render it, scientifically speak-
ing, valueless.

The progress of cerebro-physiology and pathology, in recent times,
has been mostly along the line of the Involuntary Life — a phrase which
I have elsewhere and often used to designate those phenomena of mind
or body, or of both, in their reciprocal relations, that are independent
of will or consciousness, or of both. This Involuntary Life is the
branch of physiology that has been least studied and least understood ;
its importance, however, is supreme, not only in itself, but on account
of its relations to all other sciences. It is the one strategic point of
modern thought, around which all the leaders in controversy are uncon-
sciously gathering, and for the possession of which opposing hosts will
soon contend. Here, as I have previously shown, is the last stand of
modern delusions, of every name and form.1

The scientific study of human testimony requires a recognition of
these three facts, in the physiology and pathology of the brain :

1. The Limitations of the Human Brain in Health. — Literature is
so crowded with laudations of the human intellect, from the classic
apostrophe of Hamlet — " What a piece of work is man ! how noble in
reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving, how express and
admirable! in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a
god ! " — down to the motto of Sir William Hamilton : " On earth there
is nothing great but man ; in man is nothing great but mind ; " and so
strong is the tendency in man to view himself from one side only, and
to compare himself with the lower animals, or even with inorganic
matter, that we are scarcely prepared for the conclusion to which a sci-
entific study of the subject compels us, that, considered from all points
of view — from what is above and beyond it, as well as from what is
below and near it, from the aspirations that can never be realized, the
vast but simple problems of the universe that it hopelessly strives to

1 "The Scientific Basis of Delusions ; or, a New Theory of Trance," etc., 18*77.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 57

solve, as well as from the narrow strip of territory it has subjected to
science — the human brain is an organ of very limited capacity.

If some superior being endowed with superhuman, though not neces-
sarily divine powers, should attempt to analyze the mind of man — to
assign its relative position in creation, and to place it, properly ticketed
and labeled, in some supra-terrestrial museum — it would be found to be
a far less imposing object than man's own imagination has pictured it.
If it be claimed, as it may be by some, that although this brain has thus
far achieved but little, although, whether considered in the aggregate, the
average capacity in many nations and through many generations, or,
concretely in cases of individual and exceptional genius — as Socrates,
Napoleon, Goethe, Newton, Shakespeare — it has fallen so far short of its
desires and aims and apparent needs as not to merit the encomiums that
poets and philosophers have lavished upon it, yet it has before it in this
world, and in our present mode of being, a future of possibly infinite
development, I may reply that the study of human testimony is in
no way affected by such possibility, since it has to do only with the
brain in the past, the present, or the near future.

The whole subject of the limitations of the human brain ' is of
high import, is very wide in extent, and suggestive practically as well
scientifically and in ways almost innumerable, some of which I hope to
point out at a future time ; but, for the present purpose, the recon-
struction of the principles of evidence, it is necessary to refer only to
the following illustrations :

1 The number of distinct thoughts of which the mind is capable in a given time is very
limited, and can be estimated by experiment with considerable precision. Says Sir Henry
Holland :

" Within a minute I have been able to coerce mind, so to speak, into more than a
dozen acts or states of thought so incongruous that no natural association could possibly
bring them into succession. In illustration I note here certain objects which, with a watch
before me, I have just succeeded in compressing, distinctly and successively, within thirty
seconds of time — the Pyramids of Gizeh, the ornithorhynchus, Julius Caesar, the Ottawa
Falls, the rings of Saturn, the Apollo Belvedere. This is an experiment I have often made
on myself, and with the same general result. It would be hard to name or describe the
operation of mind by which these successive objects have been thus suddenly evoked and
dismissed. There is the volition to change ; but how must we define that effort by which
the mind, without any principle of selection or association, can grasp so rapidly a succes-
sion of images thus incongruous, drawn seemingly at random from past thought and mem-
ories ? I call it an effort because it is felt as such, and cannot be long continued without
fatigue.

" In commenting upon this a writer in Nature says : ' This is a curious subject which
easily admits of experiment, but it will be found that the velocity with which thoughts
can be made to succeed each other depends entirely upon the degree of similarity or con-
nection between them. Judging from my own experience and that of three students well
qualified to test the matter, I find that, where the objects thought of are as incongruous as
possible, the number which the mind can suggest to itself in a minute varies from twelve,
the result of Sir Henry Holland, up to about twenty. Any one who tries the experiment,
however, will find that there is an almost insuperable temptation to go off on lines of
association. To avoid these, and yet to think rapidly, requires a very disagreeable effort,
becoming more and more painful by repetition. When the thoughts are restricted with-

5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1. The fact that success, even with the most richly-endowed natures,
is only possible through specialism.

2. The imperfections and uncertainties of memory.

3. The exceedingly narrow limitations of the senses.

4. The fact that the best results of cerebral activity are largely in-
voluntary, if not unconscious.

Specialism is not peculiar, as some would believe, to modern science
or recent civilization ; all the famous Greeks were specialists : one could
not conceive of a Socrates, Homer, Phidias, Pericles, Demosthenes, and
Sophocles, combined in a single individual. Although poetry and
philosophy, being nearly allied, have been the twin products of one
superlatively endowed intellect — although Goethe has demonstrated the
possibility of uniting the genius of song with the genius of speculative
science — yet no human being as yet proved himself at once great in
poetry and mathematics. The combination of a Newton and Milton
seems impossible ; a conclusive and crushing deductive argument against
the theory of the Baconian origin of Shakespeare's plays is, that no
single brain could have produced the " Novum Organum " and " Ham-
let."

In the present century, science has become so specialized that all
the advances are made by specialists in comparatively restricted fields,
by men whose entire energies are concentrated for a lifetime in some
single path of research beyond which they never wander, and in which
alone they are accepted as guides. So universal is this law of special-
ism that the instincts of men regard with suspicion any one who at-
tempts to become an authority on more than one branch of science, while
literature is so split up into divisions and subdivisions that eminence in
all is unattainable. The lopping away of all superfluous branches, that
bearing boughs may live, is carried to such an extreme that only one
branch remains, and through this the whole cerebral force circulates.
The human mind is like a stream which carries along the same amount
of water, whether it flows through one channel or many. In spite of
all the criticisms of specialism and specialists, the work of specialization
has gone on, and in obedience to the law of evolution must yet go on ;
specialists are our sole authorities, even among those who despise them :

in certain grooves, as it were, the result is more rapid succession. Thus one student was
able to think in a minute of thirty different kinds of actions, forty-six animals, fifty places
or fifty persons. I can myself think, without much effort, of thirty-two animals or forty
places or persons, in a minute. Even in these cases, however, it will be found that the
rapidity greatly depends upon the degree in which the objects have been associated.
When thoughts have been very closely and frequently linked together, the number of
which may be compressed within a minute is much greater. I find that I can count about
ninety-six in half a minute, which, without allowing for the two places of figures, gives
one hundred and ninety-two thoughts per minute. I can think of every letter in the
alphabet in five seconds at most, which is at the rate of more than three hundred per
minute. Finally, by counting the first ten numbers over and over again, I have com-
pressed nearly four hundred changes of idea within the minute.' "

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 59

science and specialism are identical ; not to specialize is to lose the prizes
of life. Germany, which in philosophy and science does the original
thinking of the world, is, as we all know, a nation of specialists.

There are, it is true, degrees of specialism, and the term is largely a
relative one : in medicine, where the word is mostly used, and where
until recently it has been a term of more or less reproach, all general
practitioners are really specialists, since medicine and surgery are both
offshoots from the professions of the priest and the barber ; in biology,
some are authorities only on paleontology, others on natural history in
general, others on some special branch, as entomology, others still on
some one insect, as the bee; and this subdivision is continually going on
with the evolution of systematized knowledge. These statements may
be truisms to students of sociology, but they are truisms that are for-
gotten by all the writers on testimony, although, as we shall see, they
lie at the root of the reconstruction of the principles of evidence.

Equally important in its bearings on the scientific study of testimony
is the recognition of the fact that memory is far more untrustworthy
than has been commonly supposed. But a very small fraction of the
impressions made on the cerebrum are so far retained as ever to be called
up at will. Theoretically, the brain is like a target on which every idea
that is evolved makes a permanent impression which no subsequent im-
pressions can thoroughly destroy ; practically, it is rather like a series
of sieves by which thoughts are sifted through various stages below and
on the borders of consciousness and recollection, while only the coarser
and larger grains are retained where they can be used when needed.
Under the stress of special excitements — as in the terror of drowning or
protracted falling, or in trance, impressions long forgotten are revived
and rise to temporary consciousness, so that men suppose that the pano-
rama of all their past lives is passing before them ; but, even under such
exceptional crises, it is certain that only a comparatively few of our
mental impressions actually reappear ; some long-forgotten events arise
with vivid distinctness, and the startled subject believes that all his life
is let loose.

Nearly all the acquisitions and experiences of life are forgotten,
even by the best memories ; only the tiniest trifle of past events or past
knowledge can ever be recalled. How dreams are forgotten we all
know, but the difference between the recollection of sleeping and wak-
ing thoughts is only one of degree ; by the standard of memory, all life
is a dream. The pleasant experiences of infancy and early childhood,
which, if they could be recalled at will, would so enrich and glorify hu-
man existence, are to us as though they had never been ; as maturity
appears, childhood dies.

Children really, as compared with adults, have very poor memories ;
they forget almost everything ; even in infancy the experiences of each
year are wiped out by the experiences of the succeeding year ; bright

60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

babies pass through a succession of hobbies in their various games and
sports, and methods of speech and conduct, likes and repulsions, and so
forth, which are successively and almost completely forgotten. The
whole process of education, public and private, is based throughout on
the imperfections and uncertainties of memory. If it were possible for
youths to retain what they read, or hear, or see, our schools and col-
leges might be closed, or, at least, remain open but one month in a
year. With children, as with adults, life is but a series of unremember-
able experiences ; to live is to forget.

All boasted human learning is a temporary treasure, a loan rather
than a permanent gift, which must be watched and tended every mo-
ment lest it slip from our possession. Truly has it been said that schol-
arship consists not in knowledge but in knowing where knowledge can
be found : he is the learned man who knows not the contents of books
but what the best books in any specialty are. School and academy and
university graduates, who after years of active and it may be eminent
professional life look over the examination-papers of alma mater and
the catechisms of their childhood, find invariably that outside of the
special lines of their lives they are unable to answer correctly and with
certainty the simplest questions, and must conclude that all the wisdom
of the world is with sophomores and school-children. Even special de-
partments are, through the limitations of human capacity, so minutely
specialized that one soon despairs of remembering anything more than
what belongs to the daily routine in the pursuit of a specialty ; an ori-
ginal author in science must continually refer to the books he has writ-
ten, lest he forget his own discoveries.

Some experiments that I have made with the memory, the full
details of which are to be published elsewhere, give results that are
of the highest significance in their bearings on the study of human
testimony. These experiments were modeled in part on the familiar
" Russian game," so called, which is sometimes practised by the young
as an amusement, and which consists in telling some short story to a
party, who at once repeats it, or all that he remembers, or thinks he
remembers, to another party, and so on through a series of half a dozen
or more individuals. In order to make the experiment a fair one, and
of value in the study of memory, the story designed as a test should be
short and simple, and should be written out and clearly stated to the
individual who stands second in the series. The second individual takes
a third individual into another room, writes out the story from his
recollection and reads it, the third party does the same by the fourth,
and so on. When all the stories are compared, at the close of the ex-
periment, this general result is invariably reached :

1. No two of the stories agree. All have departed more or less
widely not only from the original, but from the account which they
themselves directly received from the person next to them in the series.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 61

No one has succeeded in remembering just what his neighbor told him,
although he wrote down instantly what he heard.

2. In some of the stories interpolations occur, as well as omissions.
These additions are sometimes of an important nature, seriously modi-
fying the thought of the original, and, what is more strange is, that
these are frequently believed by the authors to be parts of the original ;
they are sure that they have given only what was given to them, and
are astonished and incredulous when a comparison is made between the
original and the others in the series. Not only the phraseology but the
thought is changed.

Another method of experimenting with the memory is, to repeat the
same story to a number of individuals separately, and then, after all
have written out by themselves without conference what they can re-
member, to compare the results.

Experiments of this kind, it will be observed, are made under every
conceivable advantage : there is no haste ; there is no excitement, at
least after the novelty is over ; there are no distractions ; the power of
recollection of words and facts is at its best. The accounts are written
down instantly as they are received ; they are consequently the virgin
impressions on the brain. I have made these experiments with in-
telligent, liberally-educated persons of both sexes, and have repeated
them sufficiently often to demonstrate that the results noted here are
laws and not exceptions ; and it is as clear as any fact in science can be,
that works like BoswelPs " Life of Johnson," and Goethe's conversa-
tions with Eckermann, and Luther's " Table-Talk," and indeed all con-
versational literature, must be regarded as representing the tendencies
of the heroes of the conversations, the general drift of their uttered
thought, rather than the precise language employed, or the order in
which the statements were made. Certain phrases often repeated by an
eminent man in the presence of his friend may be in some instances lit-
erally transcribed, especially if they are of an original and striking char-
acter ; but exact details of long conversations are never recalled — except
perhaps by certain prodigies of whom I shall presently speak. Inter-
viewing reporters are sometimes unjustly censured for intentionally
interpolating errors in their published statements. The day following
an interview, or even five minutes after, neither party can tell pre-
cisely what has been said, although sufficient may be remembered for
practical needs. Conversation can only be accurately reported when it
is taken down at once as the words are uttered. Conversations re-
ported weeks, months, and years, after their occurrence, must be not
only wide, but very wide, of the facts ; and, besides the positive omis-
sions, there must be, in all cases, interpolations or additions both of
fact and of language which the author is confident, and very likely has
all along been confident, that he received from the original. The sub-
jective is confounded with the objective, and there is no way by which
they can be distinguished.

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

These experiments bear directly and obviously on history and on
legal testimony, they show the hollowness of much of what is called
historic evidence, and the uselessness of the attempt so often made in
court to force or coax witnesses to give the exact language used by
them, or to them, or in their presence. I once told a short story to a
person who has the most remarkable memory both for words and facts
of any one whom I have ever met, and requested him to at once repeat
it. He attempted to do so, and not only changed the phraseology, but
left out one of the most important details. In some cases I have re-
quested the subjects experimented on to wait a week or ten days, and
then to write out what they remember, or think they remember, of what
was told them. In all cases there will be variations from the original
of greater or less importance, according to the nature and complications
of the story, and the special memory of the individual. One person, a
scholar of unusual verbal memory, after carefully studying a short story,
consisting of less than one hundred words, and waiting ten days, made
eight blunders.

In elaborately comparing the recitations of experienced and eminent
actors and actresses with the originals of plays, I find that serious
verbal changes, both of omission and interpolation, are constantly made.
Dramatic teachers say that pupils cannot accurately retain a long part ;
that blundering is everywhere the rule. Shakespeare, in his choicest
passages, is almost always, unintentionally if not unconsciously, altered
even by his most skilled and practised interpreters.

The statement made by Renan in his latest work, on "The Origins
of Christianity," that persons who do not know how to read and write
have a better memory for oral communications, is not confirmed by my
experiments thus far ; scholars and thinkers remember words and ideas
better than the ignorant and unreading classes. Those who do not
know how to read and write find it hard, according to my experiments,
to retain in memory a short and simple sentence, even for an instant.
Not only memory of words, but of facts and objects of common ob-
servation, is more limited than is supposed.

In another series of experiments I tested the power of recalling the
objects that fell upon the vision. If a number of persons enter a room
containing a number of articles of furniture, with various colors on the
walls and in the carpet, and in which certain complex gestures or mo-
tions or manoeuvres are made by some one, there will be no agreement
in their reports, even if made at once, and no report will be accurate.

For years philosophers and critics have been asking how long time is
required to make a myth. The answer is found in these experiments. A
myth can be made in a minute. These interpolations and additions to
reported conversations, of the truth of which the reporter, at the time
and subsequently, is so fully persuaded, that only by a comparison with
the written original can he be undeceived, are the products of the report-
er's own mind — the unconscious substitution of the subjective for the

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 63

objective words and phrases and thoughts of his own brain, which, per-
haps, have long been parts of his mental possessions, rise up like ghosts
in the midst of his narration, throw aside the original words and phrases
and thoughts, and take tbeir places so perfectly and so harmoniously
that the intrusion is not suspected.

It may be said — indeed, it is often said — that memory is a distinct
and narrow faculty, in no way correlated to other and more important
faculties, and that its perfectness or imperfectness has little relation to
the cerebral force. Even if this view of the nature of memory were the
correct one, it would not invalidate what is here claimed of the relation
of memory to human testimony. But this theory of the nature and office
of memory is not the correct one ; it is opposed to all that is known of
the brain and of its functions, whether studied physiologically or psy-
chologically. Memory is simply a register of a small fraction of the
impressions made on the brain ; there are, therefore, as many different
kinds of memory as there are different faculties or combinations of facul-
ties. Memory is a measure of mind ; but, as there are as many varieties
of memory as there are varieties of talents in man, the memory of any
man can only measure the talent peculiar to himself. We remember
what we have a capacity to comprehend. Any man, it has been said,
is willing to admit that his memory is poor, but no one will admit that
his judgment is poor ; and yet judgment is largely the result of mem-
ory. One may have a good judgment in some departments, but a very
poor judgment in other departments ; but, in those departments in
which the judgment is good, the memory must also be good.

The relation of memory to mind is illustrated, if not demonstrated,
in the early and late history of infant prodigies, such as blind Tom
the musician, Colburn the mathematician, and the famous " boy ora-
tor." An analysis of the mental powers of any of these prodigies
brings out these four facts common to them all : 1. Extraordinary mem-
ory in some one department ; 2. Correspondingly extraordinary genius
in that department ; 3. Marked and unusual deficiency of other mental
qualities, amounting in some instances to idiocy ; 4. Decline of their
special gifts corresponding to the development of other faculties on
reaching maturity. " In monstrosities Nature reveals her secrets ; " the
physiology of mind, the general relation of mind to brain, and the rela-
tion of memory to mind, can all be studied effectively through infant
prodigies. In no class of beings are the limitations of the human brain
so thoroughly demonstrated as in these very prodigies that are supposed
to illustrate in a marvelous way the capacities of intellect : all their
special endowments are bestowed at the price of general endow-
ments ; the ordinary io sacrificed to the extraordinary. If they ever
mature and become well-balanced citizens, the particular genius that
made their childhood famous must correspondingly suffer. Even the
average child, as we have seen, loses its memory in certain directions
as it advances to maturity; hence the common but erroneous belief

64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that the memory of children is better than the memory of adults. In
truth, average children remember far less in quantity than adults, and
they remember different things according to their age and taste. With
children as with adults, and as with prodigies, the memory, scientifically
studied, is an exact measure of mind, and in all, old and young, its
limitations are so great as to impair most seriously the value of most
of human testimony, even in matters of every-day life ; while in all
science, or the capacity of the human brain for observing systematized
knowledge, for thinking and for remembering, is so limited that the
world must defend, and practically, in the face of all the teachings of
logicians and authorities on evidence, does defend, and rests its faith
exclusively on, the testimony of experts, and in claims of new discov-
eries, especially against antecedent probability, on the testimony of a
few only, and those of the very highest character — experts of experts —
the opposing testimony of millions and millions of non-experts, though
concurring and including the best and wisest of mankind, through all
the ages being justly regarded as worse than worthless.

-+++-

THE GEOWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE.1

By Peofessob E. H. THUKSTON,

OF THE STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

VI.
THE STEAM-ENGINE OF THE FUTURE, AND ITS BUILDER.

HAVING thus rapidly outlined the history of the steam-engine,
and of some of its most important applications, we may now take
up the question —

What is the problem, stated precisely and in its most general form,
that engineers have been attempting here to solve ?

After stating the problem, we will examine the record with a view
to determine what direction the path of improvement has taken hither-
to ; and, so far as we may judge the future by the past, by inference,
to ascertain what appears likely to be its course in the present and in
the immediate future. Still further, we will inquire what are the con-
ditions, physical and intellectual, which best aid our progress in perfect-
ing the steam-engine.

This important problem may be stated in its most general form
thus:

To construct a machine which shall, in the most perfect manner
fiossible, convert the kinetic energy of heat-motion, as derived from

1 An abstract of " A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine," to be published
by D. Appleton & Co.

THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 65

the combustion of fuel, into mechanical power, using steam as the re-
ceiver and conveyer of that heat.

The problem embodies two distinct and equally important inquiries:
The first, What are the scientific principles involved in the problem, as
stated? The second, Sow shall we construct a machine that shall
most efficiently embody and accord with not only knoicn scientific prin-
ciples, but also with all well-settled principles of engineering practice?

The one question is addressed to the man of science ; the other to
the engineer. They can only be satisfactorily answered, even so far as
our knowledge at present permits, after studying with care the scien-
tific principles involved in the theory of the steam-engine, under the
best light that science can afford us, and by a careful study of the vari-
ous steps of improvement that have already taken place, and of accom-
panying variations of structure, analyzing the effect of each change
and tracing the reasons therefor. The theory of the steam-engine is too
important and too extensive a subject to be treated in even the space
available for a complete course of college lectures ; and we can only
here attempt an exceedingly concise statement of the principles, pointed
out by science, as those applicable in the endeavor to increase the eco-
nomic efficiency of the steam-engine.

The teachings of science indicate that, in the modern steam-engine :
Success in economically deriving mechanical power from the energy
of heat-motion will be the greater as we work between more 'widely-
separated limits of temperature, and as we more perfectly provide
against losses by dissipation of heat in directions in which it is tin-
available for the production of power.

Scientific research has proved that, in all varieties of heat-engines, a
very great loss of effect is unavoidable from the fact that we cannot
reduce the lower limit of temperature, in working, below a point that
is far above the absolute zero of temperature : the point corresponding
to the mean temperature of the surface of the earth in our latitude is
now practically our lower mean limit of temperature. The higher the
temperature of the steam, however, when it enters the engine, and the
lower the temperature at which it leaves the cylinder, and the more
thoroughly we provide against waste of heat by conduction and radia-
tion, and of power by friction, the greater will be our success.

Now, looking back over the history of the steam-engine, we may
rapidly note the prominent points of improvement and the most strik-
ing changes of form ; and we may thus obtain some idea of the general
direction in which we are to look for further advance.

Beginning with the machine of De Caus, at which point we may
first take up an unbroken thread, it will be remembered that we there
found a single vessel performing the functions of all the parts of a
modern pumping-engine ; it was at once boiler, steam-cylinder, and con-
denser, as well as both a lifting and a forcing pump.

The Marquis of "Worcester, and, still earlier, Da Porta, divided the

VOL. XIII. — 5

66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

engine into two parts ; using one part as a steam-boiler, and the other
as a separate water-vessel.

Savery duplicated those parts of the earlier engine which acted the
several parts of pump, steam-cylinder, and condenser, and added the
use of the jet of water to effect rapid condensation.

Newcomen and Cawley next introduced the modern type of en-
gine, and separated the pump from the steam-engine proper : in their
engine, as in Savery's, we notice the use of surface-condensation first ;
and, subsequently, that of a jet of water thrown into the midst of the
steam to be condensed.

Watt finally effected the crowning improvement of the single cylin-
der-engine, and completed this movement of differentiation by sepa-
rating the condenser from the steam-cylinder, thus perfecting the gen-
eral structure of the engine.

Here this movement ceased, the several important processes of the
steam-engine now being conducted each in a separate vessel. The
boiler furnished the steam ; the cylinder derived from it mechanical
power; the vapor was finally condensed in a separate vessel; while the
power, which had been obtained from it in the steam-cylinder, was
transmitted through still other parts to the pumps, or wherever work
was to be done.

Watt also took the initiative in another direction : He continually
increased the efficiency of the machine by improving the proportions of
its parts and the character of its workmanship ; and thus made it pos-
sible to render available many of those improvements in detail which
are only useful when the parts can be skillfully made.

Watt and his contemporaries also commenced that movement toward
higher pressures of steam, used with greater expansion, which has been
the most striking feature noticed in the progress of the steam-engine
since his time. Newcomen used steam of barely more than atmospheric
pressure, and raised 105,000 pounds of water one foot high, with a
pound of coal consumed. Smeaton raised the steam-pressure to eight
pounds, and increased the duty to 120,000. Watt started with a duty
of double that of Newcomen, and raised it 320,000 foot-pounds per
pound of coal, with steam at ten pounds. To-day, Cornish engines of
the same general plan as those of Watt, but worked with forty to sixty
pounds of steam, and expanding three to six times, do a duty that Mill
probably average, with good ordinary engines, 600,000 foot-pounds per
pound of coal.

The increase of steam-pressure and expansion which has been seen
since Watt's time has been accompanied by a very great improve-
ment in workmanship, a consequence of rapid increase in the perfection
and the wide range of adaptation of machine-tools, of higher skill and
intelligence in designing engines and boilers, increased piston-speed,
greater care in obtaining dry steam, and in keeping it dry until thrown
out of the cylinder — either by superheating, or by steam-jacketing, or

THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 67

by both means combined ; and it has been further accompanied by
greater attention to the important matter of providing carefully against
losses by conduction and radiation, and by internal wasteful transfer of
heat. The use, finally, of the " compound " or double-cylinder engine
for the purpose of reducing friction, as well as of saving some of that
heat which is usually lost in consequence of internal condensation and
reevaporation due to great expansion, has already been considered
when treating1 of the marine engine.

It is evident that, although there is a limit, which is tolerably well
defined, in the scale of temperature, below which we cannot expect to
pass, using the now standard type of engine, a degree gained in ap-
proaching this lower limit is more remunerative than a degree gained
in the range of available temperature, by increasing the maximum tem-
perature. Hence, the attempt made by the French inventor, Du Trem-
bly, a quarter of a century ago, and by other inventors since, to utilize
a larger proportion of heat by approaching more closely the loicer limit,
was in accordance with what are now well-known scientific principles.

The form of engine here referred to is known among engineers as
the Binary Vapor-Engine. In it the heat usually carried away by the
water delivered from the condenser of the steam-engine is made to
evaporate some very volatile liquid, as ether or carbon bisulphide, which,
in turn, by the expansion of its vapor, develops additional mechanical
power. Mechanical difficulties have hitherto prevented the success of
this form of engine ; but it cannot be pronounced impossible that
coming inventors may make the system commercially valuable.

An important consequence of the still unchecked rise of piston-
speed in the modern steam-engine is the approach to a limit beyond
which the now standard form of "drop cut-off," or "detachable" valve-
gear, cannot be used. For the piston would, at that limit of speed, reach
the end of its stroke before the dropped valve could reach its seat, and
the point of cut-off and degree of expansion could no longer be deter-
mined accurately and invariably by the governor. This limit has prob-
ably already been attained in some engines ; and the engineer adopting
such piston-speeds as 1,000 feet per minute or more is driven back to
the use of the older types of " positive-motion " valve-gearing, and is
compelled to devise special forms of governor which shall have sensi-
tiveness, and yet power sufficient to control these less tractable kinds
of mechanism, and to invent reliable and durable forms of balanced
valves, and to practise every practicable expedient for making the
movement of the valve, and its adjustment by the regulator, perfectly
easy. Positive motion and ease of adjustment by the governor are,
therefore, evidently the requisites of a successful valve-gear for the
engine which will probably succeed the standard engine of to-day.

We may now summarize the results of our examination of the
growth of the steam-engine thus :

1. The process of improvement has been one, primarily, of "dif-

68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ferentiation ; " the number of parts lias been continually increased,"
while the work of each part has been simplified, a separate organ
being appropriated to each process in the cycle of operations.

2. A kind of secondary process of "differentiation" has, to some
extent, followed the completion of the primary one, in which secondary
process one operation is conducted partly in one and partly in another
part of the machine. This is illustrated by the two cylinders of the
compound engine, and by the duplication noticed in the binary vapor-
engine.

3. The direction of improvement has been marked by a continual
increase of steam-pressure, greater expansion, special provision for ob-
taining dry steam, higher piston-speed, careful protection against loss
of heat by conduction or radiation, and, in marine engines, by surface
condensation.

The direction of improvement, as indicated by science as well as by
our own review of the actual steps already taken, would seem to be :
En resume, working between the widest attainable limits of tempera-
ture, and the saving of heat previously wasted in the apparatus or re-
jected from it.

Steam must enter the machine at the highest possible temperature,
must be protected from waste or loss of heat, and must retain, at the
moment before exhaust, the least possible proportion of originally
available heat. He whose inventive genius, or mechanical skill, con-
tributes to effect either of these objects — to secure either the use of
higher steam with safety, or the more effective conversion of heat
into mechanical power without waste, or the reduction, by transforma-
tion into work, of the temperature of the rejected working-fluid — confers
an inestimable boon upon mankind.

In detail, in the engine proper the tendency is, and may be ex-
pected to continue, in the near future at least, toward higher steam,
greater expansion in more than one cylinder, steam -jacketing, super-
heating, a careful use of non-conducting protectors against waste, and
higher piston-speed with rapid rotation, and to the adoption of special
proportions and of forms of valve-gear adapted to such high-speed
engines.

In the boiler, more complete combustion, without excess of air pass-
ing through the furnace, is sought, and a more thorough absorption of
heat from the furnace-gases. The latter may be ultimately found most
satisfactorily attainable by the use of a mechanically -produced draught,
in place of the far more wasteful method of obtaining it by the ex-
penditure of heat in the chimney.

In construction, we may anticipate the use of better materials, as
already seen in the substitution of " mild steels " for the cruder mate-
rial, iron, and more careful workmanship, especially in the boiler, and
still further improvement in forms and proportions of details.

In management, there is an immense field for improvement, which

THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 69

improvement we may feel assured will rapidly take place, as it is now
becoming well understood that care, skill, and intelligence, are absolute-
ly essential to economical management, as well as to safety, and that
they repay liberally all the expenditure of time and money that is
requisite to secure them. It is truer of labor than of anything else in
the market that " the best is the cheapest."

In attempting improvement in the directions that I have indicated,
it would be the height of folly to assume that we have reached a limit
in any one of them, or that we have even approached an impassable
limit. If further progress seems checked by inadequate returns, when
efforts are made to advance, in any promising direction, beyond pres-
ent practice, it becomes the duty of the engineer to detect the cause
of such hinderance, and, having found it, to find a way to remove it, if
such removal is not physically impossible.

A few years since the movement toward the expansive working of
high steam was checked by experiments seeming to prove positive dis-
advantage to follow advance beyond a certain point. A careful revision
of results, however, showed that this was true only with engines built,
as was then common, in utter disregard of all the principles which
should have been observed in such use of steam, and of the precau-
tions necessary to be taken to insure the gain which science has taught
us should follow the intelligent use of higher pressures of steam. The
obstructions are purely physical and mechanical, and it is for the en-
gineer to remove them.

An analysis of the methods of waste of heat, in the operation of the
modern steam-engine, would show that a very large proportion — nearly
all, in fact — is due to the rejection of unutilized heat with the exhaust-
steam. In the best engines in general use this loss amounts to from
eight-tenths to nine-tenths of the total amount of heat derived from
the fuel. Modern steam-engines lose nearly all wasted heat in this
way; the losses by conduction and radiation are comparatively small.
It is at once evident that the only way in which anv very great addi-
tional economy can be secured is to reduce to a minimum the quanti-
ty of heat remaining at the opening of the exhaust-valve, and then to
retain this rejected heat within the system, so far as is possible, and to
thus prevent its waste by escape from the system. The reduction of
the great quantity of heat left for rejection at the end of the stroke
of the piston can only be effected, to any important degree, by expe-
dients which check that internal condensation and reevaporation which,
with great expansion, transfer to the condenser, unutilized, an immense
amount, often, of the heat supplied. As already stated, these expe-
dients are the use of dry steam, the adoption of the steam-jacket and of
high engine-speed, and the use of a material for the interior lining of
the cylinder which has the least possible conductivity.

The retention of the heat actually rejected from the cylinder, and
its complete utilization by reworking, is practically a matter of diffi-

7o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

culty, although not certainly impossible ; ' and the author has proposed
a new type of steam-engine, in which the water of condensation and
the steam rejected from the engine shall be separated and returned, by
pumps of proper proportion and construction, to the boiler. The return
of the water demands the expenditure of an insignificant amount of
power. To return the rejected steam with its charge of heat — which
usually forms so large a proportion of the total heat generated by the
combustion of the fuel, assuming all transfer of heat to the exhaust by
the operation of internal condensation and reevaporation to have been
prevented — demands the expenditure of precisely the amount of power
which has been developed by its expansion. In an ideal engine of this
type, therefore, the efficiency is perfect, and all heat-energy is utilized
by transformation into mechanical energy ; but the engine cannot de-
velop as much power as an engine of the common type of the same size.
The size of engine will be nearly inversely proportional to the " effi-
ciency of the fluid " under similar conditions in this and the ordinary
type of engines. The heat rejected from the cylinder has been de-
graded so low on the scale of temperature as to be no longer available
for the production of power ; nevertheless, restored to the boiler, it
serves with perfect efficiency as a basis upon which to " pile up a new
stock of utilizable energy " in the form of heat derived from the furnace,
and at a higher temperature.

The obstacles to the realization of this theoretically perfect type of
engine are those which make it so difficult to reduce internal condensa-
tion and reevaporation, and those conditions of practice which make
the engine of this type exceptionally bulky and mechanically inefficient.

Whether this type of heat-engine can ever be made of practical
value will be determined by the rate of condensation of steam expand-
ing against a resisting piston ; the extent to which high pressures and
great expansion can be practically carried; the extent to which internal
transfer of heat, without doing w7ork, can be reduced ; the practical
limit of engine-speed ; and the perfection attainable in the engine con-
sidered as a piece of mechanism. All these conditions remain to be
experimentally determined, and it is only by their determination that it
can be known whether the " Steam-Engine of the Future " will greatly
exceed the engine of to-day in efficiency, and whether this newly-pro-
posed type may ultimately succeed.

That the changes in practice already indicated may go on almost
indefinitely seems unquestionable. That this latter modification of
the steam-engine will ever actually take place, and become generally
adopted, cannot be as positively asserted. We may, at least, hope
that it may.

We have seen that the most important problem offered the engineer

1 " On a New Type of Steam-Engine," etc., by R. II. Thurston, Journal of the Franklin
Institute, October, November, December, 1877. "Proceedings of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science," 1877.

THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 71

for solution is a double one, and that it requires the aid of both the
scientist and the mechanist in its solution.

But it is sufficiently evident that, before the engineer can determine
what form of machine will best yield to him full control of these forces
of Nature, he must have sufficient knowledge of science to be able to
understand what scientific principles are to be rendered available, and
what phenomena of Nature are operating in the production of the
power which he is to seize upon and usefully to apply. Otherwise, he
will grope in the dark, and will only learn, by the bitter experience of
costly failures, to make slow progress toward perfection.

We have seen that the larger proportion of the principal improve-
ments which have yet been effected in the steam-engine were due to
the united engineering skill and experience and scientific attainments
of James Watt. We have seen that his improvements followed a long
course of intelligent and truly scientific research ; and that, directed by
the results of this investigation, the engineering talent and the mechani-
cal knowledge of the great inventor accomplished more in a single life-
time than had been previously accomplished in the whole period em-
braced in the history of civilization.

This great example confirms what we should infer from the nature
of the problem itself, that —

He who would accomplish most in the profession of the mechanical
engineer must best combine scientific attainments — and especially ex-
perimental knoicledge — with mechanical taste and ability and a good
judgment refined by engineering experience.

As one of our oldest engineers1 tells him, he must " cultivate a
knowledge of physical laws, without which eminence in the profession
can never be securely attained." He must become familiar not only
with science and the arts, but he must train himself to make the one
assist the other ; he must learn just how to make use of scientific prin-
ciples in planning his work, and how to do his work most thoroughly,
efficiently, and economically, when he has determined his general de-
sign. He must be able to determine how far standard designs are in
accordance with correct scientific and mechanical principles, to detect
their defects and the causes of those defects, and to provide a remedy
correct in principle and mechanically efficient. Science and Art must
always work hand-in-hand.

But how are the rising generation of engineers to acquire this pro-
ficiency in both branches of knowledge ? How are they to be made
mentally and manuallj'- accomplished ; how fitted for the great work
which is laid out for them ?

The time has gone by when, in any art, the ignorant and merely
dexterous workman can compete with even a less skillful shopmate, who
possesses and uses brains as well as hands, and knows how to make the
the one direct and aid the other. We to-day find him occupying a

1 Charles Haswell.

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

decided vantage-ground who is at the same time familiar with the
schools and at home in the workshop. For whatever department in
the arts a youth may be designed, he must, to insure success in the
future, be taught not " in either the school or the workshop" the alter-
native formerly offered him, but in the school and the workshop.

Here, then, arises the necessity for Technical and Trade Schools,
in which, if properly conducted, knowledge is imparted so as not only
to train the mind to habits of thought and study, to give it capacity for
logical deduction and the rapid acquirement of information, but in such
manner as shall at the same time make the student familiar with the
principles of the art which he is to practise, and shall prepare him to
learn the lessons taught, in the workshop and in the manufactory, rap-
idly and well.

It is the tardy recognition of these facts, of this vital necessity,
that has placed a great nation, formerly far in advance of all others in
manufactures and the useful arts, in a position relatively to her neigh-
bors that is causing the greatest uneasiness to the more intelligent of
her people and to all her statesmen. They see other nations, who were
formerly far behind, now rapidly overtaking her, if not already taking
the lead, in consequence of their earlier adoption of a system of techni-
cal instruction for their people.

Two hundred years ago, Edward Somerset, the second Marquis of
Worcester, the inventor, whose work has become familiar to us, ad-
monished his fellow-countrymen of the growing necessity of such a sys-
tem of education for the people, and urged the establishment of tech-
nical schools. For this he deserves higher honor than for his improve-
ments in the steam-engine. But the system first took a definite shape,
a century ago, upon the Continent of Europe ; and, during the past
half-century, it has grown with the growth and strengthened with the
strength of the western European nations, until, to-day, it has become
a most important element of their national powrer.

In our own countrj', this great need has long been recognized ; but
the policy of our Government has not permitted it to institute systems
of teaching at the expense of the nation, as has been done in European
countries, and it has remained to a great degree unprovided for. It is
to our sad deficiency in this respect, and to the tardy and unconcerted
action of our educators and our legislators — few of whom seem to have
the calibre of the real statesman — that we are to-day so seriously behind
Continental nations in the industrial education of youth, and are threat-
ened with serious evils in the future. Without general and systematic
technical and trade education, the most enterprising people on the
globe, brought into competition in the markets of the world with bet-
ter-educated people and with nations of trained artisans, must inevi-
tably become a great nation of paupers.

Such education cannot be provided at the small cost that the work-
ing-man can afford to pay ; and, even if that were possible, it is doubt-

RELATION OF THE FINITE TO THE INFINITE. 73

ful whether the vital necessity of such education, to the people rather
than to the individual, and to the coming rather than to the present
generation, would be sufficiently well understood by the average citizen
to induce the payment of its actual cost, far below its full value as it
may be.

It becomes, therefore, the privilege and the duty of the wealthy
among our citizens to provide this great want of our country, and to aid
thus most effectively in giving her that preeminence among nations that
every patriotic citizen desires her to attain.

The Stevens Institute of Technology.

-♦•*-

THE EELATION OF THE FINITE TO THE INFINITE.

By N. J. GATES.

ALL human knowledge is limited — limited by the power of the
senses, limited by the scope of the senses, limited by the imper-
fections of the senses. The eye cannot see an atom, because of its
minuteness ; it cannot measure the sun or the stars, because of their
vastness ; it can only be trusted to take the approximate and com-
parative measure of a limited class of objects within certain distances.

This conscious narrowness is realized in all the special senses and
all the faculties of the intellect.

We have pains so slight that we never feel them, yet in their ag-
gregate effect they may be fatal ; and a fatal blow that shall at once
strike down every nerve of sensation would produce as little conscious
pain. Consciousness cannot mark its own beginnings or endings; it
can only realize intermediate stages. We have no consciousness of
how or when we began to see, or feel, or think, and we will probably
have as little as to their mode of termination. As conscious physical
beings (we are not discussing the question of immortality), the cradle

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the grave meet in one mystery. It is the putting on and the
putting off of consciousness ; all that lies between we call life — finite,
limited life.

Now, it seems plain that a mind so restricted by the senses can
never form a just conception of the infinite. How utterly impossible
it is for us to grasp the idea of endless space or endless time ! To
suppose there is an end to space is to suppose something beyond, and
this must be space. To suppose there was a moment when time
began is to suppose there was a moment before it began, and this
must have been time also. Let us conceive God to be the highest
possible ideal of the Infinite ; let us assume that he had no beginning,
and that he fills with his presence all space. But we cannot con-
ceive of a universal, all-pervading God without all-pervading space ;
and, consequently, if God had no beginning, neither had space, and if
space had no beginning, neither had time. Then, as a sequence, God
did not create time or space, for they were prerequisites to his own
existence. Hence our highest conceptions of God condition him of
necessity.

Now, it may be asked, "Does this line of reasoning prove there is
no God?" Not at all. It simply proves that the finite mind is utterly
impotent to apprehend God. It proves that we do not and cannot
comprehend primary causation ; that our perceptive faculties are so
limited by the very nature of their constitution that they cannot ap-
prehend the primary nature of the simplest natural law; and if we can-
not comprehend the nature of the force called gravity, or heat as a
mode of motion, except as physical facts, how can we have any rational
conception of any of those matchless qualities of mind that produced
these laws ? If the rude savage, after examining for the first time a
complicated piece of machinery, can form no just conception of the
forces that impel it, or even of the purpose it serves, how much less
can he understand the peculiar qualities of mind that invented and
produced it ! If, by dint of deepest research, we cannot analyze the
subtile law that connects the molecular movement of the brain with
thought, how can we analyze the thoughts of an Infinite mind of which
this law was but a thought? Is it not plain that, in attempting this,
we attempt the impossible ?

Let us give a simple illustration to show how utterly incompetent
is the finite mind to grasp the idea, of creation — we mean absolute
creation. It must be conceded that matter has either had an eternal

existence (whatever that may mean), or it has been called into being

created by a Creator. But it may net have occurred to every one
that to the finite rational mind the latters idea is as incomprehensible
as the former, for we cannot conceive of the creation of something out
of nothing. " From nothing, nothing can come." The science of
geometry is based upon axioms not more self-evident. So far as the
finite mind can reason, it is as impossible for God to create something

RELATION OF THE FINITE TO THE INFINITE. 75

from nothing as it is for us to prove that a whole is not greater than
any of its parts, for it is a self-contradiction. The reader will bear in
mind that we are not discussing the facts of the creation, but the in-
competency of the human mind to grasp the facts, whatever they may
be. However humiliating, then, it may be to the pride of human in-
tellect, we are forced to the conclusion that there is a vast field of
thought, open to anxious inquiry it is true, over the gateway of whose
entrance we may well inscribe, " The Unknowable." Somewhere
within this vast field, from which the human intellect is excluded, lie
absolute time and space, and all we call creation, or primary causa-
tion. It is the futile attempt to explore this field that has brought
philosophers and theologians alike into deserved contempt — the old
folly of perpetual motion by the construction of a clock that shall
wind up itself.

It is now time for science to define, in some way, the limitations of
human knowledge, and thus confine all research strictly within the
sphere of the knowable. Is it not safe to assume that the finite mind
is so conditioned that it cannot possibly perceive or comprehend ulti-
mate antecedent causes ? To say that God was the first cause seems
at first an easy solution, but it is only another way of saying we do
not know, for we ask at once, " Had God a beginning ? and if not,
then for an infinite period of time he was alone, or else matter has been
coeternal with him, and we come back to the Hindoo idea that God is
the universe. Our conception of God must be the essence of our con-
ception of eternity, and of that the finite mind can of necessity form no
conception. There is a mathematical ratio between a second of time
and a million million centuries ; but there can be no ratio between
a million million centuries and eternity, hence our conception of an in-
finite and eternal God is impossible. The difficulty does not lie so
much in the vastness of the idea itself as in the seeming impossibilities
the idea involves. It is like attempting to show the necessity for
a sixth sense, by expressing this want or necessity in terms of the five
senses we already possess ; no such idea can by any possibility be con-
veyed.

Let us compare an animal as low in the scale of existence as an
oyster with one of the highest known type, man, and note the points
of agreement and the points of divergence. An oyster, like man, is
evolved from a germ, advances to the climax of animal vigor, and then,
like him, declines and dies. An oyster's life is conditioned by the ele-
ments in which he lives, and so is man's. An oyster, like man, is prop-
agated by well-defined laws, and like him is subject to disease and
premature decay. Now, in all the conditions named, there is not only
no difference in kind, but, so far as we know, there is none in quality.
They are conditions expressed in universal laws to which the entire or-
ganic kingdom is subjected, and over which human agency has little or
no control. Let us now turn to those higher qualities in man which are

7 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

either entirely wanting in the oyster, or are of the most rudimentary
nature.

The nervous structure of an oyster is so low that we can no more
detect consciousness than we can detect the physical structure of an
atom. In man the nervous organization is exceedingly complicated,
and centres in a massive brain unparalleled in its activity; to this are
added the special senses (probably entirely wanting in the oyster),
through which alone all knowledge comes to the mind. Now, we ob-
serve that all the inflexible laws that, in the same way, limit and govern
these extremes of organic life, are of the infinite order, having their be-
ginnings beyond the scope of the senses, while the differences are of
the finite order and grow out of the relation of one thing to another ; in
other words, the difference is one of degree, and therefore finite. There
was a time, in the infantile development of every man, when he was as
unconscious of all his higher functions as the passive oyster ; but there
came a time when, through the special senses, he began to take on
thought, which is an impression made upon the brain by external action,
and these impressions multiply and accumulate as we come more and
more in contact with surrounding objects, until the accumulated thoughts
are called knowledge ; that is to say, the mind is evolved from without,
and not from within. It is utterly impossible for us to conceive of any-
thing beai'ing no likeness to anything we have ever seen, or heard, or
felt, because our thoughts are the result of impressions already made.
We certainly can form no conception of a color unlike any of the pris-
matic colors and their combinations, because, through the organ of vision,
no other impressions have been made upon the brain.

The difference in the scope of the receptive and perceptive faculties
of the lower order of organisms, as compared with those of the higher,
is vast and almost incomprehensible, just as is the difference in distance
between two contiguous atoms and two of the most widely-separated
visible stars, but it is a difference of degree and is finite. The great
underlying life-principles are the same in each, and for want of a better
name we call them principles of the infinite order.

Now, we insist that a well-defined line may be drawn between
simple forces of the infinite order and a result growing out of the
changed relation of one force to another — a difference between simple
and resultant forces — the one constant and unvarying, the other for-
ever changing. We may fashion metallic wheels and put them into
certain relations to each other, and by employing weights or springs
construct a clock that shall mark time in minutes or seconds, and by
changing the relation of parts we may measure weeks or months,
omitting to note the subdivisions, varying these results at pleasure ;
but in all this we create nothing, nor do we in any way modify a pre-
existing principle. The mathematical laws of multiples, by which the
results of all the wheel-movements are determined, preexisted in the
infinite and indestructible laws of numbers and of motion, and the

RELATION OF THE FINITE TO THE INFINITE. 77

direct motive power preexisted in the force of gravity, or in the elastic
property of the molecular structure of the spring. In bringing the
wheels together, and making all the adjustments, we create neither
force nor quality — in separating them and breaking the connections,
we destroy nothing. The same is true of all mechanism, and indeed of
all organisms. Chemical atoms are endowed with definite, inflexible,
and indestructible properties that produce different effects only when
differently related or correlated.

The difference between organic and inorganic conditions of exist-
ence is not a difference in the powers or properties of matter trace-
able to first causes, but to changed relations due to secondary causes ;
just as the movement of pieces upon the chess-board does not change
the number or the power of the pieces, but, from their changed rela-
tions to each other, arise new and highly-complicated effects, that are
perhaps never repeated in playing a million games. It is for this
reason that no two organisms are ever exact duplicates of each other,
nor is the individual ever twice in the same physical or intellectual
conditions.

Now, is it not plain that, in the investigation of all the simple forces
of which we have the slightest knowledge, there is not one in which
we can find a comprehensible beginning? We trace them one by one
from highly-involved conditions, through the less and less involved,
until at last the simple force, divorced from all associated relations, is
lost in the azure blue of the infinite — infinite in the space it may oc-
cupy— infinite in its duration — infinite in the diversity of effects that
may arise from association with other simple forces, and finite or com-
prehensible alone in the duration of these conditions. It is at just this
point we desire to draw the line between the knowable and the un-
knowable. All attempts to find the relation existing between first cause
and any sequence or effect must utterly fail, for, as we have already
seen, it is an effort of the mind to comprehend infinite conditions — to
produce something from nothing. To say that God, in his creative
energy, was the first cause, is to say that all the conditions of creation
preexisted hi him, and, if all the conditions and possibilities of creation
preexisted in God, creation itself preexisted in. him, and consequently
had no beginning, for the conditions by which creation was alone made
possible, and which were its foundation-stones, were certainly first
causes, and, if God created them, he created himself, which is absurd.

When we grant that the material universe contains in itself no
creative energy, and that all the manifold laws by which seemingly
blind atoms rise by intelligent coordination to organic conditions, and
thus to intellectual activities, have not created themselves, we have
exhausted the argument for materialism as a possible explanation of
First Cause. And now we appeal to an Infinite Intelligence, a spiritual
essence, superior to material conditions, and attempt to satisfy reason
by making the universe the sequence of a Sovereign Will ? But have

7 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

we advanced a single step toward the comprehension of First Cause ?
We say, no ! but on the contrary are receding from it ; for we assume
that the vast continuity of effects which we call the universe, past and
present, must have had an antecedent cause, and this First Cause, which
certainly must be more potent than the universe it created, we assume
existed and preexisted without cause. That is to say, we rise from the
smallest phenomenon in Nature b}T slow gradations, connecting cause
with effect, until we reach the highest phenomenon above Nature, and
this we assume came into existence without cause, or in other words
the source of all other powers is itself an underived power, and either
created itself or was never created, either of which is unthinkable. It
is, indeed, the conception of a vast and stately intellectual pyramid
resting upon a vast base, which it is assumed requires no support.

Let no devout critic challenge the physicist to explain primary
causation until he can show the capacity of the finite mind for the
reception of such an idea, nor on the other hand deceive himself with
the idea that he has removed the difficulty by simply covering it with
a name, the meaning of which is utterly incomprehensible.

LIQUEFACTION OF THE GASES.1

By GASTON TISSANDIER.

II.

AT the very moment when Cailletet was subjecting successively to
the test of his apparatus the six permanent gases, and was con-
quering their resistance to compression, M. Raoul Pictet was making
his experiments, first on oxygen, then on hydrogen. But what gives
a special interest to the labors of Pictet is the fact that he has succeeded
in producing a quite appreciable volume of these gases in the liquid or
in the solid state. He describes his apparatus as follows :

A and H (Fig. 1) are two compound exhausting and forcing pumps,
so coupled as to produce the widest possible difference between the
pressures of exhaustion and compression. These pumps act on anhy-
drous sulphurous acid contained in the tubular receiver C. The press-
ure in this receiver is such that the sulphurous acid evaporates at the
temperature of —65° C.a The sulphurous acid pumped out is carried into
a condenser D, cooled by a current of cold water ; it is there liquefied
at a temperature of —25°, and at a pressure of about 2| atmospheres.
The sulphurous acid returns to the receiver C by a small tube d as
fast as it is liquefied.

JE and F are two pumps precisely the same as the preceding, and

1 Translated, with some abridgment, from La Nature, by J. Fitzgerald, A. M.

2 The degrees of temperature here noted are all according to the centigrade scale.

LIQUEFACTION OF THE GASES.

79

with the same kind of coupling. They act on carbonic acid contained
in a tubular receiver H. The pressure in this receiver is such that
the carbonic acid in it evaporates at a temperature of —140°. The car-
bonic acid drawn out of it by the pumps is passed into the condenser
K which is surrounded by the sulphurous acid receiver C, the tempera-
ture of which is —65° ; it is there liquefied under a pressure of five at-
mospheres. The carbonic acid returns to the receiver II through the
small tube k, in proportion as it assumes the liquid state.

Fig. 1.— Diagram of Pictet's Apparatus.

L is a wrought-iron retort of sufficient thickness to withstand a
pressure of 500 atmospheres. It contains chlorate of potash, and is
heated so as to give off pure oxygen. It communicates by a tube with
a sloping tube 31, of very thick glass, one metre in length and sur-
rounded by the carbonic-acid receiver H whose temperature is — 140°.
A screw-stoppel JV, situated above the tubulure of the retort, gives to
the latter communication with the external air.

After the four pumps have been at work for several hours, driven
by a 15-horse-power steam-engine, and when all the oxygen has been
liberated from the chlorate of potash, the pressure in the tube is 320
atmospheres, and the temperature —140°.

On suddenly opening the orifice P, the oxygen escapes with vio-
lence, producing an expansion and an absorption of heat so great that

8o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a portion of it, in the liquid state, is seen in the glass tube, and spurts
out of the orifice on the apparatus being inclined.

A sufficiently clear idea of M. Pictet's method can be had from the
above diagram and description; but, as yet, the reader can hardly
imagine what the apparatus looks like. Fig. 2 (after a photograph)

Fig. 2. — Pictet's Apparatus (from a Photograph).

and Fig. 3 will supply this deficiency. Fig. 2 is a general view of
Pictet's grand liquefaction apparatus, as it stands in his establishment
at Geneva; and Fig. 3 exhibits the same in section. This apparatus
possesses considerable size ; for instance, the head of a man standing
would be on a level with the manometer seen near the letter H in the
engraving.

The perfected apparatus as shown in Fig. 2 diffoi ., in sundry respects
from the diagram Fig. 1, as will be seen at a gl ; >. One essential
difference consists in the arrangement of the liquefy vjtion apparatus
proper, Fig. 4. Here D is an iron shell (or retort), with walls 35 mil-
limetres in thickness ; it contains 700 grammes of chlorate of potash
when oxygen is the gas to be liquefied. Its orifice communicates with
an iron tube five metres in length, 214 millimetres internal diameter.
This tube, bent as in the figure, is closed at both ends, but one end
may be opened by means of the cock IE. A Bourdon manometer,
graduated to 800 atmospheres, shows the inside pressure. The tube
c JEJ, in which the disengaged oxygen is compressed, is completely
immersed in liquid carbonic acid, which, by the mechanism of the

LIQUEFACTION OF THE GASES.

81

pumps before described, enters the apparatus at a and passes out as
vapor from the orifice 5, after volatilization.

Fig. 3. — Section of the Same.
£, cast-iron shell containing chlorate of potash ; A A', closed iron tube in which the Eras is con-
densed ; C, refrigerating cylinder in which liquid carbonic acid is volatilized ; F, wooden
case packed with some bad heat-conductor ; D, reservoir holding liquid carbonic acid, sur-
rounded by a refrigerating cylinder in which liquid sulphurous acid is volatilized ; H, case
packed with a bad heat-conductor; G, gasometer containing gaseous carbonic acid; K,
reservoir for liquid sulphurous acid; P, one of the double-action pumps ; A', cock which
can be opened so as to give an exit to the liquefied gas which escapes in the direction shown
by the arrows.

With this apparatus, M. Raoul Pictet, on Monday, December 24,
1877, in the presence of members of the Physical Society of Geneva,
three different times obtained violent jets of vapor which contained
globules of liquefied oxygen. On the following Thursday the experi-
ment was made for the fourth time. The manometer, which had risen
to 560 atmospheres, after a few minutes fell to 505, and there stood for

Fig. 4.— The Retort and the Tube in which the Gas is liquefied.

over half an hour, showing by this diminution of pressure the transition
of a portion of the gas into the liquid state, under the influence of the
—140° temperature to which it was subjected. The cock closing the
orifice of the tube was then opened, and a jet of oxygen escaped with
extraordinary violence. A beam of electric light, projected on the cone
of escapement, enabled the spectators to see that the jet consisted of
two distinct parts : the one central, a few centimetres in length, whose
white color gave evidence of liquid or even solid elements ; the other
external, whose blue color showed the return of the compressed and
frozen oxygen to the gaseous state.

In later experiments M. Pictet succeeded in collecting a very appre-
ciable volume of liquid oxygen, and in liquefying all the other " per-
gases.

manent "

VOL. XIII. — 6

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

METEIC REFORM.

By SAMUEL BAKNETT.

THE ultimate triumph of the metric system may be regarded as safe,
beyond peradventure ; no event still in the future is more cer-
tain. A universal system of weights, measures, and currency, is an im-
perative demand of advancing civilization ; and this particular solution
is worthy of the great problem, fit for all countries and for all time. It
has the start, the prestige, the substantial merits, the already large
adoption, which insure universality.

Its progress has in many respects been most gratifying. One nation
after another has yielded to the arguments in its favor. Dr. Barnard's
tables show that in Europe in 1872 France, Germany, Holland, Belgium,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Roumania, and Greece, had adopted it in full ;
Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, Baden, Hesse,Wurtemburg, and
Bavaria, adopted metric values, and even conservative England rendered
the system permissive. The whole map of Europe is thus riddled — lit-
tle of it left ; the rest is sure to follow. So in North America — the
United States, Canada, and Mexico ; in South America — New Granada,
Eucador, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Chili, and the Argentine Confederation;
and, among other countries, British India, the French, Dutch, and
Spanish colonies, and Japan, are numbered. Thus, nearly all the most
advanced nations of the earth are committed to it, and its universality is
but a question of time. There will be no steps backward now, but only
forward.

All this seems highly satisfactory and encouraging, and it may be
asked, " What more could be desired or expected ? " But there is an-
other side to the picture.

Among the common people its progress has been as conspicuously
slow as rapid among the nations. The statistics of its actual use, could
they be had, would be heartily discouraging. In some way, and for
some reason, upon the common mind it does not take hold. Indeed, in
a discriminating view, its reception, even among the nations, compares
unfavorably with that of many other inventions and devices of modern
times: steam, railroads, telegraphy, photography, already cover the
earth — all of later date than this system.

With all its admitted merits, the activity of its friends, and the co-
operation of governments, the metric system makes no headway among
the masses of mankind. As yet but a barren triumph has been achieved ;
the consent of the government, and not of the people, is the assent of
the parents, but not of the maiden. Permission to woo is all we have
obtained.

Even in France, although the system was provisionally established
as early as 1793, and made obligatory, a full generation ago, in 1840,

METRIC REFORM. 83

yet the want of real progress may be seen in the following statement
(" United States Dispensatory," Wood and Bache, edition of 1870, p.
1737) :

" Though the decimal system of weights and measures was established by law
in France, it was found impossible to procure its general adoption by the people,
... If they adopted new weights, they gave them the names of the old weights.
... So that three systems are now more or less in use in France — the original
poids de marc, the decimal system, and the metrical pound, with its divisions."

If such be the case in France, the birthplace of the system, what
elsewhere ? In the United States its use has been authorized for more
than ten years ; yet how many business men in the United States avail
themselves of their legal privilege ? How many druggists and physi-
cians ? What merchant uses the metre ? What surveyor computes in
hectares ? What farmer measures corn in a hectolitre ? Who weighs
by kilogrammes, or buys wood by the dekastere ?

The words are strange and the things unknown among men of busi-
ness.

It is worth while to inquire into the impediments. Among these
certainly cannot be numbered the merits of any existing system of
weights and measures. Take the English tables, for example ; they are
utterly barbarous — the whole scheme confusion worse confounded ; no
one defends it as it stands. But there is nevertheless an impediment
connected with this no-system which has been a serious bar to reform —
a vague hope that somehow something might possibly yet be made of
it hereafter. This indefinite hope is totally fallacious. There are two
tests — the decimal scale, and a proper interrelation of the tables. The
English method wants both. Nor can it be altered so as to conform to
either.

Take, for example, the leading table of all, long measure, and apply
the decimal test; it cannot stand it at all. If you keep the yard, for
example, you can keep no other denomination — not one — for no other
is decimally related to it; away go the inch, -^ of a yard; the foot, ^;
the rod, 5£ yards; the rood, mile, and league; the prime, -^ of an inch;
the second and third, the fathom, the chain, link, etc., and all the promis-
cuous tribe of unrelated units. So it is impossible, if you choose the
foot, to keep anything else. Indeed, make your own selection of a unit,
and only that selected unit can be retained.

It is the same case with all the other tables; though, instead of one
table of weights, you have three — apothecaries' weight, troy weight, and
avoirdupois. Yet, among them all, there is not one single denomination
decimally related to any other — not one of the ounces, drachms, scruples,
or pennyweights. Even the so-called hundred-weight is not really 100
pounds, but 112.

It grows worse and worse as you study the uncivilized, unkempt
system. If the decimal test did not at once and forever dispose of it,

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the second test would, viz., hopeless want of proper relations among
the tables. Our proper attitude toward the present English tables is
that of wholesome and final despair !

Addressing ourselves to the task of reform, we proceed to remark
what the metric system, in substance, will do. It stands the two tests,
perfectly; indeed, it was made to order for that very purpose. To pro-
vide a system with a proper scale and relations was the work under-
taken by Science, and that work has been diligently and well done. Its
merits are great and substantial; so full is it of practical utility as
well as theoretical beauty, that President John Quincy Adams did not
hesitate to pronounce it "a greater labor-saving machine than steam
itself."

Our object, however, is not to make an argument in its favor, but to
inquire into the impediments to its progress. These, though not obvious,
are certainly formidable, as is shown by results. There are two sets of
conditions to be fulfilled which may be distinguished as the natural and
the human conditions of the problem. The difficulty is not to be found
in the non-fulfillment of the former ; as has already been remarked, the
natural conditions have been well met by Science. But, after all the
successful work laboriously done upon these — chiefly in the verification
of the units — the hardest part of the problem yet remains, viz., such an
adaptation of the system to mankind that the peoples to be benefitted
shall adopt and use it in the daily business of life.

Nor are men of physical science, as such, specially qualified for this
task. To adapt the system to man requires a different sort of observation
from theirs, for which there are no instruments, but only the patient
observation of the ways of this fastidious creature. The huge inertia
of this ponderous mass of humanity, as results show, is yet to be over-
come. Until this adaptation to man is complete, the problem is not
solved.

Were a Pacific Railway begun upon the wrong general line, the best
remedy would be a change of location. In our present problem the
human conditions furnish guiding principles — the great salient points
of our Pacific Railway — more stubborn than Nature itself. The system
is for man — not man for the system ; and, if the two do not tally, it
must yield, not he !

What modifications of the metric system are needed to fit it for
common use?

Roughly, directness and simplicity. In aiming at these we should
study actual human experience. The currency system of America fur-
nishes invaluable guidance. One of its chief lessons is, that men like
not many denominations.

In our decimal currency, five denominations are proposed — mills,
cents, dimes, dollars, and eagles. Of these but two are practically used
— dollars and cents. Had the other three been omitted, we should not
have missed them.

METRIC REFORM. 85

Look at bank-bills. There is the $10 bill, the $20 bill, the $50 bill.
Technically, by the tables they should be bills for 1, 2, 5 eagles. Not
so, in fact. Never yet did bank in America promise to pay to bearer,
on demand, one eagle ! So with fractional currency. You see 10-cent
pieces, 50-cent pieces, but none for 1 dime or 5 dimes. Dollars and
cents suffice.

" What of all this ? " you may ask. Much. It is the embodiment
of the ways of men : it is full of practice and suggestion to those who
have eyes.

According to the tables, a certain sura is 253 eagles, 5 dollars, 4
dimes, 6 cents, 3 mills. Never was it so called. What says our curt
mankind ? 2,535 dollars, 46T3¥ cents. The mind scants denominations.
It seldom uses more than two, if it can help itself.

On broad principles, indeed, it might be asked, " Why have denomi-
nations at all ? "

Number, whole and decimal, icith one unit for each subject-matter,
is adequate to express any quantity whatever. No second denomina-
tion is essential in any table. Any weight, for example, can be ex-
pressed in pounds and decimals of a pound, without reference to other
units. The largest quantities can be so expressed, and the smallest. In
currency we express a national debt reaching to billions in the self-
same unit which is used for small daily transactions, say in dollars or in
francs. This shows the unlimited capacity of number for exact expres-
sion without any table of denominations at all.

Indeed, in England and America it may safely be said that a single
denomination in each table would be better than the present method
with its irregularity and confusion, better for mental grasp of the quan-
tity expressed, and better for calculation. A clearer idea is obtained
by the expression 13,518.6 lbs. than by its equivalent in numerous de-
nominations, 6 tons, 13 cwt., 3 qrs., 17 lbs., 11 oz., 5.6 drachms.

We would not be understood to limit a system to one denomina-
tion, or even to two. Yet two well-chosen units in each table, as com-
pared with the present English system, would be a decided improve-
ment. Suppose we had pounds and pound cents, yards and yard cents,
etc., corresponding with the dollars and cents of currency ; they would
furnish incomparably superior advantages to the existing methods.

We will not, however, discuss the exact denominations needed for
each table, and the maximum and minimum for each ; nor the scale,
whether it should be strictly decimal (a denomination for every 10), or
one for every 100 (the cental scale) ; or eclectic, varying with the sub-
ject-matter. We will, however, remark that in nearly every table the
number of denominations can be reduced, not only safely, but advan-
tageously.

Our object, however, for the present is to suggest principles, not to
elaborate details ; too many denominations perplex, instead of aiding,
the mind.

86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Besides the units of a system, the names are to be considered ; this
leads us to by far the most important subject of discussion —

Nomenclature. — Let us with this begin a lesson derived from the
actual observation of human habits. The case of the French has been
already cited : they adopted the new units, but rejected the new names.
This is very suggestive. In the United States a similar instance oc-
curs in the names of coins. We still have, in many parts of the coun-
try, shillings, sevenpences, thrips, etc. In New Orleans we get bits in
change. In the great commercial city of New York prices are still
given, and goods marked, in shillings, viz., 6 shillings a yard, not 75
cents ; ten shillings, not $1.25.

What is the lesson from all this? Plainly, that new words are
harder than new things. How much easier, too, were the names of the
new coins than the long and learned names of the metric nomenclature !

" None of your Latin for me ! " begs the Frenchman, unfamiliar
with that tongue. " Especially, none of your Greek ! It is enough if
I accept your units ; pray excuse me from your names." And even the
French Government, which attends to everything, has had ill success
in this. The Englishman finds in French forms and accents additional
impediments. Unless corrected, he would, to begin with, mispronounce
fully half the words ; knowing barometer and thermometer, he would
be sure to say "ki-fom-e-tre" also.

Seriously, it were easier for the learned to acquire a nomenclature
founded on Hottentot and Sanskrit, dressed off in Kamchatkan forms,
than for the unlearned to acquire one in Latin and Greek with French
forms ; the learned have some familiarit}^ in dealing with new languages
to start with. The metric words are ferai natural to all people, and
will not domesticate. To the common people they are simply out-
landish, and " neither have the accent of Christians, nor the gait of
Christian, pagan, nor man."

Broadly, a system of weights and measures furnishes no case for
learned nomenclature. The system is intended for wholly untechnical
uses and people, while the words are adapted only to the learned, and
even for them are too stiff for daily use. It is clearly a case for easy
and familiar names.

More results hinge on the nomenclature than on any other feature
of the system ; yet it has received little real discussion ; it has been
simply taken for granted on its looks and outside. Indeed, it has been
the boast and pet of the whole metric system, unsuspected as really the
chief clog upon its progress. Brought to the tribunal of fair criticism,
it is thoroughly unphilosophical, and needs to be remodeled in the
light of modern investigations into the first principles of language, all
of which principles it violates.

Take the first word of the first table — millimetre — without explana-
tion, aliunde, it conveys no information even to a learned man. Metre
is merely a measure, not any definite measure, not even necessarily a

METRIC REFORM. 87

measure of length. Nor does it at all, of its own force, tell how
long.

Milli, the prefix, means a thousand ; but by explanation, not by its
own force, is made to indicate the y-gL-o part. After both these ex-
planations, leave the most learned man alone with it, and he is entirely
at a loss as to the actual length of the 10100 part of a metre. He can
form an idea of a half, a fourth, or other like fraction, but of the 3-0V0
part none, unless by a long process, or by being told.

Again, the nearer alike things are, the greater the difficulty of dis-
tinguishing them. Every one has observed how hard it is to recognize
people in uniform. Upon this obvious principle the unifokmity of the
metric names in sound and general aspect is a serious practical hin-
derance. To an Englishman they are like a party of foreigners : they
all look and jabber alike ; he can hardly tell them apart.

It is unfortunate that in the metrical household every family has
the same Christian names. We can imagine some wag proposing mid-
dle names just to break up the monotony. When you hear deci, your
active mind, always anticipating, calls up a member of each family, and
you think of deci-gramme, deci-metre, deci-arc, deci-stere, and deci-litre.

All this is diametrically wrong. Really, one is tempted to remark
that the metric nomenclature got, indeed, upon exactly the right road,
but took exactly the wrong end of it. It struck out toward the hard,
the learned, the abstract, instead of the easy, familiar, and concrete.
Observe how terse and expressive, and how perfectly distinct and un-
like, ordinary words are — God, man, world — each freighted with mean-
ing, and, in English, all frequently in one strong syllable. Take the
objects in this room — desk, books, chairs, sofa, pen, ink, paper, knife —
how thoroughly unlike, how instantly expressive, and nearly all mono-
syllables !

The great trouble with these metric words is that they will not
nick ; otherwise myriametre would cast a syllable a day, and soon be-
come short and easy. That is a way the English have. But these
words will not nick at either end, head or tail. Ingenious efforts for
niching have been devised by Prof. McVickar and others, which may
help men of learning ; but they presuppose too much familiarity already
for common people.

And, after all, the true point has been missed, which is not same-
ness of words, the world over, but merely sameness of units ; the ob-
ject being not to save translation, but to save calculation. Even
natural units need translation, and the artificial units we devise might
be content to get on a footing with natural ones. How small a pur-
pose, indeed, would be served if the names of the measures were the
same, but of the numbers not the same, nor of the things measured !
feuch are some, by no means all, of the incurable faults and defects of
the metric nomenclature.

The obstacles to metric reform have been chiefly artificial. Like

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

little David in Saul's armor, the system has been weighed down with
superfluities. A simple illustration may be given of its highly artificial
character. A sufficient table of currency would be —

100 cents make a dollar.

What would this become, subjected to nomenclature ? For dollar,
we should have to substitute some Greek word, say argurion, or argur.
But give the benefit of familiarity by keeping the word dollar, the above
table, metricized, would assume this form :

10 millidollars make a centidollar.
10 centidollars make a decidollar.
10 decidollars make a dollar.
10 dollars make a dekadollar.
10 dekadollars make a hectodollar.
10 hectodollars make a kilodollar.
10 kilodollars make a myriadollar.

What is needed? — The utmost simplicity and straightforwardness.
The system should carry no dead weight. Starting with no superflu-
ous units, these units need —

Names. — And here comes in the process of "conscious word-mak-
ing," the conditions of which have only recently been much studied.
The department of science which qualifies men to suggest suitable
names or principles for their selection is not physical but linguistic.

The extraordinary vitality of old words was observed by Lord
Bacon with his usual practical sagacity. Even in philosophy, addressed
to the learned, he remarks, " I am studious to keep the ancient terms
. . . though I sometimes alter the uses and definitions." Again, with
unwonted earnestness (still referring to language), he declares himself
"zealous and affectionate for antiquity." Taking pains to explain the
modifications of meaning, he retained ancient terms, knowing how be-
wildered men become with a strange vocabulary, especially when, as in
the metric nomenclature, a great batch of new words is thrown upon
them at once — long and strange, and slow to yield their meaning.

These sagacious anticipations of Bacon have been abundantly con-
firmed by modern observations. Prof. Whitney, whose works exhibit
great good sense and clear-headedness as well as ample learning, uses
such expressions as these, showing the habits of mankind in the forma-
tion of words, "Stretch a familiar name to cover it;" i. e., a new idea.
x\gain, he speaks of " new applications of old (word) materials," and
of "the short cuts" which language frequently makes.

One pregnant sentence we will quote in full : " We have had to
notice, over and over again, the readiness on the part of language-
users to forget origins ; to cast aside, as cumbrous rubbish, the etymo-
logical suggestiveness of a term, and concentrate force upon the new
and more adventitious tie."

How much "cumbrous rubbish" impedes the metric names!

METRIC REFORM. 89

The principle on which names should be given is sufficiently clear.
The names should simply answer the natural questions : " How long is
it ? How big square ? How heavy ? " etc.

To illustrate by long measure — the base-unit is now called the
metre — " How long is that ?" is the first question. Apace, a long step,
a stride, would answer the question ; probably, in England and America,
despite all objections, a new yard, or a long yard, is the best name.
The new would be dropped in due time (as in new style and old style),
and the name becomes simply yard.

To proceed with the table. Each and every unit in each table
should have its own strong, independent name, instead of a name re-
ferring to the base-unit, so called. The actual relation between the
units is important ; but to express this in the name is worse than su-
perfluous, it is a mere incumbrance. There is no danger of forgetting
the decimal scale.

The metric tables provide names for —

ToVo> to to, !> 10> 100, 1,000, 10,000 metres.

Some of these we would omit, and perhaps provide others not given,
beginning with the 10ooo part, for microscopic uses.

What should the name be ? It should suggest the length intended,
say, a hair's-breadth, or a leaf's-thickness ; soon, by shedding, a hair
or leaf.

The name of the 1 0\ -0- part ? Still suggestion — say, a pin's-breadth
(soon, a pin), a straw's-breadth, a narrow braid, a coin's-thickness, or a
card's or knife-blade's. The words " breadth " or " thickness " would
serve the purpose of explanation at first, and then shed, leaving only
pin, straw, braid, knife-blade, card, etc.

Some such name would serve — not, millimetre in Latin and Greek ;
not, even metre-thousandth in Greek and English ; not, any name ex-
pressing a numerical relation to some other unit. If any numerical
relation at all, not to a unit at 1,000 removes. Finally, not a fractional
relation, if any, but one expressed by a whole number. All these nega-
tive limitations are full of matter.

The next name — the jfa part — might be nail's-breadth, nail.

The next, now decimetre, hand.

Then, the new yard, or long yard, finally to become 3'ard.

The fifth unit, 10 metres, half-chain. Really no name needed.

100 metres = stone's-throw ; bow-shot = throw, cast, shot.

1,000 metres = a short mile, new mile. An accidental association
would make the word Jcile serve. The learned would know the Greek
derivation ; the unlearned would remember it by the rhyme. Numerous
illustrations occur, equally casual. The objection is not to Greek, but
to the want of some familiar association, no matter how trifling.

10,000 metres = a great league, or double league.

Observe that each unit thus named is as much a base-unit as any
other.

go THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Had the units of the old English system been properly related, the
names were all right. Each name could standalone! Twelve inches
did not make one " duodecem uncice" but one foot ; three feet, not
the Latin for three feet, but a terse English word, one yard (i. e., a
shoot or switch — the first yard-stick). Five and a half yards made (the
scale being all wrong, but the name all right) one rod, pole, or perch.

The following brief table might approximate to a sufficient one for
linear measure :

100 hair's-breadths make 1 nail's-breadth.
100 nail's-breadths make 1 long yard.
1,000 long yards make 1 kile.

Soon to dwindle to this form :

100 hairs make a nail.
100 nails make a yard.
1,000 yards make a kile.

For astronomical purposes we might add :
10,000 Idles make 1 great quadrant.

Of course, the above names are not suggested as final, but only as
illustrative. Again, the actual lengths would be perfectly definite, and
the modes of verifying fixed by science.

If any object to the omission of the millimetre, how easy to say ten
hairs ! The cental scale usually suffices — witness " ten cents " vice a
" dime."

Ah ! but how meagre and shabby is this in comparison with the
beautiful and learned nomenclature, with its long words, rolling ore ro-
tundo from learned lips !

Alas ! that system is too pretty for use — like a mowing-machine,
gilded and decorated, which cuts too high, and passes above its work,
leaving no grass in its trail. This humble blade is intended to cut
low ' it must even scrape the ground, and rake the very dust, rather
than not mow. Plain, ignorant people are to be reached ; children,
servants, the dullest plodders, are all to use whatever names we adopt.
We do well to be humble. The lofty, high-sounding names heretofore
proposed have gained no currency ; they have been " stifled by general
neglect."

But how about universality ?

A ready means for this is found in notation.

Universal symbols are as easy as a universal nomenclature is difficult.
Take, for example, the nine digits. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans,
Japanese, look at the figure 3 ; they call it by different names, each in
his own mother-tongue, but they all think of the same thing. The
thing, the thought, the mark, are all the same — the words differ. So is
it with the notes in music, the symbols in algebra and geometry, etc.

A notation may be devised which addresses the eye, and is self-ex-

METRIC REFORM. 91

planatory. The base-units may be represented, for example, as fol-
lows:

That of length, by a straight line, graduated, to distinguish it from
minus.

Surface, by a square.

Solid cube or block.

Capacity cup.

"Weight pound-weight.

Money coin, stamped.

Angle two lines, meeting.

Time waving line.

"0

We only suggest, and do not expand.

The substance of the foregoing suggestions, summed up, is as fol-
lows :

Adhering to the metric system as a basis — its modification by the
following features :

1. The entire abandonment of the present elaborate and ingenious
system of nomenclature, and of any attempt at universality in the
words employed to designate the units of the system.

2. The expression of each unit by each nation in its own vernacular
tongue — the units themselves being the same everywhere, but the ex-
pression in language adapted to the familiar tongue of each people.

3. A common notation as the means of universality, instead of a
common system of names, the units and their icritten expression being
thus universally the same, while the spoken expression conforms to
familiar national usages.

4. The words selected to express the several units to be suggestive
of easy standards of comparison with familiar objects.

5. The notation also to be suggestive to the eye, as the nomenclat-
ure heretofore in use was to the learned ear, but not to the unlearned.

6. The number of denominations to be reduced in conformity with
an observed tendency among men to use numbers instead ; oral expres-
sion to be simplified; and a suitable actual system of notation sug-
gested.

7. The transition to the new system to involve the least practicable
loss of familiarity — either with familiar objects or familiar names.

These modifications adapt tho metric system to the needful human
conditions. Accepting its solutions of the natural conditions, they
conserve all that is really valuable, and reject only what is cumbrous.
The metric nomenclature is quite as unphilosophical as the English
scales ; both are fit only for decent burial. The real desideratum is to
reduce to a minimum the difficulty of introducing the new units. Can
the transition be better effected than on the foregoing principles?

This ponderous and scattered human family — a huge class of grown
pupils, not gathered into school-room, nor used to formal instruction —

92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

complains of its lessons ; it begs for a less task. We propose to excuse
you from your Greek and your Latin, and from French forms, from
long words and hard names, from the queer pronunciations and the
wrong accents. We let you off from half the units, perhaps two-thirds,
and furnish you with familiar standards of comparison for those which
are left, and give you English names to boot — Anglo-Saxon when pos-
sible, short, terse, and significant — though we take care, on our part,
to have them properly related, not leaving that matter to you.

What ! not yet satisfied ? Unreasonable mankind ! let us convince
you that this is the least cost you can pay, and insure the desired
benefit.

Scarcely another so important reform awaits the human family.
But it will not take care of itself. We have referred to two aspects of
progress — progress among governments, want of progress among the
people. The latter is incomparably the more important. The one is
semblance, the other substance. Until the metric system is used, it is
not a labor-saving machine for service, but a mere toy to look at — an
anticipation, a dream, not a reality and a possession. And such it is
now.

We must not rely on a change in human nature, but must adapt our
system to it ; otherwise, indeed, mankind may, perhaps, in the distant
future, wear out to the system, like a Chinese foot to a shoe. Should
we await this slow and painful process, or should we not rather adapt
the shoe to the foot ?

Can we look forward to a time when these long foreign words shall
be as familiar to every child in Christendom as the words foot, yard,
bushel, pound, now are to English ears ? And yet this is the proper
standard of familiarity ; it must be absolute and unhesitating. Do the
long words, indeed, deserve to be as familiar ? Are they formed to be ?
No ; we must reach the mother-tongue of each people.

Nor can we afford to wait, to bring the matter home.

Can the English and American peoples — the two most commercial
peoples on the globe — be content, on the one hand, with permanent
isolation, founded on inferiority ? or, on the other, can they ask man-
kind to accept their system, forsooth, as worthy of universal use ? Will
England, for example, ask America to return to £ s. d. and qrs. ? Or
America, for very shame, present her compound reduction tables for
the admiration and universal adoption of all nations ?

Let not the friends of metric reform be deceived with vain hopes.
Government work, and the work of colleges and schools and scientific
associations, all put together, are not equal to adaptation !

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN DROWNING. 93

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN DROWNING.

By ROGER S. TRACY, M. D.

EVERY one has tried the experiment of " holding the breath," and
has found that after the lapse of a minute, or a minute and a half
at the farthest, there supervenes a most peculiar and intolerable kind
of anguish. Nature then takes the management of the lungs out of
our hands into hers, and we breathe in spite of ourselves. The distress
felt at such times we think of when we read of a death by drowning or
hanging ; and, although it has been asserted over and over again that
such a death is painless, hardly any one really believes it. And yet I
think it can be shown not only that drowning and hanging are painless
modes of death, but why they are so.

When a person, who cannot swim, falls into deep water, he is seized
with a sudden and tremendous fright. The exceptions to this rule are
too few to be worth noticing. This fright, of itself, kills some persons,
and they go to the bottom like a plummet. Women are very apt to
faint, and, as they sink beneath the surface and respiration still goes on
involuntarily, they probably drown before they regain consciousness.
Plethoric persons, or those in whom the degenerative processes of old
age have weakened the coats of the arteries, may have a stroke of
apoplexy, partly from the sudden emotional shock, and partly from the
chill of the water, which, by driving the blood from the surface, over-
fills the vessels of the internal organs. In fact, it is estimated by
Taylor, in his " Medical Jurisprudence," that of all drowned persons
twenty-five per cent, die of pure asphyxia, and in the remainder the
asphyxia is complicated by syncope and apoplexy. The chances are,
then, three out of four, that a person who falls into the water and
drowns will die a painless death, because he becomes insensible on the
instant. But what about the remaining fourth ?

In the first place, it is to be remarked that persons who have come
so near drowning as to be unconscious when taken from the water, and
so must have passed through all the suffering that attends death by
drowning, say that they remember no feeling of pain whatever. This
declaration must have great weight, for it is not to be supposed that
they could forget such terrible distress as that which follows when the
respiration is suspended voluntarily. They all describe their feeling
much in the same way : " I remember falling into the water. It was
dreadfully cold. I felt my clothes clinging about me and hampering
my movements, and as I rose to the surface I gasped for breath. My
mouth was filled with water, and I sank again. I was chilled through
and through ; then a sort of delirium came over me, and there was a
ringing in my ears. I remember nothing more." The last symptom

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mentioned immediately precedes unconsciousness, as all who have taken
anaesthetics know.

It is probable that the entrance of water into the lungs has a great
deal to do with the painlessness of drowning. It is certain that uncon-
sciousness comes on more quickly when the person is deprived of air
because the lungs are filled with water, than when the air-passages are
closed, while the lungs remain intact. Most persons can hold their
breath for a minute, very many for a minute and a half, some for two
minutes. In one of the variety theatres of New York appeared re-
cently "The Brilliant Pearl of the Enchanted Grotto, christened Undine,
who performs, while under water, incased in a mammoth crystal illu-
minated glass tank, feats of astonishing suppleness and almost unbe-
lievable endurance." This performer can probably remain under water,
holding her breath voluntarily, two minutes and perhaps more. I have
myself, watch in hand, seen Johnson, the celebrated ocean-swimmer,
remain under water, in a tank before an audience, for the astonishing
space of three minutes and twenty seconds, and, before he rose, the in-
voluntary contractions of his respiratory muscles were uncomfortable
to witness. In such cases, although extreme distress may be felt, there
is no approach to unconsciousness. But if a person's head is under
water, and he does not hold his breath, unconsciousness will usually
come on in one or two minutes at the farthest.

If this be so, it is evident that a person will drown more quickly if
he loses his presence of mind on falling into the water than if he re-
tains it. In the former case he will swallow water with his first gasp
after sinking, while in the latter case he will hold his breath as long as
he can. The latter will suffer more than the former. There is also a
difference in the amount of mental agony in the two cases. A person
who cannot swim sinks at the first plunge, but, as soon as the impetus
of his fall is destroyed, his frantic struggles or a kick against the bot-
tom, if he happens to touch it, sends him up to the surface, for the
specific gravity of the body is so nearly that of water that a very
slight motion of the hands or feet is sufficient to keep one afloat. Ar-
rived at the surface, he gasps for breath, swallows a quantity of water,
sucks some of it into his lungs, catches hold of straw's or small floating
objects in a wild, senseless way, and, every time he lifts his arm above
the surface, pi-oduces the same effect as if a piece of lead had been tied
to his feet. So down he goes again half strangled, and the same pro-
cess is repeated. As soon as unconsciousness comes on, the struggles
cease, and the body remains beneath the surface. During all this agony
the suffering of the drowning man is undoubtedly chiefly mental. It
comes from the instinctive dread of death which even the stoic cannot
rid himself of, and is of the same nature as the mental agony of the
condemned man before his execution, though less prolonged. And it
is probable that even this mental suffering is so much affected by the
convulsive and tremendous physical agitation that, in a measure, the

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN DROWNING. 95

two counteract each other, and the drowning person, from the moment
he strikes the water, is hardly conscious of what is going on.

A swimmer, or a person whose presence of mind enables him to
keep his head above water for some time before drowning, passes through
a different experience. But, although data are wanting on this point,
it is probable that his final agony is short and painless. His physical
exertions, kept up for a long time in the hope of relief, together with
his exposure to cold and wet, and the lack of nourishment, combine to
reduce his strength very rapidly, and it is not altogether a conjecture
to suppose that a single draught of water into the lungs, when he
finally gives up, is enough to bring on unconsciousness. His suffering,
too, is chiefly mental, but he experiences the additional discomforts of
exhaustion, cold, and hunger, if his struggle for life is a prolonged one.

It is believed that the rapidity and painlessness of death by drown-
ing are due chiefly to the speedy obstruction of the circulation of the
blood through the lungs. In ordinary asphyxia, by the simple depri-
vation of air, the blood throughout the body becomes charged with car-
bonic acid, and the arteries as well as the veins become filled with
venous blood. Now, venous blood does not pass readily through the
capillary vessels, and, when the accumulation of impurities has become
so great as to prevent its passing at all, the circulation comes to a
standstill. But the dreadful distress of suffocation comes on long be-
fore this point is reached. Now, when cold water is sucked into the
lungs and comes in contact with their delicate and sensitive mucous
membrane, it must cause an instant and powerful contraction of the
capillaries, and obstruct the current of blood from the right side of the
heart, thus indirectly damming back the venous blood in the brain.
This state of things brings on unconsciousness rapidly, preceded by the
pleasurable tingling sensations, rapid succession of ideas, and flashes of
light and color, so often described by persons who have been rescued
from drowning.

Drowning persons, then, die in different ways :

1. By syncope, and asphyxia while unconscious. Some of these
die instantly.

2. By apoplexy (usually congestive), common in plethoric and aged
persons, followed by asphyxia while unconscious.

3. By asphyxia pure and simple.

Deaths which come under the first two heads are rapid and pain-
less, constituting probably a half, and, according to Taylor, three-quar-
ters of all deaths by drowning.

Deaths which come under the third heading we presume are not
accompanied by physical suffering for these reasons :

1. Persons who have been resuscitated, after having become uncon-
scious, declare that they have felt no pain whatever.

2. Death is speedy.

3. Persons who lose their presence of mind are so occupied with

96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their struggles and mental agony that a slight degree of physical pain
would be unnoticed.

4. Swimmers, and persons who do not lose their wits, become so
exhausted and chilled that, when the final act comes, their powers
make but a feeble resistance. And, in both cases, the passage of water
into the lungs tends to bring on insensibility by obstructing the circu-
lation, before it is time for the agony of asphyxia to be felt.

So that, in drowning, we have reason to believe, contrary to Tay-
lor's opinion, that pure, uncomplicated asphyxia never occurs.

If death by drowning be inevitable, as in a shipwreck, the easiest
way to die would be to suck water into the lungs by a powerful inspi-
ration, as soon as one went beneath the surface. A person who had
the courage to do this would probably become almost immediately un-
conscious, and never rise to the surface. As soon as the fluid filled his
lungs, all feelings of chilliness and pain would cease, the indescribable
semi-delirium that accompanies anaesthesia would come on, with ring-
ing in the ears and delightful visions of color and light, while he would
seem to himself to be gently sinking to rest on the softest of beds and
with the most delightful of dreams.

SCIENCE AND MENTAL IMPROVEMENT.1

Br Professor JOSEPH LE CONTE.

THIS club, as I take it, was formed for mutual improvement. The
narrowing and ever-increasingly narrowing tendency of profes-
sional pursuits, in these modern times of division of intellectual labor
and eager struggle for life, renders the formation of such associations
very necessary. The ideal of a life-culture, as I conceive it, i. e., of a
culture which, commencing with youth, shall terminate only with death,
is briefly epitomized as follows : First, a general culture of all the fac-
ulties— a preparation for general efficiency without reference to any
special pursuit — to the period of full maturity ; then a concentration
of the thus strengthened and disciplined powers upon special profes-
sional studies, but still in connection with a scheme of liberal culture
or university, by which the professional culture shall be impregnated
with the lofty spirit of liberal learning ; and, lastly, when active pro-
fessional life commences with its necessary narrowing effects, the for-
mation of associations like this, by which we are brought into contact
with the best thought in every department.

If culture be the object of your association, then ought it not to be
merely an association of kindred sjririts, as many think. On the con-
trary, it should consist of persons of the most diverse pursuits — theolo-
gians, lawj'ers, physicians, engineers, merchants, and of all modes of

1 An address before the Chit-Chat Club in San Francisco.

SCIENCE AND MENTAL IMPROVEMENT. 97

thought, from orthodoxy to rationalism, from idealism to materialism,
from old-fogyism to young-Americanism — with one condition only, viz.,
that all be imbued with the spirit of liberal culture. Now, among the
pursuits which ought to be represented here, I believe none to be so
necessary as that of science ; and for the reason that the spirit of science
and the methods of science are more diverse from the spirit and methods
of other intellectual pursuits than these latter are from each other.

I will say nothing of the glorious achievements of science already
set forth in the sentiment to which I am called to respond ; nor even
of science as a means of mental discipline, for this would take too long.
I wish only to remove some objections which have been brought by her
detractors against Science as an agent of general and liberal culture ;
for it is with this that your association is chiefly concerned. Among
these objections, however, I select only one, but perhaps the chief, viz.,
the tendency of science to materialism. It is believed by many that
science starves all our noblest faculties, quenches all our most glorious
aspirations, and buries all our heavenly hopes in the cold earth of a
vulgar materialism.

Now, it is indeed true that there has been in these modern times a
strong tendency, a current of thought, in the direction of materialism.
It is true, too, that this tendency is strongest in the domain of science,
and, among sciences, strongest of all in biology and geology ; but I
believe it is true also that this is only a passing phase of thought, an
ephemeral fashion of philosophy. As a sympathizer with the age in
which I live, still more as a scientist, and most of all as a biologist and
geologist, I have felt the full force of this tendency. In this stream of
tendency I have stood, during all my active life, just where the current
ran swiftest, and confess to you that I have been sometimes almost
swept off my feet. But it is the duty of every independent thinker
not to yield blindly to the spirit of the age, but to exercise his own
unprejudiced reason ; not to float and drift, but to stand. I think I
can show you that materialism is not the necessary outcome of scientific
studies and the scientific spirit. For this purpose, I will select that
scientific theory which is supposed to be par excellence materialistic,
viz.: the theory of evolution. I wish to show that even evolution does
not necessarily lead to materialism, and that to conclude so is a very
shallow view of the subject.

First of all I wish frankly to acknowledge that I am myself an evo-
lutionist. I may not agree with most that evolution advances always
cum azquo pede. On the contrary, I believe that there have been periods
of slow and periods of rapid, almost paroxysmal, evolution. I may not
agree with most that we already have in Dancinism, the final form, and
survival of the fittest, the prime factor of evolution. On the contrary, I
believe that the most important factors of evolution are still unknown —
that there are more and greater factors in evolution than are dreamed
of in the Darwinian philosophy. Nevertheless, evolution is a grand
VOL. xm. — 7

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fact, involving alike every department of Nature ; and more especially
evolution of the organic kingdom, and the origin of species by deriva-
tion, must be regarded as an established truth of science. But, remem-
ber, evolution is one thing and materialism another and quite a different
thing. The one is a sure result of science ; the other a doubtful infer-
ence of philosophy. Let no one who is led step by step through the
paths of evolution, from the mineral to the organic, from the organic to
the animate, and from the animate to the rational, until he lands logi-
cally, as he supposes, into blank and universal materialism — let no such
one, I say, imagine for a moment that he has been walking all the way
in the domain of science. He has stepped across the boundary of sci-
ence into the domain of philosophy. Yet the step seems so easy, so
natural, so inevitable, that most do not distinguish between the teach-
ings of science and the inference of philosophy, and thus the whole is
unjustly accredited to science. Now, as most people not only do not
make, but have never imagined, any such distinction, I am anxious to
make it clear to you. This I can best and most briefly do by some sim-
ple familiar illustrations.

It is curious to observe that no sooner do we find out, in any work
of Nature, how it is made, than we all say that it is not made at all ; it
made itself. So long as the origin of species was a mystery, every one
admitted that species must have had an intelligent Maker. But no
sooner did we discover the process, than every one seemed to think that
no Maker is necessary at all. Now, the whole object of science is to dis-
cover processes by which things are done ; or how things are made. Is
it any wonder, then, with this perverse tendency of the present mind,
that science should ever and anon seem to destroy belief in a Supreme
Intelligence ?

Again, it is curious to observe how an old and familiar truth, com-
ing up in a new form, startles us as an impossible paradox. I well
remember some twenty-five years ago, when the little instrument the
gyroscope first made its appearance, how it startled everybody by its
seeming violation of the laws of gravity. Imagine a heavy brass wheel
rotating rapidly at one end of an axle, while the other end is supported
on a vertical column. So long as it rotated, the heavy wheel, instead
of falling, remained suspended in mid-air, revolving meanwhile slowly
about the point of support at the other end of the axle. At first sight
it seems as wonderful and as paradoxical as the body of Mr. Home, the
spiritualist, sailing in mid-air in full view of his gaping and noble audi-
ence. In the case of Mr. Home, we suspect some mistake or deception;
but there is no mistake about the gyroscope. Yet this strange para-
dox, which startled people so, and which so flooded scientific literature
with explanations, is an old familiar fact in a new form. The problem
is precisely the same as that of the boy^s top, which spins and leans, and
slowly revolves in its leaning, but does not fall so long as it continues
to spin.

SCIENCE AND MENTAL IMPROVEMENT. 99

Now, in evolution, also, we have no new truth, but only an old truth
in a new form : and lo ! how it startles us out of our propriety ! The
evolution of the individual by a slow process from a microscopic germ.
Everybody knows this. Yet it has never heretofore interfered with a
belief in an intelligent Maker of each of us. Perhaps most of you may
remember, when first at your mother's knee, you were asked, " Who
made you?" and you answered as you were taught, "God made me."
But suppose you had asked in return, " How?" The only true answer
would have been, " By a process of evolution." Yes, every one of us
was individually made (and is not this far more important for us in-
dividually than any origin of species, even of the human species ?) by a
slow process of evolution irom a microscopic spherule of unorganized
protoplasm — the germ-cell. Yet the knowledge of this fact did not
make us ridicule the reverent answer of the little one, or despise the
pious teachings of the mother. Why, then, should it be different in this
case of the origin of species by evolution ?

Again, all vexed questions are such, because there is truth on both
sides. Unmixed error does not live to plague us long. Error lives only
by virtue of a contained germ of truth. In all vexed questions, there-
fore, there are three views, viz., two opposing, partial, one-sided views,
and a third, more rational and comprehensive, which combines and rec-
onciles them.

I can best illustrate this by the familiar story of the fabled shield.
You well remember how, in the good old times of knight-errantry, this
shield was hung up in the sight of all men in token of the fact that the
owner challenged the world to mortal combat. You well remember
that the shield having been seen by many knights, these knights, on
comparing notes, could not agree as to its color, some declaring that it
was white, and some equally certain that it was black. You well re-
member that after many lances had been splintered, after many broken
heads and bloody noses had been endured in the vain attempt to settle
this vexed question, by the blundering logic of blows and knocks, as was
the fashion in those days (alas ! do we not even now settle many
questions in the same way, only we call the process now, the " logic
of events'''') — after, I say, many blows had been given and taken in the
sacred cause of truth, some one who, strange to say, had something of
the spirit of science, and who, therefore, thought that truth was to be
discovered, not by conflict, but by observation, proposed that the shield
be examined. The result you all know — one side was white and the
other was black.

Now, do you not observe that both parties in this dispute were
right and both were wrong ? Each was right from his point of view.
Each was wrong in excluding the other point of view — in imagining
his truth to be the whole truth. And do you not observe also that the
true view combined and reconciled the two partial views ? There is an
old adage that " truth lies in the middle," between antagonistic ex-

ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tremes. Now, while there is a kind of truth in this adage, yet, as usu-
ally understood, I believe it contains a most pernicious error. It is the
favorite adage of the timid man — the trimmer, the time-server, the
politician, the fence-man. Suppose there had been present on this oc-
casion one of these fence-philosophers. He would have reasoned thus :
" These gentlemen are of equal intelligence, equal veracity, and equal
strength (a most important element in making up an opinion for these
fence-men) ; the one says the shield is white and the other says it is
black ; now, truth lies in the middle : therefore I conclude that it must
be a kind of gray or neutral tint, or perhaps a sort of pepper-and-salt.'''1
Do you not observe that of all the crowd he is the only one who has
absolutely no truth in him ? No, gentlemen ; truth and rational philoso-
phy is not a mere mixture of opposing views — truth is not what our
English friends might call a philosophic " 'alf-n'alf." It is rather to be
sought in a more comprehensive view, which combines and reconciles
opposing partial views — it is a stereoscopic combination of tico partial
surface views into one objective reality.

So is it, gentlemen^ with many vexed questions ; so is it with the
question of origin of species. There are three possible views in regard
to the origin of species. The first asserts Divine agency by miraculous
creation, and therefore denies any process • the second asserts evolution-
process, but denies Divine agency ; the third asserts Divine agency by
evolution-process. So, also, are there three corresponding views in re-
gard to the origin of the individual — of you, of me, of each of us. The
first is that of the little innocent, who thinks that God made him as he
(the little innocent) makes dirt-pies / the second is that of the little
hoodlum, who says, " I wasn't made at all, I growed ; " the third is the
usual adult belief — that we are made by a process of evolution. Do you
not observe, then, that in the matter of the origin of species many good
theologians and pietists are in the position of the little innocent ? They
think that species were made without natural process. On the other
hand, most evolutionists are in the position of the little hoodlum ; for
they think that species, because they "growed" wern't made at all. But
there is a higher and more rational philosophy than either, which holds
that the ideas of making and of growing are not inconsistent with each
other — that evolution does not and cannot destroy the conception of, or
the belief in, an intelligent Creator and Author of the cosmos. This
view combines and reconciles the two preceding antagonistic views, and
is therefore more comprehensive, more rational, and more true. But
let us not fail to do justice — let us not overlook the fact that the most
important and noblest truths are overlooked only by the hoodlum and
materialist. Of the two sides of the shield, the little innocent and the
pietest sees, at least, the rchiter and more beaulifid.

The end and mission of science, gentlemen, is not only to discover
new truth, but also, and even more distinctively, to give new and more
rational form to old truth — to transfigure the old into the more glorious

SCIENCE AND MENTAL IMPROVEMENT. 10i

form of the new. Science is come, not to destroy , but, aided by a ra-
tional philosophy, to fulfill all the noblest aspirations, the most glorious
hopes of our race. Sometimes, indeed, the change which she brings
about may be like a metamorphosis : the useless shell is burst and cast
off, and a more beautiful and less gross form appears, but still it is
always a process of evolution — of derivation. We never shall reach a
rational philosophy until Ave recognize this fundamental truth. The
new must include the old — the old must incorporate and assimilate the
new, and each must modify and be modified by the other. Progress in
all things — in geology, in society, in philosophy — is by evolution and
growth ; not by successive catastrophes with alternate destructions and
recreations; by derivation, not by substitution. But these modern
materialists, while they are evolutionists in geology (they indeed will
hear of nothing else), while they may be evolutionists also in social
progress, are, strange to say, catastrophists in philosophj'. They would
raze all previous beliefs, faiths, philosophies, to the ground, and leave
not one stone upon another; and then, out of entirely new materials
furnished by themselves, they would erect another and entirely different
philosophy. They reverse the old dogma, " Whatever is, is right," and
make it, " Whatever is, is wrong."

The great bar to the speedy establishment of a rational philosophy
is dogmatism, self -opinion, self-conceit. The rarest of all gifts is a truly
tolerant and rational spirit. In all your gettings, gentlemen, be sure
you get this, for it alone is true wisdom. But do not imagine, however,
that all the dogmatism is on one side, and that the theological. Many,
indeed, seem to think that theology has a preemption-right to dogma-
tism. If so, then modern science has " jumped the claim." Dogmatism
has its roots deep in the human heart. It is born of narrowness and
pride. It showed itself first in the domain of theology, only because
there was the seat of power. In modern times, therefore, it has gone
to the side of science, because here now is the seat of power and fashion.
There are, then, two dogmatisms, both equally opposed to the true ra-
tional spirit, viz., the old theological and the new scientific. The old
clings fondly to old things, only because they are old ; the new grasps
eagerly after new things, only because they are new. True wisdom
and true philosophy, on the contrary, " tries all things," both old and
new, " and holds fast only to that which is good and true." The new
dogmatism taunts the old for credulity and superstition ; the old re-
proaches the new for levity and skepticism. But true wisdom and phi-
losophy perceives that they are both equally credulous and equally
skeptical. The old is credulous of old ideas and skeptical of new ; the
new is skeptical of old ideas and credulous of new ; both deserve the
unsparing rebuke of all right-minded men. The appropriate rebuke for
the old dogmatism has been put in the form of a bitter sneer in the
mouth of Job: "No doubt ye are the men, and wisdom shall die with
you." The appropriate rebuke for the new dogmatism, though not put
into the mouth of any ancient prophet, ought to be uttered.

loz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF PKOFESSOK EDWAKD S. MORSE.

PROF. MORSE was born in Portland, Maine, in 183S. He had an
early love of natural history, and at thirteen years of age he
commenced a collection of shells and minerals. At the outset he made
a specialty of shells, and in 1857 gave his first contribution to the
Boston Society of Natural History. He attended school in Bethel,
Maine, and while following the usual course of an academy took but
little interest in the classics, but busied himself with the woods and
streams, and during this time added many new and minute species of
land-shells to science.

For several years he followed the profession of mechanical
draughtsman in the locomotive-works in Portland ; and he also drew
on wood for a while in Boston, thus cultivating that remarkable gift
of graphic illustration which has since been of such great use to him
both in his scientific work and in his public lectures. In 1852 Mr.
Morse became a special student of Prof. Agassiz, at the Museum of
Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, where he remained until 1862,
pursuing closely his biological work, but also attending the lectures
of Wyman, Cook, and Lowell. While with Agassiz he became more
especially interested in the study of the Brachiopoda, a class of salt-
water bivalve creatures long regarded as mollusks, and of great inter-
est in every aspect ; for, although of a low animal type, no other class
exhibits such an extensive range in time, geographical distribution,
and depth of water. Prof. Morse's first paper on this subject was pub-
lished in the " Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,
1862." In 1866 he removed to Salem, Massachusetts, where he still
resides. Here he became one of the founders of the American Natu-
ralist. In 1868 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and in 1871 he received the honorary title of
Doctor of Philosophy from Bowdoin College, in which institution he
was Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy for three years.
In 1874 he was elected to one of the university lectureships at Har-
vard. In 1876 he became a Fellow of the National Academy of Sci-
ences, and the same year was elected Vice-President of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. In the prosecution of
his zoological investigations Prof. Morse has made many excursions,
visiting the Bay of Fundy several times, and also the Gulf of St. Law-
rence, and Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina. Desirous of pushing
his observations into regions but little examined, Prof. Morse last
year went to Japan, for the purpose of dredging on the coast and
searching for new specimens in his favorite lines of research. But
the heathen of that remote region had the sagacity to detect the
character of their visitor, and quickly secured his services, and set

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR EDWARD S. MORSE. 103

him at work. They said to him in effect, " We do not want the re-
ligion, nor the morality, nor the politics of your people, but we want
your science." Prof. Morse was accordingly induced to accept the
chair of zoology in the Imperial University of Tokio. He established
a zoological station at the Bay of Yeddo, and made large collections
for the museum at Tokio, besides a great number of specimens for ex-
chance with American societies. He also discovered the traces of
early man in Japan, found a large quantity of ancient pottery, and, in
an address before the Asiatic Society at Tokio, he communicated the
results of these researches.

Prof. Morse's most important contributions to science have been
his investigations on the Brachiopoda, which he has pursued with
indefatigable industry, going deeply into the question of their struct-
ure and affinities. By the help of embryological analysis he has
thrown new and important light upon their systematic position in the
scheme of invertebrate life. He maintains the view that the Brachio-
pods must be removed from the division of mollusks and classed with
the worms. These ideas have been adopted by many leading natu-
ralists both here and in Europe.

Prof. Morse has made all his expeditions for scientific investigation
at his own private expense, and, not being a man of wealth, he has
been compelled to lecture much during the winter season to get the
means of carrying on his researches during the summer. He has
given courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute of Boston, the
Peabody Institute of Baltimore, and the' Cooper Institute of New
York, and has also given courses and single lectures in all the princi-
pal cities in the Northern and Western States. Of his. rare qualities
as a popular scientific lecturer, the thoroughness of his information,
his vivid, free, and forcible style as a speaker, and his great skill of
rapid delineation upon the blackboard, we have previously spoken.

Prof. Morse is a man of irrepressible activity and an inexhaustible
flow of spirits, genial and hearty in manners, a fluent and fertile talker,
a copious story-teller, a lover of music, and passionately fond of chil-
dren. He is a patient, assiduous worker, and has contributed largely
to the proceedings of scientific societies and to scientific periodicals.
The following are among the most important of his publications :

1. "Description of New Species of Helix" {Helix asteriscus), (Proceedings
of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. vi., 1857, p. 1).

2. Description of New Species of Helix " {Helix milium), (Proceedings of
the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. vii., 1859, p. 1).

3. " The Haemal and Neural Ptegions of Brachiopoda " (Proceedings of the
Boston Society of Natural History, vol. is., 1862, pp. 3).

4. " On the Normal Position of Cephalopods " (Proceedings of the Portland
Society of Natural History, vol. i., 1863).

5. "On the Occurrence of Rare Helices in Ancient Shell-Heaps" (Proceed-
ings of the Portland Society of Natural History, vol. i., 1863).

6. " Synopsis of the Terrestrial and Fluviatile Mollusks of Maine " (published
by the Author. 1864, pp. 4).

io4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

7. "Observations on the Terrestrial and Fluviatile Mollusks of Maine"
{Journal of the Portland Society of Natural History, vol. i., 1864, 2 plates, 26
figures, pp. 63, 104 figures).

8. "Description of New Species of Pupadse " (Annals of the New York Ly-
ceum of Natural History, vol. viii., 1865, pp. 6, 11 figures).

9. " A Classification of Mollusca based on the Principle of Cephalization "
(Proceedings of the Essex Institute, Salem, vol. vi., 1865, 1 plate, 27 figures,
pp. 19).

10. " Description of a New Species of Cyclocardia " (C. novanglaa), (Annual
Report of the Peabody Academy of Science, 2 figures, p. 1).

11. " Note on Classification of Pulmonifera" (Proceedings of the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History, vol. xii., p. 1, 1869).

12. "On the Early Stages of Brachiopods" {American Naturalist, Salem,
vol. iii., 7 figures, pp. 2, 1869).

13. " Position of the Brachiopoda in the Animal Kingdom " {American
Naturalist, Salem, vol. iii., 3 figures, pp. 2, 1870).

14. "The Brachiopoda a Division of Annelida" {American Journal of Sci-
ence and Arts, vol. 1., 3 figures, pp. 4, 1870).

15. " A Reply to Mr. Dall's Criticism on the Brachiopoda a Division of
Annelida" {American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 1., pp. 4, 1870.

16. " On the Early Stages of an Ascidian " (Proceedings of the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History, vol. xiv., 1 plate, 6 figures, pp. 7, 1871).

17. " On the Tarsus and Carpus of Birds " (Annals of the New York Lyceum
of Natural History, 2 plates, 48 figures, pp. 22, 1871).

18. " On the Land-slides in the Vicinity of Portland, Maine " (Proceedings
of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xii., 1 map, 3 figures, pp. 10, 1869).

1 9. " Remarks on the Relations of Anomia " (Proceedings of the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History, vol. xiv., 6 figures, pp. 4, 1871).

20. " Remarks on the Adaptive Coloration of Mollusca" (Proceedings of the
Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xiv., pp. 5, 1871).

21. "On the Early Stages of Terebratulina " (Memoirs of the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History, 2 steel plates, 58 figures, pp. 11, 1871).

22. " On the Oviducts and Embryology of Terebratulina " {American Jour-
nal of Science and Arts, vol. iv., 17 figures, pp. 3, 1872).

23. " On the Systematic Position of Brachiopoda " (Proceedings of the Bos-
ton Society of Natural History, vol. xv., 58 figures, pp. 60, 1873).

24. " Embryology of Terebratulina " (Memoirs of the Boston Society of Nat-
ural History, vol. ii., 2 plates, 108 figures, pp. 15, 1874).

25. "Apparatus for illustrating the Variations of Wave-Lengths by the Mo-
tion of its Origin " (Proceedings of the American Association for the Advance
of Science, vol. xxii., 3 figures, pp. 3, 1874).

26. " Relationships of the Tunicates " (Proceedings of the Boston Society of
Natural History, vol. xiv., 1874).

27. " Observations on the Spittle-Insect " (Proceedings of the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History, vol. xiv., 1874).

28. " First Book of Zoology " (D. Appleton & Co., publishers, 321 figures,
pp. 191, 1875. Reprinted in London, and translated into Japanese).

29. " On a Diminutive Form of the Male in Buccinum Undatum " (Pro-
ceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xviii., 4 figures, pp 3,
1876).

Prof. Morse came back from Japan to give some lectures here the
past season, and returned to that country in April with his family,
to continue work there a year or two longer.

CORRESP ONDENCE.

ic5

CORRESPONDENCE.

NIGHT-AIR IN CITIES.

To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly.

YOUR April correspondent, Mr. C. W.
Johnson, in his critique on my brief
note which appeared in your pages of Feb-
ruary last, either has misapprehended the
issue I there made with Dr. Xiemeyer's arti-
cle in reference to the salubrity of night as
compared with day air in cities, or he has
stumbled upon the unwarrantable conclu-
sion, solely through the bias of his own cer-
ebration, that, because I did not mention,
in the short compass of a few lines, all the
forms of local urban insalubrity, therefore I
do not believe some of them exist.

Having imagined that I had put the issue
so plainly that no reader could foil to under-
stand it, I am at a loss to spell it out any
clearer for Mr. Johnson. Let me try it in
the form of an interrogatory. Is the air in
which we live, move, and breathe, more like-
ly to be charged from local sources with pol-
lutions that produce disease when compara-
tively still and calm, as during the night,
during the day, when stronger currents are
more apt to prevail? Dr. Niemeyer says
that the night-air of cities is purer than the
day-air, while I, in the language of Mr.
Johnson, " assume to correct" his statement
by showing by a fact or two that moving air
is less apt to be intensely charged by any
focus of corruption than that which is al-
most motionless and circumjacent to the
source of contamination. The issue was
made on the point as to the time most fa-
vorable for the atmosphere to acquire im-
purities the most largely from local sources
of pollution, not as to the nature or forms
these impurities may assume, or as to wheth-
er they are gaseous, granular, molecular, or-
ganic, or inorganic.

Yet, upon the putting of the issue thus
plainly, Mr. Johnson represents me as be-
lieving that " the insalubrity of city air de-
pends upon the amount of non-respirable
gases (!) that may be diffused into the re-
spirable ones " — whatever this may mean —
" and is wholly independent of the conden-
sible effluvia of the vaporous kind, or of the
organic germ-dust that the heat and stir of
the day may keep suspended."

In candor I must say that only those
whose ideas are crude and vague upon the
subject of the atmosphere as a vehicle of
contagia or materies morbi would pen such
a sentence. Does Mr. Johnson suppose that
the contagium vivum of scarlatina, or of ty-
phoid fever, or of small-pox, is anything like

the heavy dust of the streets, or that it
needs the stir of day-air to keep it sus-
pended ? Does he not know that the con-
tagia of these diseases are so subtilely dif-
fused and attenuated that the highest mag-
nifying power is unable to isolate or detect
them ? An investigator now and then has
imagined that he has discovered the spores
of infection, but only one as yet has made
a near approach to settled verification.

To relieve the mind of Mr. Johnson as
to my benighted condition on the subject of
germ-dust, I beg to refer him to the Phila-
delphia Medical and Surgical Reporter, Jan-
uary 13, 1877, in which I take the ground
that the theory of a contagium vivum is the
only tenable one by which to account for
the genesis and spread of some infectious
diseases. The unlimited self-multiplication
of definite forms or special phases of force,
as, e. g.. in small-pox, scarlatina, etc., is an
attribute only of living matter. There is
no more likelihood of the spores of scarla-
tina being converted into those of small-pox
than there is of the germ of a dog being
converted into that of a horse. All, in com-
mon, only reproduce after their kind.

Of course, the hypothetical spores of an
infectious disease are not subject to the
chemical law of gaseous diffusion ; yet, as
such contagia show in various ways a high
degree of volatility, stillness of the air is
obviously far more favorable to their large
aggregation in any particular locality than
rapid air-movement. Every intelligent phy-
sician is well aware that one of the very
best methods of preventing the spread of
an infection through a house is by good
ventilation or running air. But all this
is against Niemeyer's notion of the superi-
or salubrity of still night-air, as compared
with the rapid air-movements during the
day. The day-air mobility is the analogue
of house ventilation — the night-air stagna-
tion the analogue of concentrated house im-
purity.

If Mr. Johnson desires to know, as it is
presumable he does from his inquiry, how
" noxious effluvia, if they obey the law of
the gaseous diffusion of permanent (!) gases,
hover over low marshes and putrefying cess-
pools," he has only to study the law in any
elementary treatise on chemistry. If the
effluvia be sulphuretted hydrocen, it will dif-
fuse very rapidly; if it be carbonic acid,
much more slowly — specific gravity having
something to do with the process. But, in
either case, the hovering is greatly promoted
by the stillness of the atmosphere, as dur-

io6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing the night. Or, let him place a speck of
spoiled egg in one corner of his house: its
sulphuretted hydrogen will soon be per-
ceived throughout all the connecting rooms,
but the strongest near the speck, unless it
be carried out of the house by a current of
air. The attenuated diffusion of deleterious
gases tends to render them harmless — their
concentration to produce disease by a de

novo process. The inspiration of concen.
trated or nearly pure sewage-gas has often
caused instant death, a larger dilution ha-
bitually inspired often breeds fever, but an
attenuated amount of it is not appreciably
harmful. And what is more promotive of
this dilution or attenuation than the great
mobility of day-air ?

J. R. Black.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

HOW NEW YORK GOT A COLLEGE.

H^TEW- YORKERS are somewhat ex-
-L-N ercised over the question what to
do with their college, a problem which
it ought to be easier to solve, by re-
membering how they came by it. "What
on earth New York City wanted with a
college, when there were two good ones
already in the town, not half full of
students, might be a perplexing inqui-
ry, did we not know that corporations,
as well as individuals, often find them-
selves possessed of things which they
don't want and never intended to have.
The people did not say, " Go to, let us
have a college, cost what it will, and
teach Columbia and the University how
to manage a higher institution of learn-
ing." The city has been drawn into
running an opposition line to these es-
tablishments in a very different way,
and the case is instructive as showing
that education can be "managed" as
well as other public interests.

What the people of New York did
propose, upward of thirty years ago,
was to organize a sort of polytechnic
or practical high-school, connected with
the school-system of the city, to give a
little extra preparation to boys, who ex-
pected to devote themselves to some
form of mechanical industry, and not to
the learned professions. If we are not
mistaken, such was the explicit object
of the institution, and it was so stated
upon the ballots by which the citizens
voted to establish such a school. This
was done by a very large popular ma-
jority, and it was set agoing under the

name of the "Free Academy." But
the movement was premature for New
York, or its direction fell into incom-
petent hands, as nothing efficient was
done to stamp it with the character it
was designed to have, or to carry out
intelligently its distinctive purpose.
The plan of education wanted had to be
theoretically shaped, and should have
been then cautiously carried into prac-
tice, by the selection of a faculty in
thorough sympathy with the idea, and
as well qualified for the work as could
anywhere be found. But the parties
chosen failed in these respects. That
they were unfit to be intrusted with the
responsibility, was shown by their work,
and by the fact that they were dissatis-
fied with the status of the concern, and
wanted it turned into a " regular col-
lege." They complained that their
graduates did not stand well at a dis-
tance from home, as a "Free Acade-
my " was regarded as not amounting
to much. They accordingly set to work
to change it, and, by quiet, persistent
effort, they at length lobbied a bill
through the Legislature at Albany,
abolishing the "Free Academy," and
creating in its place " The College of
the City of New York." How com-
pletely the original purpose of the in-
stitution was abandoned in this trans-
formation, and the old idea of a classical
college substituted, was well shown by
the official and authoritative address
of Judge Larremore, President of the
Board of Education that voted the sup-
plies, and also President of the Board

EDITOR'S TABLE.

107

of Trustees of the new college. He
proclaimed that the " Free Academy "
was dead, that he knew nothing of it,
and curtly brushed aside as no longer
of interest the objects for which it
was founded, and the policy by which
they were to be secured. He went
back and expatiated on the mediaeval
origin and classical ideal of colleges
and universities, defended the scholas-
tic conception of culture in contrast
with modern innovations, eulogized
Latin and Greek, and went in for old-
fogyism generally. How entirely the
spirit of the original undertaking was
ignored and disavowed was well il-
lustrated by the fact that when some-
body quoted, in behalf of modern scien-
tific culture, an authority whose work
upon education has been translated into
a dozen languages, and has exerted an
immense influence in modifying plans of
study, Judge Larremore contemptuous-
ly dismissed the matter, by saying that
the authority was of no weight, as the
author of the book had never been
through college, and was nothing but a
railroad engineer. Even a railroad en-
gineer might have counted for some-
thing, on the theory by which the " Free
Academy " was established ; but in the
policy of the new classical institution
this sort of men seemed to get but little
consideration.

And thus it came about that New
York finds itself the proprietor of a
" regular college." The people pro-
posed to have a high-school, free for
poor boys who had attended its com-
mon schools, to get some adequate prep-
aration for industrial avocations, and
which it was supposed could be carried
on for $20,000 a year; and they now find
themselves cheated out of their inten-
tions, and saddled with an ordinary col-
lege, costing $150,000 a year, more or
less. Of course, the repudiation of the
original school, and of the ideas which
led to its establishment, was not sub-
mitted to a popular vote, and it is equal-
ly certain that, if the projected change

had been thus submitted, it would have
been overwhelmingly rejected. And
yet, by all the reasons at present urged
for the continuance of the college, the
people would have been in duty bound
to establish it. Indeed, the controversy
which has been going on in the news-
papers of late, as to whether the city of
New York shall abolish its college, is
chiefly significant as affording a sort of
register of public sentiment on the pol-
icy of State education. The college has
this use, that it forces the extreme issue
in regard to the educational functions of
government, and it is noteworthy that
the contest has elicited strong expres-
sions in favor of committing the whole
business of education to the State. Hav-
ing affirmed the voluntary principle in
religion, and denied the right of the
State to meddle in this most important
concern — having affirmed that the in-
dividual is a better judge in this matter
than the State can be — when it comes to
education, we deny the voluntary prin-
ciple, deny that individuals here know
what is best for themselves, and that
the State — that is, the politicians wbo
happen at any time to be in office — is
better than the people to be intrusted
with the absolute control of the sub-
ject. The history of the New York
College is merely a sample of the ma-
noeuvring by which jobs will be carried,
with no reference to the popular will,
just in proportion as education is given
over to political management.

THE LIBERTY OF SCIENCE AND EDUCA-
TION.

An interesting controversy has
sprung up in Germany upon this sub-
ject, the most important utterances of
which we have had translated and pub-
lished for the benefit of American read-
ers.1 A part of the discussion has been
made use of in England and in this

1 See the addresses of Profs. Haeckel and Vir-
chow, in the Popular Science Monthly Supple-
ment, No. X., and Hellwald's paper in No. XI.

io8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

country in a way that makes some com-
ment desirable.

Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, gave an ad-
dress last September at Munich, before
the "German Association of Naturalists
and Physicians," in which he took the
ground that the doctrine of evolution
should be made a part of the system of
general education in that country.

Prof. Vircbow replied to Haeckel in
a speech before the same body, on the
"Liberty of Science in the Modern
State," and argued eloquently against
the educational project. He said that
the freedom of science now enjoyed in
Germany is but of recent growth, and
may be imperiled if men of science
do not exercise moderation. He re-
ferred to the fact that the German so-
cialists are Darwinians, and cautioned
the savants against so lending themselves
to the purposes of this dreaded party
as to make it necessary for the state
to interfere. But Prof. Vircbow went
further, and maintained that the meas-
ure proposed would be unjustifiable,
because the theory of evolution is not
yet sufficiently proved. He did not
reason against it, and is understood to
be himself an adherent of the doctrine.
But, he said, it is not yet established.
As an anthropologist he declared that
no progress had been made in that
branch of science toward the establish-
ment of the theory of the descent of
man from the lower forms of life. He
did not object to it, and considered it a
desideratum of science that might be
realized at any time. But the proof,
he affirmed, is wanting, and the burden
of his speech was that what may be, or
is merely probable, must not be taken
as fact, or made use of in education.

It is not to be supposed that so au-
thoritative a statement would be neg-
lected by those who are troubled about
the adventurous spirit of modern sci-
ence. Ever since his Belfast Address
there have been ominous whispers that
the next number of the Quarterly He-view
would contain an annihilating attack

upon Prof. Tyndall ; and those interest-
ed in this serious result have waited
curiously for the onslaught, until they
began to fear that the editors had backed
out. But the German professor has
come to their rescue, and in the Janu-
ary issue they let fly their shaft, barbed
with Virchow's address. Nor are the
Americans behind the English in util-
izing the authority of the Berlin physi-
ologist. Prof. Gray, of Cambridge, in-
troduces the main parts of Virchow's
argument to the pages of the New York
Independent, with comments designed
to enforce its special lessons. He prizes
the address as " a timely and earnest
protest against what may be called plat-
form science — not peculiar to Germany,
nor to advanced evolutionists — against
that form of scientific dogmatism which
propounds unverified and unverifiable
speculations as the conclusions of sci-
ence." Now, we must think that Prof.
Gray has here failed to make the most
telling use of his opportunity. Dogma-
tism and undue license of speculation
are undoubtedly bad things, to be al-
ways condemned, and nothing certainly
could be more proper than for Prof.
Gray to warn the readers of the Inde-
pendent against indulgence in those
easily-besetting sins. But would not
the point have come out a little better
if Prof. Gray had said something like
this : " Dogmatism — that is, arrogance
of opinion, and the disposition to pro-
nounce confidently upon matters that
are incapable of beingknown or verified
— is a universal mental habit, inveter-
ate in proportion to people's ignorance,
against which education makes but
slow headway, which has ever charac-
terized theology, and is most fostered
by those powerful agencies in society —
churches, Sunday-schools, and religious
newspapers ? All of these agencies en-
force the early and passive acceptance
of dogmas that are beyond the sphere
of verification, and teach that repose of
belief is the great end to be sought,
and doubt a heinous thing not to be

EDITOR'S TABLE.

109

tolerated upon pain of eternal retribu-
tion. Science, on the contrary, begins
with questioning, and, by insisting upon
evidence, has restricted the sphere of
speculation, and made belief more a
matter of reason, and in this way it has
done much to destroy the dogmatic
spirit. Yet this tendency to dogmatism
is so deep and strong in human nature,
as at present trained, that even scien-
tific men often yield to it, and put their
baseless speculations in place of science,
and here is a German savant of great
authority who says so." This is prob-
ably what Prof. Gray meant if he had
explained himself more fully, for sure-
ly one cannot suppose he intended to
encourage the bad habits of one class
by telling them how bad are those of
another.

Let us now glance for a moment at
Virchow's test of what ought to go into
the schools. Prof. Gray quotes the
following passage : " From the moment
when we had become convinced that
the evolution theory was a perfectly
established doctrine — so certain that
we could pledge our oath to it — from
that moment we could not dare to feel
any scruple about introducing it into
our actual life, and not only communi-
cating it to every educated man, but
imparting it to every child, . . . and
basing upon it our whole system of
education." To this the reply is, first,
that the standard taken is impractica-
ble, and, if adopted, would abolish edu-
cation altogether ; and, second, if it is
lowered, as it must be, evolution can-
not be kept out of the schools.

It is important to remember here th at
Virchow is an evolutionist — not, per-
haps, an "advanced" evolutionist, but,
as Prof. Gray recognizes, a "pronounced
evolutionist," like himself, we suppose.
And, if so, it must be because there is a
certain amount of truth in the doctrine.
But, forthe purpose here contemplated,
the question is not whether evolution
is completely proved — it is simply
whether there is sufficient truth and

value in it to make its introduction
into the schools an improvement upon
their existing practice. Now, if evo-
lution is true at all, as admitted by
Virchow and Gray, and by the leading
thinkers of the time, it must, by the
very nature of the idea, be a verity in
regard to the great method of things
around us — how they come, and how
they go, and how they are related to
each other in the genetical order. Evo-
lution must embody a truth to this ex-
tent, from the very necessity of the case,
or it contains no truth at all. It is, by
its definition, an unfolding in the course
of Nature. That there are numerous
imperfections in it, matters nothing, for
no science is perfect. Astronomy,
based upon physics and mathematics,
has ranked as the most perfect of the
sciences ; but, if any one wishes to
understand how imperfect it really is,
let him read Prof. Newcomb's new
book upon the subject. Chemistry is
in a state of revolution, and physics is
full of unsettled theories. What, in
fact, is science but imperfect sciences
getting rid of their errors and limita-
tions ?

As to evolution, it is enough that it
is a mental view which answers to a
great reality. Whether it is to be rec-
ognized, is not an open question ; it
is already in the field as a power that
is modifying almost every branch of
knowledge. It is guiding investiga-
tions in the pathway of successful re-
search; it is the broadest principle of
unification in Nature that the human
mind has yet reached. Can so compre-
hensive and all-harmonizing a truth be
without value as a means of mental
culture? Whether Haeckel was wise
or not in demanding its formal intro-
duction into the schools, it is certain
that the powers which control the Ger-
man Empire cannot keep it out of the
schools. Nothing would be more fu-
tile than to demand the teaching of
the development theory in the schools
of this country, except, perhaps, the

1 io

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

attempt to prevent it. Already it is
taught in the test-books of geology,
and it will be more and more seen in
the manuals of zoology, botany, psy-
chology, philology, and history, when
these are revised, and adapted to the
advanced condition of knowledge.

With such tendencies predominant,
how grotesque is the spectacle of a man
like Virchow planting himself at the
doors of the German schools, and flour-
ishing his test of what is to be admitted
there ! As the scientific men approach
with their subjects, they are stopped by
the question, " Can you make oath, gen-
tlemen, to the truth of what you offer? "
And so we have a scientific man ruling
out science from the schools by a stand-
ard not recognized in education, and
which, if rigidly applied, would shut
up every schoolhouse in Germany. For
what would become of history, philol-
ogy, geography, political economy, and
the whole round' of studies that are al-
ready pursued, if this swearing-test were
to be applied to them ? The question,
as we have said, is whether something
can be got that is better than what now
exists, as this is the way all progress is
secured. In an address of great power,
by Prof. Du Bois-Eeymond, of Berlin,
on " Science and Civilization " (which
we shall soon have the pleasure of pub-
lishing), the professor says of the reli-
gious instruction given in the German
schools : " In the semi-official plan of
studies, more than half a page of fine
print is expended in setting forth the
subject-matter of this instruction, while
five lines suffice to dispatch the mathe-
matical programme ! On reading this
half-page, and the corresponding half-
page for the upper second class, one
imagines he has before him the pro-
gramme of a theological seminary."
So there is a body of dogmatic divin-
ity already in the schools, including, of
course, a cosmogony, or theory of crea-
tion, and traditional hypotheses with-
out number. To all this Prof. Vir-
chow does not dream of applying his

test ; but, when the representatives of
modern knowledge demand that the
teaching shall better reflect the exist-
ing state of thought, the admonition
comes : " No dogmatism ! Winnow
your work, gentlemen — nothing but
facts are to be admitted here, with their
certainties, up to the swearing-point."

Considered educationally, what else
is this but the old, exploded policy of
pouring facts into mental pitchers?
What are facts good for if not inter-
preted, and what is science without
explanation — that is, theory ? Would
Prof. Virchow swear the atomic theory
out of chemistry, and the wave theory
out of optics, and the nebular theory
out of astronomy ; and what would be-
come of his own science of physiology
if nothing could be taught of it but what
he can make oath to ? The highest ob-
ject of education is to rouse mental ac-
tivity, to set pupils to thinking, to en-
courage them to make their own ob-
servations and their own independent
reflections ; and this can in no way be
done so effectually as by linking educa-
tional methods to the great movements
of thought that are absorbing the world's
attention, outside of the schools. To
deal only in culture with demonstrated
facts, and thus to reduce the process to
one of bare acquisition, is a deadening
and paralyzing process, not suited to
prepare students to use their minds to
the best advantage in the conduct of
practical life.

Nothing can be clearer than that the
liberty of science and the liberty of edu-
cation, the progress of science and the
progress of education, are indissolubly
linked together. Whewell has shown
us how, in the development of the hu-
man intellect, the great steps of culture
have followed and resulted from the
great steps of discovery that have suc-
cessively enlarged the sphere of human
knowledge. And it was not because
certain new facts were poured in at
each epoch of discovery, but because
new ideas, new methods, new modes of

EDITOR'S TABLE.

in

mental activity, were introduced. These
are invaluable in education, and if
shorn away, so that nothing but direct
results are imparted, the quickening,
arousing influence of science is lost to
culture. Karl Griin well observes :
" Science either enjoys perfect liberty,
or she is not free at all. Setting up
hypotheses and tracing their ultimate
consequences are part and parcel of
science, and of the liberty of science; "
and we may add that its use in this form
is a part of the liberty of education.

It is one of the chief glories of sci-
ence that it has first taught men the
supreme value of truth, and the disci-
plines of character that the earnest pur-
suit of truth involves. Truth on its
own account and for its own sake is its
one great object, and, in proportion as
it can be incorporated in education and
made the incentive of mental activity,
will education attain its highest and
noblest object. A writer in the German
periodical Kosmos, replying to Prof. Vir-
chow, thus gives effective expression to
this idea :

" Scientific research aims at the discov-
ery of truth, never inquiring who is to be
benefited thereby. The question, Qui pro-
dest? (Who is benefited?) is fortunately of
as little account in science as the other ques-
tion, Cui nocet? (Who is hurt?) Hence
whether the evolution doctrine favors the
Socialists or the Ultramontanes, the high
and dry Conservatives, the Moderates, the
Liberals, the Eadicals, or any other party,
must be a matter of entire indifference to the
earnest investigator, and must not be per-
mitted for a moment to lead him astray in
his researches. The truth must be established
for its own sake, and for no other purpose.
Any other consideration, even though it were
urged by a Virchow, must be absolutely re-
jected. Ever since science first began there
have been heard authoritative voices calling
' Halt ! ' to the restless spirit of speculation,
and it were a grave injustice not to recognize
the value of such admonitions. They who
warn against danger, and they who engage
in scientific speculation, are both indispen-
sable for the development of science ; but
we must ever bear in mind that scientific
progress always, almost without an excep-
tion, has come from the labors of those who

dared to give expression to thoughts which
were as a leaven to the minds of their con-
temporaries, and who were persecuted for
heresy, and laid under a ban by the authori-
ties. The most splendid triumphs of sci-
ence are the fruit of the empiric demonstra-
tion of ingenious hypotheses. Even in cases
where these hypotheses have proved un-
tenable they have caused men to think, and
that in itself constitutes a new advance of
science. We could as little dispense with
them as with the leaven in bread. All
honor, then, first of all to the men to whom
we are indebted for hypotheses which have
given a stimulus to research ; which, so to
speak, constitute a landmark in the histo-
ry of science ; finally, in the mastering of
which, in one sense or the other, a full gen-
eration or more has been employed ! Honor,
again, to those intellectual princes of whom
the German proverb is true that, 'when
kings build, there is work for cartmen ! '"

PROFESSOR MAX MULLER ON " THE
ORIGIN OF REASONr

And, while we happen to be on the
subject of evolution in Germany, we
may refer to another episode in rela-
tion to this subject. Prof. Max Muller,
well known as a philologist, has written
an ambitious paper on " The Origin of
Reason," in which he follows Prof.
Ludwig Noire, a German philologist,
and called a " rank evolutionist." Mul-
ler points out how Prof. Noire has laid
under contribution Spinoza, Descartes,
Leibnitz, Kant, Locke, Schopenhauer,
and Geiger, for materials to construct
an evolution theory, his own contribu-
tion being that the development of
mind is to be come at through the study
of language. Noire does not think
much of Darwin, but prefers Cuvier,
and works up his scheme out of meta-
physical materials, rather than the re-
sults of modern science. This Muller
indorses, saying, " Every system of phi-
losophy which plunges into the mys-
teries of Nature without having solved
the mysteries of the mind, the systems
of natural evolution not excepted, is
pre-Oartesian and mediaeval." It is
somewhat curious to characterize as
mediaeval that new spirit which arose

il2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and put an end to the media? val period
— the giving precedence to the study of
Nature. The truth of the case seems
to he that Noire perceived that evolu-
tion has come to be the great basis of
philosophy, and therefore accepts it and
applies it in the study of the interac-
tions of psychology and language ; and
yet Max Muller tells us that " Noire's
philosophy rests on a most comprehen-
sive theory of evolution; it is the first
attempt at tracing the growth of the
whole world, not only of matter but of
thought also, from the beginning of
things to the present day." This is
certainly a remarkable claim, and we
arc at once interested in the intellect-
ual career of the party in whose be-
half it is made. It turns out that
Noire's first book, " The World as an
Evolution of Spirit," was published in
1874, and the last in 1877. As he sub-
sequently repudiated that first book,
the gestation of his system, involving an
analysis of the " Growth of the Whole
World," took less than three years.
Prof. Muller says this was the "first
attempt," etc., although he was per-
fectly aware of the fact that Herbert
Spencer is the only man that has ever
dealt with the subject comprehensive-
ly, and also that he published the com-
plete prospectus of his system fifteen
years before Noire issued his first
book. Mr. Spencer, in his last volume,
on Sociology, has no doubt seriously
damaged Muller's favorite theory of
myths; but it would be more creditable
to the Oxford professor, either to an-
swer him, or acknowledge the defeat,
rather then to vent his resentment by
such absurd misrepresentations.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Treatise on Chemistry. By H. E. Roscoe,
F. R. S., and C. Schorlemmer, F. R. S.,
Professors of Chemistry in Owens Col-
lege, Manchester. Vol. I. The Non-
Metallic Elements. New York: D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 769. Price, -$4.
Chemistry undoubtedly stands among

the first of the progressive sciences. Its

field is so large, its applications so numerous
and practical, and the number of its devotees
in all countries so great, as to secure the
steady and rapid advance of the science.
As a consequence of this, it leaves its liter-
ary monuments behind, much as a railway-
train leaves the milestones. An exposition
of the subject, no matter how completely it
may represent its position at a given time,
quickly falls behind and becomes antiquated.
The large works of Regnault and William
Allen Miller, which were standards a few
years ago, are now quite out of date ; valua-
ble in many respects for reference, they do
not embody the results that have been at-
tained since. There was, therefore, need of
a new comprehensive treatise on chemistry
to take their place in colleges and labora-
tories. This want has been supplied by the
combined labors of Profs. Roscoe and Schor-
lemmer, the first volume of which is now
published. The character of the work they
have undertaken is thus stated by its au-
thors : " It has been the aim of the authors,
in writing the present treatise, to place be-
fore the reader a fairly complete and yet a
clear and succinct statement of the facts of
modern chemistry, while at the same time
entering so far into a discussion of chemical
theory as the size of the work and the pres-
ent transition state of the science permit.
Special attention has been paid to the accu-
rate description of the more important pro-
cesses in technical chemistry, and to the
careful representation of the most approved
forms of apparatus employed."

The work opens with an excellent his-
torical sketch of the science on the basis of
Kopp's history, and this feature is continued
in dealing with the most important elements
and compounds throughout the book. A
marked feature of the work, and one that
will be appreciated in the class-room, is the
prominent attention that has been given to
the representation of apparatus adapted for
lecture -room experiment. The numerous
new illustrations required for this purpose
have all been taken from photographs of
apparatus actually in use. The names of the
authors are a guarantee of the accuracy and
thoroughness of their work, while the pro-
portions in which the various divisions are
presented are adapted to the use of students
who desire to obtain a thorough general
knowledge of the science. The work is

LITERARY NOTICES.

"3

printed in large, clear type, presenting an
attractive page, and its illustrations are nu-
merous and of a superior order.

A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the
Eye. By Robert Brudenell Carter,
F. R. C. S. With numerous Illustra-
tions. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp.
591. Price, $4.

This work, by one of the most promi-
nent ophthalmic surgeons of London, has
been some time published, and has an excel-
lent character with the profession. Atten-
tion being increasingly drawn to the impair-
ment of the health of the eye in our schools,
and by various kinds of mismanagement, we
were anxious to consult some modern au-
thoritative work on the maladies of the eye,
and selected this volume for the purpose.
Dr. Carter is a philosophical student of his
subject, and twenty-five years ago published
an interesting volume on the influence of
civilization in modifying diseases of the ner-
vous system. But, although he writes as
a thinker, the author has made the present
work thoroughly practical. It comprises
his lectures at St. George's Hospital on
common forms of eye-disease which he had
occasion to deal with in practice ; and it is
this circumstance which gives to the trea-
tise its chief merit. It contains many illus-
trations of the structure of the eye, ophthal-
mic instruments, and modes of operation.

A History of England in the Eighteenth
Century. By William Edward Hart-
pole Lecky. New York: D. Applcton
& Co. Two volumes. Pp. 1,325. Price,

$6.

Mr. Lecky has won an assured and dis-
tinguished place as a philosophical historian.
We were among those who had no hesita-
tion in saying that he fully established this
character in the publication of his first con-
siderable work, "A History of the Rise and
Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in
Europe ; " and his claim as an original his-
torical thinker was confirmed by the subse-
quent appearance of his " History of Euro-
pean Morals." The direction of thought,
partially opened by Macaulay, and more
vigorously pursued by Buckle, which takes
account of the great pacific forces that have
been involved in modern civilization, is
adopted by Mr. Lecky, and has been fol-

VOL. XIII. — 8

lowed out by him, systematically and most
ably, in his successive treatises. The old
and vulgar conception of history as a mere
narration and chronicle of incidents, a gos-
sipy delineation of the great personalities
that have figured in public affairs, a picture
of court manners, a threading-out of diplo-
matic intrigues, with abundant description
of battles, campaigns, wars, conquests, and
the overturning of dynasties, Mr. Lecky
leaves to those who can be satisfied with it.
These are very much surface-effects, well
fitted, indeed, to strike the imagination, but
of trivial moment in comparison with those
profounder agencies by which modern soci-
ety has been shaped and the real work of
civilization carried forward. Science has
been at the bottom of a revolution in recent
times, which has compelled not only a re-
estimate of the importance of subjects to be
dealt with in history, but a reversal of for-
mer judgments, by which subjects long neg-
lected must henceforth have supreme regard.
The influence of scientific habits of thinking
has deepened the study of history, anti-
quated its superficial methods, and carried
us down to those deeper and wider causes
that have determined the amelioration of
humanity. Mr. Lecky takes up the work of
the historian avowedly from this point of
view, and, in the two solid volumes now be-
fore us, he has applied it to an important
period of the history of his own country.
It is a splendid theme, for England has
a central and commanding position in the
movement of national development ; and the
times considered by Mr. Lecky were fruit-
ful of profound changes and the most im-
portant results. The purpose and plan of
his work are thus indicated in his preface:

" I have not attempted to write the history of
the period I have chosen year by year, or to give
a detailed account of military events, or of the
minor personal and party incidents, which form
so large a part of political annals. It has been
my object to disengage from the great mass
of facts those which relate to the permanent
forces of the nation, or which indicate some of
the more enduring features of national life. The
growth or decline of the monarchy, the aristoc-
racy, and the democracy, of the Church and of
Dissent, of the agricultural, the manufacturing'
and the commercial interests, the increasing
power of Parliament and of the press, the history
of political ideas, of art, of manners, and of be-
lief ; the changes that have taken place in the
social and economical condition of the people,

114

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the influences that have modified national char-
acter, the relations of the mother-country to its
dependencies, and the causes that have acceler-
ated or retarded the advancement of the latter,
form the main subjects of this book."

Natural Law : An Essay in Ethics. By
Edith Simcox. Boston : Osgood & Co.
Pp. 361. Price, $3.50.
This is a profound disquisition on the
deep things of metaphysical and moral phi-
losophy. The treatment is very didactic,
and not altogether inviting ; but the author
is a radical thinker, and tries hard to get
down to first principles. The subject is
dealt with under the heads of: I., Natural
Law ; II., Customary and Positive Law ; III.,
Morality; IV., Religion; V., The Natural
History of Altruism ; VI., The Natural Sanc-
tions of Morality; VII., Social and Individ-
ual Perfection. The best thing in the book
is an extract from Jeremy Taylor, stating
the difficulties that people have in getting
along in this world. The passage will bear
reproducing:

"Whoever was to be born at all, was to be
born a child, and to do before he could under-
stand and be bred under laws to which he was al-
ways bound, but which could not always be ex-
acted ; and he was to choose when he could not
reason, and had passions most strong when he
had his understanding most weak, and was to
ride a wild horse without a bridle, and, the more
need he had of a curb, the less strength he had to
use it ; and, this heine the case of all the world,
what was every man's evil became all men s
greater evil, and though alone it was very bad
yet when they came together it was made much
worse ; like ships in a storm, every one alone
hath enough to do to outride it ; but when they
meet, besides the evils of the storm, they find
the intolerable calamity of their mutual concus.
sion, and every ship that is ready to be oppressed
with the tempest is a worse tempest to every
vessel against which it is violently dashed. So
it is in mankind ; every man hath evil enough of
his own, and it is hard for a man to live soberly,
temperately, and religiously ; but when he hath
parents and children, brothers and sisters,
friends and enemies, buyers and sellers, lawyers
and physicians, a family and a neighborhood, a
king over him or tenants under him, a bishop to
rule in matters of government spiritual, and a
people to be ruled by him in the affairs of their
souls, then it is that every man dashes against
another, and one relation requires what another
denies ; and when one speaks, another will con-
tradict him ; and that which is well spoken
is sometimes innocently mistaken, and that upon
a good cause produces an evil effect. And by
these, and ten thousand other concurrent causes,
man is made more than most miserable."

A Dictionary of Music and Musicians-
a. D. 1450-1878. By Eminent Writers,
English and Foreign. With Illustra-
tions and Woodcuts. Edited by George
Grove, D. C. L. In Two Volumes. Num-
ber of pages in Part I., 128. A to Ballad.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Price,
$1.25.

Musical dictionaries have hitherto been
chiefly occupied in explaining the numerous
terms and technicalities which have become
so prominent in the art. The present work
promises to be of a much more comprehen-
sive character, indeed to be a kind of cyclo-
paedia of music, giving "full and accurate
information in regard to the lives of emi-
nent composers, the history of musical in-
struments, the origin and gradual develop-
ment of musical forms (such as the sym-
phony and the sonata), the career of great
singers, and so on." Such is the object of
the work of which the first installment is
before us, and which is to contain twelve
quarterly parts. It is an enterprise of great
labor, but the execution thus far shows that
it will be thoroughly done. Its main arti-
cles are contributed by eminent authorities
on musical subjects, and its minor parts
have evidently been prepared with assiduous
care, under the editorship of Mr. Grove.
The work will of course be best appreciated
by those most interested in music, but it
will be of value to general readers, both for
reference and for study, as furnishing the
materials of the history of a great and grow-
ing popular art. We might object that the
type is rather too small to give most attrac-
tiveness to the page, but from the copious-
ness of the information to be presented this
became a necessity, in order to keep the
volumes within a reasonable magnitude.
The work is, however, printed with great
clearness; and the musical passages that
are freely interspersed in the text, to illus-
trate the various topics, come out with ad-
mirable distinctness. When the enterprise
is completed, we shall have another impor-
tant reference-book in this age of cyclo-
pedic specialties.

Proteus, or Unity in Nature. By Charles
Bland Radcliff, M. D. New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 214. Price, $2.50.
The object of this work is to illustrate,
in a somewhat full and methodical way, the
great principle of oneness in Nature — the law

LITERARY NOTICES.

"5

within law, and the communion in all things.
In Part I. the author traces out the law of
unity in plants, in the limbs of vertebrate
animals, in the appendant organs of inverte-
brate animals, in the skull and vertebral
column, in the relations of plants and ani-
mals, and of organic and inorganic forms.
In Part II. he advances to dynamical and
mental phenomena, and traces the unity of
physical forces, of vital and physical mo-
tion, and of the phenomena of instinct, mem-
ory, imagination, volition, and intelligence,
and closes with an exemplification of it in
the personal, social, and religious life of
man. In his preface, the author states that
it has been his object to place himself in op-
position to the materialistic spirit of the age.

History of Opinions on the Scripture
Doctrine of Retribution. By Edward
Beecher, D. D. New York: D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 334: Price, 81.25.
This is a book, of great theological eru-
dition, on the question of the punishment of
human beings after death. The unsettled
state of opinion on this subject induced Dr.
Beecher to take it up and do something to
bring about a better agreement among those
who believe in future punishment, but diner
as to its duration ; and, to those who regard
such an inquiry as important, the volume will
prove interesting. Dr. Beecher says : " The
main interest centres on the question, ' What
is the doom of the wicked ? ' This has fixed
the attention of the world upon the import
of a single word, aionios." It seems strange
that the question of the eternal doom of im-
mortal beings should be left so uncertain for
mankind as to hang upon the interpretation
of a Greek word, so that we must look to
the philologists to ascertain what is to be
our fate through eternity.

Vital Magnetism: Its Power over Dis-
ease. By Frederick T. Parson. New
York : Adams, Victor & Co. Pp. 230.
Price, $1.25.

Bv vital magnetism the author of this
book, of course, means animal magnetism,
and this term has been applied to a class
of obscure and irregular effects exhibited
by, or induced in, the nervous system, and
also to an art of treating certain diseases.
The author of the work claims that this
country is very much behind Europe in the

cultivation of this branch of the healing art,
and his work is offered to supply a want to
the medical profession arising from this
backwardness of the subject, and to furnish
evidence of the extent of its European de-
velopment. The book has been compiled
with excellent judgment, and gives account
of a large number of cases, chiefly Euro-
pean, which are full of medical interest.
It is due to the author to say that (though
a Magnetic Physician) he is more modest
than the standard ethics of the profession
requires, for he neither parades his own
cases, nor does he announce the street and
number, or even the city, where he is to be
found.

What there is in animal magnetism, or
vital magnetism, that deserves attention as
a method of treating disease, we cannot
pretend to say ; but those interested will
find this book very suitable, as a presenta-
tion of its claims, and the evidences of its
utility. There is, probably, something in
it, and there may be much in it that the
medical profession will yet have to recog-
nize ; but we advise the cultivators of the
method to get rid of the term magnetism
as quickly as possible, for it is both fanci-
ful and misleading. The fact is, the thing
referred to is not magnetism. It is claimed
that there are certain effects produced by
movements upon the human body, in cer-
tain directions, which effects are reversible
by reversing the movements. This very
naturally suggests analogies to magnets,
which are charged and discharged in simi-
lar ways, but it no more proves the body to
be a magnet than his method of grinding
food proves man to be a grist-mill. The
danger of such analogies is, that they are
always apt to be carried too far. The au-
thor quotes approvingly the words of Dr.
Ashburner as follows : " Man is a magnet.
He has, like all other magnets, poles and
equators. But, being a magnetic machine
of very complex structure, his magnetic ap-
paratus is divided into many parts. The
brain is the chief magnet, and the trunk
and extremities are separate magnets, hav-
ing intimate relations with the chief source
of magnetism. We infer from these facts,
what is the truth, that the normal currents
take a normal course from the brain to the
caudal extremities."

n6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Myths and Marvels of Astronomy. By
Richard A. Proctor. New York: G.
P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 363. Price, $4.

This volume contains an excellent selec-
tion of some of the most readable of Mr. Proc-
tor's popular essays. While not systematic
studies in strict science, they contain a
great deal of scientific information, and are,
moreover, enriched by an erudition of side
considerations which come from extensive
reading, and the assiduous collection of
the historic curiosities of the various sub-
jects treated. The subjects of the present
volume are — 1. "Astronomy;" 2. "The
Religion of the Great Pyramid;" 3. "The
Mystery of the Pyramids ; " 4. " Sweden-
borgvs Vision of other Worlds ; " 5. "Oth-
er Worlds and other Universes ; " 6. " Suns
in Flames ; " 1. " The Rings of Saturn ; "
8. "Comets as Portents;" 9. "The Lu-
nar Hoax;" 10. "On some Astronomical
Paradoxes;" 11. " On some Astronomical
Myths;" 12. "The Origin of the Constel-
lation Figures."

The Creed of Christendom ; Its Founda-
tions CONTRASTED WITH ITS SUPERSTRUCT-
URE. By William Rathbone Greg.
With a New Introduction. In Two Vol-
umes. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.
Pp. 549. Price, $1.

This work has been before the public
some thirty years, and is now announced as
in the fifth edition. It has been extensively
read, and ranks among the leading books
of modern criticism upon the history and
character of the Christian Scriptures. The
new introduction, made to the third edition,
is dated 18*73, and contains 94 pages. It is
interesting, as a comprehensive review of
the contributions of Colcnso, Renan, the au-
thor of " Ecce Homo," and Matthew Arnold,
to the same general subject, and all made
after the original publication of Mr. Greg's
book. The main idea of the work is that
Christianity has undergone the most pro-
found changes since its first promulgation ;
and this idea is very impressively reiterated
in the closing passages to the author's last
introduction, of which the following is a
part:

" I have but one word more to say— and that
is an expression of unfeigned Amazement — so
strong as almost to throw into the shade every
other sentiment, and increasing with every year
of reflection, and every renewed perusal of the

genuine words and life of Jesus — that, out of
anything so simple, so beautiful, so just, so lov-
ing, and so grand, could have grown up or been
extracted anything so marvelously unlike its
original as the current creeds of Christendom ;
that so turbid a torrent could have flowed from
so pure a fountain, and yet persist in claiming
that fountain as its source ; that any combina-
tion of human passion, perversity, and miscon-
ception could have reared such a superstructure
upon such foundations. Out of the teaching of
perhaps the most sternly anti-sacerdotal prophet
who ever inaugurated a new religion, has been
built up (among the Catholics and their imita-
tors here) about the most pretentious and op-
pressive priesthood that ever weighed down
the enterprise and the energy of the human
mind. Out of the life and words of a Master,
whose every act and accent breathed love and
mercy and confiding hope to the whole race of
man, has been distilled (among Calvinists and
their cognates) a creed of general damnation
and of black despair. Christ set at naught ' ob-
servances,' and trampled upon those prescribed
with a rudeness that bordered on contempt-
Christian worship, in its most prevailing form,
has been made to consist in rites and ceremonies,
in sacraments and feasts, and fasts and periodic
prayers. Christ preached personal righteous-
ness, with its roots going deep into the inner
nature, as the one thing needful— his accredited
messengers and professed followers say: No!
purity and virtue are filthy rags ; salvation is to
be purchased only through vicarious merits and
'imputed' holiness," etc.

The Aneroid Barometer : Its Construc-
tion and Use. New York : D. Van
Nostrand. Pp. 106. Price, 50 cents.

It is generally understood that the an-
eroid barometer is a little instrument, the
size of a watch, which depends for its action
upon the changes in form of a thin metallic
box, partially exhausted of air. As the
pressure of the atmosphere varies, the thin
walls of the vacuum-chamber move, and the
motion is taken up by a suitable mechanism
and indicated by a hand on a dial-plate.
Captain Fawcett, who has had much ex-
perience with the instrument, says the value
of the aneroid, as a handy and portable
instrument for rapidly obtaining relative
heights in surveys, has been underrated.
The point chiefly valuable in an aneroid
is its portability, as in the pocket it takes
up no more room than a watch. Its calcu-
lations can be done quickly, and its indica-
tions may be generally relied upon within
ten or twenty feet. In traveling and mak-
ing geographical observations, especially in
hilly or mountainous regions, it is extremely

LITERARY NOTICES.

117

convenient. Van Nostrand's little pocket-
book gives all the information necessary to
make the best use of the aneroid barometer,
and it contains copious tables to facilitate
calculations.

The Princeton Review, March. Pp. 398.
37 Park Row, New York. Price, 35 cts.

Hating floated down the tranquil stream
of time for fifty-four years, this stanch
old orthodox review begins to find that the
waters are growing rough, and that the navi-
gation must be closely attended to. So the
first thing is to move out of Jersey, and
plant itself down in the metropolis, and re-
spectfully announce that it "is not the or-
gan of any theological seminary." It has
altered its backing, and it is now understood
that instead of a theological establishment
it has a big heap of money behind it. This
is made probable by such a swelling out of
its proportions as would not be justified by
any considerations of legitimate business.
It will be issued six times a year, at a sub-
scription of two dollars, and, if each number
is to contain as much reading-matter as the
one before us, it will be dirt cheap, though
we are afraid the proprietors will have to
draw on their pile to hire their subscribers
to read it. This we say entirely with ref-
erence to the unconceivable bulk of matter
furnished. It seems to be forgotten life is
short, and that people generally have much
else to do besides reading. However, the
scope of the review is broad, as it is to consist
entirely of original articles on theology, phi-
losophy, politics, science, literature, and art,
and, if it had a good serial novel in it, we
do not see why it might not claim to answer
all the wants of the reading public. A glance
at the articles of the present number shows
that they are solid, if not brilliant, while the
names Chadbourne, Hodge, Hopkins, Hall,
Spear, Atwater, Bowen, West, Alexander,
Bishop Cox, Hickok, and McCosh, all of
whom have articles in this March issue, are
a guarantee that the periodical will maintain
its character for theological conservatism.

Creep and Deed. A Series of Discourses.
By Felix Adler, Ph. D. New York : G.
P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 243. Price, $1.50.

The author of this work combines the
erudition of the scholar with the indepen-

dence of the radical thinker. The topics
he deals with in this volume are religious
and ethical in their character, and the essays
are keen in criticism and of marked literary
merit. Our readers have had an illustration
of these qualities, as the essay in the volume
on "The Evolution of Hebrew Religion"
first appeared in the pages of The Popular
Science Monthly. The papers were deliv-
ered as lectures before the Society for Ethi-
cal Culture and are published by request of
those who listened to them.

Tables for the Determination of Miner-
als. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. Phila-
delphia: Lippincott. Pp.119. Price, $2.

Prof. Frazer adopts, as the basis of his
work, the tables prepared by Weisbach,
which he has enlarged and completed. The
work provides for the student a method of
determining minerals from an examination
of those physical properties which may be
ascertained by the aid of the simplest in-
struments. In the author's plan, all min-
erals are divided into three classes: those
having a metallic lustre ; those of non-me-
tallic lustre, but giving a colored streak ;
and those of non-metallic lustre, with col-
orless streak. The tables correspond to
this threefold classification, and by a refer-
ence to them most minerals can be deter-
mined without difficulty. In short, the
student has only first to ascertain to which
of the three great classes a specimen be-
longs. He then ascertains first the charac-
ter of the lustre — if any it has — then its
color, the color of the streak, the relative
hardness and tenacity, the crystal system,
and the cleavage. A glance at the tables
will give him the name of the mineral in
which all these characters exist in the pro-
portions found in his specimen.

Mound-Making Ants of the Alleghanies.
By the Rev. Henry C. McCook. With
Piates. Philadelphia : J. A. Black,
1334 Chestnut Street. Pp. 43. Price,
75 cents.

We have had frequent occasion to re-
count the ingenious researches of Mr. Mc-
Cook into the life-histories of insects. The
present essay is the most voluminous one
we have ever seen from his pen, and perhaps
also the most interesting. The subject is
the wood or fallow ant {Formica rufa), whose

u8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hills are familiar to all visitors among the
mountains of Pennsylvania. These hills are
cones of more or less regularity, common-
ly of ten or twelve feet in circumference at
the base, and from two and a half to three
feet in height, though in some instances
they have dimensions twice or thrice as
great. The author has studied the prin-
ciples of architecture which guide this ant
in the construction of its mounds ; also its
system of engineering, whereby it over-
comes natural obstacles in the construc-
tion of its works. Further, he has observed
in these ants a curious mode of feeding — a
troop of foragers going out, and coming
back with abdomens swollen with honey-
dew, which they give up to the workers on
their return to the mound. The whole
memoir gives evidence of very patient and
conscientious research.

Mechanics of Ventilation. By G. W.
Rafter, C. E. New York : Van Nos-
trand. Pp. 96. Price, 50 cents.

Mr. Rafter lays no claim to originality
of ideas in this little treatise, his object being
rather to reduce to systematic form the ex-
isting fund of knowledge with respect to the
important problem of warming and ventila-
tion. His essay is in every way worthy of
the attention of civil engineers and archi-
tects.

Engineering Construction. By J. E.
Shields, C. E. New York : Van Nos-
trand. Pp. 138. Price, $1.50.

The four general heads under which the
author of this work distributes his subject-
matter are : " Foundations," " Masonry,"
"Tunnels," and " Engineering Geodesy."
His aim is to expound the true principles of
construction, as ascertained by the highest
authorities in that branch of science ; but
no theory, he assures us, is here set forth
which has not received confirmation from
practical test.

Foundations. By Jules Gaudard. Trans-
lated from the French by Vernon Har-
court. New York : D. Van Nostrand.
Pp. 104. Price, 50 cents.
This is another valuable monograph of
Van Nostrand's "Science Series." It is a
study in the art of civil engineering, and' gives
a compendious account of the construction of

foundation-works for bridges, piers, viaducts,
and all buildings where the weight of the
superstructure is so great that the question
of foundations is fundamental.

PUBLICATIONS EECEIVED.

The Epoch of the Mammoth. By J. C. South-
all. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Pp.445. $2.50.

Chemical Experimentation. By S. P. Sadtler.
Louisville : Morton. Pp. 225.

Browne's Phonographic Monthly. Vol. II.
New York : D. L. Scott-Browne. $2 per year.

The House Sparrow. By T. G. Gentry. Phil-
adelphia : Claxton, Rernsen & Haffelfinger. Pp.
129. $2.

Putnam's Library Companion. Vol. I. New
York : Putnarns. Pp. 90. 50 cents.

The Kirografik Teecher. By J. B. Smith.
Amherst, Mass. : J. B. & E. G. Smith. Pp. 99.

Mineralogy. By J. H. Collins. New York :
Putnams. Pp.206. $1.50.

Matter and Motion. By J. C. Maxwell. New
York : Van Nostrand. Pp. 224. 50 cents.

Planetary Meteorology. ByE. Mansill. New
York : American News Company. Pp. 60. 50
cents.

Report of the Director of the Central Park
Menagerie (1877). Pp. 50.

The Metric System of Weights and Meas-
ures. By P. Prazer, Jr. Reprint from the Poly-
technic Review. Pp. 24.

Adamites and Preadamites. By A. Winchell.
Syracuse, N. Y. : Roberts. Pp. 52. 15 cents.

Foul Air and Consumption. By Dr. E. B.
Davy. Cincinnati : Reprint from the Lancet
and Observer. Pp. 13.

Life Insurance, and how to find out what a
Company owes You. By G. W. Smith. New
York : Van Nostrand. Pp. 28. 25 cents.

The Forces of Nature (illustrated). By A.
Guillemin. Parts 2, 3, 4, 5. New York : Mac-
millan. 40 cents each.

Intel-cultural Tillage. By Dr. E. L. Sturte-
vant. From the Report of the Connecticut
State Board of Agriculture. Pp. 42.

Eeport of the Cincinnati Zoological Society
(1877). Cincinnati Times print. Pp. 40.

Meteorological Method. Pp. 15.— Causes of
the Huron Disaster. Pp. 4. By William Blasius.
Philadelphia : The Author.

Our Public School System. By C. W. Bar-
deen. Pp. 32.

Ventilation. By Dr. W. C. Van Bibber. An-
napolis Md. : Colton print. Pp. 36.

Economic Tree-Planting. By B. G. Northrop.
From Eeport of Connecticut Board of Agricult-
ure. Pp. 29.

European and American Climatic Eesorts.
By Dr. G. E. Walton. Pp. 12.

Eeport of the Connecticut Agricultural Ex-
periment Station (1877). New Haven : Tuttle,
Morehouse & Taylor print. Pp.104.

The New Eocky Mountain Tourist (illus-
trated). By J. G. Pangborn. Chicago : Knight
& Leonard. Pp. 64.

Primitive Property. By E. de Laveleye. New
York : Macmillan. Pp. 356. $4.50.

Star-Gazing Past and Present. By J. N.
Lockyer (with Plates). Same publisher. Pp.
496. $7.50.

Proceedings of the American Chemical So-
ciety. Vol. I., No. 5. New York : Baker & God-
win print. Pp. 104.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

119

The Sugar-Beet in North Carolina. By A.
Ledoux. Raleigh: Farmer and Mechanic print.
Pp. 50.

The Salt-eating Habit. By R. T. Coburn.
Dansville, N. Y. : "Austin, Jackson & Co. print.
Pp. 29.

The Star-Finder, or Planisphere, with Mov-
able Horizon. New York : Van Nostrand.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Growth of Photography.— At one

of the public lectures recently given under
the auspices of the New York Academy of
Sciences, Prof. Charles F. Chandler sketched
the progress of photography during the last
hundred years. The first authentic record
of pictures made by solar agency he finds
in Cooper's " Rational Recreations," pub-
lished in 1774, where an account is given
of the marking of bottles by silver salts.
Next came Scheele's experiments on the
effect of exposing to light paper sensitized
by the same salts. The first genuine sun-
pictures were probably produced by Bolton
and Watt, who were followed by Humphry
Davy and Wedgwood. Still, down to the
beginning of the second quarter of the
nineteenth century, photography had not
advanced beyond the stage of producing
images of plant-leaves laid on sensitized
paper, and exposed to light. These images,
crude as they were, soon disappeared on
continued exposure of the paper to the light,
for as yet no means of fixing the photograph
image had been discovered. Niepce stud-
ied the subject experimentally for nearly
fifteen years, without any very encourag-
ing results, but in 1824 he associated with
himself Daguerre, who in 1839 announced
to the world his discovery of a method of
producing permanent sun - pictures. Dr.
Draper, of New York, added sundry impor-
tant improvements to Daguerre's method.
Fox-Talbot produced the first silvered-pa-
per photograph, which was the germ of the
modern sun-picture. The great develop-
ment came in 1841, when Schonbein dis-
covered gun - cotton. Cotton, he found,
when exposed to nitric acid, becomes ex-
plosive, and soluble in a mixture of alcohol
and ether. The discovery of this latter
property was the foundation of the com-
mon photographic process, where a film of
collodion, sensitized by silver iodide, pro-
duces the " negative " image, from which

thousands of pictures may be struck off.
It was stated by Prof. Chandler that Albert,
a photographer of Munich, and Edward
Bierstadt, of New York, are engaged in
perfecting a process for printing photo-
graphs in colors.

The Development of Botanical Science.

— The progressive development of botanical
science is forcibly exhibited by the Belgique
Horlicole, in a numerical statement of the
different species of plants named in sundry
ancient documents, and now ascertained by
botanists. Thus, in the Bible, we are told,
about fifty plants are clearly determined,
while about as many more are mentioned in
more general terms. Hippocrates mentions
234 species, Theophrastus about 500, Dios-
corides over 600, and Pliny 800. In the
sixteenth century Conrad Gerner names
800, Charles de l'Escluse 1,400, Dalechamps
2,731, and Gaspard Bauhin 6,000. In 1694
Tournefort describes 10,146 species. He
was the first to class the species of plants
into genera, of which he reckoned 694. In
the eighteenth century Linne defined 7,294
plants, distributed in 1,239 genera. In
1805 Persoon's " Synopsis Plantarum " in-
cluded nearly 26,000 species, and in P. de
Candolle's " Elementary Theory of Botany "
30,000 species are said to be known scien-
tifically. Stendel's " Nomenclator Botani-
cus" (published in 1824) contains 78,000
names of plants. Loudon's " Hortus Bri-
tannicus" (1839) enumerates 31,731 species
in 3,732 genera. According to Endlicher
(1840), there were 6,895 known genera in
the vegetal kingdom, which number is in-
creased to 8,931 by Lindley in the year
1853. In 1863 Bentley estimated the
known species at 125,000. The Belgique
Horticole thus classes the species now

known :

60,000 dicotyledons,

20,000 monocotyledons,

40,000 cryptogams,
or, in all, about 120,000 species distributed
among 8,000 genera. The species actually
cultivated number 40,000, and these are
true botanical species, not simply races or
varieties.

Facts abont the So-called « Rain-Tree."

For some months there has been circu-
lating in the newspapers a notice of a tree

120

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

found in Northern Peru, the " rain-tree of
Moyobamba," from the trunk of which, as
the story runs, " water may frequently be
seen to ooze, falling in rain from the
branches in such quantity that the ground
beneath is converted into a perfect swamp."
The facts with regard to this " rain-tree " are
stated as follows by Mr. Spence, the travel-
er, in a letter to Mr. Thiselton Dyer, which
the latter has communicated to Nature.
The tree is not a myth, but a fact, though
the current story is not quite exact. Mr.
Spence first witnessed the phenomenon in
question in September, 1855. On a certain
day, about seven o'clock in the morning,
while in latitude 6° 30' south, longitude 76°
20' west, he found a "lowish, spreading
tree, from which, with a perfectly clear sky
overhead, a smart rain was falling. A glance
upward showed a multitude of cicadas suck-
ing the juices of the tender young branches
and leaves, and squirting forth slender
streams of limpid fluid." The tree belonged
to the acacia tribe, but Mr. Spence was in-
formed by his native attendants that al-
most any tree, when in a state to afford food
to the nearly omnivorous cicada, might be-
come, pro tempore, a Tamia-caspi, or rain-
tree. Afterward, he himself verified this
fact more than once. "As to the drip from
the tree causing a little bog to form under-
neath and around it," writes Mr. Spence,
" that is a very common circumstance in vari-
ous parts of the Amazon Valley, in flats and
hollows, wherever there is a thin covering
of humus, or a non-absorbent subsoil, and
the crown of foliage is so dense as to great-
ly impede evaporation beneath it."

Clearing Land with Dynamite. — A se-
vere storm of wind having blown down a
number of large trees on the estates of the
Earl of Stamford and Warrington, recourse
was had to the use of dynamite for the
purpose of breaking up the roots, that be-
ing esteemed the most expeditious mode
of removing those incumbrances. The first
experiment was made on four very large
elm-roots. An auger-hole, one and a half
inch in diameter was bored in each, and
charged with eight dynamite cartridges,
which, on being exploded, shivered the roots
into fragments suitable for firewood. The
second experiment was on two huge oak-

roots. These were simply charged by plac-
ing a few cartridges of dynamite in natu-
ral crevices of the roots, without any auger-
hole. The charges were exploded, and the
roots blown to pieces of manageable size.
Next, an auger-hole was bored in each
of seven oak-roots, and charged with two
cartridges each, the result being that all
were broken up. The fourth experiment
was on an extraordinarily large ash-root,
the great fangs of which were lying un-
disturbed in the ground. Underneath this
a number of crowbar-holes were made and
charged with dynamite. The fuses were
all cut the same length and fired simulta-
neously, blowing the whole mass out of the
ground.

Color-Blindness. — In an article on " De-
fective Vision considered in its Relations
to Railroad Management," published in the
Chicago Railway Review, Mr. Thomas F.
Nelson, optician, remarks as follows on the
phenomenon of color-blindness : " This de-
fect but rarely assumes the form that would
be termed absolute color-blindness, or want
of any sensation of color. Where this
form is perfectly developed there is gener-
ally a sharp, well-defined appreciation of
differences between light and shade, or even
between the finest grades of apparent bright-
ness or intensity ; but recognition of color
is entirely wanting, there being no distinc-
tion whatever between different colors hav-
ing the same degree of intensity. A curi-
ous fact might be noticed in this connection,
that these defects are but rarely found in
women.

" The more common form is that caused
by the absence of perception of one of the
three fundamental colors. These are men-
tioned in the order of their comparative
frequency, viz., where the elementary sen-
sation corresponding to red is wanting;
next, the absence or imperfect perception
of green, and third of blue. It will be no-
ticed as a remarkable fact that the first two
mentioned are now used to make up the
entire code of railway-signals, and that this
defect for red occurs more frequently than
for any other color. This is an item of the
greatest importance in railway and vessel
management, since red is almost always
used for the danger-signal. To add still fur-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

121

ther to the deceptive and dangerous char-
acter of the defects, I have, in the course
of my experiments, found a number of per-
sons who were unable to distinguish between
the primary colors at night, while their per-
ception or sensation of color by daylight
was apparently perfect. Again, I have found
another anomaly which, until it has been
more thoroughly investigated, and the real
causes that produce it are understood, I
shall designate as a form of color-blindness,
although I am in doubt myself as to its de-
pendence upon any of the principles that
enter into that defect ; this is an inability
to distinguish between or to recognize the
primary colors at certain distances, varying
more or less in individuals. This was found
to be the most difficult of all defects to de-
tect in the various cases I have examined,
amounting to some nine or ten, in the regu-
lar course of my business as optician during
the past three years. I have found no two
of them at all alike except in general re-
sults.

" I have kept records of various acci-
dents that have occurred, both upon land
and water, during the past few years, and
I have gathered such information about
some of them as I could get outside of of-
ficial sources — often I was unable to get
any of any value, but I am convinced be-
yond a doubt that a large proportion of
them could have been traced to this defect
for a correct solution as to the primary
causes of the accident. The query has
been made, that if these defects in their
various forms are as numerous and of such
a dangerous character as has been shown,
how can we account for such a compara-
tively small number of accidents occurring
which might be charged to them ? I have
attributed it to the high average intelligence
and acquired cautiousness of engineers and
pilots as a class. They have become so ac-
customed to be on the lookout for danger
that their suspicions are easily aroused,
which creates a sort of instinct that governs
their actions, and they do not recognize but
that their perceptions are correct."

Sewer-bnilding. — The general principles
of sewer-building are, says the Polytechnic
Journal, that each day's influx should be
promptly passed out by natural flow or

flushing, and not allowed to deposit sedi-
ment. The alignment should be good, es-
pecially at the bottom ; the descent should
be uniform, and the interior surface smooth,
so as to reduce friction and not to cause
clogging; the walls should be absolutely
impervious, and the suction such as will
cause the most rapid possible flow, with a
minimum of sewage. Rapid flow being es-
sential, smooth interior walls should be pro-
vided; mortar projecting from the joints
of a brick sewer markedly impedes the
flow and arrests putrefiable matter. A flat-
bottomed sewer is the worst form as regards
the velocity of the flow ; a circular bottom
is better; an egged-shaped section, with the
point downward, permits of a minimum cur-
rent flushing and cleansing the bottom. In
brick sewers the mortar, constantly moist,
must sooner of later succumb to the disinte-
grating action of the matters passed through
it, and the whole line gradually passes into
the condition of a sieve, allowing the liquid
portions of the sewage to pass through it
and to saturate the subsoil, but retaining
the solids. From the consequent saturation
of the soil result contagious fevers. Hence
vitrified clay pipes are now almost univer-
sally employed. The " slip " glazing applied
to these pipes resists the severest chemical
action of sewage-water. The " slip " glaze
is produced by dipping the unbaked clay
into a mixture of " slip-clay " or Albany-
earth and water, which, under a white heat
continued from twelve to thirty hours, pro-
duces a vitreous and very durable silicious
surface upon the wares.

Remarkable Laud - Slides. — Bear-Tooth
Mountain is one of the most prominent land-
marks in Northern Montana ; it is plainly
visible from Helena, thirty miles distant.
It presents, or rather used to present, the
appearance of two great tusks rising hun-
dreds of feet above the general contour of the
mountains. One of these tusks, the smaller
one, which was fully five hundred feet high,
three hundred feet in circumference at the
base, and one hundred and fifty feet at the
top, was recently dislodged from its place
and precipitated into the valley below. A
few weeks since, according to the Helena
Independent, a party of hunters chasing
game several miles north of the Bear Tooth

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

heard a rumbling sound and felt a quaking
of the earth, which they took to be a veri-
table earthquake. But, as the sound was not
repeated, they soon forgot the occurrence,
and continued their chase till they came to
the vicinity of the Bear Tooth. What was
their surprise to find that the stupendous
mass of the eastern tusk had been dislodged,
sweeping for a quarter of a mile through a
forest of heavy timber, and overwhelming
with its debris the ground round about !
Virginia City, in the same State, is gradually
slipping down the mountain-side on which
it is built. The movement is gradual, and
imperceptible at the surface. A water-main
recently uncovered was found telescoped for
the space of one foot, and otherwise injured.
A fissure has been traced in the ground on
the western side of the town ; on one side
of this the ground is three feet higher than
on the other.

The Death of a Generation. — A writer
in an English magazine studies from birth
to death the march of an English genera-
tion through life, basing his remarks on the
annual report of the registrar-general. The
author singles out, in imagination, a genera-
tion of one million souls, and finds that of
these more than one-fourth die before they
reach five years of age. During the next
five years the deaths number less than one-
seventh of those in the first quinquennium.
From ten to fifteen, the average mortality is
lower than at any other period. From fifteen
to twenty the number of deaths increases
again, especially among women. At this pe-
riod, the influence of dangerous occupations
begins to be seen in the death-rate. Fully
eight times as many men as women die vio-
lent deaths. The number of such deaths
continues to rise from twenty to twenty-five,
and keeps high for at least twenty years.
Consumption is prevalent and fatal from
twenty to forty-five, and is responsible for
nearly half the deaths. From thirty-five to
forty-five the effects of wear and tear begin
to appear, and many persons succumb to dis-
eases of the important internal organs. By
fifty-five the imagined million has dwindled
down to less than one-half, or 421,115. Af-
ter this, the death-rate increases more rap-
idly. At seventy-five, there remain 161,124,
and at eighty-five, 38,565. Only 202 reach

the age of one hundred. At fifty-three, the
number of men and women surviving is
about equal, but from fifty-five onward the
women exceed the men.

Setting Tires with Hot Water.— The use

of hot water in place of fire for expanding
tires may not be new, but it is less common
than it ought to be, if we are to accept as
accurate the results said to be obtained in
the workshops of the Moscow-Nizhni Rail-
road, in Russia. There an iron tank, one-
fourth filled with water, is fixed near a sta-
tionary boiler, from which a steam-pipe is
led through it, capable of heating the water
to 212° Fahr. Into this the tire is plunged
by means of a portable crane, and, after an
immersion of from ten to fifteen minutes, is
taken out and immediately placed on the
wheel. The allowance for shrinking — in
other words, the difference between the
diameter of the skeleton and that of the
tire — is 0.75 millimetre to a metre. This is
ascertained by gauges of great accuracy ;
and, if it be deviated from, the tire will
either be loose after cooling, or too small
to get on the wheel. When fire is used,
the tire can never be heated equally or
cooled equally in all parts, and, in conse-
quence, is sure to be more or less oval in
form, which is not the case when hot water
is employed. The officials of the railroad
named above made a comparison of the two
methods, from which it appears that, during
a six years' trial of fire-shrunken tires, 37
per cent, ran loose, and 5 per cent, were
broken ; while, during a three years' trial
of water-shrunken tires, less than one per
cent, ran loose, and only a single tire was
broken.

Distribntion of Prairie and Forest. —

Many are the theories which have been
offered to explain the distribution of prairie
and forest. The continued existence of the
prairies of the West has been attributed to
the annual fires ; to the nature of the soil
and its underlying rock; to deficiency of
rainfall ; finally, to deficiency of winter rains
and snow. The contrary conditions would,
according to these theories, favor the pro-
duction of forests. Prof. J. E. Todd, who,
in the American Naturalist, discusses this
problem with special reference to South-

POPULAR MISCELLANY

123

western Iowa, offers a very ingenious the-
ory, and one that certainly appears to ac-
count for the phenomena observed by him
in the above-mentioned region. He finds
that — 1. In the hill-regions where the slopes
are inclined from 5° to 10°, timber occurs
mostly on the northern slopes, just south
of creeks flowing east or west ; it occurs a
little less frequently on western slopes, east
of creeks flowing north or south ; 2. In the
bluff-region, where the slopes are from 10°
to 45°, just east of the bottom-lands of the
Missouri, timber is found over most of the
surface. This belt of timber-land is usually
bounded on the west by the crest of the
most western ridge of the bluffs, leaving
the slopes facing the bottom-land bare, ex-
cept when a lake, slough, or stream, comes
close to the base of the bluffs, or where the
bluff-side is deeply furrowed by ravines; 3.
In the low alluvial valleys, timber is found
along the streams, usually in narrow strips,
and generally wider on the east and north
banks ; the rest of the bottom-land is desti-
tute of trees and bushes. According to the
author, constancy of moisture is the condi-
tion sine qua non of forest-growth ; and, 1.
This constancy of moisture must be in one
or both the media in which the trees are
to exist — the soil or the air ; 2. It is plain
that moisture of soil will be more constant
on northern slopes than southern, the former
being less exposed to the sun's heat. In
the spring, and after showers, the northern
slopes dry up more slowly, and, at certain
degrees of humidity of the air, the moisture
given off by the southern slope of a hill may
be condensed by the northern. These and
other like considerations may perhaps ac-
count for the timber occurring on northern
slopes, while it is nearly absent from south-
ern ; 3. The fact that the prevailing winds
of Southwestern Iowa in spring and summer
are westerly may perhaps explain the pre-
ponderance of timber -areas on the east
banks of the streams flowing south ; and
this, combined with the increased roughness
of the surface, may also go far toward ex-
plaining the timber-belt of the bluff-region ;
4. It remains to explain the distribution of
timber and prairie in the alluvial valleys.
Here layers of clay prevent the ready drain-
age of many parts ; these conditions render
much of the surface too wet (for trees) at

all times, while other places are too wet in
spring and too dry in summer. On the
other hand, the occurrence of trees along
the streams and on ridges along old chan-
nels may be explained partly by the in-
equality of surface, making the drainage
of surplus water possible, so that moisture
around the roots is more constant than else-
where on the bottoms.

More about the Agricultural Ant. — While
visiting Texas last summer, the Rev. H. C.
McCook attentively studied the habits of
the agricultural ant {Myrmica molefaciens).
His observations are, for the most part,
strongly confirmatory of the statements
made by the late Dr. Lincecum ; but he also
adds to our knowledge of these interesting
insects a number of new and interesting
facts. Mr. McCook has published, in the
" Proceedings of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia," a general prelimi-
nary statement of his results, intending soon
to treat the subject more fully. He carried
on his observations in the vicinity of the
city of Austin, where the soil is black and
sticky, varying in depth from three feet to
a few inches. The formicaries of the agri-
cultural ants are commonly flat, circular
clearings, hard and measurably smooth,
aptly called "pavements" by Lincecum.
A few of them had in the centre low
mounds, a few inches in height, and two or
three in diameter. The formicaries vary
in width from twelve feet to two or three
feet. They are invariably located in open
sunlight. The process of making a clear-
ing strongly suggested the modes of pio-
neers in a forest — spires of grass taking the
place of trees. The chain of evidence that
determines these ants to be true harvesters
in as follows : 1. Workers were seen gather-
ing seeds and carrying them into the formi-
caries through the central gates ; 2. The
same seeds were found in granaries within
the opened formicaries ; 3. The seeds, with
outer shell removed, were found in other
granaries ; 4. The ants were found carrying
out shells to the refuse-heaps. The author's
opinion is, that these ants do not plant
seeds on purpose, but that they carefully
preserve on the outer margin of the clean
space the growths which arise from seeds
dropped accidentally. To the question

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

whether there is anything like a systematic
direction of the labors of the ants by the
queen or the major-workers, Mr. McCook
replies that the queen seems to have noth-
ing to do but to replenish the population of
the community ; her life is spent mostly
underground. No " officers " could be
seen, and each ant acts independently. The
worker-majors act constantly as sentinels,
and once or twice was observed what ap-
peared to be, on their part, an effort to aid
the harvesters in gathering seeds. The en-
trances to the interior of the formicary are
circular openings or gates at the surface,
connecting with tubular galleries which
lead to the granaries. These granaries
consist of rooms of a more or less oval
shape, one above another, after the manner
of floors in a house. The rooms are about
half an inch in height, with hard and smooth
roofs and floors. Similar rooms are em-
ployed for nurseries of the young. The
rooms of each story, as also the different
stories, are connected together by galleries.
The author gave examples showing strong
intelligence in separating white meal from
arsenic, with which it had been mixed, and
of the refusal of poisoned molasses.

Birds' Eggs aud Birds' Nests. — There
exists a curious relation between a bird's
mode of nesting and the color of its eggs.
The circumstance is noted in the Bulletin
of the Nuttall Ornithological Club by Mr.
J. A. Allen, who observes that nearly all
birds that nest in holes, either in the ground
or in trees, lay white eggs. As instances of
this fact may be cited, the woodpeckers,
kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, hornbills, bar-
bets, puff-birds, trogons, toucans, parrots,
paroquets, and swifts ; while only occasion-
ally are the eggs white in species which
build open nests. A few exceptions are
noted by the author to the rule, according
to which only ivhite eggs are laid in open
nests ; these are owls, humming-birds, and
pigeons. On the other hand, in only two or
three small groups of species that nidificate
in holes are the eggs speckled or in any way
colored. Wallace, it will be remembered,
has endeavored to show that the form of
nest is, as a rule, correlated to the color of
the female bird : if the color is brilliant or
in any way striking, the nest is concealed ;

and vice versa, if the female is inconspicuous
in color, the nest is open. Mr. Allen, in the
paper from which we are quoting, calls at-
tention to the many weak points of Wal-
lace's theory, and asserts that a more uni-
form correlation exists between color of
eggs and style of nest than between the two
members of Wallace's correlation. Mr. Al-
len, however, does not care to formulate a
" law " upon the basis of the facts stated
above, the exceptions being, as he says, too
numerous to consist with the relation of
cause and effect.

Subterranean Water-Courses. — It often
happens, in years of great drought, that the
waters of the Danube, near its source, near-
ly altogether disappear in the fissures and
holes in the bed of the river. The proprie-
tors of works situated farther down-stream
have frequently closed these subterranean
passages, to avoid losses of water. But
other manufacturers, owning works on the
Aach, a tributary of Lake Constance, a few
miles distant from the Danube, and at an
elevation some 150 metres less, contended
that these holes and fissures in the bed of
the Danube open into water-passages con-
necting with the source of the Aach ; hence
they applied to the courts for an injunction
to prevent the stopping of these outlets.
To test the truth of this theory of the Aach
water-supply, 10,000 kilogrammes of com-
mon salt was thrown into the Danube at
the point where it gets lost. This salt re-
appeared in the water of the source of the
Aach. Another experiment consisted in
mixing fluoresceine with the Danube-water
at the same point. On October 9th, at 5
p. M., about fifty litres of this dyestuff was
poured into one of the openings in the river-
bed. On the morning of October 12th, the
observers stationed at the source of the
Aach perceived the coloration of the water,
which was of an intense green. The color
grew more and more intense till the evening
of October 12th, and disappeared about 3
p. m. of the 13th.

A Bird-eating Trout.— A correspondent
of Land and Water tells a well-accredited
story of a trout caught in the act of swal-
lowing a sparrow which it had seized. The
trout had been kept for some time in an

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

125

open shallow well or spring, and had become
very tame. In the well was a flat stone, one
end of which projected above the water.
On this small birds would alight to drink,
and the villagers suspected that more than
one of them had fallen victims to the trout's
rapacity. This surmise proved to be cor-
rect, for, one day while the owner of the well
was passing with some friends, a splashing
in the water caused them to turn and look.
There was the trout struggling hard to gulp
his prey. One of the spectators fearing
that the fish would be choked by the wing-
feathers, thrust his hand into the water,
and caught hold of them. But the trout,
unwilling to surrender any part of his prize,
held on resolutely, and the feathers had to
be taken from him by force.

Meteorological. — In the eighth of Prof.
Loomis's papers on Meteorological Phe-
nomena, published in the American Journal
of Science for January, with a view to deter-
mine the circumstances under which storms
originate, the author takes all the instances
iu which the barometer fell below 29.25
inches at any station, Mount Washington
and Virginia City excepted, during a period
of twenty months from September, 18*72, to
May, 1874. The number of instances was
148, and corresponds to 44 different storms.
Two-thirds of these storms had their origin
north of latitude 36°, and one-half upon or
very near the Rocky Mountains. Two of
them came from the Pacific Ocean, three
from the Gulf of Mexico, one from near
Cuba; others were widely distributed in
Wyoming, Dakota, Colorado, and elsewhere.
The first stage in each of these storms was
the development of an area several hundred
miles in diameter, over which the barometer
was about thirty inches, with areas of high
barometer on both the east and west sides,
a thousand miles distant. These areas of
high barometer are one of the most impor-
tant causes of the storm which succeeds.
From this cause there arises a movement
of air toward the central area which is rela-
tively one of low barometer. The air thus
in motion is deflected to the right by the
earth's rotation, giving rise to the well-
known rotary motion of air during a storm's
progress ; there also occurs a diminished
pressure in the central portion, and an up-

ward movement of the air. The upward-
rushing air carries with it large amounts of
aqueous vapor which is condensed into rain.
By the condensation of the vapor, heat is
liberated, causing expansion of the air, and
more violent inward movement of the wind.
The rainfall thus tends to increase the force
and violence of the storm, and invariably
occurs when the storm is at its height.
Heavy rains usually occur eastward of the
storm-centre — that is, eastward of the area
of lowest barometer — and usually diminish
when the centre has passed. The author
says, " I have found no instance of violent
storms which was not attended by consider-
able rainfall, but the rainfall is to be con-
sidered as a result, not the cause of the first
movement of the wind."

It was shown, iu a former article, that
storms have a forward motion, which is usu-
ally a little north of east. No sooner is a
storm-centre formed than it begins to change
its position. The storm's movement seems,
with few exceptions, to correspond with that
of the atmosphere, the average annual prog-
ress of which is from west to east. Prof.
Loomis says that on the west side of a storm
a pressure occurs, resulting from the cause
which determines the general circulation of
the atmosphere, and which exists whether a
storm occurs or not. A storm disturbs the
atmosphere chiefly in its lower portion ; in
the upper portions the general atmospheric
movement goes on. The depressions of the
atmosphere on the west side of a storm are
from these conditions filled up, so that the
barometer is continually rising closely in
the rear of a storm, but as continually fall-
ing as before explained, just eastward of the
storm-centre. It is a matter of common
observation that, when a storm-centre is
passed, high barometer and clear air are
close at hand. Other conditions of a storm's
progress are presented, and the interesting
fact developed that high barometer, east
and west of a storm-area, remains unaffected
by the tempest that is raging between those
areas — whence Prof. Loomis infers that the
air inflowing in the storm and rising at or
near its centre flows outward at a consid-
erable elevation to the areas of high ba-
rometer, having been deprived of its aqueous
vapor. It thus appears that a vertical circu-
lation is going on during a storm's progress.

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Snake-Affection. — Most people will prefer
knowledge at second hand of the playfulness
and affection of snakes, to personal tests
of the existence of such qualities. Not so
a correspondent of Land and Water, who,
having got possession of a harmless snake
of the species Natrix torquata about twenty-
eight inches in length, adopted it as a pet.
This snake took great pleasure in passing
in and out again and again between the fin-
gers of its master. It was only necessary
to hold the hand in the open box, when he
would at once commence to glide between
the fingers, always turning round sharply
the instant its tail was free, and resuming
its journey in the contrary direction. The
process of shedding the skin is worthy of
observation. The snake lies in a sluggish
state for several days. The bright eyes be-
come dull and fishy, and the skin loses its
glossy smoothness. In time a slight break
appears to run in the line of demarkation
between the mucous membrane of the mouth
and the outer skin, along the edge of the
lips. In a few hours the crack appears to
widen, and the skin to dry and curl over at
the edges. Soon after this, in the present in-
stance, the snake passed through a wisp of
straw provided for this purpose in his box,
and the skin was stripped off in one piece.
The animal was now as active as a kitten,
and as hungry. He quickly swallowed a fog,
whose cries were heard after it had passed
into the snake's stomach.

A Magnetized Spider. — In a communica-
tion to the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia, Dr. John Vansant treats of the
influence of magnetism on living organisms,
and describes at length one experiment with
a spider, which was killed by the magnetic
emanation. The magnet employed was a
small steel one, of the U-shape, the legs of
which were about two and one-half inches
long by one-half inch wide and one-sixth
inch thick, the distance between the poles
being about one-quarter inch. Having no-
ticed a small spider actively running along
the arm of his chair, he brushed it off upon
the carpet, where it began to run, but was
somewhat impeded by the roughness of the
fabric. He now slid the magnet along the
carpet, following after the spider, till it was
between the poles. The animal almost in-
stantly stopped, and in a few seconds was

motionless ; but, at the end of two or three
minutes, it began Blowly to move its legs
and elevate and depress its head. At the
end of five minutes the spider was quite
still. After the lapse of ten minutes Dr.
Vansant covered both spider and magnet
with a tumbler. On the expiration of two
hours, he removed the glass and observed
the spider with a magnify ing-lens. It was
apparently dead. The author states that he
has killed spiders and other small animals,
as worms and insects, as well as some plants,
by magnetism, at varioms times during the
past eight years, but never before succeeded
in destroying the life of a spider so quickly,
and without touching it frequently, though
lightly, with the magnet. In the present
instance he did not touch the animal at all.

Waste of the Locomotive-Whistle. — Per-
sons residing in the country near any of the
great railway lines will heartily approve any
effort made toward suppressing the nuisance
of locomotive-whistles. A writer in the
Railroad Gazette remarks as follows on the
wastefidness of this practice: "A simple
toot or two," he writes, " in cases of emer-
gency, to warn some one from the track, or
as a signal for brakes, would seem to be the
only legitimate use of steam in the way of
whistles. And yet, of the twenty or more
trains which daily pass my residence, I no-
tice that nearly one-half make a regular
practice of blowing their whistles some
twenty rods at a time, and some half a
dozen times within as many miles ; and
their safety-valves also seem to be at work
most of the time. It would be interesting
to know exactly what percentage of the fuel
is wasted in this way. If the coal-bunks
upon their tenders were made so as to let a
bushel of coal drop on the track every ten
miles of their progress, the waste would
then become so manifest, no doubt, that it
would be attended to at once. If one train
can be run without the use of the safety-
valve or whistle, another can be so run,
with the exercise of an equal care and vigi-
lance on the part of the engineer and fire-
man. This matter of waste at the safety-
valve and whistle seems to rest entirely
with the men upon the foot-board of the
engine ; and, as they prize their good stand-
ing as engineers and firemen, they should
attend to it."

NOTES.

127

NOTES.

The Department of Agriculture has re-
ceived from General Charles P. Stone, now
in the military service of the Khedive of
Egypt, a lot of red-date seed, with which it
is designed to make the experiment of grow-
ing the date-palm in the United States.
General Stone, from what he has seen of the
date-producing regions of Northeastern Af-
rica, and from his observations in the Desert
of the Colorado, between Carissa Creek and
Fort Yuma, is inclined to believe that the
greater portion of the latter region can be
made productive and very valuable by the
culture of this tree. The date-palm, he
writes, not only does not require much wa-
ter, but much water is prejudicial to it, and
the climate of the Colorado Desert is strik-
ingly similar to that of some of the best date-
producing districts of Egypt.

In a tower of the Temple of Ularo, in
Kioto, Japan, is suspended the largest bell
in the world. The date of its casting is un-
known. It measures 24 feet in height and
is 16 inches thick at the rim. It is sounded
by a suspended lever of wood, used like a
battering-ram, striking the bell on the out-
side. The Bolshoi (Giant) in Moscow, cast
in the sixteenth century, and recast in 1654,
was 21 feet high and 18 feet in diameter;
its weight was estimated at 288,000 pounds.
The metal of this bell was used in casting
the present "great bell of Moscow," the
Tsar Kolokol, 19 feet 3 inches high, and
about 19 feet in diameter ; estimated weight,
443,772 pounds.

The Central Railroad of New Jersey
have, at their Communipaw shops, a small
gas-works for converting into illuminating
gas, oil-waste and other combustible mate-
rial collected aloug the line of road. The
fuel used in the gas-furnace is the screen-
ings from the locomotives — a material pre-
viously used only for road-ballast. The gas
costs the company only 35 cents per thou-
sand feet, and enough is produced to supply
225 burners. Its illuminating power is said
to be very high.

In the opinion of the Lancet, California
will, before long, be supplying Europe with
wines that will bear comparison with the
finest vintages of the Rhine and the Moselle.
A few years ago there was an exhibition at
Kensington, of the wines of many countries,
at which the wines from California took a
very high rank. An analysis of these
wines, recently published in "the Pharma-
ceutical Journal, makes a very favorable ex-
hibit for our Pacific slope vintages.

The fourth annual report of the Buffalo
Society of Natural Sciences gives evidence

of a highly-creditable degree of scientific
activity on the part of the members of the
society ; but we regret to notice that the
publication of the Bulletin has been for the
present suspended, from the want of funds
to continue it. During the year 1877 the so-
ciety's collections were used by the scholars
of the public schools of Buffalo as a means
of instruction in natural history. The num-
ber of books in the library has been con-
siderably increased. The zoological speci-
mens added to the collections during the
year were numerous. The original scientific
work of members of the society has af-
forded material for 33 memoirs, published
by Uie Department of the Interior, and in
various scientific journals. To the society
is due the credit of having inaugurated a
course of cheap winter evening lectures, at
an admission-fee of ten cents.

The use of "toughened" glass is not
without its dangers, as we learn from the
experience of a certain Prof. Ricard. He
bought a child's cup of toughened glass,
which was exposed to hard usage for some
months, without suffering from the rough
treatment. But one evening it was left, with
a spoon in it, on a table, and the room was
shut. Shortly afterward a noise as of a pis-
tol-shot alarmed the whole household. On
entering the room, fragments of glass were
found scattered all around — the cup had ex-
ploded after the manner of a Prince Rupert
drop.

A process of engraving on glass and
crystal by means of electricity has been dis-
covered by M. Gaston Plante. The process
consists in covering the plate to be engraved
with a concentrated solution of nitrate of
potash, put in connection with one of the
poles of a battery, and in tracing the design
with a fine platinum point connected with
the other pole. M. Plante employs a battery
composed of 50 or 60 secondary elements.

In an establishment at Oakland, Califor-
nia, the entrails of sheep are used for mak-
ing very serviceable belting for machinery.
First the entrails are cleaned and soaked for
a few days in brine. The prepared material
is then wound on bobbins, when it is ready
for working up either into ropes or flat belts.
A three-quarters-inch rope of this material
is capable of bearing a strain of seven tons.
The material, furthermore, is very durable —
more than twice as durable as hemp.

The directors of the Paris Exposition of
1878 intend to repeat, on a large scale, Foti-
cault's famous pendulum-experiment, show-
ing the rotation of the earth. The pen-
dulum to be suspended in the Champ de
Mars will be about 660 pounds in weight and
220 feet long, and will be so hung that the

128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

points of suspension can freely move, thus
permitting the pendulum to swing in one
plane or nearly so. The spectator will no-
tice that the pendulum changes its line of
oscillation as regards the floor beneath, but
if he understands the questions to be an-
swered, he will know that it is the floor, and
himself with it, that is carried round, while
the pendulum continues to oscillate in one
plane, or nearly so.

It has been observed by a French phy-
sician, De Renzi, that the paroxysms of
those suffering from lockjaw are always more
frequent and more violent by day than by
night, and he has noticed the same fact in
frogs poisoned with strychnine. He has
further observed that the paroxysms are
more intense when the animals are freely ex-
posed to light than when they are kept in
darkness, and that frogs poisoned by weak
doses of strychnine die on being roughly
shaken, but live when left in a state of com-
plete repose. On these results M. de Eenzi
bases a new system of treatment for cases
of lockjaw; it is as follows: The patient is
shut in a perfectly dark room, and the door
is opened very gently every four hours to
give food and drink. The external auditory
meatus are sealed with wax. Every hour (?)
soup or an egg, with two spoonfuls of sherry,
is given from a cup with a spout to it. A
little powder of belladonna and ergot is
given to appease the paroxysm. The floor
should be covered with a carpet.

Books taken from circulating libraries
for the use of convalescents may easily be-
come the vehicles of contagious diseases, and
it is much to be desired that some effectual
method could be devised of disinfecting vol-
umes which have been so used. Until this is
done, circulating libraries would do well to
caution their patrons against the danger, and
to request that the books be not used where
such diseases exist. In these days of cheap
publications it is easy to obviate this peril by
procuring for the use of the sick low-priced
volumes, to be destroyed after they have
been perused.

M. Schiaparelli, during the last oppo-
sition of Mars, made observations of the
position of the south-polar spot, as was also
done by Prof. Hall. The method adopted
by the latter was to measure the angle of
position of the spot from the centre of the
disk. M. Schiaparelli made his measures by
placing the wire of his micrometer tangent
to the limb of the planet at the middle of
the spot. The latitude and longitude (areo-
graphic) of the spot are :

0 = 29.47° ,„ s 6 = 20.66° m ,

A = 6.15° ^ ■> \ = 5.18° ^

For 1877, Sep. 27.0 G. M. T.

The planting of trees in the streets of
towns is condemned as unsanitary by a writer
in the Lancet, on the ground that fresh air,
Nature's great deodorizer, is checked in its
movements by the foliage. In the narrow,
tortuous lanes and pent-up courts, where the
poorer part of the population live, anything
that interferes with the freest possible cir-
culation of the air must be injurious to
health.

Dr. J. A. Campbell, writing in the Brit-
ish Medical Journal, favors recourse to sum-
mary proceedings in the treatment of " fast-
ing girls," i. e., young females who, under
the influence of hysteria, believe themselves
to possess the miraculous power of living
without food or drink. The hysterical man-
ifestations, he says, can be overcome by
the stomach-pump, " and with our present
knowledge no more fasting girls should be
permitted to occur.'1'1

In Texas camels are raised as easily as
horses and cattle. The colts of the first
three or four days are rather tender, and
require close attention, but afterward they
are hardy enough. They feed on cactus
and brush, refusing all grasses. The females,
with proper care, give a colt every year.

. It is commonly supposed that the softer
a bar of steel is, the better is it able to en-
dure strains and shocks causing vibration.
But experiments made by Mr. W. Metcalf,
of Pittsburg, show in fact that hard steel
suffers less from vibration than soft. Mr.
Metcalf's attention was first drawn to this
subject by the constant breaking of steam-
hammer piston-rods. Those made of ordinary
steel lasted only six months. Then lower and
lower steels were tried, and broke in about
five months. Once it happened that a rod
of comparatively high steel was employed,
which held out for over two years. This
totally unexpected result led to systematic
experiment which confirmed the conclusion
stated above.

Of " trials of endurance " now so much
in vogue, the latest is that undertaken by a
Mr. Murphy, of Kern, California, who talked
incessantly for twenty-four hours, with a rest
of five seconds in each hour for the purpose
of taking a drink of whiskey. At the conclu-
sion of his task, Murphy fell from his chair,
but whether this was the result of exhaustion
or of intoxication could not be determined.

Experiments have lately been made in
Germany to determine the value of the com-
mon nettle as a textile fibre. The weed
having been treated in the same way as
hemp, yielded a fibre as fine as silk and as
strong as hemp-fibre. A considerable area
of ground is now planted with the nettle in
the Prussian province of Nassau.

CHARLES FREDERIC HARTT.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JUNE, 1878.

THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS.

By F. L. OSWALD, M. D.

" "TTTHAT can we learn from the ancient Greeks ? " was the theme

V V which the Florentine Art-School proposed to the competitors
for the De Rossi prize last year : the most suggestive theme, perhaps,
that could be recommended to the consideration of the nineteenth cen-
tury.

"Neither in delicacy of execution nor in grandeur of conception can
we measure ourselves with the Greeks of the ante-Alexandrian era,"
says UAbbate Pintore, " The Painter Priest," as the successful com-
petitor signs himself, " nor would it be easy to say in what they were
not our superiors."

The latter question would, indeed, be difficult to answer, even if we
should extend its application, which the Painter Priest probably re-
stricts to art-matters; and the theory which ascribes our progress in
secular as well as in spiritual insight to the "revealed light" of our
religion can hardly be reconciled with the fact that, in the very branches
of knowledge which refer to the conduct of human life, our latest and
best ideas were anticipated by those Nature-taught heathens, while even
in the objective sciences our fancied superiority would be sadly reduced,
if we should subtract the chance discoveries and technical details which
are the cumulative bequest of all preceding generations.

It does really suggest a general revision of our physical and meta-
physical standards, if we consider in how many senses of the word the
proudest progress of our latter-day civilization is but a return to the
standpoints which the pagan inhabitants of a Mediterranean peninsula
occupied twentv-four centuries ago. After an infinitude of political
experiments with absolute and most puissant monarchs, elective mon-
archs, constitutional monarchs, and figure-head monarchs, the most ad-

VOL. XIII. — 9

i3o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vanced nations of our century have come to the conclusion that the old
Hellenic form of government by representatives of the people was the
most sensible, after all ; that armed citizens can fight as well as, if not
better than, standing armies, and that the ancient method of appointing
and removing public functionaries by a majority of votes was far supe-
rior to the par ordre du mufti system of Mohammedan and Christian
sultans. Religious toleration, which the fearful experience of the mid-
dle ages has made the watchword of all liberals and reformers, was
practised among the Greeks and republican Romans to an extent which
we are as far yet from having reattained as their freedom of speech, of
commercial affairs, and of domestic life. Popular education, the national
stage, and all the fine arts, have to be emancipated from innumerable
prejudices and paralyzing restrictions before they can be restored to
their pristine prime, not to speak of the science of health nor of the
science of happiness, which will, perhaps, never recover from their long-
neglect.

But, of all the national institutions of ancient Greece which we have
abolished or altered to our disadvantage, there is none whose reintro-
duction would be attended with greater benefits than that system of
physical education which so influenced the national spirit and reacted
upon the character of the representative Grecian heroes, statesmen,
and philosophers, that it may be considered as the distinguishing
feature of their age. At a very early period the Greeks of South-
ern Europe and Asia Minor had recognized the truth that, with the
advance of civilization and civilized modes of life, a regular system
of bodily training must be substituted for the lost opportunities of
physical exercise which Nature affords so abundantly to her children
in the daily functions of their wild life. "It is impossible to repress
luxury by legislation," says Solon, in Lucian's " Dialogues of Anachar-
sis," "but its influence may be counteracted by athletic games, which
invigorate the body and give a martial character to the amusements of
our young men."

The nature of ancient weapons and the use of heavy defensive armor
made the development of physical force a subject of national importance,
but military efficiency was by no means the exclusive object of gymnas-
tic exercises. The law of Lycurgus provides free training-schools for the
thorough physical education of both sexes, and cautions parents against
giving their daughters in marriage before they had attained the pre-
scribed degree of proficiency in certain exercises, which were less orna-
mental and probably less popular than what we call callisthenics. Greek
physicians, too, prescribed a course of athletic sports against various
complaints, and had invented a special curriculum of gymnastics, which,
as ^Elian assures us, never failed to cure obesity. When the increase of
wealth and culture threatened to affect the manly spirit of the Hellenic
race, physical education was taken in hand by the public authorities in
almost every Grecian city; and the ablest statesmen at Athens, Thebes,

THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 131

and Corinth, emulated the Spartan legislator in founding palaestrae,
gymnasia, and international race-courses, and devising measures for
popularizing these institutions. Four different localities — Olympia,
Corinth, Nemea, and the Dionysian race-course near Athens — were con-
secrated to the " Panhellenic games," at which the athletes of all the
Grecian tribes of Europe and Asia met for a trial of strength at inter-
vals varying from six months to four years, the latter being the period
of the great Olympic games which formed the basis of ancient chro-
nology. The honor of being crowned in the presence of an assembled
nation would alone have sufficed to enlist the competition of all able-
bodied men of a glory-loving race, but many additional inducements
made the Olympic championship the day-dream of youth and man-
hood, and served to increase the ardor of gymnastic emulation. The
victors of the Isthmian and Nemean games were exempt from taxa-
tion, became the idols of their native towns, were secured against the
vicissitudes of fortune and the wants of old age, by a liberally-endowed
annuity fund, and enjoyed all the advantages and immunities of the
privileged classes.

Egenetus, a humble citizen of Agrigentum, won three out of the
five prizes of the ninety-second Olympiad, and was at once raised from
poverty to opulence by the magnificent presents which the enthusiasm
of the spectators forced upon him before he had left the arena. His
return to his native city was attended by a procession of three hundred
chariots, each drawn, like his own, by two white horses, and all belonging
to the citizens of the town. All international quarrels and family feuds
were suspended when the preparatory interval of forty-eight months
approached its close, and even prisoners of war and political culprits
were released on parole if they wished to contest the laurel wreath of
any championship, for to deprive them of the chance of winning such
a distinction was thought a penalty too severe for a merely political
offense. The ecstatic power of an Olympian triumph is well illus-
trated by the story of Diagoras, the Rhodian, who had been a famous
champion in his younger days, and was present when his two sons
won the entire pentathlon, i. e., carried off the five prizes for which
the athletes of all Greece had been training during the four years pre-
ceding the sixty-first Olympiad. When the boys lifted their father up
and carried him through the arena, the shouts of the assembled multi-
tude were heard in the harbor of Patras, at a distance of seven leagues,
but Diagoras himself had heard nothing on earth after the herald's voice
had proclaimed the names of the victors ; " the gods," as Pindar says.
" had granted that the happiest moment of his life should be his last."
Would Diag-oras have exchanged that moment for a week of those
"beatific visions" which rewarded St. Dominic for his seven years'
penance ?

If any athlete received more than one prize of the same Olympiad,
his victory was commemorated by a statue executed by the best con-

i3z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

temporary sculptor of his native state. What a terrestrial Walhalla it
must have been, that sacred mountain-grove of Elis, where these statues
were erected in the shade of majestic trees, while the summit of the hill
and the open meadows were adorned by such masterpieces of Grecian
architecture as the temple of Jupiter Olympius and the Pantheon of
Callicrates ! Besides the military drill-grounds and the public gym-
nasia, of which every hamlet had one or two, and where the complete
apparatus for all possible sports was often combined with free baths
and lecture-halls, the larger cities had associations for the promotion of
special favorite exercises, the brag-accomplishments of the rival towns.
Wrestling, javelin-throwing, running, leaping, pitching the quoit, riding,
driving, climbing ropes, shooting the arrow, were all practised by as
many amateur clubs, which commonly owned a race-course or a private
hall.

How many of the most admirable character-traits of the ancient
Greeks, and how much of their success in the arena of life may be dis-
tinctly traced to these sources of mental and physical health ! Health
in the widest sense of the word was, indeed, the primary characteristic
of their age, for health and vigor are synonyms. The same process of
adaptation that qualifies the body for the performance of athletic feats
disqualifies it for the development of any morbid elements, and acceler-
ates the elimination of effete matter from the organism. We according-
ly see that, among the creatures of the wilderness whose normal condi-
tion is one of muscular vigor, disease is wholly abnormal, and premature
death only the consequence of wounds or protracted famine. " The
immunity of hard-working people from the consequences of wrong or
over-feeding," says Dr. Boerhaave, " is a proof that nine-tenths of your
fashionable diseases might be cured mechanically instead of chemically,
by climbing a tree, or chopping it down, if you prefer, instead of swal-
lowing castor-oil and sulphur-water." Physical exercise, by accelerating
the circulation of the blood, stimulates the activity of all those internal
organs whose functions conjointly constitute the phenomenon of life, and
counteracts innumerable functional disorders, any one of which is sure
to react on the nervous system and the organ of the soul.

Mental pathology, if rightly understood, is a physiological science
which must recognize the intimate connection and interaction of soul
and body, and the influence of every physical derangement on the most
subtile functions of the brain.

The physical superiority of the ante-Alexandrian Greeks to the
hardiest and most robust nations of modern times is perhaps best illus-
trated by the military statistics of Xenophon. According to the author
of the " Anabasis," the complete accoutrements of a Spartan soldier, in
what we would call heavy marching order, weighed seventy-five pounds,
exclusive of the camp, mining, and bridge-building tools, and the rations
of bread and dried fruit which were issued in weekly installments, and
increased the burden of the infantry soldier to ninety, ninety-five, or

THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 133

even to a full hundred pounds. This load was often carried at the rate
of four English miles an hour for twelve hours per diem, d&y after day;
and only in the burning deserts of Southern Syria the commander of
the Grecian auxiliaries thought it prudent to shorten the usual length
of a day's march by one-fourth. The gymnastic tests applied by the
systarchus, or recruiting-officer of a picked corps, would appear even
more preposterous to the uniformed exquisites of a modern "crack
regiment." Even tall and well-shaped men of the soundest constitu-
tion could not pass the preliminary examination unless they were able
to -jump their own height vertically, and thrice their own length hori-
zontally, and two-thirds of those distances in full armor; pitch a weight
equal to one-third of their own to a distance of twenty yards, and
throw a javelin with such dexterity that they would not miss a mark
of the size of a man's head more than four out of ten times at a dis-
tance of fifty yards, besides other tests referring to their expertness in
the use of the bow and the broadsword.

Where the average physical standard was so far superior to our
own, it need not surprise us that the achievements of the national
champions surpassed the feats of our professional athletes in the same
proportion. Polydamus, the victor of the ninety-seventh Olympiad,
was able to fracture the skull of a steer with a single blow of his fist,
and tamed a wild horse by catching it by the hoofs of the hind-legs,
which he twisted inward till the joints of the fetlocks creaked when-
ever the animal attempted the least rebellious movement. Milo of
Crotona, the same athlete who carried a young bull around the race-
course, could not be moved from his position by a four-horse team, if
he planted his left foot on the level ground, and braced his right against
a slightly-projecting rock ; and once saved an assembly of Pythagorean
philosophers when the roof of a dilapidated temple threatened to fall,
by supporting the keystone of the porch with his uplifted arms till all
had escaped, after which he saved himself by two rapid leaps. A The-
ban gladiator, whose renown had reached the court of Persia, was
invited to Sardis, the summer resort of King Darius, and on the day
after his arrival entered the list against three picked men of the " Im-
mortal Band," as the Persian bodv-guard was called. A savage combat
followed, in which the three Persians began to lose ground, and would
have been driven beyond the lists if the fight had not been stopped by
command of the king. But his order came too late ; in the few minutes
which the contest had lasted the three " immortals " had received their
death-wounds.

Deerfoot, a Cherokee Indian, who was brought to England in 1758,
was able to outrun the swiftest horses, if the length of the race-course
did not exceed two-thirds of a mile ; and during the administration of
Niccolo Marcello, the inhabitants of Ravenna witnessed the feats of a
young Savoyard, who repeatedly distanced the favorite racer of the
doge, and offered to run against any horse in the world and for any

i34 ■ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

distance, provided the direction of the race was to be more or less up-
hill, not down-hill or over a sandy level. But the amateur runners of
the Grecian and Roman armies frequently engaged in contests with
race-horses and trained hounds without any such reservations ; and
Pindar sung the praises of a Rhodian athlete who could keep pace with
a relay of four trotting horses, and tire them out successively.

The hemerodromes, or foot-couriers of ancient Greece, made from
eighty to ninety miles a day, and the volunteer messenger who arrived
in Athens with the news of the victory of Marathon on the night after
the battle, must have run at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. Dion
Chrysostomus speaks of a Thessalian patriarch who had followed the
trade of a hemerodrome for upward of ninety years, having made his
first trip on his twentieth birthday, and his last after the completion of
his hundred and tenth year. During this long career, as his life might
well be called, he had never been known to betray a trust, never was
behind time, and never had been sick for a single hour.

Longevity was not the least of the benefits which the ancients de-
rived from their health-giving exercises. The second census of Trajan
furnishes some curious statistics on this subject, and shows that among
the 28,000,000 inhabitants of Northern Italy, Greece, and Magna Grce-
cia (Southern Italy and Sicily), there were 11,000 centenarians, 750 of
whom had passed sixscore years, eighty-two their one hundred and fif-
tieth, and twenty their one hundred and seventy-fifth year of life,
while three were double centenarians and respectively two hundred
and six, two hundred and eight, and two hundred and eighteen }'ears
of age. Four brothers of an Albanian family had all passed their hun-
dred and tenth year. The same census shows that, among the indolent
races of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine, the proportion of centena-
rians to every 1,000,000 of inhabitants was considerably lower and not
much above the present average.

That the Hebrew Psalmist's threescore and ten was not our original
term of life will not be denied by orthodox readers of the Mosaic gene-
alogies, and the ablest biologists agree that it would be far below the
normal average even now, if our manner of life itself was not wholly
abnormal. It would explain the most vexing contradictions and enigmas
of our existence if we could be sure that by strict observance of the
health-laws of Nature the Psalmist's maximum might be increased by
thirty or forty years : it would amount to a satisfactory solution of the
whole problem of life. Under the present condition of things our lives
are mostly half-told tales, dramas ending in the middle of the first act ;
our season terminates before the tree of life has had time to ripen its
fruits. That " hunger after immortality " which is often alleged as a proof
of a future existence, arises most likely from an instinctive perception
of the truth that our present spans of life are too short for reaching the
goal of our destination ; for those vague yearnings were unknown to
the Semitic and Grecian patriarchs. They died in peace, " full of

THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 135

years," and satisfied, as any reasonable man might be who had wit-
nessed one hundred and fifty rotations of the four seasons, and enjoyed
all their blessings in perfect health.

There is no doubt that the military triumphs of the ancient Greeks
were the natural result of their physical education. " A nation," says
Jean Jacques Rousseau, " which can boast of 20,000 men, is not vincible."
Virility as well as virtue was originally derived from a word which
means simply strength, just as our Anglo-Saxon ancestors used to speak
of the best man of a parish, without special reference to the most regu-
lar church-goer. Strength is the parent of valor and self-confidence,
and confidence in the valor and strength of armed companions begets
that national heroism which enabled the republican Greeks, the Swiss,
the Circassians, and the Montenegrins, to defy the most powerful and
numerically superior of their would-be conquerors.

Not to their political but to their physical constitutions these nations
owed their long independence. The historical records of the last three
thousand years demonstrate the strange fact that international wars,
almost without a single exception, ended by the victory of northern
nations over their southern rivals. The Carthaginians, originally
natives of Phoenicia, conquered the Numidian principalities, but were
in turn conquered by their Roman neighbors ; Rome, victorious against
all her southern, southeastern, and southwestern rivals, was herself
struck down by the iron arm of the Visigoth, the north-Spanish Chris-
tians overcoming the south-Spanish Moors, the northern Turks wrest-
ing the sceptre from their southern fellow-Mohammedans, the north-
Mongol Tartars oppressing the south-Mongol Chinese, the North-Ger-
man Prussians bullying the southern members of the Confederation,
the Northmen of Scandinavia conquering Normandy, Brittany, and
Great Britain, the house of Hapsburg eclipsed by the house of Hohen-
zollern, a North-Italian kingdom absorbing the southern states of the
peninsula — the same phenomenon, in hundred variations, repeating
itself from China to Peru, from the Trojan War to the civil war of the
North American States.

What does all this mean, but that the fortune of war is biased by
bodily strength ? Rome was not vanquished by the intellectual supe-
riority of the Visigoths, nor Maria Theresa by the moral merits of
Frederick's cause, but we may safely assume that in all international
contests the physical advantage was on the side of the northern cham-
pion. The climate and the comparative sterility of a cold country
necessitate a continual struggle with the adverse powers of Nature, and
beget that hardy and robust constitution which is the basis of all mili-
tary efficiency. But, this incidental advantage which northern races
derive from the inclemency of their latitude, any nation might secure
in a more direct and much more agreeable way, by introducing a thor-
ough and popular system of physical education.

The fallen races, as the nations of Southern Europe and South Amer-

136 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ica have been called, are not wholly blind to the causes of their degen-
eracy. " How dare you appeal to the God of battles ? " says Simon
Bolivar, in that famous protest against the endowment of convents, " if
you devote all your worship to a score of sickly saints ? " and in still
plainer language honest Boileau denounces the effeminacy of his coun-
trymen : " What has become of the image of God ! " he exclaims in his
second epistle ; " want of physical exercise and vicious indulgences,
what have they left of that form that once furnished the model for
Grecian statues ? We are a generation of cripples ! "

Open-air exercise also bestows that beauty and that native grace in
which a New Zealand warrior is the superior of a cockney dandy. Not
only the North American red-skins but also those semi-barbarians whose
noble forms induced us to make them the representatives of the " Cau-
casian " tribes, the natives of Circassia and Daghestan, belong to the
Mongol or Turanian race, which originally was far inferior to our Aryan
ancestors. Under the influence of an effete civilization that same race
has, begot those Chinese caricatures of the Creator which are justly
despised even by Sambo Africanus, whose dark skin covers at least a
vigorous body. Old Montaigne already remarks that " the handsomest
man was a hunter and not a hair-dresser," and was by no means aston-
ished to find brighter eves and more faultless noses among the wood-
choppers of the Pyrenees than among the exquisites of a Parisian ball-
room.

There was at least a theoretical consistency in the dogma of the
mediaeval monks who pretended to despise the pagan culture of the
manly powers and extolled self-torture, maceration, and abasement of
the body, as so many Christian virtues. We cannot doubt that they
reasoned from false premises ; but are there not still millions of their
spiritual progeny who persist in the belief that the Creator approves
the marring of his image, and that " a sickly, whining wretch, who
fears to walk upright or raise his eyes, lest the Deity might be offended
at his want of humble contrition " — is a more pleasing sight in the eyes
of God than a man like Milo, who walked earth incessu invicti, " with
the gait of one who has not known defeat," and did not think it neces-
sary to ruin his body in order to save his soul ? "A good creed to die
by," that monstrous belief is often called, just as if the sun had been
created for the sake of the twilight ; but it is a curious circumstance
that on the eve of the long night the eyes of many of these world-
despising ascetics have been opened to the significance of their mis-
take, and the consciousness of having wasted an irretrievable day can
hardly have made its close more cheerful.

" I have sinned against my brother, the ass " (referring to his abused
body), were the last words of St. Francis of Assisi, when his self-inflicted
martyrdom at last brought on a haemorrhage from the lungs, which his
physician told him would prove fatal.

Baron Oxenstiern, the Swedish chancellor, who was a stanch Prot-

THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 137

estant, but a gloomy ascetic nevertheless, passed the last week of his
life on the mountain-farm of his brother, an honest farmer, who had
never left the paternal manse. One evening, two days before the
chancellor's death, his biographer tells us, the brothers were sitting on
a rustic bench, on the edge of a mountain-lawn, where the boys of the
farmer were disporting themselves, running races, shouting in the joy
of exuberant health, or resting arm-in-arm at the foot of an old beech-
tree, in the interacts of their play. While the chancellor watched their
sports, a vision was haunting his inner eye: the dreary college of
Upsala, and two pale-faced students, whose features resembled or had
resembled his own. Staggering suddenly to his feet he drew a dagger
from its sheath and handed it to his brother, with the words, " Cut my
throat, Hendrick — I cannot stand that any longer ! " " What's the
matter ? " said the old farmer, smiling ; " are you in such a hurry to go
to h — ? If Dr. Hochstratten " (a Catholic controversialist) "is right,
you will get there soon enough ! " " Better be there," said the chan-
cellor, grimly, " than in the other place, where I might meet my sons.
How can I answer for the earthly paradise they have lost through my
fault ? What have I robbed them of ! "

Open-air labor is the most effective cosmetic, an almost infallible
panacea against all kinds of bodily deformity. But the remedial virtue
of labor, i. e., sound bodily exercise, is greater than that of open-air life
per se, for among the rustic population of Scandinavia, Scotland, and
Northern Germany, who perform a large portion of their hard work
in-doors, we frequently find models of health and vigor ; far more fre-
quently than among the inhabitants of Italy, Spain, etc., who pass the
greater part of their indolent lives in open air.

But, besides all this, athletic exercises have a moral value, which our
social reformers have strangely failed to recognize ; they afford a diver-
sion and a vent to those animal energies which otherwise are sure to
explode in debauch and all kind of vicious excesses. The sympathetic
thrill by which the mind accompanies a daring gymnastic feat and the
enthusiasm of athletic contests form the most salutary and perhaps the
only normal gratification of that love of excitement which is either the
legitimate manifestation of a healthy instinct, or else a wholly irreme-
diable disease of our nature. The soul needs emotions as the body
needs exercise, and the exciting sports of the pahestra met both wants
at once. We try to suppress these instincts, but their motives remain,
and if thwarted in their normal manifestations they assert themselves
in some abnormal way, chemically instead of mechanically, as Dr.
Boerhaave would say ; by convulsing the organs of digestion, since the
organs of motion are kept in unbearable inactivity. In times of scarcity
the paupers of China and Siam silence the clamors of their hungry chil-
dren by dosing them with opium ; and for analogous reasons millions
of our fellow-citizens seek relief in alcohol : they want to benumb a
feeling which they cannot satisfy in a healthier way.

i38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

After finishing his day's work the Grecian mechanic went to the
gymnasium, the Roman to the amphitheatre, and the modern European
and American goes to the next " saloon," to satisfy by different methods
the same instinct — a longing for a diversion from the dull sameness of
business-routine. There is no question which method was the best —
the only question is which of the two bad substitutes may be the worse :
the brutalizing, i. e., soul-hardening spectacles of bloodshed of the Ro-
man arena, or the soul and body destroying poisons of the liquor-shop ?

Not a few of the victims of alcohol have contracted their fatal pas-
sions with their eyes open to all its consequences — but what should
they do ? After masticating the dry bread of drudgery for six days,
we cannot expect them to content themselves on the seventh with sleep-
ing under a tree, or in church ; and the very classes whose want of
mental culture incapacitates them for purely intellectual recreations
also lack the material resources by which the rich can more easily forego
the advantage of public and free opportunities of healthy amusements.
The cruel sports to which our bull-fighting ancestors devoted their holi-
days have perhaps been justly suppressed, but what have we substi-
tuted for them ? Sunday-schools, revivals, and reading-rooms of the
Young Men's Christian Association ? Alas ! — Deflebilis manet hiatus —
a deplorable void remains ; man is a compound of body and soul, and
the unmixed joys of the New Jerusalem will be found insufficient for
terrestrial wants, till the spiritualists have invented the art of dema-
terializing bodies as well as of materializing ghosts.

The pagan Greeks had discovered and divulged a secret which seems
not to have been rediscovered yet by our philanthropists,, viz., that the
highest well-being of the body and of the soul cannot be attained sep-
arately, but must go hand-in-hand like thought and action, or will and
force. They also had found out that it is the safest plan to improve
each day as it comes, they celebrated life as a festival, and their poor
as well as their rich enjoyed heaven on this side of the grave. In going
along, they found time to do what we postpone to the end of the jour-
ney, which too often is never reached. The joyous love of life, of men
to whom existence itself was a luxury, has therefore given way to very
different moods — sad misgivings and doubts, provoked by ever-present
but never-satisfied longings. " He who has done his duty can die in
peace," we are told ; but is it a duty to work for such rewards ?

" So much labor for a winding-sheet ? "

It may be said that we, too, have our national sports, trials of skill
if not of strength, such as base-ball, cricket, target-shooting, and the
like, or trials of strength by proxy : horse-races, cock-fighting, etc., on
which a man may bestow all the time and stake all the money he has
to spare. Well, we cannot afford to despise these things — they are the
best we have ; but can any man seriously compare the dreary fun of the
cockpit with the enthusiasm of the palaestra, or the rapture of a Derby-
day or even of a base-ball match with that of the Olympic race, and

THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 139

the moment when the vucrj(popla — the shout of victory — was echoed by a
million voices, and an assembled nation rose to hail the victor in the
presence of his relations and friends ! Men whose hearts were stirred
by such scenes had no need of buying inspiration at the gin-shop.
The Turnvereiti is yet but in its egg, and competitive gymnastics has
yet to take rank again as the noblest, the happiest, and the most popu-
lar, of all our national pursuits.

We have emerged from the aphanasia of the middle ages, that fear-
ful eclipse of reason and happiness that followed like an unnatural night
upon the bright sunrise of Grecian civilization, and the spiritual lethargy
of that night has been shaken off by all that deserve the name of men ;
how is it, then, that so much of its physical torpor still remains behind ?
Have we really forgotten that God is the creator of our bodies as well
as of our souls ? Our limbs seem to have been paralyzed by long dis-
use ; the gates of our hierarchical Bastile have been forced, but the
great majority of the prisoners seem in no hurry to leave their cells.
Though freed from Jesuitical control, our educational system is still not
only unnatural but anti-natural to such a degree that we think it our
duty to suppress the healthiest instincts of our children and keep them
in the beaten track which has led us deeper and deeper into the laby-
rinth of dogmatism, till we have almost forgotten that there is a
brighter light and purer air outside.

Yet there is hope. The spirit of our Nature-loving ancestors will
assert itself before long, and the inhabitants of Greater Britain will
return from the languid repose of the Hebrew heaven to the healthier
pastimes of the Anglo-Saxon Walhalla. The Germans, too, are seeing
the dawn of a long hoped-for morning, and the prophetic words of their
philosophical Messiah are beginning to be fulfilled. " The spiritual
juggler-guild," says Gotthold Lessing, " who derive their revenues from
the supernatural dogmas of the three Semitic religions, have found it
to their advantage to divert our attention from the natural laws of God,
but those laws cannot be outraged with impunity. I foresee a physical
reformation, and its advent-sermons will be preached before long."

THE GIGANTIC EXTINCT ARMADILLOS AND THEIR
PECULIARITIES, WITH A RESTORATION.1

By JOHN A. KYDER.

THE general principle that, with increased size, there is an increase
in the thickness and strength of the skin and its protective append-
ages, is in no instance better illustrated than in the extinct and living
armadillos ; in the former the thickness attained by the bony armor

1 It is but just to refer to Prof. H. Burmeister's magnificent monograph on these ani-
mals in the " Anales del Museo Publico " of Buenos Ayres, for 1S66-73, from which

i4o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sometimes exceeds an inch, in the latter it is usually less than one-eighth
of that thickness. Note, also, the corresponding contrast in size. The
smallest living species is less than a foot in length, whereas the largest
known fossil form measured between twelve and thirteen feet in length,
or quite as much as the largest rhinoceros. In structure or make-up
these giants were sufficiently different from their living relatives to
characterize a distinct family, appropriately named by Huxley the Ho-
plop>horidce, or armor-bearers. Unlike the living armadillos, the back
and sides of the body were covered with an inflexible carapace, or
coat-of-mail, which, like the same in living forms, was made up of
numerous more or less nearly hexagonal tesserae or plates. In recent
forms the armor is divided into two parts : a forward part, covering the
scapular or region of the shoulder-blades, and a posterior, covering the
pelvic or region of the hips and flanks ; between the two a series of
mobile bands or zones of plates are interposed transversely, so as to
enable the animal to bend its covering upon itself, and thus envelop all
the soft parts, and thereby protect itself from enemies almost as effect-
ually as the hedgehog can with its spines.1 The Hoplophoridce were
provided with an additional rigid, pear-shaped armor-plate or buckler
upon the under side of the body, hence they have also been called
Biloricata, or two-shielded, in contradistinction to the living Loricata
(armadillos), which are shielded only on the back. Head-shields cov-
ering the upper part of the head are characters common to both living
and fossil forms. The extinct species, with their carapace and plas-
tron, or belly-shield, resembled the snapping turtles in not having the
belly-shield to cover more than one-half of the area of the lower side of
the body left uncovered by the carapace of the back. The reason why
this belly-shield was smaller than the area it partially covered was to
allow free and unimpeded movement of the limbs. All that remains
of this rigid belly-shield in even the best-armored living species are
numerous separated plates, which do not interfere with that flexibility
of the walls of the abdomen which is necessary in bending the body
when the animal covers itself with its dorsal armor or carapace.

Living species are mostly burrowing in habit. Whether the Ho-
plophoridm were burrowers cannot be affirmed, but it is extremely
doubtful; though, from the great resemblance of the fore-limbs and
claws to those of living species, it is likely that they were able, upon
occasion, to dig with great rapidity and dexterity.

I have seen the tongue protruded nearly two inches with great
quickness by a young six-banded armadillo ; it is tapering and very
flexible, and is no doubt used to advantage in capturing insects which

most of the materials which I have used in my studies and comparisons have been drawn.
From the wealth of materials at his command he has been enabled to present a fuller
account of the osteology of these creatures than any other hitherto published. The
memoirs of Owen, Lund, Nodot, Huxley and others, have also been consulted.

1 See Brehm's " Thier-leben," vol. ii., p. 508, for an interesting account of this habit.

GIGANTIC EXTINCT ARMADILLOS. 141

fall in its way, as well as to convey other food to the mouth with more
readiness. The elongated, protrusible tongue of recent species, as well
as of the remaining representatives of the order, gives a clew to the
nature of the tongue of the extinct giant armadillos, which was prob-
ably used as a herbage-grasping organ, as in the giraffe, and as Prof.
Owen finds reason to believe must have been the case with the great
extinct sloths, Megatherium^ and its allies. It is highly probable, nay,
almost certain, that the prehensile powers of the tongues of the Eden-
tata ' are intimately associated with their want of incisors, or cutting-
teeth. Similar disappearance or loss of function of the incisors by
ruminants, proboscidians, and rhinoceroses, is similarly correlated with
a grasping tongue, trunk, or lips.

In living armadillos the grinding-teeth vary in number from twenty-
six to thirty-eight, and are in the form of cylindrical or oval columns.
All the Hoplophoridce have thirty-two grinders, sixteen above and the
same number below, without enamel, as in recent forms. Two deep
grooves run vertically up and down on both the inside and outside of
each tooth, causing the appearance of two deep bays on each side in
transverse section, Which is not quite twice as long as wide. Unlike liv-
ing allied forms, these giants had strong descending processes directed
downward from the zygomatic arches (cheekbones), similar to those of
the great extinct and small modern sloths ; and, like the first of the last
mentioned, the bones of the pelvis, hind-limbs, and tail, were relatively
more massive than in their existing representatives, showing in these
features strong resemblances to the sloth-like division of the order.
From the deep implantation of the grinding-teeth in the giant arma-
dillos, one cannot resist the inference that, like the great sloths, they
were herbivorous. This idea is further countenanced by their size,
which, in terrestrial mammals, is usually an accompaniment of herbivor-
ous habits. The features, however, which unmistakably ally them to
living armadillos, are the presence of a third trochanter on the femur,
and the union of the tibia and fibula and the annular and tubular armor
covering the tail. The animal of our figure has the basal part of the
tail surrounded and covered with eight slightly mobile rings of armor-
plates; each one of these rings is supported on the inside by five strong
processes of bone which arise radially or like the spokes of a wheel from
each of the first seven caudal vertebne. The first caudal vertebra sup-
ports two of the armor-rings. The last fourteen joints of the tail are
inclosed by rigid armor, much the same as the end of the finger is cov-
ered by a thimble. These terminal joints, confined within this inflexi-
ble bony case, become united into a continuous bony rod. Other species
have been described which have the tail covered throughout with rings
of armor-plates, within which each joint of the tail is separate, as usual
in the tails of other vertebrates. In one living species the tail is almost

1 The total length of the tongue in the ant-bear (Myrmecophaga), from its origin at the
xiphoid end of the breastbone, is three feet.

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a

a

T

B
U

K

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o

25

GIGANTIC EXTINCT ARMADILLOS.

H3

naked, whence its name, Dasypus gymnurus. The little three-banded
species has the upper face of the tail covered with relatively thick
plates. In living specimens I have also noticed that the ears, though
very thin, were covered with thin and minute (usually polygonal) scales,
both inside and out.

Studies of the feet of the Hoplophoridm show that they can be
divided into two well-defined groups : the first, to which the animal
represented in the figure belongs, has four claw-bearing toes on the
fore-legs, and four hoof -bearing toes on the hind-legs ; the second group
has four claw-bearing toes on the fore-legs, and five hoof-bearing toes
on the hind ones. As the figure shows, and which is fully supported
by the osteology, the hinder extremities are proportionally more mas-
sive and longer than the fore ones, which fact, together with the enor-
mously expanded pelvic bones, shows that the creature perhaps raised
the fore-part of the body into a more or less nearly vertical position
with the help of its tail to reach the leaves of plants upon which it fed,
as did its huge congeners, the extinct sloths. This view is favored by
the flattened condition of the tail-case or armor toward its extremity,
perhaps from the pressure to which it was often subjected from below
while in the bipedal position. This also explains the use of the belly-
shield to have been to afford protection against enemies from below
while in such an attitude, as the animal, because so well protected
otherwise, was probably less favored in respect to sight and hearing.

The carapace was supported for nearly half its length upon the
haunch-bones (ilia and ischia), as well as by the strong, longitudinal,
median, bony crest rising from the lumbar and sacral vertebra?, consist-
ing of their united neural or spinous processes. The carapace rested
directly on these bones, and was joined to them by suture, as the
roughened and expanded surfaces for such juncture clearly show. The

-cc

A, transverse section of the "dorsal tube" of Panochthus tvberevlatus : a and b, lorarnina for
spinal nerves; v, vertebral centrum. One-sixth natural size. (After Bnrmeister.)

B, transverse section through a portion of the carapace and middle of one of the vertebrae (dorsal
tube) of a salt-water terrapin: c, carapace; b. proximal extremity of ribs; a a, situation of
foramina for the exit of spinal nerves ; v, vertebral centrum. Central dark spaces in A and B
show the forms of the neural or spinal canals in section. (Original.)

C, side-view of a dorsal vertebra of a European tortoise : a indicates the position of lateral fora-

mina a a in B. Other references same as in B. (After Bojanus.)

entire union of the lumbar and sacral vertebra? into a hollow bony bar,
and the union of this to the lateral elements of the pelvic arch, together
with the union of both by suture with carapace, rendered any lateral

i44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bending of the trunk impossible, so that an almost universal union of
the trunk or body segments ensued, owing to this structurally enforced
loss of mobility between the vertebral elements. As a consequence,
the centra or bodies of the segments disappeared, or were atrophied,
leaving only their trough-like plates about one-fourth of an inch thick,
formed of the degenerate and united central bodies. This trough, with
the united rib-bearing arches that arose from its edges, formed a tube
for the lodgment and protection of the spinal or nervous cord. Un-
like all vertebrates, except turtles, this tube in that portion over the
lungs is perforated at intervals on each side at points about midway of
the length of each one of the several united segments to give egress to
the spinal nerves.1 The points of egress for the spinal nerves are usu-
ally between the spinous processes in other orders of vertebrates.

In living armadillos the centra of the trunk vertebrae still remain
as more or less depressed cylinders of bone, or at least they are dis-
tinguishable as centra, from which arise the rib-bearing arches, which do
not completely unite, leaving lateral inter-spinous openings so as not to
entirely close over the nervous cord, as happens in fossil forms. The
reason why the vertebras remained separated in recent species is un-
doubtedly because of the mechanical conditions to which these parts of
their skeleton were subjected. Here the carapace was jointed and flex-
ible ; hence the need of flexibility in the spinal column. In the extinct
species, as in turtles, the degeneration of the centra into mere conduits
for the nervous cord is one of the many contrivances the origin and
ideological significance of which can only be explained by a mechanical
theory. The vertebral column in both was similarly conditioned with
respect to strains, mostly transverse — hence the similarity of structure ;
which it must be borne in mind is, however, no indication of zoological
affinity.

Beginning with the homogeneous notochord or continuous rod-like
axis of some such form as Amphioxus, Mr. Spencer points out how,
as this axis became bony with the assumption of the characters of
the higher fishes, the alternate pressure and tension incident to the
flexures of this axis during locomotive acts would tend to differ-
entiate the vertebral segments ; for it is obvious that, in order to be
flexible and at the same time bony, the vertebral axis must become
segmented. The mechanical conditions under which vertebral axes are
placed would indicate that the segmentation took place from within out-
ward, which is in accordance with observed facts. It is also obvious, in
view of the premises, that, in the absence of flexures or bendings of the
vertebral axis, we should have a return to the homogeneous struct-
ure, such as we actually find to result in the two cases under consid-
eration, and as happens in a few of the posterior trunk-segments (sacral)
of birds and mammals. Embryology and phylogeny both bear out these

1 In birds, as, e. g., the common fowl, the first segments of the sacrum, the centra of
which are similarly atrophied, are perforated laterally in the same situation.

GIGANTIC EXTINCT ARMADILLOS. 145

conclusions ; not only do the vertebral centra become more rudimentary
as the young condition is departed from in the life-history of the indi-
vidual tortoise, but the centra also become successively more rudimentary
as we pass from the less completely armored genera Sp>hargis and Tri-
onyx, to the more completely armored Testudo and Cistudo.

Like the tortoises, our huge animal had an arrangement of the neck
vertebras whereby he could withdraw his head slightly backward in case
of an attack, so as to bring his head-shield to fit closely against his cara-
pace. The atlas or first joint of the neck was separate, the next four
were united, the sixth was separate, and a " trivertebral bone," which
seems to have taken a share in the neck as well as in the thorax, fol-
lowed next, and probably was the bone which enabled the creature to
retract its head somewhat ; next followed ten united rib-bearing trunk-
vertebras, which Prof. Burmeister has aptly called the " dorsal tube " {see
cross-section, Fig. A). Succeeding the "dorsal tube" are eight lum-
bar and probably eight sacral vertebras firmly united together and to
the ilia ; following these, come twenty-one caudal or tail bones, footing
up a total of fifty-six segments in the entire spinal column, which is not
far from the number found in living species, though only about one-
fourth as many are united together in them as in our fossils. The plates
of the carapace were united by suture in the fossil species, rendering the
armor as rigid as the carapaces of land-tortoises. In living forms, the
plates, in some species at least, are slightly separated by intervening
integument, rendering the armor more or less flexible throughout.

The remains of the LToplophoridce — better known by Prof. Owen's
older name as the Glyptodons — have been found mostly in the bone-caves
of Brazil, and in the alluvium and pampean Pliocene of Eastern and
temperate South America. The finest collection of their remains in ex-
istence is in the Public Museum of Buenos Ayres. They were probably
contemporaneous with some of the great Carnivora, whose remains have
also been found in the caves. One of these, the sabre-toothed tiger
(3fachairodus), would, no doubt, have frequently rendered the almost in-
vulnerable armor of the giant (but perhaps harmless) armadillo of great
service, within which he could feel himself secure from the attacks of
such a well-armed foe.

The restoration is one-eighteenth of the natural size, and is based on
the figures in Burmeister's work. It is believed to be approximately
correct, since nothing was needed to make the originals assume the ap-
pearance of life except to clothe the skull and neck writh flesh, and fur-
nish the extremities with claws and hoofs, muscles and tendons. The
animal was between nine and ten feet in total length, and stood about
four and a half feet high at the highest part of the back. Prof. Bur-
meister has christened the species Panochthus tuberculatus.

VOL. XIII. — 10

i46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT.

By HEBBEET SPENCEE.
V. OBEISANCES.

SPEAKING of a party of Shoshones surprised by them, Lewis and
Clarke say : " The other two, an elderly woman and a little girl,
seeing we were too near for them to escape, sat on the ground, and,
holding down their heads, seemed as if reconciled to the death which
they supposed awaited them. The same habit of holding down, the
head and inviting the enemy to strike, when all chance of escape is
gone, is preserved in Egypt to this day." Here we are shown an effort
to propitiate by absolute submission ; and from acts so prompted origi-
nate obeisances.

When, at the outset, in illustration of the truth that ceremony pre-
cedes not only social evolution but even human evolution, I named the
behavior of a small dog which throws itself on its back in presence of
an alarming great dog, probably many readers thought I was putting
on this behavior a somewhat forced construction. They would not have
thought so had they known that a parallel mode of behavior occurs
among human beings. Describing the Batoka salutation, Livingstone
says, " They throw themselves on their backs on the ground, and, rolling
from side to side, slap the outside of their thighs as expressions of
thankfulness and welcome." Whether or not consciously adopted for
this reason, the assumption of this attitude, which implies, " You need
not subdue me, I am subdued already," is the best means of obtaining
safety. Resistance generates antagonism and arouses the destructive
instincts. The stronger animal or the stronger man becomes less dan-
gerous when the weaker animal or man passively submits ; because
nothing occurs to excite the passion for victory. Hence, then, the nat-
ural genesis of this obeisance by prostration on the back, which, per-
haps, more than any other position, makes self-defense impracticable.
I say perhaps, because another attitude may be instanced as equally
helpless, which more elaborately displays complete subjugation. " At
Tonga Tabu .... the common people show their great chief ....
the greatest respect imaginable by prostrating themselves before him,
and by putting his foot on their necks." The like occurs in Africa.
Laird says the messengers from the King of Fundah " each bent down
and put my foot on their heads, and threw dust over themselves." And
among ancient historic peoples this position, originated by defeat in
battle, became the position assumed in acknowledgment of submission.

From these primary obeisances thus representing, as literally as
may be, the attitudes of the conquered beneath the conqueror, there
come obeisances which express in various ways the subjection of the

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 147

slave to the master : this last being the sequence of the first. Of old
in the East such subjection was expressed when " Ben-hadad's servants
girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came
to the King of Israel." In Peru, where the militant type of organiza-
tion was pushed to so great an excess, Garcilasso tells us that a sign
of humility was to have the hands tied and a rope round the neck ; that
is, there was an assumption of those bonds which originally marked
captives brought from the battle-field. Along with this mode of simu-
lating slavery, another mode was employed when approaching the Ynca:
servitude had to be indicated by carrying a burden ; and " this taking
up a load to enter the presence of Atahuallpa is a ceremony which was
performed by all the lords who have reigned in that land."

These few extreme instances I give at the outset by way of showing
the natural genesis of the obeisance as a means of obtaining mercy ;
first from a victor and then from a ruler. An adequate conception of
the obeisance, however, includes another element. In the introductory
chapter it was pointed out that sundry signs of pleasure, having a
physio-psychological origin, which occur in presence of those for whom
there is affection, pass into complimentary observances ; because men
are pleased by supposing themselves liked, and are therefore pleased
by demonstrations of liking. Hence, while aiming to propitiate a su-
perior by expressing submission to him, there is generally an endeavor
further to propitiate him by exhibiting joy at his presence. Keeping
in view, then, both these elements of the obeisance, let us now consider
its varieties ; with their political, religious, and social uses.

Though the loss of power to resist which prostration on the face
implies does not reach the utter defenselessness implied by prostration
on the back, yet it is sufficiently great to make it a sign of profound
submission ; and hence it occurs as an obeisance wherever despotism is
unmitigated and subordination slavish. It was found in ancient Amer-
ica, where, before a Chibcha cazique, " people had to appear prostrate
and with their faces touching the ground." We find it in Africa, where,
"when he addresses the king, a Borghoo man stretches himself on the
earth as flat as a flounder, in which attitude he lies, kissing the dust,
till his business with his sovereign is at an end." Asia furnishes many
cases of it : " When preferring a complaint, a Khond or Panoo will
throw himself on his face, with hands joined, and a bunch of straw or
grass in his mouth ; " and while, in Siam, " before the nobles all subor-
dinates are in a state of reverent prostration, the nobles themselves, in
the presence of the sovereign, exhibit the same crawling obeisance."
Similarly in Polynesia. Falling on the face is a mark of submission
among the Sandwich-Islanders : the king did so to Cook when he first
met him. And in the records of ancient historic peoples plenty of
kindred illustrations are given : as when Mephibosheth fell on his face
and did reverence before David ; or when the King of Bithynia fell on

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his face before the Roman Senate. In some cases this attitude of the
conquered before the conqueror, thus used to signify entire subjection?
has its meaning emphasized by repetition. Bootan supplies an in-
stance : " They .... made before the rajah nine prostrations, which is
the obeisance paid to him by his subjects whenever they are permitted
to approach."

Every kind of ceremony is apt to have its primitive character ob-
scured by abridgment ; and by abridgment this profoundest of obei-
sances is rendered a less profound one. In the assumption of a full-
length prostration there is, almost of necessity, the passage through an
attitude in which the body is on the knees with the head on the ground ;
and still more on rising, a drawing up of the knees is a needful prelimi-
nary to raising the head and getting on the feet. Hence this attitude
may be considered as an incomplete prostration. It is a very general
one. Among the Coast negroes, if a native " goes to visit his supe-
rior, or meets him by chance, he immediately falls on his knees, and
thrice successively kisses the earth, claps his hands, wishes the superior
a good day or night, and congratulates him." Laird tells us that, in
acknowledgment of his inf erioritj', the king of the Brass people never
spoke to the king of the Ibos " without going down on his knees, and
touching the ground with his head." At Embomma, on the Congo,
" the mode of salutation is by gently clapping the hands, and an infe-
rior at the same time goes on his knees and kisses the bracelet on the
superior's ankle."

Often the humility of this obeisance is increased by emphasizing
the contact of the head with the earth. On the Lower Niger, " as a
mark of great respect, men prostrate themselves, and strike their heads
against the ground." When, in past times, the Emperor of Russia
was crowned, the nobility did homage by " bending down their heads,
and knocking them at his feet to the very ground." In China, at the
present time, among the eight obeisances, increasing in humility, the
fifth is kneeling and striking the head on the ground ; the sixth, kneel-
ing and thrice knocking the head, which again doubled makes the sev-
enth, and trebled, the eighth : this last being due to the emperor and
to Heaven. Of old, among the Hebrews, repetition had a kindred
meaning. Remembering that this obeisance is variously exemplified,
as when Nathan " bowed himself before the king with his face to the
ground," and as when Abigail did the like to David, and Ruth to Boaz,
we have the additional fact that " Jacob bowed himself to the ground
seven times, until he came near to his brother."

From what has gone before it will be anticipated that this attitude
of the conquered man, used by the slave before his master and the sub-
ject before his ruler, becomes that of the worshiper before his deity.
The East, past and present, yields sufficient examples. That complete
prostration is made, whether the being to be propitiated is visible or
invisible, is shown us in Hebrew records by the statement that " Abra-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 149

ham fell upon his face " before God when he covenanted with him ; by
the fact that "Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshiped
Daniel ; " and by the fact that when Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden
image there was a threat of death on " whoso falleth not down and
worshipeth." Similarly, the incomplete prostration in presence of
kings recurs in presence of deities. When making obeisances to their
idols, the Mongols touch the ground with the forehead thrice, the Cal-
mucks only once. So, too, the Japanese in their temples " fall down
upon their knees, bow their head quite to the ground, slowly and with
great humility." And sketches of Mohammedans at their devotions
familiarize us with a like attitude.

While preserving in common the trait that the inferiors assum-
ing them keep at a lower level than their superiors, these groveling
obeisances admit of considerable variety. From the positions of pros-
tration on back or face, and of semi-prostration on knees, we pass to
sundry others, which, however, continue to imply relative inability to
resist. In some cases it is permissible to vary the attitude, as in Da-
homey, where " the highest officers lie before the king in the position
of Romans upon the triclinium. At times they roll over upon their
bellies, or relieve themselves by standing ' on all-fours.' " Duran states
that " cowering .... was, with the Mexicans, the posture of respect,
as with us in genuflection." Crouching is a sign of respect among the
New Caledonians ; as it is also in Feejee, and as it is also in Tahiti.

Other changes in attitudes of this class are entailed by the neces-
sities of locomotion. In Dahomey, " when approaching royalty they
either crawl like snakes or shuffle forward on their knees." When
changing their places before a superior, the Siamese " drag themselves
on their hands and knees." It is so, too, in Cambodia : " If any one
had to approach the royal person, to give him anything or to obey a
call, however far the distance, Cambodian etiquette prescribed a crawl-
ing progressive motion on knees and elbows." In Java an inferior must
" walk with his hands upon his heels until he is out of his superior's
sight." Similarly with the subjects of a Zulu king — even with his
wives : Dingarn's wives said that " while he was present in the house
they were never permitted to stand up, but always moved about " on
their hands and knees. And, in Loango, extension of this attitude to
the household appears not to be limited to the court : wives in general
" dare not speak to them " (their husbands) " but upon their bare knees,
and in meeting them must creep upon their hands." A neighboring
state furnishes an instance of gradation in these forms of partial pros-
tration, and a recognized meaning in the gradation. Burton tells us
that the " Dakro," a woman who bears messages from the Dahoman
king to the Meu, goes on all-fours before the king. Also, " as a rule,
she goes on all-fours to the Meu, and only kneels to smaller men, who
become quadrupeds to her."

iSo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Here we come incidentally upon a further abridgment of the origi-
nal prostration ; whence results one of the most widely-spread obei-
sances. As from the entirely prone posture we pass to the posture of
the Mohammedan worshiper wdth forehead on the ground, so from
this we pass to the posture on all-fours, and from this, by raising the
body, to simple kneeling. That kneeling is, and has been in countless
places and times, a form of political homage, a form of domestic hom-
age, and a form of religious homage, needs no showing. We will note
only that it is, and has been everywhere, associated with coercive gov-
ernment ; as in Africa, where " by thus constantly practising genu-
flection upon the hard ground, their " (the Dahomas') " knees in time
become almost as hard as their heels ; " as in Japan, where "on leaving
the presence of the emperor, officers walk backward on their knees ; "
as in China, where " the viceroy's children .... as they passed by
their father's tent, fell on their knees and bowed three times, with
their faces toward the ground;" and as in mediaeval Europe, where
serfs knelt to their masters, feudal vassals to their suzerains, and, in
1444, the Duchess Isabella de Bourbon, visiting the queen, went on her
knees thrice during her approach.

Not dwelling on the transition from daecent on both knees to de-
scent on one knee, which, less abject, comes a stage nearer the erect
attitude, it will suffice to note the transition from kneeling on one knee
to bending the knee. That this form of obeisance is an abridgment
is well shown us by the Japanese :

" On meeting, they show respect by bending the knee ; and when they wish
to do unusual honor to an individual they place themselves on tbe knee and
bow down to the ground. But this is never done in the streets, where they
merely make a motion as if they were going to kneel. When they salute a
person of rank, they bend the knee in such a manner as to touch the ground
witb their fingers."

We are shown the same thing equally well, or better, in China, where,
among the specified gradations of obeisance, the third is defined as
bending the knee, and the fourth as actually kneeling. Without accu-
mulating evidence it will be manifest that what still survives among
ourselves as the courtesy with the one sex, and what until recently sur-
vived with the other sex as the scrape (made by a backward sweep of
the right foot), are both of them vanishing forms of the going down on
one knee.

There remains only the accompanying bend of the body. This,
while on the one hand the first motion passed through in making a
complete prostration, is, on the other hand, the last motion that sur-
vives as the prostration becomes stage by stage abridged. In various
places we meet indications of this transition. " Among the Soosoos,
even the wives of a great man, when speaking to him, bend their bod-
ies, and place one hand upon each knee ; this is done also when pass-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 151

ing by." In Samoa, " in passing through a room where a chief is sit-
ting, it is disrespectful to walk erect ; the person must pass along with
his body bent downward," Of the ancient Mexicans who, during an
assembly, crouched before their chief, we read that " when they re-
tired, it was done with the head lowered." And then, in the Chinese
ritual of ceremony above cited, we find that obeisance number two,
less humble than bending the knee, is bowing low with the hands
joined. Having such facts before us, and bearing in mind that there
are insensible transitions between the humble salaam of the Hindoo,
the profound bow which in Europe shows great respect, and the mod-
erate bend of the head expressive of consideration, we cannot doubt
that the familiar and sometimes scarcely perceptible nod is the last
trace of the aboriginal prostration.

These several abridgments of the prostration which we see occur
in doing political homage and social homage occur also in doing reli-
gious homage. Of the Congoese, Bastian says that when they have to
speak to a superior —

" They kneel, turn the face half aside, and stretch out the hands toward the
person addressed, which they strike together at every address. They might
have sat as models to the Egyptian priests when making the representations on
the temple-walls, so striking is the resemblance between what is represented
there and what actually takes place here."

And we may note kindred parallelisms in European religious observ-
ances. There is the going on both knees and the going on one knee ;
and there are the bowings and courtesyings on certain occasions at the
name of Christ.

As already explained, along with the act expressing humility, the
complete obeisance includes some act expressing gratification. To pro-
pitiate the superior most effectually it is needful at once to imply, " I
am your slave," and " I love you."

Certain of the instances cited above have exemplified the union of
these two factors. Along with the attitude of abject submission as-
sumed by the Batoka, we saw that there go rhythmic blows of the
hands against the thighs. In others of the cases named, clapping of
the hands, also indicating joy, was described as being in Africa an
accompaniment of movements showing submission ; and many others
may be added. Of the nobility who approach the King of Loango,
Astley says, " They clap their hands two or three times, and then cast
themselves at his majesty's feet into the sand, rolling over and over into
it in token of subjection ; " and Speke says of certain attendants of the
King of Uganda, that they " threw themselves in line upon their bellies,
and, wriggling like fish .... while they continued floundering, kick-
ing about their legs, rubbing their faces, and patting their hands upon
the ground." Going on their knees to superiors, the Balonda " continue

i52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the salutation of clapping the hands until the great ones have passed ; "
and a like use of the hands occurs in Dahomey. A further rhythmical
movement having like meaning must be added. Already we have seen
that jumping as a natural sign of delight is a friendly salute among
the Fuegians, and that it recurs in Loango as a mark of respect to the
kino\ Africa furnishes another instance. Grant narrates that the
King of Karague " sat concealed, all but his head, in the doorway of
his chief hut, and received the salutations of his people, who, one by
one, shrieked and sprang in front of him, swearing allegiance." Let
such saltatory movements be gradually methodized, as they are likely
to be in the course of development, and they will constitute the dan-
cing with which a ruler is sometimes saluted ; as in the before-named
case of the King of Bogota, and as in the case Williams gives in his ac-
count of Feejee, where an inferior chief and his suite, entering the royal
presence, " performed a dance, which they finished by presenting their
clubs and upper dresses to the Somo-somo king."

Of the other simulated signs of pleasurable emotion commonly
forming part of the obeisance, kissing is the most conspicuous. This,
of course, has to take such form as consists with the humility of the
prostration or kindred attitude. As shown in some foregoing instances,
we have kissing the earth where the superior cannot be, or may not be,
approached close enough for kissing the feet or the garment. Others
may be added. " It is the custom at Eboe, when the king is out, and
indeed in-doors as well, for the principal people to kneel on the ground
and kiss it three times when he passes ; " and the ancient Mexican em-
bassadors, on coming to Cortez, " first touched the ground with their
hands and then kissed it." This, in the ancient East, expressed sub-
mission of conquered to conqueror ; and is said to have gone as far as
kissing the footmarks of a conqueror's horse. Abyssinia, where the des-
potism is extreme and the obeisances are servile, supplies us with a modi-
fication. In Shoa kissing the nearest inanimate object belonging to a
superior or a benefactor is a sign of respect and thanks. From this we
pass to licking the feet and kissing the feet. Drury tells us that lick-
ing the knee is a sign of respect among the Malagasy, but does not
indicate such deep abasement as licking the feet ; and, describing the
return of a Malagasy chief from war, he says : " He had scarcely seated
himself at his door, when his wife came out crawling on her hands and
knees till she came to him, and then licked his feet ; when she had done,
his mother did the same ; and all the women in the town saluted their
husbands in the same manner." Slaves, etc., did the like to their mas-
ters. So in ancient Peru, where subordination was unqualified, " when
the chiefs came before" (Atahuallpa), "they made great obeisances,
kissing his feet and hands." And that this extreme homage was, and is
now, the practice in the East we have clear proof. In Assyrian records
Sennacherib mentions that Menahem of Samaria came up to bring pres-
ents and to kiss his feet. " Kissing his feet " was part of the reverence

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 153

shown to Christ by the woman with the box of ointment ; and that the
" catching hold of him by the feet " on the part of Mary Magdalene,
doubtless accompanied by kissing, was not exceptional, we are shown
by the description of a like act on the part of the Shunamite woman to
Elisha. At the present day among the Arabs inferiors kiss the feet,
the knees, or the garments, of their superiors. Kissing the shah's and
the sultan's feet is now a form of homage in Persia and in Turkey ;
and Sir R. K. Porter narrates that, in acknowledgment of a present, a
Persian " threw himself on the ground, kissed my knees and my feet,
and wept with a joy that stifled his expression of thanks."

Kissing the hand is a less humiliating observance than kissing the
feet, because it goes along with a less complete prostration. To kiss
the feet implies bringing the head close to the ground ; while there
cannot be kissing of the hand without more or less raising of the body.
This difference of implication is recognized in regions remote from one
another. In Tonga, " when a person salutes a superior relation, he
kisses the hand of the party ; if a very superior relation, he kisses the
foot." And D'Arvieux states that the women who wait on the Arabian
princesses kiss their hands when they do them the favor not. to suffer
them to kiss their feet or the border of their robe. The prevalence of
this obeisance, as expressing loving submission, is so great as to render
illustration superfluous.

What is implied where, instead of kissing another's hand, the per-
son making the obeisance kisses his own hand ? Is the one symbolic of
the other, and meant to be the nearest approach to it possible under
the circumstances ? This appears a hazardous inference ; but there is
evidence justifying it. According to D'Arvieux, as quoted by Prof.
Paxton —

" An Oriental pays his respects to a person of superior station by kissing his
hand and putting it to his forehead ; but, if the superior be of a condescending
temper, he will snatch away his hand as soon as the other has touched it; then
the inferior puts his own fingers to his lips and afterward to his forehead."

This, I think, makes it clear that the common custom of kissing the
hand to another originally expressed the wish, or the willingness, to
kiss his hand.

Here, as before, the observance, beginning as a spontaneous pro-
pitiation of conqueror by conquered, of master by slave, of ruler by
ruled, and which we have just seen becomes, by extension under a
modified form, a social propitiation, early passes also into a religious
propitiation : to the ghost, and to the deity developed from the ghost,
these actions of love and liking are used. That embracing of the feet,
associated with kissing them, which we have seen occurred among the
Hebrews as an obeisance to the living person, Egyptian wall-paintings
represent as an obeisance made to the mummy inclosed in its case ; and
then, in pursuance of this action, we have kissing the feet of statues of

i54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gods among the Romans and of holy images among Christians. An-
cient Mexico furnished an instance of the transition from kissing the
ground as a political obeisance to a modified kissing the ground as a
religious obeisance. Describing the Mexican ceremony of taking an
oath, Clavigero says, " Then naming the principal god, or any other
they particularly reverenced, they kissed their hand, after having
touched the earth with it." In Peru the observance was further abridged
by dispensing with any object kissed. D'Acosta says, " The manner
of worship was to open the hands, to make some noise with the lips as
of kissing, and to ask what they wished, at the same time offering the
sacrifice ; " and Garcilasso, describing the libation of a drop of liquor to
the sun, made before drinking at an ordinary meal, adds: "At the
same time they kissed the air two or three times, which .... was a
token of adoration among these Indians." Nor have European races
failed to furnish kindred facts : kissing the hand to the statue of a god
was a Roman form of adoration.

Once more, saltatory movements, which, as we have seen, being
natural expressions of delight, become complimentary acts before a visi-
ble ruler, also become acts of worship before an invisible ruler. In
illustration there is the dancing of David before the ark ; and there
is the dancing which was originally a religious ceremony among the
Greeks : from the earliest times the " worship of Apollo was connected
with a religious dance called Hyporchema." We have the fact that
King Pepin, "like King David, forgetful of the regal purple, in his joy
bedewed his costly robes with tears, and danced before the relics of the
blessed martyr." And we have the fact that in the middle ages there
were religious dances in churches.

To interpret another series of associated observances we must go
back to the prostration in its original form. I refer to those expressions
of submission which are made by putting dust or ashes on some part of
the body.

Men cannot roll over in the sand in front of their king, or repeatedly
knock their heads against the ground, or crawl before him, without soil-
ing themselves. Hence the adhering dust or earth is recognized as a
concomitant mark of subjection ; and comes to be gratuitously assumed,
and artificially increased, in the anxiety to propitiate. Already the as-
sociation between this act and the act of prostration has been incident-
ally exemplified by cases from Africa ; and Africa furnishes other cases
which exemplify more fully this self-defiling as a definitely-elaborated
form. " In the Congo regions," says Burton, " prostration is made, the
earth is kissed, and dust is strewed over the forehead and arms, before
every Banza or village chief; and he tells us that the Dahoman saluta-
tion consists of two actions — prostration and pouring sand or earth upon
the head. Similarly we read that " in saluting a stranger they " (the
Kakanda people on the Niger) " stoop almost to the earth, throwing dust

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 155

on their foreheads severalt imes." And, describing " the punctiliousness
of manners shown by the Balonda," Livingstone says :

" The inferiors, on meeting their superiors in the street, at once drop on
their knees and rub dust on their arms and chest. . . . During an oration to a
person commanding respect, the speaker every two or three seconds ' picked up
a little sand, and rubbed it on the upper part of his arms and chest. . . .
When they wish to be excessively polite, they bring a quantity of ashes or pipe-
clay in a piece of skin, and, taking up handfuls, rub it on the chest and upper
front part of each arm.' "

Moreover, we are shown how in this case, as in all other cases, the cere-
mony undergoes abridgment. Of these same Balonda Livingstone says,
" The chiefs go through the manoeuvre of rubbing the sand on the arms,
but only make a feint of picking up some." And, on the Lower Niger,
the people when making prostrations " cover them " (their heads) " re-
peatedly with sand ; or at all events they go through the motions of doing
so. Women, on perceiving their friends, kneel immediately, and pre-
tend to pour sand alternately over each arm." That in Asia this cere-
mony was, and still is, performed with like meaning, is also clear. As
expressing political humiliation it was adopted by the priests who,
when going to implore Florus to spare the Jews, appeared " with dust
sprinkled in great plenty upon their heads, with bosoms deprived of
any covering but what was rent." And at the present time in Turkey
abridgments of the obeisance may be witnessed. At a review, even
officers on horseback, saluting their superiors, "go through the form of
throwing dust over their heads ; " and common people, on seeing a cara-
van of pilgrims start, " went through the pantomime of throwing dirt
over their heads."

Hebrew records prove that this sign of submission made before vis-
ible persons was made before invisible persons also. Along with those
bloodlettings and markings of the flesh and cuttings of the hair, which,
at funerals, were used to propitiate the ghost, there went the putting
of ashes on the head. The like was done to propitiate the deity ; as
when "Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before
the ark of the Lord until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and
put dust upon their heads." Even still this usage occurs among Catho-
lics on occasions of special humiliation.

Again we must return to that original obeisance which first actually
is, and then which simulates, the attitude of the conquered before the
conqueror, to find the clew to a further series of these bodily movements
signifying submission. I refer to the joining of the hands. As de-
scribed in a foregoing paragraph, the supplicating Khond "throws
himself on his face with hands joined." Whence this attitude of the
hands ?

From the usages of a people among whom submission and all the

i56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

marks of submission were carried to great extremes, an instance has al-
ready been given indicating the natural genesis of this action. A sign of
humility in ancient Peru was to have the hands bound and a rope round
the neck ; that is, the condition of captives was simulated. Proof that
it has been a common practice to make prisoners of war defenseless by
tying their hands is superfluous ; and, indeed, the fact that, among our-
selves, men charged with crimes are handcuffed by the police when
taken, sufficiently shows how obviously suggested is this method of ren-
dering prisoners impotent. If there needs further reason for conclud-
ing that bound hands, at first distinguishing the conquered man, hence
came to be an adopted mark of subjection, we have it in two strange
customs found in Africa and China respectively. When the King cf
Uganda returned the visit of Captains Speke and Grant, " his brothers,
a mob of little ragamuffins, several in handcuffs, sat behind him. . . .
It was said that the king, before coming to the throne, always went
about in irons, as his small brothers now do." And then, of the Chinese,
Doolittle tells us that " on the third day after the birth of a child ....
the ceremony of binding its wrists is observed. . . . These things are
worn until the child is fourteen days old .... sometimes .... for
several months, or even for a }rear. ... It is thought that such a tying
of the wrists will tend to keep the child from being troublesome in after-
life."

Such indications of its origin, joined with such examples of derived
practices, force on us the inference that raising the joined hands as part
of that primitive obeisance signifying absolute submission was in real-
ity offering of the hands to be bound. The above-described attitude of
the Khond exhibits the act in its original form ; and on reading in Hue
that "the Mongol hunter saluted us, with his clasped hands raised to
his forehead," or in Drury that when the Malagasy approach a great man
they hold the hands up in a supplicatory form, we cannot doubt that this
position of the hands now expresses reverence because it originally im-
plied subjugation. Of the Siamese, so abject in their political condition
and so servile in their usages, La Loubere says, " If you extend your hand
to a Siamese, to place it in his, he carries both his hands to yours as if
to place himself entirely in your power." And that the presentation of
the joined hands has the meaning here suggested is otherwise shown us.
In Unyanyembe, " when two of them meet, the Wezee puts both his
palms together, these are gently clasped by the Watusi" (a man of a
more powerful race) ; and in Sumatra the salutation "consists in bend-
ing the body, and the inferior's putting his joined hands between those
of the superior, and then lifting them to his forehead." By these cases
we are reminded that a kindred act was once a form of submission in
Europe. When doing homage, the vassal, on his knees, placed his
joined hands between the hands of his suzerain.

That here, again, an attitude signifying political subordination be-
comes an attitude of religious devotion, scarcely needs pointing out.

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 157

We have in the East, by the Mohammedan worshiper, that same clasp-
ing of the hands above the head which we see expresses reverence for
a living superior. Among the Greeks, "the Olympian gods were
prayed to in an upright position with raised hands ; the marine gods
with hands held horizontally ; the gods of Tartarus with hands held
down." And the presentation of the hands joined palm to palm, once
throughout Europe required from an inferior when professing obedi-
ence to a superior, is still taught to children as the attitude of
prayer.

Nor should we omit to note that a kindred use of the hands descends
into social intercourse. The filiation continues to be clear in the far
East. " When the Siamese salute one another, they join the hands,
raising them before the face or above the head." Of the eight grada-
tions of obeisance in China, the first and least profound is that of join-
ing the hands and raising them before the breast. Even among our-
selves a remnant of this action is traceable. An obsequious shopman
or fussy innkeeper may be seen to join and loosely move the slightly-
raised hands one over another, in a way suggestive of derivation from
this primitive sign of obedience.

A group of obeisances having a different, though adjacent root,
come next to be dealt with. Those which we have thus far considered
do not directly affect the subject person's dress ; but from modifications
of dress, either in position, state, or kind, a series of ceremonial observ-
ances result.

The conquered man, prostrate before his conqueror, and becoming
himself a possession, simultaneously loses possession of whatever things
he has about him. The minor loss of his property is included in the
major loss of himself ; and so, while he surrenders his weapons, he also
yields up, if the victor demands it, whatever part of his dress is worth
taking: the motive for taking it being, in many cases, akin to the mo-
tive for taking his weapons; since, being often the hide of a formidable
animal, or a robe decorated with trophies, the dress, like the weapons,
becomes an addition to the victor's proofs of prowess. At any rate, it
is clear that, whatever be the particular way in which the taking of
clothing from a conquered man originates, the nakedness, partial or
complete, of the captive, becomes additional evidence of his subjuga-
tion. That it was so regarded of old in the East, we have clear proof.
In Tsaiah xx. 2-4, we read : " And the Lord said, Like as my servant
Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three }'ears for a sign ... so
shall the King of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the
Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot." Nor are we
without evidence, furnished by other races, that the taking off and
yielding up of clothing hence become a mark of political submission,
and in some cases even a complimentary observance. In Feejee, on
the day for paying tribute —

i58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

" The chief of Somo-Soino, who had previously stripped off his robes, then
sat down, and removed even the train or covering, which was of immense
length, from his waist. He gave it to the speaker," who gave him " in return a
piece large enough only for the purposes of decency. The rest of the Somo-
Somo chiefs, each of whom, on coming on the ground, had a train of several
yards in length, stripped themselves entirely, left their trains, and walked away
.... thus leaving all the Somo-Somo people naked."

Further we read that, during Cook's stay at Tahiti, two men of supe-
rior rank " came on board, and each singled out his friend .... this
ceremony consisted in taking off great part of their clothes and putting
them upon us." And then in another Polynesian island, Samoa, we find
this complimentary act greatly abridged : only the girdle is taken off
and presented.

With such facts to give us the clew, we can scarcely doubt that this
surrendering of clothing originates those obeisances which are made by
uncovering the body, more or less extensively. We meet with all
degrees of uncovering having this meaning. From Ibn Batula's account
of his journey into the Soudan in the fourteenth century, Mr. Tylor
cites the statement that " women may only come unclothed into the
presence of the Sultan of Melli, and even the sultan's own daughters
must conform to the custom ; " and what doubt we might reasonably
feel as to the existence of an obeisance thus carried to its original
extreme, is removed on reading in Speke that at the present time, at
the court of Uganda, " stark-naked, full-grown women are the valets."
Other parts of Africa show us an incomplete, though still considerable,
unclothing as an obeisance. In Abyssinia inferiors must bare their
bodies down to the girdle in presence of superiors ; "but to equals the
corner of the cloth is removed only for a time." The like occurs in
Polynesia. The Tahitians uncover "the body as low as the waist, in
the presence of the king;" and Forster states that in the Society Isles
generally "the lower ranks of the people, by way of respect, strip off
their upper garment in the presence of their" principal chiefs. How
this obeisance becomes further abridged, and also how it becomes ex-
tended to other persons than rulers, we are well shown by the natives
of the Gold Coast. Cruickshank writes :

" They also salute Europeans, and sometimes each other, by slightly remov-
ing their robe from their left shoulder with the right hand, gracefully bowing
at the same time. When they wish to be very respectful, they uncover the
shoulder altogether, and support the robe under the arm, the whole of the per-
son, from the breast upward, being left exposed."

And of these same people, Burton remarks that, " throughout Yoruba
and the Gold Coast, to bare the shoulders is like unhatting in Eng-
land."

That uncovering the head, thus suggestively compared with un-
covering the upper part of the body, has the same original meaning,

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. i59

can hardly be questioned. Even in certain European usages the rela-
tion between the two has been recognized, as by Ford, who remarks
that " uncloaking in Spain is ... . equivalent to our taking off the
hat." It is recognized in Africa itself, where, as in Dahomey, the two
are joined ; " the men bared their shoulders, doffing their caps and large
umbrella hats," says Burton, speaking of his reception. It is recog-
nized in Polynesia, where, as in Tahiti, along with the stripping down
to the waist before the king, there goes the uncovering of the head.
Hence it seems that the familiar taking off of the hat among European
peoples, often reduced among ourselves to touching the hat, is a rem-
nant of that process of unclothing himself by which, in early times, the
captive expressed the yielding up of all he had.

That baring the feet is an observance having the same origin, is
well shown by these same Gold Coast natives ; for while, as we have
seen, they partially bare the upper part of the body in signiBcation of
their reverence, they also remove the sandals from their feet "as a
mark of respect," says Cruickshank : they begin to strip the body at
both ends. Throughout ancient America uncovering of the feet had
a like meaning. In Peru, " no lord, however great he might be, entered
the presence of the Ynca in rich clothing, but in humble attire and
barefooted ; " and in Mexico, " the kings who were vassals of Monte-
zuma were obliged to take off their shoes when they came into his pres-
ence : " the significance of this act being so great that as " Michoacan
was independent of Mexico, the sovereign took the title of cazonzi —
that is, ' shod.' " Kindred accounts of Asiatics have made the usage
familiar to us. In Burmah, " even in the streets and highways, a Eu-
ropean, if he meets with the king, or joins his party, is obliged to take
off his shoes." And similarly in Persia, every person who approaches
the royal presence is obliged to bare his feet.

Verification of these several interpretations is yielded by the more
obvious interpretations of certain usages which we similarly meet with
in societies where extreme expressions of subjection are insisted upon.
I refer to the appearing in presence of rulers, dressed in coarse cloth-
ing— the clothing of slaves. In ancient Mexico, whenever, to serve
him, Montezuma's attendants " entered his apartments, they had first
to take off their rich costumes and put on meaner garments .... and
were only allowed to enter into his presence barefooted, with eyes cast
down." So was it, too, in Peru : along with the rule that a subject,
however great, should appear before the Ynca with a burden on his
back, simulating servitude, and along with the rule that he should be
barefooted, further simulating servitude, there went, as we have seen,
the rule that " no lord, however great he might be, entered the pres-
ence of the Ynca in rich clothing, but in humble attire," again simulat-
ing servitude. The kindred though less extreme usage exists in Daho-
mey, where also autocracy is rigorous and subjection unqualified: the
highest subjects, the king's ministers, may " ride on horseback, be car-

160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ried in hammocks, wear silk, maintain a numerous retinue, with large
umbrellas of their own order, flags, trumpets, and other musical instru-
ments. But, on their entrance at the royal gate, all these insignia are
laid aside." Even in medieval Europe, submission to a conqueror or
superior was expressed by this laying aside of such parts of the dress
and appendages as were associated with dignity, and the consequent
appearance in such relatively-impoverished state as consisted with
servitude. Thus, in France, in 1467, the headmen of a conquered
town, surrendering to a victorious duke, "brought to his camp with
them three hundred of the best citizens iu their shirts, bareheaded, and
bare-legged, who presented the keies of the citie to him, and yielded
themselves to his mercy." And the doing of feudal homage included
observances of kindred meaning. Saint Simon, describing one of the
latest instances, and naming among other ceremonies gone through the
giving up of sword, gloves, and hat, says that this was done " to strip
the vassal of his marks of dignity in presence of his lord." So that,
whether it be the putting on of coarse clothing or the putting off of
fine clothing and its appendages, the meaning is the same.

Acts of propitiation of this kind, like those of other kinds, extend
themselves from the feared being who is visible to the feared being
who is no longer visible — the ghost and the god. On remembering
that among the Hebrews the putting on sackcloth and ashes went
along with cutting off the hair, self-bleeding, and making marks on
their bodies — all to pacify the ghost; on reading that the habit con-
tinues in the East, so that a mourning lady described by Mr. Salt was
covered with sackcloth and sprinkled over with ashes, and so that
Buckhardt " saw the female relations of a deceased chief running
through all the principal streets, their bodies half naked, and the little
clothing they had on being rags, while the head, face, and breast,"
were " almost entirely covered with ashes " — it becomes clear that the
semi-nakedness, the torn garments, and the coarse garments, express-
ing submission to a living superior, serve also to express submission to
one who, dying and becoming a ghost, has so acquired a power that is
feared.1 The inference that this is the meaning of the act is verified

1 Tracing the natural genesis of ceremonies leads us to interpretations of what oth-
erwise seem arbitrary differences of custom ; as instance the use of white for mourn-
ing in China, and of black farther west. A mourning dress must have coarseness as
its essential primitive character: this is implied by the foregoing argument; and for
this there is direct as well as inferential evidence. By the Romans, mourning habits
were made of a cheap and coarse stuff; and the like was the case with the mourning
habits of the Greeks. Now, the sackcloth named in the Bible as used to signify mourn-
ing and humiliation was made of hair, which, among pastoral peoples, was the most
available material for textile fabrics ; and the hair used being ordinarily mere or less
dark in color, the darkness of color incidentally became the most conspicuous character
of these coarse fabrics, as distinguished from fabrics made of other materials, lighter,
and admitting of being dyed. Relative darkness coming thus to be distinctive of a
mourning dress, the contrast was naturally intensified ; and eventually the color became
black. Contrariwise in China. Here, with a swarming agricultural population, not rear-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 161

on observing that it becomes also an act of religious subordination • as
is shown when Isaiah, himself setting the example, exhorts the rebel-
lious Israelites to make their peace with Jahveh in the words — " Strip
you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins ; " and as
when the fourscore men who came from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria,
to propitiate Jahveh, besides cutting their hair and gashing themselves
also tore their clothes. Nor does the parallelism fail with baring the
feet. This, which we have seen is one of those unclothings signifying
humiliation before a ruler, was one among the signs of mourning among
the Hebrews ; as is shown by the command in Ezekiel (xxiv. 17), "For-
bear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head
upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet , " and among the He-
brews putting off the shoes was also an act of worship. Elsewhere,
too, it occurred as in common a mark of political subordination and of
religious subordination. Of the Peruvians, who went barefoot into the
presence of the Ynca, we read that " all took off their shoes, except the
king, at two hundred paces before reaching the doors " (of the temple of
the Sun) ; " but the king remained with his shoes on until he came to
the doors." Once more the like holds with the uncovering of the head.
Used along with other ceremonial acts to propitiate the living superior,
it is used also to propitiate the spirit of the ordinary dead, and also the
spirit of the extraordinary dead, which, becoming apotheosized, is per-
manently worshiped. We have the uncovering round the grave which
continues even among ourselves ; and we have, on the Continent, the
uncovering by those who meet a funeral-procession. We have the
taking off the hat to images of Christ and the Madonna, out-of-doors
and in-doors, as enjoined in old books of manners ; the unhatting on the
knees when the host is carried by in Catholic countries ; and the baring
the head on entering places of worship everywhere.

Nor must we omit the fact that obeisances of this class, too, made
first to supreme persons most feared and presently to less powerful per-
sons, extend gradually until they become general. Quotations above
given have shown incidentally that in Africa partial uncovering of the
shoulder is used as a salute between equals, and that a kindred removal
of the cloak in Spain serves a like purpose. So, too, the going barefoot
into a king's presence, and into a temple, originates an ordinary civility :
the Damaras take off their sandals before entering a stranger's house ;
a Japanese leaves his shoes at the door even when he enters a shop ;
" upon entering a Turkish house, it is the invariable rule to leave the
outer slipper or galosh at the foot of the stairs." And then in Europe,
from having been a ceremony of feudal homage and of religious worship,

ing animals to any considerable extent, textile fabrics of hair are relatively expensive;
and of the textile fabrics made of silk and cotton, those of cotton must obviously be
much the cheaper. Hence, for mourning dresses cotton sackcloth is used : and the un-
bleached cotton being of a dirty white, this has by association established itself as the

mourning color.

VOL. xiii. — 11

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

uncovering the head has become an expression of respect due even to a
laborer on entering his cottage.

These last facts suggest a needful addition to the argument. Some-
thing more must be said respecting the way in which all kinds of obei-
sances between equals have thus resulted by diffusion from obeisances
which originally expressed surrender to a conqueror and submission to
a ruler.

Proof has been given that rhythmical muscular movements, natural-
ly signifying joy, such as jumping, clapping the hands, and even drum-
ming the ribs with the elbows, become simulated signs of joy used to
propitiate a king, when joined with attitudes expressing subjection.
These simulated signs of joy become civilities where there is no differ-
ence of rank. According to Grant, " when a birth took place in the
Toorkee camp .... women assembled to rejoice at the door of the
mother, by clapping their hands, dancing, and shouting. Their dance
consisted in jumping in the air, throwing out their legs in the most un-
couth manner, and flapping their sides with their elbows." And then,
where circumstances permit, such marks of consideration become mu-
tual. Bosman tells us that on the Slave Coast, " when two persons of
equal condition meet each other, they fall both down on their knees
together, clap hands, and mutually salute, by wishing each other a good-
day." And cases occur where, between friends, there is reciprocity of
compliment even by prostration. Among the Mosquitos, says Bancroft,
" one will throw himself at the feet of another, who helps him up, em-
braces him, and falls down in his turn to be assisted up and comforted
with a pressure." Such extreme instances yield verifications, if there
need any, of the conclusion that the mutual bows, and courtesies, and
unhattings, among ourselves, are remnants of the original prostrations
and strippings of the captive.

But I give these instances chiefly as introducing the interpretation
of a still more familiar observance. Already I have named the fact
that between polite Arabs the offer of an inferior to kiss a superior's
hand is resisted by the superior if he is condescending, and that the
conflict ends by the inferior kissing his own hand to the other; and
here, from Niebuhr, is an account of a nearly-allied usage :

" Two Arabs of the desert meeting, shake hands more than ten times. Each
kisses his own hand, and still repeats the question, 'How art thou?' .... In
Yemen, each does as if he wished the other's hand, and draws back his own to
avoid receiving the same honor. At length, to end the contest, the eldest of the
two suffers the other to kiss his fingers."

Have we not here, then, the origin of shaking hands ? If of two per-
sons each wishes to make an obeisance to the other by kissing his hand,
and each refuses out of compliment to have his own hand kissed, what
will happen ? Just as when leaving a room, each of two persons, pro-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 163

posing to give the other precedence, will refuse to go first, and there
will result at the doorway some conflict of movements, preventing either
from advancing ; so, if each of two tries to kiss the other's hand and
refuses to have his own kissed, there will result a raisin o- of the hand
of each by the other toward his own lips, and by the other a drawing o£
it down again, and so on alternately. Though at first such an action
will be irregular, yet as fast as the usage spreads, and the failure of
either to kiss the other's hand becomes a recognized issue, the motions
may be expected to grow regular and rhythmical. Clearly the differ-
ence between the simple squeeze, to which this salute is now often
abridged, and the old-fashioned hearty shake, exceeds the difference
between the hearty shake and the movement that would result from
the effort of each to kiss the hand of the other.

Even in the absence of this clew yielded by the Arab observance,
we should be obliged to infer some such genesis. After all that has
been shown, no one can suppose that hand-shaking was ever deliber-
ately fixed upon as a salute ; and if it had a natural origin in some act
which, like the rest, expressed subjection, the act of kissing the hand
must be assumed as alone capable of leading to it.

Whatever its kind, then, the obeisance has the same root with the
trophy and the mutilation. At the mercy of his conqueror, who, cutting
off part of his body as a memorial of victory, kills him, or else, taking
some less important part, marks him as a subject person, the con-
quered enemy lies prone before him now on his back, or now with neck
under his foot, smeared with dust or dirt, weaponless, and with torn
clothes, or, it may be, stripped of the trophy-trimmed robe he prized.
Thus, the prostration, the coating of dust, and the loss of covering, in-
cidental on subjugation, become, like the mutilation, recognized proofs
of it : whence result, first of all, the enforced signs of submission of
slaves to masters, and subjects to rulers ; then the voluntary assump-
tions of humble attitudes before superiors ; and, finally, those compli-
mentary movements expressive of inferiority, made by each to the
other between equals.

That all obeisances originate in militancy is a conclusion harmoniz-
ing with the fact that they develop along with development of the mili-
tant type of society. Attitudes and motions signifying subjection do
not characterize headless tribes and tribes having unsettled chieftain-
ships, like the Fuegians, the Andamanese, the Australians, the Tasma-
nians, the Esquimaux ; and accounts of etiquette among the wandering
and almost unorganized communities of North America make little, if
any, mention of actions expressing servitude or subordination. There
are indeed, in India, certain simple societies politically unorganized and
peaceful, in which there occur humble obeisances ; as instance the
Todas. At marriage, a Toda bride puts her head under the foot of the
bridegroom. But, since exceptions of this kind, and less marked kinds,

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

occur in settled cattle-keeping or agricultural tribes, whose ancestors
passed through those stages between the wandering and the stationary,
during which militant activities were general, we may reasonably sus-
pect that these are surviving ceremonies that have lost their meanings :
the more so as, in the case named, there exists neither that social sub-
ordination nor that domestic subordination which they express. On
the other hand, in societies compounded and consolidated by militancy
which have acquired the militant type of structure, we find political and
social life conspicuously characterized by servile obeisances. If we ask
in what slightly-developed societies occur the groveling prostrations
and creepings and crawlings before superiors, the answer is clear. We
find them in warlike, cannibal Feejee, where the power of rulers over
subjects and their property is unlimited, and where, in some slave dis-
tricts, the people regard themselves as brought up to be eaten ; we find
them in Uganda, where war is chronic, where the revenue is derived
from plunder, both of neighboring tribes and of subjects, and where it
is said of the king out shooting that, " as his highness could not get
any game to shoot at, he shot down manj1- people ; " we find them in
sanguinary Dahomey, where adjacent societies are attacked to get more
heads for decorating the king's palace, and where everybody, up to the
chief minister, is the king's slave. Among states more advanced they
occur in Burmah and Siam, where the militant type, bequeathed from
the past, has left a monarchical power equally without restraint; in
Japan, where, with a despotism evolved and fixed during the wars of
early times, there have ever gone these groveling obeisances of each
rank to the rank above it ; and in China, where, with a kindred form
of government similarly derived, there still continue semi-prostrations
and knockings of the head upon the ground before the supreme ruler.
So is it again with kissing the feet as an obeisance. This was the
usage in ancient Peru, where the entire nation was under a regimental
organization and discipline. It prevails in Madagascar, where the mili-
tant structure and activity are decided. And among sundry Eastern
peoples, living still, as they have ever done, under autocratic rule, this
obeisance exists at present as it existed in the remote past. Nor is it
Otherwise with complete or partial removals of the dress. The extreme
forms of this we saw occurred in Feejee and in Uganda ; while the less
extreme form of baring the body down to the waist was exemplified
from Abyssinia and Tahiti, where the kingly power, though great, is
less recklessly exercised. So, likewise, with the baring of the feet.
This was an obeisance to the king in ancient Peru and ancient Mexico,
as it is now in Burmah and in Persia — all of them having the despotic
governments evolved by militancy. And the like relation will be found
to hold with the other extreme obeisances : the putting dust on the
head, the assumption of mean clothing, the taking up of a burden to
carry, the binding of the hands.

The same truth is shown us on comparing the usages of European

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 165

peoples in early ages, when war was the business of life, with the
usages which obtain now that war has ceased to be the business of life.
In feudal days homage was shown by kissing the feet, by going on the
knees, by joining the hands, by laying aside sundry parts of the dress ;
but in our days the more humble of these obeisances have, some quite
and others almost, disappeared : leaving only the bow, the courtesy, and
the raising of the hat, as their representatives. Moreover, it is observ-
able that, between the more militant nations of Europe and the less
militant, kindred diiferences are traceable : on the Continent obeisances
are fuller, and more studiously attended to, than they are here. Even
from within our own society evidence is forthcoming ; for by the upper
classes, forming that regulative part of the social structure which here,
as everywhere, has been developed by militancy, there is not only at
court, but in private intercourse, greater attention paid to these forms
than by the classes forming the industrial structures, among the mem-
bers of which little more than the bow and the nod are now to be seen.
And I may add the significant fact that, in the distinctively militant
parts of our society — the army and navy — not only is there a more
regular and peremptory performance of prescribed obeisances than in
any other of its parts, but, further, that in one of them, the navy,
specially characterized by the absolutism of its chief officers, there sur-
vives a usage analogous to usages in barbarous societies : in Burmah,
it is requisite to make "prostrations in advancing to the palace;" the
Dahomans prostrate themselves in front of the palace-gate ; in Feejee,
stooping is enjoined as "a mark of respect to .a chief or his premises,
or a chief's settlement ; " and, on going on board an English man-of-war,
it is the custom to take off the hat to the quarter-deck.

Nor are we without evidence of kindred contrasts among the obei-
sances made to the supernatural being, whether spirit or deity. The
wearing sackcloth to propitiate the ghost, as now in China, and as of
old among the Hebrews, the partial baring of the body and putting
dust on the head, still occuring in the East as funeral-rites, are not
found in advanced societies having types of structure more profoundly
modified by industrialism. Among ourselves, most characterized by
the degree of this change, obeisances to the dead have wholly disap-
peared, save in the uncovering at the grave. Similarly with the obei-
sances used in worship. The baring of the feet when approaching a
temple, as in ancient Peru, and the taking off the shoes on entering it,
as in the East, are acts finding no parallels here on any occasion, or on
the Continent, save on occasion of penance. Neither the prostrations
and repeated knockings of the head upon the ground by the Chinese
worshiper, nor the kindred attitude of the Mohammedan at prayers,
occurs where freer forms of social institutions, proper to the industrial
type, have much qualified the militant type. Even going on the knees
as a form of religious homage has, among ourselves, fallen greatly into
disuse ; and the most unmilitant of our sects, the Quakers, make no
religious obeisances whatever.

1 66

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The connections thus traced, parallel to connections already traced,
are at once seen to be natural on remembering that militant activities,
intrinsically coercive, neccessitate command and obedience, and that
therefore, where they predominate, signs of submission are insisted
upon ; while, conversely, industrial activities, whether exemplified in
the relations of employer and employed or of buyer and seller, being
carried on under agreement, are intrinsically non-coercive, and there-
fore, where they predominate, only fulfillment of contract is insisted
upon : whence results decreasing use of the signs of submission.

^•♦•»-

WATER-WAVES AND SOUND-WAVES.1

By J. NOEMAN LOCKYEE, F. E. S.

LET us find a piece of tranquil water and drop a stone into it.
What happens ? — a most beautiful thing, full of the most precious
teachings. The place where the stone fell in is immediately surrounded
by what we all recognize as a wave of water traveling outward^ and

Fig. 1.— Superposition of Two Wave-Systems.

then another is generated, and then another, until at length an exqui-
site series of concentric waves is seen, all apparently traveling outward

1 From advance sheets of " Studies in Spectrum Analysis " ("International Scientific
Series," No. XXIII.).

WATER-WAVES AND SOUND-WAVES.

167

— not with uncertain speed, but so regularly that all the waves all
round are all parts of circles and of concentric circles.

Fig. 2.— Showing the Formation of Waves by the Circular Motion of Each Particle
of Water in a Vertical Plane. Eight positions in each revolution are shown — I. One
Particle in Motion.— II. Two Particles in Motion.— III. Three Particles in Motion.— IV. Com-
plete Wave and Motion of its Elements.

Let us drop two stones in at some little distance apart. What hap-
pens then ? We have two similar systems each working its way out-
ward, to all appearance independently of the other. We get what is
represented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 3.— Graphical Method of observing the Mode of Vibration of a Tuning-Fork.

i68

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Now, these appearances are as if there were an actual outpouring of
water from the cavity made by the stone ; but if we strew small pieces
of paper or other light material on the water-surface before we drop
the stone, we find that it is not the water which moves outward, but
only the state of things — the wave. Each particle of water moves in a
circular or elliptic path in a vertical plane lying along the direction of
the wave, and so comes again to its original place. Hence it is that only
the phase goes on — how it goes on will easily be gathered from Fig. 2.

Let us now pass to a disturbance of another kind, from two dimen-
sions to three, from the surface of water to air.

We hear the report of a gun or the screech of a railway-whistle, or
any other noise which strikes the ear. How comes it that the ear is
struck ? Certainly no one will imagine that the sound comes from the
cannon or from the railway-whistle like a mighty rush of air. If it
came like a wind we should feel it as a wind, but as a matter of fact

Fig. 4.— Shells of Compressed and Rarefied Air produced by a Source of Sound.

no rush of this kind is felt. It is clear, therefore, that we do not get a
bodily transmission, so to speak, as we get it in the case of the ball
thrown from one boy to the other. We have a state of things passing
from the sender of the sound to the receiver ; the medium through

WATER-WAVES AND SOUND-WAVES. 169

which the sound passes being the air. A sounding body in the middle
of a room, for instance, must send out shells of sound as it were, in all
directions, because people above, below, and all round it, would hear the
sound. Replace the stone by a tuning-fork. To one prong of this
fasten a mirror, and on this mirror throw a powerful beam of light.
When this tuning-fork is bowed, and a sound is heard, the light thrown
by the attached mirror shows the fork to be vibrating, and when the
tuning-fork is moved we get an appearance on the screen which re-
minds us of the rope ; or we may use the fork as shown in Fig. 3, and
obtain a wavy record on a blackened cylinder.

Experiment shows that we have at one time a sphere of compression
— that is to say, the air is packed closely together ; and, again, a sphere

aa. a

liiii!

h:>i,:X

IPlllf

illllilflM

null i

I j

1

Fig. 5.— Propagation of Sound- Waves along a Cylinder.

of rarefaction, when the particles of air are torn farther apart than they
are in the other position. The state of things, then, that travels in
the case of sound, is a state of compression and rarefaction of the air.
Hence, the particle of air travels differently from the particle of water ;
it moves backward and forward in a straight line in the direction in
which the sound is propagated.

4

6

7

10

11

12

Fig. 6.— Sound-Waves. Particles of air, a, b, e, d, e, are in position 1 at rest. The remaining
positions show how they are situated at successive instants, wheD a continuous series of im-
pulses reaches them from the left. In position 2, e. p., only one particle has begun its oscilla-
tion ; in position 3, only two ; while, in position 6, all are in motion.

170

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The preceding figure (Fig. 6) will show bow this backward-and-for-
ward movement results in the compressions and rarefactions to which
reference has been made, in consequence of the impulse having been
imparted to one molecule after the other. Owing to the pendulum-like
motion of the molecules, their relative positions vary at each instant
of time.

Prof. Weinhold has given, in his " Experimental Physics," a good
method of obtaining on a plane a mental image of what goes on in a
so-called sound-wave, and by the courtesy of Messrs. Longmans I am
enabled to give here the illustrations which he employs. After all the
particles have been put into motion as shown in Fig. 6, if we graphi-
cally represent the backward-and-forward oscillation of a particle by
such a wavy line as in Fig. 7, we shall, when we put
a large number of such waves side by side, introdu-
cing the change of phase, have such an arrangement
of wavy lines as is represented in Fig. 8.

Now, the beauty of Weinhold's illustration con-
sists in this : he almost makes each element of each
line — each element representing, of course, a particle
of air — appear to be actually in motion by treating
the above figures in the following way : He cuts a
narrow slit, JS S, in a piece of stiff paper, either black
or of a dark color, as shown in Fig. 9. He then holds
this on the dotted line at the bottom of Fig. 7. " The
book is now slowly drawn along in the direction of
the arrow, the piece of paper being held in the same
position. At first the lower extremity of the curved
line in A is seen through the slit ; but, as the book
is drawn along, the portions to the right and those
to the left come successively in view ; the small
white dot, which is the only visible portion of the
curved line, appears as a point which moves first to
the right and then to the left, and imitates closely
the motion of a vibrating particle of air, the rate
of motion being, however, much slower. If, now, the slit be placed
over the dotted line " (at the bottom of Fig. 8), " and the book drawn
along underneath it in the direction of the arrow, a representation is
obtained of the motion of a series of particles of air which are acted on
by a number of successive equal undulations or waves. Each particle
merely moves a little right and left, and always comes back again to its
starting-point ; but the condensations and rarefactions, represented by
the lines being respectively closer together or farther apart, are gradu-
ally transmitted through the whole series of air-particles from one end
to the other." 1

In dwelling upon sound-phenomena, we have the advantage of deal-

1 "Experimental Physics," p. 332.

Fig. 7.

WATER-WAVES AND SOUND-WAVES.

171

ing with phenomena about which Science says she does know some-
thing : from a consideration of these known facts we shall be able,
slowly but surely, to grasp some of the much less familiar phenomena
with which spectrum analysis is especially concerned.

Fig. 8.

We all know that some sounds are what is termed high and others
low, a difference which in scientific language is expressed by saying
that sounds have a difference in pitch. We know that the difference
between a sound which is pitched high and a sound which is pitched
low is simply this — that the pulses or waves, as we may call them for
simplicity's sake, which go from the sender-forth of the sound (which
may be a cannon, a piano, or anything else) to the receiver, which is
generally the human ear, are of different lengths. What in physics is
called a sound-wave is constructed as follows : We have a line A JC,
which represents the normal condition of the air through which the
sound is traveling, and curves which represent to the eye — first, the
relative amounts of compression ( + ) and rarefaction ( — ) brought about
by the sound in the case of each pulse, and secondly the relationship
of this to the actual length of the wave, or, what is the same thing, the
time taken for the pulse to travel. Thus we may have long waves and
short waves independently of the amount of compression or rarefaction,
and much or little compression or rarefaction independently of the
length of the wave. We know that the difference between a high note
and a low note, whether of the voice or of a musical instrument, is, that
the high note we can prove to be produced by a succession of short

172

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

waves — such pulses as have been described — and the low note by a
succession of long waves.

Now, the loudness or softness of a note does not alter its pitch, that
is, it does not alter the length of its waves or the rate at which they
travel. I can send a wave along the rope either violently or gently,

Fig. 9.

but with the same tension of the rope we shall find that the length of
the waves is the same, provided the period of vibration is the same.
Hence, then, the other idea added to the idea of pitch.

There is another point which is worth noting, although it is not
needful to refer to it in any great detail, and that is, that we know that
sound travels with a certain velocity, and that this rate is subject to
certain small variations owing to different causes.

We not only have to deal with amplitude — that is, the departure of
the + and — parts of the curve from the line AX- — and velocity, but
we have this most important and very beautiful fact (for fact it is),

Fig. 10.— Sound-Waves op Different Lengths and Amplitudes.

which some will have observed for themselves : If a person in a room
in which there is a piano sings a note, the string of a piano tuned to
that particular note will respond ; and, if he sing another note, then
another string will reply, the first string being silent. And if the ex-
perimenter were skilled enough to sing one by one all the notes to
which the strings of the piano are tuned, all the strings would be set
into vibration one by one, note for note. This fact may be explained
in this way : a piano-wire, or similar sonorous body, which is con-
structed to do a certain thing — in this case to sound a particular note —
always sounds that note when it is called upon in a proper way to do

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 173

it. Now this is the point: The proper way may be either (1) that a
particular vibration should fall upon it, or (2) that it should be set to
work to generate that vibration in itself. If the piano-wire only gives
the same sound when struck either hard or soft, it is because it is manu-
factured to do one particular kind of work, and it can do no other.

Now we may pass from a piano-wire to a tuning-fork. We find
that, by using different quantities or different shapes of metal, these
instruments give out different notes. If all be of the same metal, the
different quantities of metal will give us a difference in the pitch. This
demonstrates that the pitch of a note is independent of any particular
quality of the substance set into vibration. Now, although a great
many musical instruments can sound the same note, yet the music, the
tone, which one gets out of them is very different. That is, the pitch
being the same, the quality of the note changes because the wave, or
rather the system of waves, which we obtain is different. For instance,
if we sound a note upon the violin, or the French horn, or the flute, or
the clarionet, anybody who knows anything of music will tell which is
in question, so that here we have in addition to wave-length and wave-
amplitude another attribute, namely, that which in French is called
" timbre," in German " Klangfarbe," and in English, " tone " or " qual-
ity."

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY.

By GEORGE M. BEARD, M. D.
II.

LIMITATIONS of the Senses. — The senses, which have hitherto
been regarded as infallible, are even more narrowly defined than
the memory or the higher qualities of intellect. So narrow is the range
of vision — and the sight is certainly the best of the five senses — that the
retina can appreciate a few only of the rays that come from the sun.
The vibrations of ether beyond the red at one end of the spectrum, and
the violet at the other are of no value in vision, ethereal undulations
higher than seven hundred and ninety trillions a second, or lower than
four hundred trillions a second, being powerless to affect it.

Equally striking is the limitation of vision as regards distance and
magnitude. Only under the most favorable conditions are heavenly
bodies of the sixth and seventh magnitude visible to the naked eye.
The extreme limit for small objects, according to the experiments of
authorities, is represented by a disk -g-fg- of an inch in breadth. The
aid afforded to the sight by the telescope and microscope is important,
and, in scientific research, indispensable ; but, as compared with the
infinitely great and the infinitely little in Nature, it is trifling.

174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The senses, indeed, are not formed to enable man to solve the prob-
lems of Nature, but, as with the lower animals, merely to make exist-
ence possible, and, in a limited and incidental way, agreeable. And yet
it is through these feeble senses that all human knowledge enters the
brain, since all deductive reasoning must be based on previous inductive
observation. More humiliating still, and more instructive in its rela-
tions to human testimony, is the lack of precision and power of appre-
ciating details at long distances through the eye. At the interval of
half a mile we are unable to recognize the countenance of our dearest
friend ; while ordinary type, in order to be read, must be held within a
few inches of the face.

A recognition of the limitations of the sight — the king of the senses
— makes the recognition of the limitation of the inferior faculties of
hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, easy and inevitable. Vibra-
tions of the air below 32 per second, or above 100,000 per second, at the
extreme, make no impression on the human ear ; and, as experiments
in the presence of audiences have proved, sensitive flames may react to
atmospheric vibrations in perfect silence. Ordinary conversation is
audible only within a few feet, while powerful-voiced orators in their
mightiest efforts reach but a few thousands of people. The sense of
smell is so restricted in its capacity that it fails to detect many of the
most deadly poisons and causes of epidemics, and is of such slight
practical service to man that patients who, through disease, have lost it
entirely, sometimes say that they would not care to have it restored.

The sense of touch, of which all the other senses are supposed to be
modifications, being of necessitj' limited to actual contact, is of no value
in the study of anything at a distance.

It is clear, therefore, that the senses open but a few rooms in the
infinite palace of Nature, and of these few they give us but feeble and
imperfect glimpses. Throwing all questions of supernaturalism aside,
it must be allowed that the senses bring us into direct relation with
only an infinitesimal fraction of the natural ; we are practically shut
out of a knowledge of Nature, of which we are a part ; hence the nar-
• row limitations of human knowledge, all of which must be inductively
based on what the senses are able to teach us, although the super-
structure may by deduction be raised very high. The elementary and
all-important facts in Nature are precisely those of which the senses,
singly or combined, give us little information, or none whatever. The
great forces — light, heat, electricity, gravity — can be studied in their
effects only, not in themselves — in what they do rather than in what
they are ; hence it is that the great and central advances in science —
the Copernican theory, the theory of gravitation, the wave-theory of
light — are along the line of deductive, not inductive, investigation. If
we depended on induction, we should know nothing of Nature, but
would be blind babes wandering in a pathless forest. The first step in
the evolution of any great science has ever been and must ever be the

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 175

cutting loose from the rule of the senses, the making them servants
instead of kings ; the base-line the eye may trace out, but reason must
construct the triangle ; the arc and chord may be measured by the hand,
but only calculation gives us the limits of the circle.

The deceptions of the senses are wellnigh as marked as their limi-
tations ; indeed, are a part of their limitations. Reid, the metaphysi-
cian, argues elaborately that the so-called deceptions of the senses are
rather mistakes of judgment in regard to the impressions made on the
nerves of special sense. Such argument is needless, since all the con-
victions that we acquire through the senses — the truths as well as
errors — are the products of judgment. It is not the eye, but the brain
behind the eye, that sees. The impressions made on the retina do not
of themselves carry thoughts to the mind, any more than the impres-
sion on the photographer's plate carries thought to the instrument be-
hind it. The eye is an instrument through which the brain sees — the
telescope and microscope of the mind. Of itself the eye is as incompe-
tent to see as is the telescope to discover a new planet, or the micro-
scope to detect a humble organism.

" The eye sees what it brings the means of seeing ; " it is the astron-
omer and microscopist that discover ; it is the brain that sees through
the doors opened by the eye. Conceptions and misconceptions, ob-
tained through the sense of vision, are alike products of the brain
rather than of the seeing apparatus. In scientific strictness our senses
neither teach nor deceive us.

Although the eye is, as has been said, the best of the senses, it is
yet, in some respects, the worst, as more untruths or half-truths en-
ter the brain through this sense than through all the other senses com-
bined ; the very efficiency and value of the vision, its clearness and
comprehensiveness, its apparent certainty and grasp of detail, cause us
to repose in it with greater confidence, and to yield to its suggestions
with fewer questionings. Forgetting the limitations of the optical
apparatus, and assuming that its office is not to see but to provide the
mechanism of seeing — quite overlooking the obvious facts that we
never see the whole of objects but only their surfaces, usually but one
or two sides at most ; that it is practically impossible to fully fix the
attention on two widely-separated objects simultaneously ; that form
and color and size, which are learned through sight, may be of far less
importance in determining the nature of objects than their other quali-
ties— men erroneously judge that what is seen is necessarily the truth
and the whole truth. When I look at any object, as a chair, I do not
see it, cannot see it, however near it may be, and however good my
eyesight or concentrated my attention ; I see only the bare surface of
the portion that is turned toward me, which is but an infinitesimal frac-
tion of the chair itself ; and though I turn it round and round, and look
at every side, I can never see it, while only a portion of its surface even
can ever be seen at one time. Such is part of the philosophy of the

176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

success of jugglery and all the forms of tricks of sleight-of-hand ; au-
diences fancy themselves to be seeing what they do not see. Casting
our eyes upward to the sun and moon and stars, these heavenly objects
seem to move with measurable slowness across the concave surface of
the blue arch of sky ; and only through the deductive reasonings and
calculations of a Copernicus, a Galileo, a Newton, are we brought to
the conviction that the earth is the moving object, that the blue vault
but marks in the air the limitations of our vision, and that the shining
stars that appear as candles in the sky are gigantic worlds moving with
enormous velocity millions of miles away. Sitting in a railway-train
at a station, as the train next to us on one side begins to move, we
seem ourselves to be in motion, and only by looking on the opposite
side and steadily observing some point or object that by previous ob-
servation we know to be fixed, can we correct our delusion ; but in
practical life we are not always able to find a fixed point or object ex-
ternal to ourselves by which we can distinguish the subjective and
objective in our retinal impressions. Thus, in all human experience,
" truth and lies are faced alike ; their port, taste, and proceedings, are
the same ; we look upon them with the same eyes." !

Limitations of the Human Bbain in Disease. — But the most
serious blunders of the sense of sight, or indeed of the other senses,
and indeed of reasoning in general, come from confounding the subjec-
tive with the objective. In certain states of the system, which are not
rare but very common, and which may be either temporary or perma-
nent, the brain has the power not only of modifying the impressions
made by external objects over the retina, but of originating impressions
even when there are no external objects corresponding to those impres-
sions, and the individuals may have no way of distinguishing subjective
from objective visions, or find it very difficult to do so without outside aid.

1 A critic of Prof. Tyndall, indignant that the philosopher would not accept the reign-
ing delusions of the day, declared that, when called upon to investigate any object, he
would look at it, listen to it, touch it, taste it, and smell it, and then not believe it. The
critic was not aware that, instead of censuring Prof. Tyndall, he was really giving one of
the highest compliments that can be given to a scientific man.

This over-estimate of the capacity of the human brain and senses, united with the
present chaotic state of the principles of evidence, aifects injuriously not philosophy alone
but practical life as well. In medicine, for example, it has for ages been the fashion to
ignore or deride symptoms of a purely subjective nature, that have no corresponding
lesions or morbid appearances that the aided or unaided senses can discover, and for the
study of which it is necessary to depend on deductive reasoning and the statements of
patients. This is in general the explanation of the fact that many of the most frequent
and distressing diseases, such as nervous exhaustion, hypochondriasis, hysteria, hay-fever,
and allied nervous affections, although of the highest scientific and practical interest, have,
nntil quite recently, been almost entirely neglected, and the agonizing symptoms connected
with them arc dismissed as trifling if not imaginary. A broken leg every one can see, and
touch, and handle ; but an exhausted brain, oftentimes a far more serious matter, is passed
by, and even its existence is doubted merely for this, that it is out of reach of the eye
and the microscope.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 177

Not only is it possible for a single individual to be deceived by mis-
taking subjective for objective impressions, but, as 1 have proved by re-
peated experiments, the details of which have already been published, it
is possible and easy to cause a large number of individuals, of intelli-
gence and in good health, to see simultaneously the same subjective
visions without any of them being able to detect the deception. Such
experiences of the simultaneous confounding of the subjective with the
objective are not exceptional to the degree that we might suppose ;
they are frequently occurring, and can be verified without difficulty by
those who are trained to the art of experimenting with living human
beings. All situations and experiences that excite the emotions of awe,
of wonder, or reverence, or fear, or expectation, either singly or in com-
bination, are liable to produce subjective visions that may appear at the
same time and in the same form to large numbers of people, not one of
whom shall be able, without external aid, to recognize the deception;
and when these various emotions, powerfully aroused, do not thus cause
impressions to be absolutely originated on the retina, they may, and
often do, so modify the impressions made by objects to which the eyes
and the attention are directed as to give rise to delusions that are both
absolute and absurd, and out of which the subjects, though perfectly
sane and sound, and, it may be, also scholarly, and accomplished, and
scientific, can never be reasoned.

Delusions from this cause are in part, though not entirely, the origin
of the myths, the legends, and the traditions, of what is called history,
and are constant and oftentimes fatal elements of error in all historical
criticism. The science of history will never attain the precision of which
it is capable until the chaff of the subjective is winnowed from the wheat
of the objective ; until it is recognized as a physiological and pathologi-
cal fact that the seeing of any object by any number of honest and in-
telligent people is no necessary evidence of the existence of that object;
and, until it is understood that the claims of what is seen by individuals
or by multitudes, all concurring in their testimony, are to be determined,
if determined at all, only by reasoning deductively from the known cir-
cumstances under which the claims were made, and from general prin-
ciples of science previously established.1 Yet further, it must be under-

1 Gibbon's " History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," for example, con-
tains a vast number of statements and discussions which, scientifically, are of no value, and
iudeed by no manner of possibility could have any value. Details of expressions and
actions, which, when obtained directly from the authors, must have been largely untrue,
become, when filtered down the centuries through armies of non-experts, but the counter-
feit of human experience — a satire on history. The historical writings of Prescott and of
Irving are especially open to this criticism, and should be commended to the young with
the suggestion, always, that they are to be considered as fiction ; indeed, the best novels
are better histories than much of professed history, since they do not attempt the impos-
sible burden of carrying exact details, but merely aim to teach general facts, principles,
and events, concerning which a certain degree of truth is sometimes attainable.

A volume of historical criticism is suggested by the following admission of Carlyle in
VOL. xiii. — 12

i78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stood that the claims of what individuals or multitudes concurrently see
are, far more frequently than has been conceded, out of and beyond the
reach of scientific investigation ; the statements of what men experi-
ence furnishing oftentimes no basis for the study of those statements.
These remarks are restricted to the evidences of the sense of sigrht ; but
with less force, proportioned to their feebler importance, they apply
to evidences derived from other senses. Sounds and smells, taste and
touch, can be subjectively created, even in a sane and healthy brain.
Bring a watch near to the ear, so that its ticking is distinctly heard,
then carry it slowly away; soon a point is reached where it is difficult
to tell whether the sound heard is in the ear or in the watch: it is easy,
indeed, for the most attentive listener to mistake the subjective for the
objective, where any form of sound is expected, or feared, or waited for;
the husband's footsteps are plainly heard by the anxious wife when they
are miles away, and heard many times, it may be, before they come
near ; and between the deception and the reality there is no practical
distinction.

Medical students, taking lessons in auscultation and percussion, on
sounding the chest, often deceive themselves as well as their teachers,
by hearing the sounds of their own ears perfectly counterfeiting the
sounds they are hoping to hear. Not only whisperings and voices arise
in the brain, but sustained conversations, with varied modulations, are
consciously carried on between the cerebral cells, and are heard as
though they proceeded from a distant room. These phenomena appear

his " French Revolution : " " Nevertheless, poor Weber saw, or even thought he saw (for
scarcely the third part of poor Weber's experiences, in such hysterical days, will stand
scrutiny), one of the brigands level his musket at her majesty." Are not all the exciting
and critical experiences that make up our histories and biographies hysterical or rather
entrancing days? On this topic — the untrustworthiness of which is called history — the
following remarks of Saint-Beuve, in his criticism of Guizot, are most pertinent, and, so
far forth, are in harmony with the philosophy here announced : " I am one of those who
doubt, indeed, whether it is granted to man to comprehend with this amplitude, with this
certainty, the causes and the sources of his own history in the past; he has so much to
do to comprehend it, even imperfectly, at the present time, and to avoid being deceived
about it at every hour ! " St. Augustine has made this very ingenious comparison : " Sup-
pose that a syllable in the poem of the ' Iliad ' were endowed, for a moment, with a soul and
with life : could that syllable, placed as it is, comprehend the meaning and general plan
of the poem ? At most, it could only comprehend the meaning of the verse in which it
was placed, and the meaning of the three or four preceding verses. That syllable, ani-
mated for a moment, is man ; and you have just told him that he has only to will it, in
order to grasp the totality of the things which have occurred on this earth, the majority
of which have vanished without leaving monuments or traces of themselves, and the rest
of which have left only monuments that are so incomplete and so truncated."

When our youths are taught, as in the future not far away they must be, that the
larger portion of historical and controversial literature is of no worth to those who seek
for the truth in matters of history and controversy, the process of education will be much
simplified; the area of what has hitherto passed for "sound learning" will be greatly
restricted, to the relief of all who prefer realities to delusions, and who are oppressed,
as every one must be, by the yearly-increasing burden that rests upon those who mingle
in the society of scholars.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. i79

not only in insanity, but in far more frequent and less severe nervous
disorders, as in trance, hysteria, and simple nervous exhaustion.

The Involuntary Life. — The unconscious and involuntary char-
acter of much of mental action is now so far allowed that it may be
assumed as a basis for argument in discussions relating to the brain.
Many psychologists and some physiologists agree in this, that many
of our thoughts are practically unconscious, and all agree that mental
action is largely involuntary. This truth, as applied to the higher
phases of activity, has long been noted ; in the words of Lynch, " when
our views are most earnest, most solemn, and most beautiful, we are
often conscious of being in a state rather than of making an effort."
Says Goethe : " No productiveness of the highest kind, no remarkable
discovery, no great thought which bears fruit, and has its results, is in
the power of any one. All men, who closely watch their inner life,
become conscious of these high truths, at least as that life develops.
The sign of growth in the soul is, that it gradually loses confidence in
its volitional reasonings about best and highest things, and reposes
trust rather in what it feels to be given." We work best when we are
not working. In the lower realms of activity, through various grada-
tions, what we call volition has oftentimes but a subordinate influence ;
much is done automatically, and in spite of or against our wills. The
noisy rabble of passions and emotions throw the captain overboard, and
the mind either drifts or sails furiously and recklessly before the storm ;
the very attempt of the will to assert its powyer is the signal for mu-
tiny: it is most influential when it lies low, and gently guides the helm.

The involuntary life — or that side of mental activity that is inde-
pendent of volition — constitutes even in health the larger part of life,
and in certain states of disease man becomes an absolute automaton.
The very effort of attention is liable to destroy the scientific value of
our observation of the object to which our attention is directed, since
it subtracts and draws off the cerebral force from those faculties that
are needed in careful and thorough attention ; only when one has
reached the stage where he can observe without severe, conscious effort,
can he be said to be a good observer. An extreme illustration of au-
tomatism is the state of trance, a morbid condition of the brain in
which, as I have elsewhere sought to prove, the activity is concentrated
in some one faculty or group of faculties, the activity of other portions of
the brain being for the time suspended. A person in this state may do
the very things he especially wills not to do : what he wishes and tries
to do he cannot ; the will is no longer the master, but the servant. For
a person in this state to attempt to observe, is as useless as for a steam-
engine to attempt to reason ; he is an automaton, a machine, a bundle
of reflex actions, like a plant or polypus. He sees, hears, smells, tastes,
and feels, whatever may be suggested to his emotions either by individ-

180 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ual or by attendant circumstances, and these subjective sensations are
to him genuine, objective realities. This state of trance is not infre-
quent, but is most common and constantly occurring ; it is not con-
fined to any one class or sex, but all human beings are subject to it; no
degree of intelligence or of culture suffices to insure exemption ; it comes
often when it is least looked for, and its easiest victims are of all per-
sons most unsuspicious and ignorant of its nature. Trance is en-
tirely a subjective state, external causes acting as excitant only, and,
of all the numberless exciting causes none are more influential in the
average individual than the witnessing of strange or exceptional events ;
and as the testimony of those who are even partially entranced in
regard to what they have seen, or heard, or experienced, or done, is
of no value, and as under the excitement of the emotions produced by
the real or supposed occurrences of unusual or marvelous events large
numbers of witnesses are liable to be simultaneously and similarly en-
tranced, therefore human testimony becomes practically of the least
value in just those crises and situations where evidence both for the
purposes of science and law is most needed. The influence of psychical
contagion, or the excitation of emotions through involuntary imitation,
one person carrying the excitement to another, and so on, through vast
audiences, is of special import in relation to human testimony : excite-
ment spreads through a multitude in arithmetical ratio, proportioned
to the numbers ; a crowd is a multiplier of force, and through the stimu-
lus of sight and sound generates a storm of emotion ; out of an insig-
nificant cause each individual in his turn unconsciously adding to the
original excitement, just as in the Holtz or Gramme electrical ma-
chines each new revolution adds to the force obtained by the first. A
large audience may be agitated with laughter or melted into abundant
tears by a story which, when told to an individual, causes perhaps but
a feeble smile or mildly suffused eyes. Average testimony, therefore,
in regard to unprecedented, or marvelous, or wondrous phenomena, as
the manifestation of supposed new forces, or strange symptoms of dis-
ease, or the raising of the dead, or any unusual appearances in Nature,
on the earth, in the air, in the sky — such as would be likely to excite
the emotions of awe, of wonder, of reverence, or of fear, in the pres-
ence of large assemblages — can have no scientific value; a whole army
may be entranced, and may see and hear what is dreaded or expected.

Under conditions that strongly excite the emotions, no force of
numbers and no concurrence of testimony can give any value to testi-
mony ; a million ciphers are worth no more than a single cipher. The
greater the number of eye-witnesses, the greater their liability to be
deceived through the influence of mental contagion.1

But, aside from trance and allied states — which constitute the cul-
mination of the involuntary life — the value of human testimony is im-

1 For more detailed analyses of this subject, the reader is referred to my monograph
on the "Scientific Basis of Delusions."

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 18 1

paired, as all lawyers learn by experience, through the emotions acting
upon the reason, slowly, it may be, and unconsciously, so as to produce
in time sincere but utterly untrue convictions in regard to facts of ob-
servation. The wish is so far the father to the thought that men, and
especially women and children, reason themselves into an honest con-
viction that they have seen, or heard, or experienced, something direct-
ly opposite to that which they actually saw, or heard, or experienced,
and this conviction becomes so organized in the brain that neither by
their own efforts nor by the arguments of others can the deception ever
be disclosed to them. How true this is of speculative beliefs all know ;
it is not so well known that it is true also of facts of observation and
personal experience, thus vitiating most of human testimony. The wish
secretly usurps the throne of the will, and, unknown to the subject,
guides with a silent and resistless energy the course of thought in the
brain. Every day our courts are forced to attend to the testimony of
witnesses who are sure they are telling the truth in regard to what
happened, although really they are telling what they wanted to happen.
Even in science microscopists who are not yet full experts oftentimes
see what they are looking for, and afterward believe they have seen
what at the time they did not even profess to see. Herein is the psy-
chology of gossip, which usually consists of a mountain of untruth, of
fear, and hope, and jealousy, and anger, and love, and expectation, with
a few grains of fact — the offerings of falsehood being oftentimes as
honest as the offerings of truth.

*&'

Need of a Reconstruction op the Principles of Evidence. —
The acceptance of the above facts and reasonings involves the necessity
of reconstruction of the principles of evidence, as thus far taught by
all our highest authorities in that department. Disagreeing widely on
other and far less important departments, all schools, and languages,
and ages — writers on law, on logic, on science — agree in accepting what
is called the evidence of the senses, although, as we have seen, the
senses of themselves can give us no evidence of anything whatsoever ;
and in this, likewise, there is passive if not active agreement — that the
first qualification of a witness is honesty, and that the concurrence of
testimony of large numbers is a solid basis for belief. Sir William
Hamilton, with no suspicion of the nature or phenomena of trance as
here described, quotes with earnest approval the following statement
of Esser :

" When the trustworthiness of a witness or witnesses is unimpeachable, the
very circumstance that the object is one in itself unusual and marvelous adds
greater weight to the testimony ; for this very circumstance would itself induce
men of veracity and intelligence to accord a more attentive scrutiny to the fact,
and secure from them a more accurate report of their observation."

In this single sentence all the errors of the world in regard to
human testimony seem to be condensed — the placing of honesty in the

i8z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

front rank of qualifications, the confounding1 of general intelligence
with special intelligence, the inference that the senses are infallible,
and the utter non-recognition of the limitations of the brain and its
liability to disturbance in the presence of circumstances that excite the
emotions.

Reid, after citing the custom of courts in assuming that the eves
and ears are to be trusted, inquires:

"Can any stronger proof be given that it is the universal judgment of man-
kind that the evidence of sense is a kind of evidence which we may securely
rest upon in the most momentous concerns of mankind — that it is a kind of evi-
dence against which we ought not to admit any reasoning, and therefore that
to reason either for or against it is an insult to common-sense? "

More recently still, indeed most recently of all, the anonymous
author of " Supernatural Religion," in speaking of the testimony of
Faul relating to the resurrection, says that it is not of such a character
as would be received in a court of justice, thereby implying that the
evidence of courts is evidence of the highest kind, whereas from the
scientific point of view it is oftentimes the worst kind of evidence — al-
though practically it may be the best that is possible in the administra-
tion of law : the form of swearing, though it may make the dishonest
transiently honest, and force truth from unwilling lips, can never com-
pensate for the limitations of the human brain, or correct the errors
that enter through the senses, or make an expert out of a non-expert.

Laplace enunciates the formula that the more improbable a state-
ment in which witnesses agree, the greater the probability of its truth
— a statement which, in view of our present knowledge of the brain,
seems almost satirical ; but Abercombie, although a physician, gives
full assent to the proposition in these words, which could not have been
written by any one who had even a general conception of the philoso-
phy of trance :

" Thus we may have two men whom we know to be so addicted to lying
that we would not attach the smallest credit to their single testimony on any
subject. If we find these concurring in a statement respecting an event which
was highly prohable, or very likely to have occurred at the time which they men-
tion, we may still have a suspicion that they are lying, and that they may have
happened to concur in the same lie, even although there should he no suspicion
of connivance. But, if the statement was in the highest degree improbable,
such as that of a man rising from the dead, we may feel it to be impossible that
they could accidentally have agreed in such a statement ; and, if we are satisfied
that there could be no connivance, we may receive a conviction from its very
improbability that it may be true."

Again, Abercrombie remarks :

" Whatever probability there is that the eyes of one man may be deceived in
any one instance, the probability is as nothing that both his sight and touch
should be deceived at once ; or that the senses of ten men should be deceived
in the same manner, at the same time ; ... if we find numerous witnesses

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 183

agreeing in the same testimony, all equally informed of the facts, all showing
the same characters of credibility, and without the possibility of concert or con-
nivance, the evidence becomes not convincing only, but incontrovertible."

Such are the principles of evidence that are taught in our colleges
and schools. It is no marvel that most of human philosophy is one
vast petitio principii. Men reason that if a large number of witnesses
agree in their testimony, if there is no possibility of deception (thus
begging the very question of questions), then such and such inferences
must follow. On this treacherous quicksand of uncertainty and posi-
tive untruth — average human testimony — the world has built, and con-
tinues to build, its lofty temples of philosophy, of faith, of history, and
of general literature ; no wonder that they so quickly crumble and fall,
and that the pathway of humanity is marked by their ruins ! Even
Germany, which in philosophy and science does the original thinking
for all nations, has not yet attempted to reduce human testimony to a
science ; and nowhere is the need for such study more frequently and
seriously impressed than in recent German controversial literature.

In many experiments with large numbers of human beings in one
room, and operated on simultaneously by some performance that pow-
erfully excites the emotions of wonder, of awe, of reverence, and of ex-
pectation, I have proved that a subjective state can be induced in many,
if not the majority or all of them, wherein they concurrently see and
experience what has no existence ; and, after the performance is over,
they frequently and permanently persist in their delusions, although
they are opposed to the general experience of mankind and all the de-
ductions of science. Why, indeed, should they not do so? They are
taught to believe their eyes ; they have seen with their eyes such and
such phenomena ; they are logically compelled to accept the testimony
of their senses, even though they do not wish it to be true. I have
made these experiments, not only with the aid of profoundly imposing
pretensions, as of raising ghosts and the like, but with quite simple
methods and appliances, such as professing to magnetize the room by
the battery, or to throw a pretended magnetic fluid on the body, or to
rub away pain or disease. Not only are the symptoms of disease fre-
quently and simultaneously relieved in a number of persons in these
experiments, but trance, with many of its physical and psychical symp-
toms, such as convulsive movements, sighing respiration, quickened
pulse, with hallucinations of sight, of hearing, and other senses.
These results, which are of the highest scientific and practical interest,
and in various directions, are in the power of any cerebro-physiologist
to obtain who has sufficient experience in making experiments with
living human beings. A powerful and imposing physique, positiveness
and impressiveness of manner, and a reputation as a performer with
those on whom they experiment, are aids to these experiments, but are
not essential to them.

184 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE PYGMY MONKEY.1

By E. OUSTALET.

THERE was lately presented to the London Zoological Society, by
an engineer attached to the navigation service of the Upper
Amazon, a monkey, which may be regarded as one of the smallest rep-
resentatives of the order Quadrwnana. The animal is not so big as a
squirrel, its body measuring only fifteen centimetres, with a tail of about
the same length. The tribe to which it belongs, that of the Hapalians,
stands at the foot of the monkey series, at the head of which are the
anthropoid apes. While the latter are remarkable for a stature nearly
equal to that of the human species, a robust body without caudal ap-
pendage, and a voluminous brain with numerous convolutions, the Ha-
palians, on the other hand, in size do not surpass some of our Rodents.
The body is rather slender, but covered with a heavy coat of hair, and
terminated by a long tail ; the brain is almost perfectly smooth. Like
the Cebians, with which they constitute the Platyrrhine family, they
have neither callosities nor cheek-pouches, but they differ from the
other monkeys of the New World in the claw-like nails of all the fingers
except the thumbs of the posterior members, and in the teeth, which
number only thirty-two, the great molars being reduced to two on each
side of each jaw. To these characters correspond notable differences
in the habits and modes of life. Thus certain naturalists have supposed
that the Hapalians (which they designate by the not very appropriate
name of Arctopitheci — "bear-monkeys") must be regarded as an inde-
pendent family, of the same rank as the families of the Platyrrhines
and the Catarrhines. Even though we do not adopt this opinion, we
are forced to admit that the Hapalians offer certain affinities with the
Rodents, if not in the skeleton and the dental formula, at least in the
gait. Like our squirrels, they are essentially arboreal, and run up -and
down the trunks of trees with great agility, buying their claws deep
into the bark. Like the squirrels, too, they are lively and alert during
the day, and spend the nights concealed in holes ; like them, they shel-
ter themselves against cold by gathering around them their bushy tails ;
like them, finally, they are exceedingly timid and wary, fleeing at the
least noise, and seeking refuge in the foliage. But here the resem-
blance ends : for, while the Rodents, with their strong incisors and mo-
lars, easily cut and bruise the hardest grains and fruits, the Hapalians,
whose jaws are of a different conformation, live on birds'-eggs, insects,
fruits, and buds. As regards intelligence, the Hapalians appear to be
far inferior to other monkeys, and in them the sense of touch in par-
ticular is poorly developed, the anterior members terminating in true

1 Translated from the French by J. Fitzgerald, A. M.

THE PYGMY MONKEY.

185

feet, the digits of which are armed with claws, and the posterior mem-
bers presenting only imperfect hands. The head is roundish ; the flat
face is animated with small but very bright eyes ; the ears are often
adorned with tufts of hair, which give an odd character to the physiog-
nomy. Finally, the body is covered with a thick coat of soft, silken
hair, often with regularly-arranged bands in the back and tail.1 By

The Pygmy Monkey.

their aspect, and the coloration of their fur, by their size, by their mode
of life, as also by the details of their organization, the Hapalians con-
stitute a very natural family. Still, they may be divided into two gen-
era, the Uistitis {Hapale or Jacchus), with long, tufted tail, with no
fringe of hair around the face, but with tufts of hair on the ears ; and
the Tamarins (Midas), whose head is adorned with a fringe, but whose
ears are more or less denuded. We will set this latter group complete-
ly aside, and consider only the Uistitis.

The species of the genus Jacchus, all, without exception, are found
in tropical America, between the Isthmus of Panama and latitude 30°
south, but chiefly, if not exclusively, in the region lying to the east of
the Andes, some of them inhabiting the virgin forests, others the thick-
ets scattered over the plains. The best-known species is the common
Uistiti [Hapale or Jacchus vidgaris), with gray-russet pelt, with alter-
nate red and blackish streaks, and with from fifteen to eighteen rings
on the tail, a white, triangular spot on the forehead, and long white
hairs on the sides of the head. It is a native of Guiana and Brazil, and

1 The name Hapalians, given to these monkeys by Illiger, is derived from the Greek
ana\6s, which means soft.

186 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was long ago described by Buffon, Illiger, and Geoffroy St.-Hilaire. It
is of very small size, but a little larger than the pygmy monkev, recent-
ly acquired by the Zoological Society ; its body measures from twenty
to twenty-three centimetres, and the tail about fifty-five centimetres.

The common Uistiti is, no doubt, familiar to our readers, for it is
often imported into Europe. It has even reproduced in captivity, and
many naturalists, as Cuvier, Pallas, and Audouin, have made some very
interesting observations on it. The young ones, which are born with
the eyes open, have a very large head, a dark-gray skin of pretty uni-
form color, excepting the tail, which plainly shows the rings. Immedi-
ately after birth they cling to their dam, who, however, does not seem
to have any great affection for them, and turns them over to the male
as soon as she feels tired ; he in turn gives them back to his consort
when they try to suck. The adult animals, though they are by nature
timid, become attached to those persons who care for them, and, though
they do not exhibit much intelligence, they nevertheless appear to be
able to associate ideas. Thus, one of the two Uistitis, which Audouin
kept for a long time, acquired the habit of shutting the eyes whenever
he ate grapes, and this because he had once squirted the juice of grapes
into the animal's eyes. At the sight of a wasp this animal, as also its
companion, was seized with sudden terror, and took refuge in the bot-
tom of its cage, covering its head with its hands, though this was the
first time it ever had seen that insect, and though it daily pursued flies
with great address. Audouin, who had observed this occurrence, con-
ceived the idea of offering to his two Uistitis not a live wasp, but a
colored picture of one ; to his great surprise, the monkeys fully recog-
nized their enemy and manifested much alarm. Now, we know that
most of our domestic animals, and even certain highly-organized mon-
keys, while they manifest pleasure or rage at beholding their own
images in a mirror, are nevertheless perfectly indifferent in the presence
of the portrait, however life-like, of an animal of a different species.

Pallas tells us that some Uistitis have endured perfectly well the
winter cold of St. Petersburg, while, on the other hand, they were
greatly incommoded by the heat of the summer. But this must be an
exception, for, as a rule, in our menageries these little monkeys, despite
all the care bestowed on them, have great difficulty in living through
the winter season. They are fed mainly either on eggs, which they
empty with much dexterity, or on fruit ; the latter must be soft and
sweet, for the Uistiti rejects almonds no less than acid fruits. Flesh-
meat has no attraction for them ; and, when they seize with their hands
a living bird, they first choke it to death and then tear open the cra-
nium to get at the brain. Their cries are various : they express alarm
by a sort of bark, anger by a short hiss, joy by a low cry, or by a
rather pleasant purring. On the slightest opposition, they bristle the
hair of their head and grit their teeth, and endeavor to bite the hand
that would seize them. Nevertheless, it is but just to say that these

SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. 187

inequalities of temper are seen rather in individuals captured at an ad-
vanced period of life than in those taken young. To capture these, the
Indians wound or kill the mother, and then, without difficulty, seize the
young ones, which she carries on her back.

Very nearly allied to the common Uistiti is the Ilapale aurita, or
eared Uistiti, with fur of russet black, streaked on the back with faint
black bands ; also the cowled Uistiti (Ilapale humeralifer), with white
face, surrounded with brownish hair, blackish body, a collar of snowy
white on the scapular region, and tail bearing incomplete rings. These
two species are, like Hap>ale vulgaris, natives of Brazil, and, like that
animal, they are noticeable for the tufts of white hair which grow on
the anterior surface of the ears. In other Uistitis, on the contrary
(as the Ilapale penicillata), and the white-headed Uistiti (Ilapale leu-
cocephala), which inhabit the same regions, the tufts on the ears are
black. Finally, in the black-tailed Uistiti (Ilapale melanura),o$ which,
in all probability, Buffon's Simla argentata is only an albino variety,
the hair, which is light brown, is very short, and the tail is of a uni-
form, light-brown color. To the same category belong the Pygmy
Uistiti (Hi pale pygmaia) — of which we give a figure copied from na-
ture— and the white-footed Uistiti (Ilapale leucopus), a species de-
scribed last year by Gray, and which has the forearms, feet, and hands,
of a nearly pure white color, while the rest of the body is brownish
gray, with more or less mixture of red. This animal was discovered at
Medellin, in Colombia; while the Ilapale pygmaia — which differs from
it both in markings and in size, having red spots and blackish streaks,
and being much smaller than Leucopus — is confined to certain regions
of Brazil and Peru. — La Nature.

-frt-O-

SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY.'

By F. W. CLARKE,

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.

SOME years ago, a clergyman in one of our Western States became
deeply impressed with the conviction that the town in which he
lived ought to contain a college. In due time a charter was secured,
and a board of trustees appointed. They met, organized, conferred
upon the aforesaid clergyman the degree of D. D., and then adjourned
forever. I give the story as I heard it, without undertaking to vouch
for its truthfulness. It savors somewhat of extravagance, and yet has
a sound of probability. Everybody has heard of the establishment of
so-called "colleges" upon similarly slender foundations. They exist
in almost every Southern or Western State, and because of them our
1 Read before the Ohio College Association, December 27, 1877,

188 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

really good institutions suffer continual discredit. In education, as in
all other things, the realities are brought into disrepute by the shams.

Suppose now that the college described above had continued through
several successive stages the career so auspiciously begun. It would
probably have opened with its clerical founder for president, and a
force of one or two professors (should not this be written professers ?)
to help him. It would have announced all sorts of courses of study — a
classical course, a scientific course, a mixed literary or ladies' course, a
business course, a normal course, and so on, to the limit of its founder's
power of invention. These courses, having been organized with vari-
ous degrees of incapacity, would in due time be supplemented by de-
partments of art and music ; and, in short, there would grow up an
institution claiming to do all things, but unfit to do any one thing
decently. The classics would be taught by a mere grammarian unac-
quainted with modern philology ; the sciences by a teacher destitute
of special scientific training; the normal department by an amateur
educator; and book-keeping by somebody who had never attempted
actual business. Degrees would be given by the dozen to students
who had never learned anything but dilettanteism, and whose ideas of
scholarships would, as a rule, be limited by the attainments of their
teachers.

Does anybody doubt the existence of such colleges as I have
sketched ? It would be easy to point out twenty institutions in differ-
ent parts of the county, any one of which w'ould answer tolerably well
to my description. Between these extremes and the respectable col-
leges there are many intermediate grades. There are some schools in
which thoroughly good work is done of a low order — work which car-
ries the student to about the point where a fair junior year should be-
gin, and which is honest so far as it goes. The only objection to these
schools is, that they call themselves colleges, and confer college degrees.
That they have a great value, nobody can doubt. Many and many a
country lad who would otherwise remain ignorant gets in one or an-
other of them the foundations of an education. If they would but
abandon the college name, cease to grant diplomas, and call themselves
academies or high-schools, they would then deserve only praise. It is
their pretension to be more than they really are which is so damaging
to the cause of higher education.

With all these lower institutions the true colleges have to com-
pete. Every college is directly impeded in its work by their existence.
The institution which provides low-grade courses for imperfectly pre-
pared students, actually encourages defects in the preparatory schools,
and every other college suffers in consequence. All or nearly all of
our universities are in part dependent upon the income received from
students. They must get students, or perish ; and hence the competi-
tion for numbers, which is continually tending to keep down the stand-
ards. Nearly every respectable college in America is hindered in this

SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. 189

way. Even Harvard and Yale, old and powerful as they are, feel the
bad influence. Perhaps the Johns Hopkins University, protected by
its great wealth, may escape from the evil tendency.

Not many years ago, partly in consequence of the growth of the
natural and physical sciences, and partly because of a popular demand
for an education not exclusively classical, a number of American col-
leges established scientific schools. Naturally, the larger universities
led off in this movement, and the smaller soon followed ; only the lat-
ter, as a rule, inaugurated not separate schools for science, but scien-
tific courses, so called, parallel with the courses in classics. As might
reasonably be expected, the attempts at first were crude ; nobody
knew exactly what was wanted ; vagueness characterized the entire
subject. The classicists rather distrusted the new policy; looked upon
it as an effort to degrade true education ; and generally gave it the
cold shoulder. Still, they were obliged to concede something to the
new education ; and their concessions, wrung from them by popular
pressure, were seriously affected by the competition for students of
which I have already spoken. Even respectable Eastern colleges
yielded ground, and established courses of study which were obviously
meant to be easier than the older curriculum, in order that they might
swell their numbers by attracting students too badly prepared, too
stupid, or too indolent, to do the regular, traditional, solid work. In
short, there sprang up by degrees, all over the countrv, courses of
study requiring but little preparation on the part of the student to
enter them, and not much exertion to remain and graduate afterward.
They were, in many cases, mere waste-heaps, in which the college rub-
bish was allowed to gather, there to remain for four years fermenting
before being finally cleared out of the way.

Along with the call for scientific studies came a demand for the
higher education of women. Some distinctively female colleges were
established, but in the majority of instances coeducation was tried.
Again the spirit of false competition for students told against true
learning. At first but few girls were well prepared for admission to
college ; and, consequently, immature students were accepted. They
could not well carry on advanced studies ; and so, to suit them, in
many places special " courses for ladies " were organized ; and these
were in some instances identical with the courses in science. Thus
two distinct movements, both good in themselves, were made to work
together for evil. The old classical system of education was well
established, was governed by the traditions handed down through cen-
turies of experience, and was therefore able to hold its own. The
competition for students, therefore, chiefly affected the new system,
and in the direction of science it exerted its strongest degrading
influence. The demand was for good scientific education on the one
hand, and for the advancement of women on the other ; the first result
in many cases was the establishment of shams. That women should

i9o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be admitted to the colleges was right and just ; but that low standards
should be set up for badly -prepared students, either male or female,
was never intended by the advocates of the new departure.

Wo now see that the general low character of our scientific courses
of study may be traced to two distinct causes : first, to the crudeness
due to the novelty of the subject ; and, second, to the competition for
students. With the latter cause we have in the present paper little to
do, save to distinctly recognize its baneful action. The former is the
one to be particularly discussed.

When courses of study in science were first proposed, our colleges
were controlled almost exclusively by men of classical training and
bias — men wholly outside of scientific life, unacquainted with scientific
work, the scientific method, or the scientific spirit. Upon these men
devolved at first the organization of the new courses. With them, study
was mainly a matter of book-work ; such as recitations and written ex-
ercises, aided by an occasional lecture. Laboratory or experimental
instruction was rarely thought of, save when a professor exhibited a
few specimens upon his lecture-table, or performed some showy experi-
ment. Students went to the professor of chemistry much as they
would go to see a conjurer ; expecting to be stunned, dazzled, and de-
lighted, but dreaming of no real study except an occasional recitation
and the cram for examinations at the end of a term. Mental discipline
from such study was out of the question ; real scholarship had nothing
to do with it ; systematic research on the part of either student or
professor was almost unheard of. The study of science consisted in
empirically memorizing a few disconnected facts, without reference to
their mutual relations, or to the growth of any specific department of
knowledge. This was the rule ; but, fortunately, there were some
exceptions. In a few of the larger colleges a better state of things ex-
isted— a state which was by no means perfection, but one which afiorded
a starting-point for healthy growth and improvement. In these col-
leges the scientific work was controlled by distinctively scientific men,
and under their guidance the adverse influences were in part at least
overcome. From such centres the scientific spirit has spread ; and, now
that the early crudeness has worn away, we are able to see clearly what
a scientific course of study ought to be, and in what quarters our greater
deficiencies lie.

Now, the problem before us is easily stated. It is to devise a course
of study in which language is subordinate to the natural and physical
sciences, and which shall be fully equal in requirements for admission
and in subsequent mental training to the old-fashioned classical cur-
riculum. In such a course the student must receive as solid and sys-
tematic a training as was ever furnished by a study of the classics ; and
for less than this no diploma should be granted. Of course, it is to be
understood that the two systems of education cannot lead to identical
results : each is in certain respects superior to the other ; the equality

SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. 191

between them is to be founc^ in an average, and not in a coincidence of
details. The classical student will more keenly appreciate the exact
meanings of words ; but his scientific rival will gain a deeper insight
into things:, the one may perhaps be more facile and elegant in literary
expression ; the other, stronger in powers of thought.

First, let us discuss the requirements for admission to scientific
courses — what is, and what ought to be done. For entry upon an
ordinary classical course a student is examined in the so-called "Eng-
lish branches," in Latin, in Greek, and in mathematics ; the amount
required of each being different in different institutions. For the scien-
tific course we may properly demand the same English branches and
mathematics, so that the question really is, " What shall we substitute
for the Latin and Greek?" Now, every good high or preparatory school
furnishes instruction in a variety of topics available for this purpose.
If the classical student is obliged to know some classics before he can
enter college, why should not the scientific student be required to know
some science ? Or, instead of this, a certain amount of preparation in
modern languages might be demanded. French, German, chemistry,
and physics, make a good list from which to select subjects, and any
two of these might be chosen.1 These studies, properly learned, will
cover the ground,, and, at the same time, bear directly upon the sub-
sequent work of the scientific course. If a college cannot get students
well fitted in the subjects named above, substitutes might be accepted ;
as, for instance, additional mathematics or Latin. The Latin, however,
is to be regarded merely as a makeshift ; a sort of token that the stu-
dent has had a certain amount of mental discipline. It should never
be demanded except when the other more important studies are lacking.
But the essential thing is, that the candidate for admission shall have
spent as much time and done as much work in preparation for college
as the student who intends to follow classical studies. This require-
ment is not severe by any means, and it is unquestionably just. A
scientific course of study ought not to be established upon any weaker
basis.

But how many of the colleges which grant the Bachelor of Science
degree come up to this mark? Unfortunately, very few. As a general
rule, not only in Ohio, but throughout the West, the requirements for
admission to a scientific course are the same as for the classical course,
minus the classics. In some instances a portion of the Latin require-
ment is retained, and in a few more other studies are substituted in
part for the classical branches. In one college, a little more mathe-
matics is demanded of the candidate for admission in science; in

1 The University of Cincinnati, for admission to the scientific course, requires algebra,
to permutations and combinations ; the whole of geometry ; the whole of plane trigo-
nometry; elementary inorganic chemistry, including familiarity with laboratory manipu-
lations ; elementary physics (Balfour Stewart or Norton) ; and the elements of either
French or German.

192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

another, the elements of a modern language are required. But in very
many cases there seems to be not even an attempt to really equalize the
two courses of study.

From these facts we see that the average student in a scientific
course enters upon his work with a mind less mature than that of his
fellow in the classics. Both stay in college for four years, and then
receive baccalaureate degrees. Is it strange that in most cases the
classically trained scholar comes out ahead? Is it just to attribute his
advantage to any lack of educational value upon the part of the sci-
ences? In short, is the comparison between the two systems of educa-
tion at all a fair one? Obviously, it is not. Until both systems have
been tested side by side, both properly developed and with equally
good student material to work upon, no reasonable comparison between
them can be made. As long as the poorer students are concentrated in
one course, and the better prepared in the other, the sciences will be at
a grave disadvantage.

So much concerning the requirements fcr admission. Now let us
consider the course of study afterward — what is it now, and what ought
it to be ? Surely we should expect to find the scientific students learn-
ing more science than is taught in the classical courses. Reasonable,
however, as this expectation is, in many cases it will be disappointed.
If we look over the catalogues of even our Ohio colleges, we shall find
that in great measure the purely scientific studies are the same in both
courses ; the same amount of chemistry, of physics, of zoology, of
geology, and so on. In one catalogue I find the classical course fully
laid out, and after it the explicit statement that " the scientific de-
partment will embrace all the above course, except the classics." In a
few institutions the scientific student does get a trifle more of science
than his neighbor, as much as an extra term in physical geography or
surveying. Some of these courses of study have absolutely no right to
the name of scientific. Here is the beginning of such a course in an
Ohio college :

Freshman Year — First Term. — In the classical course, Latin,
Greek, and algebra. In the scientific course, the same algebra, easier
Latin, and Old Testament history. Second Term. — Classical course :
Latin, Greek, and algebra, continued ; geometry and physiology, taken
up. Scientific course : The same mathematics and physiology, easier
Latin, and New Testament history.

Sophomore Year — First Term. — Classical course: Latin, Greek,
zoology, geometry. Scientific course : Easier Latin, the same geometry,
" physical geography, and geography of the heavens." Second Term.
— Classical course : Latin, Greek, trigonometry, conic sections and
analytics, botany. Scientific course : The same mathematics and bota-
ny, general history, Paley's " Natural Theology." And so on to the
end of the senior year.

In this particular instance the scientific course contains one term in

SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. 193

physical geography over and above the amount of science taught in
the classical department ; and, in the main, substitutes for Greek some
sort of theological instruction. Perhaps a portion of the latter might
be put under the head of Paley ontology, and in that sense be re-
garded as essentially scientific. But, to speak seriously, the course, as
a whole, however respectable it may be from some points of view, has
certainly no right to the scientific title. It is an easy, trivial course,
fitted to accommodate inferior students, and ought, in common hon-
esty, to be called by some definite and appropriate name. To call such
a course " scientific " is simply dishonest. This case, I am sorry to say,
is by no means an exceptional one. Scientific courses of this type are
exceedingly common ; and, because of their existence, scientific studies
often fall into disrepute. There are in Ohio, fortunately, quite a num-
ber of colleges which give scientific instruction of a very much higher
order than is here indicated, where faithful efforts are made to put the
scientific and classical courses upon an equal footing, and which fall
short only because of the lower standard for admission to the former.
There are still others, and some of our best colleges among them, which
refuse point-blank to establish special courses in science at all, on the
ground that they have neither the means nor the appliances to make
such work as effective as it ought to be. These institutions deserve
the highest credit. Although I am fully convinced that the new edu-
cation is far superior to the old, I also recognize the fact that any gen-
uine work is better than any sham ; and that a good drill in the classics
is immeasurably better than a mere trifling with science. The former
is scholarly ; the latter is not. It is a truism to say that a college had
better do one thing well than two things badly ; but this truism is too
often forgotten or overlooked. It would be a decided gain if some of
our colleges could make the scientific course the one thing well done,
but, in default of that, it is cheering to know that the other is properly
attended to.

Now, having seen what the scientific courses often are, we find our-
selves in a position to discuss what they ought to be. As the name in-
dicates, science should predominate in them, but not necessarily to the
exclusion of other things. French, German, mathematics, English lit-
erature, logic, and possibly some drawing, ought to be included ; the
relative proportions of these branches varying with circumstances. A
certain. range of election should be allowed the student, since different
students have very different needs. No prescribed course of study can
be devised which shall be universally acceptable and invariably pro-
ductive of beneficial results. If every student attempts to study every-
thing, no thorough work can be done in any department. A college
certainly ought not to be an institution for the encouragement of dif-
fuseness. Scholarship and the character formed by scholarship are its
true aims. A student does not gain breadth of mind by dabbling a
little in a dozen different things — superficiality and the consequent nar-

VOL. XIII. — 13

i94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rowness are the natural results of such a course. The title " Bach,
elor of Science " ought not to be equivalent with " Bachelor of Sci-
olism."

I have spoken of French and German as essential studies in a eci-
entific course. Let me emphasize their importance. At the present
day no branch of advanced study can be carried far without the assist-
ance of these languages. Every science and every art is aided by
them. Three-fourths of all the researches and of the books written
upon pure science are in one or the other of these tongues. Surely a
Bachelor of Science ought to graduate fitted for advancement in the
studies which he prefers. French and German will be absolute necessi-
ties in his equipment ; without them he can scarcely develop in any di-
rection. This, to a lesser degree, is true of the classical graduate also.
What good work in philology can be done by a man unacquainted with
German ? What study of literature, art, music, law, medicine, or the-
ology, is not aided by the modern languages ? Surely, then, any course
of study which omits to provide facilities for learning both French and
German is essentially defective, and ought to be revised.

I am sorry to say that a considerable number of our colleges do not
come up to this requirement. There are several in Ohio in which there
seems to be absolutely no instruction in modern languages furnished.
There are others, and among them some institutions of high repute, in
which these studies are exclusively elective ; a student may take them
or not, as he chooses. This is wrong, and for the reasons given above.
In the scientific courses, at least, no student should receive a degree
unless he is able to use French and German reference-books at sight.
Some of our colleges insert Latin among the required freshman studies
of the scientific course. This should be crossed out, in order to make
room for the more important modern languages. A moderate amount
of Latin, however, may well be retained upon the list of elective studies
for the benefit of those students who are more especially interested in
biological science. But this amount, useful in connection with scien-
tific nomenclature, is very small, and can be acquired in a comparatively
short time. For the mathematician, astronomer, chemist, or physicist,
none at all is needed.

The quantity of mathematics to be prescribed will naturally vary
with circumstances. Probably the best way is to require every student
to go through plane analytics ; and, after that, to give him oppor-
tunities for mathematical elcctives. The scholar whose particular
tastes lead him to the special study of physics, will take up the calcu-
lus and mechanics. The chemist will find the calculus of value, but
not by any means necessary. The biologist needs no more than the
prescribed amount of mathematics, and would probably carry the study
no further. As for English literature, logic, and drawing, but little
need be said. One study puts before the student good models in com-
position, another teaches him the laws of exact thinking, the third en-

SCIENTIFIC COURSES OF STUDY. i95

ables him to represent pictorially what he sees. All three studies give
him power, and two of them help to train his sense of beauty.

Now for the main features of the course — the natural and physical
sciences. How shall they be taught, and with what purposes in view ?

It is a proposition of self-evident truth that a scientific course which
gives the student no real insight into the aims and methods of scientific
research and scientific thought is a failure. Certainly, a Bachelor of
Science ought to clearly understand what science is, what it has accom-
plished, and what it is trying to do. He should be able to appreciate
both its capacities and its limitations, and have some idea of the rela-
tions which connect its several branches. He must see that Nature is
an organized whole, with all its parts dependent upon one another,
governed by inviolable laws, subject to no caprices. If he fails to gain
these broad, general conceptions, his work will remain incomplete, and
of little intellectual value. Such statements as these are undoubtedly
truisms ; and yet there are many colleges in which their force is seem-
ingly never recognized.

In order that these general purposes may be properly carried out, it
is best that every student should choose some one science as a specialty.
Close and exact work can hardly be done otherwise. He who divides
his time equally among all the sciences will not catch the real spirit of
any one. He will merely pick up information empirically, without
gaining genuine insight into anything, or acquiring much intellectual
power. Not that he should confine himself to a single branch alone,
for that would not be in accordance with the principles already laid
down ; but he ought, in his special science, to do as much work as in
all the others collectively.1

We often hear a great outcry against the danger of making special-
ists. This outcry is only in part well-founded. A man who is so
trained as to be blind to everything beyond his own department is
indeed weak — whether that department be a science, art, music, the-
ology, or commerce. A certain amount of versatility is essential to
breadth of view ; but it is not necessary that the student should be
superficial. It is of the utmost importance that there shall be thor-
oughness somewhere ; and yet this fact, of all others, is the one most
frequently overlooked in our smaller colleges. If a student in classics
were to ask the privilege of continuing both Latin and Greek through
the whole four years of his college course, his teachers would probably
regard the desire as eminently praiseworthy, and deserving of en-
couragement. And yet he would be in a measure becoming a special-
ist in those languages. Why, then, should it not be considered equally

1 In the University of Cincinnati every regular student, whether classical or scientific,
is obliged to choose a specialty. This study must be announced to the faculty at the
beginning of the sophomore year, and is to be continued to the end of the course. This
modification of the elective system insures thoroughness in something, and bids fair to
yield most excellent results.

i96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

praiseworthy for a student to seek similar thoroughness in some depart-
ment of science ? If a college course aims to develop the character
of the student, depth should be considered as well as breadth ; and both
are secured by combining the study of a special branch with accessory
work in half a dozen others.

The method of study is also important, and just here is where many
otherwise good institutions fail. Every student of science should meet
Nature at first hand, and learn to observe her phenomena for himself.
Lectures and text-books are but minor accessories to study ; in the
sciences they play a wholly subordinate part ; in the laboratory, the
field, and the museum, the chief work is to be done. No matter what
branch of science is to be pursued, the student from the very first must
meet it face to face. The biological sciences ought to be studied in
the field, collecting ; in the museum, classifying ; in the laboratory,
with the microscope and the scalpel. Far too often is the study of
natural history degraded into a mere memorizing of classifications ; as
if the transitory part of science were more valuable than the permanent !
The student must see, handle, dissect, and investigate, for himself. He
is to study the phenomena of life, and not merely the external appear-
ance of a lot of stuffed specimens. Chemistry, and physics also, is to
be studied chiefly in the laboratory. It is not enough for a student to
see experiments, he must himself perform them. Thus only can he
learn the true scope of these great sciences. By a proper drill in quali-
tative analysis, he learns to observe closely, and to reason from his
facts to their interpretation. Quantitative analysis gives him accuracy
of manipulation, and an insight into the absolute value of experiment.
This insight also results from delicate practice with instruments of pre-
cision in physics ; a kind of exercise of the very highest educational
value. If the course of study in any science can be capped by an origi-
nal research leading to the discovery of new facts, so much the better.
In a German university the candidate for a doctoral degree in science
is absolutely required to carry out such a research, and to submit a
dissertation upon it. This is not a severe requirement — every student
who has been decently trained is able to come up to it, all the popular
notions about the mysteriousness of scientific research to the contrary
notwithstanding. Why should we not aim to equal the German stand-
ard ?

But, because I lay this stress upon the experimental method in
scientific study, I do not therefore undervalue lectures and text-book
work. These are valuable auxiliaries to a scientific education, although
they need to be handled carefully. The teacher must be in a great
measure independent of the text-book, able to make up its deficiencies,
and to correct its errors. In lecturing, he must be fully awake to the
importance of research, and should lose no opportunity of suggesting
to his classes good subjects for investigation. If there is an unsettled
question, he may call the attention of his students to it ; if he sees a

THE CARDIFF GIANT, AND OTHER FRAUDS. 197

gap in some series of observations, let him point out how easily it
might be filled. By instruction of this kind the scientific spirit is
awakened, and given food for growth. In the selection of text-books,
great care must be exercised. On this point many and many a college
catalogue unconsciously betrays the incapacity of certain teachers. A
bad book on a college list indicates poor judgment and slight knowl-
edge on the part of the professor who chose it. If a college were to
announce as its text-book in German, " German in Six Lessons without
a Master," we should all be skeptical as to the quality of its teaching.
What, then, shall we think of the institution in which science is taught
upon the basis of the well-known " Fourteen Weeks Series ?"

Now, to sum up. It seems plain that our scientific courses of study
need to be remodeled. We should demand more for admission, and
make them equivalent to the courses in classics. Before receiving a
degree, a student should know some one science fairly well, understand
the bearings of the others, have a good training in mathematics, litera-
ture, and logic, and be able to read easy French and German prose at
sight. Are these demands extravagant ? Are they not rather moder-
ate and within bounds ?

♦»»

THE CARDIFF GIANT, AND OTHEE FRAUDS.

By G. A. STOCKWELL, M. D.

THAT great hoax, the Cardiff giant, was conceived by one George
Hull, a tobacconist of Binghamton, New York. It was the out-
growth of a controversy held one evening in 1'866 between Hull and a
Rev. Mr. Turk, of Ackley, Iowa, regarding the former existence of giants
in the earth, in which the latter proved victorious, his ready tongue and
loud voice easily bearing down and overwhelming his opponent. Hull re-
tired at a late hour, and, being chagrined with his defeat, lay awake the
greater portion of the night, thinking of the extreme gullibility of the
world in matters where the Bible could be cited as evidence, and in
planning how to turn this peculiarity to his advantage. The result
was, that he decided upon producing an image which should, after being
buried and exhumed, pass muster as a fossil man of unusual size, being
assured that such men as his late opponent in argument would aid not
a little in contributing to the final success of the undertaking.

In 1868, having studied the subject carefully and completed his
arrangements, Hull associated himself with one Martin, and proceeded
to Fort Dodge, Iowa, to procure a suitable block from which to carve
his image. An acre of quarry-land was purchased, and work com-
menced, but only to be soon abandoned, owing to the extreme friability
of the stone, and the persistent annoyance of the curious and inquisi-

198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tive inhabitants of the neighborhood. Martin, now thoroughly disgusted,
•withdrew from the project ; but Hull, hearing of another gypsum-bed in a
more retired locality, on the line of the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad,
then in process of construction, went thither, and the following Sunday
engaged the foreman of the railroad-gang to employ his men in quarry-
ing out as large a slab as the nature of the ground would permit, pav-
ing for the labor with a barrel of beer. The result was a slab weighing
three and a half tons, measuring twelve feet in length, four in breadth,
and twenty-two inches in thickness. With almost incredible difficulty
and labor the block was transported over forty miles of terrible road
to Montana, the nearest railroad-station, where it was shipped to E.
Burghardt, Chicago, who had been engaged to grave the image. On
its arrival at that city, it was moved to Burghardt's barn, which had
been prepared for its reception, and two men at once set to work upon
it — one, Edward Salle, a German ; the other, an American named Mark-
ham. It was Hull's desire to represent a " man who had laid down and
died ; " but, as he entertained doubts as to the universal acceptation of
the " fossil-man " theory, it was decided to produce an image that might
also pass for an ancient statue. This combination of designs was the
cause of that curious feature which attracted notice and provoked dis-
cussion when the giant came to be exhibited, viz., the lack of hair.

The last of September the stone-cutting was finished, but the work
was far from being completed, having the appearance of newness pecul-
iar to freshly-cut gypsum. The figure was now subjected to long and
patient rubbing with sand and water, which produced the water-worn
appearance so often cited as incontrovertible evidence of extreme anti-
quity. The pores of the skin were imitated by carefully pecking the
entire surface with leaden hammers faced with needles, giving the
peculiar " goose-flesh " which puzzled so many. There still remained
an appearance of freshness, which was finally obviated by bathing
with writing-fluid, and afterward washing with sulphuric acid, giving
the desired appearance of antiquity. Packed in sawdust, the giant,
now weighing 3,720 pounds, was shipped to Union, New York, where
it arrived October 12, 1868. Meantime Hull proceeded to Salisbury,
Connecticut, to inspect a newly-discovered cave, in which he hoped
to bury and resurrect his giant, but was discouraged by the price de-
manded. Suddenly remembering that fossil bones had recently been
discovered near Syracuse, New York, he now visited a relative, one
Newell, living in the locality, at Cardiff, and opened the enterprise to
him, proposing to bury the giant upon his farm. Newell at once
accepted the terms proposed — one-fourth interest — and it was decided
to inter the image near the barn, where a well had formerly been pro-
jected.

All being arranged satisfactorily, Hull returned to Union, Novem-
ber 4th, and shipped the " fossil " for Cardiff by four-horse team, under
the charge of his nephew, Tracy Hull, and one Amesbury. On the even-

THE CARDIFF GIANT, AND OTHER FRAUDS. 199

ing of the 9th of the same month the heavily-laden team arrived, attract-
ing little attention, owing to the darkness and rain, though the peculiar
appearance of the iron-bound case and its apparent weight, from the
amount of motive power demanded in transportation, had excited con-
siderable curiosity and comment on the road. The box was unloaded
and concealed in a pile of chaff, and a few nights later the giant was
lowered into its resting-place by means of a derrick.

In October, 1869, nearly a year having elapsed, Hull wrote Newell
to " find the giant ; " when, in accordance with prearranged plans, two
neighbors, Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols, were engaged to sink
a well ; one Woodmansee was secured to stone it, and Newell, aided
by one Parker, began drawing stone. Suddenly the shovel of Nichols
struck a hard substance, which, in clearing away, proved to be a massive
stone foot, calling forth from Emmons the exclamation, "Jerusalem,
Nichols, it's a big Injun ! " As the earth was cleared away, revealing
the outlines, several neighbors, chancing that way, were summoned to
view the wonder. This was the nucleus of a crowd which numbered
thousands a few hours later.

It has been asserted that the earth showed no signs of having been
excavated so recently as the year previous ; but one John Hagan, who
was among the first of the sight-seers, in a sworn affidavit says : " I
took a shovel and got down into the hole, and as fast as they uncovered
the body toward the head I cleared the dirt off about up to the hand
on the belly. When we were clearing off from the upper portion of
the body, the earth cleaved off from the sod and fell upon the body. I
said, ' Boys, this is the spot where he was put down.' No reply was
made, but Mr. Newell stepped around, and, taking a shovel, trimmed the
sod down square with where it came off."

The following day, Sunday, four medical men of the neighborhood,
of scientific pretensions, investigated the subject, swallowing the hoax
without the least difficulty, pronouncing it to be a " petrified man."
Later it was examined by Dr. Boynton, of Syracuse, a man possessed
of some antiquarian knowledge, who decided it to be a statue " made
some three hundred years ago by the Jesuit fathers," and at once offered
$10,000 for it. This and more tempting offers were declined, as sight-
seers at half a dollar per head were apparently unlimited in number.
However, Newell, in compliance with Hull's order, sold a three-fourths
interest to half a dozen citizens of Syracuse for $30,000. A show-man
was now placed in charge, and, in the way of advertisement, invitations
were sent to Prof. Agassiz, Prof. Hull (State geologist), S. B. Wool-
worth (secretary of the university), etc. November 3d a large delega-
tion of scientific men assembled from different parts of the State for
deliberate and thorough inspection, who at once pronounced it a statue,
the State geologist declaring it to be of great antiquity. Prof. Ward,
who filled the chair of Natural Sciences in the Rochester University,
said, "Although not dating back to the stone age, it is nevertheless

aoo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

deserving the attention of archaeologists." A prominent clergyman
wrote, " This is not a thing contrived of man, but is the face of one
who lived like all the earth ; the very image and child of God ; " thus
confirming the impression Hull received from his discussion with the
Rev. Mr. Turk.

Suddenly a series of reverses overtook the giant. Prof. O. C.
Marsh, of Yale College, gave it a telling blow by stating that gypsum
is soluble in 400 parts of water, yet the surface of the giant was smooth
and little dissolved, though surrounded by wet earth, proving that the
burial must have been of very recent date. He also found other indi-
cations of fraud, which had escaped the notice of the State geologist,
and other scientists; as recent tool-marks, in places where they could
not be easily effaced, and adjoining water-worn surfaces. This was cor-
roborated by Palmer, the sculptor. Soon letters were received from
parties who had observed the four-horse team and load on its way to
Cardiff; then one from Fort Dodge, detailing the operations in that
neighborhood ; and, finally, the statement of Markham, one of the
stone-cutters, was obtained. Hon. Lewis Baldwin, a gentleman well
versed in archaeology, remarked that the giant could neither be a fin-
ished statue nor petrifaction, as it had no hair, though complete in
other respects. At last the climax was reached, which connected the
person who obtained the stone from the neighborhood of Fort Dodge
with the giant, by Newell drawing the money received from the Onon-
daga County Bank in a draft payable to Hull's order.

Yet, for a time, all this discussion only helped to advertise the ex-
hibition, which had been removed to Syracuse, where it was visited by
such throngs of people as to require special trains on all the railroads.
Says Mr. McKinney, in speaking of the pecuniary returns, " The giant
yielded an income equal to the interest of $3,000,000 at seven per cent.,
and large bids were offered for its purchase, as high as $25,000 being
offered for one-eighth interest."

But the blows given soon began to tell. Barnum, having in vain at-
tempted to purchase a share, and obtain the management of the exhibi-
tion, bargained with a Syracuse sculptor for an unfinished imitation,
which, when completed, was placed in Wood's Museum, New York, and
extensively advertised and puffed by means of a pamphlet description
of the original. He denounced the Syracuse exhibition as a humbug,
claiming himself to be possessor of the " only true and original Cardiff"
giant." An application was made to Judge Barnard, of Erie Railroad
fame, for an injunction against Barnum; but that functionary replied
that he had been in the " injunction business," but had " closed out."

Soon the giant came to New York, only to find itself supplanted.
After a few days, it was shipped to Boston, where the excitement bade
fair to break out again, from the furor created by the learned men of
the modern Athens. Ralph Waldo Emerson pronounced it beyond
his depth, astonishing, and undoubtedly ancient. Cyrus Cobb, the ar-

THE CARDIFF GIANT, AND OTHER FRAUDS. 201

tist and sculptor, declared that any man who called the giant a humbug
" simply declared himself a fool." On the 4th of February a number of
Solons visited the giant as an official body. They examined it long and
patiently ; the exterior was tried with acids ; the head bored into, and
the compass carried around it in search of iron. The conclusion arrived
at was very satisfactory, and undoubtedly true, as it was decided to be
a "piece of stratified gypsum, probably very old.'''' The subject in-
vaded the Boston clubs, and one whole evening was occupied by the
president of the " Thursday Evening Club " to prove that the giant was
modern, because its features were Napoleonic !

But a few weeks elapsed ere the proofs of the frauds perpetrated
became incontrovertible, and the Cardiff giant was consigned to popular
oblivion.

The Colorado stone man proves to be a veritable brother of the
giant, having been begotten by the self-same father. Hull cleared
some 160,000 by the latter, with which he embarked in business in
Binghamton, New York, by which every dollar was lost. Of late he
has been given to the pursuit of experimental chemistry, and, taught by
the popular views of Darwin, as expounded by the public press, he be-
gan planning to again astonish the good people of the United States.
This seemed to take great hold upon his mind, and he frequently re-
marked that he would like to set the scientific men quarreling as to the
origin of man, and throw the religious world into a vortex of doubt and
controversy.

Finally his ideas and experiments assumed a definite form, and he
proceeded to put them in execution. Forming a partnership with one
Case, who possessed the funds requisite for the enterprise, an hotel was
bought in Elkland, a little mountain-town in Northern Pennsylvania,
and, as a blind, it was announced was to be converted into a summer
resort and mountain sanitarium. In the rear of the hotel a brick build-
ing was erected, ostensibly as an ice-house ; but in reality as a kiln and
workshop. Here, one after the other, two figures were constructed, the
principal composition of which was ground stone, pulverized bones, clay,
plaster, blood, and dried eggs, the whole, when modeled, being baked
in the kiln for two weeks. The first was irretrievably broken in remov-
ing it from the furnace ; but the second proved more successful, greater
care having been taken in its construction. In it bones were inserted
in different localities, including fragments of skull in the head. Cox,
one of the confidants of the scheme, thus details the parturition of the
image, as communicated to him by Hull :

" Cox, I would give a hundred dollars if you could have been with Case
and me the night we took him out. We had a rope around his neck, and
a pulley up there; and how we worked and tugged at the rope ! I went
through torture — my whole existence hung by that rope. It seemed as
if I lived a thousand years while we were pulling him out ; and when he
hung up there by the neck, I tell you, he looked alive; he looked as if

202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

he was going to talk ! Don't tell me the people won't be fooled by
this ! " (A tail, four inches in length, was one of the appendages of
the monstrosity.) " Cox, look at that tail; take hold of it ! That tail
alone is worth a million ! I made a difference in the toes, because it
would not do to have him too perfect. The arms we made proportion-
ately longer than the legs, so as to resemble the ape type. We propose
to let the scientific men bore into him, but they must confine themselves
to certain parts of his body, and there we have fixed him by putting in
bones."

At this time, having exhausted their funds, the worthies applied to
Barnum for means to bury their prodigy, who advanced $2,000 for the
purpose. But where to place him was the query ! Barnum declared
that Connecticut would not do, for to resurrect him in a State so cele-
brated for humbugs in the way of " basswood hams," " wooden nut-
megs," " fraudulent clocks," and the " Great American Show-man,"
would at once ruin the enterprise.

Finally Colorado, the " Wonder State," was decided upon, and the
stone man sent thither and buried along with a turtle and salmon trout
of like composition. Next one Conant visited the Rocky Mountains as
a geologist, and, at the proper time, discovered the image. Barnum,
happening (!) to be lecturing on temperance in Colorado at the time of
the discovery, announced that he would give $20,000 for the " find ; "
but., this offer, of course, was rejected with scorn. Barnum now gave
Prof. Taylor $100 to bore into the image and report. Hull, who had
heard from scientific men that boring into a true fossil would show
crystals, adroitly substituted crystal dust for that obtained, while the
professor's attention was otherwise engaged ; and all seemed to be go-
ing on swimmingly. Finally Prof. Marsh was again called upon for an
opinion, and at once detected the fraud, calling attention to the fact
that the image presented a rotundity of figure incompatible with the
theory of one who had died and become fossilized, in which case the
abdomen would naturally be sunken and collapsed. Remembering the
Cardiff hoax, this decision caused the people to fight shy of the exhibi-
tion. Ultimately suspicion was confirmed by the admissions of Cox,
Case, Babcock, and others connected with the enterprise, who, falling
out among themselves, at once spread the facts far and wide, in their
desire to injure each other; thus forever blasting all hopes of financial
success.

Another would-be candidate for archaeological and pecuniary honors
was one William Ruddock, of Thornton, St. Clair County, Michigan,
who in 1876 manufactured, from water-lime, sand,, and gravel, a "petri-
fied man," which was claimed to have been found in the gravel-pits of
Pine River. Ruddock's pecuniary resources being exceedingly limited,
he contented himself with a figure less than four feet in height, with
arms folded across the breast; the model having evidently been taken
from an " effigy in lava," which illustrates one of J. Ross Browne's

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 203

sketches of Iceland, as published in Harper's 3/agazine. This hoax
obtained some local celebrity, and even found its way into the general
press. Several rural clergymen made it an especial topic in their Sun-
day discourses ; and certain agricultural papers, backed by letters from
these same teachers, assured the world that the "Pine River man" was
no Cardiff giant, but a bona-fide " creation of God ! " But even all this
evidence failed to make Ruddock's fossil remunerative, and it was sold
to the proprietor of a third-rate side-show for a mere trifle.

After these attempts, it is safe to assert that no ignorant person will
again attempt a " prehistoric man," either with or without a caudal ap-
pendage. And it is probable that no scientist will be guilty of such an
imposition. The greatest wonder is that no counterfeits of the only
true fossil men discovered — those of the Mentone caves in France —
have reached this country. With their success in the manufacture of
artificial stone, the Chinese could doubtless produce a figure that would
defy any but the most thorough scientific scrutiny. As John is given
to such little games, it would not be at all surprising if he should yet
enter the field.

-♦♦♦-

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE.

By 0. S. PEIRCE,

ASSISTANT IN THE UNITED STATES COAST SURVEY.

FIFTH PAPER. — THE ORDER OF NATURE.

I.

ANY proposition whatever concerning the order of Nature must
touch more or less upon religion. In our day, belief, even in
these matters, depends more and more upon the observation of facts.
If a remarkable and universal orderliness be found in the universe,
there must be some cause for this regularity, and science has to con-
sider what hypotheses might account for the phenomenon. One way of
accounting for it, certainly, would be to suppose that the world is or-
dered by a superior power. But if there is nothing in the universal sub-
jection of phenomena to laws, nor in the character of those laws them-
selves (as being benevolent, beautiful, economical, etc.), which goes to
prove the existence of a governor of the universe, it is hardly to be an-
ticipated that any other sort of evidence will be found to weigh very
much with minds emancipated from the tyranny of tradition.

Nevertheless, it cannot truly be said that even an absolutely nega-
tive decision of that question could altogether destroy religion, inas-
much as there are faiths in which, however much they differ from our
own, we recognize those essential characters which make them worthy
to be called religions, and which, nevertheless, do not postulate an actu-

204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ally existing Deity. That one, for instance, which has had the most nu-
merous and by no means the least intelligent following of any on earth,
teaches that the Divinity in his highest perfection is wrapped away from
the world in a state of profound and eternal sleep, which really does not
differ from non-existence, whether it be called by that name or not. No
candid mind who has followed the writings of M. Vacherot can well deny
that his religion is as earnest as can be. He worships the Perfect, the
Supreme Ideal ; but he conceives that the very notion of the Ideal is re-
pugnant to its real existence. In fact, M. Vacherot finds it agreeable to
his reason to assert that non-existence is an essential character of the
perfect, just as St. Anselm and Descartes found it agreeable to theirs
to assert the extreme opposite. I confess that there is one respect in
which either of these positions seems to me more congruous with the
religious attitude than that of a theology which stands upon evidences ;
for as soon as the Deity presents himself to either Anselm or Vacherot,
and manifests his glorious attributes, whether it be in a vision of the
night or day, either of them recognizes his adorable God, and sinks
upon his knee's at once ; whereas the theologian of evidences will first
demand that the divine apparition shall identify himself, and only after
having scrutinized his credentials and weighed the probabilities of his
being found among the totality of existences, will he finally render his
circumspect homage, thinking that no characters can be adorable but
those which belong to a real thing.

If we could find out any general characteristic of the universe, any
mannerism in the ways of Nature, any law everywhere applicable and
universally valid, such a discovery would be of such singular assistance
to us in all our future reasoning, that it would deserve a place almost
at the head of the principles of logic. On the other hand, if it can be
shown that there is nothing of the sort to find out, but that every dis-
coverable regularity is of limited range, this again will be of logical
importance. What sort of a conception we ought to have of the uni-
verse, how to think of the ensemble of things, is a fundamental problem
in the theory of reasoning.

II.

It is the legitimate endeavor of scientific men now, as it was twen-
ty-three hundred years ago, to account for the formation of the solar
system and of the cluster of stars which forms the galaxy, by the for-
tuitous concourse of atoms. The greatest expounder of this theory,
when asked how he could write an immense book on the system of the
world without one mention of its author, replied, very logically, " Je
n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la." But, in truth, there is noth-
ing atheistical in the theory, any more than there was in this answer.
Matter is supposed to be composed of molecules which obey the laws
of mechanics and exert certain attractions upon one another ; and it is
to these regularities (which there is no attempt to account for) that

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 205

general arrangement of the solar system would be due, and not to
hazard.

If any one has ever maintained that the universe is a pure throw of
the dice, the theologians have abundantly refuted him. " How often,"
says Archbishop Tillotson, " might a man, after he had jumbled a set
of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would
fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in
prose ! And may not a little book be as easily made by chance as this
great volume of the world ? " The chance world here shown to be so
different from that in which we live would be one in which there were
no laws, the characters of different things being entirely independent ;
so that, should a sample of any kind of objects ever show a prevalent
character, it could only be by accident, and no general proposition
could ever be established. Whatever further conclusions we may come
to in regard to the order of the universe, thus much may be regarded
as solidly established, that the world is not a mere chance-medley.

But whether the world makes an exact poem or not, is another
question. When we look up at the heavens at night, we readily per-
ceive that the stars are not simply splashed on to the celestial vault ;
but there does not seem to be any precise system in their arrangement
either. It will be worth our while, then, to inquire into the degree of
orderliness in the universe ; and, to begin, let us ask whether the world
we live in is any more orderly than a purely chance-world would be.

Any uniformity, or law of Nature, may be stated in the form,
" Every A is B ; " as, every ray of light is a non-curved line, every body
is accelerated toward the earth's centre,, etc. This is the same as to
say, "There does not exist any A which is not B;" there is no curved
ray ; there is no body not accelerated toward the earth ; so that the
uniformity consists in the non-occurrence in Nature of a certain com-
bination of characters (in this case, the combination of being A with
being non-B).1 And, conversely, every case of the non-occurrence of
a combination of characters would constitute a uniformity in Nature.
Thus, suppose the quality A is never found in combination with the
quality C : for example, suppose the quality of idiocy is never found in
combination with that of having a well-developed brain. Then nothing
of the sort A is of the sort C, or everything of the sort A is of the sort
non-G (or say, every idiot has an ill-developed brain), which, being
something universally true of the A's, is a uniformity in the world.
Thus we see that, in a world where there were no uniformities, no logi-
cally possible combination of characters would be excluded, but every
combination would exist in some object. But two objects not identical
must differ in some of their characters, though it be only in the char-
acter of being in such-and-such a place. Hence, precisely the same

1 For the present purpose, the negative of a character is to be considered as much a
character as the positive, for a uniformity may either be affirmative or negative. I do
not say that no distinction oan be drawn between positive and negative uniformities.

206

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

combination of characters could not be found in two different objects ;
and, consequently, in a chance-world every combination involving either
the positive or negative of every character would belong to just one
thing. Thus, if there were but five simple characters in such a world,1
we might denote them by A, B, C, D, E, and their negatives by a, b,
c, d, e ; and then, as there would be 26 or 32 different combinations of
these characters, completely determinate in reference to each of them,
that world would have just 32 objects in it, their characters being as in
the following table :

Table I.

ABCDE

AbCDE

aBCDE

abCDE

ABCDe

AbCDe

aBCDe

abCDe

ABCdE

AbCdE

aBCdE

abCdE

ABCde

AbCde

aBCde

abCde

ABcDE

AbcDE

aBcDE

abcDE

ABcDe

AbcDe

aBcDe

abcDe

ABcdE

AbcdE

aBcdE

abcdE

ABcde

Abcde

aBcde

abcde

For example, if the five primary characters were hard, siceet, fra-
grant, green, bright, there would be one object which reunited all
these qualities, one which was hard, sweet, fragrant, and green, but not
bright ; one which was hard, sweet, fragrant, and bright, but not
green ; one which was hard, sweet, and fragrant, but neither green nor
bright ; and so on through all the combinations.

This is what a thoroughly chance-world would be like, and certainly
nothing could be imagined more systematic. "When a quantity of let-
ters are poured out of a bag, the appearance of disorder is due to the
circumstance that the phenomena are only partly fortuitous. The laws
of space are supposed, in that case, to be rigidly preserved, and there
is also a certain amount of regularity in the formation of the letters,
The result is that some elements are orderly and some are disorderly,
which is precisely what we observe in the actual world. Tillotson, in
the passage of which a part has been quoted, goes on to ask, "How
long might 20,000 blind men, which should be sent out from the sev-
eral remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would
all meet upon Salisbury Plains, and fall into rank and file in the exact
order of an army ? And yet this is much more easy to be imagined
than how the innumerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous
themselves into a world." This is very true, but in the actual world
the blind men are, as far as we can see, not drawn up in any particular
order at all. And, in short, while a certain amount of order exists
in the world, it would seem that the world is not so orderly as it

1 There being 5 simple characters, with their negatives, they could be compounded
in various ways so as to make 241 characters in all, without counting the characters
existence and non-existence, which make up 243 or 35.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 207

might be, and, for instance, not so much so as a world of pure chance
would be.

But we can never get to the bottom of this question until we take
account of a highly -important logical principle 1 which I now proceed to
enounce. This principle is that any plurality or lot of objects what-
ever have some character in common (no matter how insignificant)
which is peculiar to them and not shared by anything else. The word
" character " here is taken in such a sense as to include negative char-
acters, such as incivility, inequality, etc., as well as their positives,
civility, equality, etc. To prove the theorem, I will show what character
any two things, A and B, have in common, not shared by anj'thing
else. The things, A and B, are each distinguished from all other
things by the possession of certain characters which may be named A-
ness and B-ness. Corresponding to these positive characters, are the
negative characters un-A-ness, which is possessed by everything except
A, and un-B-ness, which is possessed by everything except B. These
two characters are united in everything except A and B ; and this
union of the characters un-A-ness and un-B-ness makes a compound
character which may be termed A-B-lessness. This is not possessed
by either A or B, but it is possessed by everything else. This charac-
ter, like every other, has its corresponding negative un-A-B-lessness,
and this last is the character possessed by both A and B, and by noth-
ing else. It is obvious that what has thus been shown true of two
things is, mutatis mutandis, true of any number of things. Q. E. D.

In any world whatever, then, there must be a character peculiar to
each possible group of objects. If, as a matter of nomenclature, char-
acters peculiar to the same group be regarded as only different aspects
of the same character, then we may say that there will be precisely one
character for each possible group of objects. Thus, suppose a world to
contain five things, a, (3, y, d, e. Then it will have a separate character
for each of the 31 groups (with non-existence making up 32 or 26) shown

a[3yde

in the following

table :

Table II.

a(3

a(3y

a(3yd

a

ay

a(3d

a(3ye

a

ad

a(3e

a(3de

y

ae

ayd

ayde

d

Py

aye

(3yde

e

(3d

ade

(3s

Pyd

yd

(3ye

ye

(3de

6e

yde

This shows that a contradiction is involved in the very idea of a
chance-world, for in a world of 32 things, instead of there being only 35
1 This principle was, I believe, first stated by Mr. De Morgan.

2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

or 243 characters, as we have seen that the notion of a chance-world
requires, there would, in fact, be no less than 233, or 4,294,967,296
characters, which would not be all independent, but would have all pos-
sible relations with one another.

We further see that so long as we regard characters abstractly,
without regard to their relative importance, etc., there is no possibility
of a more or less degree of orderliness in the world, the whole system
of relationship between the different characters being given by mere
logic ; that is, being implied in those facts which are tacitly admitted
as soon as we admit that there is any such thing as reasoning.

In order to descend from this abstract point of view, it is requisite
to consider the characters of things as relative to the perceptions and
active powers of living beings. Instead, then, of attempting to im-
agine a world in which there should be no uniformities, let us suppose
one in which none of the uniformities should have reference to charac-
ters interesting or important to us. In the first place, there would be
nothing to puzzle us in such a world. The small number of qualities
which would directly meet the senses would be the ones which would
afford the key to everything which could possibly interest us. The
whole universe would have such an air of system and perfect regular-
ity that there would be nothing to ask. In the next place, no action
of ours, and no event of Nature, would have important consequences in
such a world. We should be perfectly free from all responsibility, and
there would be nothing to do but to enjoy or suffer whatever happened
to come along. Thus there would be nothing to stimulate or develop
either the mind or the will, and we consequently should neither act
nor think. We should have no memory, because that depends on a law
of our organization. Even if we had any senses, we should be situated
toward such a world precisely as inanimate objects are toward the pres-
ent one, provided we suppose that these objects have an absolutely
transitory and instantaneous consciousness without memory — a suppo-
sition which is a mere mode of speech, for that would be no conscious-
ness at all. We may, therefore, say that a world of chance is simply
our actual world viewed from the standpoint of an animal at the very
vanishing-point of intelligence. The actual world is almost a chance-
medley to the mind of a polyp. The interest which the uniformities of
Nature have for an animal measures his place in the scale of intelli-
gence.

Thus, nothing can be made out from the orderliness of Nature in
regard to the existence of a God, unless it be maintained that the
existence of a finite mind proves the existence of an infinite one.

III.

In the last of these papers we examined the nature of inductive or
synthetic reasoning. We found it to be a process of sampling. A
number of specimens of a class are taken, not by selection within that

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 209

class, but at random. These specimens will agree in a great number
of respects. If, now, it were likely that a second lot would agree with
the first in the majority of these respects, we might base on this con-
sideration an inference in regard to any one of these characters. But
such an inference would neither be of the nature of induction, nor
would it (except in special cases) be valid, because the vast majority of
points of agreement in the first sample drawn would generally be en-
tirely accidental, as well as insignificant. To illustrate this, I take the
ages at death of the first five poets given in Wheeler's " Biographical
Dictionary." They are :

Aagard, 48.

Abeille, 70.

Abulola, 84.

Abunowas, 48.

Accords, 45.

These five ages have the following characters in common :

1. The difference of the two digits composing the number, divided
by three, leaves a remainder of one.

2. The first digit raised to the power indicated by the second, and
divided by three, leaves a remainder of one.

3. The sum of the prime factors of each age, including one, is divisi-
ble by three.

It is easy to see that the number of accidental agreements of this
sort would be quite endless. But suppose that, instead of considering
a character because of its prevalence in the sample, we designate a
character before taking the sample, selecting it for its importance, ob-
viousness, or other point of interest. Then two considerable samples
drawn at random are extremely likely to agree approximately in regard
to the proportion of occurrences of a character so chosen. The infer-
ence that a previously designated character has nearly the same fre-
quency of occurrence in the ichole of a class that it has in a sample
drawn at random out of that class is induction. If the character be
not previously designated, then a sample in which it is found to be
prevalent can only serve to suggest that it may be prevalent in the
whole class. We may consider this surmise as an inference if we please
— an inference of possibility ; but a second sample must be drawn to test
the question of whether the character actually is prevalent. Instead
of designating beforehand a single character in reference to which we
will examine a sample, we may designate two, and use the same sample
to determine the relative frequencies of both. This will be making two
inductive inferences at once ; and, of course, we are less certain that
both will yield correct conclusions than we should be that either sep-
arately would do so. What is true of two characters is true of any
limited number. Now, the number of characters which have any consid-
erable interest for us in reference to any class of objects is more moderate

VOL. XIII. — 14

210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

than might be supposed. As we shall be sure to examine any sample
with reference to these characters, they may be regarded not exactly as
predesignated, but as predetermined (which amounts to the same thing) ;
and we may infer that the sample represents the class in all these re-
spects if we please, remembering only that this is not so secure an
inference as if the particular quality to be looked for had been fixed
upon beforehand.

The demonstration of this theory of induction rests upon principles
and follows methods which are accepted by all those Avho display in
other matters the particular knowledge and force of mind which qualify
them to judge of this. The theory itself, however, quite unaccount-
ably seems never to have occurred to any of the writers who have un-
dertaken to explain synthetic reasoning. The most widely-spread opin-
ion in the matter is one which was much promoted by Mr. John Stuart
Mill — namely, that induction depends for its validity upon the uni-
formity of Nature — that is, on the principle that what happens once
will, under a sufficient degree of similarity of circumstances, happen
again as often as the same circumstances recur. The application is
this : The fact that different things belong to the same class constitutes
the similarity of circumstances, and the induction is good, provided this
similarity is " sufficient." What happens once is, that a number of
these things are found to have a certain character ; what may be ex-
pected, then, to happen again as often as the circumstances recur con-
sists in this, that all things belonging to the same class should have the
same character.

This analysis of induction has, I venture to think, various imperfec-
tions, to some of which it may be useful to call attention. In the first
place, when I put my hand in a bag and draw out a handful of beans,
and, finding three-quarters of them black, infer that about three-quar-
ters of all in the bag are black, my inference is obviously of the same
kind as if I had found any larger proportion, or the whole, of the sam-
ple black, and had assumed that it represented in that respect the rest
of the contents of the bag. But the analysis in question hardly seems
adapted to the explanation of this proportionate induction, where the
conclusion, instead of being that a certain event uniformly happens un-
der certain circumstances, is precisely that it does not uniformly occur,
but only happens in a certain proportion of cases. It is true that the
whole sample may be regarded as a single object, and the inference
may be brought under the formula proposed by considering the conclu-
sion to be that any similar sample will show a similar proportion among
its constituents. But this is to treat the induction as if it rested on a
single instance, which gives a very false idea of its probability.

In the second place, if the uniformity of Nature were the sole war-
rant of induction, we should have no right to draw one in regard to a
character whose constancy we knew nothing about. Accordingly, Mr.
Mill says that, though none but white swans were known to Europeans

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 211

for thousands of years, yet the inference that all swans were white was
" not a good induction," because it was not known that color was a
usual generic character (it, in fact, not being so by any means). But
it is mathematically demonstrable that an inductive inference may have
as high a degree of probability as you please independent of any ante-
cedent knowledge of the constancy of the character inferred. Before
it was known that color is not usually a character of genera, there was
certainly a considerable probability that all swans were white. But
the further study of the genera of animals led to the induction of their
non-uniformity in regard to color. A deductive application of this gen-
eral proposition would have gone far to overcome the probability of the
universal whiteness of swans before the black species was discovered.
When we do know anything in regard to the general constancy or in-
constancy of a character, the application of that general knowledge to
the particular class to which any induction relates, though it serves to
increase or diminish the force of the induction, is, like every application
of general knowledge to particular cases, deductive in its nature and
not inductive.

In the third place, to say that inductions are true because similar
events happen in similar circumstances — or, what is the same thing,
because objects similar in some respects are likely to be similar in oth-
ers— is to overlook those conditions which really are essential to the
validity of inductions. When we take all the characters into account,
any pair of objects resemble one another in just as many particulars as
any other pair. If we limit ourselves to such characters as have for us
any importance, interest, or obviousness, then a synthetic conclusion
may be drawn, but only on condition that the specimens by which we
judge have been taken at random from the class in regard to which we
are to form a judgment, and not selected as belonging to any sub-class.
The induction onby has its full force when the character concerned has
been designated before examining the sample. These are the essentials
of induction, and they are not recognized in attributing the validity of
induction to the uniformity of Nature. The explanation of induction
by the doctrine of probabilities, given in the last of these papers, is not
a mere metaphysical formula, but is one from which all the rules of
synthetic reasoning can be deduced systematically and with mathemati-
cal cogency. But the account of the matter by a principle of Nature,
even if it were in other respects satisfactory, presents the fatal disad-
vantage of leaving us quite as much afloat as before in regard to the
proper method of induction. It does not surprise me, therefore, that
those who adopt this theory have given erroneous rules for the conduct
of reasoning, nor that the greater number of examples put forward by
Mr. Mill in his first edition, as models of what inductions should be,
proved in the light of further scientific progress so particularly unfor-
tunate that they had to be replaced by others in later editions. One
would have supposed that Mr. Mill might have based an induction on

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this circumstance, especially as it is his avowed principle that, if the
conclusion of an induction turns out false, it cannot have been a good
induction. Nevertheless, neither he nor any of his scholars seem to have
been led to suspect, in the least, the perfect solidity of the framework
which he devised for securely supporting the mind in its passage from
the known to the unknown, although at its first trial it did not answer
quite so well as had been expected.

IV.

When we have drawn any statistical induction — such, for instance,
as that one-half of all births are of male children — it is always possible
to discover, by investigation sufficiently prolonged, a class of which the
same predicate may be affirmed universally ; to find out, for instance,
to hat sort of births are of male children. The truth of this principle
follows immediately from the theorem that there is a character peculiar
to every possible group of objects. The form in which the principle is
usually stated is, that every event must have a cause.

But, though there exists a cause for every event, and that of a kind
which is capable of being discovered, yet if there be nothing to guide
us to the discovery ; if we have to hunt among all the events in the
world without anjT scent ; if, for instance, the sex of a child might
equally be supposed to depend on the configuration of the planets, on
what was going on at the antipodes, or on anything else — then the dis-
covery would have no chance of ever getting made.

That we ever do discover the precise causes of things, that any in-
duction whatever is absolutely without exception, is what we have no
right to assume. On the contrary, it is an easy corollary, from the theo-
rem just referred to, that every empirical rule has an exception. But
there are certain of our inductions which present an approach to uni-
versality so extraordinary that, even if we are to suppose that they are
not strictly universal truths, we cannot possibly think that they have
been reached merely by accident. The most remarkable laws of this
kind are those of time and space. With reference to space, Bishop
Berkeley first showed, in a very conclusive manner, that it was not a
thing seen, but a thing inferred. Berkeley chiefly insists on the im-
possibilit}' of directly seeing the third dimension of space, since the
retina of the eye is a surface. But, in point of fact, the retina is not
even a surface ; it is a conglomeration of nerve-needles directed toward
the light and having only their extreme points sensitive, these points ly-
ing at considerable distances from one another compared with their areas.
Now, of these points, certainly the excitation of no one singly can pro-
duce the perception of a surface, and consequently not the aggregate
of all the sensations can amount to this. But certain relations subsist
between the excitations of different nerve-points, and these constitute
the premises upon which the hypothesis of space is founded, and from

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 213

which it is inferred. That space is not immediately perceived is now
universally admitted; and a mediate cognition is what is called an
inference, and is subject to the criticism of logic. But what are we to
say to the fact of every chicken as soon as it is hatched solving a prob-
lem whose data are of a complexity sufficient to try the greatest
mathematical powers ? It would be insane to deny that the tendency to
light upon the conception of space is inborn in the mind of the chicken
and of every animal. The same thing is equally true of time. That time
is not directly perceived is evident, since no lapse of time is present, and
we only perceive what is present. That, not having the idea of time,
we should ever be able to perceive the flow in our sensations without
some particular aptitude for it, will probably also be admitted. The
idea of force — at least, in its rudiments — is another conception so early
arrived at, and found in animals so low in the scale of intelligence, that
it must be supposed innate. But the innateness of an idea admits of
degree, for it consists in the tendency of that idea to present itself
to the mind. Some ideas, like that of space, do so present themselves
irresistibly at the very dawn of .intelligence, and take possession of the
mind on small provocation, while of other conceptions we are prepos-
sessed, indeed, but not so strongly, down a scale which is greatly ex-
tended. The tendency to personify every thing, and to attribute human
characters to it, may be said to be innate ; but it is a tendency which is
very soon overcome by civilized man in regard to the greater part of
the objects about him. Take such a conception as that of gravitation
varying inversely as the square of the distance. It is a very simple law.
But to say that it is simple is merely to say that it is one which the
mind is particularly adapted to apprehend with facility. Suppose the
idea of. a quantity multiplied into another had been no more easy to the
mind than that of a quantity raised to the power indicated by itself —
should we ever have discovered the law of the solar system ?

It seems incontestable, therefore, that the mind of man is strongly
adapted to the comprehension of the world ; at least, so far as this goes,
that certain conceptions, highly important for such a comprehension,
naturally arise in his mind ; and, without such a tendency, the mind
could never have had any development at all.

How are we to explain this adaptation ? The great utility and in-
dispensableness of the conceptions of time, space, and force, even to the
lowest intelligence, are such as to suggest that they are the results of
natural selection. Without something like geometrical, kinetical, and
mechanical conceptions, no animal could seize his food or do anything
which might be necessary for the preservation of the species. He
might, it is true, be provided with an instinct which would generally
have the same effect ; that is to say, he might have conceptions differ-
ent from those of time, space, and force, but which coincided with them
in regard to the ordinary cases of the animal's experience. But, as that
animal would have an immense advantage in the struggle for life whose

214 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mechanical conceptions did not break down in a novel situation (such
as development must bring about), there would be a constant selection
in favor of more and more correct ideas of these matters. Thus would
be attained the knowledge of that fundamental law upon which all sci-
ence rolls ; namely, that forces depend upon relations of time, space, and
mass. When this idea was once sufficiently clear, it would require no
more than a comprehensible degree of genius to discover the exact na-
ture of these relations. Such an hypothesis naturally suggests itself
but it must be admitted that it does not seem sufficient to account for
the extraordinary accuracy with which these conceptions applv to the
phenomena of Nature, and it is probable that there is some secret here
which remains to be discovered.

V.

Some important questions of logic depend upon whether we are to
consider the material universe as of limited extent and finite age, or
quite boundless in space and in time. In the former case, it is conceiv-
able that a general plan or design embracing the whole universe should
be discovered, and it would be proper to be on the alert for some traces
of such a unity. In the latter case, since the proportion of the world
of which we can have any experience is less than the smallest assign-
able fraction, it follows that we never could discover any pattern in the
universe except a repeating one ; any design embracing the whole would
be beyond our powers to discern, and beyond the united powers of all
intellects during all time. Now, what is absolutely incapable of being
known is, as we have seen in a former paper, not real at all. An ab-
solutely incognizable existence is a nonsensical phrase. If, therefore,
the universe is infinite, the attempt to find in it any design embracing
it as a whole is futile, and involves a false way of looking at the sub-
ject. If the universe never had any beginning, and if in space world
stretches beyond world without limit, there is no whole of material
things, and consequently no general character to the universe, and no
need or possibility of any governor for it. But if there was a time be-
fore which absolutely no matter existed, if there are certain absolute
bounds to the region of things outside of which there is a mere void,
then we naturally seek for an explanation of it, and, since we cannot
look for it among material things, the hypothesis of a great disembodied
animal, the creator and governor of the world, is natural enough.

The actual state of the evidence as to the limitation of the universe
is as follows : As to time, we find on our earth a constant progress of de-
velopment since the planet was a red-hot ball ; the solar system seems
to have resulted from the condensation of a nebula, and the process
appears to be still going on. We sometimes see stars (presumably with
systems of worlds) destroyed and apparently resolved back into the
nebulous condition, but we have no evidence of any existence of the
world previous to the nebulous stage from which it seems to have been

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 215

evolved. All this rather favors the idea of a beginning than otherwise.
As for limits in space, we cannot be sure that we see anything outside
of the system of the milky-way. Minds of theological predilections
have therefore no need of distorting the facts to reconcile them with
their views.

But the only scientific presumption is, that the unknown parts of
space and time are like the known parts, occupied ; that, as we see
cycles of life and death in all development which we can trace out to
the end, the same holds good in regard to solar systems ; that as enor-
mous distances lie between the different planets of our solar system,
relatively to their diameters, and as still more enormous distances lie
between our system relatively to its diameter and other systems, so it
may be supposed that other galactic clusters exist so remote from ours
as not to be recognized as such with certainty. I do not say that these
are strong inductions; I only say that they are the presumptions which,
in our ignorance of the facts, should be preferred to hypotheses which
involve conceptions of things and occurrences totally different in their
character from any of which we have had any experience, such as
disembodied spirits, the creation of matter, infringements of the laws
of mechanics, etc.

The universe ought to be presumed too vast to have any char-
acter. When it is claimed that the arrangements of Nature are benev-
olent, or just, or wise, or of any other peculiar kind, we ought to be
prejudiced against such opinions, as being the offspring of an ill-founded
notion of the finitude of the world. And examination has hitherto
shown that such beneficences, justice, etc., are of a most limited kind —
limited in degree and limited in range.

In like manner, if any one claims to have discovered a plan in the
structure of organized beings, or a scheme in their classification, or
a regular arrangement among natural objects, or a system of propor-
tionality in the human form, or an order of development, or a corre-
spondence between conjunctions of the planets and human events, or a
significance in numbers, or a key to dreams, the first thing we have to
ask is whether such relations are susceptible of explanation on mechani-
cal principles, and if not they should be looked upon with disfavor as
having already a strong presumption against them ; and examination
has generally exploded all such theories.

There are minds to whom every prejudice, every presumption, seems
unfair. It is easy to say what minds these are. They are those who
never have known what it is to draw a well-grounded induction, and
who imagine that other people's knowledge is as nebulous as their
own. That all science rolls upon presumption (not of a formal but of
a real kind) is no argument with them, because they cannot imagine
that there is anything solid in human knowledge. These are the people
who waste their time and money upon perpetual motions and other
such rubbish.

2i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But there are better minds who take up mystical theories (by which
I mean all those which have no possibility of being mechanically ex-
plained). These are persons who are strongly prejudiced in favor of
such theories. We all have natural tendencies to believe in such
things; our education often strengthens this tendency; and the result
is, that to many minds nothing seems so antecedently probable as a
theory of this kind. Such persons find evidence enough in favor of
their views, and in the absence of any recognized logic of induction
they cannot be driven from their belief.

But to the mind of a physicist there ought to be a strong presump-
tion against every mystical theory ; and therefore it seems to me that
those scientific men who have sought to make out that science was not
hostile to theology have not been so clear-sighted as their opponents.

It would be extravagant to say that science can at present disprove
religion ; but it does seem to me that the spirit of science is hostile to
any religion except such a one as that of M. Vacherot. Our appointed
teachers inform us that Buddhism 'is a miserable and atheistical faith,
shorn of the most glorious and needful attributes of a religion ; that its
priests can be of no use to agriculture by praying for rain, nor to war
by commanding the sun to stand still. We also hear the remonstrances
of those who warn us that to shake the general belief in the living God
would be to shake the general morals, public and private. This, too,
must be admitted; such a revolution of thought could no more be
accomplished without waste and desolation than a plantation of trees
could be transferred to new ground, however wholesome in itself, with-
out all of them languishing for a time, and many of them dying. Nor
is it, by-the-way, a thing to be presumed that a man would have taken
part in a movement having a possible atheistical issue without having
taken serious and adequate counsel in regard to that responsibility.
But, let the consequences of such a belief be as dire as they may, one
thing is certain : that the state of the facts, whatever it may be, will
surely get found out, and no human prudence can long arrest the
triumphal car of truth — no, not if the discovery were such as to drive
every individual of our race to suicide !

But it would be folly to suppose that any metaphysical theory in
regard to the mode of being of the perfect is to destroy that aspira-
tion toward the perfect which constitutes the essence of religion. It
is true that, if the priests of any particular form of religion succeed
in making it generally believed that religion cannot exist without the
acceptance of certain formulas, or if they succeed in so interweaving
certain dogmas with the popular religion that the people can see no
essential analogy between a religion which accepts these points of
faith and one which rejects them, the result may very well be to ren-
der those who cannot believe these things irreligious. Nor can we
ever hope that any body of priests should consider themselves more
teachers of religion in general than of the particular system of theology

ON BRAIN-FORCING. 217

advocated by their own party. But no man need be excluded from
participation in the common feelings, nor from so much of the public
expression of them as is open to all the laity, by the unphilosophical
narrowness of those who guard the mysteries of worship. Am I to be
prevented from joining in that common joy at the revelation of en-
lightened principles of religion, which we celebrate at Easter and
Christmas, because I think that certain scientific, logical, and meta-
physical ideas which have been mixed up with these principles are un-
tenable ? No ; to do so would be to estimate those errors as of more
consequence than the truth — an opinion which few would admit. Peo-
ple who do not believe what are really the fundamental principles of
Christianity are rare to find, and all but these few ought to feel at
home in the churches.

-♦*>-

ON BRAIN-FOKCING.

By T. CLIFFORD ALLBUTT, M. A., M. D.

WHEN the editors of Brain sought my aid in the construction of
this first number, I felt the honor they did me was not to be light-
ly refused ; but, on the other hand, painfully aware that of late years
my life had lain too much in the world to have led me to those results
which are won by the patient labor of the student. From direct ex-
amination into the finer shapes of brain and nerve of late years, I have
become too much estranged ; but I trust that observations in the field
of practice may compensate, in some measure, the want of closer and
more accurate research. On one subject I have long been fain to
speak, for it is one in which I am exercised almost daily ; moreover, I
venture to hope it is not foreign to the purposes of this magazine.
Almost daily I am in contention with parents and guardians, school-
masters and schoolmistresses, clergymen and professors, youths and
maidens, boys and girls, concerning the right way of building up the
young brain, of ripening the adult brain, and of preserving the brain
in age. Grievously ill do we take in hand to deal with this delicate
member, and well is it that innate development overruns our schemes
and brings the variety of natural good out of the monotony of human
folly. It is dimly felt by society that the reign of bone and muscle is
over, and that the reign of brain and nerve is taking its place. Even
the Gibeonites now have the hydraulic ram and the steam felling-
machine ; the spectacled general of forces fights in his tent by click of
battery and wire, and his lieutenant hoists an iron-clad by the touch of
two buttons upon his waistcoat ; the patient earth forgets the tread of
horse and ox, and is ploughed by steam ; and ere long, no doubt, our
ministers will wind sermons out of barrel-organs, and our morning egg
will be broken for us by a wafer of dynamite. Hence it comes that all

218 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

classes are for " education ! " The village grocer's son goes to a
" theological college," and sits up by night over his " Evidences " with
green tea in his blood, and a wet cloth about his brows. The gar-
dener's daughter pulls roses no more, and has become a pupil-teacher ;
she is chlorotic at sixteen, and broken-spirited at twenty. The country
parson's son goes to a civil service or a navy " coach," is plucked in his
teens, and is left to begin life again with an exhausted brain and an
incurable megrim ; nay, even the sons of peers are putting on the ar-
mor of light, and are deserting the field for the counting-house. To
meet this demand, colleges of all kinds and degrees spring up — middle-
class seminaries, theological colleges, colleges of science, university
boards — even the old universities themselves are stirring from their
scholarly ease, are sending out missionaries in partibus, and are cram-
ming the youth of twenty counties in the art of making most show
with least learning. All this, in a way, no doubt, must be and should
be ; but so sudden a volte-face cannot be made without a wrench, and
it is my desire now to see where the strain will tell, and how to perform
our social evolution with the least injury to persons.

Like the alderman of New York, who found it impossible to pro-
pose the paving of a street without allusion to the first lines of the
Constitution of the United States, so I must venture to preface my
essay by some reference to mental function as we find it. We may
see the more clearly how to direct and combine our means of culture
when we recognize its purposes. Mental philosophy is a subject in
which I am little versed, but I must try in some familiar fashion to
classify the aspects of nervous activity as they appear to ordinary ob-
servers. Without misleading error, and with much convenience, I may
regard these activities from the following five points of view, namely,
their Quality, their Quantity, their Tension, their Variety, and their
Control.

By the higher quality of the brain, or of a part of it, I mean that
structure of cell and fibre which corresponds more widely or more inti-
mately with outer conditions, so that by virtue of such relation the in-
dividual more readily apprehends things and conceives them. This is
genius in the stricter sense. By quantity I mean the volume of nerve-
force given off by the brain or its parts, without regard to quality of
work done. By tension I mean the power in the nerve-action to over-
come inner or outer resistance — " nervous energy," as it is colloquially
called. By variety I mean the congregation of different centres, and
the weaving of mediate strands which give the possessor, not higher
or wider, but a greater number of relations with outer things. In com-
mon life this is usually called versatility. By control I mean that sub-
ordination of one centre to another, whether inherited or acquired,
which if of the lower to the higher results in obedience to the more
permanent order of the universe. Thus a man may have a lofty, an
abundant, an intense, a versatile, and a well-ruled nervous system, or

ON BRAIN-FORCING. 219

he may have any measure of each of these states in various propor-
tions.

Goethe, whose life and character are so well known to us, seems to
have possessed all these faculties in marvelous combination. His in-
sight or brain quality was vast and penetrating ; his stores of nervous
energy were inexhaustible, burning with steadfast heat or flaming in
passion ; his faculties were infinite in variety, and they were under a
control rarely in the world's history known to have harmonized endow-
ments so manifold and so potent. To take in like manner a few more
names by way of illustration, we may consider Lord Byron as one in
whom quality and tension of nervous force were more remarkable than
quantity, though this in him was not inconsiderable, and in whom
variety was less manifest and control defective. Schiller, again, had
high quality, tension, and control, but was defective in endurance and
in variety. In Keats we recognize quality, tension, and variety, in high
degrees ; control in less measure, and quantity in defect. His brain,
inconstant in current, was worn out ere it was built up. Macaulay
was, if the word be permitted to me, a remarkable " all-round " man,
and presented an equable development of quality, quantity, tension,
variety, and control, though of course he is not to be compared to the
former examples in quality. Brougham had still less quality, but
quantity in overflow and at high tension. Sir James Simpson, again,
always seemed to me a good instance of a man lacking the higher
complexities of brain, but abounding in mental force at high tension.
In him also variety was striking, more striking than control. One of
the most vivid instances of nervous energy at high tension to be found
in modern history is perhaps Admiral Korniloff, as described by Mr.
Kinglake, in the fourth volume of the cabinet edition of his " History
of the Crimean War " (page 108). He says of Korniloff:

" It can hardly be shown that this chief was gifted with original genius, still
less with piercing intellect ; nor was Korniloff to be called precisely an enthu-
siast. Our knowledge of Korniloff must rest upon a perception of what people
did when they felt the impulsion he gave. At a time when there seemed to be
room but for despair and confusion, he took that ascendant which enabled him
to bring the whole people in this place — inhabitants, soldiers, sailors — to his
own heroic resolve. In a garrison town of an empire which had carried the
mania of military organization to the most preposterous lengths, all those strait-
ened notions of rank and seniority, and, in short, the whole network of the
formalisms which might have been expected to hinder his command, flew away
like chaff at the winnowing. By the fire of his spirit there was roused so great
an energy on the part of thousands of men as has hardly been known in these
times ; and he so put his people in heart, that not only the depression created
by defeat, but the sense of being abandoned and left for sacrifice by the evading
army, was succeeded by a quick growth of warlike pride, by a wholesome ardor
for the fight, by an orderly, joyous activity."

We may compare with this the description by the same fine hand
of General Todleben, in whom quality and quantity of brain, variety of

220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

resource and of smiling self-control, were all made efficient by high ten-
sion. Mr. Kinglake says :

" Although Todleben seemed to be one to whom the very labors of fighting
and of exterminating the weaker breeds of men must be an easy and delightful
exertion of natural strength, he had joyous, kind-looking eyes, almost ready to
melt with good-humor, and a bearing and speech so frank and genial, strangers
were instantly inclined to like, and very soon after to trust in him. From his
looks and demeanor, it could not at all be inferred that he was a man who had
devoted his mind to a science ; nor imagined that his power of doing the right
thing at the right time had been warped at all by long study of the engineering
art. . . . Few men of great intellect have attained so closely what Englishmen
mean by practical."

How great quality and quantity of brain may fall short of achieve-
ment, for lack of high tension rather than of control, must be sought in
the story of " Hamlet " and like inventions ; for, although the unhappy
General Trochu is not yet quite forgotten, none such leave an enduring
name. How many of us know that quiet friend unnoted of the many,
unfelt by the world ; whose powers of assimilating knowledge are great,
whose intellect is capacious, and whose accomplishments are manifold,
but whose nerve-currents are of low or inconstant tension ! He finishes
no work, he fathoms no research, and he dies leaving but the memory of
great powers wasted. Other curious instances of low tension are seen
in those unhappy mortals who conceive so truly, and have mental
force in such quantity, that they spend their lives in bestowing volumes
of good advice upon their fellows, but who never rouse themselves to
their own work or duty.

How, lastly, the greatest quality and capacity of mind, varied at-
tainments, and spiritual fire, may be spent as a sky-rocket is spent for
lack of control and direction, has been the theme of moralists of all
centuries, from the death of Abel to our own time. Of all endowments
control is the most precious, and its nurture our most bounden duty.
For a happy and useful life, perhaps control is more needful than qual-
ity, volume, variety or even tension of brain. But, were not men born
to us whose high qualities of brain enable them to see more deeply into
the secrets of Nature, our progress would cease ; did quantity of brain-
force cease from a people, that people would lack endurance ; were
tension feeble, the lions would roar on in the paths of our enterprise ;
were self-control wanting, that which were won would hardly be won
ere it was lost. Of all gifts, then, to be cherished and nurtured, perhaps
we should place first control, as by it effort is husbanded ; perhaps of
equal or scarcely of the second place comes tension; quality of brain
cannot be had for the asking, and lack of quantity in individuals may
be compensated by numbers. Variety, however charming, however
grateful, is the least precious of these conditions of brain, and is the
last which calls for nurture. How, then, are we so to wield our instru-
ments of education as to promote the increase of control, tension, and

ON BRAIN-FORCING. 221

quantity, without stifling quality and variety, and how are we to use
these virtues in the riper man without disabling him ?

Quality, as I have said, cannot be had for the asking ; it is fitful in
its growth, and often born out of due time. It should be favored by
the continuous inheritance of culture, but the mode of its epiphany lies
in the same darkness with that developmental nisus which lies behind
the advance of life upon the globe. Inherited, as it doubtless must be,
yet its arising cannot be foreseen in the span of human generation. In
the past it has more often burst forth from obscurity as the Greek and
Arab from the Orient, the Roman from the Latin, the Pisan, the Geno-
ese, the Venetian from Byzantium, the Tudor English from the Eng-
land of Lancaster and Plantagenet. Men of high quality do not seem,
even generally, to have sprung, like Pallas, from the brain of their
fathers, but conceived in the dark womb of time to have lighted upon
the world in companies. How then education, by taking thought unto
itself, is to breed or make men of great initiative is a hard question.
It seems clear, however, that it is not to be done simply by the wed-
ding of brain to brain, but that for its generation may be needed some
barbarous and even gross admixture, some strange coition between the
sons of God and the daughters of men. But that which they who
govern education can do is, to give to genius and to character a free
way for expansion and action. We cannot make such a man as Ed-
wards the naturalist of Banff, and the more sad is it that such men
when born to us are too often maimed or driven by circumstance, and
their gifts despoiled. That many mute, inglorious Miltons are buried
in our churchyards, I venture to doubt ; the fire of a Burns is not easily
hidden under a bushel, but some smaller lights may thus be quenched,
and the best of such men, like Burns himself, may be thwarted or broken
in heart. Some may aver, and not without seeming of truth, that trial
is to genius as the furnace to noble metal. But, surely, this world will
always offer to its children a front stern enough for their chastisement,
and a law hard enough for their contrition — there needs not the imposi-
tion of fetters of ours, nor the devices of our caprice or austerity. One
born before his time, in the inertia of his own generation, will find
resistance enough to try his steel. Moreover, as I have said, great
quality of brain may not be associated to high tension, and a moderate
resistance may be fatal to achievement. A man may not be a Luther,
a Cromwell, or a Knox, but he may be a Melanchthon, a Cranmer, or a
Wishart, and in favoring days may do the work which was done by the
former in virtue of high tension as well as of genius.

It is too certain, on the other hand, that by stress of circumstance,
zeal may be turned into fierceness, reason into tyranny, and strength
into brutality ; it is well, therefore, we should see that in our scheme
of education we are mindful of two things : 1. That we secure per-
fect freedom for the individual and toleration for all opinions, and this
must be done partly by the repeal of all legal privilege and partly

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by the gradual enlightenment of societies : 2. That in our scheme of
education we give the means of it to all, and full play to individual
gifts — not promoting a dull uniformity, nor pinching back the buds of
mental growth ; nor, on the other hand, forgetting that as great men
often appear in unpromising times, so great gifts in the individual are
often long in showing themselves. The early dunce often ripens into
the later genius. I find this late unfolding of greater gifts, though by
no means universal or perhaps even general, yet is so common that as
a teacher I have schooled myself into much sympathy with dunces. An
observant master may detect the pushing germs beneath the immobile
surface of his pupil's mind, but such masters are rare, and perhaps
nothing is lost by leaving their quickening to kindly time. Our duty
is, meanwhile, not to harass or exhaust the brain prematurely by anxious
culture, by stimulant or by systematic forcing. Few men can look back
upon their early companionship without seeing, with a feeling akin to
surprise, how the race has not always been to the swift, nor the battle
to those who were strong :

"Another race hath been, and other palms are won."

Quality of brain, then, cannot be made nor forced ; consisting, more-
over, as it probably does, in added ganglionic and commissural struct-
ure, it, like all more complex growth, will be late in the bud and later
in the bloom. And in pointing this out it must be remembered that
we are speaking not only of the rarer forms of genius, but also of char-
acter— of that which gives to each person his individual color and value.
Quality of brain may, however, be lost if it is not invigorated and im-
pelled by a strong breeze of nervous energy ; nay, as in the case of the
late Sir James Simpson, dauntless and inexhaustible nerve-quantity may
so elevate the spirit and so strengthen the hand as to clothe the indi-
vidual with a power beside that of genius itself, and urge him to work
which will win the undying gratitude of men. Now, happily quantity,
unlike quality, of brain-force is much under the power of education.
Quantity may be conceived as lying partly in the bulk of the nerve-
cells themselves, and partly in the volume of their vessels ; partly also
in the virtue of the blood itself. It cannot be forgotten that the health
of the brain and nervous system, upon which the abundance of its fruit
depends, is closely related to the tone and activity of the rest of the
corporeal frame. The volume of force issuing from the brain is largely
dependent, for example, upon the power of the stomach and allied vis-
cera, upon the power of rapidly digesting and assimilating an abun-
dance of food, and of breaking up and excreting spent material. A dys-
peptic may well have nerve-force of high quality and of high tension ;
but I never met with a dyspeptic whose nerve-force welled continuously
forth. Like Brougham and Cavour, men of great power of continu-
ous work have usually been large as well as sound eaters. A " hard-
headed" man is also a hard-bodied man, and the national history of

ON BRAIN-FORCING. 223

Europe is a long display of the successive triumphs of the men of cold-
er over the men of warmer regions ; of the hardy, lusty, and hungry
races over the softer, more indolent, and more abstemious. Northern
drunkenness is a survival of northern feasting and northern prowess ;
and the hearty Bishop of Peterborough touched a deep truth when he
said he had liefer Englishmen to be drunkards than slaves. It is quan-
tity, then, rather than other conditions of nerve-power, which is favored
by " physical education," quantity without which quality may flag ; but
quality is also indirectly increased, for quality is born, doubtless, out of
the fountains of quantity.

If it be true that the sons of genius are often fools, the explanation
may be that the parent has spent his great fortune of intellect and pas-
sion, and transmitted to his offspring a sapless and atonic brain. It
may be true, also, that as from the lesser robustness of women the
streams of vitality in them are more slender and less perennial, so the
buddings of higher genius in them are fewer and less fertile. The weav-
ing of the higher thought and emotion is found in our experience, even
of individuals, to be especially exhausting, and apt, therefore, to alter-
nate in its function with hours of indolence, and even of depression.
The greatest master cannot be unconscious of these tides in his creative
work; and the lesser, seeking relief and distraction between whiles,
drifts into the " Bohemian." To secure, then, quantity of nerve-force
directly, and quality indirectly, the encouragement of bodily vigor and
sturdy gain is fundamentally necessary. "Without wealth of bone and
blood, volume of nerve-force will dwindle, and the rarest quality may
fail of proof, or lose its splendor. Before women can hope to do hard
and high work, sense must expel sensibility, and school-giris must cease
to walk out in a row, to veil their faces, to wear stays, and to eat deli-
cately.1 Nay, if a certain ruggedness be not foreign to mental strength
and growth, it may be that women, as a class, if they will excel in origi-
nality and endurance, must cease, as a class, to seek after the charms
of daintiness and sentiment.

I am not, therefore, of those who think that the love of athletics is
as yet in excess. Here and there men may expend in the hunting-field
or on the river that which should have been given to their tripos, to
their profession, or to their country ; yet this at worst is but an indi-
vidual loss, far outweighed by the impulse given to the hardy, hungry
vitality by which the nation thrives, and its general volume of nervous
force is augmented. Again, it is an old truth that in youth production
and growth or development are in a measure opponent. The gardener,
the stock-breeder, the trainer, all know this and act upon the rule. The
spontaneous and equable play of all sides of life favors growth and

1 In the Girls' High-School at Leeds, a well-managed school in many respects, the
girls are at work from breakfast to dinner and after dinner, with no interval for diges-
tion, till four— for much of the year, that is, during all the daytime. Their cheeks know
not wind nor sunshine.

224 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tone ; but to enter the colt for the race, to bloom and seed the young
plant, or to put the young male to the stud, is to stint their growth and
to exhaust their vigor. Precocity is gained at the cost of feeble ma-
turity and early decay. And yet, can the young brain grow, cell add
itself to cell, and fibre knit itself to fibre, without work and play ? Can
the slack sinew be braced, or the muscle which is idle be increased?
To this I would reply that the activity which feeds the waxing strand
and ganglion is rather receptive than productive.1 It is easy to forget
how the child and the youth drink in knowledge and virtue impercepti-
bly as the green leaves spread themselves and feed upon the air. By
an equable tide flowing in from every side — by the channels of the
senses, by the universal surface of the skin — the inner chambers of the
nervous system are expanded, and stored with riches for future profu-
sion. The mischief done daily by calling upon the unripe brain for
productive work, for original composition,2 for competitive examina-
tions, for teaching, and even for preaching, is calamitous, and the evil
is increasing. The impatient examinations of young children are as
injurious and as foolish as the searching of the roots of the pushing
plant. Cram, again, is that which secures the immediate production of
brain-results rather than the growth of the brain itself; and it must be
thrusting itself upon the vision of all but the moon-struck, that young
men who are prize-winners at the ages even of eighteen or twenty years
have too often spent their brains before the natural yielding-time. Too
often the star of their year is quenched ere their course be well begun, and
if their life be not henceforth a failure it may fall far short of its early
promise ; and the brain which might have been year by year more flexi-
ble, more potent, and more enterprising, is warped, stiffened, and staled.
Such young men are now sent into the world in numbers, with minds
orderly, trim, and garnished, but without blan, and without initiative —
admirable clerks and formalists — but as men of action spoiled forever.
Pupil-teachers, again, present a curious subject for observation, and
a sad one. Called upon as children to teach children, their brains turn
backward, or stop at the stage they have attained, and the living stream
of thought is congealed into a dead dogmatism. Their minds, no lon-
ger open to the dew of knowledge from above, are bent to the work of
churning vapid juices for yet callower nurslings. Nor is this all : the
striving and jaded brain sucks the kindly sap from the rest of the body,
and the weaker sex more especially tend in their years of puberty to
become pallid and enfeebled, or to break down altogether between the
rival claims of mind and body. Other cases, of which my note-books
are full, are those in which brain-power is run low in youth by the
untimely pressure of business and of heavy responsibilities. A father

1 That receptiveness of brain, its play and its productiveness, are but various degrees
of function I do not forget, but few differences of degree are more clearly distinguishable.

2 I believe in many schools mere children are ordered to write " original " essays on
set subjects.

ON BRAIN-FORCING. 225

dies, leaving his son, aged twenty or less, to carry on a large business,
to pay his mother and sisters out of the concern, and to educate his
younger brothers. Stanch to the backbone, the lad throws himself
ardently into life, carries at twenty years the burdens of forty, pushes
onward upon excitement and in ignorance of the mischief doing, labors
for a few years or more according to his stores, and falls to pieces ere
middle life is reached, and when his powers should be at their best. We
label their cases "dyspepsia," "nervous debility," "mental disease,"
and the like. I refrain from giving scores of them.

But most disastrous, perhaps, of all means of dissipating the stores
of the unformed brain are the preaching-tasks of the theological colleges,
and especially of the nonconformist colleges. These colleges are filled
with young men — ambitious, of generous impulses, and fervent temper
— and their teachers, as seems curiously true of schoolmasters as a
class, are utterly unconscious of the existence of the science of physi-
ology. These hapless lads are not only spurred on to intense and pro-
longed study during the week, but are called upon to preach. I do not
mean that they are merely taught to use the voice and gesture, which
are the instruments of oratory, but they are actually set up to address
congregations of people. I will say nothing of those hearers who find
edification in the raw dogmatism of an undergraduate, or spiritual in-
crease in the forced and jejune exhortations of striplings to whom spir-
itual experience is yet unknown ; but I will say of the 'prentice preach-
ers themselves that the system is immeasurably cruel. A luckless
youth is forced to heat the yet empty chambers of his brain, and to
forge false thunder therein at an age when he needs rather to sit at the
feet of wisdom. Space forbids me to give instances from my books,
but the facts are open to others as to myself. Men whose steps are
faltering upon the very threshold of the ministry come to me lamenting
that the hope and the fervor, the peace and the joy of their initiation
have fled, and in their place are listlessness, weariness, confusion of
mind — nay, even satiety and disgust. Their teachers urge them to drown
their reaction in more work, and in unhealthy self-examinations. Pal-
lid, dyspeptic, peevish, sleepless, disheartened, many of them creep into
orders to come in later years to the physicians, almost cursing them-
selves because their labors are unfruitful, because they cannot sit down
to think nor stand up to pray. The explanation is too clear. The
brain has been forced, and has borne insipid fruit out of due season. It
may never recover its tone, or recover it only after a long season of rest.
It is sad to think how many young ministers have come to me alone
with such a history — men otherwise of promise, but whose best efforts
have been but as the crackling of thorns under the pot.

We do not realize how long a time the exhausted brain takes to re-
cover itself ! A young physician may boldly tell the overtaxed mer-
chant or student to take three months' rest ; but probably three months
must be added to that, and even six months again to the sum, before

VOL. XIII. — 15

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

any degree of stability is regained. It is nearly always true that a case
of brain-exhaustion needs what may seem a disproportionate time to get
well. Repair in so delicate an organ is slow, and we know that gar-
deners and breeders would rather start afresh with young stock than
nurse round specimens which have been checked. Yet Englishmen are
courageous and enduring, and many fight into the ministry without con-
sciousness of harm. Nevertheless, I would ask concerning even these
— if there be found in them any lack of quick and exquisite thought, of
keen and catholic vision, of deep and tender passion ; or if there be in
them any delight in phrases, and any shrinking from realities ; any bond-
age to convention and prejudice, any blenching from the service of
perfect freedom — whether the forcing and hustling of their brains in
earlier life have not straitened their conceptions, and checked their
mental sweetness, freshness, and enterprise.

Another kind of premature brain-forcing is seen in young artists.
Young musicians, especially, abandon themselves with perfervid inge-
nuity, not merely to discipline and culture, but also to original compo-
sition and to excessive display. Hence, as the passion of music is of
early manifestation, and the vanity of parents insatiable, we find the
history of musicians is one long wail over brilliant promise and early
exhaustion or death. It is as true of music as of every other art, that
its greatest works are works not of youth but of manhood, not of tender
age but of maturity. Schubert died at the age of thirty-one, Mendels-
sohn at the age of thirty-six, Mozart at the age of thirty-six — these, like
many other masters prodigiously, even wastefully, productive in the
days of their spring, were worn out when their transcendent genius
should have borne its harvest. Even in music we find the most lustrous
and immortal works were the works not of youth, nor of early manhood,
but of riper years ; of masters who were endowed with inexhaustible
well-springs of force in body and brain, or who had husbanded their
stores in earlier days. Handel composed his great oratorios after he had
passed his fiftieth year. Sebastian Bacli wrote the "B Minor Mass"
at the age of forty-eight, and the two "Passions" somewhat later still.
Beethoven wrote the " A Major Symphony " and the " Eroica " between
the ages of thirty-four and forty -four: he had thus reached formal excel-
lence, and had he then died would, like Mendelssohn, have bequeathed
a great name to posterity. Happily he lived on to write his grandest
works, such as the " Ninth Symphony " and the " Missa Solennis," after
the age of forty-five. If we turn to our own day and regard the life of a
genius who, in quality and quantity of brain-activity with tremendous
tension and infinite variety, occupies a position perhaps unique — I
speak of Richard Wagner — we find he was born at Leipsic in the year
1813, and is now therefore sixty-five years of age, so that " Lohen-
grin " and the " Ring des Nibelungen " are the works of years more
than mature. I will not pursue this argument with the other cre-
ative arts, nor stay to prove that works like the " Paradise Lost," the

ON BRAIN-FORGING. 227

" Divina Commedia," and " The Tempest," are works not of youth but
of age.1

I must pass on to consider brain-work under the head of tension.
Tension, I believe, depends in some way upon the tides of the blood-
vessels— upon their rapidity, perhaps — and more especially upon the
rapid distribution of blood in particular directions. It may well be a
matter of the nervi vasorum. Probably also some relation of capillary
to cell, which favors rapid absorption, enters into the matter ; for we
see that tension diminishes with age — with the susceptibility of nerve
and arteriole. It is a factor of infinite value to the man. " Learning,"
says Falstaff, " is a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack com-
mences it and sets it in act and use " (" King Henry IV.," book iv.,
scene 3). We may regard tension under several aspects, as in the keen
tenacity of intellectual work in such a master as Newton, when it is
associated with lofty and powerful control ; or again in vivacious tem-
peraments, where control is often less complete. In those " whom
Englishmen delight to call practical " we see it associated with dexter-
ity, with readiness of resource, and with keenness of the special senses.
This invaluable attribute is happily much under the influence of educa-
tion. Compare, for instance, the slow wit of the rustic with the mental
alertness of the " joly prentis of Chepe." Education can not only in-
struct the mind, but can make it apprehensive, nimble, and even fiery.
" It is of no use to know a thing," we often say to our bedside students,
" unless you can deliver yourself of your knowledge." The brain must
not be a silent receptacle, but, to use the old phrase, must be a " copi-
ous promptuary " of learning and device. In this paragraph, then, we
take not the contrary, but the converse of the former, and, while remem-
bering that quantity and quality of nerve-force are diminished by call-
ing upon the tender brain for production, tension, on the other hand,
is promoted by busying the student with his work, and by stimulating
him with a sense of his duties and of his just ambitions. Hence class-
tests and even class-competitions, and the due use of the spur, are to be
encouraged so far as they favor readiness, quick and accurate observa-
tion, and modest rivalries, but not so far as to call for " original compo-
sitions," for heated and straining effort, or for the rapid disgorgement
of bolted and undigested book-work. Tension, then, is an endowment
of Nature, or is increased by education and example, and especially by
the personal influence of an earnest and practical teacher, and by the

1 The visitor who has lately returned from the magic show of Turner Drawings now in
Bond Street, will doubtless remember Mr. Ruskin's words on the opening page of his
" Guide," wherein he says of Turner, " He produced no work of importance till he was
past twenty — working constantly, from the day he could hold a pencil, in steady student-
ship, with gradually-increasing intelligence." Of the master's work done between the
ages of fifty-five and sixty-five, Mr. Ruskin says (page 9), " In this period he produces his
most wonderful work in his own special manner — in the perfect pieces of it, insuperable."
In the Slade School at Kensington, subjects are given out for original work, a system
which, in my judgment, is more likely to do harm than good.

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

informing of eye and hand rather than by the straining of thought and
memory. Unlike quantity, tension is not immediately dependent upon
physical health. Neuralgic and dyspeptic persons often possess this
virtue in high degree, and indeed fasting is said by spiritual teachers
to intensify mental action. If quantity, however, be not added to ten-
sion, great passion or great action is followed by utter exhaustion and
depression ; and, where high mettle and enduring force are combined,
we obtain the greatest results. Certain drugs, such as strychnine, have
the property of heightening the tension of nerve ; and others, such as
iron and cod-liver oil, of enriching it in quantity. In the combination
of the two kinds we have the most precious medicines. The so-called
" nervous children " — products of a later civilization — need especially
the benefits of quantity and control, and intelligent parents secure this
by restraining scholastic pressure, by enforcing a regular discipline, and
by encouraging physical development.

That endowment which I have called Variety or versatility is also
partly innate and partly acquired, but chiefly innate.1 It must consist
in the accretion of a greater number of ganglia and of interweaving
fibres. This is not unfavorable to quantity of nerve-force, but perhaps
it is unfavorable to the quality or high development of special gangli-
onic groups, and also to tenacity or steadfast intensity. The school-
master therefore abhors versatility, and that greater schoolmaster, the
world, grinds it to dust. "Without variety the pedant loses the sense
of the infinite interests and conditions of life ; with variety and without
penetration the dilettante is ignorant of the depths of his own igno-
rance. The pedant denies that any knowledge should be taken in
small quantities, the dilettante is repelled by the isolation of limited re-
search. It would seem to be the aim of good education to insist upon
a mastery of one or more subjects, that the grown man should be able
to fight with the foremost, to concentrate his powers, and to realize
what knowledge is, but that at the same time he should gain some not
inadequate notion of the whole field of the battle of life. He will thus
gain in sympathy and flexibility of mind, while he is saved from the
" failing of omniscience." A happy citizen of the republic of learning
must have culture at once liberal and profound, at once general and
special; to such a one a little knowledge is no longer a dangerous
thing.

Finally, Control is partly innate, but greatly the creature of educa-
tion. It is, I believe, the earliest work of education, the safest work
and the most abiding. As an innate virtue it consists, no doubt, in
the superposition of more complex or higher centres upon the lower
and upon the weaving of these together by commissures of various
orders. These ganglia and fibres, sketched out as it were by inheri-
tance, are nourished and developed by use, i. e., by education. By use

1 Diderot is the most brilliant instance of the Various man I can at present call to
mind.

ON BRAIN-FORCING. 229

lines of least resistance are established, and thus habits are formed.
A man cannot bite his nails without fingers and teeth, nor can habits
be formed in the mind without the preexistence of conflicting ganglia,
but it is infinitely important to test the child for their presence, and to
set up in them certain lines of movement, and certain coincident memo-
ries or " associations." Thus also appears the Will, that is the revela-
tion to consciousness of the balancing of the faculties, though where
consciousness enters we know not, and shall never know on this side
of the grave. No mistake, then, is more fatal than that of parents who
let children run wild, on the pretense of physical development. This,
indeed, they may obtain, and how guarded we are to be in forcing the
brain I need not say again ; but there can be no misfortune to a child
greater than to escape the life of justice, order, and rule, or to escape
the training of those perceptions of social needs and social laws which,
when graven in our ganglia and long current in our nerves, become
habits of sympathy, charity, and self-sacrifice. Herein I fear that the
partisans of " secular " education are greatly at fault. Children may
be trained in board-schools to habits of cleanliness and order, but they
are not trained in the principles of liberty, nor are their eyes turned to
the sanctions of religion. From this system I fear there may be a sad
awakening for a coming generation. I may sum up thus : The powers
of the nervous system with which education is chiefly concerned are
Quality, Quantity, Tension, Variety, and Control. Quality is beyond
the direct efforts of education; its rarer development, both in nations
and individuals, is as yet incalculable: in the early life of the individual
it is often latent, and its greatest results belong to years of maturity.
On the other hand, education may often overlay it, thwart it, or expend
it, and, as quality is largely dependent upon quantity or volume of nerve-
force, the ripening of those degrees of it which exist in ordinary men,
and the favoring of those revelations of it which occur more rarely, are
constantly prevented by brain-forcing in early life. In men of great
quality or genius such brain-forcing has too often dimmed or blighted
the splendor of their work, or has shortened their days, and has only
failed to do so in others by virtue of their perennial springs of inward
energy. Quantity, therefore, is a very fruitful possession, and, unlike
quality, may be directly reenforced by wholesome conditions — by phys-
ical education, and by the promotion of healthy and rapid digestion,
assimilation, and excretion.

Tension is a virtue without which quality and quantity of nerve-
force may be wasted. By it men overcome resistance, and are fired
with impulse. Promptness, alertness, and acute sense, come also of this
attribute. Tension may be increased greatly by education, and it
springs up in the busier contentions of men. It is largely independent
of physical health and of food, but is favored by action and the training
of observation. Variety, by which men are enabled to touch the world
at many points, can be favored by education. If in excess, it results in

230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

aimless dissipation of energy ; if duly consorted with full knowledge of
one or more subjects, it gives breadth and flexibility to the intellect, and
promotes the happiness of personal and social life ; it favors general
progress by permitting the more rapid diffusion of the knowledge won
by the few. Lastly, control is eminently a creature of education, and
is perhaps the most precious gift of the individual man. Without jus-
tice, temperance, and definite industry, the most brilliant attributes of
mind may be impotent for good, and without the habit of social sub-
ordination and the bond of social sympathy the most brilliant society
would be but a rope of diamonds. Brain-forcing is terribly mischievous.
It urges genius into precocious fruitage, it drains the springs of ner-
vous force, it excites high tension without giving volume to fortify it,
it stints the variety of mental expansion, and by enforcing control it
breaks the spirit. The true purpose of education is, first of all, to teach
discipline — the discipline of the body, and the higher discipline of the
mind and heart ; to encourage the budding faculties to break freely in
natural variety ; to quicken the eye and the hand, and to touch the lips
with fire ; to promote the gathering of the fountains of vigorous life by
fresh air, simple nutritious diet, and physical exercise ; and, finally, to
watch for the growth, silent it may be for years, of the higher qualities
of character, or even of genius, not forcing them into heated and fro ward
activity, but rather restraining the temptation to early production, and
waiting for the mellowness of time: remembering that the human mind
is not an artificial structure, but a natural growth ; irregular, nay, even
inconsistent, as such growths are, wanting most often the symmetry
and preciseness of artifice, but having the secret of permanence and
adaptability. These words seem almost too simple — these truths too
obvious for repetition; yet for lack of that which lies in them our modern
schemes of education are day after day ruining the young by over-
stimulation and unhealthy competition. Happily, the public is awaking
to its error, and is beginning to regret the days when its young dunces
grew into its old heroes. What we did blindly in the past by trusting
to the hidden wealth of Nature, we may now do face to face by the
revelation of her secrets.

P. S. — Since this essay was prepared for the printer, I have received
the February number of the Fortnightly Revieic, which contains an
article by Prof. Huxley on " Technical Education." In that article
Mr. Huxley expresses opinions which must command general attention
and adhesion. Although his argument is sped with thought and word
far stronger and swifter than mine, and clothed with an authority to
which I can lay no claim, yet I may perhaps without presumption call
myself a fellow-laborer in the same field. — Brain,

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR C. F. HARTT. 231

SKETCH OF PEOFESSOE C. F. HAETT.

By KICHARD EATHBUN.

CHARLES FREDERIC HARTT, whose death by yellow fever oc-
curred at Rio de Janeiro on the 18th of last March, was born at
Fredericton, New Brunswick, August 23, 1840. For three years and a
half before his decease, he had successfully withstood the fatigues of
exploration and the labors of organizing and carrying on the geological
commission of Brazil, an undertaking beset with many trying difficul-
ties, only to succumb at last, the victim of an epidemic which caused
him but two days of suffering.

Prof. Hartt's father was the late Jarvis "William Hartt, for a long
time closely connected with the educational interests of New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia. The subject of our sketch received his early educa-
tion mainly in Nova Scotia, under the direct supervision of his father.
Later he entered Horton Academy, Wolfville, and afterward completed
the academical course at Acadia College, where he graduated with
honor in 1860. His connection with natural history dates from boy-
hood, and at the age of ten years he had already made a good begin-
ning. Encouraged by Prof. Cheesman, he made rapid progress in his
favorite studies, without, however, neglecting the other branches of
learning. But his particular bent always lay toward natural history,
language, music, and art. The former subject became his principal
occupation, but the latter three, in which he made many original obser-
vations of great value, ever aided him much, especially in his studies
in ethnology.

While a student at Acadia College, he undertook, under the direc-
tion of Dr. Dawson, extensive researches into the geology of Nova
Scotia, which province he explored on foot from one end to the other.
In 1860 he accompanied his father to St. John, there to establish a
college high-school. This change of location brought him into another
field for exploration, that of the geology of New Brunswick, and he
commenced his new labors at once. The Devonian shales at the locality
called Fern Ledges, in the vicinity of St. John, were the principal ob-
jects of his research. These shales occur on the shore of the bay of
Fundy, and are situated mostly between high and low water marks,
being thus very difficult of access. After a long siege of hard work,
however, he was amply repaid by discovering an abundance of land
plants and insects, of which the latter still remain the oldest known to
science. Prof. Agassiz was attracted by this last discovery of the young
Canadian naturalist, and invited him to enter his museum at Cambridge
as a student. This he did in 1861, but in so doing his connection with
provincial geology was not severed, for each vacation he returned,

23 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

either to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, to continue his explorations,
in the course of which he would often lecture in the different towns to
obtain means of paying his field expenses. In 1864 Mr. Hartt was
employed, with Profs. Bailey and Matthews, on the geological survey
of New Brunswick, and, while engaged in this work, obtained the first
full proof of the existence of primordial strata in that province. Many
of his discoveries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were published
in the Provincial Government reports, and also in Dr. Dawson's "Aca-
dian Geology." Hartt's constitution, though well able to withstand
the severest kind of fatigue in exploration, was not proof against the
damp, chilly atmosphere of his native land, and from this cause he often
suffered much ; so it was probably fortunate for him that just about
this time his attention was attracted toward a new field.

Upon the organization of the Thayer Expedition to Brazil, by Prof.
Agassiz in 1865, he was appointed one of its geologists, and henceforth
to the time of his death he was ever a most devoted investigator of
South American natural history. As a member of Prof. Agassiz's
party he explored the neighborhood of the coast from Rio de Janeiro
to Bahia, and ascended many of the rivers, making large zoological
collections, but finding little of interest in the geology. Aided by New
York friends he returned to Brazil alone in 1867, this time examining
with the greatest care the reefs of the Abrolhos Islands, and those
of the coast, as well as the geology of a part of Bahia and Sergipe.
With the material thus far collected he began the work of writing up
his geological reports in the capacity of geologist to the Thayer Ex-
pedition. This report was to have been included along with those of his
chief, but under Hartt's hands it grew to such size that it was pub-
lished separately in 1870 as the "Geology and Physical Geography of
Brazil." In addition to the account of Hartt's researches, it included
the best results of all who had ever published on the geology of the
country.

After his return from the Thayer Expedition, the time he spent in
this country until 1868 was devoted mostly to scientific teaching and
lecturing in and around New York City, where he attained much suc-
cess and made many warm friends. Early in 1868 he was elected
Professor of Natural History in Vassar College, a position he resigned
in the fall of the same year, to accept the chair of Geology in Cornell
University. Shortly after assuming his duties at Cornell, he was mar-
ried to Miss Lucy Lynde, of Buffalo, New York, who is now left with
two children. In 1869 he was made General Secretary of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, to serve at the meeting
of 1870 ; but a third expedition to Brazil, which he had been planning,
called him away before the Association met. This trip was made in
company with Prof. Prentice and eleven students of Cornell Univer-
sity, and was the largest of his own organizations from the United
States. With this party he entered what was really a new region for

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR C. F. HARTT. 233

geological exploration — the Amazonian Valley — hoping there to dis-
cover, at the falls of the different tributaries of the Amazonas, other
fossiliferous formations than the Cretaceous, which latter alone he had
found along the coast. He was well rewarded, and returned to the
United States with large collections of fossils of the Paleozoic age,
and sufficient other evidence to allow of his giving us a very accurate
though general idea of the formation of the Amazonian Valley. His
results were strongly opposed to the theory of Prof. Agassiz, of its
glacial origin. Not entirely satisfied with the amount of material ob-
tained on this last expedition, he returned again to the Amazonas in
1871 with Mr. O. A. Derby, who had accompanied him on the former
trip. Together they carefully reexplored the same regions gone over
before, adding much to the stores already brought to the United States,
and also examining the ancient Indian mounds and shell-heaps of nu-
merous localities. The two Amazonian trips of Prof. Hartt were ren-
dered possible through the liberality of Mr. Edward Morgan, of Aurora,
New York, in whose honor they have been called the " Morgan Ex-
peditions."

Returning from Brazil once more, he remained at Cornell University
about three years, quietly working up the results of his later trips, and
publishing his reports upon them ; but his active spirit would not allow
him to remain in this condition long. He conceived the idea of sys-
tematically exploring the entire empire of Brazil, a country possessing
an area almost as great as the United States. In August of 1874, by
request of the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, he went to Rio de
Janeiro to submit his plans for the organization of a Geological Com-
mission of Brazil. He first suggested the forming of a very large party
similar to those engaged in our own national explorations ; but it was
found that the existing appropriations would not suffice for so grand an
undertaking, and he was forced to begin on a more modest scale, the
commission dating from May 1, 1875. In addition to the chief, there
were never more than five or six assistants at any one time, comprising
two assistant geologists, one topographer, and two other assistants,
and at times a photographer or other specialist. His former expe-
riences in Brazil aided him in rapidly attaining good and important
results. He took the old grounds which he had already examined as
starting-points for his new explorations, and worked outward from them
in all directions, quickly but carefully enlarging the known area of fos-
siliferous and other rocks. This kind of work he was, of course, able
to carry out only on the Amazonas and in the northern coast prov-
inces ; but to the south of Rio he had everything to begin, and in
those localities his examinations were more hasty, bearing the char-
acter of preliminary surveys ; but they were also productive of val-
uable results.

On the reorganization of the National Museum at Rio, in 1876,
Hartt became director of its department of Geology ; but, on account

234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of his many other duties, he was soon obliged to resign that position.
The results of his researches may be briefly summed up as follows :
Before he went to Brazil on his second trip, in 1867, scarcely anything
was known of fossiliferous deposits there, and thus no material existed
toward the study of the systematic geology of the country. A few
Cretaceous fossils had been recorded from Bahia ; the Danish naturalist
Luns had very fully described the bone-caverns of Lagoa Santa in
Minas Geraes, and we knew of coal-plants from Rio Grande do Sul ;
but beyond this the paleontology of Brazil was a perfect blank. Hartt's
greatest achievement in Brazil was probably his solution of the struct-
ure of the Amazonian Valley. It was founded on the best of paleon-
tological evidence which proves the existence of an immense palaeo-
zoic basin lying between the metamorphic plateau of Guiana on the
north, and that of Central Brazil on the south, and through which
flows the river Amazonas. Silurian, Devonian, and carboniferous rocks,
make up the series in regular succession, and in many localities are
highly fossiliferous. He has explained the character of the isolated
Cretaceous deposits, mostly discovered by himself, existing along the
coast from Para, to Bahia, and of the Carboniferous and other regions
south of Rio. He has shown us the manner in which the rocky struct-
ure of Brazil wras built up, and has done much toward solving the rela-
tions of the crystalline rocks which compose by far the larger portion
of its surface. He has explored the shell-heaps, burial-mounds, and
other relic-localities of the prehistoric tribes from far up the Amazonas
to the southernmost coast province. We owe to him also the first real
satisfactory explanation of the reefs of Brazil, which he distinctly
shows to be of two kinds — sandstone and coral. He spent much time
in studying the customs and languages of the modern Indian tribes of
the Amazonas and Bahia, and collected very much material toward a
grammar and dictionary of the Tupe Indian language in several of its
dialects. But to attempt a complete account of Prof. Hartt's Brazilian
explorations and discoveries would require a longer article than we can
give here. In connection with the Geological Commission of Brazil he
founded a large museum in Rio de Janeiro, which wTill always bear tes-
timony to his great final undertaking. His field-parties made very ex-
tensive collections of rock-specimens and fossils, and in the explora-
tions of the reefs they gathered a large collection of marine inver-
tebrate animals of all kinds. About a year ago, when the members of
his survey were mostly recalled to Rio for the purpose of writing up
their reports and of studying the material they had collected, it was
found that some six hundred cases had been sent in from the field, and
were awaiting suitable quarters. A large building was obtained, and
in the course of several months there appeared a museum of geology
and marine zoology that would have done credit to a much larger com-
mission working a much longer time. It contained fossils, minerals,
and rocks, from nearly every known geological locality in Brazil, and

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR C. F. HARTT. 235

thus formed the most complete repository of South American geology
in the world. Among the collections of marine zoology those of the
corals, crustacea, and mollusks, were notably large and complete. But
one of the most interesting parts of the museum was its collection of
antiquities, which comprised many new and curious forms of pottery
and stone implements, and was also rich in human remains.

A start had just been made toward publishing the reports of the
commission when the death of Prof. Hartt deprived it of its main sup-
port. But, though this will occasion some delay in the publication, it
is to be hoped that we shall soon have before us the entire results of
one of the grandest series of explorations ever carried on by an Ameri-
can in a foreign country.

Prof. Hartt's published works are not very voluminous. He was so
confident of a longer life that he delayed too long, but still he was a
constant contributor to American scientific periodicals. In addition to
his large volume, "The Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil,"
he has given us the following, among other very valuable reports :

" Amazonian Drift" {American Journal of Science, vol. i., 1871, pp. 3).

" Brazilian Rock-Inscriptions " {American Naturalist, vol. v., 1871, pp. 9
and figures).

" The Ancient Indian Pottery of Maraj6, Brazil " {American Naturalist,
vol. v., 1871, pp. 13, many figures).

" On the Tertiary Basin of the Marafion " {American Journal of Science, vol.
iv., 1872, pp. 6).

" Recent Explorations on the Valley of the Amazonas" ("American Jour-
nal of the Geographical Society of New York," 1872, with map).

"Morgan Expeditions 1870-'7l." Contributions to " The Geology and Phys-
ical Geography of the Lower Amazonas — The Eveve, Monte Alegre District,
and the Table-topped Hills " ("Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sci-
ence," January, 1874, pp. 35).

"Morgan Expeditions 1870-'7l. Report of a Reconnaissance of the Lower
Tapajos" ("Bulletin of Cornell University (Science)," vol. i., No. 1, 1874, pp.

37).

" Evolution in Ornament " (The Popular Science Monthly, January, 1875).

" Notes on the Manufacture of Pottery among Savage Races " (Rio de Ja-
neiro, 1875, pp. 70).

" Amazonian Tortoise Myths " (Rio, 1875).

" Nota sobre algumas Tangas de Barro cosido dos Antigos Indigenas da Ilha
de Marajo" (" Archivos do Museu Nacional de Rio de Janeiro," vol. i., 1876,
pp. 5, 3 plates).

236

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE LOGIC OP PROBABILITIES.

To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly.

IN the April number — " Illustrations of
the Logic of Science," p. 706 — the
writer says : " What is the probability of
throwing a six with one die? The antece-
dent here is the event of throwing a die ;
the consequent, its turning up a six. As the
die has six sides, all of which are turned
up with equal frequency, the probability
of turning up any one is one-sixth." Ad-
mitted ; but is not this also true : that if
you throw a single die, say twenty times,
and fail to turn up a six, the probability
thereafter of turning up a six is increased ?
One would say so ; and for the reason that,
in the long run, there must turn up as many
sixes as ones or twos or threes or fours or
fives. " The die has six sides, all of which
are turned up with equal frequency." Of
course, the greater the number of throws,
the nearer will the numbers of times which
each side of the die falls uppermost ap-
proximate each other — approaching rela-
tively nearer all the way from six throws to
sixty million, and on to infinity. If a six
has failed to turn up for twenty throws,
and if it must turn up as frequently as the
other numbers, it must some time after the
twentieth throw make up the deficiency.
To average up, six must begin some time to
turn oftener ; that is, with each failure to
fall uppermost, its chance or probability of
doing so is increased.

On the other hand, suppose you have
thrown the die twenty times, or twenty
thousand times, and have failed to turn a
six, even then the twenty-thousand-and-first
throw, considered by itself, manifestly af-
fords one-sixth (no more, no less) of a
chance of turning up a six.

How is this logic to be reconciled ?
Respectfully,

Charles West.
San Francisco, California, April 2, 1878.

We insert this letter because it gives
expression to a fallacious notion which is
very current. At the gambling-places they
distribute cards upon which the players
can, by prickings, mark the number of times
which black and red have turned up, so as
to bet upon the color which is in deficiency.
The confusion is between the following two
statements, of which the first is true, the
second false :

1. " If a die be thrown a sufficient num-
ber of times, the proportion of times with
which it will turn up six, will approximate
(within any desired limit) to one-sixth."
This is true.

2. " If a die be thrown a sufficient num-
ber of times, the number of times with
which it will turn up six will approximate
(within any desired limit) to one-sixth of
the total number of throws." This is plain-
ly false. Suppose a die be thrown six
times in all, then the number of times in
which six comes up cannot differ by more
than five from being exactly one-sixth of
the total number of throws. But does any-
body imagine that, if it were thrown six
hundred times, the number of sixes would
often lie between 95 and 105, or within
five of one-sixth of the total number ?

Recognizing this distinction, our cor-
respondent's argument falls at once to the
ground. Suppose that the first twenty
throws of the die were to be six, and there-
after just one-sixth of the throws were to
be six, then the frequency of sixes would be
as follows :

After 20 throws, the frequency would
, 20
be20=!-

After 80 throws, the frequency would

be

be

be

20 + 10
80

= 0.375.

After 620 throws, the frequency would

20 + 100

■ — — — = 0.19354839.

After 6,020 throws, the frequency would

20 + 1,000

= 0.1694352.

6,020

Thus the frequency would continually
approximate toward one-sixth or 0.166666
. . ., although sixes were thrown exactly
one-sixth of the time, after the run of twenty
sixes. Our correspondent is, therefore, in
error when he says : " If a six has failed to
turn up for twenty throws, and it must turn
up as frequently as the other numbers, it
must some time after the twentieth throw
make up the deficiency. To average up,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

237

six must begin some time to turn oftener."
On the contrary, if, after the twentieth
throw, it turns up exactly one-sixth of the
times, its frequency approximates indefi-
nitely in the long run toward one-sixth.

The table given in the April number, p.
715, shows that, as the number of throws
increases, the difference between the num-
ber of sixes and one-sixth of the number of
throws generally increases, being propor-
tional to the square root of that number;
at the same time the difference between the
■proportion of sixes and one-sixth generally
decreases, in the same proportion that the
discrepancy of the number increases.

In 6 throws, the number of sixes will
probably lie between 0 and 2 ; the propor-
tion between 0 and 0.3333. . .

In 60 throws, the number of sixes will
probably lie between 8 and 12; the propor-
tion between 0.133 and 0.200.

In 600 throws, the number of sixes will
probably lie between 93 and 10*7 ; the pro-
portion between 0.155 and 0.178.

In 6,000 throws, the number of sixes

will probably lie between 980 and 1,020 ;
the proportion between .163 and .170.

In 60,000 throws, the number of sixes
will probably lie between 9,938 and 10,062 ;
the proportion between .1656 and .1677;
and so on.

All this relates to independent events ;
that is, those of which the occurrence of
one neither increases nor diminishes the
probability of the occurrence of another.
If an urn contains a number of balls, of
which one-sixth are black and the rest
white, every drawing of a black ball de-
creases the relative number of black balls
among those which remain. If there were
but one hundred and twenty balls in all, at
first, and the first twenty drawn were black,
it becomes absolutely certain that all the
remaining drawings will be of white balls.
The greater the total number, however, the
less influence will the run of twenty black
drawings have upon those which follow;
and, if the total number were endless, the
case would be similar to the repeated
throwing of a die.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE STUDY OF THE BRAIN.

THE recent activity of psychological
study, and the many valuable re-
sults arising from it, induced some of
its leading students, two or three years
ago, to found a new periodical entitled
Mind: a Quarterly Review of Psychology
and Philosophy, to be devoted to the
investigation of mental phenomena,
especially from the hitherto neglected
physiological side. This review has
done excellent service. It was a pro-
test against the inadequacy of the old
method of metaphysical and purely in-
trospective study, and represented that
class of philosophical thinkers who hold
that, in treating of mind, its organic
conditions are not to be lost sight of,
but that mind and body are to be con-
sidered together.

A further and. very significant step,
in the same direction, has now been

taken by the establishment of another
quarterly magazine, under the title of
Brain: a Journal of Neurology.1 The
starting-point is here physiological, and
the brain and nervous system are studied
with reference to their various vital and
psychical functions and effects. The
editors are all eminent medical men,
who have either acquired distinction
through large experience in the treat-
ment of nervous maladies involving in-
tellectual and emotional derangement,
or have achieved eminence in the de-
partment of experimental physiology
of the nervous system. The method
is here thoroughly scientific. The
brain is not merely something to be
recognized, but it is taken as the pri-

1 Brain : A Journal of Neurology. Edited
by J. C. Bucknill, M. D„ J. Crichton-Browne,
M. D., D. Ferrier, M. D., and J. Hughlincrs-
Jackson, M. D. 142 pnges quarterly. Price,
3s. 6d. New York: Macniillan & Co.

238

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

mary and fundamental object of inqui-
ry— an organ, the properties of which
give limits and law to psychology. That
mind is conditioned and manifested by
the nervous, and especially the cerebral,
system, is now no longer intelligently
disputed ; and, in beginning the study
of mental phenomena here, we have the
advantage of light derived from the
physical and organic sciences, we get
free from the overwhelming bias of
metaphysical traditions, and become fa-
miliar with a wide range of facts that
are of immense value in the conduct of
every-day life.

The important practical results that
must follow from this order of study,
by which the organic substratum of
mind receives the first attention, are
well illustrated in the admirable articles
of Dr. Beard, on " The Scientific Study
of Human Testimony," of which the
second is herewith published. Dr.
Beard indicated his point of view in the
first paper as follows:

" Human testimony comes from the hu-
man brain; the scientific study of human
testimony is only possible through a knowl-
edge of the human brain in health and dis-
ease, and is therefore a department of cere-
bro-physiology and pathology. Only re-
cently have the laws of cerebro-physiology
and pathology been sufficiently understood,
even by the very few who cultivate that
specialty, to enable them to formulate prin-
ciples for the scientific study of that most
important product of the human brain — hu-
man testimony. If, then, Bacon and Des-
cartes, Hume and Hamilton, Whewell and
Jevons, Greenleaf and Wharton, have failed
to adapt their analyses of the principles of
evidence to the needs of our time, their fail-
ure is due to the backwardness of physiology
and pathology, that must constitute the basis
of the study of evidence, and on which the
foundations for a reconstruction must be laid.
"We do not yet know all of the human brain,
either in health or disease; but our knowl-
edge of it is sufficiently advanced to make it
possible to see, with sufficient clearness, its
relation to testimony. If we do not know
just how the cerebral cells evolve thought,
we do know that thought is evolved by them
or through them, and that various diseases
of the brain and nervous system — now pretty

well understood, but of which, twenty years
ago, little or nothing was known — may utter-
ly destroy the objective worth of thought
and render it, scientifically speaking, value-
less."

Assuming these positions to be valid,
the study of mental physiology must
work a revolution in the theory of juris-
prudence and the practice of the legal
profession.

The extreme importance of this
point of view is also further exemplified
in an article " On Brain-forcing," by Dr.
Clifford Allbutt, which we reprint in
the present number of the Monthly,
from the new quarterly. Taking their
cue from old metaphysical text-books,
our teachers are ever talking about
mind, while what they really have to
deal with is the brain. And not only
that, but they have control of it during
the period of its development. Educa-
tion is, in fact, a physiological art, and
all its methods and resources take effect
upon the plastic organism of the ner-
vous system. The development of in-
telligence, the discipline of emotions,
the establishment of habits, and the
formation of character, are all depend-
ent upon definite corporeal laws, of
which the study of mental philosophy,
as usually pursued, gives us but little
information. Dr. Allbutt shows very
impressively, not only how the varied
endowments of nerve-substance are at
the basis of all culture, but how easy it
is to mismanage the work of education,
and perpetrate grave and lasting mis-
chief, when these physiological condi-
tions are unheeded and unknown. Nor
is the ignorance of teachers upon the
subject the worst thing about it; they
have views and beliefs and opinions
which stand in the way of real knowl-
edge, and under which they work with
blind, dogmatic confidence, that pre-
vents all recognition of the injuries
their practice inflicts upon pupils under
their charge.

A case in point has been recently
reported by the newspapers as occur-
ring in the management of the Jersey

EDITOR'S TABLE.

239

City High-School. The account given
of it by the World is mainly as fol-
lows:

" The course of study is of a high
grade, and is arranged in three divis-
ions— a commercial, a modern English,
and a classical course. The English
course comprises algebra, natural phi-
losophy, geometry, trigonometry, physi-
ology, chemistry, geology, astronomy,
surveying, botany, languages, English
literature, civil government, history,
mental philosophy, and theory and
practice of teaching. The classical
course is made up of algebra, geometry,
Latin (Csesar, Cicero, and Virgil), Greek
(Anabasis, Homer)) Roman and Grecian
history, Latin composition, and outlines
of history. During each term the stu-
dents are required to study three of the
above subjects. The courses are other-
wise optional, and many of the students
study five subjects. The course extends
over three years, and, in order to com-
plete their studies in that period, the
young women who are in the higher
classes have to devote close attention
to their work. In 1876, at the close of
the first course of the institution, the
graduating class consisted of twenty-
two young women and two young men.
The excitement of the closing examina-
tion, which was very strict, and the fa-
tigue attending the prolonged course of
study, left many of the young women,
it is said, with impaired health, but ex-
cept in a few instances there were no
serious results. Fourteen of the young
women began to teach in the public
schools after graduation, and, in addi-
tion to this, they were compelled to
prepare for a second examination to
enable them to pass the Saturday Nor-
mal School, which they were obliged to
do before they could obtain a diploma
that would make them eligible as teach-
ers in the grammar and higher grade
schools. This necessitated close study,
and left them comparatively little time
for recreation. All, however, except
three, pulled through successfully, with-
out any material injury to their health.

The additional study was not forced
upon them, but they were ambitious
and anxious to attain the highest pos-
sible position in their profession.

" Of these female graduates, two
bright and promising young women
died in early womanhood, one is now
an inmate of an insane asylum, and two
or three others are said to be in deli-
cate health."

When the principal of the high-
school was seen and questioned by the
reporter, he denied that the course of
studies was too severe for female stu-
dents, and remarked : " I have been
teaching for eighteen years, and my
experience is that girls are more studi-
ous and more ready to learn than boys.
They can master the higher branches of
education far more readily than boys."
From which the obvious inference is,
that they will be readier victims of a
forcing system, administered under the
competitions and rivalries of such insti-
tutions. All the pressures of our edu-
cational system are for conspicuous and
telling results which will make the best
show at examinations. The teacher
takes his rank and holds his position,
and calculates upon compensation and
promotion, by attaining these striking
results. His interest is therefore to
drive, to overload, and to stuff and
cram the memory of pupils with verbal
acquisitions that may be flaunted on
parade. School-work becomes a steady
pull in these directions, with no time
for reflection or observation or inde-
pendent exercise of thought upon the
subjects chosen. The system affords no
check against overdoing. The teachers
push on those who should be held back,
and, if they do not break down and die
outright, no harm is recognized. The
idea that pupils, girls especially, can be
sustained by excitement and carry off
the honors in apparent health, while
their constitutions are undermined, ill-
health entailed, and the power of vig-
orous accomplishment through life de-
stroyed, seems hardly to enter into the
minds of educators. It is one of the

240

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fruits of our dominant, high-pressure,
machine system of culture that the mass
of teachers and of education journals
pooh-pooh the notion of overwork in
school.

It is not to be expected that all
teachers will be physicians, but it is a
part, and a most essential part, of their
business to inform themselves with some
thoroughness in regard to the mechan-
ism, normal workings, laws of endur-
ance, and morbid indications, of the
nervous system. They should read so
widely and carefully upon this subject
as to induce caution, and not become
the heedless instruments of an inexo-
rable policy, that takes no account of
physiological circumstances, hereditary
defects, abnormal temperaments, con-
stitutional dullness or precocity, and
various other conditions that ought
often to qualify school-room manage-
ment. Familiarity with such subjects
would go far to protect from rash judg-
ments and the various evils that are
liable to follow. Parents are often great-
ly to blame in this matter, but teachers
ought to be qualified intelligently to
withstand the interferences that are
due to parental ignorance and vanity.

The first number of Brain contains
the description of a case, by Dr. A.
Hughes Bennett, which, although it
was so obscure as to baffle the physi-
cians, is yet well calculated to enforce
the cautious reserve we have insisted
on, and the necessity of greater general
familiarity with this class of facts. A
tall, full-grown, well-developed, healthy-
looking young woman, aged sixteen,
consulted the doctor in 1876, complain-
ing of blindness, deafness, and loss of
power in her lower extremities. She
had not a very good reputation, that is,
she had always been a very "naughty
child," who took special delight in an-
noying and playing malicious tricks on
her companions. She had a reputation
for willfulness, cunning, and bad temper,
though she could make herself amiable
and agreeable when she pleased. In
school her behavior was characterized

by indiscretions, lack of modesty cus-
tomary in persons of her position in
society, and general misconduct, and
from one school she was expelled. She
pretended to become suddenly blind,
but, as this was immediately after cor-
rection for mutinous conduct, the school-
mistress thought she was malingering,
or feigning illness. She declared herself
deaf, but it was found that she could
hear ; she asserted that she had lost
the power in her lower limbs, and could
not walk, which was supposed to indi-
cate her desire to avoid the daily walks
which she disliked. She had nervous
attacks, and shouted, laughed, and
threw herself about, striking the nurse.
Physicians were consulted, who said
nothing ailed her but hysterics, and
ordered her to be placed under strict
" moral control." Dr. Bennett ascer-
tained that her father was of excitable
temperament and had had several at-
tacks of mania. Her mother died when
she was an infant, and nothing was as-
certained concerning her health, but an
aunt was said to be of unstable mind.
Her sisters were all nervous and hys-
terical, and one of her brothers seemed
to inherit her father's mental disposi-
tion. She consulted Dr. Bennett April
1st, but grew worse, becoming fitfully
blind, deaf, unable to walk, restless and
excited ; wandering, delirium, and wild
raving followed, and she at length be-
came suddenly comatose, and died on
the morning of May 1st. Dr. Bennett
had the greatest difficulty in obtaining
an autopsy, but on opening the brain a
tumor was found in the right cerebral
hemisphere, about the size and shape
of a hen's-egg. The cause of the inter-
mittent blindness, deafness, muscular
feebleness, and various other derange-
ments, was now apparent. As the tu-
mor had been growing, probably, for
years, pressure was exerted upon the
surrounding parts, the circulation was
impeded, the nervous connections dis-
turbed, and the disorganization of cere-
bral structure and functions produced
insanity of conduct. It is in the high-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

241

est degree probable tbat sbe inherited
an unhealthy brain, which became
gradually the seat of positive disease.
Dr. Bennett was satisfied of the exist-
ence of some form of cerebral malady,
but he had great difficulty in assuring
the friends of the patient, even in her
last days, that it was not a case of mere
deception, perversity, and vicious ca-
price.

This example enforces its own les-
son. Happily, tumors in the brain are
not frequent, though they may be met
with at any time. But the delicate and
complex organ of thought and feeling
is subject to numerous diseases of all
grades of intensity, to morbid predis-
positions that come down as taints in
the ancestral stream, to defective nu-
trition, to early perversion and arrest
of growth by premature organization,
to debility and exhaustion from over-
work and lack of necessary rest — all of
which are liable to disturb the mind
and derange the conduct as absolutely
as the existence of a tumor buried in its
lobes.

Is there provision for communicating
knowledge upon these subjects with any
efficiency to teachers, in a single normal
school in the land ? While it should be
at the foundation of the teacher's prep-
aration, it is neglected everywhere. In
all other vocations that are studied, the
first thing is to get a knowledge of the
nature and properties of the material
which the student is to be employed
upon ; but, strange to say, in the train-
ing of teachers this kind of knowledge
is practically left out of the curriculum.

THE PROGRESS OF JOURNALISM.

We have received, printed on a fly-
sheet, the article contributed by Prof.
Sumner to Scribner's Magazine, on
" What our Boys are reading." It is
earnestly commended to the attention
of editors in an accompanying circular,
signed by Presidents Porter and Wool-

VOL. XIII. — 16

sey, and other eminent gentlemen of
New Haven, and we are glad to have
the subject thus weightily presented.
Prof. Sumner says that —

" There is a periodical literature designed
for boys of from twelve to sixteen years of
age, that has been growing up among us
within the last few years, until it is widely
circulated, and that is of a very pernicious
character. The boys' newspapers contain
stories, songs, mock-speeches, and negro-
minstrel dialogues, and nothing else. The
literary material is either intensely stupid,
or spiced to the highest degree with sensa-
tion. The dialogue is short, sharp, and con-
tinuous, is broken by the minimum of de-
scription, and by no preaching. . . . The
stories are not markedly profane and they
are not obscene. They are indescribably
vulgar."

Prof. Sumner gives illustrations of
their coarse vulgarity, and points out
that the type of character illustrated
and applauded is that of the vagabond,
the adventurer, the prize-fighter, and
the blackguard. It is deplorable that
such a style ofliterature should have ap-
peared among us, and grown to an ex-
tended influence. Familiarity with it
cannot fail to be vicious and degrading,
and it is well to warn parents and teach-
ers of this insidious agency of mischief,
to which our youth are exposed.

Nevertheless, we must be fair to
the boys, and remember the examples
that are set them by older people. Prof.
Sumner observes: " We say nothing of
the great harm that is done to boys of
that age by the nervous excitement of
reading harrowing and sensational sto-
ries, because the literature before us
only participates in that harm with
other literature of far higher preten-
sions." But, instead of " saying noth-
ing," we think Prof. Sumner should
have felt it incumbent upon him to
give emphasis to this consideration, and
sharply reprobated a system of adult
journalism, the imitation of which leads
to such corrupting results. For the
boys' newspapers are nothing less than
imitations of more pretentious news-

242

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

papers, only a grade or two lower in
coarseness and vulgarity, as suits the
immature condition of mind to which
they are addressed. Prof. Sumner says
that "these papers poison hoys' minds
with views of life which are so base
and false as to destroy all manliness and
all chance of true success." But pray,
what are the " views of life " currently
set forth in our mature literature of the
widest circulation ? They are false, ex-
travagant, distorted, and misleading, to
the last degree. But, instead of being
condemned and forbidden, this litera-
ture is widely read and freely indorsed,
and, under the sordid inducements its
disseminators are able to offer, the tal-
ent of the country is at their dispo-
sal. How long is it since a journal,
whose blood-and-thunder stories had
pushed it into enormous circulation,
bought up statesmen, and litterateurs,
and clergymen, and presidents of col-
leges in dozens, who contributed their
perfunctory essays to be sandwiched
among the stupid clap- trap tales for
which the sheet was bought ? The
boys' newspapers have probably not
money enough yet to buy respectability
in this way, but with sufficient enter-
prise they may imitate this feature also.
Are we not told that newspapers must
suit supply to demand, that they are
made to sell and must be adapted to the
state of mind of their patrons and pub-
lish what people want to read ? — how far
do the boys' newspapers deviate from
this primary requirement of a success-
ful press? Villainous caricatures in
family journals are mildly objected to
by some, but the aggrieved publishers
beg to know how else they are to
get an " enormous circulation." The
ideals of the boys' newspapers are
said to be low. What is the altitude
of the sporting ideals recognized by
popular newspapers? If the rich may
have their fun in horse-racing, and the
colleges may enjoy their rowing-
matches, how can the boys be much
censured for taking some interest in the

prize-ring? A notorious bruiser, tired
of mauling his fellow-creatures, turned
black-leg and politician, giving alter-
nate attention to the gambling-den and
the Senate-chamber, and, when he dies,
the newspapers are overrun with mul-
tifarious discussions about him ! The
boys' papers will probably take up the
topic of Morrissey, and improve it in
their own way. Prof. Sumner said that
" this subject is of interest to the stu-
dents of social phenomena," and this
is our concern with it. But it is the
province of these students to consider
facts in their relations and mutual de-
pendencies. The boys' newspapers are
not isolated things; and they can be
condemned for no reasons that have
not a much further application.

SEDGWICK ON THE "VESTIGES OF
CREATION."

Adam Sedgwick was Professor of
Geology in the University of Cambridge
and President of the Geological Society
of London, and in an anniversary ad-
dress before that body, in 1831, he said,
" We have a series of proofs the most
emphatic and convincing that the ap-
proach to the present system of things
has been gradual, and that there has
been a progressive development of organic
structures subservient to the purposes of
life.'''' This is rank evolution, even for
to-day, though uttered forty-seven years
ago ! But in 1834 Dr. Sedgwick got a
fat and easy church sinecure, becoming
Prebendary of Norwich, which perhaps
accounts for the sour milk in the fol-
lowing cocoanut. In 1844 the reverend
geologist wrote to Macvey Napier, edi-
tor of the Edinburgh, Review, concern-
ing the " Vestiges of Creation," and
his letter contains the following pas-
sage, which is to be taken as represent-
ing the Norwich prebendary, rather than
the President of the Geological Society
who speaks in our previous quotation :

" I now know the ' Vestiges ' well, and I
detest the book for its shallowness, for the

EDITOR'S TABLE.

243

intense vulgarity of its philosophy, for its
gross, unblushing materialism, for its silly |
credulity in catering out of every fool's dish,
for its utter ignorance of what is meant by
induction, for its gross (and, I dare to say,
filthy) views of physiology— most ignorant
and most false— and for its shameful shuf-
fling of the facts of geology so as to make
them play a rogue's game. I believe some
woman is the author ; partly from the fair
dress and agreeable exterior of the 'Ves-
tiges,' and partly from the ignorance the
book displays of all sound physical logic.
A man who knew so much of the surface of
physics must, at least on some one point or
other, have taken a deeper plunge ; but all
parts of the book are shallow. . . . From
the bottom of my soul I loathe and detest
the ' Vestiges.' 'Tis a rank pill of asafos-
tida and arsenic, covered with gold-leaf. I
do, therefore, trust that your contributor has
stamped with an iron heel upon the head of
the filthy abortion, and put an end to its
crawlings. There is not one subject the
author handles bearing on life, of which he
does not take a degrading view."

There is not much writing in this
style nowadays, a generation having
made a great difference in the spirit
with which this subject is discussed.
It is noteworthy that the furious de-
nunciations of the doctrine that man
has been created through the unfolding
of the universe, rather than by a spe-
cial miracle, are now put less on the
ground of mere dislike and disgust than
on that of its scientific falsity. It is
strangely said that the idea of the der-
ivation of the human race by the op-
erations of natural law, such as govern
the development of the individual, is
unscientific, while the notion that man
was supernaturally injected in a perfect
state into the existing system of things
is held to be the true scientific view.
For the benefit of those who want to
hear both sides, we republish, in the
May Supplement, a vehement diatribe,
by Dr. Elam, purporting to be a reply
to Prof. Tyndall's " Man and Science."
He is at home in the style of Sedgwick
when writing upon the " Vestiges,"
but he has the sense to see that the
question is after all a scientific one. He
says:

" Not because it is unutterably disgust-
ing and humiliating, but because the idea
is profoundly and irredeemably unscientific,
founded on false data, false conceptions, and
false reasonings, do I altogether repudiate
our ' wormy ' and ape-like ancestry. Upon
man everywhere, debased, degraded, fallen
from his high estate though he may be, I
see the seal and impress of his special and
divine origin."

The Rev. Joseph Cook seems to be
trying, commendably, to state things
as they are, but finds it difficult. The
other Monday he characterized The
Popular Science Monthly as a " use-
ful " periodical, and in this he was quite
correct. He also affirmed that it is
" crudely edited," and here he was, no
doubt, much nearer the truth than he is
wont to be. But when he speaks of Vir-
cho w in connection with the Monthly his
old propensities overcome him. He said
of Prof. Virchow's discourse on " The
Liberty of Science in the Modern State : "
" The Popular. Science Monthly has
indeed published an imperfect report
of this great address ; but it has failed,
as has also Asa Gray, of Cambridge (in
an article in the Independent), to bring
out the breadth of the collision between
Virchow and Haeckel." A false impres-
sion is here created, to say the least.
"We have not printed an imperfect -re-
port of Virchow's address, but a full
and faithful translation of it. As to
our having failed to bring out the
" breadth of the collision between Vir-
chow and Haeckel," it happens that we
have done that very thing, and are
the only parties that have done it. "We
printed both speeches — side by side — in
the February Popular Science Supple-
ment, and, moreover, so that they can
be sold with ten other elaborate articles
at half the price that Murray charges
for Virchow's speech alone. If, there-
fore, any one wishes to get a clear no-
tion of the breadth, depth, height, and
momentum, of this remarkable "col-
lision," he will find it in the periodical

244

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which, according to Mr. Cook, did not
contain it.

In an elaborate article entitled " Vir-
chow and the Teachings of Science,"
contributed to the Nineteenth Century 1
by Prof. Kingdon Clifford, the great
German has received his decisive and
annihilating answer. So clean and fin-
ished a piece of controversial work we
have rarely seen. There is, of course,
much in Prof. Virchow's address that
is true and. important, but that which
gives it celebrity is the avowal, by an
eminent biologist, that the doctrine of
evolution is not proved. This is at once
a question of the nature, extent, and
validity of evidence, and Prof. Clifford
takes it up as a logician, in a very quiet
way, with much delicate humor and a
peculiar charm of style, for wdrich he is
unrivaled. Prof. Clifford points out the
baselessness of Virchow's conclusions in
regard to the evidence for the descent of
man, and, then passing to the question
of education, he not only answers him
effectually, but does it in such a manner
as to make his paper a very important
contribution to educational philosophy.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Stargazing : Past and Present. By J.
Norman Lockyer, F. R. S. New York :
Macmillan&Co. Pp.496. Price, $7.50.

In this elegant volume Mr. Lockyer gives
an excellent popular account of the rise and
progress of instrumental astronomy. His
work is an admirable illustration of the law
of mental evolution by which great results
have been attained through prolonged pe-
riods by minute increments of improvement.
There were, of course, many conspicuous
cases in which the science went forward,
apparently by strides, as when Hipparchus
invented the astrolabe, which led to the
discovery of the "precession of the equi-
noxes," or when Galileo discovered the iso-
chronism or equal-time oscillations of the
pendulum, or when Dollond invented aehro-

1 Reprinted in The Popular Science Sup-
plement for May.

matic lenses for the telescope, or when pho-
tography and spectrum analysis were applied
to celestial objects. But in all these cases
of apparent sudden leaps, there was a pre-
vious time of preparation, in which nu-
merous failures, or partial but inadequate
successes, led up to the matured result. It
is interesting to trace in Mr. Lockyer's pages
the intimate and absolute dependence of
astronomical progress upon the skill of
the mechanic in the workshop. The gen-
ius of the inventor was always hampered
by mechanical difficulties that could only
be resolved by the dexterity and ingenuity
of machinists and workers in metals, glass,
and other materials. The bold speculator
could conjecture, and the mathematician
could verify, but all had to wait for the pro-
ficiency of the practical manipulator.

Mr. Lockyer opens his book with an ac-
count of early star-gazing in the pre-tele-
scopic age, which terminates with Tycho
Brahe, who died early in the seventeenth
century. The second division of his work
is devoted to the development of the tele-
scope ; the third, to time and space meas-
urers ; the fourth, to modern meridional
observations with transit-instruments ; the
fifth part deals with the equatorial, and the
mounting of large telescopes, and modern
observatory equipments ; and in the last
division of the work, astronomical physics,
Mr. Lockyer treats of the chemistry of the
stars, spectrum analysis, and photography,
applied to the heavenly bodies. His book
is elaborately illustrated, and is a useful
popular contribution to astronomical liter-
ature.

International Scientific Series, No.
XXIII. Studies in Spectrdm Analy-
sis. By J. Norman Lockyer, F. R. S.
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 251.

The name of Mr. Lockyer is eminent in
connection with spectrum analysis, and will
secure intelligent attention to whatever he
writes upon it. But the subject has been
so thoroughly sifted and expounded for the
last five years, that, in contributing a vol-
ume upon it for the International Scientific
Series, he had by no means an easy task.
Declining to follow in the beaten paths of
compilation, and avoiding a mere restate-
ment of rudiments, or the detailed treat-
ment of systematic treatises like those of

LITERARY NOTICES.

245

Schellen and Roscoe, Mr. Lockyer has adopt-
ed an intermediate and independent course,
and made an instructive volume of moderate
size on questions at present most interest-
ing in the theory and practice of spectro-
scopy. Treating but briefly of the con-
struction of the spectroscope, which is so
fully dealt with in the current works, he
gives more attention to its uses and results
in connection with problems that are now
undergoing investigation. Chapter I. con-
tains an excellent statement of the laws of
wave-phenomena, that are at the foundation
of the theory of spectrum analysis ; and, as
an example of the style and illustration of
the book, as well as the interest of the ex-
position, we reproduce a portion of it in the
present number of the Monthly. Chapter
IV., treating of atoms and molecules, pre-
sents admirably the views at present held
by chemists and physicists respecting the
molecular constitution of matter in its rela-
tions to spectral phenomena. But the vol-
ume of Studies is mainly devoted to topics
that concern amateurs and experimenters in
the laboratory or the observatory. Besides
the numerous woodcuts and the colored
map of radiation and absorption spectra,
Mr. Lockyer has introduced a series of pho-
tographic plates showing actual effects more
accurately than would be possible with en-
gravings ; and this feature somewhat en-
hances the cost of the book.

The Epoch of the Mammoth, and the Ap-
parition of Man upon the Earth. By
James C. Southall, A. M., LL. D. With
Illustrations. Philadelphia: J. B. Lip-
pincott & Co. Pp. 430.

We cannot deal with this book better
than to give here a portion of the able ar-
ticle devoted to it in the Saturday Review :

"The advance of prehistoric archaeology, the
latest of the sciences, is not altogether as yet
the continuous onward flow which enthusiasts
in the study would have it to be. It is more
like that of a tidal river — periods of reaction
or reflux alternating with the general progres-
sive set of the current onward. Bound up as it
is with the theory of evolution as represented
in the main by the views of Mr. Darwin, there
is no wonder that the new study is met at times
by a certain ebb in popular favor, or even in the
acceptance of serious inquirers. None need
complain, however, if the ground has to be thus
gone over again with increased care and in a
more critical spirit, so that the result be to con-
solidate more thoroughly what has been really

gained from the study of the evidences, as well
as to put a wholesome check upon tendencies
which threaten a dangerous expansion of theory
beyond the limits of fact. In this way much
good may be done by attempts like that of Mr.
Southall, in his 'Epoch of the Mammoth,' to
bring to a focus the scattered rays of light
which the most recent inquiries have shed upon
the chronology of human life, tracing the his-
tory of man to the period of its dawn, and seek-
ing to assign to its beginning something like
a definite term of years. In the work recently
published he urges once more, with the aid of
fresh arguments and additional evidences, the
views previously advanced in his ' Recent Ori-
gin of Man.1 There can be no inquiry more im-
portant to the interests of science, if not to in-
terests still wider and more sacred, or which
more requires to be treated in an open, calm,
and candid spirit. Unhappily it is not altogether
in such a spirit that we find it approached by
Mr. Southall, who soon makes it apparent that
his object is to enforce a foregone conclusion
rather than to conduct a critical and unbiased
inquiry. He holds as it were a brief against a
certain school of opinion, iustead of taking his
seat upon the bench of scientific judgment. In
his opening chapters he hastens to lay down the
conclusion to which he is desirous of leading
the reader, and the issue on which he is pre-
pared to 6take his cause. If he can but succeed
in bringing down the date of man's orisin im-
mensely within the limits assigned to it by geol-
ogists and paleontologists in general, there will
be no room left for any gradual and slow devel-
opment of humanity from a low and savage
state, still less for man's emerging from rela-
tionship with even lower animal forms. The
result will be a verdict for what was till lately
the received or orthodox belief, that man ap-
peared abruptly upon earth in the plenitude of
his powers, stature, and organization, at a defi-
nite moment of time not many thousand years
ago.

"Undismayed by the long array of distin-
guished names which he acknowledges to be
opposed to his view of man's comparatively re-
cent origin, Mr. Southall boldly proclaims the
theory of evolution a failure. As for the exist-
ence of man during the Miocene or Pliocene
age, he may safely speak of the evidences as
speculative at the best, no remains of man or of
his works having been actually produced from
strata of that period. It is with quaternary man
at the furthest that he feels called upon to deal.
And he seeks to bring down the proofs of man's
existence within limits narrow indeed, com-
pared with the million years inferred by Mr.
Wallace, Prof. James Geikie, and Mr. Vivian,
from the stalagmitic deposits of the Devonshire
and other caves, with the 800,000 years original-
ly assigned by Sir C. Lyell, or with the 200,000
to which that eminent geologist was latterly in-
clined to reduce his figures, and at which Mr.
Croll arrives from elaborate calculations of the
successive glacial periods. We fail, however,
to see him grapple so directly or tenaciously as
we could have wished with the evidences of

246

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

man's existence during, or even prior to, the
last glacial epoch, i. e., at the time when the ice-
sheet enveloped Northern Europe as far south
as latitude 54° ; for the glacial stage still lingers
in Switzerland and the Pyrenees, and continues
in full sway in Greenland and Labrador. We
find no adequate reference made to the imple-
ments met with in the till or bowlder drift. He
is content to set aside many an important issue,
such as this, with the assurance that ' physical
science has its fashions like metaphysics, that
theories are ever changing, aud that Darwinism
and prehistoric archaeology, twenty years from
to-day, may be both forgotten.' A great point
with bim, in opposition to the antiquity of man,
is the unity of the human race, for which, be-
yond denial, a strong case is to be made out, and
which, as it stands by itself, must be regarded
as the most solid and the best-welded link in
his whole chain of argument. But this unity,
resting upon the world-wide diffusion of sym-
bols like the pre-Christian cross, the legend of
the deluge, or of a terrestrial paradise, with
common habits of interment, and domestic
usage and similarity of speech— even when
pushed to the extreme length which such argu-
ments attain in the hands of enthusiasts like
Mr. Southall — is far from compelling the narrow
contraction of time within which he would re-
duce the differences entailed by the disruption
of that primary unity. It is true that many
arguments brought forward on the side of ex-
treme antiquity have broken down ; but what
are the few that our author may have disposed
of, beside the host of facts which the industry
of paleontologists and the critical study of lan-
guage and of race have verified and correlated?
The zodiacs of Dendera and Esne may be given
up as works of art more than 5,300 years old.
The fossil man of Guadaloupe may be reduced
to the status of a commonplace Carib not many
centuries back, in company with the fo9sil man
of Denise buried under the lava of Auvergne,
and the human remains found, as at first alleged,
under the coral limestone of Florida, but since
referred to the recent fresh-water sandstone for-
mation. The cone of the Tiniere may be brought
down from a date of 10,000 years to less than a
third of that amount ; and the notches in bones
from the Pliocene beds of the Val d'Arno, said
to bear the marks of knives, may be referred to
the gnawings of porcupines or of some extinct
rodent. But what is this more than to say that
because, for instance, not a few palaeolithic im-
plements, so called, have been proved to be
fictitious, therefore the countless stores which
crowd our museums are to be set aside as
worthless ? In this easy and high-handed man-
ner are the inferences drawn from the innumer-
able implements met with in the river-gravels
(sometimes, as our author allows, a hundred
feet above the present water-level) summarily
disposed of. These gravels he admits, whether
of higher or lower level, to have been deposited
about the close of the Glacial age, and such,
therefore, we may regard the date of man.
Within the human period then, at least, the

valley of the Somme has been hollowed out, and
the Thames brought within its existing narrow
limits from the wider range to which its beds
of gravel, with bones deeply buried, bear record.
With the ordinary explanation of valley erosion,
as laid down by Sir C. Lyell, and other standard
writers upon geology, our author is wholly dis-
satisfied. Instead thereof, he brings in the por-
tentous hypothesis of a Palceolithic food, in-
duced either by an inflow of the sea, or (as more
in conformity with the fact of the gravels being
those of fresh water) a ' pluvial period ' on an
immense scale following the Glacial period— in
fact, the down-pour due to the melting up of the
vast ice mass.

"What were the impressions made upon the
dwellers by the banks of the Ouse, or the fens
of East Anglia, as the sea rose a hundred feet
higher than it is now, aggravated as it was by
the pluvial rainfall which ' overwhelmed the
habitations of the contemporaries of the mam-
moth,' we utterly fail to realize. Paroxysmal
effects, on a scale so gigantic as this, have long
been removed from the conception of sober ge-
ologists of the English school. On continents
later known and less thoroughly explored — with-
in whose vast boundaries Nature seems to have
carried on, or still to carry on, her operations in
the stupendous fashion to which the cafions of
America and valleys like the Yosemite bear wit-
ness— phenomena of this kind may seem con-
ceivable enough. And it is upon observations
and estimates such as those of Prof. Andrews,
of Chicago, based upon the aspects of Nature in
the great far West, that our author rests his
representation of the catastrophes of man's early
history. It is with limited, settled, old-world
countries like England that we for our part have
to do. And are we to conceive our quiet little
island, within the scanty ten thousand years or
so doled out by our author as the ' age of the
mammoth,' raised up some hundreds, if not
thousands, of feet— for Mr. Southall concurs
with established geology as to the fact of oscil-
lations to this extent — and swept by pluvial
storms till the gravel was piled up a hundred
feet in places ? Are we to believe that within
the same period the British Islands were still
joined by a broad tract of land to France and
Holland, 'the waters of the Thames and the
Rhine forming a common trunk, discharging it-
self into the North Sea, and the rivers of our
south coast uniting with the Seine and the
Somme to run westward into the Atlantic?'
Why, the period since the Roman invasion
carries us back to very nearly a fifth of this
range of time, and in all these years we find the
general level of the southern coast not disturbed
one inch, the apparent local changes being due
to erosion of the land by tide and storm, as at
Winchelsea and Reculver, or to heaping up of
shingle and sand, as at Pevenseyand Sandwich.
It may do in the New World to quote Humboldt
for ' Jorullo in Mexico being seen to rise from
a level plain, on September 14, 1759, to a height
of 1,681 feet,' as a proof that 'force, no less
than time, is an element in geological action.'

LITERARY NOTICES.

H7

But our dull imaginations have too much in
common with the sluggish physical movements
of our islaud-home for us to soar to the heights
of calculation which seem so easy to Mr. Southall.
" It is in dealing with the age of the great ex-
tinct mammals that our author shows most con-
spicuously this tendency to shirk (unconscious-
ly, of course) the difficulties with which the
problem is surrounded in Europe. That early
man was contemporary— in what is now Eng-
land, Southern France, and Germany — with the
lion, the bear, the hyena, the gigantic elk, the
reindeer, and the mammoth, the conditions un-
der which their bones are found intermingled
have long placed beyond reasonable doubt. In
the case of the reindeer and the mammoth, the
evidence is raised to certainty by the discovery
of outlines of those animals etched, with rude
but highly-expressive art, upon fragments of
bone."

Chemical and Geological Essays. By
Thomas Sterry Hunt, LL. D. Second
edition. Salem: S. E. Cassino. Pp.
536. Price, $2.50.

We noticed this admirable volume upon
its first appearance three or four years ago,
and are glad to observe that it has passed
to a second edition. The plan of the work
is not changed, as its essays have some-
thing of an historical import, which it was
thought inexpedient to disturb, so that in
the work of revision the author has confined
himself to the correction of typographical
errors in the text. But he has prefixed to
the volume an elaborate essay of very great
interest upon questions connected with the
general scope of the work, upon which de-
cided progress has been made since the
first publication, and these additions are
well worth the price of the new edition.
We quote a portion of this preliminary es-
say, which treats of the ancient constitu-
tion of the air, and from which the author
rises to the consideration of cosmical at-
mospheres and the diffused medium of ce-
lestial space:

" On pages 46-48 is a suggestion, made many
years since, regarding the question of the tem-
perature of the earth's surface in former geo-
logical periods, which, from its bearings, both
direct and indirect, on some recent geological
theories, calls for further notice. From the
great amount of carbon and hydrocarbons of
organic origin found in the rocky strata of the
earth, it has long been inferred that the atmos-
phere of earlier times must have contained a
large quantity of carbonic dioxide (carbonic
acid) which yielded up its carbon for the nutri-
tion of the ancient floras. From this the late
Major Edwin B. Hunt concluded that, the atmos-

phere in former periods being much denser than
at present, the temperature at the earth's sur-
face, due to solar radiation, would be greater
than now. It was subsequently pointed out by
the present writer that, as already shown by
Tyndall, the relations of carbonic acid to radiant
heat are such that a quantity of this gas too
small to affect considerably the weight of the
atmospheric column would, by preventing the
loss of heat, suffice to produce a tropical tem-
perature over the earth at the sea-level.

" The quantity of carbon which has been re-
moved from the air by vegetation in past ages
is, however, very considerable. In a communi-
cation by the writer to the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo,
in 1866, it was stated that the whole amount of
free oxygen in the present atmosphere is no
more than sufficient to form carbonic acid with
the carbon of a layer of coal covering the globe
one metre in thickness, and that the aggregate
of carbonaceous matter in the earth's crust
would probably much exceed this. Such a layer
of coal, of specific gravity 1.25, would have a
weight equal to 3,160,000 gross tons to the
square mile; while Mr. J. L. Mott, in a commu-
nication to the British Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, in 1877, estimates the
total amount of carbonaceous substances in the
earth at not less than 3,000,000 tons of carbon
to the square mile, and probably many times
greater. This minimum amount of pure car-
bon is equal to 600 times the present amount of
carbonic acid in the atmosphere, or to nearly
one-fourth its entire volume ; and, inasmuch
as the fixation of carbon by vegetation liber-
ates a corresponding volume of oxygen, would
represent, according to him, a greater amount
of this gas than the present atmosphere con-
tains. In addition to this, it must be considered
that the composition of the various hydrocarbon-
aceous minerals shows a deoxidation not only
of carbonic acid but of water. The amount of
liberated oxygen derived from water equals, for
the various coals and asphalts, from one-eighth
to one-fourth, and for the petroleums one-half
of that set free in the deoxidation of the car-
bon which these hydrocarbonaceous bodies con-
tain. To this must be added also the oxygen
set free in the generation of metallic sulphides
by the deoxidation of sulphates, which is ef-
fected through the agency of organic matterB,
aDd indirectly liberates oxygen. Acainst this
we must, however, set the unknown but very
considerable amount of oxygen absorbed in the
peroxidation of ferrous oxide liberated in the
decay of the silicates of crystalline rocks; which
may, perhaps, serve to explain the disappear-
ance from the air of the whole of this excess of
oxygen.

" The terrestrial vegetation and the air-
breathing fauna, which we find from Palaeozoic
ages, are, it is unnecessary to remark, incom-
patible with an atmosphere holding one-fourth
its volume of carbonic acid, and the difficulty of
the problem is greatly increased when we con-
sider that this amount, corresponding to the
carbon fixed in the earth's crust in deoxidized

248

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

forms, is insignificant when compared with that
which has been absorbed during the decomposi-
tion of silicated rocks and is now fixed in the
form of limestones. The magnitude of this
process is seen when we consider that all the
argillaceous rocks and clays of the stratified
formations have come from the decay of the
feldspars and other silicates of the earlier eozoic
terrenes through the intervention of carbonic
acid, and that the resulting alkaline and earthy
carbonates are now represented by the lime-
stones so abundant in the earth's crust. It was
shown, in the author's communication already
quoted, that a layer of pure limestone covering
the earth's surface to a depth of about twenty-
eight feet (8.61 metres) corresponds to an
amount of carbonic acid which, if set free,
would double the weight of the present atmos-
phere, and the existence of great limestone
and dolomite formations, many hundred feet in
thickness, at different geological horizons over
wide areas, will, it is believed, justify the con-
clusion that the earth's crust contains, fixed in
the form of carbonates, an amount of carbonic
acid which, if liberated in a gaseous form, would
be equal in weight to at least two hundred at-
mospheres like the present one. A portion of
this carbonic acid was doubtless separated at an
early period in the history of our globe, since
the limestones of eozoic rocks are of consider-
able thickness, and those of more recent times
are in part derived from the solution and re-
deposition of the older limestones. The only
known source of carbonic acid, apart from com-
bustion and respiration, are certain terrestrial
exhalations of the gas, probably due to chemical
reactions liberating small portions which had
long before been fixed in the form of carbonates.
We are thus forced to one of two conclusions :
either the wholly improbable one that the at-
mosphere, since the appearance of organic life
on the earth, has been one of nearly pure, car-
bonic acid, and of such immense extent that the
pressure at the surface would have sufficed, at
ordinary temperatures, for its liquefaction ; or
else, the atmosphere being so constituted as to
permit vital processes, that carbonic acid, as
fast as removed by chemical action at the earth's
surface, was supplied from some extra-terres-
trial source. We may, in accordance with this
last hypothesis, admit that the atmosphere is
not terrestrial but cosmical, and that the air,
together with the water surrounding our globe
(whether in a liquid or a vaporous state), be-
longs to a common elastic medium, which, ex-
tending throughout the interstellary spaces, is
condensed around attracting bodies in amounts
proportional to their mass and temperature,
while in the regions most distant from these
centres of attraction this universal atmosphere
would exist in the state of greatest tenuity.
Such being the case, a change in the atmos-
phere of any globe, whether by the absorption
or disengagement of any gas or vapor, would,
by the laws of diffusion and of static equilib-
rium, be felt everywhere throughout the uni-
verse ; and the fixation of carbonic acid at the
surface of our planet would not only bring in a

supply of this gas from the worlds beyond, but,
by reducing the total amount of it in the uni-
versal atmosphere, would diminish the atmos-
pheric pressure at the surface of our own and
of other worlds.

" This hypothesis is not altogether new. Sir
William R. Grove, in 1842, put forth the notion
that the medium of heat and light may be 'a
universally diffused matter,' and, subsequently,
in 1843, in his celebrated ' Essay on the Corre-
lation of Physical Forces,' in the chapter on
Light, concludes, with regard to the atmosphere
of the sun and the planets, that there is no
reason why these atmospheres k should not be,
with reference to each other, in a state of equi-
librium. Ether, which term we may apply to
the highly-attenuated matter existing in the in-
terplanetary spaces, being an expansion of some
or all of these atmospheres, or of the more vol-
atile portions of them, would thus furnish mat-
ter for the transmission of the modes of motion
which we call light, heat, etc., and possiby
minute portions of these atmospheres may, by
gradual accretions and subtractions, pass from
planet to planet, forming a link of material com-
munication between the distant monads of the
universe.' Subsequently, in his address as Pres-
ident of the British Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, in 18G6, Grove further
suggested that this diffused matter might be a
source of solar heat, inasmuch as the sun may
'condense gaseous matter as it travels in space,
and so heat may be produced.' "

Pottery: How it is made, its Shape and
Decoration. With a Full Bibliography
of Standard Works upon the Ceramic Art,
and 42 Illustrations. By George Ward
Nichols. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 142. Price, $1.25.

This seems to be a useful little manual, on
a subject that is now attracting a good deal
of attention. It is elegantly illustrated and
beautifully printed, and it will be especially
prized by many on account of its copious
bibliography of the principal works upon
the ceramic art. The volume is thus char-
acterized by the author, in a few words of
preface :

" It is the object of this book to show that the
manufacture of pottery may become one of the
great art-industries in the United States ; to de-
scribe the laws which govern the form and
decoration of pottery; and to give practical
instruction in the art of painting, either with
vitrifiable or common oil colors, upon hard or
soft porcelain, or upon earthenware. It is the
result of long and careful study, and is intended
not only for the benefit of professional potters
and decorators, but for that large class of per-
sons who are seeking to acquire this art, either
for entertainment or as a remunerative occupa-
tion."

LITERARY NOTICES.

249

Primitive Property. Translated from the
French of Emile de Laveleye. By G.
R. L. Marriott, B. A., LL. B. With
an Introduction, by T. E. Cliffe Les-
lie, LL. B. New York : Macmillan &
Co. Pp. 355. Price, $4.50.

This is an able work on land-tenure from
the point of view of modern investigation
into early social conditions. The author
holds radical views upon the subject, which
differ widely from those that prevail in
this country : " He is of opinion that the
dangers of democracy lie in the inequality
of conditions, and that, unless the catas-
trophe can be prevented by measures of
state on a large scale, the same struggle
between rich and poor which destroyed the
republics of antiquity will destroy the mod-
ern states also. He holds that the econo-
mists have made a fatal mistake in press-
ing the advantages of individual property
in land, and that the abstract arguments by
which private property is explained and de-
fended as an institution are in favor, not of
private and exclusive ownership, but of a
form of tenure under which each man, as
he comes into the world, shall be a proprie-
tor." M. de Laveleye assumes the law of
evolution of property in land, and traces
the history of its development in England,
China, Italy, Holland, France, Belgium,
Russia, India, Switzerland, and Germany.
The questions opened by Sir Henry Sumner
Maine, in his " Village Communities," are
here vigorously pursued, with large acces-
sions of new and interesting matter.

Syllabus of Lectures in Anatomy and
Physiology, for Students of the State
Normal and Training School at Cort-
land, N. Y. By T. B. Stowell, A. M.
Syracuse, N. Y. : Davis, Bardeen & Co.
Pp. 82. Price, 50 cents.

This book is prepared merely as an
aid to students in anatomy and physiology.
The author does not assume for it that it is
in any sense a substitute for a text-book, or
other book of reference, but that economy
of time and greater thoroughness may be
secured by thus directing the attention to
matters of chief importance. It is intended
to be used in connection with anatomical
demonstrations, charts, diagrams, and the
microscope. Terms which are merely tech-
nical, as the names of the muscles and the
bones, have been omitted.

PUBLICATIONS EECEIVED.

Walks in London. By A. J. C. Hare. New
York : Eoutledge. Two vols, iu one, pp. 480
and 511. $3.50.

Arguments before the Committee on Patents
of the Senate and House of Representatives.
Washington : Government Printing-Office. Pp.
454.

American Journal of Mathematics, Pure and
Applied. Vol. I., No. 1. Published under the
auspices of the Johns Hopkins University, Bal-
timore. Pp. 104. $5 per vol., $1.50 per single
number.

Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Part II.
Londou and New York: Macmillan. $1.25.

Incrustation on Brick Walls. By W. Traut-
wine. Philadelphia: W. P. Kildare print.
Pp. 8.

Fifly-sixth Annual Commencement of the Na-
tional Medical College. Washington : Darby &
Duvall print. Pp. 30.

Free Ships. By J. Codman. New York:
Putnams. Pp. 38. 25 cents.

Carbonic Oxide. By H. Morton, Ph. D. Re-
printed from the American Gas-Light Journal.
Pp. 12.

Metasomatic Development of the Copper-
bearing Rocks of Lake Superior. By R. Puin-
pelly. From "Proceedings of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences." Pp. 57.

Bulletin of Hayden's Survey of the Terri-
tories. Vol. IV., No. 1. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing-Office. Pp. 311.

Instruction in Physiology for School-Teach-
ers. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Pp.

74.

The Chinese Question. By J. H. Boalt. Pp.
16.

Report of the Citizens' Committee on the
Nuisances of New York City. New York : S.
Hamilton's Son print. Pp.17.

The American Mountain Sanitarium for
Consumption. By Dr. S. E. Chaille. From New
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. Pp. 16.

Principles of Breeding. By W. H. Brewer.
From " Report of New Hampshire Board of
Agriculture." Pp. 20.

Micrometrical Measurements of Double
Stars. (Cincinnati Observatory.) Pp. 83.

House Air the Cause and Promoter of Dis-
ease. By Dr. F. Donaldson. From " Maryland
Board of Health Reports." Pp. 23.

Water-Supply of New Jersey. By A. R.
Leeds. From journal of the Franklin Institute.
Pp. 17.

Contributions to North American Ethnology.
Vol. III. (Powell's Survey of the Rocky Moun-
tain Region), " Tribes of California." By Stephen
Powers. Washington : Government Printing-
office. Pp. 635, with Plates and Map.

Hayden's Survey of the Territories. Vol.
VTI. Contributions to the Fossil Flora of the
Western Territories. By L. Lesquereux. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Office Pp. 366,
with 65 Plates.

Proceedings of the American Chemical So-
ciety. Vol. II.. No. 1. New York : Baker &
Godwin. Pp. 50.

Nursing of the Insane. By A. E. Macdonald,
M. D. New York : Bellevue press. Pp. 24.

Geological Investigations along the Line of
the Cleveland, Canton, Coshocton & Straits-
ville R. E. By E. B. Andrews. Cleveland, O. :
Robison, Savage & Co.'s print. Pp. 29.

250

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Disinfection of Streets and Sewers.—

How some of the worthless by-products of
chemical works might be turned to good
account in disinfecting the streets of our
American cities, is shown by Mr. H. G.
Debrunner, in the Philadelphia Chemist and
Druggist. He is led, by the results of ex-
periment, to believe that street-mud and the
sewer-water containing the same are the
main factors in the distribution of con-
tagious disease. This matter could be effect-
ually disinfected, and that without extraor-
dinary expense, by treating it with certain
waste products, such as the mother-liquors
of copperas aud alum. Many a factory
would be glad to get rid of this refuse, and
would give it away for nothing. With these
disinfectants, diluted with water to the de-
sired strength, the streets should be sprin-
kled ; most of the waste substances are so
powerful that they may be greatly diluted
without losing their efficacy. In street-dust,
the author has found, besides the usual in-
organic bodies, a number of organic sub-
stances— as, for instance, glutinous matter
coming from abrasions of the hoofs of cat-
tle. This matter varies in quantity from
one-half to five per cent., and in some dust
taken from roads leading to stock-yards it
has been found in the proportion of as much
as fifteen per cent. It decomposes readily,
especially in the presence of water, and
microscopic examinations of aqueous ex-
tracts of the mud from such localities show
living beings of the lowest classes of the
vegetable and animal kingdom— algae, fungi,
and various forms of infusoria.

The Harpy Eagle.— The harpy eagle
(Harpyia destructor), of which a spright-
ly description is given by Dr. Felix L. Os-
wald in the American Naturalist, has its
native home in the forests of Southern
Mexico. Its common English and its sys-
tematic name, as well as its Spanish title,
Aquila real (king-eagle), and its old Mexi-
can name of " winged wolf," fitly character-
ize the rapacity of this bird. It has a square,
strong head, armed with a powerful bill that
can without any special effort crush a man's
finger-bones. Its broad, compact wings are
moved by shoulder-muscles of enormous

strength ; and its stout legs, feathered to
below the tarsi, terminate in claws of such
extraordinary power and sharpness that
they leave their marks on the tough leather
of a Mexican saddle, like the bite of a wild-
cat. Its plumage is so elastic, so compact,
and so firmly imbricated, that buckshot,
striking on the wings or the breast of the
bird at a certain angle, glance off, or fail to
penetrate to vital parts. The fully-grown
hen measures about three feet from its crest
to the base of the tail, and from six to seven
feet from tip to tip of the outstretched
wings. The male is somewhat smaller, but
the strength of the bird in proportion to
its size is altogether abnormal. A tame
old harpy eagle once engaged in mortal-
combat with a big shepherd-dog, and was
only vanquished by a second dog that came
to the assistance of his fellow. In a fight
of ten minutes the first dog had received a
deep gash in his throat (from which he soon
bled to death), lost one of his eyes, and the
bones of his skull and breast had been laid
open in numerous places. In a fight be-
tween a harpy eagle and a Mexican lynx
which had been crippled by a shot through
its haunches, but was otherwise in good
fighting condition, the bird was torn to
pieces, but the lynx did not survive him
many minutes, having been literally flayed
from its shoulders to the tip of the nose.
The following narrative shows the bird's
tenacity of life : A Mexican miner, before
daybreak one morning, in the mountains
near Orizaba, surprised a pair of harpies,
and with a cudgel knocked down one of
them, which flew directly at his head. The
miner now dispatched the bird as he thought,
with a few well-aimed whacks, and, shoul-
dering his game, resumed his journey toward
the valley. Half-way down the mountain-
side he reached a steep cliff, and shifted
his burden to his left shoulder, to use his
right arm to better advantage. But at the
most critical moment of the dangerous de-
scent he suddenly felt the claws of the eagle
at his neck, and, in order to save himself,
had to drop his stick, which fell down the
cliffs and into the bed of a mountain-torrent.
Holding on to the bird with one hand, he
managed to reach the foot of the precipice,
where he seized the struggling- captive by
the legs, and, swinging it up, dashed its
head against a rock, till its convulsions had

POPULAR MISCELLANY

251

ceased entirely. His arrival in the village,
with the story of his adventure, created
quite a sensation ; but, when the bird was
deposited on the ground to be examined at
leisure, it revived for the third time, struck
its claws through the hand of its captor,
struggled to its feet, and would have es-
caped after all, if the enraged miner had
not fiung himself upon it, seized a stone and
hammered its head to a jelly.

Muslin Glass. — The mode of producing
so-called "muslin glass" is as follows:
After carefully cleaning the surface of a
plate of glass, a layer of verifiable color is
laid over it, the vehicle being gum-water,
and care being taken to have the pigment
evenly applied. The glass is then submitted
to a gentle heat until the water has evapo-
rated, when a stencil of the desired pattern
is laid over the surface, and with a stiff
brush the pigment is removed from the
parts which are to be transparent. The
glass is next inclosed in a frame, and above
it is extended a piece of tulle or, if desired,
embroidered lace, the embroidery in the lat-
ter case being so disposed as to harmonize
with the ground-pattern previously made.
The whole is then hermetically closed in a
box which contains in its lower portion a
reservoir holding a certain quantity of dry
color in the form of impalpable powder.
This by an air-blast is blown evenly upon
the glass and adheres to the latter wher-
ever the surface is not protected by the
threads of lace. In this way the pattern of
the latter is defined. In order to fix the
powder, the sheets of glass are placed in a
steam-chamber where the steam moistens
the gum and causes the powder to adhere.
The color is then burned in a special fur-
nace.

Variability of the Nebnlse. — In a lecture
recently delivered at Paris, under the au-
spices of the Scientific Association of France,
the eminent Swiss astronomer Wolf gave an
account of recent researches on the " vari-
ability of the nebulae." His conclusions, as
stated in La Nature, are : that some of the
nebulae are certainly in a state of relative
motion — at least one double nebula being
known to astronomers, the component parts
of which revolve about each other ; that in

all probability some of the nebulae are wan-
ing and disappearing — as instances of this
he cites three nebulae in the constellation of
Taurus ; that possibly some of the nebulae
are undergoing a change of form ; the spi-
ral nebula in Canes Venatici appears to af-
ford an illustration of this fact. As for the
distances of the nebulae, they cannot yet be
determined, but there are grounds for believ-
ing that many of them are not more remote
from us than the fixed stars.

Copying Designs by Photography.— A

new process of making photographic copies
of machinery, drawings, plans, maps, etc., in
blue lines on a white ground, has been in-
vented by H. Pellet, a chemist of Paris.
This process (says La Nature) is based on
the peculiar property possessed by per-
chloride of iron, whereby it is converted
into protochloride by exposure to light.
The protochloride is not affected by contact
with prussiate-of-potash solution, but the
perchloride at once becomes blue. M. Pel-
let sensitizes a sheet of paper by dipping it
in a bath consisting of water 100 parts, per-
chloride of iron 10 parts, oxalic or some
other vegetal acid 5 parts. In case the
paper was not sufficiently sized, gelatine,
isinglass, dextrine, or some such substance,
would have to be added to this solution.
The paper so treated — M. Pellet calls it now
cyanofer-paper — is dried in the dark, and
may then be kept for a length of time. It
is very sensitive to light. To make a copy
of a drawing made on transparent paper,
the drawing is spread over a dry sheet of
the cyanofer, a plate of glass laid over all,
and the whole exposed to the light. In
summer, with exposure to the full sunlight,
it takes from fifteen to thirty seconds to de-
compose so much of the perchloride of iron
as is not protected by the lines of the draw-
ing. In winter, an exposure of forty to sev-
enty seconds is necessary. In the shade,
in clear weather, the exposure varies from
two to six minutes, and in cloudy or rainy
weather, from fifteen to forty minutes. The
electric light may be used instead of sun-
light, the time of exposure varying accord-
ing to the intensity of the light and the dis-
tance. After exposure, the paper is dipped
in a bath of prussiate of potash (15 to 18
per 100 parts of water), and it at once as-

252

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

sumes a blue color wherever the perchloride
is unaltered, all the rest of the surface re-
maining white. The image is then freely
washed in water, and passed through a bath
of chlorhydic acid (8 to 10 parts to 100 of
water), which removes the protoxide of iron
salt ; it is then washed again in water, and
finally dried. The drawing then appears in
blue lines on the pure white ground of the
paper.

The Chinese Loess or Loam Deposits. —

The origin of the " loess " deposits of China
has long been a perplexing problem for ge-
ologists. This deposit is spread almost con-
tinuously over an area as large as the Ger-
man Empire, besides existing in detached
areas of nearly half that extent. Usually,
the loess is several hundred feet in thick-
ness, and in some places as much as 1,500
or even 2,000 feet. It is an earthy sub-
stance, of a brownish-yellow color, friable,
chiefly consisting of argillaceous materials,
with a small proportion of carbonate of
lime ; it has also mixed with it more or less
of fine sand, the grains of which are very
angular. The Baron von Richthofen, in his
work on " China," the first volume of which
has appeared, offers the most satisfactory
theory yet presented of the origin of this
loess. A very clear statement, both of the
problem itself and of Von Richthofen's solu-
tion of it, is given by Prof. J. D. Whitney,
in the American Naturalist, who states that
the first geologist to notice and describe
these remarkable deposits was Prof. Pum-
pelly. According to him, the loess of China
is a lacustrine formation, each of the basins
in which it occurs having been once the bed
of a lake. But the absence of stratification
and of fresh-water shells, and the presence
of the bones of land - animals, appear to
be utterly incompatible with this theory.
Besides, the loess indicates by its structure
the growth on its surface of an abundant
vegetation. But a greater difficulty still
stands in the way of the theory of a lacus-
trine origin — namely, the fact that every-
where the loess plainly shows itself to be a
deposit which was not laid down till after
the surface of the country had assumed its
present configuration. Hence Richthofen
unhesitatingly declares himself in favor of
a subaerial origin of the loess. Wind and

rain are, according to him, the agencies
which produced these deposits. In the first
place, he assumes the district of the loess
to have been once destitute of outward
drainage, and to have, in fact, consisted of
a number of closed basins, such as are still
found in the adjacent region, to the west, in
Central Asia. These closed basins were
prairies, and the loess is the collective resi-
due of innumerable generations of herbace-
ous plants. It is the inorganic residuum
which has accumulated during an immense
lapse of time, as the result of the decay of
a vigorous prairie-growth, ever renewing it-
self on the surface of the slowly-accumu-
lating deposit. But how is the increase of
the deposit provided for by the theory ?
Unless there be some source supplying ma-
terial from without, there can evidently be
no gain in thickness, however many gener-
ations of plants succeed each other. The
necessary addition of mineral matters Richt-
hofen considers to have been brought into
these basins by two agencies, the rain and
the wind, and the latter especially plays an
important part in his theory. Each basin
being surrounded by a rim of rocks, con-
stantly undergoing decomposition, the par-
ticles thus set free were either swept down
the mountain-sides toward the central area
by rain, or blown thither by air-currents,
and, once entangled among the vegetation,
could not be caried farther.

The Pennsylvania Oil-Regions. — The oil-
regions of Pennsylvania are, in an article by
M. C. A. Ashburner, in the Journal of the
Franklin Institute, divided into three dis.
tricts, the southwestern, the western, and
the northern, the southwestern lying south
of the Ohio and west of the Monongahela,
the western occupying the water-basin of
the Alleghany, between Pittsburg on the
south and the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad
on the north, and the northern district ex-
tending north from the line of the same
railroad. In the first of these districts the
petroleum comes from the highest rocks,
and in the third from the lowest, while in
the second it comes from the rocks inter-
mediate between the two. The " oil-sand
group " of the southwestern district is com-
posed of three sandstone members, sepa-
rated by intervals containing coal-seams,

P OP ULAR MIS CELL AN Y.

253

slate, and shale; but the second of these
three members — the Mahoning sandstone —
is the principal repository of petroleum in
the southwestern district. The " oil-sands "
of the western district are also three in
number. The first sand of this group yields
a heavy lubricating oil, 30° to 35° gravity ;
the second, an oil about 40° gravity; the
third, a light oil, 45° to 50° gravity. This
third sand is the most productive, and sup-
plies most of the oil of commerce. The
" Warren oil-sand " of the northern district
is very irregular in character, and the oil is
found at horizons varying from 600 to 800
feet below the " third sand " of the preced-
ing group, whose oil it, moreover, resembles.
But at a depth of about 300 feet below the
Warren horizon, and in the same northern
district, is the Bradford oil-belt of McKean
County, Pennsylvania, and Cattaraugus
County, New York, the surest and safest
oil-territory in all the oil-regions. The oil
of the Bradford belt is of the same gravity
as " third-sand oil."

The Ancient Beaches of Great Salt Lake.

— The mountains round about Great Salt
Lake bear plain evidences of the existence
at some early period of a much larger lake
in the same locality. The sides of these
mountains rise, as it were by steps, to the
height of 1,000 feet above the surface of
the present lake, these steps marking the
successive levels of the lake as it shrunk
from its primeval dimensions — 345 miles
long, 135 miles broad — to the size it now
possesses. Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of Powell's
Survey, has made a very thorough study of
these ancient beaches, and publishes an arti-
cle on the subject in a recent number of the
American Journal of Science. This ancient
lake has received from geologists the name
of Lake Bonneville, and the great problem
was, to discover the outlet through which
its waters were drained away. To this end
it was necessary to find a point where the
Bonneville shore-line was interrupted by a
pass of which the floor was lower than the
shore-line, and which led to a valley not
marked by a continuation of the shore-line.
These conditions are satisfied at Red Rock
Pass, and, in addition, there is a continuous
descent from the pass to the Pacific Ocean.
All about Cache Valley the Bonneville shore-

line has been traced, and it is well marked
within a half-mile of the pass. The floor
of the pass at the divide is 340 feet below
the level of the shore-line, and its form is
that of a river-channel. The gentle alluvial
slopes from the mountains at the east and
west, which appear once to have united at
the pass, are divided for several miles by a
steep-sided, flat-bottomed, trench-like pas-
sage, 1,000 feet broad, and descending north-
ward from the divide. At the divide Marsh
Creek enters the old channel from the east,
and, turning northward, runs through Marsh
Valley to the Portneuf River, a tributary of
the Columbia. In Marsh Valley the eye
seeks in vain for the familiar shore-lines of
the Salt Lake Basin, and the conclusion is
irresistible that here the ancient lake out-
flowed. On the sides of the mountains,
from the highest shore-line, known as the
' Bonneville Beach,' down to the level of the
modern lake, there is a continuous series of
wave-wrought terraces recording the slow re-
cession of the water. As many as twenty-five
have been counted on a single slope. Some
are strongly marked and others faintly, and
some that are conspicuous at one point fail
to appear at other points ; but there is one
that under all circumstances asserts its su-
premacy and clearly marks the longest lin-
gering of the water — the ' Provo Beach,'
which runs about 3&5 feet below the Bonne-
ville Beach. When the discharge of the
lake began, its level was that recorded by
the Bonneville Beach. The outflowing stream
crossed the unconsolidated gravels that
overlay the limestone at Red Rock, and cut
them away rapidly. The lake-surface was
lowered with comparative rapidity until the
limestone was exposed, and thenceforward
the process was exceedingly slow. For a
long period the water was held at nearly the
same level, and the Provo Beach was pro-
duced. Then came the drying of the cli
mate, and the outflow ceased ; and slowly
the lake has since shrunk to its present size.

Discolored Sea-Water.— While engaged
in a survey of the Gulf of California — the
Mar Vermijo, or Vermilion Sea of the early
Spanish navigators — Surgeon T. H. Streets,
of the navy, examined some of the water in
order to ascertain the cause of the peculiar
coloration. This red color occurs in patches,

254

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and does not extend to the whole area of
the gulf. Having reached one of these
patches, Dr. Streets had a bucket of the
water taken on board the steamer, but it
was found to be perfectly transparent. But,
on sinking the bucket half a fathom or more
below the surface, water was brought up
which contained the coloring - matter in
abundance. " When first drawn up," writes
Dr. Streets in the American Naturalist, " and
viewed in a glass vessel, by the unaided eye,
the water had a faint reddish tinge. When
allowed to stand for half an hour, the color-
ing-matter settled to the bottom of the ves-
sel as a greenish-yellow precipitate ; and
when some of this was taken up by a pi-
pette and examined under the microscope,
it was seen to be composed of minute
roundish bodies," the remains of ciliate
infusoria, as they were proved to be after
much laborious investigation. Under the
microscope certain small objects were seen
repeatedly darting across the field of vision,
when the water was placed fresh upon the
glass slide, but they disappeared as quickly
as they came, and for a long time it was
impossible to tell what had become of them.
But at length one of the little bodies stopped
directly in the centre of the field of vision
and commenced a rapid rotatory movement,
which presently ceased, and the animal was
quiescent for a second or two; then rupt-
ure occurred, the molecular contents oozed
out, and the transparent envelope of the
organism became invisible. The observa-
tion was again and again repeated. The
author quotes from Darwin's " Naturalist's
Voyage around the World " a passage in
which a similar observation is recorded
with regard to certain patches of discolored
water encountered off the coast of Peru.

Grapc-Cultnre. — To determine the influ-
ence of girdling grape-vines on the growth
and composition of the grapes, Prof. C. A.
Goessmann last year made a series of ex-
periments which are described in the " Pro-
ceedings of the American Chemical Society."
He had a number of vines girdled during the
first week of August, about the time when
in the berries of the Concord grape the free
acid had attained its highest development,
and the grape-sugar was beginning slowly
to increase. Entire vines as well as large

branches served for the trial. Two inci-
sions from one-eighth to one-quarter of an
inch apart were made through the bark
and the cambium layer, and the mass be-
tween these cuts down to the wood care-
fully removed. A marked difference in the
degree of growth was soon perceived, which
persisted during the entire season, until the
grapes on the girdled branches had just be-
come ripe. The tests made at this point
with both the grapes of the girdled and of
the ungirdled branches, grown on the same
vine, showed a remarkable difference in the
quality of the entire grape and in its rela-
tive degree of development. In some in-
stances the girdled branches were two to
three weeks in advance of the others. At
the close of the season the girdled vines
did not show the slightest difference from
the ungirdled ones, the place where the
bark had been removed being grown over.

Disadvantages of the Health-Lift. — The

use of the "health-lift," so called, was un-
der discussion recently in the Philadelphia
County Medical Society, and Dr. Benjamin
Lee read a paper on the subject, in which
he condemned the practice as being neither
rational, scientific, nor safe. The paper has
been published in the Medical and Surgical
Reporter, from which journal we select a few
of the objections brought by Dr. Lee against
the " health-lift." Exercise, according to Dr.
Lee, in order to produce beneficial effects,
must extend over a considerable length of
time each day, and must be so moderate in
its character that such continuance shall not
render it exhausting. But it is claimed as
the distinctive merit of the "health-lift"
that it accomplishes a maximum of exercise
in a minimum of time : " Ten minutes a day
only is required." That is, " ten minutes a
day" to fill the lungs up to their utmost
capacity with pure, fresh, oxygenated air,
so that every cell may do its duty. " Ten
minutes a day " to set in full activity the
thousand ducts of the sweat-glands, and to
carry off noxious matters out of the blood ;
to recreate the weary brain-cells ; to provoke
absorption of the effete materials lying out-
side of the vessels throughout all the vessels
of the body. In the next place, the first
requirement of rational exercise is to call
into play as far as possible all the muscles ;

NOTES.

255

and the second is, that it should be so varied
as to afford at the same time pleasurable
mental excitement or occupation. In both
of these points the theory of the " health-
lift " is faulty. It calls into action almost
exclusively the extensor muscles of the
lower extremities, and the erection of the
spine with the associate dorsal groups. As
far as the upper extremities are concerned,
the only muscles called into activity are the
flexors of the fingers ; those of the arm and
shoulder are simply put on the stretch, an
operation which, without corresponding con-
traction, weakens rather than strengthens
muscular fibre. At the same time, the liga-
ments of the joints are violently stretched,
which must tend to diminish the complete-
ness of the apposition of the joint-surfaces,
and thus diminish precision and rapidity of
motion. As regards variety and occupation for
the mind, the " health-lift " confessedly pos-
sessess no such quality. Finally, the " health-
lift " is not a safe mode of exercise. It tends
to produce apoplexy, rupture of blood-ves-
sels, hernia, and other serious evils. The
author concludes with these words : " Con-
centrated exercise is as unsatisfying to the
muscle as is concentrated nourishment to
the stomach. The latter demands bulk in
its contents, the former a certain duration
in its period of activity."

NOTES.

The third session of the Bowdoin Col-
lege Summer School of Science will open
on July 15th, in the Cleaveland Lecture-
Room, and will continue for six weeks.
Three courses will be given, viz., Chemis-
try, by F. C. Robinson, Instructor in Chem-
istry in the college ; Mineralogy, by H. Car-
michael, Professor of Chemistry; and Zo-
ology, by L. A. Lee, Instructor in Natural
History. This school is designed to give to
teachers, gradates of colleges, and others,
of both sexes, a practical acquaintance with
science.

Dr. George M. Beard is collecting ma-
terials for a work on " writers' cramp," and
other diseases of an analogous nature, as
the cramp of artists, pianists, violinists, te-
legraphers, etc. He invites those who pos-
sess any information regarding these sub-
jects to communicate the same to him. He
will supply blanks on application. His ad-
dress is " 41 West Twentv-ninth Street, New
York."

Captain Lunginers, of the Danish vessel
Lutterfeld, reports that while off the coast
of Terra del Fuego, latitude 65° 15' 10" south,
longitude 15° 12' 10" west, at 3.30 a. m. of
December 10, 1876, the man on the lookout
espied at no great distance a considerable
mass of land rising above the surface of the
water in the shape of a hill about thirty me-
tres high. As the charts had no mention
of an island in that place, the captain re-
solved to lay-to till morning so as to inves-
tigate the discovery more fully. The next
day at 5.30 a. m. the island appeared to be
much smaller, but he went to visit it with a
boat's crew. The island was found to be
spherical in shape, its sides pretty steep.
One of the sailors sprang ashore, but he had
to return to the boat quickly, for the ground
was intolerably hot. The island continued
to sink, and at 8 a. m. it was no more to be
seen ; and one hour later the vessel passed
over the place where it had stood.

From a series of observations made by
Dr. Jarvis Wight, of Brooklyn, it appears
that in at least seventy-five cases out of every
hundred the lower limbs of human subjects
are of unequal length ; nor does this differ-
ence exist in the total length of the leg alone,
but also in the length of the several long bones
which constitute its skeleton. The inequality
varies from one-eighth of an inch to one inch,
the average being one-fourth.

Prof. Cope, it is stated in the American
Naturalist, has received from Oregon a col-
lection of fossils from a Pliocene lake-bed,
including, with others, Elephas primigenius,
Equus occidentalis, and many other extinct
species. But a circumstance of uncommon
importance is that, in the same deposit in
which these fossils were found, occur numer-
ous flakes of obsidian, with arrow and spear
heads of the same. All were lying mingled
together on the surface of a bed of clay,
which was covered by a deposit of volcanic
sand and ashes, of from fifteen to twenty
feet in depth.

According to Prof. F. J. Burrill, of the
Illinois Industrial University, the catalpa
possesses great advantages as a timber-tree,
being the cheapest and easiest grown of all
our forest-trees, native or introduced, and
also the most rapid in its growth. On the
same ground it has outgrown the white or
American elm, white-ash, European larch,
Osage-orange, black-walnut, etc. It is not
attacked by insects, and is free from disease.
A board sawed from a catalpa-log, which
had lain on the ground for one hundred
years, was found to be perfectly sound and
strong, and susceptible of a fair polish.

Julius Robert Mayer, who shared with
Joule the honor of working out to a demon-
stration the mechanical theory of heat, died

256

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on March 20th. He was born in 1814;
studied medicine at Tubingen and in Paris ;
in 1840 he visited the Dutch East Indies,
and while there was led to study the rela-
tion between heat and work. His first pub-
lication on this subject appeared in 1842.
In 1871 he was awarded the Copley medal
by the London Royal Society.

The Colorado potato-beetle is reported
to have made its appearance in New Zea-
land, where it now exists in formidable
numbers in some localities. It appears to
have been introduced with some American
potatoes.

At Borsigwerk, in Silesia, the experi-
ment has been successfully made of growing
mushrooms in a coal-pit, at a depth of 1 26
metres below the surface of the earth. The
fungi grow rapidly and plentifully in an
average temperature of 8° Reaumur. The
mushrooms so grown are said to be of finer
flavor than those developed in the open air,
and command higher prices.

The line of an interoceanic canal across
the Isthmus of Darien, proposed by Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps, starts from the Pacific
coast, and ascends in the first place the
Tuyra River as far as the island of Piriaque ;
thence a straight cutting, 16,200 metres
long connects the Tuyra with the Chucana-
que ; the line then ascends the Chucanaque
for 11,400 metres; then, turning to the
northeast, it continues up the valley of the
Tiati, to a point where a tunnel appears to
be more economical than a very deep cut-
ting. The tunnel passes to the south of the
Peak of Gandi. On emerging, the canal
continues through an open cutting for about
ten kilometres to the deep waters of Port
Gandi. The probable length of the tunnel
is between thirteen and fourteen kilometres,
and the cost of making the whole canal is
estimated at 600,000,000 francs. This ship-
canal, if ever completed, will doubtless be
the most stupendous engineering work in
the world.

It will be a surprise to most readers to
learn that Theodor Schwann, founder of the
" cell-theory " in biology, is still not only
living, but actually " in the traces." He is
Professor of Physiology in the University of
Liege, Belgium, and will soon complete the
fortieth year of his professorial life. It is
proposed to celebrate this noteworthy anni-
versary of the venerable professor by the
presentation to him of an address, signed
by prominent anatomists and biologists of
all countries.

A company has been established in Par-
is for operating the system of pneumatic
clocks successfully adopted in Vienna, an
account of which was recently published in
these pages.

Prof. Luvini, of Turin, has experiment-
ed upon the action of different gases, such
as pure atmospheric air, oxygen, hydrogen,
carbonic acid, chlorine, and sulphurous acid,
on the eggs, or " grains " as they are called,
of silkworms. Lots of eggs numbering
one hundred each were kept in each of these
gases for over two months, and then hatched.
It was found that the silkworms produced
from eggs that had been kept in carbonic
acid showed more vivacity and vitality than
any of the others. Those from eggs kept in
hydrogen were the most backward in devel-
opment. Those in oxygen became large and
fat, but slow and lazy in their movements ;
after the fourth month especially, they would
remain in one position for hours at a time.
The eggs kept in pure air produced good-
sized silkworms, which, however, did not
reach a large growth.

To ventilate a room without draft, make
a hole through the wall to the outer air, in a
corner of the room just above the skirting.
Through the hole put one arm of a tube three
inches in diameter, and bent at right angles.
The arm of the tube reaching to the outer
air should be in length equal to the thick-
ness of the wall, and the other arm should
be two feet long, standing vertically in the
corner of the room; if desired, it can be
covered with paper of the same pattern as
that on the wall. A tube of the diameter
given above is sufficient to ventilate a room
of moderate size.

Near Nienburg, Hanover, waste pyrites
from the manufacture of sulphuric acid hav-
ing been employed for making roads and
paths, it was soon found that grass and corn
ceased to grow. Also, a farmer, on mixing
well-water with warm milk, observed that
the latter curdled. The explanation is,
that the waste pyrites contained not only
sulphide of iron and earthy constituents
but also sulphide of zinc, and that by the
influence of the oxygen of the atmosphere,
and the presence of water, these sulphides
were gradually converted into the corre-
sponding sulphates, and the latter, contin-
ually extracted by the rain-water, soaked
into the soil and contaminated the wells.

With a view to obtain, if possible, relia-
ble data for the localization and diagnosis
of cerebral disease, Dr. Lombard made a
number of experiments designed to show,
first, the normal relative temperature of dif-
ferent parts of the surface of the head ; and,
second, to show the effect of different men-
tal states upon the different portions of the
head previously examined. Mental activity,
he finds, raises the temperature ; the same
effect is produced by simply awakening at-
tention. The temperature is very rarely the
same in all portions of the head when the
brain is in the quiescent state.

EMIL DU BOIS-RETMOND.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JULY, 1878.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE.1

Br Professor EMIL DU BOIS-EEYMOND,

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN".

PART I.
I. — The Primordial Period, or Age of Unconscious Inferences.

THE relation of man to Nature primordially and of savage races in
the present day is, as we know, very different from what it has
been represented to be by poets and philosophers. In the delightful
pictures their fancy painted there was nothing true : the idyllic condi-
tions amid which they fancied the still youthful human race as living
never have existed anywhere. The history of man the world over has
its beginning not in a golden age, but in an age of stone. Instead of
noble shepherds and loVely shepherdesses, who, under benignant skies
amid picturesque scenes, live in innocence on the produce of their
flocks, decorously enjoying all the purest gifts of fortune, the reality
presents to our view rude, uncouth hordes struggling against hunger,
against wild beasts, against the inclemenoy of the seasons ; buried in
filth, in groveling ignorance, and brutal selfishness ; their women made
slaves, their old people cast out ; practising cannibalism first out of ne-
cessity, and then because superstitious usage had hallowed the custom.
Into the mental state of such beings we can enter as little as into
that of children. We cannot strip ourselves of the acquisitions made
by the generations whose successors we are, and whose priceless hoard-
ings of the fruits of their labor now inure to our benefit. If, as Paul
Broca teaches, the mean cerebral mass of Parisians in the present day
exceeds that of Parisians in the twelfth century, may we not assume

1 An address delivered before the Scientific Lectures Association of Cologne. Trans-
lated from the German by J. Fitzgerald, A. M., and carefully revised by the author.
VOL. XIII. — 17

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

our brain to have, by a process of gradual improvement, become more
highly developed than the brain of the men of the stone age, 100,000
years ago ? And this brain, more perfect as it is by nature, has been,
at an early period of its life, subjected to innumerable unconscious
influences, and, later, to the conscious influences of education, which
render it in some sense incommensurable with the brain of those as yet
half-brute creatures.

The instinct of causality, the questioning about the "why" of
things, which we greet in our children as a precious token of their
awakening human intelligence, is by some philosophers regarded as an
original characteristic of man's mind. Others hold even this to be a
derived faculty — that it results from the faculty of generalization. So
much is certain, that, among men in a low grade of culture, the instinct
of causality is satisfied with reasons for things that hardly deserve the
name of reasons. Nothing, we are told by Charles Martins, strikes
one so forcibly in conversing with the inhabitants of the Sahara as
their lack of development in this respect. These people have no idea
of " cause " or of " law " as we understand those terms. For them it
is the natural, and not the supernatural, that has no existence. The
French officer of engineers who sinks through the gypsum crust of the
desert an artesian well, thus procuring for them the blessing of a new
date-grove, is, in their eyes, not a man of superior acquirement whose
eye penetrates to the interior of the earth, and who knows how to dis-
cover what there is hid, but a miracle-worker, who, albeit an infidel, is
on better terms with Allah than themselves, and who, like Moses of old,
strikes water from the rock.

In that stage of human progress science does not as yet exist. It
is the childhood period of our race, and as such it has many points of
resemblance to the childhood of the individual man. As this is par ex-
cellence the period of unconscious inferences, so it is to be admitted that
such inferences, guided by experiment, have led to the invention of the
first tools. These were invented, not by one man, nor at one spot upon
the earth, but by many, and at points very distant from one another.
Thus originated levers, rollers, wedges, and axes ; clubs and spears ;
slings, sarbacands, lassos ; bows and arrows ; oars, sails, and rudders ;
fishing nets, lines, and hooks ; finally, the use of fire, by which, as by
speech, man is best distinguished from animals, and which even ana-
tomically stamps him with the character of a soot-stained lung. Man,
therefore, at an early period was un questionably entitled to the epithet
bestowed upon him by Benjamin Franklin of " the tool-making animal."

II. — The Anthropomorphic Age.

Now, whatever confronted him in the shape of a compelling power
of Nature, being either beyond or adverse to his own will, and whether
the same affected him favorably or unfavorably, in it, owing to a pro-
pensity deeply rooted in the human mind, he recognized the act of

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 259

beings like himself, though usually hidden to his senses, whom he fan-
cied to be free from the limitations to which he himself was subject,
but who for the rest had the same emotions of love and hate, gratitude
and revenge, with himself. The sum of such imaginings of a given
nation at a given time we call its religion ; but it might also be regarded
as the personificative or anthropomorphic stage of our system of Nature.
This attitude of man toward Nature is very clearly seen in Homer.

According to David Friedrich Strauss,1 the bias of man's mind toward
the personification of the forces of Nature has its root in the fact that
so he hopes to win the favor of those unknown and dreaded powers.
Perhaps a profounder reason could be assigned. Man originally knows
no other cause of occurrences save his own will, the exercise of which
is matter of direct experience, and hence it is that he refers all events
back to the action of a will like his own. This explanation appears all
the more probable, inasmuch as the same conception, only in a more
refined form, still unconsciously pervades our theories of natural science.
For undoubtedly this is the origin of the idea of Force which has done
so much mischief in science, and which, despite all that we can do, is
still ever creeping in.a We even see certain addle-brains in dead ear-
nest entertaining the fantastic conceit that, by the aid of such anthro-
pomorphic ideas as these, the mutual attractions of bodies across empty
space can be explained. What difference is there between that Will
which, according to our latest Nature-philosophers, drives the atoms
together, and the gods of antiquity who animated the planets ? The
serpent of human knowledge has once more bitten its own tail ; human
science has reverted to its starting-point.

Very conclusively, as would appear at first sight, Buckle, in his
" History of Civilization," 3 from the aspects of Nature in different
regions, deduces the religions there originating. He shows us India
bounded on the north by the Himalayas, where Mount Everest towers
to a height twice as great as that of Mont Blanc, where the Pass of
Kwen-Lun leads into Thibet at an elevation equal to that of Caucasus,
and where the Eiger, the MOnch, and the Jungfrau, piled on top of one
another, would only fill up one of the lateral valleys. Toward the
south he shows us the Indian Peninsula, with its harborless coasts, pro-
jecting into a sea that stretches uninterrupted to the pole, and which
is often swept by cyclones. From the mountains to the sea streams
not to be bridged over flow, passing through interminable jungles, in
which wild beasts and venomous serpents threaten the life of the way-
farer at every step. According to the official returns, about 11,000
persons lose their lives annually in British India from the bites of ser-
pents, especially the cobra de capello.4 Failure of crops, famine, and

1 " The Old Faith and the New," New York, 1875.

2 See Du Bois-Reymond's " Untersuchungen iiber thierische Elektricitat," Berlin, 1848,
vol. i., p. xlii.

3 " History of Civilization," New York, 1878, vol. i., chapter ii.

4 Fayrer's " Thanatophidia of India," London, 1872, p. 32. Most probably, the num-

260 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

inundations, succeed one another with lamentable regularity in Bengal.
The cholera-plague has its home in the delta of the Ganges ; and in the
devastating Indian pestilence of Rajastan, characterized by gangrene
of the lungs, Hirsch recognizes the black death of the middle ages, the
Florentine pestilence described by Boccaccio, which, like cholera in our
times, held its ghastly circuit through the world.

In the face of such aspects of Nature as these, asks Buckle, which
are ever menacing him with annihilation, must not man feel himself
small and powerless ? He arrives at no conscious, reasoned conclusion,
but stolidly fancies to himself certain dominant and unfriendly powers
as the authors of these dire calamities. He deifies the objects of his
fears, erects altars to them, and offers to them sacrifice.1 Hence it is
that Hindoo mythology teems with monstrosities. Men there live 100,-
000 years. The ages of the world are reckoned by units followed by
sixty -three zeros. The god Siva, who constitutes with Brahma and
Vishnu the Indian trinity, is a monster with three eyes, wearing a neck-
lace of human bones and a girdle of serpents. In one hand he holds a
skull; a tiger's skin is his mantle ; and over his left shoulder the deadly
cobra rears its head. His wife Doorga is represented as of a blue com-
plexion, with gory hands, lolling tongue, four arms, a giant's skull in
one hand, a necklace of human heads; round her waist are the hands of
her victims. All Hindoo deities are in like manner characterized by
some inhuman or monstrous aspect — for instance, an excess of limbs or
an unnatural complexion.

Buckle thinks he finds in Central America evidences of a like in-
fluence npon man's religious ideas of the dangers of life in tropical
regions. The traveler Kennan refers the Shamanism of the inhabitants
of the Siberian steppe to the dismal aspects of Nature by which they
are surrounded. Alone on the toondra with his herd of reindeer, watch-
ing in the glare of the northern lights the howling wolves round about,
the Korak stands on guard through the polar night, and fancies him-
self to be beleaguered by evil spirits, whose wrath he seeks to conjure
away by offering to them his dogs, or by the practice of magic arts.2 It
needs not to be told how fully the gloomy sublimity of the Eddas
accords in the same sense with the aspects of Nature in Iceland, where
volcanic forces are ever striving with ice for the upper hand.

As contrasting with these aspects of Nature and the religions which
owe to them their origin, Buckle points to the tamer and more pleasing
scenery of Greece, and thence would infer the humanly beautiful
character of the Hellenic mythology. With its multitudinous promon-
tories, forming landlocked harbors, and itself surrounded by a number
of beauteous islands, Hellas rises out of the Mediterranean, bearing

ber of victims is 20,000. (See also Sir James Paget apud Archibald Dickson, " The Vivi-
section Question," London, 1877, p. 38.)

1 See Edmund Burke's lumen dicendi in the proceedings against Warren Hastings
apud Macaulay, " Critical and Historical Essays," vol. iv.

s "Tent-Life in Siberia," New York, Putnams, 1870, p. 209.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 261

not a single peak covered with everlasting snow; it has no great
streams, volcanoes, or deserts, and so healthful is its climate that during
1.000 years it was visited only by one great epidemic — the plague
described by Thucydides. Here, says Buckle, man did not feel himself
overpowered by Nature. Here it was possible for those myths to have
their rise which still delight us with their undying charm, and this
because, instead of personifying the destroying forces of Nature, they
rather glorify whatever is purely human. True, even Grecian mythol-
ogy is haunted by many monstrous shapes, which, though an abomina-
tion to the eye of the comparative anatomist, even yet in some measure
disfigure the imaginations of our artists. Yet even against the worst
of these monsters man could hold his own, as Ulysses against Scylla ;
often he triumphs over them, as Bellerophon over the Chimaera, Theseus
over the Minotaur ; and, by insensible gradations, ending in the pleas-
ing personifications of the spirits of tree, and mountain, and spring,
these creatures of the artistic imagination of the Greeks at last become
perfectly human figures.

It is an easy thing to carry still further these ideas of Buckle's —
which have also been put forward by Lecky — and to deduce the mono-
theism of the Semites from their inhabiting a desert region, where
Nature, in its majestic uniformity, presented itself to them lacking in
color and form. It is not to be denied that in this idea of an agree-
ment between religious forms and the aspects of Nature there is a cer-
tain degree of truth ; still, like many another of Buckle's deductions,
this theory bears the impress of a rather superficial rationalism. Buckle
overlooks a multitude of complex intermediate facts. He makes the
connection between forms of religion and the aspects of Nature far too
direct. In particular, in deducing Hindoo mythology from the assumed
terrifying aspects of Nature in India, he surely errs. Between the Him-
alayas and the Indian Ocean are thousands of square miles of fertile
and now very thickly-populated country, where Nature offers nothing
at all to excite the imagination in an unwonted degree. And to the
originators of the Brahmanic faith what was a mountain-range which
they had no occasion to cross, or an ocean which they had no occasion
to navigate? Can any one suppose that, had the Jews been trans-
planted to the region between the Indus and the Ganges, they would
have excogitated the Brahmanic, or the Koraks the Hellenic religion,
had they migrated to the Peloponnesus? This brings us to a point on
which neither Buckle nor Lecky has bestowed sufficient attention. If
we were to maintain that the general psychological character of any
given portion of the human race results from (among many other con-
ditions) the local impressions under which they have developed, and
that, again, from this psychological character, combined with many
other circumstances, has come its form of religion, we should be stating
with more correctness the causal connection between these two orders
of phenomena.

262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

III. — The Period of Speculative and ^Esthetic Contemplation

of Nature.

In the next place, from the nature of the country inhabited by the
Hellenes, Buckle infers the symmetry of the Hellenic mind. Here,
says he, for the first time the imagination was in some degree tempered
and confined by the understanding, though without impairing its
strength or diminishing its vitality ; and, though originally the Greeks
may have borrowed a good deal from the Egyptian priests, they were
nevertheless the first people in history to look on Nature from anything
like a scientific point of view, as distinguished from the point of view
of anthropomorphism. Though still strongly tinged with anthropomor-
phism, this scientific contemplation of Nature had its origin in the
teaching of the Ionian physical philosophers ; and then, in the course
of 250 years, it had attained such a height in Epicurus that in his doc-
trines we already find foreshadowed the law of the conservation of
energy, on which the proud edifice of mathematical physics to-day
rests. And though Epicurus could neither strictly formulate this law,
nor illustrate it by an example, he nevertheless makes in favor of it an
argument that is almost exactly the same as one made 2,000 years later
by Leibnitz. Thus, then, with respect to the ultimate questions of
philosophy, those ancient thinkers were, in fact, as well advanced, or
rather as little advanced, as ourselves — a fact of no small importance
for our theory of understanding.

When we contemplate the advances made in mathematics, astron-
omy, and acoustics, even by Thales and Pythagoras, it looks as though
the instinct of causality had already reached maturity among the
Mediterranean nations, and as though it was destined to lead men in-
fallibly on to the latest results of scientific inquiry, as reached in our
own times, and so on to domination of Nature resulting therefrom.
Every one knows how different from all this the event really was.

Under the term Natural Science, we here mean not only the sum of
our knowledge of Nature, organic and inorganic, its phenomena, its
effects, and its laws, but also the conscious insight into the one method
which aids in enlarging that sum of knowledge, and also the conscious
application of this knowledge to the useful arts, to navigation, medi-
cine, etc. — in short, the mastery and exploitation of Nature by man
with a view to increasing his own power, comfort, and enjoyment.

Natural science in this sense was all unknown, we may say, to the
Greeks and Romans. Those apparently so promising beginnings lacked
persistent force. It is true that, during the 1,000 years which inter-
vened between Thales and Pythagoras and the fall of the Roman Em-
pire of the West, individual minds attained extraordinary heights.
Aristotle and Archimedes must unquestionably be reckoned among the
greatest teachers that have ever appeared. So, too, for som'e time a
steady advance of science appeared to be insured by the labors of the

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 263

Alexandrine school. But nothing so plainly exhibits the hesitating
step of natural science among the ancients as the simple fact that 400
years after Aristotle's day — an interval equal to that between Roger
Bacon and Newton — so uncritical a collector as Pliny could exist. The
case is as if Herodotus and Tacitus had exchanged places.

The history of the human mind offers few more noteworthy phe-
nomena than this. Here are nations whose poetry and sculpture still
afford us the highest delight; who, in metaphysics, history, and the
science of law, produced works which, both in form and in substance,
constitute the models for all ages ; who to this day are our instructors
in oratory, the art of war, government, and jurisprudence ; but who, in
their knowledge of Nature, never advanced beyond the puerile stage
of credulity, and in which they rested content with the broaching of
futile hypotheses. Their minds, ever ready, Icarus-like, to essay flights
into the region of supersensual speculation, lacked the painstaking assi-
duity required to ascend the difficult path of induction — the only safe
path — from particular and sharply-circumscribed facts, up to general
propositions, thus rising gradually and methodically from the appar-
ently accidental to the conception of law. True, the germ of the
inductive process appears in Socrates and Aristotle ; still the method
which in general and theoretically was recognized as correct no one
knew how to apply to particular cases ; and beyond this feeble begin-
ning nothing was done by the ancients. Even when by chance they
observed aright, their very first attempt at an explanation would involve
them in a tangle of such absurd and ridiculous fancies that one much
prefers the theory of old Pan with his train of golden-haired nymphs
ruling forest and field; of Poseidon with his trident agitating and
again calming the sea; of Zeus hurling his thunderbolts. The picture
drawn by Prometheus Bound of his services to humanity is a true rep-
resentation of ancient science, when with astronomy, arithmetic, the
alphabet, breeding of animals, navigation, mining, and medicine, he
directly couples as equally important gifts the interpretation of dreams,
of the flight of birds, and of the signs found in the entrails of immo-
lated animals.1

In his very instructive rectorate address on " The Backwardness of
the Ancients in Natural Science," a Herr von Littrow deduces, from
Plutarch's dialogue on " The Man in the Moon," a striking evidence of
the inability of the ancients to reason scientifically. He might have
quoted to the same effect Plato's " Timjeus," a work abounding in intol-
erable absurdities ; or the whole of a treatise that has come down to
us bearing the name of Plutarch as its author, and entitled " Opinions
of the Philosophers," 3 of which Biot affirms that it contains the germs

1 HpofjLi)8evs SefffidTTis, v., 442, et seq.

2 See Popular Science Monthly, vol. ix., p. 438.

3 ITepl twi/ apea-Kouruv rots <ptAo<r6<pois. Concerning the doubtful authorship of this
work, see Monatsberichte dcr Berliner Akademie, 1874, p. 485.

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of all modern discoveries, nay, those discoveries themselves. Unfortu-
nately, however, he observes, truth and error are here both equally the
work of chance ; the opinions here stated are like lottery -tickets, whose
value is known only after the drawing.

But it is further shown by Littrow — and this is a point to which
less attention had been directed — that the ancients were incapable
even of observing scientifically.

That the eye must be trained, we know from physiology. The vast
majority of mankind have no suspicion that we constantly see double
images, but that we very properly disregard them. But few persons
note the subsequent images remaining in the eye after having looked
on an object, the opacity of the visual media, occurring even in the
state of perfect health, or the hallucinations that precede sleep. It was
only two hundred years ago discovered by Mariotte, that in each eye
we have a blind spot, over which we throw the ground-color of the ob-
ject contemplated, thus giving to this blank in the field of vision its
most probable interpretation. From the year 1809, when Malus dis-
covered the polarization of light, observers like Arago, Biot, Fresnel,
and Brewster, had vainly endeavored with the naked eye to distinguish
polarized from ordinary light. But since 1844, when Haidinger suc-
ceeded in doing this, the yellow tufts which bear his name belong, for
every trained eye, to the normal aspect of the blue sky.

In the domain of tone-sensations, the harmonic notes, as we know,
at first evade our immediate perception, though the timbre they give to
the sound is at once noticed by every one, except those portions of the
German race whose vocalization is faulty.

With such minutiae as these, however, we are not here concerned,
but with such striking objects as the stars, for the observation of which
the ancients, under their favoring skies, had far better opportunity than
ourselves ; and which, furthermore, were to them of the greatest prac-
tical importance, both on land and sea, before the discovery of the
mariner's compass. Yet the elder Pliny states the number of observed
stars, i. e., of the stars according to him visible to the naked eye, as
only 1,600 ; while Argelander reckoned 3,256 ; and Heis, to whom the
stars appeared as points without rays, added to the last figure 2,000
more. To all this add the fact that the ancients, owing to their living
in lower latitudes, could survey a larger portion of the celestial sphere
than we can [in Germany]. The stars noted by the ancients decrease
in number as they rise in the order of magnitudes, though, in fact,
each successive class of magnitudes embraces more stars than all the
preceding classes taken together. Of nebulas and star-clusters, five
were known to Ptolemy ; Argelander saw nineteen with the naked eye.
Hipparchus and Ptolemy take no note of the nebula in Orion, or of that
in Andromeda. But the most striking circumstance of all, perhaps, is
the fact that the ancients did not count the Pleiades correctly, though
their number was matter of dispute, and hence an object of keener ob-

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 265

servation, and though that constellation was of importance to them iu
determining the seasons.1 According to Aratus, who nourished under
the successors of Alexander, there are only six Pleiades, and it is a vul-
gar error to admit that they were seven, and that one of them was lost.
Hipparchus, however, corrected Aratus, and fixed the number of the
Pleiades at seven. Nevertheless, Ovid says of the Pleiades :

" Quae septem dici, sex tamen esse solent ; " 2

— and the poets went on speaking of a lost Pleiad.8 But nowadays
ordinary observers, with good eyesight, can discern fourteen to sixteen
stars in this constellation.

The ancients, then, according to Littrow, described the heavens as
imperfectly as though they had been to some extent short-sighted, or
as though — but this supposition is negatived by other facts — the dis-
criminating power of the human retina had since become more acute.
On the other hand, we cannot sufficiently admire the refinement of
their artistic sense in reproducing the forms of the human body. In
counting the Pleiades they erred. But the wavy lines of female beauty
have never been rendered with greater perfection than by them ; and
the Borghese Gladiator gives evidence in every one of his quivering
muscles of such close observation as to lead to the supposition that in
the ancient art-schools there was an esoteric teaching of anatomy.4 It
is customary to attribute the supreme skill of the ancient sculptors in
representing the human body to the advantages they enjoyed, as com-
pared with our own artists, who can only study professional models, in
frequently viewing the nude in unconstrained action in gymnasia and
at the public games. But, with respect to the female figure, the
ancient sculptors had no such great advantage over our own, and yet
here, too, they have attained unequaled excellence. So, too, our artists
have as fair opportunity of studying the breast of a live, nude horse as
the ancients had of observing nude athletes ; and yet it was said, during
the lifetime of Franz Krtiger, that he was the only artist who knew
how to paint a horse's breast. The truth is, that the ancients had a
special inclination for this kind of observation, but it lay altogether
outside their habits of thought nicely to determine the limits of a phe-
nomenon as regards space, time, and weight. Hence, in all that con-
cerns artistic forms their eye was very highly developed, but they lacked
the training needed for grasping scientific facts.

They were utter strangers to the art of experimentation, wherein
methodical observation under arbitrarily determined conditions com-
bines with a fervid inventive imagination and a calm judgment to pro-

1 Whewell, "History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i., p. 130, London, 1847.

2 " Which are said to be seven, though they are but six." Ovid gives two mythologi-
cal hypotheses for the disappearance of the seventh Pleiad, "Fasti," lib. iv., v. 170-178.

3 Cf. Byron's " Beppo," stanza xiv.

4 Salvage, " Anatomie du Gladiateur combattant applicable aux Beaux-Arts," 1812,
p. iv.

266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

duce a purely modern form of mental activity, which oftentimes not
only leads to certitude in the experimental science, but even evokes
new phenomena. Thales already was acquainted with " the soul of
amber," and the power of the Heracleian Stone was well known to the
ancients as a matter of simple curiosity. But they never got beyond
the first crude observation of those effects out of which the modern
mind has developed a whole world of facts and ideas.

In the time of Alexander the Great, however, interest in remarkable
natural curiosities was so far developed that he used to send back from
his expeditions such objects to his teacher Aristotle. But how little
was done later by the Romans toward utilizing the unparalleled oppor-
tunities they enjoyed for increasing the knowledge of Nature ! From
every quarter of their immense empire they gathered animals for their
vulgar shows and feasts. At enormous expense they raised all manner
of animals for food. We read, too, of their aviaries. But we learn
nothing of any establishment in Rome for exhibiting plants and ani-
mals— a managerie or a botanic garden — such as we find even among
the Aztecs.1

Without scientific observation, experiment, and sound theory, no
enduring progress can be made in the useful arts. Such progress
necessarily depends on conscious utilization of natural forces observed
in their orderly workings. Of this, on the whole, the ancients had no
idea. True, they carried to a high state of perfection some few branches
of useful art. In architecture, road-making, and bridge-building, in
bronze-casting and the art of cutting precious stones, they were masters.
The art of fortification and the siege enginery of the later Romans are
truly wonderful. But, if we would estimate aright the degree of tech-
nical skill reached by the ancients, we must compare it with the results
attained by other nations. The technical skill wherein they excelled
belongs to a comparatively low grade of culture. In architecture, for
instance, the Egyptians, too, as well as the Assyrians, the Hindoos, and
even the Peruvians under the Incas, were very proficient. A much
higher degree of culture is marked by the invention of the mariner's
compass, gunpowder, and printing. Next comes the steam-engine, an
invention which we owe to modern European civilization.

The second of these stages of technical evolution the ancients never
attained. On the other hand, it was reached at a comparatively early
date by the civilized peoples of Eastern Asia, who, in other respects,
seem barbarous as compared with the Greeks and Romans. These
Asiatics, it is true, only employed the compass on land-journeys, used
gunpowder only for fireworks, and they did not in printing employ
movable types, owing to the clumsiness of their mode of writing. But,
even in their pottery and textile fabrics, the classic^ nations were sur-
passed by the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Japanese. The ancient
civilization always stood, so to speak, with one foot in the bronze age.
1 Prescott, " Conquest of Mexico," vol. i., p. 124, et scq. ; vol. ii., pp. 60, 108, et seg.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 267

To get an idea of the tardiness of their progress in the useful arts, we
might compare the difference in material culture between the time of
Pericles and that of Constantine on the one hand, and between Bar-
barossa's time and our own on the other. All industrial occupations
among the ancients were, for the most part, confined to the servile class.
This is the reason often assigned for the low state of industrial art
among them. But may we not rather recognize, in the contempt of
the freemen for industrial occupation, their small capacity for the same?
However this may be, the material culture of the ancients evinces a
one-sidedness and an imperfectness corresponding to the deficiencies we
have already found to exist in their theoretical culture.

Hence comes the disproportion between technical and aesthetic per-
formance, so often noticed in the products of ancient art-industry. In
our museums, every one admires the candelabra brought from the villas
of wealthy Romans, which were destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius.
From light bronze branches, whose leaves seem to flutter in every breath
of air, are suspended by slender chains a number of beautifully-fash-
ioued lamps. By the light of these lamps Caesar wrote his " Commen-
taries," Cicero rounded his periods, Horace gave the last polish to his
" Odes." Each lamp is simply an oil-holder, into which dips a wick —
a smoky affair, that no scullery-girl would tolerate nowadays. The idea
of discovering the source of the light given by the lamp ; of finding it
in a more or less perfect combustion of a combination rich in carbon — a
combustion carried only so far that, in the hot but not luminous flame
produced by perfect combustion, some solid carbon-particles shall be
brought to a white heat ; of bringing about this degree of combustion by
regulating the supply of air and oil ; meantime, of protecting the flame
from air-currents, saving the surrounding objects from smut, and guard-
ing the organ of smell from the offensive odors of acrolein — such
thoughts never once appear to have occurred to the minds of the artists
of Magna Grrecia. For them, the most perfect lamp was the one that
was the most ornamental. If more light was needed, other smudgy
lamps were added.

Thus the ancient culture resembled one of those coins on which a
master-hand had stamped a noble countenance of some deity, but which
he could not make round. We may, therefore, justly characterize this
civilization as being essentially aesthetic, and the attitude of the an-
cients toward Nature as speculative and cesthetic.

The backwardness of the ancients in natural science was fruitful in
most serious consequences to the human race. It was one of the chief
reasons of the downfall of the old civilization. The greatest misfortune
that ever befell humanity, namely, the overrunning of the Mediterra-
nean countries by the barbarians, could have been prevented had the
ancients possessed natural science as we understand that term.

This point has not, perhaps, been sufficiently noted hitherto. When
Montesquieu and Gibbon described the fall of the Roman Empire, nat-

268 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ural science had not attained its present importance in the minds of
modern nations, and even to this day it is for the most part overlooked
by writers of history. The numerous causes under the action of which
the Roman Empire was destined to crumble to pieces, and to become
the prey of the barbarians, have been again and again set forth with
much learning and skill. No doubt the ancient world had grievous in-
ternal ills. Slavery, pretorianism, corruption of morals, and aversion
to matrimony, decay of civic as also of military virtue, the enervation
caused by over-refinement, which had exhausted every pleasure and
profaned ever}' ideal, and which could not find in itself the means of
rising above itself — such are the oft-cited causes to which the inevitable
downfall of the Roman domination is ascribed.

And yet the success which almost invariably attended the efforts
of vigorous emperors is proof that the state of affairs was not entirely
hopeless. Down even to a very late period of the empire's history, the
course of events was tolerably amenable to control and regulation, and
in the face of the enemy the legions did not altogether belie their
hereditary valor and discipline. Even in the palmiest days of the
Roman state they had not always been victorious. The introduction of
Christianity did not move the ancient world out of the ruts so much as
might have been expected. Though a portion of the ancient culture
was then thrown overboard, it nevertheless, on the whole, remained in-
tact. There yet stood, under the protection of the victorious cross,
temples, theatres, baths, halls of justice ; the multitude of the works
of art baffled the fury of the destroyers, and the papyrus rolls of the
libraries still preserved unscathed the treasures which a thousand
years had collected. What was needed was to oppose to the inpouring
barbarian hosts from the northeast a barrier which should last until
the tide had begun to ebb, and these hordes had themselves come under
the influence of civilization : then all would have been well.

It was the opinion of Liebig, who also contemplated the downfall
of the ancient culture from the point of view of the natural sciences,
that the case was hopeless, whatever might be done. As a result of
his researches on mineral manures, Liebig taught that the Roman Em-
pire fell like the Grecian communities at an earlier day, and like the Span-
ish domination later, because in the countries from which the Romans
derived their grain the soil had become exhausted of the mineral matters
requisite for growing wheat, especially of phosphoric acid and potash.1
This doctrine was refuted by Conrad, who shows that the fact of the
soil having been exhausted is not proved. In every instance where,
according to Liebig, the soil was exhausted by improvident cropping,
other reasons may be assigned for the decreased fertility ; for instance,
drought resulting from the decay of irrigation-works, or from reckless
deforestation, and the production of marshes from the want of river-

1 "Die Chemie in ihrer Anwcndung auf Agricultur und Phsyiologie," " Einleitung in
die Naturgesetze des Feldbaucs" p. 86, et seq.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 269

levees, or the sinking of the soil by volcanic action. Many a tract of
waste-land in Italy, which in former times was thickly populated,
would still be productive were it not that the dragon of malaria keeps
watch on the golden fleece of the grain-harvest. The south of Spain
did not become barren till after Christian intolerance had driven out
the industrious Moors, and Gothic laziness had permitted their irriga-
tion-canals to become choked up. Wherever, therefore, sterility was
not produced by irresistible natural agencies, it was not the cause, but
rather the result, of the decay of the state. Under more favorable
political conditions, the ancient fertility of the soil might be restored,
but the evils of deforestation, as we see in Provence, can hardly ever
be repaired.

It was not because the soil of the Mediterranean countries was im-
poverished in phosphoric acid and potash that the ancient civilization
went to ruin, but because that civilization was built on the quicksand
of aesthetics and speculativism, which was quickly swept away by the
tide of barbarian invasion. Suppose the legionaries had been armed
with flint-lock muskets, instead of the piliim, and that, instead of the
catapult and the ballista, the Romans possessed even such artillery as
was employed during the sixteenth century. Would not all the migrant
hordes, from the Cimbri and the Teutones down to the Vandals, have
been sent back home with broken heads ? True, the Romans beat back
the Teutones with the pilum alone, for, even with equal arms on both
sides, the superior military science, backed by higher mental and bodily
development, ever prevails over undisciplined masses of men. But,
had fire-arms taken the place of the pilum, the Romans would always
have triumphed over the barbarians, even without a Marius, and with-
out such terrible efforts as at Aquas Sextiag. It is vain to speculate in
history about what would have happened under altered circumstances.
So much, however, is clear, that, had not the ancients neglected to win
for themselves that absolute mastery over brute force which the sub-
jugation of Nature and the progressive improvement of industrial skill
always insure, the two ethnic elements of the " Nibelungenlied,"
namely, Northern heroes and horsemen from the steppes of Asia, would
have been powerless against the Roman Empire, though its rottenness
stunk to heaven. And, had the ancients developed their inventiveness
sufficiently to originate the art of printing, then, despite the invasions
of the barbarians, we should not have to lament evermore the loss of
so many a masterpiece of poet, orator, and historian.

IV. — The Scholasttco-Ascetic Period.

But the ancient culture succumbed. The night of the middle ages
settled down upon those shores of the Mediterranean once illumined
with the splendor of all that is grand and beautiful. To this was added
a peculiar fatality which made the intellectual ruin more complete, and

270 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

entirely checked for a long time the progress of natural science which
under the ancients had been tardy enough.

With the fall of Roman power came, at the same time, the fall of
polytheism, a system dating from the anthropomorphic period of the
Philosophy of Nature. Christianity now came into possession of Olym-
pus, crowded with barbaric gods, and banished its denizens to the region
of demons and ghosts. Nor was it content with such purification of the
temple as this. Sprung itself from Judaism, which possessed neither
art nor science, but which was already characterized by an exclusive
estimate of the value of moral effort, the new creed restricted the circle
of ideas, which alone it recognized as profitable to man, within the cate-
gories of good and bad, and the relations between the sinful creature
and his creator. In opposition to heathenism, which was languishing
from sensuous excess, it enjoined on its adherents self-denial and con-
tempt of earthly life, and bade them to tremble in constant expectation
of the judgment which was to come both for them and for the whole
world. This earth, with all its glory, appeared henceforth to man as
a resting-place unworthy of notice,-where the soul must prepare for a
better state to come. Our bodjr, given to us in love by father and
mother, this crown and masterpiece of creation, Christianity despised
as the perishable shell of the soul which alone was akin to God ; nay,
it hated the body as the accursed source of sin. Only with fear and
trembling could the believer pluck the fruit of the tree of life. A celi-
bate life within the walls of a cloister, and entirely occupied with prayer
and penances, was held to be the best way, and the one most pleasing
to God, of spending the time of trial here below ; in recompense, the
elect were assured of sempiternal beatitude post mortem.

That this new mode of looking at the universe was little favorable
to natural science is obvious. Still it is only with difficulty that we can
form to ourselves an idea of the attitude of the human mind toward
Nature during the middle ages. A passage from the life of Francesco
Petrarca will serve to throw light upon this point.

Petrarca, in whom the reminiscences of classic antiquity awoke and
were strangely blended with the beliefs of his own day, daily had in
sight, from Avignon, Mont Ventoux, that uttermost spur of the mari-
time Alps, swept by the mistral. Long had he wished to stand upon
its summit. His longing was stimulated on reading in Livy that Philip
of Macedon (the enemy of the Romans) ascended Mount Hagmus, in
Thrace,1 in order to view simultaneously the Adriatic and the Euxine.
At last, on the 26th of April, 1336, the plan was carried into execu-
tion, and, as the weather was very favorable, Petrarca and his younger
brother, Gherardo, enjoyed the broad prospect. The clouds beneath his
feet proved to him the possibility of what he had often read of before
with incredulity with regard to Athos and Olympus. The distant chain

1 Titi Livii, " Hist. Rom.," lib. xxx., 21, 22. Petrarca falls into the error, not before
noted, as far as I am aware, of planting Mount Hsemus (the Balkans) in Thessaly.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 271

of the Alps calls to his mind Hannibal, and beyond he descries, with
the mind's (rather than the bodily) eye, the land for which he longed —
Italy. But now he feels the fetters which bind him growing painfully
tighter ; the image of his mysterious lady below there in Avignon, and
whom he had for the first time seen almost exactly nine years before,
April 6, 1327, rises before his mind. Of the Ovidian verse which he
uses to describe the state of his feelings —

" Odero si potero. Si non, invitus amabo " l —

we can hardly say that it expresses a great amount of passion. The
grandeur of the surrounding spectacle, the Rhone at his feet, in the dis-
tance the flashing mirror of the Mediterranean between Marseilles and
Aigues Mortes, bring him back again to the real world. While he aban-
dons himself to these impressions, it occurs to him to open, as though
it had been a "book of fate," a little copy of St. Augustine's " Confes-
sions" which he always carried about with him. He read there this
passage : " Men go to gaze on lofty mountains and the mighty waves
of the sea, and the wide currents of rivers, and the vast extent of ocean,
and the circling courses of the stars, and they overlook themselves."
Taken in connection with the context, the passage does not carry an
ascetic meaning, but occurs in the course of a theoretical explanation
of memory that rather does credit to the mystic Bishop of Hippo. But
Petrarca sees in these words, so directly applicable to his surroundings
at that moment, the very finger of God. Full of shame and remorse,
and without uttering another word, he descends from the mountain,
and that very night addresses to his confessor, Dionigi de' Roberti, the
doleful letter from which we take this narrative. The poor fellow had
for a moment, forgetful of his soul's welfare, indulged the harmless
pleasure of looking out on the entrancing world of sense, when he should
have been moodily contemplating his own inner state. So diseased
were the intellectual faculties of man in Europe in that age, that this
incident sufficed to bring a conscientious, fine-feeling, but not very
strong-minded man like Petrarca into a state of intensely painful self-
conflict.

Fortunately, the " Decamerone " shows that not all minds were so
delicately strung. But in the " Divina Commedia " we curiously
enough see a poetic imagination of the highest power, equipped with
all the scientific lore of its day, clothing the ascetic view of the world
in such a garb of stern reality, that King John of Saxony has been able,
from the description given in the " Inferno," to sketch a topographical
plan of hell, as though Virgil had conducted, not a poet, but a scientific

1 " Amores," lib. iii., Eleg. x., v. 35. " If I can, I will hate ; if not, I shall love against
my will."

8 This incident occurred in the thirty-second year of the poet's life. The passage from
Augustine is as follows in the original : " Et eunt homines admirari alta montium, et in-
gentes fluctus maris, et latissimos lapsus fluminum, et oceaui ambitum, et gyros siderum,
et relinquunt seipsos."

272 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

traveler — a Leopold von Buch, for instance — through the infernal re-
gions.

It was not only by depreciating in the estimation of mankind the
world of phenomena that Christianity, during this dreary period, dis-
couraged the study of Nature, but also by proposing to them new and
peculiar aims, before unheard of. Amid a darkness of their own pro-
curing, men busied themselves with such problems that to them might
well have been addressed the reproof of Romeo to Mercutio : " Peace,
peace ! thou talk'st of nothing." The best minds of the time expended
no end of labor and ingenuity in distinguishing between absurdity and
nonsense. Like a plant in the dark, the ancient philosophy put forth
colorless and weakly sprouts which sought the light mainly in two di-
rections, platonistic tendencies finding expression in an insane gnosti-
cism, and Aristotelian tendencies in barren scholasticism. Scholasticism
held the ground longest, and the scholastico-ascetic period will always
remain as a warning to show to what length the unaided human mind,
divorced from the world of reality, and without the revelation of Nature,
can go astray.

V. — The Rise op Modern Science.

Inasmuch as humanity recovered from this madness through the
study of the ancients, revived by Petrarca and Boccaccio, the next en-
suing stage of development is called the stage of humanism. In the
dusty codices the mind of the Christian West, awakened as it were
from a bewildering dream, got a glimpse of the grand old heathen
world ; and, hardly believing its own eyes, began to understand how
deplorably narrow was the circle of ideas within which it had in some
unaccountable way suffered itself to be confined for a thousand years.
A flood of reawakened ideas coursed through school and castle and
town, and even through the cloisters ; and, as it might be increased,
swept away the musty trumpery of mediaeval hallucination. With the
ideas of the ancients, their works of art, too, arose from the grave. To
the newly-awakened antique spirit corresponded the new form of the
beautiful ; and in an instant, almost, art flourished as it never has
flourished since, with a bloom which is to the bloom of Hellenic art
what a flower, perhaps of less perfect form, but of heavenly sweet odor,
is to a flower of perfect beauty but odorless.

This resurrection of the human mind, with its natural consequences
— the reformation of the Church, and the new birth of philosophy and
the other sciences of mind — has oftentimes been described at length.
Still, one point has commonly been overlooked, which it is not so easy
satisfactorily to deduce. As we have seen, the ancients knew nothing
of natural science, in our sense of the term. Is it not, then, a very
curious circumstance that the resuscitation of classical studies should
have given the impulse to the development of modern natural science ?
— that the ancients, who themselves could not think scientifically, nor

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 273

experiment, nor even observe, should now, by their teaching and by
their ideas, produce a race in whom these faculties were to go on stead-
ily and incessantly developing — a race bearing to the authors of its in-
tellectual culture the same relation as subsists between a brood of ducks
and the hen that has hatched them out? To what cause, then, do
modern civilized peoples owe the victorious outburst of the instinct of
causality which among the ancients found no adequate or methodical
expression, or was satisfied with futile reasons? Must we say that
among the Kelts and Germans, who soon vied with the Latin peoples
in their ardor to share in this newly-awakened intellectual activity, this
instinct was naturally stronger than among the Greeks and Romans ?
And was, perhaps, Keltic or Germanic blood mingled with Tuscan in
the veins of the youth who, during mass, discovered the isochronism of
the pendulum oscillations in Buschetto's cathedral ?

The greater seclusion and introspection of northern life, the quiet
and leisure of the monasteries, the exigencies of a ruder climate, are
cited as conditions that would naturally dispose the modern civilized
nations toward investigation of Nature and the manufacturing arts.
But if we trace backward the course of modern science, we at last find
many clews leading into the laboratories of the alchemists and the ob-
servatories of the astrologers ; and here, as we know, we meet with
Arabian philosophy as a new element of culture.

While beneath the sign of the Cross the night of barbarism was
settled down on the Western world, in the East, under the green stand-
ard of the Prophet, an original form of civilization had been developed,
which not only preserved what had been won by the classical peoples
in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, but even itself made no mean
acquisitions in those sciences. Through the crusaders and the Spanish
Moors, this civilization had in many ways reacted on Europe, and it is
natural for us to seek here for the source of those new ideas which the
mind of the Western nations, reawakened by the writings of the an-
cients, could not have drawn from those writings. The question arises,
" Whence did the Arabs derive their stronger instinct of causality, as
compared with the Greeks and Romans ? " Was that intelligent race
specially gifted for observation and investigation of facts ? Such a sup-
position conflicts with all we know of Semitic habits of thought, which
incline more toward the exercise of dialectical subtilty, fanciful imagin-
ing, and speculative meditation.

But for the momentary ascendency of natural science under the
influence of Islam, as also for its development in the Christian West
so soon as the ban of the scholastic philosophy had been broken, a pro-
founder reason can with some probability be assigned, and one which
covers both of these cases. This reason, it is true, is ultimately based
on an ethno-psychological peculiarity of the Semitic race. That race,
not only directly, through the labors of its Arabic branch, had a part in
the creation of modern science, but indirectly, too, the Semites were
VOL. xiii. — 18

274 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

founders of modern science, owing to the fact that with them originated
the monotheistic religions. Modern natural science, paradoxical as the
statement is, owes its origin to Christianity.

Between polytheism and monotheism there is this difference, that
the former is essentially tolerant, the latter essentially intolerant. Soc-
rates apparently fell the victim of religious zeal, but, as we know,
political considerations, and his uncomplying behavior toward his
judges, had most influence in procuring his condemnation. At the
time of the Acts of the Apostles the Athenians paid worship even to
unknown gods, lest any deity should be slighted. The Roman Pan-
theon admitted all gods, even the gods of conquered nations. The
Christians were persecuted by the Roman emperors solely because they
were esteemed to be dangerous to the state. On the other hand, Juda-
ism, Christianity, and Islam, have imagined that they each alone pos-
sessed the saving faith, and, in a measure, the idea of an absolute truth
only came into the world through them. As the Greeks and Romans
recognized all sorts of strange gods in addition to their own, and as
the Semitic parable of the three rings would have been amiss among
them, so, too, with regard to scientific truth, they were not over-par-
ticular. Their undeveloped instinct of causality was satisfied when
they could assign for a phenomenon some ingenious explanation which
pleased the fancy ; and their researches of ultimate causes consisted
really only of delightful conversations about what appeared admissible.
" What is truth ? " asked the Roman magistrate, in derision. " I came
into the world to bear witness to the truth," said Jesus, and allowed
himself to be crucified.

The idea of a God who suffers no other gods beside him, who ap-
pears not as a human invention involved in unworthy fables, but as the
highest, the absolute Being, who is the centre of all man's moral aspi-
rations, and who with unerring omniscience notes every transgression
— this idea of God, entertained for hundreds of years by generation
after generation of men, accustomed the mind of man, even in scientific
matters, to the thought that throughout the universe the cause of things
is one only, and inspired him with the wish to know this cause. Faust's
heart-felt cry —

" Du musst, du musst, una* kostet' es mein Leben ! " '

is one quite foreign to the spirit of the ancient world. The fearful ear-
nestness of a religion which claimed for itself all knowledge, which
threatened its adversaries with everlasting torture in the next world,
and claimed the right even in this life of visiting them with the most
horrible punishment, imparted to humanity in the lapse of centuries
that character of sobriety and of profundity which certainly fitted
them better for patient research than did the light-hearted joy of life
favored by the heathen religions. Where so many martyrs were teach-

1 " Thou must, thou must, though it cost me my life ! "

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 275

ing men how they should die for their creed, there must also be those
who were ready for science' sake to lead a life of self-denial, or even, if
need were, to die for it. In inspiring man with the ardent longing for
absolute knowledge, Christianity made atonement for the wrongs its
asceticism had for so long done to science.

■♦«»

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS.

By Professor JOHN TYNDALL, F. E. S.

OUR most intense coast-lights, including the six-wick lamp, the Wig-
ham gaslight, and the electric light, being intended to aid the
mariner in heavy weather, may be regarded, in a certain sense, as fog-
signals. But fog, when thick, is intractable to light ; the sun cannot
penetrate it, much less any terrestrial source of illumination. Hence
the necessity of employing sound-signals in dense fogs. Bells, gongs,
horns, guns, and sirens, have been used for this purpose ; but it is main-
ly, if not wholly, explosive signals that I have now to submit to the
notice of the Society. During the long, laborious, and, I venture to
think, memorable series of observations conducted under the auspices
of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House at the South Foreland in
1872 and 1873, it was proved that a short 5^-inch howitzer, firing 3
pounds of powder, yielded a louder report than a long 18-pounder firing
the same charge. Here was a hint to be acted on by the Elder Brethren.
The effectiveness of the sound depended on the shape of the gun, and
as it could not be assumed that in the howitzer we had hit accidentally
upon the best possible shape, arrangements were made with the War
Office for the construction of a gun specially calculated to produce the
loudest sound attainable from the combustion of 3 pounds of powder. To
prevent the unnecessary landward waste of the sound, the gun was fur-
nished with a parabolic muzzle, intended to project the sound over the
sea, where it was most needed. The construction of this gun was based
on a searching series of experiments executed at Woolwich with small
models, provided with muzzles of various kinds. The gun was construct-
ed on the principle of the revolver, its various chambers being loaded
and brought in rapid succession into the firing position. The perform-
ance of the gun proved the correctness of the principles on which its
construction was based.

It had been a widely-spread opinion among artillerists, that a bronze
gun emits a specially loud report. I doubted from the outset whether
this would help us ; and in a letter dated April 22, 1874, ventured to
express myself thus : " The report of a gun, as affecting an observer
close at hand, is made up of two factors — the sound due to the shock
of the air by the violently expanding gas, and the sound derived from

276 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the vibrations of the gun, which, to some extent, rings like a bell.
This latter, I apprehend, will disappear at considerable distances."
The result of subsequent trial, as reported by General Campbell, is,

Fig. 1.— Breech-loading Fog-Signal Gun, with Bell-Mouth, proposed by Major Mait-
land, K. A., Assistant Superintendent.

that " the sonorous qualities of bronze are greatly superior to those of
cast-iron at short distances, but that the advantage lies with the baser
metal at long ranges." '

Coincident with these early trials of guns at Woolwich, gun-cotton
was thought of as a probably effective sound-producer. Theoretic con-
siderations caused me to fix my attention persistently on this substance ;
for the remarkable experiments of Mr. Abel, whereby its rapidity of
combustion and violently explosive energy are demonstrated, seemed
to single it out as a substance eminently calculated to fulfill the condi-
tions necessary to the production of an intense wave of sound. What
those conditions are we shall now more particularly inquire, calling to
our aid a brief but very remarkable paper, published by Prof. Stokes
in the Philosophical Magazine for 1868.

The explosive force of gunpowder is known to depend on the sudden
conversion of a solid body into an intensely heated gas. The work
which the artillerist requires the expanding gas to perform is the dis-
placement of the projectile. Such, however, is not the work that we
want our gunpowder to perform. We wish it to transmute its energy
not into the mere mechanical translation of the shot, but into vibratory
motion. We want pulses to be formed which shall propagate them-
selves to vast distances through the atmosphere, and this requires a
certain choice and management of the explosive material.

1 General Campbell assigns a true cause for this difference. The ring of the bronze
gun represents so much energy withdrawn from the explosive force of the gunpowder.
Further experiments would, however, be needed to place the superiority of the cast-iron
gun at a distance beyond question.

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 277

A sound-pulse consists essentially of two parts — a condensation and
a rarefaction. Now, air is a very mobile fluid, and, if the shock impart-
ed to it lack due promptness, the pulse is not produced. Consider the
case of a common clock-pendulum, which oscillates to and fro, and
which therefore might be expected to generate corresponding pulses in
the air. When, for example, the bob moves to the right, the air to
the right of it might be supposed to be condensed, while a partial vac-
uum might be supposed to follow the bob. As a matter of fact, we
have nothing of this kind. The air-particles in front of the bob retreat
so rapidly, and those behind it close so rapidly in, that no sound-pulse
is formed. A tuning-fork which executes 256 complete vibrations in a
second, if struck gently on a pad and held in free air, emits a scarcely
audible note. It behaves to some extent like the pendulum-bob. This
feebleness is due to the prompt "reciprocating flow" of the air between
the incipient condensations and rarefactions, whereby the formation of
sound-pulses is forestalled. Stokes, however, has taught us that this
flow may be intercepted by placing the edge of a card in close proxim-
ity to one of the corners of the fork. An immediate augmentation of
the sound of the fork is the consequence.

The more rapid the shock imparted to the air, the greater is the
fractional part of the energy of the shock converted into wave-motion.
And, as different kinds of gunpowder vary considerably in their rapidity
of combustion, it may be expected that they will also vary as producers
of sound. This theoretic inference is completely verified by experiment.
In a series of preliminary trials conducted at Woolwich on the 4th of
June, 1875, the sound-producing powers of four different kinds of pow-
der were determined. In the order of size of grain they bear the names
respectively of Fine-grain (F. G.), Large-grain (L. G.), Rifle Large-grain
(R. L. G.), and Pebble-powder (P.), (Fig. 2). The charge in each case

WW*

F. G. L. G. R. L. G.

Fig. 2.

amounted to 4^ pounds. ; four 24-pound howitzers being employed to
fire the respective charges. There were eleven observers, all of whom,
without a single dissentient, pronounced the sound of the fine-grain
powder loudest of all. In the opinion of seven of the eleven the large-
grain powder came next ; seven also of the eleven placed the rifle large-
grain third on the list ; while they were again unanimous in pronounc-
ing the pebble-powder the worst sound-producer. These differences

278 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are entirely due to differences in the rapidity of combustion. All who
have witnessed the performance of the 80-ton gun at Woolwich must
have been surprised at the mildness of its thunder. To avoid the strain
resulting from quick combustion, the powder employed is composed of
lumps far larger than those of the pebble-powder above referred to. In
the long tube of the gun these lumps of solid matter gradually resolve
themselves into gas, which on issuing from the muzzle imparts a kind
of push to the air, instead of the sharp shock necessary to form the
condensation of an intensely sonorous wave.

These are some of the physical reasons why gun-cotton might be
regarded as a promising fog-signal. Firing it as we have been taught
to do by Mr. Abel, its explosion is more rapid than that of gunpowder.
In its case the air-particles, alert as they are, will not, it might be
presumed, be able to slip from places of condensation to places of rare-
faction with a rapidity sufficient to forestall the formation of the wave.
On a priori grounds, then, we are entitled to infer the effectiveness of
gun-cotton, while in a great number of comparative experiments,
stretching from 1874 to the present time, this inference has been veri-
fied in the most conclusive manner.

On the 22d of February, 1875, a number of small guns, cast special-
ly for the purpose — some with plain, some with conical, and some with
parabolic muzzles, firing 4 ounces of fine-grain powder — were pitted
against 4 ounces of gun-cotton, detonated both in the open and in
the focus of a parabolic reflector.1 The sound produced by the gun-
cotton, reenforced by the reflector, was unanimously pronounced loud-
est of all. With equal unanimity, the gun-cotton detonated in free
air was placed second in intensity. Though the same charge was used
throughout, the guns differed not among themselves, but none of
them came up to the gun-cotton, either with or without the reflector.
A second series, observed from a different distance on the same day,
confirmed to the letter the foregoing result.

As a practical point, however, the comparative cost of gun-cotton
and gunpowder has to be taken into account, though considerations
of cost ought not to be stretched too far in cases involving the safety
of human life. In the earlier experiments, where quantities of equal
price were pitted against each other, the results were somewhat fluctu-
ating. Indeed, the perfect manipulation of the gun-cotton required
some preliminary discipline — promptness, certainty, and effectiveness
of firing, augmenting as experience increased. As 1 pound of gun-
cotton costs as much as 3 pounds of gunpowder, these quantities were
compared together on the 22d of February. The guns employed to
discharge the gunpowder were a 12-pound brass howitzer, a 24-pound
cast-iron howitzer, and the long 18-pounder used at the South Foreland.
The result recorded is, that the 24-pound howitzer, firing 3 pounds of

1 For charges of this weight the reflector is of moderate size, and may be employed
without fear of fracture.

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 279

gunpowder, had slight advantage over 1 pound of gun-cotton detonated
in the open ; while the 12-pound howitzer and the 18-pounder were both
beaten by the gun-cotton. On the 2d of May, on the other hand, the
gun-cotton is reported as having been beaten by all the guns.

Meanwhile, the parabolic muzzle gun (Fig. 3), expressly intended for
fog-signaling, was pushed rapidly forward, and on the 22d and 23d of
March, 1876, its power was tested at Shoeburyness. Pitted against it
were a 16-pounder, a 5|-inch howitzer, Impound of gun-cotton deto-
nated in the focus of a reflector, and 1^ pound of gun-cotton detonated

Fig. 3.— Gun-Cotton Slab (lj- lb) detonated in the Focus of a Cast-ieon Keflector.

in free air. On this occasion, nineteen different series of experiments
were made, when the new experimental gun, firing a 3-pound charge,
demonstrated its superiority over all guns previously employed to fire
the same charge. As regards the comparative merits of the gun-cotton
fired in the open, and the gunpowder fired from the new gun, the mean
values of their sounds were found to be the same. Fired in the focus of
the reflector, the gun-cotton clearly dominated over all the other sound-
producers.1

The whole of the observations here referred to were embraced by an
angle of about 70°, of which 50° lay on the one side and 20° on the other
side of the line of fire. The shots were heard by eleven observers on
board the Galatea, which took up positions varying from 2 miles to 13^-
miles from the firing-point. In all these observations, the reenforcing
action of the reflector, and of the parabolic muzzle of the gun, came into

1 In this case the reflector was fractured by the explosion, but it did good service after
fracture.

28o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

play. But the reenforcement of the sound in one direction implies its
withdrawal from some other direction, and accordingly it was found that
at a distance of h\ miles from the firing-point, and on a line including
nearly an angle of 90° with the line of fire, the gun-cotton in the open
beat the new gun ; while behind the station, at distances of 8£ miles
and 13-J miles respectively, the gun-cotton in the open beat both the gun
and the gun-cotton in the reflector. This result is rendered more im-
portant by the fact that the sound reached the Mucking Light, a dis-
tance of 13^ miles, against a light wind which was blowing at the time.

Most, if not all, of our ordinary sound-producers send forth waves
which are not of uniform intensity throughout. A trumpet is loudest
in the direction of its axis. The same is true of a gun. A bell, with
its mouth pointed upward or downward, sends forth waves far denser in
the horizontal plane passing through the bell than at an angular dis-
tance of 90° from that plane. The oldest bell-hangers must have been
aware of the fact that the sides of the bell, and not its mouth, emitted
the strongest sound, their practice being determined by this knowledge.
Our slabs of gun-cotton also emit waves of different densities in differ-
ent parts. It has occurred in the experiments at Shoeburyness that
when the broad side of a slab was turned toward the suspending wire of
a second slab six feet distant, the wire was cut by the explosion, while,
when the edge of the slab was turned to the wire, this never occurred.
To the circumstance that the broad sides of the slabs faced the sea is
probably to be ascribed the remarkable fact observed on the 23d of March,
that in two directions, not far removed from the line of fire, the gun-cot-
ton detonated in the open had a slight advantage over the new gun.

Theoretic considerations rendered it probable that the shape and size
of the exploding mass would affect the constitution of the wave of sound.
I did not think large rectangular slabs the most favorable shape, and
accordingly proposed cutting a large slab into fragments of different
sizes, and pitting them against each other. The differences between
the sounds were by no means so great as the differences in the quanti-
ties of explosive material might lead one to expect. The mean values
of eighteen series of observations made on board the Galatea, at dis-
tances varying from If mile to 4.8 miles, were as follows :

Weights 4-ounce 6-ounce 9-ounce 12-ounce V-ounce rocket.

Value of sound 3.12 3.34 4.0 4.03 3.35

These charges were cut from a slab of dry gun-cotton about If inch
thick ; they were squares and rectangles of the following dimensions :
4 ounces, 2 inches by 2 inches ; 6 ounces, 2 inches by 3 inches ; 9 ounces,
3 inches by 3 inches ; 12 ounces, 2 inches by 6 inches.

The numbers under the respective weights express the recorded value
of the sounds. They must be simply taken as a ready means of ex-
pressing the approximate relative intensity of the sounds as estimated
by the ear. When we find a 9-ounce charge marked 4, and a 12-ounce
charge marked 4.03, the two sounds may be regarded as practically equal

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 281

in intensity, an addition of 30 per cent, in the larger charges producing
no sensible difference in the sound. Were the sounds estimated by some
physical means, instead of by the ear, the values of the sound would
not, in my opinion, show a greater advance with the increase of mate-
rial than that indicated by the foregoing numbers. Subsequent experi-
ments rendered still more certain the effectiveness, as well as the econ-
omy, of small charges of gun-cotton.

It is an obvious corollary from the foregoing experiments that on our
" nesses " and promontories, where the land is clasped on both sides for
a considerable distance by the sea — where, therefore, the sound has to
propagate itself rearward as well as forward — the use of the parabolic
gun, or of the parabolic reflector, might be a disadvantage rather than
an advantage. Here gun-cotton, exploded in the open, forms a most
appropriate source of sound. This remark is especially applicable to such
lightships as are intended to spread the sound all round them as from
central foci. As a signal in rock-lighthouses, where neither siren, steam-
whistle, nor gun, could be mounted, and as a handy fleet-signal, dispens-
ing with the lumber of special signal-guns, the gun-cotton will prove in-
valuable. But in most of these cases we have the drawback that local
damage may be done by the explosion. The lantern of the rock-light-
house might suffer from concussion near at hand, and though mechanical
arrangements might be devised, both in the case of the lighthouse and
of the ship's deck, to place the firing-point of the gun-cotton at a safe
distance, no such arrangement could compete, as regards simplicity and
effectiveness, with the expedient of a gun-cotton rocket. Had such a
means of signaling existed at the Bishop's Rock Lighthouse, the ill-
fated Schiller might have been wrarned of her approach to danger ten,
or it may be twenty, miles before she reached the rock which wrecked
her. Had the fleet possessed such a signal, instead of the ubiquitous
but ineffectual whistle, the Iron Duke and Vanguard need never have
come into collision.

It was the necessity of providing a suitable signal for rock light-
houses, and of clearing obstacles which cast an acoustic shadow, that
suggested the idea of the gun-cotton rocket to Sir Richard Collinson,
Deputy Master of the Trinity House. That idea was to place a disk or
short cylinder of the gun-cotton in the head of a rocket, the ascensional
force of which should be employed to cary the disk to an elevation of
1,000 feet or thereabouts, where, by the ignition of a fuse associated
with a detonator, the gun-cotton should be fired, sending its sound
in all directions vertically and obliquely down upon earth and sea.
The first attempt to realize this idea was made on the 18th of July,
1876, at the firework manufactory of the Messrs Brock, at Nunhead.
Eight rockets were then fired, four being charged with 5 ounces and
four with 7-J- ounces of gun-cotton. They ascended to a great height,
and exploded with a very loud report in the air. On the 27th of July,
the rockets were tried at Shoeburyness, the most noteworthy result on

282 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this occasion being the hearing of the rockets at the Mouse Lighthouse,
8| miles east by south, and at the Chapman Lighthouse, 8^ miles west
by north ; that is to say, at opposite sides of the firing-point. It is
worthy of remark that, in the case of the Chapman Lighthouse, land
and trees intervened between the firing-point and the place of observa-
tion. " This," as General Younghusband justly remarked at the time,
" may prove to be a valuable consideration if it should be found neces-
sary to place a signal-station in a position whence the sea could not be
freely observed." Indeed, the clearing of such obstacles was one of
the objects which the inventor of the rocket had in view.

On the 13th of December, 1876, and again on the 8th of March, 1877,
comparative experiments on firing at high and low elevations were exe-
cuted. The gun-cotton near the ground consisted of ^-pound disks
suspended from an horizontal iron bar about 4|^ feet above the ground.
The rockets carried the same quantity of gun-cotton in their heads, and
the height to which they attained, as determined by a theodolite, was
from 800 to 900 feet.

The latter day was cold, with occasional squalls of snow and hail,
the direction of the sound being at right angles to that of the wind.
Five series of observations were made on board the Vestal, at dis-
tances varying from 3 to 6 miles. The mean value of the explosions
in the air exceeded that of the explosions near the ground by a small
but sensible quantity. At Windmill Hill, Gravesend, however, which
was nearly to leeward, and h\ miles from the firing-point, in nineteen
cases out of twenty-four the disk fired near the ground was loudest,
while in the remaining five the rocket had the advantage. Toward the
close of the day the atmosphere became very serene. A few distant
cumuli sailed near the horizon, but the zenith and a vast angular space
all round it were absolutely free from cloud. From the deck of the
Galatea a rocket was discharged, which reached a great elevation, and
exploded with a loud report. Following this solid nucleus of sound
was a continuous train of echoes, wThich retreated to a continually
greater distance, dying gradually off into silence after seven seconds'
duration. These echoes were of the same character as those so fre-
quently noticed at the South Foreland in 1872-'73, and called by me
"aerial echoes."

On the 23d of March the experiments were resumed, the most note-
worthy results of that day's observations being that the sounds were
heard at Tillingham, 10 miles to the northeast ; at West Mersea, 15f
miles to the northeast by east ; at Brightlingsea, 17^ miles to the north-
east ; and at Clacton Wash, 20^ miles to the northeast by \ east. The
wind was blowing at the time from the southeast. Some of these
sounds were produced by rockets, some by a 24-pound howitzer, and
some by an 8-inch maroon.

In December, 1876, Mr. Gardiner, the managing director of the
Cotton-Powder Company, had proposed a trial of this material against

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 283

the gun-cotton. The density of the cotton, he urged, was only 1.03,
while that of the powder was 1.70. A greater quantity of explosive
material being thus compressed into the same volume, Mr. Gardiner
thought that a greater sonorous effect must be produced by the powder.
At the instance of Mr. Mackie, who had been in communication pre-
viously with the Deputy Master of the Trinity House and myself, a
committee of the Elder Brethren visited the cotton-powder manufac-
tory, on the banks of the Swale, near Faversham, on the 16th of June,
1877. The weights of cotton-powder employed were 2 ounces, 8 ounces,
1 pound, and 2 pounds, in the form of rockets and of signals fired a few
feet above the ground. The experiments throughout were arranged
and conducted by Mr. Mackie. Our desire on this occasion was to get
as near to windward as possible, but the Swale and other obstacles lim-
ited our distance to 1^ mile. We stood here east-southeast from the
firing-point, while the wind blew fresh from the northeast.

The cotton-powder yielded a very effective report. The rockets in
general had a slight advantage over the same quantities of material
fired near the ground. The loudness of the sound was by no means
proportional to the quantity of the material exploded, 8 ounces yielding
very nearly as loud a report as 1 pound. The "aerial echoes," which
invariably followed the explosion of the rockets, were loud and long-
continued, shading off, as in all previous cases, by imperceptible grada-
tions, into silence.

On the 17th of October, 1877, another series of experiments with
howitzers and rockets was carried out at Shoeburyness. The charge of
the howitzer was 3 pounds of L. G. powder. The charges of the rock-
ets were 12 ounces, 8 ounces, 4 ounces, and 2 ounces, of gun-cotton
respectively. The gun and the four rockets constituted a series, and
eight series were fired during the afternoon of the 17th. The observa-
tions were made from the Vestal and the Galatea, positions being
assumed which permitted the sound to reach the observers with the
wind, against the wind, and across the wind. The distance of the Ga-
latea varied from 3 to 7 miles, that of the Vestal, which was more re-
stricted in her movements, being 2 to 3 miles. Briefly summed up,
the result is that the howitzer, firing a 3-pound charge, which it will be
remembered was our best gun at the South Foreland, was beaten by the
12-ounce rocket, by the 8-ounce rocket, and by the 4-ounce rocket. The
2-ounce rocket alone fell behind the howitzer.

It is worth while recording the distances to which some of the
sounds were heard on the day now referred to :

1. Lei^h 6£ miles west-northwest 24 out of 40 sounds heard.

2. Girdler Light-vessel.. .12 " southeast by east. . 5

3. Reculvers 11 % " southeast by south.. 18

4. St. Nicholas 20 " southeast 3

5. Epple Bay 22 " southeast by east. . 19

6. Westgate 23 " southeast by east. . 9

1. Kino-sgate 25 " southeast by east. . 8

a a

u u

284 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The day was cloudy, with occasional showers of drizzling rain ; the
wind about northwest by north all day ; at times squally, rising to a
force of 6 and 7 and sometimes dropping to a force of 2 or 3. The
station at Leigh excepted, all these places were to leeward of Shoe-
buryness. At four other stations to leeward, varying in distance from
15^ to 24|- miles, nothing was heard, while at eleven stations to wind-
ward, varying from 8 to 26 miles, the sounds were also inaudible. It
was found, indeed, that the sounds proceeding against the wind did not
penetrate much beyond 3 miles.

On the following day, viz., the 18th of October, we proceeded to Dun-
geness with the view of making a series of strict comparative experi-
ments with gun-cotton and cotton-powder. Rockets containing 8 ounces,
4 ounces, and 2 ounces of gun-cotton had been prepared at the Royal
Arsenal ; while others, containing a similar quantity of cotton-powder,
had been supplied by the Cotton-Powder Company at Faversham.
With these were compared the ordinary 18-pounder gun, which hap-
pened to be mounted at Dungeness, firing the usual charge of 3 pounds
of powder.

From these experiments it appeared that the gun-cotton and cotton-
powder were practically equal as producers of sound.

The effectiveness of small charges was also illustrated in a very
striking manner, only a single unit separating the numerical value of
the 8-ounce rocket from that of the 2-ounce rocket. The former was
recorded as 6.9 and the latter as 5.9, the value of the 4-ounce charge
being intermediate between them. These results were recorded by a
number of very practised observers on board the Galatea. They were
completely borne out by the observations of the coast-guard, who marked
the value of the 8-ounce rocket 6.1, and that of the 2-ounce rocket 5.2.
The 18-pounder gun fell far behind all the rockets, a result probably to
be in part ascribed to the imperfection of the powder. The performance
of the siren was, on the whole, less satisfactory than that of the rockets.
The instrument was worked, not by steam of 70 pounds pressure, as at the
South Foreland, but by compressed air, beginning with 40 pounds and
ending with 30 pounds pressure. The trumpet was pointed to wind-
ward, and in the axis of the instrument the sound was about as effective
as that of the 8-ounce rocket. But in a direction at right angles to the
axis, and still more in the rear of this direction, the siren fell very sensi-
bly behind even the 2-ounce rocket.

These are the principal comparative trials made between the gun-
cotton rocket and other-fog signals ; but they are not the only ones. On
the 2d of August, 1877, for example, experiments were made at Lun-
dy Island, with the following results : At 2 miles distant from the firing-
point, with land intervening, the 18-pounder, firing a 3-pound charge,
was quite unheard. Both the 4-ounce rocket and the 8-ounce rocket,
however, reached an elevation which commanded the acoustic shadow,
and yielded loud reports. When both were in view, the rockets were

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 285

still superior to the gun. On the 6th of August, at St. Ann's, the 4-
ounce and 8-ounce rockets proved superior to the siren. On the Sham-
bles Light-vessel, when a pressure of 13 pounds was employed to sound
the siren, the rockets proved greatly superior to that instrument. Pro-
ceeding along the sea-margin at Flamborough Head, Mr. Edwards states
that at a distance of 1^ mile, with the 18-pounder gun hidden behind
the cliffs, its report was quite unheard, while the 4-ounce rocket, rising
to an elevation which brought it clearly into view, yielded a powerful
sound in the face of an opposing wind.

On the evening of February 9, 1877, a remarkable series of experi-
ments was made by Mr. Prentice, at Stowmarket, with the gun-cotton
rocket. From the report with which he has kindly furnished me I ex-
tract the following particulars. The first column in the annexed state-
ment contains the name of the place of observation, the second its dis-
tance from the firing-point, and the third the result observed :

Stoke Hill, Ipswich 10 miles Rockets clearly seen and sounds distinctly heard

53 minutes after the flash.
Melton 15 " Signals distinctly heard. Thought at first that

sounds were reverberated from the sea.
Framlingham 18 " Signals very distinctly heard, both in the open

air and in a closed room. Wind in favor of

sound.
Stratford. St. Andrews 19 " Reports loud; startled pheasants in a cover close

by.

Tuddenham. St. Martin ... 10 " Reports very loud; rolled away like thunder.
Christ Church Park 11 " Report arrived a little more than a minute after

flash.
Nettlested Hall 6 " Distinct in every part of observer's house. Very

loud in the open air.

Biklestone 6 " Explosion very loud, wind against sound.

Nacton 14 " Reports quite distinct — mistaken by inhabitants

for claps of thunder.
Alboro 25 " Rockets seen through a very hazy atmosphere ; a

rumbling detonation heard.
Capel Mills 11 " Reports heard within and without the observer's

house. Wind opposed to sound.
Lawford Z5£ " Reports distinct : attributed to distant thunder.

In the great majority of these cases, the direction of the sound in-
closed a large angle with the direction of the wind. In some cases, in-
deed, the two directions were at right angles to each other. It is need-
less to dwell for a moment on the advantage of a signal commanding
ranges such as these.

The explosion of substances in the air, after having been carried to
a considerable elevation by rockets, is a familiar performance. In 1873
the Board of Trade actually proposed a light-and-sound rocket as a sig-
nal of distress, which proposal was subsequently realized, but in a form
too elaborate and expensive for practical use. The idea of the gun-cot-
ton rocket with a view to signaling in fogs is, I believe, wholly due to

286 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the Deputy Master of the Trinity House. Thanks to the skillful aid
given by the authorities of Woolwich, by Mr. Prentice and Mr. Brock»
that idea is now an accomplished fact ; a signal of great power, handi-
ness, and economy, being thus placed at the service of our mariners.
Not only may the rocket be applied in association with lighthouses and
light-ships, but in the navy also it may be turned to important account.
Soon after the loss of the Vanguard, I ventured to urge upon an emi-
nent naval officer the desirability of having an organized code of fog-
signals for the fleet. He shook his head doubtingly, and referred to
the difficulty of finding room for signal-guns. The gun-cotton rocket
completely surmounts this difficulty. It is manipulated with ease and
rapidity, while its discharges may be so grouped and combined as to
give a most important extension to the voice of the admiral in command.
It is needless to add that at any point upon our coasts, or upon any
other coast, where its establishment might be desirable, a fog-signal sta-
tion might be extemporized without difficulty.

I have referred more than once to the train of echoes which accom-
panied the explosion of gun-cotton in free air, speaking of them as
similar in all respects to those which were described for the first time
in my report on fog-signals, addressed to the Corporation of Trinity
House in 1874.1 To these echoes I attached a fundamental signifi-
cance. There was no visible reflecting surface from which they could
come. On some days, with hardly a cloud in the air, and hardly a
ripple on the sea, they reached us with magical intensity. They came
directly from the body of the air in front of the great trumpet which
produced them. The trumpet-blasts were five seconds in duration, but
long before the blast had ceased the echoes struck in, adding their
strength to the primitive note of the trumpet. After the blast had
ended the echoes continued, retreating farther and farther from the
point of observation, and finally dying away at great distances. The
echoes were perfectly continuous as long as the sea was clear of ships,
" tapering " by imperceptible gradations into absolute silence. But
when a ship happened to throw itself athwart the course of the sound,
the echo from the broadside of the vessel was returned as a shock which
rudely interrupted the continuity of the dying atmospheric music.

These echoes have been ascribed to reflection from the crests of the
sea-waves. But this hypothesis is negatived by the fact that the echoes
were produced in great intensity and duration when no waves existed
— when the sea, in fact, was of glassy smoothness. It has been also
shown that the direction of the echoes depended not on that of waves,
real or assumed, but on the direction of the axis of the trumpet.
Causing that axis to traverse an arc of 210°, and the trumpet to sound
at various points of the arc, the echoes were always, at all events in
calm weather, returned from that portion of the atmosphere toward
which the trumpet was directed. They could not, under the circum-

1 Sec also "Philosophical Transactions" for 1874, p. 183.

RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON FOG-SIGNALS. 287

stances, come from the glassy sea ; while both their variation of direc-
tion and their perfectly continuous fall into silence are irreconcilable
with the notion that they came from fixed objects on the land. They
came from that portion of the atmosphere into which the trumpet
poured its maximum sound, and fell in intensity as the direct sound
penetrated to greater atmospheric distances.

The day on which our latest observations were made was particu-
larly fine. Before reaching Dungeness, the smoothness of the sea and
the serenity of the air caused me to test the echoing power of the atmos-
phere. A single ship lay about half a mile distant between us and the
land. The result of the proposed experiment was clearly foreseen. It
was this : The rocket being sent up, it exploded at a great height; the
echoes retreated in their usual fashion, becoming less and less intense
as the distance of the surfaces of reflection from the observers increased.
About five seconds after the explosion, a single loud shock was sent
back to us from the side of the vessel lying between us and the land.
Obliterated for a moment by this more intense echo, the aerial rever-
beration continued its retreat, dying away into silence in two or three
seconds afterward.

I have referred to the firing of an 8-ounce rocket from the deck of
the Galatea, on March 8, 1877, stating the duration of its echoes to be
seven seconds. Mr. Prentice, who was present at the time, assured me
that, in his experiments with rockets, similar echoes had been frequently
heard of more than twice this duration. The ranges of his sounds
alone would render this result in the highest degree probable.

To attempt to interpret an experiment which I have not had an op-
portunity of repeating is an operation of some risk ; and it is not with-
out a consciousness of this that I refer here to a result considered ad-
verse to the notion of aerial echoes. When the trumpet of a siren ia
pointed toward the zenith, it is alleged that when the siren is sounded
no echo is returned. Now, the reflecting surfaces which give rise to
these echoes are for the most part due to differences of temperature
between sea and air. If, through any cause, the air above be chilled,
we have descending streams — if the air below be warmed, we have
ascending streams as the initial cause of atmospheric flocculence. A
sound proceeding vertically does not cross the streams, nor impinge
upon the reflecting surfaces, as does ( a sound proceeding horizontally
across them. Aerial echoes, therefore, will not accompany the vertical
sound as they accompany the horizontal one. The experiment, as I in-
terpret it, is not opposed to the theory of aerial echoes which I have
ventured to enunciate. But, as I have indicated, not only to see, but
to vary such an experiment, is a necessary prelude to grasping its full
significance.

In a paper published in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1876,
Prof. Osborne Reynolds refers to these echoes in the following terms :
" Without attempting to explain the reverberations and echoes which

288 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have been observed, I will merely call attention to the fact that in no
case have I heard any attending the reports of the rockets,1 although
they seem to have been invariable with the guns and pistols. These
facts suggest that the echoes are in some way connected with the
direction given to the sound. They are caused by the voice, trump-
ets, and the siren, all of which give direction to the sound ; but I am
not aware that they have ever been observed in the case of a sound
which has no direction of greatest intensity."

The reference to the voice and other references cause me to think
that, in speaking of echoes, Prof. Osborne Reynolds and myself are
dealing with different phenomena. Be that as it may, the foregoing
observations render it perfectly certain that the condition as to direc-
tion here laid down is not necessary to the production of the echoes.

There is not a feature connected with the aerial echoes which can-
not be brought out by experiments in the laboratory. I have recent-
ly made the following experiment : A rectangle, 22 inches by 12, is
crossed by 23 brass tubes, each having a slit along it from which gas
can issue. In this way, 23 low, flat flames are obtained. A sounding
reed, fixed in a short tube, is placed at one end of the rectangle, and a
sensitive flame at some distance beyond the other end. When the reed
sounds, the flame in front of it is violently agitated, and roars boister-
ously. Turning on the gas, and lighting it as it issues from the slits,
the air above the flames becomes so heterogeneous that the sensitive
flame is instantly stilled by the aerial reflection, rising from a height of
6 inches to a height of 18 inches. Here we have the acoustic opacity
of the air in front of the South Foreland strikingly imitated. Turning
off the gas, and removing the sensitive flame to some distance behind
the reed, it burns there tranquilly, though the reed may be sounding.
Again lighting the gas as it issues from the brass tubes, the sound
reflected from the heterogeneous air throws the sensitive flame into
violent agitation. Here we have imitated the aerial echoes heard when
standing behind the siren-trumpets at the South Foreland. The ex-
periment is extremely simple, and in the highest degree impressive.

-♦••♦-

WATER-SUPPLY OF RIYERS.

By GEOEGE CHAHOON.

IN the year 1871, three kilns were built on lot 54, Jay Tract, town
of Wilmington, Essex County, New York, for the purpose of burn-
ing wood into charcoal, to be used in making iron in the Catalan forges,
on the Ausable River. At the time these kilns were built, the side of
the mountain upon which they are located was covered with a heavy

1 These earned 12 ounces of gunpowder.

WATER-SUPPLY OF RIVERS. 289

growth of spruce-timber. Near the top of the mountain there is a pond,
covering about one acre of ground. This pond was undoubtedly scooped
out on the southeast side of the mountain during the Glacial period,
and at the outlet the water is confined by a wide, low moraine dam,
such as, upon a larger scale, distinguish all our moraine lakes. This
pond, some 2,000 feet above the level of the sea, forms the head or
source of a small trout-brook that flows down the side of the mountain
past where the kilns have been erected.

I first visited this pond in August, 1874, and was very curious to
know where the water came from, for I could not understand how the
small extent of country drained could supply so much water during
such a warm, dry time.

In the summer of 1876, after a thousand acres of timber had been
cut, a fire broke out in the woods, not only killing the standing timber,
but destroying the corded wood in the kiln-yard, and doing considerable
other damage.

It was part of my business to prevent this destruction, as far as
possible. Men were sent to the fire, and worked there for several days.
In going to the kilns, the road leads up the mountain, by the side of
the brook. The season was very dry, and the water in the rivers un-
usually low ; but, in going up the mountain, I was surprised to notice
that there was as much water in this brook as I had ever seen, except
after some long, heavy rains, and my judgment in this matter was con-
firmed by all the men working at the kilns, with whom I spoke on the
subject.

The fire was very fierce, and, after leaving the standing timber,
spread across the cleared ground, burning the soil as far down as it was
dry ; and it actually ran through a field of potatoes freshly hoed, leaving
the half-grown, scorched, and burned potatoes, lying upon the top of
the ground. This fire lasted several days, and I was at the kilns every
day during its continuance, and was every day surprised that the brook,
fed largely from the drainage of the burning land, seemed to increase
with the fierceness and extent of the fire. In some places, when cleared
land had been burned over and dried under the scorching sun, in one
or two days afterward the fire ran over it again, taking off another shav-
ing of soil. This continued until the fire was finally quenched by rain.

Afterward, in making an examination of the soil, I found that it con-
sisted of from two to four feet of what is known among the woodsmen
of Northern New York as " spruce-duff," which is composed of rotten
spruce-trees, cones, needles, etc. This "duff" has the power of hold-
ing water almost equal to the sponge, and, when it is thoroughly dry,
burns, like punk, without a blaze.

I was told by Mr. Cooper, who has the direct charge of the kilns,
that, in sledding wood down the mountain, the sleds frequently wore
off the " duff," and came to ice.

On June 30, 1876, while the fire was still burning, I tested the water

VOL. XIII. — 19

290 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and soil, as far down as I could conveniently dig with my hands, with
a thermometer, and found a temperature of from 37° to 40° Fahr. I
afterward dug down, in several places, through the " duff," and in each
place found ice or frozen ground.

After this, it was perfectly clear to my mind that this " duff " be-
came thoroughly saturated with water during the fall rains, and that it
was frozen to the bottom during the long, severe winters of this climate.
It is not an uncommon thing for the ground in the valleys, hundreds of
feet below the level of these kilns, to freeze to the depth of four feet
during the winter.

The " duff " being frozen at the bottom accounts for the brook in-
creasing in size with the increase of the fire, for the heat from the burn-
ing of the top " duff" would cause the ice to melt, and the water would
find its way into the brook. This " duff," like all woody substances, is
a poor conductor of heat, and when once frozen and protected, as it is
in its natural state by the shade of the timber, would thaw out very
slowly, and would continue to furnish a supply of water all summer ;
and very hot weather, causing low water in other places, would tend to
increase the supply from this source.

During the latter part of the summer of 1877 I examined " duff " in
several places, but did not find any ice ; but found the " duff," in every
instance, thoroughly saturated with water. It should be remembered
that the summer of 1877 was unusually wet, and that water is an excel-
lent conductor of heat, and that water from the rains, running over the
ice, would melt it much sooner than it could be melted by what heat
could be communicated from the sun, through its woody covering, in a
dry season. At most, this would tend to show that the ice lasts only
part of the summer, but, if that is a fact, the frozen " duff " would fur-
nish a reservoir as long as the ice lasted, and, during the rest of the
summer, would act as an absorbent, taking up and holding the showers,
and gradually letting the water down into the streams, tending to pre-
vent floods after heavy rains by holding back the water, and preventing
scarcity of water during droughts by gradually releasing the water gath-
ered from the storms.

In addition to the " duff," the sides of many of our mountains are
covered with a heavy moss, which also acts as a sponge in the manner
described above, in preventing floods and supplying water during dry
seasons ; and this moss, like the " duff," entirely disappears when the
land is cleared, and, like the " duff," does not form again under the
pines and deciduous trees that follow the spruce. The spruce-timber
affords a dense shade, and, as long as the timber is left standing, this
"duff" seldom gets dry enough to burn, but, when the timber is cut,
the top of the "duff" dries, and is burned, as far down as it is dry
enough to burn, by the forest-fires that are so common in this part of
the country. This is repeated, year after year, until the " duff " is all
burned off, and the sand and bowlders appear upon the surface ; after

WATER-SUPPLY OF RIVERS. 291

this, white poplar and white birch spring up, which, however, are liable
to be burned at any time, as the fire runs freely through all deciduous
timber in the spring, before the leaves are out, or during a very dry
time in summer.

It is generally understood that the clearing away of the forests has
the effect of causing low water during the summer season, and the
reasons given for it are, the more rapid evaporation of water from the
soil, on account of the greater exposure to the sun in cleared than in
timbered land, and to this may be added the more rapid drainage, par-
ticularly in sandy soils, after the rotten logs, leaves, and other absorb-
ents, have been removed ; and it is also claimed that more rain falls
upon a section of country when it is timbered than after the land has
been cleared. The first of these reasons is undoubtedly correct, and
there is a great deal to show that the second is correct also, though I
do not think we know enough about the subject to justify us in stating,
as a scientific fact, that the amount of rainfall is affected by the growth
of timber.

I have never known the existence of the spruce " duff " to be recog-
nized, as a fact of any importance, in governing our water-supply during
dry seasons ; but, unless I am greatly in error, it is a matter of the
greatest importance, and the destruction of the " duff," with the de-
struction of the forests, will prove as damaging to our streams as the
increased evaporation caused by the greater exposure of the land to
the sun.

The waters from this immediate section of country flow into Lake
Champlain, and thence into the St. Lawrence River. The country
around the principal feeders of the Hudson River is almost identical
with the country described above^ and the same causes that affect the
water-supply of the Saranac and Ausable govern the water-supply of
the Hudson.

The water-supply of the Hudson is a matter of very great importance
to the people of New York, and any facts tending to throw light upon
the natural laws governing it should be received with interest by the
intelligent people whose health, comfort, and prosperity, are partially
dependent upon the quantity and purity of the water in this noble river.
Hundreds of square miles of the country upon whose drainage the Hud-
son is dependent for its supply of water is covered with this " spruce-
duff," which, in the early spring, is a solid body of ice, holding untold
millions of gallons of the purest water, to be slowly thawed out and
given up to this river during the summer. In many places, and in most
seasons, part of this ice lasts through the whole summer ; in most places
it lasts well into the summer, and even after the ice is gone the "duff"
absorbs and stores away the rain, and, like a prudent housewife with
her confections, gives up her treasures in such a way as not to injure
the health of her children with her lavishness, nor exhaust her larder
before a fresh supply can reasonably be expected.

29 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I am convinced that careful investigation will demonstrate that the
preservation of the " duff " is another and a very important reason why
the destruction of the forests around the head-waters of the Hudson
should be discontinued.

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT.

By HERBERT SPENCEE.
VI. FORMS OF ADDRESS.

WHAT the obeisance implies by acts, the form of address says in
words. If the two have a common root, this is to be antici-
pated ; and that they have a common root is demonstrable. Instances
occur in which the two are used indifferently, as being the one equiva-
lent to the other. Speaking of Poles and Slavonic Silesians, Captain
Spencer remarks:

"Perhaps no distinctive trait of manners more characterizes both than their
humiliating mode of acknowledging a kindness, their expression of gratitude
being the servile " Upadam do nog " (I fall at your feet), which is no figure of
speech, for they will literally throw themselves down and kiss your feet for the
trilling donation of a few halfpence."

Here, then, the attitude of the conquered man beneath the conqueror
is either actually assumed or verbally assumed ; and, when used, the
oral representation is a substitute for the realization in act. Other
cases show us words and deeds similarly associated: as when a Turkish
courtier, accustomed to make humble obeisances, addresses the sultan,
" Centre of the Universe ! Your slave's head is at your feet ; " or as
when a Siamese, whose servile prostrations occur daily, says to his
superior, "Lord Benefactor, at whose feet I am;" to a prince, "I the
sole of your foot ; " to the king, "la dust-grain at your sacred feet."
Still better when a Siamese attendant on the king says, " High and
excellent lord of me thy slave, I ask to take the royal commands, and
to place them on my brain, on the top of my head," we have verbally
indicated that absolutely-subject attitude in which the head is under
the victor's foot.

Nor are there wanting instances from nearer countries showing this
substitution of professed for performed obeisances. In Russia, even
in these days of moderated despotism, a petition begins with the words,
" So-and-so strikes his forehead " (on the ground) ; and petitioners are
called " forehead-strikers." At the court of France, as late as 1577, it
was the custom of some to say, " I kiss your grace's hands," and of
others to say, " I kiss your lordship's feet." Even at the present time
in Spain, where Orientalisms descending from the past still linger, we
read: "When you get up to take leave, if of a lady, you should say,

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. z9:

' My lady, I place myself at your feet ; ' to which she will reply, ' I kiss
your hand, sir.' "

From what has gone before, such origins and such characters of
forms of address might, indeed, be anticipated. Along with other
ways of propitiating the victor, the master, and the ruler, will naturally
come speeches which, beginning with confessions of defeat by verbal
assumption of its attitude, will develop into varied phrases acknowl-
edging the state of servitude. The implication, therefore, is that forms
of address in general, descending as they do from these originals, will
express, clearly or vaguely, ownership by, or subjection to, the person
addressed.

Of propitiatory speeches, there are some which, instead of describ-
ing the prostration entailed by defeat, describe the resulting state of
being at the mercy of the person addressed. One of the strangest of
these occurs among the cannibal Tupis. While on the one hand a
warrior shouts to his enemy, " May every misfortune come upon thee,
my meat ! " on the other hand the speech required from the captive
Hans Stade on approaching a dwelling was, " I, your food, have come."
A verbal surrender of life takes other forms in other places. It is
asserted that, during ancient times in Russia, petitions to the czar
commenced with the words, " Do not order our heads to be cut off, O
mighty lord, for presuming to address you, but hear us ! " And, though
I do not get direct verification for this statement, it receives indirect
support from the still-current sa}'ing, " Whoso goes to the czar risks
his head," as also from the lines —

"My soul is God's,
My land is mine,
My head's the Czar's,
My back is thine ! "

Then, again, instead of professing to live only by permission of the
superior, actual or pretended, who is spoken to, we find the speaker
professing to be personally a chattel of his, or to be holding property
at his disposal, or both. Africa, Polynesia, and Europe, furnish exam-
ples. " When a stranger enters the house of a Serracolet (inland ne-
gro), he goes out and says, ' White man, my house, my wife, my chil-
dren, belong to thee.' ' In the Sandwich Islands a chief, asked respect-
ing the ownership of a house or canoe possessed b}r him, replies, " It is
yours and mine." In France, in the fifteenth century, a complimentary
speech made by an abbe" on his knees to the queen when visiting a
monastery was, " We resign and offer up the abbey with all that is in
it, our bodies, as our goods." And at the present time in Spain, where
politeness requires that anything admired by a visitor shall be offered
to him, " the correct place of dating [a letter] from should be ... .
from this your house, wherever it is ; you must not say from this

294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

my house, as you mean to place it at the disposition of your corres-
pondent."

But these modes of addressing a real or fictitious superior, indirectly
asserting subjection to him in body and effects, are secondary in impor-
tance to the direct assertions of slavery and servitude ; which, begin-
ning in barbarous days, have persisted during civilization down to the
present time.

Biblical narratives have familiarized us with the word " servant," as
habitually applied to himself by a subject or inferior, when speaking
to a ruler or superior. In our days of freedom, the associations estab-
lished by daily habit have obscured the fact that " servant," as used in
translations of old records, means " slave " — implies the condition fallen
into by a captive taken in war. Consequently, when, as frequently in
the Bible, the phrases " thy servant " or " thy servants " are uttered
before a king, they must be taken to signify that same state of subju-
gation which is more circuitously signified by the phrases quoted in the
last section. Clearly this self-abasing word was employed, not by at-
tendants only, but by conquered peoples, and by subjects at large ; as
we see when the unknown David, addressing Saul, describes both him-
self and his father as Saul's servants. And kindred uses of the word to
rulers have continued down to modern times.

Very early, however, professions of servitude, originally made only
to one of supreme authority, came to be made to those of subordinate
authority. Brought before Joseph in Egypt, and fearing him, his
brethren call themselves his servants or slaves ; and not only so, but
speak of their father as standing in a like relation to him. Moreover,
there is evidence that this form of address extended to the intercourse
between equals, where a favor was to be gained ; as witness Judges
xix. 19. How among European peoples a like diffusion has taken place,
need not be shown further than by exemplifying some of the stages.
Among French courtiers in the sixteenth century it was common to
say, " I am your servant and the perpetual slave of your house ; " and
among ourselves in past times there were used such indirect expressions
of servitude as — " Yours to command," " Ever at your worship's dis-
posing," " In all serviceable humbleness," etc. While in our days,
rarely made orally save in irony, such forms have left only their written
representatives — " Your obedient servant," " Your humble servant : "
mostly reserved for occasions when distance is to be maintained, and
for this reason often having inverted meanings.

That for religious purposes the same propitiatory words are used, is
a familiar truth. In Hebrew history men are described as servants of
God, just as they are described as servants of the king. Neighboring
peoples are said to serve their respective deities just as slaves are said
to serve their masters. And there are sundry cases in which these rela-
tions to the visible ruler and to the invisible ruler are expressed in par-

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT.

295

allel ways ; as where we read that " the king hath fulfilled the request
of his servant," and elsewhere that " the Lord hath redeemed his ser-
vant Jacob." Hence, as now used in worship, the expression " thy ser-
vant " has a history parallel to the histories of all other elements of
religious ceremonial.

And here, perhaps, better than elsewhere, may be noted the fact
that the phrase " thy son," used to a ruler, or superior, or other person,
is originally equivalent to " thy servant." When we remember that in
the rudest societies children exist only on sufferance of their parents,
and that in patriarchal groups, whence the civilized societies of Europe
have descended, the father had life and death power over his children,
we see that professing to be another's son was like professing to be his
servant or slave. There are ancient instances showing us the equiva-
lence ; as when " Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser, King of As-
syria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son : come up, and save me."
And we are not without more modern instances, furnished by those
mediaeval times when, as we have seen, rulers offered themselves for
adoption by more powerful rulers : so assuming the condition of filial
servitude and calling themselves sons ; as did Theodebert I. and Chil-
debert II. to the Emperors Justinian and Maurice. Nor does there lack
evidence that in some places this expression of subordination spreads
like the rest, until it becomes a complimentary form of speech. " A
Samoan cannot use more persuasive language than to call himself the
son of the person addressed."

From those complimentary phrases which express abasement of self,
we pass to those which exalt another person. Either kind taken alone
is a confession of relative inferiority ; and this confession becomes the
more emphatic when the two kinds are joined, as they ordinarily are.

At first it does not seem likely that words of eulogy may, like other
propitiations, be traced back to the behavior of the conquered to the
conqueror ; but we are not without proof that they do thus originate,
certainly in some cases. To the victorious Rameses II. his defeated
foes preface their prayers for mercy by the laudatory words — " Prince
guarding thy army, valiant with the sword, bulwark of his troops in
day of battle, king mighty of strength, great Sovran, Sun powerful in
truth, approved of Ra, mighty in victories, Rameses Miamon." Ob-
viously there is no separation between such praises uttered by the van-
quished and those subsequently coming from them as a permanently-
subjugated people, or those commonly made by subjects to their mili-
tant and despotic rulers. We pass without break to glorifying words
like those addressed to the King of Siam — " Mighty and august lord !
Divine Mercy!" "The Divine Order!" "The Master of Life!"
" Sovereign of the Earth ! " etc. : or like those addressed to the sultan
— " The Shadow of God ! " " Glory of the Universe ! " or like those ad-
dressed to the Chinese Emperor — " Son of Heaven ! " " The Lord of

296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Ten Thousand Years ! " or like those some two years since addressed by
the Bulgarians to the Emperor of Russia — " O blessed Czar ! " " Bliss-
ful Czar ! " " Orthodox powerful Czar ! " or like those with which, in
the past, speeches to the French monarch commenced — " O very be-
nign ! O very great ! O very merciful ! " And then along with these
propitiations by direct flattery there go others in which the flattery is
indirectly conveyed by affected admiration of whatever the ruler says :
as when the courtiers of the King of Delhi held up their hands, crying,
" Wonder, wonder ! " after any ordinary speech : or in broad day, if he
said it was night, responded, " Behold the moon and the stars ! " or as
when Russians in past times exclaimed, " God and the prince have
willed ! " " God and the prince know ! "

Eulogistic phrases, first thus used to supreme men, of course descend
to men in less authority, and so downward. Illustrations are supplied
by those current in France during the sixteenth century — to a cardinal,
" the very illustrious and very reverend ; " to a bishop, " the very rev-
erend and very illustrious ; " to a duke, " the very illustrious and very
reverend lord, my much-honored master ; " to a marquis, " my very
illustrious and much-honored lord ; " to a doctor, " the virtuous and ex-
cellent." And from our own past days may be added such compliment-
ary forms of address to those of lower rank as — " the right worshipful,"
to knights and sometimes to esquires ; " the right noble," " the honor-
able-minded," used to gentlemen ; and, even to aldermen and men ad-
dressed as Mr., such laudatory prefixes as " the worthy and worshipful,"
" the worshipfull, vertuous, and most worthy." Along with flattering
epithets there spread flatteries more involved in form, especially ob-
servable in the East, where both are extreme. On a Chinese invitation-
card the compliment, gravely addressed to an ordinary person, is — "To
what an elevation of splendor will your presence assist us to rise ! "
Tavernier, from whom I have quoted the above example of scarcely
credible flattery from the court of Delhi, adds, " This vice passeth even
unto the people ; " and, instancing the way in which he was himself
classed with ancient men of the most transcendent powers, adds. that
even his military attendant, compared to the greatest of conquerors, was
described as making the world tremble when he mounted his horse : a
description harmonizing with the instance Mr. Roberts gives of Oriental
compliment to an ordinary person — " My lord, there are only two who
can do anything for me : God is the first, and you are the second."

On reading that in Tavernier's time a usual expression in the East
was__« Let the king's will be done," recalling the parallel expression —
" Let God's will be done," we are reminded that various of the glorify-
ing speeches addressed to kings are identical with those addressed to
deities. Where the militant type is highly developed, and where
divinity is ascribed to the monarch, not only after death but before, as
of old in Egypt and Peru, and as now in Japan, China, and Siam, it
naturally results that the words of eulogy addressed to the visible ruler

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 297

and the ruler who has become invisible are substantially the same.
Having reached the extreme of hyperbole to the king when living, they
cannot go further to the king when dead and deified. And the sub-
stantial identity thus initiated continues through subsequent stages
with deities whose origins are no longer traceable.

Into the complete obeisance we saw that there enter two elements,
one implying submission and the other implying liking ; and into the
complete form of address there enter two analogous elements. With
words which seek to propitiate by abasing self or elevating the person
addressed, or both, are joined words suggestive of attachment to the
person addressed — wishes for his life, health, and happiness.

Professions of interest in another's well-being and good fortune are,
indeed, of earlier origin than professions of subjection. Just as those
huggings and kissings and pattings which indicate liking are used as
complimentary observances by ungoverned or little-governed savages,
who have no obeisances that signify submission, so friendly speeches
precede speeches alleging subordination. Among the Snake Indians
of North America, a stranger is accosted with the words, " I am much
pleased, I am much rejoiced ; " and in South America, among the Arau-
canians, whose social organization, though more advanced, has not yet
been developed by militancy into the coercive type, the formality on
meeting, which " occupies ten or fifteen minutes," consists of detailed
inquiries about the welfare of each and his belongings, joined with
elaborate felicitations and condolences.

Of course this element of the salutation persists while there grow
up the acts and phrases expressing subjection. Along with servile
obeisances we saw that good wishes and congratulations are ad-
dressed to a superior among negro nations, alike of the coast and the
interior ; and among the Fulahs and the Abyssinians inquiries con-
cerning personal welfare and the welfare of belongings are elaborate.
It is in Asia, however, where militant types of society are more
highly .developed, that the highest developments of these speeches
occur. Beginning with such hyperbolic utterances as — " O king, live
forever ! " we descend to addresses between equals which, in like
exaggerated ways, signify great sympathy; as among the ( Arabs,
who indicate their anxiety by rapidly repeating, " Thank God, how
are you ? " for some minutes, and who, when well-bred, occasionally
interrupt the subsequent conversation by again asking, " How are
you ? " or as among the Chinese, who thus directly assert their affec-
tion, on an ordinary visiting billet presented to the porter when
making a call, "The tender and sincere friend of your lordship, and
the perpetual disciple of your doctrine, presents himself to pay his
duty and make his reverence even to the earth." Among Western
peoples, in whose social organizations personal power has never
reached so great a height, professions of liking and solicitude have

29S THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

been less exaggerated ; and they have decreased as freedom has in-
creased. In the fourteenth century, in France, at the royal table,
" every time the herald cried, ' The king drinks ! ' every one made
vceux and cried, 'Long live the king!'" And, though both abroad
and at home the same or an allied form of wish is still used, it recurs
with nothing like the same frequency. So, too, is it with the good
wishes expressed in social intercourse. Though the exclamation,
" Long life to your honor!" may still be heard, it is heard among a
race who, till late times under personal rule, are even now greatly
controlled by their loyalty to representatives of old families ; while in
parts of the kingdom longer emancipated from feudal forms, and disci-
plined by industrialism, the ordinary expressions of interest, abridged
to " How do you do ? " and " Good-by," are uttered in a manner that
conveys not much more feeling than is entertained. It is interesting
to note that along with these phrases, very generally diffused, in which
divine aid is invoked on behalf of the person saluted — as in the " May
God grant you his favors " of the Arab, " God keep you well " of the
Hungarian, " God protect you " of the negro ; and along with those
which express interest by inquiries after state of health and strength
and fortune, which are also wide-spread — there are some which take
their character from surrounding conditions. One is the Oriental
" Peace be with you," descending from turbulent times when peace
was the great desideratum; another is the " How do you perspire ? "
alleged of the Egyptians ; and a still more curious one is, " How have
the mosquitoes used you ? " which, according to Humboldt, is the
morning salutation on the Orinoco.

There remain to be noted those modifications of language, gram-
matical and other, which, by implication, exalt the person addressed or
abase the person addressing. These have certain analogies with other
elements of ceremony. We have seen that, where subjection is ex-
treme, the ruler, if he does not keep himself invisible, must, when
present, not be looked at, on pain of death ; and, from the idea that it
is an unpardonable liberty to gaze at an exalted person, there has
arisen in some countries the usage of turning the back on a superior.
Similarly the practice of kissing the ground before a reverenced person,
or kissing some object belonging to him, implies that the subject
person is so remote in station that he may not take the liberty of
kissing even the foot or the dress. And in a kindred spirit the linguis-
tic forms used in compliment have, in part, the trait that they avoid
direct relations with the person addressed.

Special modifications of language, having, as their common result,
the maintenance of a distance between superiors and inferiors, are
widely diffused, and make their appearance in some comparatively
early social stages. Of the superior people among the Abipones we
read that " the names of men belonging to this class end in in / those

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 299

of the women, who also partake of these honors, in en. These sylla-
bles you must add even to substantives and verbs in talking with
them." Again, " the Samoan language contains ' a distinct and per-
manent vocabulary of words which politeness requires to be made use
of to superiors, or on occasions of ceremony.' " Among the Javans,
"on no account is any one, of whatever rank, allowed to address his
superior in the common or vernacular language of the country." And
of the ancient Mexican language we are told by Gallantin that there is
"a special form called Reverential, which pervades the whole language,
and is found in no other. . . . this is believed to be the only one
[language] in which every word uttered by the inferior reminds him of
his social position."

The most general of the indirectnesses which etiquette introduces
into forms of address appears to have its root in the primitive super-
stition respecting proper names. Conceiving that a man's name forms
part of his individuality, and that possession of his name gives some
power over him, savages almost everywhere are reluctant to disclose
names, and consequently avoid that use of them in speech by which
they are made known to hearers. Whether this is the sole cause, or
whether, apart from this, utterance of a man's name is felt to be a kind
of liberty taken with him, the fact is that among all races names
acquire a kind of sacredness, and taking a name in vain is interdicted:
especially to inferiors when addressing superiors. One curious result
is that, as, in early stages, personal names are derived from objects, the
names of objects have to be disused and others substituted. Among
the Caffres " a wife may not publicly pronounce the i-gama [the name
given at birth] of her husband or any of his brothers ; nor may she use
the interdicted word in its ordinary sense. . . . The chief's i-gama is
withdrawn from the language of his people." Again, " the hereditary
appellation of the chief of Pango-Pango [in Samoa] being now Maunga,
or Mountain, that word must never be used for a hill in his presence,
but a courtly term . . . substituted." And then, where there exist
proper names of a developed kind, there are still kindred restrictions
on the general use of them ; as in Siam, where " the name of the king
must not be uttered by a subject : he is always referred to by a peri-
phrasis, such as ' the master of life,' ' the lord of the land,' ' the supreme
head;' " and as in China, where "the 'old man of the house,' 'excel-
lent honorable one,' and ' venerable great prince,' are terms used by a
visitor to designate the father of his host."

Allied with avoidance of the proper name in addressing a superior,
there is, as sundry of the above instances show, avoidance of the per-
sonal pronouns ; which also establish with the individual addressed a
relation too direct to be allowed where distance is to be maintained.
In Siam, as already exemplified, when asking the king's commands the
pronominal form is, as much as possible, evaded ; and that this usage is
general among the Siamese is shown by the remark of Pere Bruguiere,

3oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that " they have personal pronouns, but rarely use them." Among the
Chinese, also, this style of address descends into ordinary intercourse.
" If they are not intimate friends, they never say I and You, which
would be a gross incivility. But instead of saying, I am very sensible
of the service you have done me, they will say, The service that the
Lord or the Doctor has done for his meanest Servant, or his Scholar,
has greatly affected me."

We come next to those perversions in the uses of pronouns which
serve to exalt the superior and abase the inferior. " * I ' and ' me ' are
expressed by several terms in Siamese ; as (1) between a master and
slave ; (2) between a slave and master ; (3) between a commoner and
a nobleman ; (4) between persons of equal rank ; while there is, lastly,
a form of address which is only used by the priests." Still more devel-
oped is this system among the excessively ceremonious Japanese. " In
Japan all classes have an ' I ' peculiar to themselves, which no other
class may use ; and there is one exclusively appropriated by the Mi-
kado . . . and one confined to women. . . . There are eight pronouns
of the second person peculiar to servants, pupils, and children." Though
in the West the distinctions established by abusing pronominal forms
have not been so much elaborated, yet they have been sufficiently
marked. In Germany " in old times ... all inferiors were spoken to
in the third person singular, as ' er ' : " that is, an oblique form by which
the inferior was not directly addressed, but merely referred to, as
though in speaking to another person served to disconnect him from
the speaker. And then we have the converse fact that " inferiors in-
variably use the third person plural in addressing their superiors: " a
form which, while dignifying the superior by pluralization, increases
the distance of the inferior by its relative indirectness ; and a form
which, beginning as a propitiation of those in power, has, like the rest,
spread till it has become a general propitiation. In our own speech,
lacking such misuse of pronouns as serves to humiliate, there exists
only that substitution of the " you " for the " thou," which, once a
complimentary exaltation, has now by diffusion through all ranks wholly
lost its ceremonial meaning. Evidently it retained some ceremonial
meaning at the time when the Quakers persisted in using " thou ; "
and that in still earlier times it was employed to ascribe dignity is
inferable from the fact that during the Merovingian period in France,
when the habit was but partially established, the kings ordered that
they should be addressed in the plural. Whoever fails to think that
calling him " you " once served to exalt the person addressed, will be
aided by contemplating this perversion of speech in its primitive and
more emphatic shape ; as in Samoa, where they say to a chief, " Have
you two come ? " or, " Are you two going ? "

Since the}' state in words what obeisances express by acts, forms of
address, of course, have the same general relations to social types. The
parallelisms must be brieflv noted.

EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 30 1

Speaking of the Dakotas, who are politically unorganized, and who
had not even nominal chiefs till the whites began to make distinctions
among them, Burton says, " Ceremony and manners, in our sense of
the word, they have none ; " and he instances the entrance of a Dakota
into a stranger's house with a mere exclamation meaning " Well ! ''
Bailey remarks of the Veddahs, that in addressing others " they use
none of the honorifics so profusely common in Singhalese ; the pronoun
' to,'' ' thou,' being alone used, whether they are addressing each other,
or those whose position would entitle them to outward respect."
These cases will sufficiently indicate the general fact that where there
is no subordination, speeches wThich exalt the person spoken to and
abase the person speaking do not arise. Conversely, where personal
government is absolute, verbal self-humiliations and verbal exaltations
of others assume exaggerated forms. Communities such as we find in
Siam, where every subject is a slave of the king, are those in which the
inferior calls himself dust under the feet of the superior, while ascribing
to the superior transcendent powers, and where the forms of address,
even between equals, avoid naming the person addressed. It is in
social organizations like that of China, where there is no check on the
power of the " Imperial Supreme," that the phrases of adulation and
humility, first used in intercourse with rulers and afterward spreading,
have elaborated to such extremes that in inquiring another's name the
form is, " May I presume to ask what is your noble surname and your
eminent name ? " while the reply is, " The name of my cold (or poor)

family is , and my ignoble name is ." Or, again, if we ask

where occur the most elaborate misuses of pronouns initiated by cere-
mony, we find them among the Japanese, over whom chronic wars long
ago established a despotism which acquired divine prestige.

So, too, on comparing the Europe of past times, characterized by
social structures developed by, and fitted for, perpetual fighting, with
modern Europe, in which, though fighting on a large scale occurs, it is
the temporary rather than the permanent form of social activity, we
observe that complimentary expressions, now less used, are also less
exaggerated. Nor does the contrast fail when we put side by side the
modern European societies that are organized in greater degree for war,
like those of the Continent, and our own society, not so well organized
for war ; or when we put side by side the regulative parts of our own
society, which are developed by militancy, with the industrial parts.
Flattering superlatives and expressions of devotion are less profuse
here than they are abroad ; and, much as the use of complimentary lan-
guage has diminished among our ruling classes in recent times, there
still remains a greater use of it than among the industrial classes — es-
pecially those of the industrial classes who have no direct relations with
the ruling classes.

These connections are obviously, like previous ones, necessary.
Should any one say that along with the enforced obedience which mili-

3o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tary organization implies, and which characterizes the whole of a society
framed for military action, there naturally go forms of address not ex-
pressing submission, and if, conversely, he should say that along with
the active exchanging of produce, money, services, etc., freely carried
on, which characterizes the life of an industrial society, there naturally
go exaggerated eulogies of others and servile depreciations of self, his
proposition would be manifestly absurd ; and the absurdity of this hy-
pothetical proposition serves to bring into view the truth of the actual
proposition opposed to it.

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE.1

By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL.D.,

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

IV.

IN education there has to be encountered at every turn the play of
motives. Now, the theory of motives is the theory of sensation,
emotion, and will ; in other words, it is the psychology of the sensitive
and the active powers.

1. The Senses. — The pleasures, the pains, and the privations of the
senses, are the earliest and the most unfailing, if not also the strongest,
of motives. Besides their bearings on self-preservation, they are a
principal standing dish in life's feast.

It is when the senses are looked at on the side of feeling, or as
pleasure and pain, that the defectiveness of the current classification
into five is most evident. For, although, in the point of view of
knowledge or intellect, the five senses are the really important ap-
proaches to the mind, yet, in the view of feeling or pleasure and pain,
the omission of the varied organic susceptibility leaves a wide gap in
the handling of the subject. Some of our very strongest pleasures and
pains grow out of the region of organic life — the digestion, circulation,
respiration, muscular and nervous integrity or derangement.

In exerting influence over human beings this department of sensi-
bility is a first resource. It can be counted on with more certainty
than perhaps any other. Indeed, almost all the punishments of a pure-
ly physical kind fall within the domain of the organic sensations. What
is it that makes punishment formidable, but its threatening the very
vitals of the system ? It is the lower degree of what, in a higher de-
gree, takes away life.

For example, the muscular system is the seat of a mass of sensi-
bility, pleasurable and painful : the pleasures of healthy exercise, the

1 Continued from The Popular Science Monthly of August, 1877.

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 303

pains of privation of exercise, and the pains of extreme fatigue. In
early life, when all the muscles, as well as the senses, are fresh, the
muscular organs are very largely connected both with enjoyment and
with suffering. To accord full scope to the activity of the fresh organs
is a gratification that may take the form of a rich reward ; to refuse
this scope is the infliction of misery ; to compel exercise beyond the
limits of the powers is still greater misery. Our penal discipline adopts
the two forms of pain : in the milder treatment of the young, the irk-
someness of restraint ; in the severe methods with the full-grown, the
torture of fatigue.

Again, the nervous system is subject to organic depression ; and
certain of our pains are due to this cause. The well-known state de-
nominated " tedium " is nervous uneasiness ; and is caused by undue
exercise of any portion of the nervous system. In its extreme forms
it is intolerable wretchedness. It is the suffering caused by penal im-
positions or tasks, by confinement, and by monotony of all kinds. The
acute sufferings of the nervous system, as growing out of natural causes,
are represented by neuralgic pains. It is in graduated artificial inflic-
tions, operating directly on the nerves by means of electricity, that we
may look for the physical punishments of the future, that are to dis-
place floggings and muscular torture.

The interests of nourishment, as against privation of food, are
necessarily bound up with a large volume of enjoyment and suffering.
Starvation, deficiency and inferiority of food, are connected with de-
pression and misery of the severest kind ; inspiring the dread that most
effectually stimulates human beings to work, to beg, or to steal. The
obverse condition of a rich and abundant diet is in itself an almost suffi-
cient basis of enjoyment. The play of motives between those extremes
enables us to put forth an extensive sway over human conduct.

An instructive distinction may be made between privation and hun-
ger ; likewise between their opposites. Privation is the positive defi-
ciency of nourishing material in the blood ; hunger is the craving of
the stomach at its usual times of being supplied, and is a local sensi-
bility, perhaps very acute, but not marked by the profound wretched-
ness of inanition. There may be plenty of material to go on with, al-
though we are suffering from stomachic hunger. Punishing, for once,
by the loss of a meal out of the three or four in the day, is unimportant
as regards the general vigor, yet very telling as a motive. Absolutely
to diminish the available nutriment of the system is a measure of great
severity ; to inflict a pending hunger is not the same thing.

When we unite the acute pleasures of the palate with stomachic
relish and the exhilaration of abundance of food-material in a healthy
frame, we count up a large mass of pleasurable sensibility. Between
the lowest demands of subsistence and the highest luxuries of affluent
means there is a great range, available as an instrumentality of control
in the discipline of the young. The usual regimen being something

304 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

considerably above necessaries, and yet beneath the highest pitch of
indulgence, room is given to operate both by reduction and by increase
of luxury, without either mischief or pampering; and, the sensibility in
early years being very keen in those heads, the motive power is great.
Having in view the necessities of discipline with the young, the habitual
regimen in food should be pitched neither too low nor too high to per-
mit of such variations. It is the misfortune of poverty that this means
of influence is greatly wanting ; the next lower depth to the delinquent
child is the application of the stick.

These are the chief departments of organic sensibility that contain
the motives made use of in reward and punishment. The inflictions of
caning and flogging operate upon the organ of the sense of touch, yet,
in reality, the effect is one to be classed among the pains of organic life,
rather than among tactile sensations ; it is a pain resulting from injury
or violence to the tissue in the first instance, and if carried far is de-
structive of life. Like all physical acute pains it is a powerful deterring
influence, and is doubtless the favorite punishment of every age and
every race of mankind. The limitations to its use demand a rigorous
handling ; but the consideration of these is mixed up with motives .af-
terward to be adverted to.

The ordinary five senses contain, in addition to their intellectual
functions, many considerable sensibilities to pleasure and pain. The
pleasures can be largely made use of as incentives to conduct. The
pains might of course be also employed in the same way ; but with the
exceptions already indicated they very rarely are. We do not punish
by bad odors, nor by bitter tastes. Harsh and grating sounds may be
very torturing, but they are not used in discipline. The pains of sight
reach the highest acuteness, but as punishment they are found only in
the most barbarous codes.

Postponing a review of the principles of punishment generally, we
approach the most perplexing department of motives — the higher Emo-
tions. Few of the simple sensational effects are obtained in purity,
that is, without the intermingling of emotions.

2. The Emotions. — One large department of psychology is made up
of the classification, definition, and analysis of the Emotions. The ap-
plications of a complete theory of Emotion are numerous, and the sys-
tematic expansion must be such as to cope with all these applications.
We here narrow the subject to what is indispensable for the play of
motives in education.

First of all, it is necessary to take note of the large region of So-
ciability, comprising the social emotions and affections. Next is the
department of Anti-social feeling — Anger, Malevolence, and Lust of
Domination. Taking both the sources and the ramifications of these
two leading groups, we cover perhaps three-fourths of all the sensibility
that rises above the senses proper. They do not indeed exhaust the
fountains of emotion, but they leave no other that can rank as of first-

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 305

class importance, except through derivation from them and the senses
together.

The region of Fine Art comprises a large compass of pleasurable
feeling, with corresponding susceptibilities to pain ; some of- this is
sensation proper, being the pleasures of the two higher senses ; some
is due to associations with the interests of all the senses (Beauty of
Utility) ; a certain portion may be called Intellectual, the perception
of unity in variety ; while the still largest share appears to be derived
from the two great sources above described.

The Intellect generally is a source of various gratifications and also
of sufferings that are necessarily mixed up with our intellectual educa-
tion. Both the delights of attained knowledge and the pains of intel-
lectual labor have to be carefully counted with by every instructor.

The pleasures of Action or Activity are a class greatly pressed into
the educational service, and therefore demand special consideration.

The names Self-Esteem, Pride, Vanity, Love of Praise, express
powerful sentiments, whose analysis is attended with much subtilty.
They are largely appealed to by every one that has to exercise control
over human beings. To gratify them is to impart copious pleasure, to
thwart or wound them is to inflict corresponding pain.

Mention has not yet been made of one genus of emotion, formidable
as a source of pain, and as a motive to activity, namely, Fear or Terror.
Only in the shape of reaction or relief is it a source of pleasure. The
skillful management of this sensibility has much to do with the efficient
control of all sentient creatures, and still more with the saving of gra-
tuitous misery.

Our rapid review of these various sources of emotion, together with
others of a minor kind, proposes to deal once for all, and in the best
manner, with the various educational questions that turn upon the oper-
ation of motives. We shall have to remark upon prevailing exaggera-
tions on some heads and the insufficient stress laid on others ; and shall
endeavor to unfold in just proportions the entire compass of our emo-
tional susceptibilities available for the purposes of the teacher.

3. The Emotiox of Tekkor. — The state of mind named Terror or
Fear is described shortly as a state of extreme misery and depression,
prostrating the activity and causing exaggeration of ideas in whatever
is related to it, It is an addition to pain pure and simple — the pain of
a present infliction. It is roused by the foretaste or prospect of evil,
especially if that is great in amount, and still more if it is of uncertain
nature.

As far as education is concerned, terror is an incident of the in-
fliction of punishment. We may work by the motive of .evil without
producing the state of terror, as when the evil is slight and well
defined ; a small understood privation, a moderate dose of irksome-
ness, may be salutary and preventive, without any admixture of the
quakings and misery of fear. A severe infliction in prospect will in-

VOL. xiii. — 20

306 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

duce fear ; the more so that the subject does not know how severe it is
to be.

In the higher moral education, the management of the passion of
fear is of the greatest consequence. The evils of operating by means
of it are so great that it should be reserved for the last resort. The
waste of energy and the scattering of the thoughts are ruinous to the
interests of mental progress. The one certain result is to paralyze and
arrest action, or else to concentrate force in some single point, at the
cost of general debility. The tyrant, working by terror, disarms rebel-
liousness, but fails to procure energetic service, while engendering ha-
tred and preparing for his overthrow.

The worst of all modes and instruments of discipline is the employ-
ment of spiritual, ghostly, or superstitious terrors. Unless it were to
scourge and thwart the greatest of criminals — the disturbers of the
peace of mankind — hardly anything justifies the terrors of superstition.
On a small scale, we know what it is to frighten children with ghosts ;
on a larger scale is the influence of religions dealing almost exclusively
in the fear of another life.

Like the other gross passions, terror admits of being refined upon
and toned down, till it becomes simply a gentle stimulation; and the
reaction more than makes up for the misery. The greatest efforts in
this direction are found in the artistic handling of fear, as in the sym-
pathetic fears of tragedy, and in the passing terrors of a well-con-
structed plot. In the moral bearings of the emotions, its refined modes
are shown in the fear of giving pain or offense to one that we love,
respect, or venerate. There may be a considerable degree of the de-
pressing element even in this situation ; yet the effect is altogether
wholesome and ennobling. All superiors should aspire to be feared in
this manner.

Timidity, or susceptibility to fear, is one of the noted differences of
character; and this difference is to be taken into account in discipline.
The absence of general vigor, bodily and mental, is marked by timidity ;
and the state may also be the result of long bad usage, and of per-
verted views of the world. In the way of culture, or of high exertion
in any form, little is to be expected from thoroughly timid natures ;
they can be easily governed, so far as concerns sins of commission, but
their omissions are not equally remediable.

The conquest of superstitious fears is one of the grandest objects of
education taken in its widest compass. It cannot be accomplished by
any direct inculcation ; it is one of the incidental and most beneficial
results of the exact study of Nature — in other words, science.

4. The Social Motives. — This is perhaps the most extensive and
the least involved of all the emotional influences at work in education.

The pleasures of love, affection, mutual regard, sympathy, or socia-
bility, make up the foremost satisfaction of human life ; and as such
are a standing object of desire, pursuit, and fruition. Sociability is a

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 307

wholly distinct fact from the prime supports of existence and the pleas-
ures of the five senses, and is not, in my opinion, resolvable into those,
however deeply we may analyze it, or however far back we may trace
the historical evolution of the mind. Nevertheless, as the supports of
life, and the pure sense agreeables and exemptions, come to us in great
part through the medium of fellow-beings, the value of the social re-
gards receives from this cause an enormous augmentation, and, in the
total, counts for one paramount object of human solicitude. It would
appear strange if this motive could ever be overlooked by the educator,
or by any one ; yet there are theories and methods that treat it as of
inferior account.

The vast aggregate of social feeling is made up of the intenser ele-
ments of sexual and parental love, and the select attachments in the
way of friendship, together with the more diffused sentiments toward
the masses of human beings. The motive power of the feelings in edu-
cation may be well exemplified in the intense examples ; we can see in
these both the merits and defects of the social stimulus. The " Phse-
drus " of Plato is a remarkable ideal picture of the study of philosophy
prompted by Eros, in the Grecian form of attachment. The ordinary
love of the sexes, in our time, does not furnish many instances of the
mutual striving after high culture; it may be left out of account in the
theory of early education. We frequently find mothers applying to
studies that they feel no personal attraction for, in order to assist in
the progress of their children. This is much better than nothing ; a
secondary end may be the initiation and discovery of a taste that at
last is self-subsisting.

The intense emotions, from the very fact of their intensity, are un-
suited to the promptings of severe culture. The hardest studious work,
the laying of foundations, should be over, before the flame of sexual
and parental passion is kindled ; when this is at its height the intellect-
ual power is in abeyance, or else diverted from its regular course. The
mutual influence of two lovers is not educative for want of the proper
conditions. No doubt considerable efforts are inspired; but there is
seldom sufficient elevation of view on the one side, or sufficient adapta-
bility on the other, to make the mutual influence what Plato and the
romancists conceive as possible. By very different and inferior com-
pliances on both sides, the feeling maybe kept alive ; if more is wanted,
it dies away.

The favorable conjunction for study and mental culture in general
is friendship between two, or a small number, each naturally smitten
with the love of knowledge for its own sake, and basing their attach-
ment on that circumstance. A certain amount of mutual liking in
other respects perfects the relationship ; but the overpowering sensuous
regards of the Platonic couple do not furnish the requisite soil for high
culture. As a matter of fact, those attachments, as they existed in
Greece, prompted to signal instances of self-devotion in the form of

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

surrendering worldly goods and life itself; and this is the highest fruit
that they have yielded in later times.

The remaining aspect of sociability — the influence of the general
multitude — holds out the most powerful and permanent motive to con-
duct, and is largely felt in education. In the presence of an assembly
the individual is roused, agitated, swayed ; the thrill of numbers is elec-
tric ; in whatever direction the influence tends, it is almost irresistible.
Any effort made in the sight of a host is totally altered in character ;
and all impressions are very much deepened.

Having in view this ascendency of numbers, we can make a step
toward computing the efficacy of class-teaching, public schools, and
institutions where great multitudes are brought together. The power
exercised is of a mixed character and the several elements admit of
being singled out. The social motive, in its pure form of gregarious
attraction and mutual sympathy, does not stand alone. Supposing it
did, the effect would be to supply a strong stimulus in favor of every-
thing that was supported by common consent ; the individual would be
urged to attain the level of the mass. The drill of a regiment of soldiers
corresponds very nearly to this situation; every man is under the eye
of the whole, and aspires to be what the rest are and not much, if
anything, beyond ; the sympathetic cooperation of the mass, guides,
stimulates, and rewards the exertion of the individual. Even if it were
the destination of a soldier to act as an isolated individual, still his
education would be most efficaciously conducted in the mass system,
being finished off by a certain amount of separate exercise to prepare
for the detached or independent position.

In every kind of education in classes, the social feeling, in the
pure form now assumed, is frequently operative, and the results are as
stated. The tendency is to secure a certain approved level of attain-
ment .- those that are disinclined of themselves to work up to that level
are pushed on by the influence of the mass. If there were no other
strong passions called out in society, the general result would be a
kind of communism or socialism characterized by mediocrity and dead
level ; everything correct up to a certain point, but no individual supe-
riority or distinction.

The influence of society as the dispenser of collective good and evil
things, in addition to its operation in the affections and sympathies, is
necessarily all-powerful in every direction. If this stimulus were always
to coincide with high mental culture, the effect would be something
that the imagination hardly dares to shadow forth. It is, however, a
power that may be propitiated by many different means, including
shams and evasions, and the bearing upon culture is only occasional.
Nevertheless, the social rewards have often served to foster the high-
est genius — the oratory of Demosthenes, and the poetry of Horace and
Virgil — a form of genius notoriously allied with toil and perseverance
of the most arduous kind. The same influence, working by clisappro-

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 309

bation and approbation combined, is, as I contend, the principal gen-
erating source of the ordinary moral sentiments of mankind, and the
inspiration of exceptional virtues.

5. The Anti-social and Malign Emotions. — The emotions of
Anger, Hatred, Antipathy, Rivalry, Contumely, have reference to other
beings, no less than Love or Affection, but in an opposite way. In spite
of the painful incidents in their manifestation — the offense in the first
instance, and the dangers of reprisal — they are a source of immediate
pleasure, often not inferior, and sometimes superior, in amount to the
pleasures of amity and gregarious cooperation. In numerous instances
people are willing to forego social and sympathetic delights to indulge
in the pleasures of malignity.

In the work of discipline the present class of emotions occasions
much solicitude. They can in certain ways be turned to good account;
but, for the larger part, the business of the educator and the moralist
is to counterwork them as being fraught with unalloyed evil.

Being a fitful or explosive passion, anger should, as far as possible,
be checked or controlled in the young; but there are no adequate
means, short of the very highest influence of the parent or teacher.
The restraint induced by the presence of a dread superior at the time
does not sink deep enough to make a habit ; opportunities are sought
and found to vent the passion with safety. The cultivation of the sym-
pathies and affections is what alone copes with angry passion, both as
a disturber of equanimity and as the prompter of wrong. The obverse
of ill-temper is the disposition that thinks less of harm done to self
and more of harm done to other people ; and, if we can do any-
thing to foster this disposition, we reduce the sphere of malignant
passion. The collateral incentives to suppress angry passion include,
besides the universal remedy of disaprobation, an appeal to the sense
of personal dignity and to the baneful consequences of passionate
outbursts.

The worst form of malignant feeling is cold and deliberate delight
in cruelty; all too frequent, especially in the young. The torturing of
animals, of weak and defenseless human beings, is the spontaneous out-
flow of the perennial fountain of malevolence. This has to be checked,
if need be, at the expense of considerable severity. The inflictions
practised on those that are able to recriminate, generally find their own
remedy ; and the discipline of consequences is as effectual as any. By
having to fight our equals, we are taught to regulate our wrathful and
cruel propensities.

The intense pleasure of victory contains the sweetness of malevo-
lence, heightened by some other ingredients. The prostration and
destruction of an enemy or a rival is, no doubt, the primary situation
where malevolent impulses had their rise ; and it continues to be, per-
haps, the very strongest stimulant of the human energies. Notwith-
standing its several drawbacks, we are obliged to give it a place among

3io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

motives to study and mental advancement. In the fight and struggle
of party contests the pleasure of victory enters in full flavor ; and in
the competitions at school the same motive is at work.

The social problem of restraining individuals in their selfish grasp-
ing of good things — the mere agreeables and exemptions of the senses
— is rendered still more intractable by the craving for the smack of
malevolent gratification. Total repression has been found impossible ;
and ingenuity has devised a number of outlets that are more or less
compatible with the sacredness of mutual rights.

One chief outlet for the malevolent impulses is the avenging of
wrong, whether private or public. A convicted wrong-doer is punished
by the law, and the indignation roused by the crime turns to gratification
at the punishment. In the theory of penal retribution some allowance
is claimed for the vindictive satisfaction of the public. To think only
of the prevention of crime, and the reformation of criminals, and sup-
pressing all resentful feeling, is a severe and ascetic view, beyond hu-
man nature as at present constituted. The privacy of the punishments
of criminals, in our modern system, is intended to keep the indulgence
within bounds.

A wide ideal scope is given to our resentful pleasures in history and
in romance ; we are gratified by the retribution inflicted upon the au-
thors of wrong. Narratives of evil-doers and of their punishment are
level to the meanest capacity ; this is the sort of history that suits the
imagination even of children.

The highest refinement of the malevolent gratification I take to be
the creation called the ludicrous and the comic. There is a laugh of
vindictiveness, hatred, and derision, which carries the sentiment as far
as it can be carried without blows. But there is also the laugh ex-
pressed by playfulness and humor, in which the malignant feeling
seems almost on the point of disappearing in favor of the amicable
sentiment. It is of some importance to understand that in play, fun,
and humor, there is a delicate counterpoise of opposing sentiments, an
attempt to make the most of both worlds — love and anger. The great
masterpieces of humor in literature, the amenities of every-day society,
the innocent joyousness of laughter — all attest the success of the
hazardous combination. Nothing could better show the intensity of
the primitive charm of malevolence than the unction that survives after
it is attenuated to the condition of innocent mirthfulness. When the
real exercise of the destructive propensity is not to be had, creatures
endowed with emotions still relish the fictitious forms. This is seen
remarkably in the amicable " play " of puppies and kittens. Not being
endowed with much compass of the caressing acts, they show their love
by snarling and sham biting; in which, through their fortunate self-
restraint, they seem to enjoy a double pleasure. In the play of children
there is the same employment of the forms of destructive malevolence,
and, so long as it is happily balanced, the effect is highly piquant. By

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 311

submitting in turn to be victimized, a party of children can secure, at a
moderate cost to each, the zest of the malevolent feeling ; and this I
take to be the quintessence of play.

The use of this close analysis is to fix attention upon the precarious
tenure of all these enjoyments, and to render a precise reason for the
well-known fact that play or fun is always on the eve of becoming
earnest ; in other words, the destructive or malevolent element is in
constant danger of breaking loose from its checks, and of passing from
fictitious to actual inflictions. The play of the canine and the feline
kind often degenerates in this fashion ; and in childish and youthful
amusements it is a perpetual rock ahead.

It is no less dangerous to indulge people in too much ideal gratifica-
tion of the vindictive sentiments. Tales of revenge against enemies
are too apt to cultivate the malevolent propensity. Children, it is
true, take up this theme with wonderful alacrity ; nevertheless it is
a species of pampering supplied to the worst emotions instead of
the best.

One other bearing of irascibility on education needs to be touched.
When disapproval is heightened with anger, the dread inspired is much
greater. The victim anticipates a more severe infliction when the angry
passion has been roused ; hence the supposition is natural that anger is
an aid to discipline. This, however, needs qualifying. Of course, any
increase of severity has a known deterrent effect, with whatever draw-
backs may attend the excess. But anger is fitful ; and, therefore, its
cooperation mars discipline by want of measure and want of consisten-
cy ; when the fit has passed, the mind often relapses into a mood unfa-
vorable to a proper amount of repression.

The function of anger in discipline may be something very grand,
provided the passion can be controlled. There is a fine attitude of in-
dignation against wrong that may be assumed with the best effect. It
supposes the most perfect self-command, and is no more excited than
seems befitting the occasion. Mankind would not be contented to see
the bench of justice occupied by a calculating machine that turned up
a penalty of five pounds, or a month's imprisonment, when certain facts
were dropped in at the hopper. A regulated expression of angry feel-
ing is a force in itself. Neither containing fitfulness, nor conducting to
excess of infliction, it is the awe-inspiring personation of justice, and
is often sufficient to quell insubordination.

312

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

By Peofessoe SANBOEN TENNEY.

AMONG the thousands who visit the sea-shore in summer, there are
many who, although not naturalists, are more or less interested
in the various marine forms which there abound,, and perhaps a brief
notice of some of these forms will be acceptable to those who have not
made a special study of life as it is revealed in the sea.

If an observer be on a rocky shore he will not fail to become inter-
ested in the " sea-anemones," those " flowers of the sea " which at first
view appear to be on the border-land between plants and animals, so
that one hardly knows whether to refer them to the vegetable or to the
animal kingdom.

Fig. 1.— Actinia, or Sea- Anemone (Metridium marginatum, Milne-Edwards) : c, closed ; o, open-
ing ; e, expanded.

Although some sea-anemones live in the sand (Fig. 2), the home of
the ordinary kinds is the pools and caverns among the rocks ; here we
may find and study them when the tide is out. Groups, sometimes in
thousands, and standing so closely together that they cover the whole
interior of the rocky cavern or grotto, are not uncommon. Some are
expanded to their fullest extent, like a full-blown flower ; others are
only partly open ; others are just opening ; and others still are closed
as tiffhtlv as the bud of a flower, which they more or less resemble.

Various are the colors which they exhibit, from pale or nearly white
to the richest hues of pink, rose, red, and purple.

In the centre of the top there is an opening or mouth, which leads
directly into a central sac or stomach, and around the mouth are rows
of long and delicate hollow appendages, which the animal moves freely

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

3l3

to and fro in the water, and with which it can bring the food to its
mouth. As soon as a snail or other small animal falls among the fringes,
these close around it and move it toward the mouth, where it is soon
swallowed, the soft parts digested and the hard parts excluded. By
means of its broad base or " foot," the sea-anemone attaches itself

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Fig. 2.— Actinia or Sea-Anemones whioh live in the Sand and are often unattached.
1. Penchia hastata, Gosse.— 2. Edwardsia callimorphia, QoBBC.—Halocampa chrysantkeUum,
GoBse— the last mostly buried in the sand.

firmly to the rock or shell on which it rests, and seldom moves from
the spot which it has chosen, although it can effect locomotion by
means of its " foot." By this it clings so firmly to the rock that it
sometimes suffers itself to be torn in two rather than let go its hold.

The main cavity of the body in the sea-
anemones is divided by septa or partitions,
which run from the top to the bottom, and
from the outer wall to the stomach. These
partitions or septa are in pairs, and the
number is some multiple of six. By what
principle of selection this constant num-
ber was introduced we may be curious
enough to inquire, but we must not expect
to receive at once a perfectly satisfactory
answer.

The partitions above mentioned are the
infolding: of the bodv-wall of the animal,
and are essentially the same as the wall itself. Toward the top of
each partition there is a hole, permitting free passage for the water to
flow from one chamber to another.

Fig. 3. — Cross-Section of a Poltp,
or Sea-Anemone, showing the
Septa.

3H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

On various parts of the
sea - anemones, and of all
other polyps, especially on
their tentacles or fringes,
there are very remarkable
objects called cnidoe, or las-
so-cells, like those on jelly-
fishes, each cell being less
than one two-hundredths of
an inch in length. In each
there is a long, slender, coil-
ed, and wonderfully - con-
structed thread, which can
be instantly darted forth,
paralyzing any little animal
which it strikes ; and thus
the hungry polyp secures
its food.

On the vertical parti-
tions above mentioned the
eggs are borne. These pass
out into the water through
the mouth. The newly-
hatched anemone is oval in
form, and swims freely about
in the water by means of
exceedingl}- delicate fringes
called vibratile cilia. After
a time it quits this roving
life, attaches itself to the
surface of the rocks, and
grows into the form and
size of the parent.

Sea - anemones have no
proper nervous system. The
sense of touch is distributed
throughout the whole ani-
mal. It will, therefore, ap-
pear as a remarkable state-
ment that some kinds have
quite definitely-formed eyes. These are seen in some tropical species
just outside of the tentacles, and according to Dana each of these eyes
has a crystalline lens and an optic nerve !

Sea-anemones readily reproduce lost parts. If one is quickly torn
from a rock, parts of the foot remain attached to the rock, and in many
cases each portion thus left will become a perfect sea-anemone !

Sea-anemones vary greatly in size. Some species are only a frac-

SE ASIDE STUDIES.

315

tion of an inch in diameter. Our most common kinds are from one to
two inches, and expand from two to four inches. Some of the tropical
kinds are a foot in diameter.

Fig. 5.— Cluster op Coral-Polyps (Asteroides
calycularis, Miine-Edwards)— in various stages
of expansion.

Fig. 6.— Dead Cokal {Asteroides
calycularis, Milne-Edwards.)—
The coral of Fig. 5.

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Fig. 7. — Madrepore Coral (Madrepora aspera, Dana). Right-hand branches alive; the left, dead.

The sea-anemones, whether in their natural home or in the aquarium,
are exceedingly interesting objects ; and in the latter place we can
study them to the best advantage. Carefully remove a dozen of them

Fig. 8.— Dana's Astrangia (Astrangia Dance, Agassiz) : c, a growing cluster ; a, a single polyp

enlarged ; b, the dead coral.

•?i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

from the rocks ; lay them in your basket, with plenty of wet sea-weeds ;
break from the rock some fragments with the sea-weeds still growing
upon them ; on your return to your studio put the whole into your
aquarium, well supplied with pure sea-water. At first, the sea-anemones
will appear like so many mere lumps of soft flesh, without definite form.
But leave them there for a night ; and, when you look again, you will
find each one has established itself, and has expanded into a thing
of beauty.

Those polyps which form the beautiful clusters of coral that adorn
our mantels and museums, and which build up the vast coral-reefs and
islands, differ in only one important respect from the sea-anemones.

\i,'

Fig. 9.— Sarsia (Coryne) mirabilis ( AgasMz). CIus
ter of Hydroids growing on sea-weeds.

Fig. 10.— Single individual of Fig. 9 enlarged,
showing a b jn*t ready to become free
jelly-fishes or Medusae ; Fig. 11, c, young
bud.

Fig. 11. — Sarsia (Coryne) miralilis (Agassiz).
Adult, Massachusetts Bay.

The sea-anemones are wholly soft ; they secrete no skeleton, or only
the merest particles of hard matter. On the other hand, the coral-pro-
ducing polyps secrete a stony skeleton. The old notion that coral is
something built by an insect is entirely erroneous. The coral-producing
animal is in no sense an insect, nor does it toil to build the clusters and
reefs of coral which it forms. The coral-polyp lives and eats, and the
getting of its food is the only labor of its life.

SEASIDE STUDIES.

317

Coral assumes a variety of shapes, imitating- almost all forms of
vegetation on the land.

Most of the coral-producing polyps are confined to the tropical
parts of the ocean. A few kinds live in temperate waters. Dana's
Astrangia lives and flourishes in Long Island Sound, where it occurs
in little clusters upon stones and shells.

The visitor to the sea-shore will hardly fail to find among the grow-
ing sea- weeds little plant-like clusters like the one represented by Fig. 9.
This is a cluster of hydroids, and its life-history is very interesting.
The beginner may well be pardoned if he mistake these little clusters
for plants, but they are indeed animals. From each little branch there
arise buds (Fig. 10), which enlarge, till at length they become detached,
float away, and grow into the beautiful jelly-fishes known as Sarsia
or Coryyie / it has been called by both names, the latter name mean-
ing a club, and the former coming from Sars, the distinguished Norwe-
gian naturalist, who was one of their earliest investigators.

Other hydroids, called Campanularians, will be found among sea-
weeds. Here the minute jelly-fishes are formed in little bell-shaped
organs (Fig. 12). At length they drop out into the water and become
free jelly-fishes similar to Tiarojisis (Fig. 14).

Fig. 12.— Campanulauian {Obelia commissuralis,
McCready). The hydro-medusae in the cups
drop out and become free Medusae, or jelly-
fishes, similar to Fiir. 14.

Fig. 14.— Campanularian (Tiaropsis
diademata, Agassiz).

Fig. 13. — Tubularia Con thou ji (Agassiz).
m, Medusa1 ; ct, coronal tentacles ;
p, proboscis.

The visitor will find other hydroids, which appear like miniature
trees with all their foliage crowded to the top, and from beneath which
there hang bunches, as it were, of grapes or other fruit. Such is Tu-

3i3

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bularia, and the little fruit-like clusters are persistent jelly-fishes which
develop and remain just beneath the row of tentacles (Fig. 13), instead
of becoming free jelly-fishes as in Sarsia and in Campanularia.

In the Gulf of Mexico are communities of hydroids so organized

that they seem to constitute but one animal.
Such is the well-known " Portugese man-of-
war " (Fig. 15). This community consists
of an elegantly-crested air-sac floating upon
the water, and giving off numerous long and
variously-constructed appendages. Accord-
ing to Agassiz, the different parts are so
many different kinds of members in the com-
munity, and fulfill widely-different offices,
some catching and eating food for the whole,
others producing buds, others being the
locomotive or swimming members, and hav-
ing tentacles that in some cases are twenty
or thirty feet long. The air-sac itself is only
a few inches in length.

But the most common jelly-fishes are
those which are more or less disk-shaped,
and hence are called the Dlscophoroe. The
" sunfish " is one of these. This name, we
hasten to say, is rather indefinite when
used without modification, for it is not
only applied to a jelly-fish, but it is also
given to our fresh-water bream, and to one
of the large marine fishes — orthogoriscus.
The " sunfish " of which we now speak
attains a diameter of six to twelve inches
(Fig. 19). In the early spring it may be
seen in large schools near the surface of
the water, and at this time is only a small fraction of an inch in diam-
eter. It becomes full-grown by the middle of summer, and great num-
bers may then be seen swimming slowly by a sort of motion that may
be likened to that of partly shutting and opening an umbrella. The
motion is indeed effected by the contraction and expansion of the
whole umbrella-like disk.

In the study of the sunfish (Aarelia) we are able to see plainly
the prominent differences between jelly-fishes as a group and polyps
as a group.

The natural attitude of the latter is with the mouth upward, or at
least not turned downward, and the bodv is divided into vertical
chambers, by vertical partitions, and the substance of the animal is
flesh-like. On the other hand, the typical adult jelly-fishes have their
mouth on the under surface, or at least not turned upward, their sub-

Fig. 15.— Portuguese Man-of-
War (Physalia arethusa).

SEA- SIDE STUDIES.

319

stance is jelly-like, and their body is traversed by tubes which radiate
from the centre to the circumference.

The sunfish, and all the disk-shaped jelly-fishes especially, are re-
markable for their stinging properties. When they come in contact

Fig. 16. — Scyphistoma of
Aurelia flavidula (Per.
&LeS). Magnified about
seven diameters.

Fig. 17.— Strobila of
Aurelia flavidula
(Per. & LeS). Mag-
nified about seven
diameters.

Fig. 18. — Strobila ot Aurelia flavidula
(Per. & LeS). Magnified fifteen diame-
ters.

with the flesh of the bather, they cause a stinging sensation, similar to
that produced by nettles. This is why they are called sea-nettles, and
why in scientific books they are called Acalephce.

Toward the close of summer the sunfish lays numerous eggs, and
in the autumn it perishes. The eggs hatch into little oval bodies,

&

Fig. 19.— Sunfish (Aurelia flavidula, Per. & LeS).

Offspring of Figs. 16-18.

which swim freely about by means of minute hair-like appendages.
After a time each one of these free-moving bodies attaches itself to a
rock, shell, or sea-weed, and takes the form of a plant, and is then
called scyphistoma (Fig. 16). As this goes on growing, it soon begins
to divide into segments by horizontal constructions. By this process
our little scyphistoma becomes a strobila (Figs. 17, 18). By continued

32°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

growth the segments become more and more marked, more and more
separated, and at length the uppermost one drops off, then the next
one drops, then the next, and so each in its turn breaks awav from the
parent stalk ; and as each breaks away it assumes the natural attitude,
mouth downward, and floats away to lead its independent life as a
genuine sunfish. Here we have a good illustration of that strange
mode of reproduction called " partheno-genesis " or " alternations of
generations " — that is, the egg hatches into the planula, which soon
becomes a scyphistoma j that little plant-like body becomes a stro-
bila, and this breaks into segments, each of which becomes a perfect
jelly-fish, which produces the eggs.

The species of jelly-fishes of the disk, or partially hemispherical
form, are very numerous and varied in details of structure, in form,
and in size. Some have the appendages around the mouth and the
margin greatly prolonged as in Fig. 20. A few kinds attain a diani-

Fig. 20.— Jelly-fish (Pe'agia cyanella,
Agassiz).

Fig. 21.— Pleukobrachia (P. rhododactyla,
Agassiz).

meter of two or three feet ; and these largest kinds have in some cases
tentacles a hundred feet long.

One of the most beautiful of all the jelly-fishes is the rose-colored
idyia. It is often seen near the shore, and is so transparent that it
reveals almost its whole structure as it floats in the water. It is

SEA- SIDE STUDIES.

321

sometimes so abundant that it gives a rosy hue to considerable areas
of the sea. It attains a length of three or four inches, and in form is
not very unlike an elongated melon with one end cut square off.

Closely related to idyia is pleurobrachia, one of the commonest of
the " comb-bearers," or Ctenop>hor<%, on the northern coast of the United
States. This jelly-fish, less than an inch in length, like all other Cte-
nophorce, has eight rows of locomotive fringes dividing the surface of
the body into regions as the ribs divide the surface of a musk-melon.
Besides these eight rows of fringes, or locomotive organs, it has two
most extraordinary tentacles ; and no form of expansion, or contrac-
tion, or curve, or spiral, can be conceived of, which these wonderfully
constructed tentacles do not assume as this transparent jelly-fish moves
freely through the water.

If the visitor to the sea-shore will go down among the big rocks
left bare by the retiring tide, and will lift up the long sea-weeds which
hang from their sides, he will find the curious " starfishes," or " sea-
stars," in some cases in great profusion, and clinging to the surface of
the rock so firmly that they often leave some of their locomotive suck-
ers attached when too quickly lifted from their places.

The starfishes have the body so gradually merging into the arms

^WK*"^

»?v.^r ^^TSP^:^y

' 1 l-'W

w

3*~Jt&F

Fig. 22.— Starfish (Asteracanthiori).

or rays that one can hardly tell where the body ends and the arms
begin ; and this enables one to readily distinguish them at sight from
the "serpent-stars," which are sometimes called star-fishes, and of
VOL. xiii. — 21

322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which we will presently speak. The mouth is in the centre of the
under side, and beneath each ray there are a large number of locomotive
suckers. An eye is situated at the end of each ray ; and on the back,
near the junction of two arms, is a sort of water-filter called the madre-
poric body.

As in all similar cases, the dried specimens give us only a partial
idea of the real starfishes, and those who have studied these animals in
museums only have little idea of the readiness with which they make
their way along the vertical and overhanging surfaces of rocks, and
into holes and narrow fissures.

Starfishes are very voracious, and feed mainly on mollusks. They
are exceedingly destructive to oysters in many places, and thus come
in direct competition with man for the possession of this delicious
bivalve. Instead of swallowing their food as other animals do, they
turn the stomach out of the mouth and over the animal which they
wish to devour !

Starfishes have a wonderful power of reproducing lost parts. If
an arm is bitten off by a hungry fish, another grows in its place ; and
cases are known where all the arms but one have been detached, and
the remaining arm and central portion of the body have lived on and
reproduced all the destroyed parts. Examples of this may be seen
wherever starfishes are abundant.

Starfishes are quite numerous in species, and vary greatly in form
and size. The ordinary kinds are only three or four inches across, others
a foot.

In the same localities where we find true starfishes, we may confi-
dently expect to find the " serpent-stars " or serpent-tailed starfishes,

so called because their arms taper
like a snake's tail. They are also
called " brittle-stars," because they
break so easily.

Many visitors to the sea-shore
come away without seeing a single
living brittle-star, because the curi-
ous echinoderms which bear this
name hide under the sea-weeds,
and in the dark holes and crevices
among the rocks, and are, therefore,
found only by those who search
carefully for them.

Fig. 23.— Serpent -Star (Ophiopholisbellis, ,

Lyman). The long, gently-tapering arms,

starting out abruptly from a well-
defined disk, make the form of serpent-stars very distinct from that
of the Asteroidce or genuine sea-stars, already noticed. And, unlike
the true starfishes, they have no interambulacral plates, but a series
of large plates envelops the whole of each ray or arm, meeting in a

SEA- SIDE STUDIES.

323

ridge along its under surface. They have no genuine locomotive suck-
ers like starfishes, but instead they have numerous tuberculated organs
which pass out through holes in the sides of the arms. Their madre-
poric body is in one of the circular plates on the under side of the
disk.

Allusion is made above to the brittleness of the serpent-stars. This
sort of brittleness is not confined exclusively to these echinoderms : at
least one species of starfish exhibits the same property. The lamented
Prof. Edward Forbes tells a story of his experience with a starfish
known as Luidia, which shows that it equals any serpent-star in brit-
tleness. The professor went dredging for the Luidia. He brought
up a fine specimen and laid it on one of the benches in the boat, and
went on with his dredging. ^Yhen he was ready to go home he found
his Luidia in fragments. It had gone to pieces of its own accord —
probably by contraction. Much disappointed by the loss of so desirable
a specimen, he determined to take great precautions when he should
capture another Luidia, that he might not again have to put up with
pieces only. So, next time, he took the precaution to carry a bucket-
ful of pure fresh-water, intending to plunge the Luidia into it, thus
paralyzing and saving it before it should have time to break itself in
pieces. Pulling up the dredge and seeing that he had a fine specimen,

Fig. 24.— " Basket-fish " (Astrophyton Agmsisii, Stimpson).

he let down his bucket of fresh- water so that its top was near the sur-
face of the sea, intending, as soon as the dredge should reach the sur-
face, to overturn it into the bucket ; but, just when he would lift the
dredge from the sea, the Luidia, as if apprehending the situation,
went to pieces, and these began to disappear through the meshes ;

324

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and, as one of the last was vanishing, the professor imagined that the
eye looked back at him with a peculiar and suggestive wink of derision !
The most remarkable representative of the serpent-stars or Ophiu-
rans, as they are called in scientific books, is the " basket-fish," or As-
trophyton. The ordinary kinds, as we have seen, have the arms simple ;
but one genus has the arms extensively branched (Fig. 24). This kind
inhabits the deeper waters, and will not be readily obtained except
through the aid of dredgers or fishermen, who sometimes bring it up
attached to their lines. It attains a diameter of ten or more inches,
and the arms go on dividing and subdividing until the divisions are
said to number more than 80,000 !

If we imagine the Astrophyton with its mouth turned upward, and

its arms brought near together, and the
ab-oral region furnished with a long,
jointed, and flexible stem, we shall have
a form not very unlike the Pentacrinus
caput-medusce (Fig. 25), of the West
Indies, one of the few survivors of the
order of Crinoids that was represented
by a great number of species in the pa-
laeozoic ages of the earth's history.

Some kinds of crinoids, as the rosy
feather-star of the European coast, have
a stem in the young state, but at length
become detached and live as free cri-
noids. They thus illustrate, in their em-
bryonic stage, the permanent form of
the living stemmed species and of those
stemmed forms which fill the rocks in
many regions, from the Silurian to the
Triassic, inclusive.

It may be remarked here that in no
place are fossil crinoids more abundant
or varied, and beautiful, than in the sub-carboniferous rocks of this
country, especially those in the Mississippi Valley ; although larger
species have been found in the Triassic rocks of Europe.

While the visitor to the sea-shore may hardly hope to secure a living
crinoid, it is well to bear in mind that this form is a near ally of the
starfishes, serpent-stars, and the Astrophyton, which he can secure.

It was the remark of one of the old students of Nature that there
was nothing on the land that has not its counterpart in the sea. And,
if we recall some of the names that have been given to marine forms,
we shall see how men have been struck with the resemblances between
animals of the land and those of the water. Among fishes we have
" sea-vampires," " sea-eagles," " sea-wolves," " sea-hounds," " sea-rob-
ins," " sea-swallows," " sea-horses," etc. Among mammals we have
" sea-elephants," " sea-lions," " sea-bears," " sea-cows," etc.

Fig. 25.— Ceinoid (Pentacrinus caput-
medusce), West Indies.

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

325

Among the lower forms we find sea-hedgehogs, that is, "sea-
urchins," and "sea-cucumbers." It is of these I would now briefly
speak, as they are among the interesting things which the visitor to
the sea-side will be sure to find, if he search faithfully for them. But
first as to the sea-urchins (Figs. 26, 27). If one would study these
strange forms, he must seek for them in the deeper pools left by the
tide. Nor is a casual glance into the pool sufficient to reveal the prize

Miilu&

Fig. 26.— Sea-Ubchin ( Toxopneustes drobachien-
sis, Agassiz).

Fig. 27.— Top- View of Sea-Urctttut,
Spines kemoved. Shows ambu-
lacral and inteiambulacral plates.

which he is in search of. The beginner may look into a clear pool
where there are a hundred sea-urchins, and perhaps he will not see
one until he has looked for some minutes ; for sea-urchins not only
resemble some of the sea-weeds in their color, but by means of their
locomotive suckers they draw the sea- weeds closely about them, in
many cases completely concealing themselves. If the collector reach
down into the water the full length of his arm, and move his hand over
the bottom among the sea-weeds, he will not be long in finding a sea-
urchin. He will know when he touches one, as the sharp spines stand
out on every side. Without moving from his position the collector will
often secure a score or more of fine living specimens — some hardly
exceeding a fraction of an inch in diameter, and others two inches or
more ; for he will find them of different ages, even if not of different
species. Should he put them in a shallow pool while he goes on col-
lecting, and then look for them again, he will at first think they have
escaped into the sea or into some hole ; for, true to their instincts,
no sooner are they uncovered than they begin to conceal themselves
again by drawing around them the sea-weeds by means of their long
locomotive suckers. If we turn one over on his " back," that is,
place the mouth upward, the urchin immediately begins to turn itself,
and in a short time will regain its natural attitude, mouth downward.

The spines are very remarkable, not only in their appearance, but
in their structure. A cross-section of one, under a microscope, reveals
a structure so perfect and so beautiful that the richest mosaic is but
rude masonry as compared with this natural mosaic.

Situated among the spines are curious three-pronged forceps, which
have much puzzled the naturalists in days gone by ; for it was doubtful

326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

what is their real function. But, at last, Agassiz — the younger Agas-
siz, I believe — discovered that these curious organs, called pedicillariae,
are for keeping the spines clean.

The mouth of the sea-urchin is provided with five pointed teeth,
which shut together on a common centre ; and these teeth can all be
removed together, and, thus removed, they present quite a curious ap-
pearance, and are known among naturalists as " Aristotle's lantern."

The sbell, which is composed of hundreds of pieces, presents a very
beautiful sight when the spines are removed. It is made up of ten
segments, radiating from the mouth, and converging to a central region
on the top (Fig. 27). Every alternate segment is perforated for the
numerous locomotive suckers to pass out, the intermediate segments
being imperforate, and more prominently marked with tubercles, on
which spines are borne. At the termination of the five perforated seg-
ments there is a triangular plate with a minute opening ; here the eye
is situated. Alternating with these five plates are five larger ones,
each with a hole, through which the eggs are laid. The largest of
these plates is the madreporic body, corresponding perfectly to that
seen on the starfish, already spoken of, and which doubtless acts as a
sieve or water-filter.

As sea-urchins do not shed the shell, as do crabs and lobsters, the
inquiring mind will naturally ask how the animal can continue to en-
large when once it is invested with a hard shell. The answer is, that
every piece of the shell grows at the same time, and in this way the
whole shell enlarges together, and in a perfectly symmetrical manner.

As already indicated, the sea-urchin moves by means of its locomo-
tive suckers. Extending these beyond the spines, it lays hold of the
surface of the rock or sea-weed, and then, contracting the suckers,
pulls itself along. And these suckers can be extended quite a distance
beyond the spines. For example, a sea-urchin can extend a sucker
from near the top of the shell, and bend it over, and lay hold of the
surface upon which the animal is resting.

The sizes and forms of sea-urchins are very numerous. The ordi-
nary kinds are two or three inches in diameter ; some of the elongated
kinds in the tropics have a diameter of five inches or more. Some are
nearly hemispherical ; others rise in the centre so as to be almost a
cone ; others are flat, and are known as cake-urchins (Fig. 28) ; others
are more or less heart-shaped, etc. Some of the cake-urchins are curi-
ously modified, as seen in Fig. 29.

On the coast of Maine especially, but also along both shores of the
Atlantic, as well as in most other parts of the world, the sea-shore
visitor will find the "sea-cucumber" appearing not very unlike a cu-
cumber while it still retains the blossom upon its end. On the coast of
Asia it is known as trepang, and is the animal which the Chinese use
so extensively for food. Aristotle called it Holothuria, but for what
reason he does not tell us, and we can only conjecture. The dead

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

327

specimens give us but little idea of this animal. It must be seen and
studied while in the sea or in the aquarium, in order to be appreciated.
When dead, the suckers — which are like those of starfishes and sea-
urchins — are retracted, and the tentacles are also in a mass, and the

Fig. 28.— Cake-Urchin {Echinarachniua
parma, Gray).

Fig. 29.— Key-Hole-TJrchin (Mellita quinqve-
*ora, Agassiz).

whole form is shriveled. But in the water the form is full, and the
fringed tentacles are extremely beautiful, and can properly be com-
pared to the delicately-branched and beautifully-colored sea-weeds
which we all so much admire.

The " sea-cucumber " has a wonderful power of changing its form.
It elongates, contracts, enlarges at each end while it is small in the
middle, and thus changes its appearance from time to time. In its
power of going to pieces it almost excels the " brittle-star " and the

&

fin

m in

Fig. 30.— Holothurian, or " Sea-Cccumber " {Pentacta fronclom), North Atlantic.

starfish, Lhidia, already noticed. It breaks off its tentacles, and yields
up other parts, at will ; and it has been known, when disturbed, to
eject all its internal organs, thus leaving itself only an empty sac !

The " sea-cucumber " has no hard parts, excepting the merest cal-
careous particles imbedded in the thick, leather-like covering. These

328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are of various and remarkable shapes, and are very interesting objects
when seen under the microscope. They are the representatives of the
calcareous plates which make up the hard shell of the sea-urchin.

Unlike as are the crinoid, brittle-stars, star-fishes, sea-urchins, and
sea-cucumbers, in their form and general appearance, they are but
different expressions of one and the same fundamental idea. They are
all radiates, all possess calcareous plates — though these are at their
minimum in the sea-cucumbers — and are covered with spines, tuber-
cles, or a rough skin. They are all constructed according to a reigning
number, the principal parts being in fives, or some multiple of five. If
we imagine the sea-cucumber to be placed with its mouth downward
and the tentacles to be replaced with teeth, the long body to be
shortened upon itself so as to assume nearly the form of a hemisphere,
and the microscopic calcareous particles to be enlarged so that they
should touch one another, then we should have essentially the form
and structure of the sea-urchin.

And if we imagine the sea-urchin with its segments spread out
into a star-like form, instead of being brought near together, each per-
forated segment taking half of the imperforate one, and at the same
time the spines to be reduced to tubercles and the plates to a net-
work, then we should have essentially the form of a starfish.

Again, if the starfish had its body reduced to a well-defined disk,
and its arms starting out abruptly from this disk, we should have all the
most prominent features of the serpent-star.

And if the serpent-star had its mouth placed upward, its arms mul-
tiplied by branching, and its ab-oral region elongated into a stem, we
should have the plant-like form of the crinoid.

And so it is in all parts of the material world. Nature has but
comparatively few great types, but the forms included under these
types are almost endlessly varied. Unity in diversity is a great law
which prevails not only in the animal kingdom, but throughout the
whole realm of Nature.

■♦»♦

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY.

By GEORGE M. BEAED, M. D.

III.

OUTLINE of the Reconstructed Principles op Evidence —
Even a qualified admission of the soundness of these views also
compels the admission that the reconstruction of the principles of evi-
dence is the crowning need of philosophy.

Such reconstruction will not be made on the base of Pyrrhonism, or
the denial of the possibility of knowledge— for knowledge is possible,

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 329

although it is relative to the human faculties. The revision of human
testimony that physiological science now requires, and is qualified to
undertake, is radical and revolutionary, but it is not suicidal ; it is dis-
criminating, not sweeping ; not destructive, but constructive.

The demand is not for the rejection but for the reconstruction of
human testimony ; and the spirit with which this should be undertaken
is not skeptical, but scientific.

This reform of logic, like all revolutions in science, should advance
under the guidance of the scientific method. By the scientific method,
I mean that method of obtaining and organizing knowledge which
consists in defining, so far as is possible to expert human faculties, the
boundaries between the possible and the probable, between the knoicn
and the unknown.

The scientific method can only be successfully used by those who
are endowed with, or by discipline have acquired, what I am accustomed
to call the scientific sense, by which phrase I mean the power of seeking
truth through the intellect alone, uninfluenced by the emotions. For the
tendency of truth, the scientific sense has no hopes and no fears, except
so far as it may help to find the truth.1

The scientific method is a part of the evolution of culture, of sci-
ence, and of civilization ; to absolute savagery everything is absolutely
known ; all natural phenomena are pronounced supernatural ; with the
beginning of knowledge there is a recognition of ignorance, which, in
time, gradually subdivides so as to include all phenomena that can be
brought to the attention of the human mind in one of these four grand
divisions — the possible, the probable, the known, and the unknown.
The constant effect and sign of progress in knowledge is the narrowing
of the area of the known and the probable, and the extension of the
areas of the unknown and the possible.

I. The corner-stone of the reconstructed edifice of the principles of
evidence must be the recognition of the necessity of the testimony only
of experts in all matters of science, and consequent absolute rejection
of all testimony of non-experts, without reference to their number or
the unanimity of their testimony.

A few definitions are here needed :
Science is systematized knoicledge.
An expert is one who can see all sides of a subject.
A non-expert is one who sees but one or a few sides of a subject that
has many sides.

1 The philosophy of the world has almost always been the servant of delusions. The
most eloquent passage in Sir William Hamilton's " Logic " is that in which he enjoins on
the philosopher the duty of seeking truth for its own sake, and there are few or no phi-
losophers who would not in the abstract subscribe to this sentiment, but concretely and
practically nearly all human reasoning on logic and the principles of evidence has been
exercised for the special purpose of proving what is absolutely undemonstrable or abso-
lutely untrue.

330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The tests of scientific expertness are — distrust of the senses ; the
recognition of the relation of induction to deduction ; avoidance of all
sources of error, in observation, experiment, or reasoning ; the apprecia-
tion of the relative importance and non-importance of real or supposed
facts ; the ability to distinguish reality and its semblance, especially
between the subjective and the objective ; and, what indeed follows
from the other three tests, the maintenance of mental equilibrium dur-
ing experimental researches. The reputation of an expert is acquired
primarily through other experts, and secondarily through the judgment
of mankind. Expertness has its various degrees ; there are experts,
and experts, and experts : the highest experts are the originators, the
explorers, the pioneers, the founders, the creators of science ; the lowest
experts are the followers, the gleaners, the treasurers, the curators of
what others have discovered, and who simply repeat and retain the ex-
periments of genius. The highest experts — the Newtons and Galileos,
the Harveys and Jenners of science — must stand at first alone, with no
other expert at hand, by which to estimate their relative heights and
strength ; it is their necessity and their glory to educate experts, by
whom their own merits are to be tested ; they must create the standard
by which they are to be judged ; their critics will be their own off-
spring. For many years Newton was the only man on this planet wrho
understood the theory of gravitation, or was able to criticise it.

The tests of scientific non-expertness are, blind repose in the senses,
the inability to eliminate or appreciate sources of error in observation,
experiment, or reasoning; the non-appreciation of the relative impor-
tance of real or supposed facts ; the confounding of semblance with
reality, and particularly the subjective with the objective ; liability to
be entranced, or to have the emotions unduly excited, in the presence
of genuine or supposed phenomena ; and the use of induction when only
deduction is valid, and vice versa.

Expertness in one branch of science not only does not qualify, but
in various ways may disqualify, one to be an expert in another branch.

That skill in mathematics unfits one for the successful study of va-
rious other specialties was pointed out long ago, both by Abercrombie
and Hamilton ; but the antagonism of specialties may be traced, under
recent experience, yet more minutely, for it is found that eminence in
physics, or chemistry, or astronomy, may thoroughly unfit one for the
study of physiology ; and within a few years some of the greatest blun-
ders recorded in the history of delusions have been made by naturalists,
chemists, physicists, jurists, and astronomers of unquestioned honesty,
real genius, and deserved eminence, making, or attempting to make,
discoveries in the new and almost unexplored realm of cerebro-physi-
ology — experiments with living human beings. The worst blunders in
the world are scientific blunders — the unconscious slips of justly emi-
nent men, who do not know that their very eminence in one sphere
forbids them to undertake another.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 331

Cooperation of Experts. — There are claims that can only be settled
by a cooperation of experts, in different branches of science. In regard
to the question of the relations of experts to each other in the investi-
gations of claims, it is to be observed that a claim should primarily be
referred to that specialty that is best capable of dealing with it by de-
ductive reasoning. Claims that can be settled by the principles of logic,
without the aid of special scientific knowledge — such as, from the limi-
tations of the human faculties, can never be proved or disproved — are
to be referred to logicians. If the known principles of any special sci-
ence, to which a claim is referred, deductively disprove any claim, it is
unscientific for any expert in that science to examine or discuss it, save
as an amusement, or for the sake of the incidental facts that an investi-
gation may develop. If the claim refer to an open question, the primary
expert is to judge whether the cooperation of experts in other branches
of science is needed. If the claim belong to a department not yet or-
ganized into science — the territorial or preexploratory stage — in which
there are no experts, there are none to decide upon its merits, and the
world must remain in ignorance until the experts appear ; but the world,
in its impatience and ignorance of logic, practically refers such claims to
leaders in various branches of science, or to men of general ability and
honesty, who almost always reach erroneous, if not ludicrous, conclu-
sions. Such was the origin of the delusions of " animal magnetism,"
and " odic" and " psychic " force — claims that belong to cerebro-physi-
ology, a department of science that is now but just passing out of the
territorial into the organized stage.1 When experts blunder, as they
may, their conclusions should be revised, not by the people, but by other
and better experts.

II. The reconstructed principles of evidence require that the quality
and quantity of evidence necessary for proof of any claim depends on
the nature of the claim.

The principles of evidence that have heretofore commanded the
world's acceptance make no distinction in the quality or quantity of
testimony for different varieties of claims ; the discovery of a new planet
is as credible as the daily rising of the sun ; the introduction of a new
force needs no more and no better auspices than the observation of the

1 Mr. William Crookes, in his kindly and complimentary remarks on my theory of
trance, as republished in the London Quarterly Journal of Science, January, 18*78, ob-
serves that there may be a physical side to physiological experiments. The suggestion is
so far forth a valid one ; the reply is found in the above analysis. The question whether
there is in the human body a new and unknown force belongs to cerebro-physiology, and,
not being disproved deductively, should be referred to those experts in that specialty
who understand how to experiment with living human beings ; and it is for these primary
experts to decide whether the experiments they may make require the cooperation of
physics, or chemistry, or other branches of science. There may also be a physiological
or pathological side to physical experiments; thus the " etheric force" of Mr. T. A. Edi-
son was primarily a question of physics, but for its investigation needed and obtained
the cooperation of physiologists.

332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

established phenomena of an old one ; the passing from death into life
is to be received with as little question as the passing from life into
death. Under this feature of current logic delusionists of all kinds have
consistently and persistently found refuge.

The different classes of claims in regard to real or alleged phenom-
ena, in their relation to the quality and quantity of evidence needed to
prove them, may be thus presented in order of climax :

1. Claims as to unsystematized knowledge or matters of every -day
life.

Under this head comes most of the testimony commonly given in
courts of justice. For claims of this kind experts are not usually re-
quired, and the mistakes which are constantly made, every hour and
every moment, are of comjDaratively trifling account, since they affect
individuals and not general principles.

It is one of the innumerable proofs of the limitations of the human
brain, that the rules of evidence in our courts of justice, although prac-
tically, on the average, as good, with some exceptions, as can be expected
for the obtaining of legal justice, necessarily imperfect and uncertain,
are yet, in many respects, to the last degree unscientific. The exclu-
sion, for example, of hearsay testimony, and of the testimony of a wife
against her husband, and the modes of questioning and cross-question-
ing of witnesses make it oftentimes impossible to obtain justice. The
scientific man, desirous not of gaining a point but of ascertaining the
truth, and recognizing the untrustworthiness or uncertainty of nearly
all human testimony, would in many cases prefer hearsay to direct
statements, and would give more for the evidence of a near relation or
a wife than for that of all the world besides.

One needs but to follow the details of a few great causes, as the Mc-
Farland trial, the Beecher-Tilton, the Tichborne, and the Vanderbilt
cases, to see that by the rules of evidence, or at least by the actual
practice of courts, testimony which scientifically is valueless is admitted,
while the only testimony that is, or promises to be, of any scientific
value is systematically excluded.

The great advances in science have not been made in courts of jus-
tice. Even when on questions of science experts are called to testify,
their testimony is obtained in such a way as to impair, if not destroy,
its value, and to obscure more than to reveal the truth.

From the scientific point of view, a legal trial is really an experiment
with living human beings, and, like all experiments of that kind, is liable
to six sources of error, all of which must be guarded against if we are
to find the exact truth. The science and art of experimenting with
living human beings are not yet understood, even by physiology and
pathology, to which department they belong.1

1 That the art of experimenting with living human beings is now but in its early child-
hood is shown by the fact that all those who give special attention to the physiology

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 333

2. Claims as to general or special facts of science that are already
established by the investigations of experts.

Here we rise in the scale of evidence, but do not require experts.
What is bad or useless evidence for original demonstration may be
satisfactory, or at least tolerable, for confirmation. The phonograph,
prior to its invention, was credible only on expert authority ; stories
relating to it may now be received on the statements of non-experts,
for, although they may be erroneous, they do not in any way affect sci-
ence.

III. Claims as to facts or phenomena which have not yet been
established by experts in the special science to which they are to be re-
f erred, but which may yet be proved true by the experts of the future.

Here we take a long step in the ascending scale of evidence ; we
come to claims that cannot be proved by any amount of non-expert
evidence ; which may be true, or may be untrue, as experts only shall
determine. A type of this class of claims is that of the sea-serpent, of
whose existence there is now no proof, but which zoologists might pos-
sibly introduce into science. Testimony which is sufficient to arouse
the attention of experts, and induce them to investigate claims that are
made by non-experts, may yet of itself have no value in science.

Types of this class of claims are supposed new forces in Nature, the
existence of which can only be established by the highest experts in the
branches of science to which they respectively belong. The claims of
"odic" force and "psychic" force, and of "animal magnetism," are
excellent illustrations : although believed by thousands and thousands
of people of average intelligence, and by a number of eminent non-
experts in science, they are yet instinctively rejected, not because there
is any positive deduction against them, but for the reason that experts
have never been able to find a shadow of proof of their existence, but,
on the contrary, have been easily and abundantly able to show that all
the real phenomena supposed to indicate the presence of these unknown
forces can be explained by the laws of forces already known. An illus-
tration, belonging in part to a different branch of science, was that of
the alleged new force, between light and heat on the one hand, and
magnetism and electricity on the other, said to have been discovered

and pathology of the nervous system do not, in their experiments, even suspect the ele-
ments of error involved. During the past year one of the very ablest of neurologists —
Charcot, of Paris — has published accounts of experiments in so-called " metalloseopy "
and " metallotherapy," in the making of which, according to his own statements, one
of the most important of the six elements of error (as indicated in a paper on " Mind-
reading," in a previous number of this Monthly), mind acting on body, seems to have been
ignored or ill understood, or at least not scientifically provided for. The experiments of
the committees of the French Academy with " animal magnetism," " mesmerism," and
" clairvoyance," of Crookes with Home, of Wallace and Zollner with Slade, are open to
the same and also numerous other criticisms. From such accounts of such experi-
ments, even an expert cannot tell what did or what did not happen ; it is therefore un-
scientific to discuss them.

334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

two or three years since by Mr. Edison, the renowned inventor of the
phonograph. This claim belonged primarily to physics, and secondarily
to physiology, and was carefully investigated by many physicists and
some physiologists of this country and Europe, and by them it was de-
cided, rightly or wrongly, that the claim was not proved, that the spark
supposed to indicate a new force represented a hitherto undetected
phase of induced electricity.1

IV. Claims which, from the limitations of the human faculties, can
never be proved or disproved.

Claims of this kind may be indulged in as speculations, with the
understanding that they are merely speculations ; but to seriously dis-
cuss them, with the purpose of ascertaining their truth or falsity, is un-
scientific.

Under this head all supernatural claims must be included, for the
reason that it is impossible for the human faculties to distinguish be-
tween what is unknown in Nature and what is above Nature. The
narrow limitations of our knowledge of Nature all will admit. What
expert professes to exhaustively know Nature even in his own depart-
ment? What, indeed, is all our knowledge but an infinitesimal frac-
tion of our ignorance ; a flower or so plucked from a boundless garden ;
a few ores dug from measureless mines ; a slight clearing in an infinite
wilderness ; "a film on the ocean of the unknown?" Leaving out of
view all questions of supernaturalism and all the phenomena of life,
what do we know, or, in this world, have we reason to expect to know, of
inorganic Nature ? What is light ? What is heat ? What is gravity ?
Why should one mode of motion make one form of force and not an-
other ? Toward the solution of these primal questions — that the infant
can ask and the philosopher cannot answer — the sciences and reasoning
of all the centuries have made, and are destined to make, no advance.

Even if an expert could be supposed who should exhaustively know
Nature in his own department, how could he know that he knew it ?
Not knowing that he knew all Nature in his own realm, what tests
would he have — could he have — to distinguish between the supernatural
and what might be unknown in Nature ? If, to go to the outermost
verge of conceivability for illustration, the clock of the universe were
turned back to-morrow, and the sun should thereafter rise in the west
instead of the east, how would it be possible to prove, in a scientific
sense, that a supernatural event had occurred ?

Every phenomenon that can be brought to the attention of the
human faculties must be referred to one of these three classes :

1. The known in Nature.

2. The unknown in Nature.

1 Mr. Edison's views, as he writes me, are unchanged. His experiments, and my own
made in cooperation with him, as well as a discussion of the bearings of the claim on
the principles of evidence, were published two years since.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY.

335

3. The supernatural, or above Nature.

In investigating any new claims whatever, experts — consciously or
unconsciously — keep this order in mind : they first inquire whether the
claims can be explained by laws already known to experts ; if not so
explained, then they are referred to the second order — the unknown in
Nature — and attempts are made to bring them into the first order, or
the known in Nature : such is the philosophy of all human progress in
science. But when men go further, and assert that these unknown
phenomena are of supernatural character, they bid good-by to the
scientific method ; for what is it that constitutes the differential diag-
nosis between the unknown in Nature and the supernatural ? It mat-
ters not, in its bearings on this question, how the supernatural is de-
fined, as the unusual action of natural laws or interference with natural
law. The supernatural manifested becomes, relatively to the human
faculties, the natural. For all that we know, or can know, every great
or minute phenomenon in Nature may be a direct, immediate, and spe-
cial act of a power above Nature : the movement of every star, each
vibration of the infinite ether, the shock of earthquakes, and the silent
meaning of protoplasm, may all be manifestations of a power above
Nature ; but, whether they are so or not, the human mind is powerless
to prove or disprove. The universe might swarm with demons and
angels ; ghosts might inhabit the earth and sky, in numbers compared
with which the population of the globe is as the seen to the unseen
stars ; spirits might speak, might rap, might materialize — and yet the
human mind would be unable to scientifically prove the supernatural,
for still the question, how to distinguish what is above Nature from
what is unknown in Nature, would remain unanswered and unanswer-
able.

Science has not, cannot have, any absolute deduction against the
existence of ghosts, or of spirits, evil or good, or of any imaginable
supernatural shapes whatsoever ; the world might be embraced and
permeated by an infinite spiritual ocean, as the air is believed to be
penetrated by a luminiferous ether ; but science would not have, and
could not find, either through induction or deduction, any way of de-
monstrating its existence. In the realm of the supposed supernatural
all things are possible and all things are undemonstrable.1 Under this
class of claims, that from the limitations of the human brain can neither

1 Although it hardly comes within the scope of the present outline to point out all
the practical bearings of this reform in logic, one thought may perhaps be briefly sug-
gested. For the cause of religion, it is fortunate that it cannot be scientifically proved.
Religion, being a recognition through the emotions of a spiritual universe and of our
relations to it, cannot and should not appeal to the intellect. A religion scientifically
proved would be a religion no longer, but a fact of science, like the Copernican theory,
or gravitation, and, like these and other scientific facts, would be taken cognizance of by
the intellect alone, consequently it would lose entirely the leverage of the emotions, by
which it has so powerfully influenced the destinies of mankind. The scientific demonstra-
tion of religion would be the destruction of religion.

336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be proved nor disproved, are the conventional definitions of matter,
and accepted distinctions between matter and mind, or other forms of
force.

The qualities that for ages have been attributed to matter, as iner-
tia and extension, apply correctly enough to that limited portion and
form of matter that the senses can appreciate ; but, as has been shown,
all but an infinitesimal portion of Nature is permanently sealed against
the senses. What warrant have we, beyond undemonstrable proba-
bility, that the attributes of that portion of matter that can be reached
by the senses belong also to all that portion of which the senses can
directly teach us nothing ? How do we know that the familiar forces,
as light, heat, electricity, and gravity, may not be as truly matter as
the Atlantic Ocean or Mont Blanc ?

Standing on the outermost verge of conceivable science, and casting
the line of probability into the dark unknown, as far as it is possible
for human weakness, will it, can it reach any more rational gener-
alization than this, that all Nature is unity? Whether the common
axioms of human reasoning — such as the whole is greater than a part,
every effect must have an adequate cause, every thought must have a
thinker, a thing cannot be and not be at the same time — do or do not
apply to the supernatural, the mind of man is powerless to determine.

Under this head come all conceivable questions relating to the exist-
ence and nature of other universes than ours.

A question of great interest, or would be if it could be answered, is
that of spontaneous generation, which from the limitations of the human
senses can neither be proved nor disproved.

How is it possible for the human faculties to determine what degree
of heat any supposable living substance, or intermediate substance be-
tween living and non-living, beyond the reach of the microscope, may
bear? There are gradations of endurance in living things that are
accessible to the senses. What are the limits of this gradation through
the realm of the infinitely little? If, therefore, all experts in this
branch of inquiry should agree that fluids subjected to a very much
higher degree of heat than has yet been employed in experiments of this
kind shall yet, when every conceivable precaution against sources of
error has been taken, develop some of the lower forms of life, the ques-
tion of spontaneous generation would still be an open one.

The present and prospective state of the spontaneous generation
question is, then, as follows :

1. Science has no absolute deduction for or against it.

2. It is impossible by present deduction or by conceivable induction
to either positively prove or disprove it.

Discussions on the subject, like that between Tyndall and Bastian,
are on both sides unscientific, as they are unsatisfactory, and would not
be indulged in by those who have correct ideas of the limitations of the
senses.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 337

V. Claims which are absolutely disproved by deductive reasoning,
and which therefore the special sciences to which they belong know to
be false without any examination.

Among the more prominent of claims of this kind are those that
relate to squaring the circle, flatness of the earth, perpetual motion,
including " Keeley " and " Winter " motors, alchemy, astrology, " four
dimensions of space," levitation, mind or thought reading, clairvoyance
or second-sight, including prevision and retrovision.

To examine or discuss claims of this kind, for the purpose of deter-
mining their truth or falsity, is not only useless, but unscientific. In
science there are* three unpardonable sins — trusting the senses, non-
experts attempting to do the work of experts, and using deduction for
induction, or, vice versa, induction when only deduction should be used,
as in the class of claims here under consideration.

The reconstructed principles of evidence explain the following prob-
lems in psychology, to which hitherto, so far as I know, no solution has
been offered :

1. Why the logic of the schools has always been on the side of
delusions.

For those who accept non-expert testimony science is the only delu-
sion : everything is true except the truth. In the long discussion relat-
ing to various modern delusions between Mr. Wallace and Dr. Carpen-
ter, Mr. Wallace, according to the rules of evidence, has throughout the
best of the argument : his reasoning, for those who trust their senses,
who believe that non-experts can do the work of experts, and who use
induction when only deduction should be used, is unanswerable.

Likewise in all, or nearly all, the world's memorable contests be-
tween science and delusions, the truth has prevailed, not by virtue of
logic, but in spite of it; the instincts of mankind — the one saving
clause in the constitution of the human brain — rising up in their un-
conscious majesty, and vindicating their rights and their power against
the tyranny of the senses and the cruelty of the syllogism. Logically,
Copernicus and Galileo were wrong ; and their accusers, backed by the
concurring testimony of the eyes of all mankind through all the genera-
tions, have to this hour never been answered. Only on the side of error
is there consistency ; during all these recent days, when science sets its
forces in array against any dominant delusion, as "animal magnetism,"
or "odic" force, or "psychic" force, or "spiritualism," it first closes its
books of logic and forgets all the teachings of the university.

2. Why men of culture and genius, and especially of logical attain-
ments, are more easily and prof mindly deceived by delusions than men
of ordinary ability.

The history of all delusions, so far as known, establishes the wisdom
of the maxim of the father of modern conjurers — the famous Houdin :
" It is easier to dupe a clever man than a fool." Jugglers, and illusionists,
vol. xiii. — 22

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and sleight-of-hand performers of every grade, prefer examining com-
mittees composed of leading citizens — the ablest jurists, physicians,
merchants, clergymen, scientists, and men of letters that can be found
— and instinctively dread the criticism of children and of day-laborers,
who, being unable to read, or write, or to think, or to reason accord-
ing to the books, are obliged to trust their instincts.

The world's greatest follies and darkest untruths, especialby while
in the process of dissolution, have always found some justly honored
authority in theology, in literature, in philosophy, in law, and in sci-
ence itself — a Matthew Hale, a Lord Bacon, a Wesley, a Cotton Mather,
an Elliotson, a Hare, a Gregory, a Wallace, an Emerson, an Agassiz, a
Zollner, committees of learned academies, professors in great colleges
— to stand by their bedside, armed with syllogisms, trusting their
senses, and conscientiously striving to nurse them back to vigorous life.
This grotesque phenomenon of history — so universal as to command
general observation — would seem to have this threefold explanation :
1. The fact here suggested, that clever natures trained in logic are
obliged to reason logically, and, as the logic of the world is wrong, they
arrive at the wrong conclusions, which, against the protestation of their
instincts, they are forced to accept. The greater the man the greater
his errors ; the weakness of the world confounds its strength ; igno-
rance is saved by its instincts, which science and logic dare not always
trust. If the chart be wrong, the navigator who accurately steers by it
is sure to go out of his course ; while he who goes by blind reckoning
may possibly float into harbor. 2. The social and professional posi-
tion of men of genius and ability is constantly compelling them to
undertake investigations in departments in which they are not authori-
ties, and requires them to proclaim positive decisions which, like the
results of all non-expert investigations, are almost inevitably erroneous.
3. The faculty of wonder that so often leads to credulity is not incon-
sistent with the highest scientific genius ; it is, indeed, a powerful and
determining element in the scientific character, and thus what has been
called " the foundation of all philosophy " also becomes the foundation
of all folly. Such, as it would appear, is the solution of the problem
which for so many years has been the despair of the historian and the
opprobrium of psychology.

Hence it is that there are no superstitions that are so superstitious
as the superstitions of scientific men. Hence it is that all delusions in
their decline cast their last shadows over the loftiest heights of science,
of literature, and philosophy.

ON THE FORMATION OF NEBULAE. 339

0J5T THE FOKMATION OF NEBULAE.

Br WILLIAM M. DAVIS, Esq.

HpHE close proximity of the satellites of Mars to their primary has
-*- led me to investigate the lesson taught by them and other satel-
lites of short periods.

This investigation has enabled me to demonstrate :

I. That the nebular hypothesis fails to account for the present con-
dition of the solar system, without the additional hypothesis of a resist'
ing medium in space.

II. It has enabled me to show, also, that, although this medium
tends to bring the solar and all other systems to a state of quiescence,
it has no such tendency on the material "universe as a whole, provided
that the ponderable matter thereof be of infinite extent. If, however,
the ponderable matter — as distinguished from the ether — be of finite
extent, it should come to rest, as will be shown in the sequel.

The first proposition will be established by taking the first satellite of
Mars as an example, and proving that it must have been at least fifteen
or twenty times as far as it now is from its primary when it was able to
take on the globular form from the nebulous ring out of which it was
made. This being established, it follows, as a necessity, that its orbit
must have contracted into its present dimensions since it was thus
formed ; and the satellite during this time has condensed into its present
condition.

As the same cause which contracts the orbits of the satellites should
produce a like result upon those of the planets, it follows that they, too,
must have been farther away from the centre of the system than they
now are, when they took on the globular form from their nebulous rings.

The hypothesis of a resisting medium has been adopted to account
for this contraction of orbits, as no other hypothesis seems competent
to do so.

That this satellite of Mars and others in our sjTstem were much
farther away from their primaries than they now are, will be proved,
by proving that, if a nebulous satellite revolved around any primary
in the short period in which most of the solid ones now do, the tidal
energy — or tendency to elongation and disruption — which would, in
that case, be generated on its opposite sides by such rapid revolution,
would be sufficient to tear it into atoms. These atoms would be dis-
tributed around the primary in the form of a nebulous ring, which ring
would be in a state of stable equilibrium, and therefore could not be
reconverted into the globular form.

Permit me, then, to bring forward some imaginary experiments, for
the purpose of illustrating certain dynamical principles (and methods)
to be employed in proving the fact just stated.

340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Assuming the density of the earth to be 5^ times that of ice, it
follows that, if a globe of ice — say ten miles in diameter — be isolated
in space, a small dense body, as a bullet, near its surface, should fall
toward it — by the action of its gravity alone — through 160 inches dur-
ing the first minute of its descent. Now, if this icy globe be made to
revolve around any large planet in the short period of 5 hours and
42f minutes, and on its axis in the same time and in the same direc-
tion, then the tidal energy (which is, in this case, the difference between
the force of the planet's attraction for the particles at the centre of the
icy satellite and for those at the two opposite points of its surface
which are nearest to and farthest from the planet, added to the differ-
ence of the tangential force on the particles) ' would exactly counter-
balance the icy satellite's interior gravity along this diameter ; i. e., if
the tidal energy could be made to act alone on the aforesaid bullet, at
either end of this diameter, it would force it outward through 160
inches during the first minute of such action ; hence, if a particle at
either end of this diameter should be acted upon both by the gravity
and the tidal energy at the same time, it would have no tendency to
move in either direction ; but if it were raised a few inches above the
surface, then the tidal energy would prevail over the gravity and take
it away.

To get a clear conception of the peculiar condition under which this
icy globe is now placed, let us call this last-named diameter its axis of
tension, and the plane passing through its centre and perpendicular to
it the plane of compression.

Now, along this axis there is no force to prevent the elongation of
the icy globe in that direction, except only the force of cohesion in the
ice itself, as its gravity in that direction is exactly counterbalanced by
the tidal energy.

Around the plane of compression, however, the case is different ;
here the interior gravity is unopposed by the tidal energy, and every
atom is pressing inward on the central mass ; and this pressure tends
to force the tensible regions outward, and thus to make the tensile axis
longer.

"When this elongation begins, the disruptive energy rapidly increases
in virtue of the increased diameter in that direction, and the diminution

1 The above is the formula usually given for computing the tidal energy under the
assumed conditions ; but I incline to believe that the real disruptive power exerted on
the satellite is just double that, for the following reasons :

One (1) pound of ice placed on the surface of this icy globe should press it with the
force of 1.6 grain, of our standard.

Now, the tidal energy, as above calculated, causes the planet to pull the nearest pound
with 1.6 grain greater force than it does the central pound, while, at the same time, it pulls
the central pound with practically 1.6 grain greater force than it does the farthest pound ;
consequently the tensile pull between these two surface-pounds, which would be required
to resist the tidal energy, must be equal to 2 x 1.6 grain, while they are drawn toward
each other by the gravity of the satellite with the force of only 1.6 grain.

OjV THE FORMATION OF NEBULA. 341

of the internal gravity, produced by the same operation. By such
action as this the icy globe should be quickly torn into pieces and dis-
tributed around its primary in the form of a ring of fragments.

Prof. Daniel Vaughan has shown that such is the origin of the rings
of Saturn, and ascribed the close approach of the two satellites which
formed them to the action of a resisting medium.1

If this were a globe of water instead of ice, it is very evident that
much less disruptive energy would be required to tear it to pieces, on
account of the greater mobility of its parts ; most probably not more
than one-seventh of the above-named force would be required to accom-
plish this result.

If this force be sufficient, and the globe of water be made to revolve
around any large planet in fifteen hours or less, the tidal energy will
tear it into atoms by virtue of the following law :

It can be demonstrated — 1. That the tidal energy generated on a
spherical satellite of small but constant mass, when revolving around
a large primary, varies directly as its diameter ; 2. That it varies,
also, inversely as the square of its periodic time ; and 3. That the
ability of the same satellite to resist the disruptive tendency of this
tidal energy varies inversely as the square of its diameter ; provided
there be no cohesive force to aid in resisting this tendency, and in a
nebulous satellite there would be none to do so.

As the first and third propositions relate to the diameter, they may
be included in one, and then the law may be stated as follows :

The disruptive ability of the tidal energy of a primary planet on a
nebidous satellite of small but unvarying mass varies directly as the
cube of the diameter and inversely as the square of the periodic time.
Let us apply this law to the case in hand. To do this it may be very
safe to estimate that a ten-mile globe of water, while yet in the state of
a nebulous satellite, would occupy the globular space of at least one
hundred miles in diameter. This would give it a density of only i(*0-6
of that of water, which, however, would still be millions of times greater
than that of the original nebula out of which the entire system was
made.

According to the above law, the disruptive ability of the tidal en-
ergy on the nebulous satellite must be 10s, or 1,000 times as effective
as on the ten-mile liquid one, if revolving in the same time. Now, to
find the shortest time by the above law in which this nebulous globe
could revolve around its primary without disruption, we must multiply
the fore-named fifteen hours by the square root of 103 ; the product of
this multiplication amounts to about 19f days. As this is the short-
est time in which any small nebulous satellite of this density can re-
volve around any large primary without disruption, it becomes very
evident that nearly all the solid ones in our system must have been

1 " Popular Physical Astronomy," by Prof. Daniel Vaughan. Cincinnati : Freeman &
Spofford. 1858.

342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

much farther than they now are from their primaries, when they were
able to take on the globular form from the nebulous rings or collection
of nodules out of which they were made.

Taking the above estimates, and applying the law to the case of
Mars's nearest satellite, we find that its orbit must have been at least
17f its present diameter when it was able to take on its globular form
from its nebulous ring.

This establishes beyond doubt the fact to be proved, and gives us
some idea of the vast dimensions of the solar system when this last
nebulous satellite of Mars was formed.

What, then, must have been the distance of the first nebulous planet
from the centre of the system, when it was formed ? This, of course, can
be only vaguely guessed, as we have no reliable criterion to judge by.

The Resisting Medium. — The introduction of the hypothesis of a
resisting medium to account for this contraction of planetary orbits
seems at first sight to involve a condition fatal to the continued activity
of the material universe; for, if there be a resisting medium, which is
gradually bringing our system to a state of rest by its reaction on the
bodies moving in it, it is but reasonable to suppose that it should pro-
duce like results on all other systems, and thus ultimately bring the
entire universe of matter into the quiet sleep of death. But that this
is not the normal tendency, however, when applied to the universe as a
ichole, we have the most abiding assurance, without any investigation
of this kind ; for, if such be the tendency now, it always would have been
the tendency, in which case the end would have been accomplished
during the eternities of the past, and we would not be here to-day to
dread its approach.

Still the following question, or its equivalent, will press itself on
many minds : How can the perfect conservation of force, which is so
essentially necessary for the continued activity of the material universe,
be reasonably accounted for, if there be a resisting medium in all
space through which it must ever move ? This pressing yet interest-
ing question leads directly to the second division of our subject, which
will now be discussed.

In order to give this question a suitable reply, as well as to show
how the perpetual activity of the material universe may be maintained,
while moving in this resisting medium, we will trace the history of some
given solar system from its original nebulous state, down through its
life-sustaining period, thence to its final destiny; and then discover, if
possible, a means by which it may be reinvigorated or resurrected to a
new planetary life. For this purpose it seems necessary to present
— very briefly, however, for want of space — one illustration, reaching
through the various stages in the grand round of successive changes
through which all planetary systems seem to be passing. Our solar
system will be taken as the illustrative example.

In tracing the history of the system from its nebulous state down

ON THE FORMATION OF NEBULA. 343

to the present time, the path pointed out by the illustrious Laplace will
be closely followed.

More recent writers have suggested other modes for the formation
of such systems, some of which, however, would seem to be the excep-
tion instead of the rule here presented, as the sequel will show.

No definite explanation will be given in this paper as to how the
out-thrown masses of nebulous matter — which will hereinafter be de-
scribed— may be utilized in forming other systems ; and no suggestion
given as to the formation or structure of the globular or other clusters
of stars, which are so bewildering to investigate, and yet so interesting
to look upon ; but the formation of these, and of that great galaxy of
stars of which our sun seems to be a member, may be accounted for on
the same dynamical principles that are employed in this discussion.

Following Laplace, it is assumed, then, that our planetary system
began its evolutions as a great nebulous sphere of perfectly dissociated
matter of almost inconceivable rarity, and of nearly uniform density.

At this time it was not quiescent, but most probably was agitated
by the movement of internal currents and counter-currents, the resultant
motion of which caused the entire mass to revolve around one of its
diameters.

From the nature of the case, this rotation must have been very slow
indeed, probably one rotation in millions of years. If its diameter were
500 times that of Neptune's present orbit, it would require more than
36,000,000 years to make one revolution ; even this velocity would
slightly flatten it at the poles.

During these revolutions it was radiating heat, not only from its
surface, but, on account of its extreme rarity,1 from regions far below
its surface. This radiation, combined with the gravitation of its parts,
caused contraction ; and this contraction, by well-known mechanical
laws, increased the rate of rotation, and a consequent further flattening
at the poles, while a correspondingly greater increase of density in the
central parts took place.

This process continued till the rate of rotation of the bulging equa-
torial belt generated sufficient tangential force, by virtue of the rapid
rotation of those particles, to counterbalance the gravitating force of
the disk-like mass within, at which time further contraction of the outer
edge of this nebulous belt, or beginning of a ring, ceased, except that
infinitesimal portion due to resistance alone ; for, at this time, each par-
ticle in this outer belt revolved in its own orbit around the central mass.

As radiation continued, contraction also continued, thereby confer-
ring a planetary character on each particle of the successive layers of
the equatorial ring of particles thus left out by the contracting nebulous
spheroid.

Let us now confine our attention, to this out-left ring, for its conduct

1 It should be here remarked that the heat thus radiated from the nebula is not lost,
but continues as wave-motion in the ether, uutil it is again converted into molecular mo-
tion in ponderable matter.

344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

will show how plauets and satellites are formed from rotating nebulous
masses :

As radiation still continued, the repulsive force between the par-
ticles diminished, which allowed them to approach nearer to each other ;
and this tendency to agglomeration resulted in the formation of small
centres of local attraction near the surface of the ring, where radiation
was most rapid.

As condensation continued, new centres of local attraction were
formed within, while the outer and older nodules continued to increase
in size, and to coalesce into larger masses ; till, finally, the outer edge of
this ring had changed from an homogeneous and continuous nebulous
disk to a multitude of nebulous planetoids of great volume, but of
small mass ; while the succeeding interior particles, as fast as they were
left out by the contracting spheroid, were preparing to undergo a like
change.

Now, as these planetoids have various periods of revolution, they
will occasionally come into conjunction, and then, on account of the
great volume and small mass of each, they should coalesce without
crash ; till, finally, some preponderating mass should collect all the little
ones exterior to its orbit into itself, together with as many of those
within its orbit as its gravitating force could control.

In like manner will all succeeding rings be collected into nebulous
planets ; and, if the masses of these planets be sufficiently large, they
too, in a like manner, will develop nebulous secondaries after their own
likeness, both in form and motion.

It is the satellites so formed of the out-left rings of the condensing
nebulous planets in our system that have been under discussion in this
paper.

That the nebulous planet thus formed will be given a motion of ro-
tation in the same direction as that of its primary is due to the fact
that the exterior planetoids have a greater virtual velocity than the
interior ones have. This will become evident from the following con-
siderations :

Let us consider, first, the effect produced on its rotation by one of
the outer planetoids as it coalesces with this preponderating mass. As
the two bodies approach conjunction, the small one will be drawn
inward to meet the larger one, and this contraction of its orbit so in-
creases its orbital velocity that, at the time of meeting, this velocity is
greater than that of the controlling mass, and on striking it will give
the latter an impulse to rotate in the direction of its orbital motion ;
while, on the other hand, one of the interior planetoids, by being drawn
outward, will have its motion diminished to such a degree that, on meet-
ing, it will give the larger one an impulse to rotate in the same direc-
tion as that which the outer one gave to it.

Now, if this nebulous globe be not disturbed by some external force,
it will form the outer planet of the then future solar system.

ON THE FORMATION OF NEBULAE. 345

This is the general rule for the formation of secondary bodies in all
systems. In our system there seems to have been one exception to
this general rule, viz., the asteroids. From some cause — most probably
from external disturbance — this ring did not collect into a single mass,
or, if so, was dashed into many fragments afterward by some meteoric
or cometary body which, thrown out from some previously-formed neb-
ula, had been wandering through space till it reached our system.

There are indications in other parts of the system of such external
disturbances, notably in the satellitious system of Uranus.

From the manner in which the solar system has been formed, it
seems most probable that all the bodies in it should both revolve and
rotate in the same plane and direction that the sun does, had there been
no external disturbance to prevent it.

Having examined the mode in which a planet is formed, and thus
learned how a solar system may be formed out of nebulous matter, and
having discovered that the system must be contracting into smaller
dimensions from some sufficient cause, let us next inquire what conse-
quences are most likely to follow the operation of such cause.

Consequences of Contraction. — It has been shown, by the fore-
going investigation, that our system is expending its life-giving energy
on some resisting medium which causes this contraction.

This, at first sight, seems saddening to contemplate ; but there may
be another point from which to view it. For, while it is seemingly
wasting its life-giving power in this struggle with resistance, it may, in
reality, be storing up a new supply of potential energy, by which a
future activity may be insured. Or, in other words, it may be forming
a new bud, which, when properly vivified by another one, may blossom
forth with the most brilliant rainbow hues, and finally ripen into plane-
tary fruit which shall become the happy home of future intelligent
races.

Modus Operandi op Conservation. — It is well known that the
stars are not fixed, but that they are moving in various directions with
various velocities, relatively to our galaxy, at least.

Now, if the stars be moving, it is very probable that some of them
are moving in such directions that they will finally meet, either in pairs
or otherwise.

Let us direct our attention to two of them which are very like our
star in mass and attendants, or we may suppose our sun to be one of
them, and that they are so moving as to approach each other at the
very slow rate of one mile a week ; and let us further suppose that,
before meeting, each will have arrived at that state of quiescence to
which all systems are tending.

The object of assuming such slow original motion for the meeting
bodies is to make a test case, as it were, in order to show clearly that
the gravitative force of two such large bodies is sufficient to convert
them both into a nebulous mass, besides throwing large portions of

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this mass into the attracting spheres of surrounding stars, and thus
beyond the possibility of return.

It may be proper, here, to point out the modus operandi by which
such systems reach the state of quiescence alluded to above, which is,
substantially, as follows:

The planets absorb their satellites by first converting them into
fragmentary rings — as Saturn has already transformed two of his.
These rings graduall}' approach the planets, till finally they fall upon
their surfaces, and become part of them ; while the planets themselves
are approaching their primaries to succumb to a like fate.

Having absorbed their planetary attendants, and having cooled off
so as to become cold, dark bodies, like the earth, they enter the sphere
of each other's sensible attraction, and begin to approach with continu-
ally increasing velocity, till finally they meet, each arriving at the point
of contact with a velocity of from 400 to 500 miles a second, depend-
ing on their mass and density.

Of the heat generated by such a collision, we can have no adequate
conception. It may, however, be calculated, and written down in ther-
mometric degrees ; 1 still the figures are meaningless to us except as
representing an inconceivable intensity of heat.

It may be stated as so many thousand times the heat generated by
the explosion of an equal weight of gunpowder, still we are unable to
form an idea of the unit of measure here given.

If the doctrine of the "correlation and conservation of forces" be
true, then the heat thus generated, if it could all be applied in the form
of moving force to these two bodies while yet intact, should be suffi-
cient to throw them back again to the points at which their motions
began to be accelerated, if there were no resistance ; but, owing to the
resistance met with, they will not rebound fully to those points.3

It will not, however, be expended in that manner, but in expanding
the entire mass of these two globes into a thin, nebulous vapor ; large
portions of which, most probably, will be thrown out beyond the sphere
of sensible attraction of that which remains, and into those of the sur-
rounding stars.

This great probability will much resemble a certainty when we come
to subject the question to the following speculative illustration :

1 Assuming the average specific heat of cosmic matter to be one-fifth that of water,
then the calculated temperature due to a velocity of 400 miles a second is equal to nearly
450,000,000° Fahr., or 250,000,000° Centigrade.

2 It may be well to remark just here that the resistance here spoken of is assumed to
be caused by the so-called ether of space, through which all bodies must move. Now,
this resistance may be due to the inertia of the ether alone, in which case we must sup-
pose that the ether is perfectly fluent, and receives a kind of mass-motion from the bod-
ies moving through it. Or, on the other hand, we may conceive it to be a friction between
the moving body and the ether. In this case the ether will be given a wave-motion of
some kind, while the ponderable matter acquires a molecular motion. In either case
there will be no motion lost.

ON THE FORMATION OF NEBULAE. 3+7

If the entire nebulous mass could be preserved in the form of an
expansible spherical shell, while the entire amount of heat-force should
be acting upon its interior surface to force it outward, then, according
to the above-named law of conservation, the entire mass would be
thrown nearly to the limit of its sphere of sensible attraction ; i. e.,
nearly to those points at which the motion of the two bodies began to
be accelerated.

For the sake of convenient reference in the following difficult illus-
tration, let us imagine the entire mass of expanding vajDor to be divided
into two equal parts, called respectively the inner mass and the outer
mass ; and let us imagine the heat-force to be divided into two equal
parts also, called the inner force and the outer force.

Now, as these two forces are sufficient to drive these two masses
very nearly to the aforesaid points of acceleration, and whereas only
a part of the inner force can be expended in distributing the inner mass
throughout the space surrounded by such limits, it follows that that
part of the inner force so conserved will expend itself in helping the
outer force to throw the outer mass beyond this sphere of sensible attrac-
tion, and, most probably, into those of the surrounding stars.

If such be the case, then some of these out-thrown masses may
become cometary bodies and meteoric showers to the inhabitants of
"other worlds than ours," besides forming abundant material for the
"cosmical dust," so much discussed of late ; and, possibly, some of the
largest of these fragments may be able to produce asteroidal groups, in
some ripening planetary system, by disrupting one of its planets while
yet in the nebulous state. This seems to supply a deficiency in this
hypothesis which has long been felt.

Density of the Newly-formed Nebula. — If, now, we fix our
attention on the condition of this nebula at the moment when the explo-
sive force had expended its last effort to throw these outside masses
into surrounding space, we can readily see that it must have been of
very nearly uniform density, in consequence of the tendency of the
out-moving particles to continue their motions outward.

Confirmation. — It is very probable that many such explosions as
that described above have been witnessed from our planet, and have
been recorded in history as temporary stars / an interesting account of
some of which may be found in Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy."1

In May, 1866, such a phenomenon was observed in the Northern
Crown. This collision, however, seems to have been, not with the star
itself, but with one of its planets, or with some other dark body lying
in that direction, which contained a large amount of water, the hydro-
gen of which, being dissociated from its oxygen, shone out with such
brilliancy as to be seen at this distance.

That this was a planetary collision seems probable, from the fact
that the star continued to shine with its normal light during the time

1 Philadelphia edition, 1861, p. 472.

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of, and after, this brilliant display of hydrogen, which is proved by the
spectrum analyses of its light during that time.

The " new star' ' lately discovered in the constellation of Cygnus
seems to be a complete confirmation of this theory.

A very interesting account of this star, by Richard A. Proctor,
may be found in The Popular Science Monthly for December, 1877.
From this account the star seems to have passed through all the vari-
ous changes which should naturally be expected from such a collision ;
first, a very great augmentation of light, with a continuous, rainbow-
tinted spectrum arising from the intense pressure to which the rapidly-
expanding mass of gas was at first subjected; gradually passing through
various changes and gradations, till, finally, it took on the " spectrum
of a true nebula," which should naturally occur after a large part of the
intense heat of percussion had taken on the form of latent heat of ex-
pansion.

" As the stars are moving with various velocities in various direc-
tions," it may be asked, " What would be the consequences if two of
them should enter each other's sphere of sensible attraction with very
great velocities ? "

In order to secure definite results, in replying to this question let
us assume definite conditions :

Suppose them to be equal, and of such mass and density that each
would approach the point of meeting with a velocity of 400 miles a
second, by virtue of their mutual gravitation alone ; and, further, that
each one had an original velocity of 300 miles a second toward that
point, when they entered each other's sphere of sensible attraction.

Now, they would meet, not with a velocity of 700 miles a second,
as might, at first, be supposed, but with the velocity represented by

|/3002 + 4002, or 500 miles a second.

According to a previous mode of reasoning, the heat-force gener-
ated by such a collision should be sufficient to throw these two bodies
outward beyond the possibility of return ; therefore, the greater portion
of the resulting nebulous mass would be thrown out with a correspond-
ing velocity, and be distributed among the surrounding stars, leaving but
a small portion of it to occupy the place of meeting ; which, conse-
quently, without further additions, would make but a small solar system.

Conclusion. — Let us now consider what would most likely be the
result of such collisions, if the matter of the universe were of finite
instead of infinite extent.

For this purpose we may assume the last-named pair of stars to
constitute the entire amount of ponderable matter in the universe. It
is supposed, then, that they are both moving directly toward the point
of future meeting with a velocity of 300 miles a second, when each
begins to be affected by the other's accelerating force ; which, conse-
quently, increases that velocity to 500 miles a second at the time of
meeting.

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN HANGING. 349

It will readily be seen, from previous considerations, that large
masses of the resulting nebula will be thrown out from the sphere of
sensible attraction of the remaining mass, with velocities exceeding
300 miles a second, while other portions will emerge with less and less
velocities, till finally some portions barely reach those limits.

The remaining nebula should then begin to contract, and might,
possibly, form a small planetary system. Of the out-thrown masses,
those which moved with the greatest velocity would retire to the
greatest distances ; but even they must finally stop, because they could
not overcome perpetual resistance.

The resistance which these masses have to contend with is of two
kinds : first, the feeble, insensible attraction of the remaining mass ;
second, the resistance of the ether.

The first diminishes with the square of the increasing distance, but
is never reduced to absolute zero ; the second, however, diminishes
with the diminishing speed, and finally becomes nothing, at which time
the body stops.

Now, would these farthest masses return? Most certainly they
would ; for no distance can be named so great that the force of grav-
ity shall become absolutely nothing.

If it took millions of years for the most distant body to move one
inch, after it had stopped it would eventually return to the central
mass, which would itself finally become quiescent.

It will be readily seen that if any number of such bodies were put
in motion in the boundless ether, they, too, would finally come to rest.

Another very well-known and much shorter path leads to this
same conclusion ; it is this :

If the ponderable moving matter of the universe be limited, then,
by constant collision, its motion would all be converted into heat and
light, and be radiated into the outer realms of space, never to return
again, leaving all the ponderable matter to collect into one great mass,
and to cool off to a state of perfect quiescence.

But, if matter be infinite, then there can be no " outer realms "
into which this heat-force can radiate ; consequently there will be no
motion lost, and matter, since it has ever been moving, will continue in
motion forever.

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN HANGING.

By EOGER S. TEACY, M. D.

IN executions it is the custom to drop the condemned man from a
height, or (as in New York) to jerk him up from the ground by the
fall of a heavy weight, so that there is a powerful concussion of the
brain to start with. It used to be a common belief that the necks of

35o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

criminals were broken by this means, and that the pressure of the fract-
ured vertebras on the spinal cord shortened the period of suffering. It
is now known, however, that this rarely occurs, and the criminal dies
of asphyxia or apoplexy, usually the former. In some persons, particu-
larly in heavy or aged ones, the sharp and sudden violence of the shock
is sufficient to burst some blood-vessel, and the gush of blood into the
brain-substance renders the criminal immediately unconscious. But
apoplexy rarely kills suddenly ; even such persons really die of asphyxia.
In feeble persons, the simple concussion of the brain may be sufficient
to bring on insensibility, like a stunning blow on the head, without any
visible lesion of the organ ; so that, in a certain proportion of persons
who are executed by authority of law, it is probable that insensibility
is instantaneous.

Some men, however, with strong necks and coarse organizations, do
not become unconscious from the shock of the fall, and suicides gen-
erally have no fall; so that, in such cases, death supervenes by asphyxia.
But even here the process is not a simple one. It is complicated by a
congestive apoplexy; i.e., such an overfilling of the blood-vessels of
the brain as to produce unconsciousness by pressure on the brain-sub-
stance, but without the actual rupture of any artery. And in these
cases, too, insensibility comes on so rapidly that death is really painless.

The fact that executed criminals suffer little has been known for a
long time. Morgagni quotes Cesalpinus as saying that persons who
have been hung and have not died have declared that " they were over-
come with stupor at the instant of the tightening of the rope, to such a
degree that they felt nothing." And he adds: "As for myself, I have
learned from a sober and truthful man that a thief, whom the cord of
the hangman had not killed, for the same reason that prevented the
deaths of those individuals mentioned by Gardani in the Sepulcretum,
told those who questioned him, that he at first saw sparks before his
eyes, and soon after saw nothing and felt absolutely nothing, as if he
had been asleep."

I once witnessed an execution at the Tombs, and observed the vic-
tim carefully, watch in hand. After the body fell to the length of the
rope, it remained perfectly motionless, so far as I could see, and I
was not more than twenty-five feet away. It swayed a little in the
currents of air, and at the end of a minute and ten seconds there were
three very slight drawings-up of the feet, and a peculiar quivering of
the hands. Then all was still, and remained so until the body was
taken down. In this case the neck was not broken, and death took
place by asphyxia. It is probable that the shock of the fall caused an
apoplexy, or the convulsions would have been more pronounced. It
seemed evident to me at the time that the death of the victim was
painless.

Devergie says : " A friend of Fodere, after a long discussion with him
on the phenomena of asphyxia, hung himself from his door, expecting

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN HANGING. 351

to be able at will to stop the experiment. Luckily, some one came into
the room and rescued him. Chancellor Bacon has reported the case of
a gentleman who took a fancy to find out for himself whether those
who are hung suffer any pain. He put a cord around his neck, and
hung himself, stepping off from a small bench on which he had been
standing, and expecting to be able to mount it again when he wished.
This was impossible for him on account of the loss of consciousness,
which supervened immediately. The experiment would have had a
tragic ending, if a friend had not by chance entered and released him.

In the New Yorker All gemeine Zeitung for May 14, 1877, was the
following item: " In the village of Brunswick, a bet was made, by one of
three young fellows, drinking together, that he could hang for a certain
number of minutes. A ladder was brought, put against the wall, a
noose placed around his neck, and the end thrown over a round of the
ladder. A second drew on the rope, while the third stood by, watch
in hand. Just then in came a servant-girl, who saw the situation. At
her exclamation that the man was blue in the face, the man with the
watch said the time was not up. At her shrieks, however, others
rushed in, and the cord was loosened. The poor fellow fell insensible
to the ground, and was with the greatest difficulty resuscitated."

Although nothing is said in this account about the young man's
sensations, it is likely that he became unconscious immediately; for, if
he had felt the pangs of suffocation, as ordinarily understood, he would
have certainly either grasped the ladder and relieved himself, or in some
way indicated to his companions that he was suffering and wished to
be let down.

Two remarkable examples are on record of persons who allowed
themselves to be hung for the entertainment of an audience. An ac-
count of one of them is given in the Lancet of April 17, 1847. The
man's real name was John Harnshaw, but he performed throughout
England under the high-sounding professional title of Monsieur Gouffe.
He was an athlete, and among other feats it was customary with him
to exhibit the process of hanging. In this performance he relied for
security on the strength of the muscles of the neck and throat. He
had a rope with a fixed knot which could not slip, and passed both ends
of the loop up behind one ear. The whole act was so adroitly managed
that he prevented any pressure of the rope on the windpipe or the jug-
ular veins, and could even sustain a weight of one hundred and fifty
pounds in addition to that of his own body.

On three separate occasions Harnshaw mismanaged the rope, and
became unconscious, being luckily rescued each time. Dr. Chowne,
who writes the account, says very truly : " It cannot be doubted that,
as far as sensation and consciousness are concerned, Harnshaw passed
through the whole ordeal of dying ; and, had he been permitted to re-
main hanging until actually dead, he would have passed out of exist-
ence without further consciousness."

352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Now, this man stated, not with particular reference to either acci-
dent, but as common to all, that " he could hardly recollect anything
that happened to him in the rope ; " that " he lost his senses all at
once ; the instant the rope got in the wrong place he felt as if he could
not get his breath — as if some great weight were at his feet ; could
not move only to draw himself up ; felt as if he wanted to loosen him-
self, but never thought of his hands." And he added : "You cannot
move your arms or legs to save yourself ; you cannot raise your arms ;
you cannot think." He did not see sparks or light, but had in his ears
a rattling sound.

This account is an interesting one, because it shows the absence of
physical suffering, even when consciousness is for a short time retained.
The benumbing effect of the venous blood on the brain is well shown
by his remarks on the confusion of thought and mental helplessness.

In the second instance, which has been fully recorded, the show-man
was not so fortunate. He hung himself once too often, and the circum-
stances of his last exhibition were very singular. He was known as
Scott, the American diver, and he, like Harnshaw, had many times hung
himself before an audience with safety. The last time, however, the
rope slipped in such a way as to compress the throat and bring on as-
phyxia. He hung thirteen minutes, the spectators thinking that he
was prolonging the experiment for their gratification. When he was
taken down he was dead. It is just to those who were looking on to
state that they thought he was safe, because he was still, and did not
raise his feet and stand upon the scaffold, which his legs actually touched.
This case shows with peculiar force the insidious manner in which death
comes on in asphyxia.

While death in such cases has been supposed to occur in conse-
quence of the lack of air, there are good reasons for believing, as pre-
viously stated, that it may be largely if not mainly due to the conges-
tion of the vessels of the brain. Fleischmann tried some experiments
on himself with the object of throwing light on this question. He
says : " If a person puts a cord around the neck between the hyoid
bone and the chin, he can draw it tight at the back or side, without the
respiration being sensibly interfered with, and can for a long time con-
tinue to inspire and expire naturally enough, because in this situation
compression is not made on any part of the air-passages. Notwith-
standing this, the face grows red, the eyes become a little glaring, the
head becomes hot, there comes on a feeling of weight, dizziness, a sort
of distress, and then all in an instant a hissing and roaring in the ears.
This last symptom should be especially noticed, for it is time then to
stop the experiment. I confess that a second time I should hardly dare
to push it so far. The same symptoms follow the application of a cord
to the larynx. It seems to me, though, that then they come on more
promptly, and that the respiration is a little interfered with. I have
been able to prolong the first experiment for more than two minutes,

THE QUESTION OF PAIN IN HANGING. 353

while in the second trial a half-minute had barely passed when the noise
in the ears and a peculiar sensation in the brain, difficult to describe,
warned me to stop the experiment."

In the first experiment Fleischmann was on the very border of un-
consciousness, and, as he himself says, did not stop a moment too soon.
In the second, when the effects of asphyxia and cerebral congestion
were combined, the result was reached much more rapidly.

Devergie states plainly, after considering all the facts, that hanging
is a pleasant way of dying. His words are : " In suicide, at the mo-
ment of the application of the cord, or a few moments after, a feeling
of pleasure manifests itself ; then supervenes disordered vision ; bluish
flames appear before the eyes, and the loss of consciousness soon fol-
lows."

All the evidence goes to show that death by hanging is painless,
and there is positively no fact or well-founded opinion to the contrary.
If this be the case, then, what is the explanation of it ? Simply this :
That in every form of strangulation the blood-vessels of the neck are
compressed, as well as the air-passages. A large part of the blood
is returned from the head by the external jugular veins, which are
very near the surface, and in which the current can be checked by
slight pressure. Most of the blood from the brain itself comes back
through the internal jugulars, which lie near, but a little outside of, the
carotid arteries. The walls of veins are lax and yielding, so as to be
easily compressed, while those of the arteries are firm and elastic, and
it requires considerable force to approximate them. Pressure, then,
which is sufficient to close the jugular veins only crowds the carotids a
little farther inward, and the blood is still poured through them into
the brain, whence it cannot escape. When this pumping process is
going on at the rate of seventy strokes a minute, it is easy to under-
stand how the engorgement of the vessels of the brain, in a very brief
time, reaches a degree which causes insensibility. To explain why this
congestion causes unconsciousness would involve a technical discussion
which would here be out of place. It must suffice to say that it does;
so that, as the cerebral congestion in a hanged person brings on insen-
sibility within a minute, while the physical agony of suffocation does
not begin until later, it follows that the victim does not feel any of the
pangs of asphyxia. He first becomes insensible, with accompanying
pleasurable feelings, from cerebral congestion, and then is choked to
death while unconscious.

Drowning and hanging, then, are painless modes of dying, because
the asphyxia which causes death is complicated by other circumstances
which render the dying man so soon unconscious that the pangs of suffo-
cation are unfelt. And the insensibility which results from hanging is
so insidious and painless in its approach, that experiments on the sub-
ject are very dangerous for any one to make alone. It is probable that
many persons, who are supposed to have committed suicide in this way,

VOL. XIII. — 23

354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

had really no intention of bringing about their own death. Some have
been led, like the two gentlemen mentioned by Morgagni, to try the
experiment out of curiosity. Others may have done it out of pique.
It is not impossible, nor perhaps improbable, that high-spirited boys or
girls, after a degrading punishment, should rush off, as we read of their
doing, and hang themselves. The child puts a cord around his neck,
and steps off from a chair, expecting to be followed, found choking, and
released, by the anxious parents. If he is not followed and his absence
not noticed, nothing can be easier for him than to step up on the chair
again, loosen the rope, and no one will ever know of his folly. In the
first case he would obtain his childish revenge for the wrong he had
received, and in the second case he would lose nothing, for he is his
only accomplice. But the laws of Nature are too stern. He experi-
ences the fate of poor Scott, above related. Utterly ignorant of his
danger, and intending only a prank of childish folly, he steps from his
chair into eternity. Such a possibility should make us charitable, and
in cases of suicide by hanging lead us to remember that, although the
case may be evidently one of suicide, and the hanging plainly inten-
tional, nevertheless the death maj have been undesired and unlooked
for.

THE EADICAL FALLACY OF MATERIALISM.

Br K. G. ECCLES, Esq.

"~VT~OT many years ago the manifestations of energy were looked
-i-^l upon as mere conditions of matter. When a moving body came
to rest, it was thought that the motion was obliterated from the uni-
verse, and, when a body at rest was put in motion, it was supposed to
be a creation. The motion was looked upon as a mere state that had
arisen and ceased. To-day, in the light of the new doctrine of the cor-
relation and conservation of forces, the old notions are inconceivable,
because of the rise of a new element of thought, namely, that force is
caused by energy. Motion to us is the effect of a real though imma-
terial existence, called force or energy, acting upon matter. This en-
ergy persists in spite of every effort to destroy it. It is seen to leap
from matter to matter as motion, when passing through a row of elastic
collision-balls, as each successively gives up its energy to the next.
Energy being seen to travel from matter to matter, persisting in one
piece after eliminating the other, we are compelled to look upon it as
having a real existence of its own. It may change its form many
times, but through all the mutations there remains the identical ener-
gy. After repeatedly following it through such changes, we conclude
that the universe contains a fixed quantity, never had more, and never

THE RADICAL FALLACY OF MATERIALISM. 355

can have less. While the form of this energy changes, the substance
endures forever. In this respect it resembles matter. The forms of
both matter and energy are fleeting, but the invisible substance en-
dures. By their interactions they incessantly alter each other. The
forms of energy determine the forms of matter, and the forms of mat-
ter determine the forms of energy. In this respect their interdepend-
ence is mutual. The form of matter determines whether energy shall
be moulded into heat, light, sound, magnetism, chemical affinity, cohe-
sion, or molar motion. The mode and amount of energy determine
whether matter will be solid, liquid, or gas, opaque or transparent,
colored or colorless, etc. As all matter must have some form, so all
energy must have some mode.

Whatever form matter may assume, that form is built from the ele-
ments of form of which matter can never divest itself. While mat-
ter and energy have independent substantive existences, form has no
existence apart from the matter with which it is found. One piece of
matter cannot give up its form to another, as one collision-ball can
give its energy to another. The failure to see this truth has led to
serious mistakes among psychologists. The elements of form belong-
ing to one piece of matter may be put together in the same order as
found in another piece, so that the identical form may appear to have
been transmitted. The elements of form belonging to matter may
imitate or mimic each other, but this does not constitute identity. The
two words R'O'S'E', ROSE, may look alike, but each has its own form.
If we transpose them as entire words, ROSE, R'O'S'E, they have not
given up their own forms. If we transpose them letter by letter, as
beneath, each still retains its own form, and has not appropriated that
of its neighbor :

First change RO'S'E' R'OSE

Second " ROS'E' R'O'SE

Third " ROSE' R'O'S'E

Fourth " ROSE R'O'S'E'

When transposed as entire words, the entire forms are transposed
at once, and, when transposed as letters, the forms are transposed in
their elements. At the base of the left thumb of the writer there is a
scar, made during boyhood. All the tissue has probably been removed
several times, as in the transposition of the letters of our word ROSE ;
but because the material that supplied the waste has been the same in
kind, and because these elements of form have been put up in the
original order at every change, a scar is there to-day like the one of
years ago. For convenience' sake we call it the same scar, yet it is
no more the same than are our two words, when transposed, identical.
By one set of the elements of form imitating another an illusion is
established that makes it appear as if the identical form was transmit-
ted from one mass of matter to another, just as the identical energy is

356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

transmitted. In this way are organized forms maintained during the
lapse of years, despite the waste continually going on.

Now that the self-existence of energy has been substantiated, and
motion is no longer considered merely a condition or state of matter in
the old sense, the creation and annihilation theory is being shifted to
consciousness or the ego feeling. This feeling is looked upon as a
product of a certain mode of motion brought about by a certain form
of matter, or it is said to be one side of energy. But few pause to
consider what such expressions imply. If consciousness is a product
of organization, then the proper amount, quality, and arrangement, of
matter and motion constitute the ego. Let us consider this. If we
put inactive matter together in any form we choose, the only thing we
can conceive of its having is that form. Add energy to such an ar-
rangement of matter, and the only conceivable result will be some
mode of motion which the mode of arrangement directed. Whether
we arrange atoms, molecules, or masses, in simple or complex order,
the addition of energy will only give a mode of energy. Matter can
direct energy, but we cannot conceive of its turning it into something
that is not energy. We cannot conceive of a motion being a passion
or sensation. No element of kinship can be detected between a kind
of motion and love or hate. Conceive of any mode, speed, or direction
of motion you choose, and they will never even suggest the possibility
of their creating thought, will, hate, avarice, love, ambition, color,
sound, taste, odor, or any other sensation. We can perceive that these
are all forms of the one ego feeling, but that that could ever arise
merely from a mode of motion is absolutely unthinkable. We can con-
ceive of feeling coming in when certain forms of matter and modes of
energy are present, but no alternative theory can for a moment be en-
tertained. It must either come in under favorable circumstances or be
their product. The law of excluded middle forbids a third possibility.
The first of the only two alternatives is conceivable, the second incon-
ceivable. If we here apply Mr. Herbert Spencer's test of truth, " the
inconceivability of the opposite," we must admit that consciousness
possesses an independent existence of its own. We can conceive of no
form of matter and energy being the ego feeling. As it is absolutely
impossible to think of any form of motion arising in matter without
energy entering from some source, so it is equally as impossible to con-
ceive of consciousness arising in any form of matter or motion without
conceiving that a substance of consciousness was infused at some stage.
We may, by refusing to think, give an indorsement to the verbal ex-
pression, and so deceive ourselves by imagining we believe it. Every
proof that can be given of a substance of matter or energy will be
equally telling when turned on consciousness. It is just as impossible
to conceive of the substance of matter being energy or consciousness,
of the substance of enersrv beinjr matter or consciousness, as of the
substance of consciousness being matter and energy. If we demand

THE RADICAL FALLACY OF MATERIALISM. 357

clear ideas, there is no other alternative than to view the three as dis-
tinct but incomprehensible existences. Consciousness reveals itself
through matter and energy. Energy reveals itself through matter and
consciousness. Matter reveals itself through energy and consciousness.
Take away any one of the three and the other would be unknown.
How could we know matter but for vibrations ? How could we know
energy but for matter ? How could we know consciousness but for
sensations induced by energy ? No one of these can be known without
the other. Mr. Fiske's world of pure consciousness is as inconceivable
as a world of motion where there is nothing to move. We do not and
cannot know what the substance of matter is. We only know the
sensations it produces in us through its vibrations. The theory that
assumes the existence of matter is accepted because no other will ex-
plain our experiences. We meet precisely the same difficulties when
we assert that matter is the result of the combination of consciousness
and energy, or that energy is the result of the combination of con-
sciousness and matter, as when we declare that consciousness is the
result of matter and energy. Let any person attempt to conceive of
whatever pair he may choose of this trinity producing the third and he
will find every effort in vain. Take them pair by pair, and the difficulty
will be the same in every pair, thus revealing a common guarantee for
the identity of each as distinct from the other. Men talk glibly of the
production of consciousness by organization, but the words are mere
meaningless jargon. When we see what is meant by such an expres-
sion, we shall learn that the idea has equal lucidity with that of a round
square. Evolution deals only with the forms of this trinity. Forms
evolve, but the substances are eternal. As dissolution follows evolu-
tion, the forms of each are resolved into their elements, to be re-
fashioned again into new forms. Matter may form a tree, a crystal, a
man, or a world; energy may form heat, light, electricity, or sound ;
and consciousness may be fashioned into memory, intellect, color, or
emotion. These are the transient manifestations of the enduring veri-
ties.

Men in prescientific times lost sight of the persistence of matter
because they looked upon the form as the reality. When fuel ceased
to show a solid, compact form after combustion, they thought it was
annihilated. Up to a later date they looked upon the form of energy
as the reality, and when that form vanished they were content to de-
clare it as swept from the universe. When motion changed to heat,
they thought it was annihilated. The form being destroyed, as that
form was mistaken for the reality, they thought the reality had van-
ished from existence. With broader and more enlightened views this
method of reasoning on energy and matter became obsolete, but it still
continues to be applied to consciousness. Intellect, memory, or emo-
tion, being put forward for consciousness, how can we refrain from think-
ing that it goes when these go ? As energy determines the form of

358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

matter, and matter determines the form of energy, so consciousness
determines their form and they determine the form of consciousness.
It is well known to the most superficial observer that the body affects
the mind, and the mind affects the body. A man with toothache, drunk,
or in a fever, in in a bad state to think. When mentally depressed or
in great excitement, the body is affected, and disease or even death mav
be induced by a fright. A blow on the head may destroy memory for
all past events or only part of them. How easy for men, who look upon
memory as the substance of consciousness, to declare that that blow on
the head suspended consciousness, because memory was a blank for
some minutes or hours after it ! As well might we talk of energy being
suspended from the time motion ceases to be seen as such in the mag-
neto-electric machine till it reappears as motion again in the electro-
magnetic machine. "While the body rests in sleep, the forms of con-
sciousness are, to all intents and purposes, still, and we say the sleeper
is unconscious. Give the alarm of fire, and see how quickly the so-
called unconscious man will be aroused. Did he first hear that call and
then awake, or did he awake first and then hear the call ? If he heard
the call before awakening, then consciousness was awake to hear it
while the body slumbered. If he awoke before he heard the call,
then the call did not awaken him. No matter how deep the slum-
ber of the body, something remains awake to catch the signals from
without.

Every form of consciousness being built of that form we call the
ego feeling, or feeling of individual identity, that feeling may be ex-
pected to persist wherever consciousness persists. As the connections
of matter and energy, so far as form is concerned, are perfectly con-
tinuous and complete in every form that each assumes, so the connec-
tions of mind and body from beginning to end will be found just as
perfect and thorough-going throughout. Given the form of matter, and
the form of energy can be at once inferred. The forms of matter,
motion, and consciousness, have from beginning to end the most
intimate relations with each other. Each moulds the other into the
form in which it appears, and it would, indeed, be remarkable from this
view of the case if our experiences of the power of bodily condition
over mind were not as they are. Nerve-waves are not sensations. The
nerve-matter is there and the wave and sensation are there, but by no
effort of thought can we conceive them as less than three. Whether
any one of these can exist independent of the others cannot be known.
We know matter as possessing energy, and when the philosophic mind
attempts to divest it of all energy it melts into inconceivability. In
attempting to separate energy from matter we are foiled. We know
consciousness as connected with matter through energy. When we
attempt to remove consciousness in thought from this relationship, it
slides out of thought completely. In an ultimate analysis each of the
three appears with a substantive basis of its own, but the natures of

THE RADICAL FALLACY OF MATERIALISM. 359

these bases are totally beyond the range of knowledge. Our persisting
symbol of matter is extension ; of energy, motion ; and of conscious-
ness, feeling. We cannot reduce our conception of matter to unex-
tended points of force, nor can we think of either energy or conscious-
ness as latent. The words but cover a vacuity of thought.

Any system of philosophy that denies a substantive basis for the ego
feeling, exclusive of the bases of matter and energy, virtually denies
the existence of knowledge of every kind, and so stamps itself as false.
Our only assurance of the existence of anything outside of ourselves is
the effect produced on consciousness. If the perceiving consciousness
is not real, how can we assert that the perceived matter is ? Action
and reaction are equal and opposite. If consciousness has not persist-
ence and permanence of its own, how can it gauge persistence and per-
manence in matter and energy ? But for consciousness we could know
of the existence of nothing else. Is it logical to claim that our conclu-
sions are permanent and real, while asserting that our premises are un-
substantial and unreal ? Yet this is what every materialist is com-
pelled to do. No theories of "double-faced entities," "results of
organization," or " remodeled definitions of matter and energy," can
ever be conceived to explain the facts.

One of the strongest proofs of the independent existence of the soul
is seen in the fact that at no two consecutive moments of our lives does
the ego feeling rest upon the same matter or energy. The systems of
waves within my brain will all have radiated away many times before
this paragraph is completed. The matter giving out, the energy will
pass away as waste, and the arteries bring back a new supply. For
days, weeks, months, and years, matter and energy will thus pass while
the identical consciousness will persist, and can be traced through
every change precisely as energy can be traced from matter to matter.
To say that energy is a two-sided entity, one side of which constitutes
sensation, is against the facts. The energy my body has to-day is not
that of yesterday. Yesterday's energy has all radiated away and car-
ried both its sides with it ; but consciousness — the same consciousness —
is still here. The closeness of analogy between the conduct of energy
toward matter and of consciousness toward energy is remarkable. Let
M' M" M'" M"" represent four pieces of elastic matter, and e a quantity
of energy. By collision, e will travel from matter to matter thus :

First position Me' M" M"' M""

Second " M'Me"M'"M""

Third " M'M"Me"'M""

Fourth " M'M"M'"Me""

As e travels from M to M it can be no part of M, so must have a dis-
tinct existence of its own. Now let E' E" E" E"" represent the brain-
waves of as many consecutive moments and c our conscious identity.

360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

As the waves follow each other in the order of time, c will travel from
one to the other thus :

First moment Ec' E" E'" E""

Second " E'Ec"E"'E""

Third " E' E" Ec'" E""

Fourth " E'E"E'"Ec""

As c travels from E to E it can be no part of E, and must have a dis-
tinct existence of its own. The deportment of matter, energy, and
consciousness, toward each other, is much like that of the three letters
M, E, C, toward each other in our illustration. Let any person try to
make these three letters one, as the ancients did by the entities for
which they stand, or but two as the moderns do by them, and precisely
the same muddle of inconceivability will arise with the letters as has
arisen with the things. The materialist is not satisfied with trying to
make himself and others believe that matter and energy produce con-
sciousness, but he must believe that, no matter how often he changes
his matter and energy, every new supply will produce the identical con-
sciousness the old one did. If we wish a note of a certain pitch and
timbre, we must have matter in a certain form ; and, if we wish a sensa-
tion of a certain kind and quality, we must have energy of a certain
mode. The tuning-fork or violin-string is not the energy of the vibra-
tions, nor is the wave of motion the consciousness of sensation. It is
necessary that the brain of to-day be like that of to-morrow if I get the
same/brm of consciousness from it each time, but the brain is not the
consciousness. To the form of brain there is not continuation of iden-
tity. The brain of to-day mimics that of days ago, because the elements
of form are put together in the same order. The consciousness that
appears is the identical consciousness, no matter what the form nor how
much energy has escaped. If we declare matter and energy to be eter-
nal, then we must declare the same of consciousness. We know matter
as atomic, energy as rhythmic, and consciousness as individualized.

-+++-

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DU BOIS-REYMOND.

THE name of Du Bois-Reymond stands high among that group of
illustrious scientific men of whom Germany may well be proud.
He is known throughout the scientific world for his masterly researches
in experimental physiology, having, while yet a young man, made a
series of brilliant discoveries in electro-physiology, which at once placed
him at the head of that delicate and important branch of investigation.
But the customary channels of international scientific communica-

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DU BOIS-REYMOND. 361

tion have hitherto been so narrow that the public has not yet been able
to recognize his greatness as a thinker on high questions of scientific
philosophy. We do not say that Prof. Du Bois-Reymond is more than
a scientist, for, in our view, that is a term of great breadth, but we
do say that he is much more than a scientific specialist. He is a com-
prehensive and cultivated thinker. For largeness, originality, and in-
dependence of view, for depth of analysis and thoroughness of erudi-
tion, and for clearness, vividness, and vigor of style, he has no supe-
rior among his distinguished German contemporaries. His celebrated
address on " The Limits of our Knowledge of Nature," which attracted
great attention in Europe, was first presented to the English-speaking
public in The Popular Science Monthly for May, 1874 ; and we now
offer another of his productions to our readers, which is the subject of
comment elsewhere. Prof. Du Bois-Reymond is in the vigorous ma-
turity of his life, and, although he has done a great deal of valuable
work, much more is still expected from him. We hope in due time to
bring before the American public some other of his able productions
that are suited to popular appreciation.

Emil du Bois-Reymond was born in Berlin, November 7, 1818.
His father, a native of Neufchatel, in Switzerland, had in his youth
been a watch-maker, but subsequently entered upon a literary and offi-
cial career in Berlin. Du Bois-Reymond's mother was descended from
the Huguenots, who were driven from their country by Louis XIV.
Among: his maternal ancestors we must not omit to mention the cele-
brated artist and engraver, Daniel Chodowiecki, called by some the
Hogarth of Germany.

After the fashion prevalent in Germany, Du Bois-Reymond first
attended a primary school, then the College Francois of his native town ;
but, when he was about eleven years old, his parents went to live sev-
eral years in Switzerland, and during this period he was a pupil of the
College of Neufchatel. The French language, therefore, was from his
childhood as familiar to him as German.

Later on, we again find Du Bois-Reymond in Berlin ; and at the age
of eighteen he became a student at the university of that town. It is
said that, like many others who afterward distinguished themselves in
natural science, he first devoted himself to theological studies, and
that, during a session, he regularly attended Neander's lectures on
ecclesiastical history. Chancing, however, to enter the lecture-room of
the celebrated chemist Mitscherlich, he felt irresistibly drawn toward
his true vocation. He now studied chemistry, natural philosophy,
mathematics, and during the summer of 1838, which he spent at Bonn,
on the Rhine, also geology, without any very definite aim.

This was eventually pointed out to him by a friend, the late Dr.
Edward Hallmann, who, with greater scientific experience, convinced
him that, of all the branches of science, the study of animated Nature
affords the highest interest and includes the deepest problems, and

3 62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that medicine is the proper road to that goal. A medical student,
then, Du Bois-Reymond became, and as such, a pupil, and soon after
an assistant of the great anatomist and physiologist, John Miiller.

The connection with Miiller decided, as it were, his fate. Humboldt
at that time received a copy of Matteucci's " Essai sur les Phenomenes
electriques des Animaux," and communicated it to Miiller. Miiller,
knowing that Du Bois-Reymond possessed a share of physical and
mathematical knowledge very unusual in a student of physiology,
thought him qualified to take in hand the investigation of animal elec-
tricity, in which Matteucci had made but a poor advance since Nobili's
discovery of the so-called current of the frog. Thus it happened that,
in the spring of 1841, Du Bois-Reymond undertook to elucidate the
problem proposed to science by Nobili, and for nearly forty years he
has not ceased to work upon this subject, which, in his hands, and those
of his numerous pupils, has marvelously expanded, so as to become one
of the most important branches of physiology.

Du Bois-Reymond, after having in 1842 printed a short account of
his first results, went on working patiently for seven years, and then
published his celebrated book, "Researches in Animal Electricity"
(Berlin, 2 vols., 1848-'49). This work, besides a complete history of
what had previously been done upon the subject, contains an immense
number of experiments, made after methods, and with the aid of ap-
paratus, for the most part entirely new, invented by Du Bois-Reymond
himself. In substance, the book is devoted to the exposition of his
discoveries of the muscular and of the nervous current, of their law,
and of the variations they undergo when the muscles and nerves are
thrown into action.

To understand the importance of these discoveries, it must be borne
in mind that, long before Du Bois-Reymond, in fact since the middle of
last century, innumerable attempts had been made to observe electrical
phenomena during the contraction of the muscle. They had all failed.
Du Bois-Reymond, at the outset, perceived that one of the reasons of
these failures was the transient nature of the contraction, and he in-
vented the method of tetanizing the muscles in order to increase the
duration of the contraction, and thereby facilitate the observation of
what takes place in that state. He was thus fortunate enough to
detect electrical phenomena concomitant with the act of contraction,
and he even taught how to deflect the magnetic needle of the galva-
nometer by the voluntary contraction of the muscles in living man, or, as
it were, by our will. The correctness of these facts having been doubt-
ed by MM. Despretz and Becquerel, of the Academie des Sciences, Du
Bois-Reymond, in 1850, went to Paris with his apparatus, and trium-
phantly proved the truth of his statements.

As to the nerve, up to the date of Du Bois-Reymond's researches,
no material change had ever been observed during its activity. In this
case, too, a great many fruitless attempts had been made to discover

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR DU BOIS-REYMOND. 363

some electrical phenomenon connected "with that state. Du Bois-Rey-
mond constructed with his own hands a galvanometer of 24,000 coils,
by far the most sensitive ever made up to that time, and by its means
succeeded in disclosing an electrical phenomenon in the tetanized nerve,
which, for certain reasons we cannot here explain, he styled the nega-
tive variation of the nerve-current. In point of fact, he transmuted
into a deflection of the galvanometer that molecular change in the nerve
which, had it reached the muscles, would have convulsed them, and
which, had it reached the brain, would have caused pain. He also de-
cided the long-vexed question whether the nervous fibres conduct only
in one direction, or in both, by showing that the negative variation is
equally well transmitted in a motor nerve in the centripetal, and in a
sensitive nerve in the centrifugal direction.

Soon after the publication of his " Researches," Du Bois-Reymoncl,
then thirty years old, was elected a member of the Royal Academy of
Sciences of Berlin. As already stated, he has ever since pursued and
extended his investigations ; but it is impossible, in the compass of this
brief notice, more fully to detail their results. Moreover, those of our
readers who may feel interested in the subject will find a conscientious
expose of most of Du Bois-Reymond's papers in the book of one of our
countrymen, of whose talents science has been robbed by a premature
death — Mr. Charles E. Morgan, author of " Electro-Physiology and
Therapeutics " (New York, William Wood & Co., 1868). These re-
sults will also be found in Prof. Rosenthal's German treatise on the
" Physiology of Muscles and Nerves," contributed to the " Interna-
tional Scientific Series," and soon to be published in this country. Du
Bois-Reymond's papers have also been collected in two volumes, under
the title " Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen Muskel- und
Nervenphysik " (Leipsic, Veit & Co., 187o-'77).

Several of Du Bois-Reymond's papers bear merely upon electricity,
without reference to physiology. We will only mention his experi-
mental and theoretical researches on the aperiodic state of the magnetic
needle induced, under certain circumstances, by high dampening pow-
ers ; these researches are of the greatest practical importance. Du
Bois-Reymond also showed, contrary to what Berzelius and Liebig had
stated, that the substance of muscles when at rest is neutral, or slight-
ly alkaline, becoming acid only after death, when rigor mortis sets in,
but that also in the act of contraction acid is evolved.

In 1858 John Muller died, and Du Bois-Reymond was appointed in
his place Professor of Physiology in ordinary, and Director of the Physi-
ological Laboratory at the University of Berlin. In this position he has
exercised a considerable influence on the progress of physiological study
in Germany. Many of the professors of physiology at the other Ger-
man universities have been his pupils ; and this influence has been in-
creased by the friendship which has always connected him closely with
his fellow-students Brucke, Helmholtz, and Ludwig — all of them physi-

364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ologists as averse as he to the doctrine of vital forces, and as eager to
reduce physiology to applied chemistry, natural philosophy, and math-
ematics. He was also one of the founders of the Physical Society of
Berlin, whose reports on the progress of natural philosophy are well
known to every lover of science.

In 1867 Du Bois-Reymond was elected one of the secretaries of the
Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and this office afforded him the oppor-
tunity of displaying, in the public addresses which it imposes on him to
deliver, a new side of his genius. He generally chooses some subject in
the history of science on which he knows how to throw a new and brill-
iant light, as in his essays on Voltaire and on Lamettrie, which have
not yet appeared in English.

Du Bois-Reymond is considered one of the most successful teachers
of the university, and the public lectures, in which he yearly alternates
between "Anthropology" and "Some Recent Advances in Physical
Science," are often dangerously crowded. Having been a good deal in
England, and married a lady of English education, he commands the
English language sufficiently to lecture in it. The late Dr. Bence
Jones, of London, who had formed an intimate friendship with Du
Bois-Reymond, and had published an abstract of his discoveries (" On
Animal Electricity," etc., London, Churchill, 1852), engaged him re-
peatedly to lecture in the Royal Institution, where Dr. Faraday, and
other eminent Englishmen of science, were much interested in his ex-
periments. In 1855, in the theatre of the Royal Institution, he showed,
and described in the Philosophical Magazine, the beautiful method of
rendering the deflection of a galvanometer visible by a beam of light
reflected from a mirror attached to the needle ; of which method Sir
William Thomson subsequently availed himself for the readings of the
Atlantic Telegraph so successfully that it has ever since been attrib-
uted to that able physicist.

Du Bois-Reymond is a member of the Academies of Vienna, Munich,
and Rome, and an associate of the Royal Societies of London, G5t-
tingen, Upsala, etc. He has been employed these last three or four
years in erecting in Berlin, at the expense of the German Government,
the largest and finest physiological laboratory in existence. His new
lecture-room is said to be the most beautiful and best appointed in the
world.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

365

EDITOR'S TABLE.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH HENRY.

IN" the death of Prof. Henry, Sec-
retary of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, which occurred May 13th, Ameri-
can science has met with an irreparable
loss. Little needs to be said in eulogy
of a character so widely and familiarly
known, and so profoundly respected
and admired, as this venerable savant.
In Volume II. of The Popular Science
Monthly will be found an excellent
portrait of Prof. Henry, with a sketch
of his life, and an enumeration of his
most important scientific labors ; but
there are two or three features of his
career that are entitled to special recog-
nition, now that he has passed away.

It is very well understood in the sci-
entific world that, more than any other
man, Prof. Joseph Henry is the scien-
tific founder of the system of modern
telegraphy, and this honor ought to be
equally conceded to him by the general
public. His earliest discoveries and his
most important scientific work were in
the field of electro-magnetic research,
entered upon within a very few years
after Oersted had announced the dis-
covery of the relations of electricity and
magnetism. Prof. Henry worked out
experimentally, and by the most elabo-
rate investigations, those laws and prin-
ciples of electro-magnetic action which
made the telegraph possible ; and not
only this, but he actually constructed
and operated an electric telegraph years
before Prof. Morse turned his attention
to the subject. The great contrivance
was of course bound to come, but no
consideration of this kind should be
permitted to detract in the slightest de-
gree from the honor of those by whom
it came. The scientific discoverer is
entitled at any rate to have his work
recognized, especially as he rarely gets

anything else. It is the man who runs
in upon his discoveries and applies them
and brings them into notice that is usu-
ally credited in the popular estimation
with all the honor. In this case, Morse
has appropriated the glory that fairly
belongs to Henry. Morse originated
nothing by the current telegraphic al-
phabet— that is, the combinations of
taps and clicks of the instrument, by
which letters are denoted. Electricity
had long been looked to as an agent
for the transmission of intelligence.
Many experiments had been made from
the time of Franklin to secure this ob-
ject, but none of them had succeeded.
Various contrivances had met more
recently with partial success, but Prof.
Henry's sounder of 1830 has gradually
displaced, and has now almost entirely
superseded, all other methods of elec-
tric signaling. Mr. E. K Dickerson, in
tracing out the history of telegraphic
invention, after stating the merits of
various previous contrivances, thus re-
fers to Henry's work :

"Then came Prof. Henry, who, in 1830,
deduced from the hypothesis of Ampere —
that magnetism was the circulation of elec-
tricity at right angles to the line connecting
the poles of the magnet — the invention now
known as the compound electro-magnet.
In that year he constructed an electro-mag-
net that would sustain 1,000 pounds weight ;
and he answered the demonstration of Bar-
low, and proved that the electro-magnetic
telegraph was possible. In the same year
he set up an electro-magnetic telegraph at
Albany, over a line of a mile and a half in
length, using what is now known as the
' polarized relay,' between the poles of
which a magnetic armature vibrated upon a
hinge, as the current of electricity was re-
versed— the end of the armature striking a
sounder, and transmitting the intelligence
by sound. This was the first electro-mag-
netic telegraph (I use the popular phrase)
ever made ; and it was the first one possible

366

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

to be made, because, until Prof. Henry's
electro-magnet was invented, it was an im-
possibility. Tins electro-magnetic telephone,
made by Prof. Henry in 1830, is the thing
in universal use to-day. It goes by the er-
roneous name of the ' Morse telegraph ; ' and
it will be in use till the end of time. The
thing was perfect as it came from the hand
of its author, and has never been improved
from that day to this as a sounding tele-
graph."

Having immortalized himself by
these brilliant researches of the labo-
ratory, Prof. Henry was called into a
more conspicuous sphere of action as
the organizer and administrator of a
great public enterprise of national scope
in connection with the progress of sci-
ence. John Smithson, an English chem-
ist and physicist, and member of the
Royal Society, had left upward of half
a million dollars as a trust to the Amer-
ican Government, to be used for "the
increase and diffusion of knowledge
among men." How this language was
to be construed and how the money
was to be expended were open ques-
tions. The Washington politicians were
in favor of spending it on buildings,
libraries, and museums to be established
at the national capital, and the whole
fund would probably have been buried
and lost in this way, but for the in-
fluence of Prof. Henry. He was ap-
pointed, in 1846, as secretary and prin-
cipal executive officer of the Institution,
and at once applied all his energies to
rescue the fund from the misdirection
that had been given to it, and to devise
more efficient means of obtaining the
comprehensive object to which it was
devoted. As Smithson was a man of
science, and an original investigator of
that "natural knowledge " which the
Royal Society of Great Britain, of which
he was a fellow, was founded to pro-
mote, Prof. Henry fairly and justly as-
sumed that the intention of the donor
was the increase and diffusion of scien-
tific knowledge — increase and augmen-
tation by research and organized sys-
tems of observation, and diffusion by
means of extended publication. Henry's

policy, therefore, was to diminish ex-
penditures upon buildings, libraries,
museums, and art-galleries, that the
money might be devoted to wider and
more legitimate purposes. He took
the ground that the Institution ought
to do nothing which can be equally
well done by any organization or in-
strumentality already in action. He ac-
cordingly drew up a scheme of opera-
tions which provided for extensive re-
searches especially in the fields of eth-
nology and of meteorology. He had for
many years five hundred meteorological
observers scattered over the continent,
accumulating data designed to elucidate
the laws which govern the phenomena
of the weather. This branch of work,
begun on so thorough a scale by the
Smithsonian Institution, has developed
into the Signal Service and Weather
Bureau in Washington, now so impor-
tant to the agriculture and commerce
of the country. In the department of
publications the public has been fur-
nished with the " Smithsonian Con-
tributions to Knowledge," now consist-
ing of many large quarto volumes, all
valuable as positive additions to the
sum of existing knowledge. Besides
these, the Institution has put forth the
" Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collec-
tions," and " Annual Reports," all of
which are intrinsically valuable for the
information they contain, and are very
widely circulated through the country.
Prof. Henry's plan also comprehended
an extensive system of exchanges of
works, proceedings, and reports, be-
tween the literary and scientific asso-
ciations of the Old and New World.
All these features of Prof. Henry's
broad and liberal scheme of adminis-
tering the Smithsonian trust have been
carried out vigorously, and with a de-
gree of success that has commanded
universal approval. An administration
of thirty years has settled the policy of
the Institution, and will undoubtedly
shape its future, and it is very doubt-
ful if there was another man in the
United States that could have done

EDITOR'S TABLE.

367

thi3 work with such conspicuous suc-
cess as the distinguished man to whom
it was so fortunately intrusted.

It may be added that, in a business
point of view, the establishment has
been managed with great skill and effi-
ciency. The amount of money received
from Smithson, in 1838, was $515,000,
to which was added in 1865 a residuary
legacy of Smithson amounting to $26,-
000 ; and, notwithstanding that a large
portion of the fund has been absorbed
in building, all the plans of Prof. Henry
have been carried out, and the fund
now available exceeds $700,000.

MAGNIFYING SOUND.

How scientific discoveries run in
groups, one thing suggesting another
so quickly as to make an epoch, is just
now illustrated anew in the field of
acoustics, and with the usual result of
rival claims and disputed priority.
Following the telephone and growing
out of it comes another remarkable
revelation, that minute sounds may be
magnified to the ear as minute objects
are magnified by lenses to the eye.

The telephone, in transmitting sound,
greatly reduces or minifies it, and it
therefore became a problem for ex-
perimenters to find out how sounds can
be transmitted with the least loss of
volume and intensity. Mr. Thomas A.
Edison early attacked this problem
with his usual assiduity and fertile in-
ventiveness. Operating upon many
hundred substances of diverse qualities
and in varying conditions to test their
sonorous capacities under electrical in-
fluence, he found that carbon possess-
es this singular property in a very re-
markable degree. He found, moreover,
that the effect varies with the pressure
upon the carbon, and, what is more as-
tonishing still, that it varies so greatly
with the small differences of pressure
produced by the passage of sound-
waves as to alter the flow of the elec-

trical current. More than a year ago
he embodied this principle in the " car-
bon telephone," by which the capaci-
ty of the instrument was greatly aug-
mented.

But now Prof. D. E. Hughes, al-
ready well known as the inventor of
the type-printing apparatus that bears
his name, comes forward with an ar-
rangement involving the same property
of the same substance, but developing
almost incredible effects. He claims
to have reached these results in his
own way, as follows : Following a hint
of Sir William Thomson in regard to the
molecular change and conductivity of
wires under mechanical strain, he insert-
ed a stretched and strained wire in his
telephonic circuit. But no effect was
produced until it broke, when a sound
was given out so curious and marked
that Prof. Hughes followed it up, by
pressing the broken ends together, when
the new effect was faintly reproduced.
Following this suggestion, he introduced
other pieces so as to have broken or
imperfect connections, when the faint
sounds were improved. Iron nails or
a steel watch-chain also answered the
purpose.

Prof. Hughes says he found the same
property in porous charcoal, and that
it was heightened by infiltrating the
carbon with metallic mercury. The
part introduced into the circuit Prof.
Hughes calls the " transmitter," and
the arrangement which he recently ex-
hibited to the Pioyal Society consists of
a glass tube two inches long, and one-
fourth inch in diameter, filled with a
series of plugs of mercurialized carbon,
the end-plugs being attached to the
wires of the circuit. He uses a small
three-celled galvanic battery to furnish
the current, and, with the transmitter
introduced, sounds otherwise perfectly
inaudible by the ear are not only heard,
but are conveyed to great distances by
the telephone. The surprising thing is
that when these pieces of carbon bare-
ly touch each other the electric current

368

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

will not pass ; but when the molecules
of those adjacent pieces are agitated by
sound-waves they transmit electricity
freely. The same effect is produced by
light when the metal selenium is exposed
to light, and its electrical conductivity
is unequally affected by the different
rays of the spectrum. Prof. Hughes
calls his invention the microphone, and
it has this peculiarity, that the sounds
are taken up directly by the " trans-
mitter."

The London Telegraph thus refers
to the results of Prof. Hughes's ex-
periments before the Eoyal Society:
•' Inserting a ' transmitter ' in his cir-
cuit, an absolutely amazing sensitive-
ness to sound, as well as power of con-
veying it with the utmost fidelity, was
displayed by the apparatus. A touch
of the finger on the vibrating plate of
the telephone was conducted to the
speaking end in volume of vibration
like the rustle of a forest ; the stroking
of a camePs-hair brush on a card was
magnified into the sound of aloud whis-
per ; the beating of a pulse or the tick
of a watch was found to pass with per-
fect clearness through a resistance rep-
resenting a hundred miles of space ;
and, when a fly happened to walk over
the plate, the tramp of its feet was most
distinctly caught, like that of some six-
legged horse trotting, and it was, more-
over, heard to trumpet from its raised
proboscis like an elephant in an Indian
jungle. Sounds, in fact, totally inaudi-
ble before to human ears, were arrested
and reported by this simple and acci-
dental expedient of interrupting the
electrical circuit with a finely-divided
conducting material."

CATHOLICISM AND ETERNAL PUNISH-
MENT.

TJndek the title of " Hell and Sci-
ence," a writer in the Catholic World
for June makes an elaborate reply to
our recent comments on the doctrine

of future punishment. He is especial-
ly indignant, as might be expected, at
our remark that there has been a " rap-
id liberalization of theological opinion "
on this subject. He says that " the
doctrine of hell is not a theological
opinion but an inspired dogma," which,
of course, can be neither liberalized
nor got rid of in any other way. In
speaking of the altered theological tone
upon this subject, we of course referred
to what currently passes under the
name of theology, but our reviewer
avers that we were utterly wrong in
the application of the word. This is
his case :

" Theology is essentially based on author-
ity ; hence theology has no existence in the
Protestant sects, whose very reason of being
is a contemptuous disregard of authority,
and the assumed right of private interpreta-
tion. Now, all those who ventured to argue
against the existence of eternal punishment
belonged to Protestant sects ; and, therefore,
their 'liberal view' of the subject does not
constitute ' tbeological opinion.' Protestants
may, indeed, assume the title of ' divines ; '
but the title is not the thing. There is no
real theology outside of the Catholic Church.
"When Catholic divines shall discuss the ex-
istence of hell as a free theological opinion
— which, of course, will never happen — then
only Prof. Youmans will be welcome to say
that there has been a liberalizing of theo-
logical opinion."

"We freely admit that there is great
shrewdness in this policy of the Cath-
olics, by which so effective an instru-
ment of domination as the fear of hell
is placed beyond examination on the
part of the followers of that faith. By
shutting off the right of private judg-
ment on dogmas sanctioned by author-
ity, they no doubt get rid of the fer-
ment of discussion and diversity of
opinion which, among Protestants, fol-
lows the exercise of the right of pri-
vate interpretation. The writer in the
Catholic World identifies liberalism
with Protestantism, and recognizes that
among Protestant sects the notion of
hell is dying out. He thus concedes
that liberalism leads to this result,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

369

which is all that we claimed, but he
denies that modern liberalism exerts
its baneful and pestilent influence with-
in the precincts of his church, or that
there is any change going on within it
respecting the dogma of hell. Yet of
this we are not so certain. The liberal-
izing influences of the age are subtile,
diffusive, encroaching, and all-pervad-
ing. Such influences have been grow-
ing for centuries, and the Catholic
Church has by no means escaped them
in times past. They have convulsed it
and rent it, and are now agitating it
profoundly. What warrant have we
that these patent disturbing agencies
are to be inoperative in the future ?
Our reviewer, indeed, informs us that
there is no change in his church in re-
gard to eternal damnation. To our
remark that the doctrine of hell is be-
ing refined away, he replies that "the
literal lake of fire and brimstone is
preached even now all over the earth ; "
and, to our assertion that the notion is
growing obsolete, he rejoins that "two
hundred millions of Catholics believe
the doctrine as a cardinal tenet of the
Church."

But it is important not to be misled
here. In what sense are these two
hundred million Catholics said to " be-
lieve " in the doctrine of hell ? Belief
implies evidence, and is founded upon
it ; how, then, can men believe that
of which they are never permitted to
think in connection with evidence ?
They may assent to the doctrine, or
accept it under the influence of early
teaching, or terror, or the coercion of
spiritual authority ; but the rational act
of belief implies the liberty of doubt,
the freedom of inquiry, and a judgment
resting upon proof. How can this be
possible with a dogma upon which men
are forbidden to exercise their minds,
and are not even permitted to class as
a " theological opinion ? " We know
what the Catholics profess ; it is quite
another thing to know what they really
believe. Of course, the term belief in

vol. xin. — 24

the theological world is used in a very
loose way, and is made to cover what-
ever is contained in an accepted creed.
But in aiming to get at the real state
of mind, which is the object here, it is
necessary to discriminate between views
that are rationally entertained on some
claim of reasonable grounds and dog-
mas that are blindly held under theo-
logical dictation. Our reviewer admits
that there is a growing liberalization,
that it is the very essence of Protes-
tantism, and that it is inroading upon
the old doctrine of future everlasting
punishment; and it is perfectly well
known that the Catholic Church is
deeply troubled about the encroach-
ments of the so-called " spirit of the
age," which it denounces in the most
solemn manner. Can there be any
doubt that the invading spirit of lib-
eralism will affect Catholic minds in
the same way that it has Protestant
minds. If not, where is the danger, and
what the excuse, for the anxiety of the
Church? Under the external exertion
of a rigorous ecclesiastical system, uni-
formity of profession can be secured;
but of what avail is the force of author-
ity in the case, or where does it take
effect if not in resisting private reason,
and substituting profession for real be-
lief? There may be two hundred mill-
ion Catholics who still accept the be-
lief in hell, but it is not possible that all
of them, in this age, can be in such a
complete state of mental paralysis as
not to reflect upon the grounds of their
belief, and to hold the opinion with
more or less of the same reservations
that are exercised by other classes of
Christian believers.

Prof. Dit Bois-Retmond, of Berlin,
several months ago gave an address be-
fore a scientific association at Cologne,
which was recently published in an am-
plified form by the author. We pro-
cured an early copy for translation, and
sent the English proof to the author

37°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for revision. Meantime the discourse
had quickly passed through several Ger-
man editions, revised by the author, so
that the address, the first part of which
is now presented to the readers -of The
Popular Science Monthly, embodies
his latest corrections and emendations.

We were especially desirous of hav-
ing a complete and authorized edition
of this elaborate address, both from the
profound interest of the topic, and be-
cause of certain special views developed
by the author which are likely to at-
tract much attention. It is an histori-
cal disquisition on the course of civ-
ilization in relation to science, and
sketches the various stages and phases
of man's progress in culture with mas-
terly compression and a vivid eloquence,
which will enchain all thoughtful read-
ers. How the Greeks and Eomans
failed to seize upon the scientific aspects
of Nature, and the calamities to the
world that followed from that deficien-
cy in their mental cultivation, are prob-
lems that Prof. Du Bois-Eeymond han-
dles in a fresh and original way. Equal-
ly interesting is his view, that for sci-
ence the world is indebted to Chris-
tianity, which, by its monotheism and
the intolerance entailed by sincere
monotheistic belief, gave a new earnest-
ness and intensity to the human mind,
that impelled it to a deeper research
into causes, and to a more thorough ex-
ploration of the order and method of
Nature.

But Prof. Du Bois-Beymond's the-
sis does not stop with speculative in-
quiries ; it extends to important prac-
tical results. The history of the rise of
science, as discussed in the first part of
his essay herewith printed, has a weigh-
ty interest on its own account, but its
claim upon our consideration is re-
doubled from the import of the con-
clusions arrived at in the sequel. The
history of science and civilization de-
rives its highest significance from the
bearing it has on the policy of mod-
ern culture. The organization or reor-

ganization of education, the formation
of national systems of instruction, and
the modification and extension of the
old colleges and universities, are un-
doubtedly the gravest questions that the
present age has before it, and it is with
these that the eminent German pro-
fessor has grappled in this discussion.
They, moreover, have become in a
literal sense world-questions ; and so
intimate are now the intellectual reac-
tions among distant and different coun-
tries that the higher policy of educa-
tion is nothing less than international.
Prof. Du Bois-Eeymond is keenly alive
to these broader aspects of the subject,
and the views he presents will have a
peculiar interest for readers in this coun-
try, because he recognizes not only that
America is exerting an influence upon
the higher education of Europe, but be-
cause he considers that influence as by
no means of an elevating or ennobling
character — as something rather that the
intellect of Europe must put forth its
utmost power to withstand.

We continue the important series
of papers, by Prof. Alexander Bain, on
" Education as a Science." He is now
dealing with its psychological basis,
and with those laws of mind — in the
present paper, of sensibility and emo-
tion— which govern the processes of
culture and the arts of the teacher.
In his great work on the "Emotions
and the Will," Prof. Bain has carefully
worked out the principles which are
here briefly reexpounded in their bear-
ing upon educational practice. How to
get command of the motors of intellect-
ual cultivation — the emotions — is one
of the teacher's most urgent problems.
What emotions will hinder the work
of culture, and what will promote it,
how they are to be quickened and how
restrained, under what circumstances
they shall be appealed to, and how
they come in play in different stages
of development and in relation to dif-

LITERARY NOTICES.

371

ferent objects of study — all these prac-
tical questions turn upon a knowledge
of psychology, which, if we are ever
to have a science of education, must be
so sufficient that it can be applied to
individual cases. Prof. Bain is clearing
the ground for a thorough-going dis-
cussion of that element of culture which
has been more misunderstood and per-
verted than any other — the subject of
discipline.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Synoptical Flora of North America.
By Asa Gray, LL. D. Vol. II., Part I.,
Gamopetalae after Composite. New
York : Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co.
8vo. Pp. 402. Price, $6.00.

We can in no way do such excellent
justice to this comprehensive and elaborate
work, as by quoting, in full, the able review
of it that appeared in the New York Tribune :

" The ' Flora of North America,' by Drs.
John Torrey and Asa Gray, was commenced in
1838, and appeared in numbers, at convenient
intervals, until 1840, when, having reached, in
the accepted arrangement of orders, to the end
of Compositse, its publication ceased. So valu-
able was this ' Flora ' to the working botanists,
that its discontinuance was a source of great
disappointment ; and those who were not aware
of the reasons which made its intermissions al-
most imperative were not a little impatient.
To those best advised, the discontinuance of the
work was known to be really in the interest of
American botany. The acquisition of Texas
and of new territory at the close of the war with
Mexico essentially changed our botanical as it
did our geographical area. Up to that time, our
knowledge of the far Northwest, the far West,
and the Pacific coast, was mainly due to the la-
bors of European explorers, to which were add-
ed the results of the journeys of Nuttall, Wyeth,
Long, and a few others, but nothing like a gen-
eral exploration had been made of those vast
fields which have since yielded such rich botau-
ical harvests. The two journeys of Fremont,
the forced march to the Pacific on the line of the
Gila, by Emory, with the volunteer expeditions
of Lindheimer, Wislicenus, Fendler, Wright,
and some others, resulted in such a wealth of
new material, opening, in some cases, an en-
tirely new flora, that it at once became evident
to its authors that the ' Flora of North Ameri-
ca ' could not yet be written with any approach
to completeness. These explorations indicated
that the number of genera in the families, and
the number of species in the genera, already
published in the 'Flora,' were in many cases

doubled, and it became evident that the authors
must either continue a work which would be
unsatisfactory when finished, or suspend it for
a time, and devote themselves to the elabora-
tion of the rapidly-accumulating new material,
which would otherwise pass into other hands.
They wisely adopted the latter course, a de-
cision which proved all the more judicious
when the survey of the Mexican boundary and
the surveys of numerous routes for a Pacific
railroad added most essentially to the already
rich collections, and opened to botanical explo-
ration such a breadth of territory that but few
important localities were left unvisited. Be-
sides these Government expeditions, and nearly
contemporaneous with the later of them, came
the private explorations of Parry, Hall, and
Harbour, and others, while the rapid settlement
of mining and other localities brought out a
number of local collectors, who made important
additions to the rapidly accumulating treasures.
The State Geological Survey of California, and
the survey under Mr. Clarence King under the
fortieth parallel— thanks to Sereno Watson's
energy and perseverance — also yielded impor-
tant botanical results. The time has now ar-
rived when the ' Flora of North America ' may
be written with the hope of presenting a fairly
complete record. Of course new species and
new genera are yet to be discovered, but no such
bonanza of botanical riches as the past thirty
years have developed can be looked for in the
future, and our present knowledge may proper-
ly be embodied in a work which will serve as a
standard, around which the clustering of future
accessions will be an easy matter.

"One of the illustrious botanists, whose
name appeared as joint author of the earlier
' Flora,' and which will ever be identified with
North American botany, has passed away ; but
the results of Dr. Torrey's many years of labor
since the first 'Flora' was discontinued will
appear in the new work, the pages of which
will show how industriously he labored during
that long interval.

" We have said that the present is a most fit-
ting time for making a ' Flora of North Ameri-
ca ; " it is so, not only in the fullness of mate-
rials, but especially so that its author is in the
fullness of his industrious and useful life. Pre-
pared, as no other can be, by years of study of
our plants from every part of the country, and
also by the experiences of extended field-ob-
servations on two journeys to the Pacific coast,
our first botanist presents this, which we may
regard as his crowning work. It is fortunate
that, just at this time, those eminent botanists
Bentham and Hooker have presented in their
' Genera Plantarum ' a complete revision of the
genera, made, so far as American genera are
concerned, in full sympathy and correspondence
with Dr. Gray. While, in the ' Flora,' Dr. Gray
may not adopt all the views of these gentlemen,
it is not the less gratifying to American botanists
to know that the genera, so recently elaborated
by three such botanists as Gray, Bentham, and
Hooker, are likely to be accepted as established
for a long while to come.

;72

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

" With this brief statement of the ' conditions
precedent1 to the 'Flora of North America,'
which have more interest for the botanist than
the general reader, we glance at the work itself.

"The present (first in order of appearance,
but not in botanical sequence) is the first part
of the second volume, takiug up the orders
where the former flora left off. It begins with
the Goodeniacece, and ends with the Plantagina-
cece. Two more parts will be required to com-
plete the second volume ; the one to immediate-
ly follow this will be devoted to the Apetalous
and Gymnos]>errnous Exogens, and the final part
will contain the Monocotyledonous plants and
the Vascular Cryptogamia. The first volume
will include the Polypetalous orders, and the
Ganiopetalse to the end of Compositse. It is
expected that each volume will contain about
twelve hundred pages.

" The first thing which will strike the work-
ing botanist on opening its pages is the excel-
lent mechanical arrangement of the flora, and
especially its compactness as compared with the
former ' Flora of North America.' This is at-
tained in part by conciseness of description, but
mainly by the omission of extended synonymy.
This lack of synonyms is happily supplied by
the contemporaneous publication, by the Smith-
sonian Institution, of the 'Bibliographical In-
dex to North American Botany,' by that most
industrious of botanical workers, Mr. Sereno
Watson, of the Herbarium of Harvard College.
This work gives full references for each species,
and, while it is of the greatest importance that
its matter should be recorded, it is not of a kind
needed by the majority of those who will use the
' Flora,' and its preservation in a separate work
is most fortunate, especially as it allows the
' Flora ' to be much more compact.

" It is hardly necessary at this day to say
anything in praise of Dr. Gray as a systematic
botanist. Those familiar with his other works
will be prepared for the admirable method which
characterizes this ; the same conciseness of de-
scription, the keen perception which seizes upon
and points out the distinctive characters, and the
same broad views of the range of genera and
species which mark his other works, will be
found here. Yet we venture to say that this
work will add to his reputation with those who
can understand the difficulties of his task, and
can appreciate the completeness with which it
is executed. Almost any one, familiar with bo-
tanical terms, can so describe a species that it
may be identified by another. It is the treat-
ment of large genera that puts the systematic
botanist to the test. The generic description
should give characters which cover every spe-
cies, while the specific description should not
repeat any of the generic characters — a matter
sitnple enough, but its non-observance is very
tiresome, even in the works of botanists of dis-
tinction. For convenience, large families have
in many works an artificial key to the genera,
and large genera a similar key to the species.
This is well enough in elementary works. In
the present 'Flora' the large genera are grouped
in subgenera, which, if sufficiently important,

have distinctive names; these subgenera arc
subdivided into sections and subsections, each
briefly defined by prominent characters common
to all the species it includes. For example, in
' The Flora ' (which will soon become its ac-
cepted and familiar title), in the now large genus
JMmulus, we have the primary divisions or sub-
genera : 1. Eunanus ; 2. Diplacus ; 3. Eurnimu-
Ins ; 4. Mimuloides ; all except No. 3 having been
ranked by one botanist or another as genera.
Some of these subgenera include a dozen or
more species, which are grouped in subdivisions
of two to five, by characters common to all. It
is in such grouping that the systematic botanist
shows his tact, and we feel sure that those who
make use of ' The Flora ' will find that the eye
of the author has lost none of its early keenness,
and that his perception of the essential charac-
ters is as acute as ever.

" While we welcome this installment of the
' Flora of North America ' as an important event
in the history of American botany, and announce
its appearance with no little national pride, we
utter the wish of overy American botanist when
we express the hope that its author may be
spared to complete the work so admirably be-
gun."

American Journal of Mathematics, Pore
and Applied. Editor-in-Chief, J. J. Syl-
vester, LL. D., F. R. S. ; Associate Edi-
tor-in-Charge, William E. Story, Ph. D.,
with the cooperation of Benjamin Peirce,
LL. D., F. R. S., Simon Newcomb, LL. D.,
F. R. S., and H. A. Rowland, C. E.
Published under the Auspices of the
Johns Hopkins University. Tol. I.,
No. 1. Pp. 104. Baltimore: printed
by John Murphy & Co. Price, $5 per
year; $1.50 single number.

This periodical is to appear quarterly,
or as nearly so as may be found practicable,
each volume of four numbers containing
about 384 quarto pages. It is designed
chiefly as a medium of communication be-
tween American mathematicians, and has
for its primary object the publication of
original mathematical investigations. " In
addition to this, from time to time concise
abstracts will be inserted of subjects to
which special interest may attach or which
have been developed in memoirs, difficult
of access to American students. Critical
and bibliographical notices and reviews of
the most important recent mathematical
publications, American and foreign, will also
form part of the plan."

" The editors believe it will materially
aid in fostering the study of mathematical
science throughout this continent, and they
feel it their duty to state that any good
which may arise from it will be in a great

LITERARY NOTICES.

373

measure due to the enlightened liberality
of the trustees of the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, who have prompted the undertak-
ing, and guaranteed a considerable portion
of the pecuniary risk attendant upon it."

It is needless to say that this periodical
is in no sense popular, and is wholly unin-
telligible to non-mathematical readers. But
it deserves to be sustained in the interest
of higher American scholarship, and public-
spirited men, who can make it of no use to
themselves, may nevertheless promote a
good work by subscribing for it, and pre-
senting it to libraries, educational institu-
tions, and mathematical students, who are
unable to pay for it themselves.

Tropical Nature, and other Essays. By
Alfred R Wallace. New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 356. Price, $3.50.

Mr. Wallace's new volume consists of
some eight essays, of which the first four
only can be strictly considered as coming
within the scope of his principal title. Two
of the chapters have already appeared in
MacmillarCs Magazine ; one has been pub-
lished in the Fortnightly Review, and one
was originally delivered as a presidential
address to the Biological Section of the
British Association in 1876. Hence the
whole work comprises a slightly hetero-
geneous mixture, and the first three essays
have rather the appearance of an after-
thought, inserted for the purpose of giving
a consistent raison d'etre to the publication,
than that of a complete and consecutive
treatise. But, of course, Mr. Wallace can
never be otherwise than ingenious and in-
teresting, nor does the present volume form
any exception to the general excellence of
his compositions.

The author sets out by stating that,
while the luxuriance and beauty of tropical
Nature are a well-worn theme, which has
often suffered from the undue exaggeration
of its exponents, no attempt has yet been
made to give a broad sketch of those phe-
nomena which are essentially tropical, and
which mark the chief differences between
equatorial aud temperate climates. This
desideratum he seeks to supply, from the
exceptional experience of a long residence
in the hottest regions of the Eastern and
the Western Hemisphere alike. In pursu-
ance of the design thus laid down, the first

essay treats of " The Climate and Physical
Aspects of the Equatorial Zone," both as
regards their actual phenomena and the
causes which lead to their production.
Though possessing, of course, little absolute
novelty, the facts are well arranged, and so
displayed or illustrated as to bring the
salient points of tropical meteorology in a
very vivid manner before the untraveled
student. The second essay, on " Equatorial
Vegetation," contains an admirable sketch
of the tropical flora, viewed in its ensemble,
besides a vigorous exposition of the com-
mon but fallacious belief that large and
brilliant flowers are exceptionally frequent
in hot climates. Mr. Wallace succeeds in
giving a clear and sufficient notion of the
richness and profusion of vegetable growth
without rousing any suspicion of that false
theatrical glamour which ordinary writers
have cast around the subject. The third
essay deals with " Animal Life in the Tropi-
cal Forests," dwelling especially upon the
Lepidoptera and Hymcnoptera among in-
sects ; the parrots, pigeons, and picarias
among birds ; and the monkeys and bats
among mammalia — all of which form the
peculiarly equatorial types of their several
classes.

But it is with the fourth essay, on
" Humming-Birds," reprinted from the
Fortnightly Review, that the real interest of
the work begins. Mr. Wallace gives a
short sketch of the structure and habits of
these birds, and then takes the species
which inhabit the island of Juan Fernan-
dez as illustrations of the action of variation
and natural selection. In a bold and suc-
cessful a priori reconstruction of their his-
tory, amply justified by the incidental veri-
fications which crop out during the course
of the argument, he traces their origin,
with great probability, to two separate acci-
dental migrations, under stress of weather,
from the opposite coast of Chili. At the
same time he shows the probable causes of
the resulting variations, and starts a theory
of organic coloration, which is more fully
treated in the two succeeding essays. He
then points out the strong structural resem-
blances between swifts and humming-birds,
while demolishing the supposed connection
between the latter and their Eastern repre-
sentatives, the sun-birds — a connection based
entirely upon adaptive and functional pe-

374

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

culiarities, necessarily common to two fami-
lies whose modes of life are so exactly analo-
gous. No better practical specimen of the
new biological methods than that afforded
by this essay could possibly come into the
hands of readers with good common-sense
and little special scientific knowledge.

The fifth and sixth essays, on " The
Colors of Animals and Sexual Selection,"
and on " The Colors of Plants and the
Origin of the Color-Sense," lead us at once
into the region of controversy. They ap-
peared originally in MacmillarCs Magazine,
but they have since been enriched by nu-
merous additions and alterations, in accord-
ance with suggestions from Mr. Darwin or
other correspondents. In the first of these
two papers, Mr. Wallace brings a powerful
battery to bear against the accepted doctrine
of sexual selection, and it must be confessed
not without effect in shaking, if not in de-
molishing, that stronghold of Darwinism.
He contends that color is a natural product
of organic forms, which may be checked or
intensified by natural selection, but whose
occurrence is quite normal, and so stands in
need of no separate explanation. All col-
ors in animals may be classified under four
heads — protective colors, warning colors,
sexual colors, and typical colors. The two
former do not now require further definition ;
but sexual differences of hue he attributes
not to conscious selection of mates, the
occurrence of which is emphatically doubted,
but to. a special necessity for concealment
in one or other sex ; as, for example, in the
incubating females of birds, or in the males
among those species in which that sex un-
dertakes the duty of hatching. This ex-
planation would refer the variety in color-
ing to natural selection alone, acting un-
equally upon the several sexes, and so caus-
ing a partial suppression of bright tints.
The vast majority of animal markings Mr.
Wallace attributes to typical coloring ; that
is to say, a conventional or meaningless dis-
tribution of pigment, serving mainly for
purposes of recognition between the mem-
bers of the same species. Though it would
be rash too readily to accept or reject these
careful and well-reasoned conclusions, it
seems probable that an intermediate belief
will ultimately prevail. Certainly, Mr. Wal-
lace has shown beyond a doubt that natural
selection will adequately and simply account

for many curious phenomena which Mr.
Darwin believed to be due to conscious
preference. The partial elimination of this
markedly Lamarckian element in the theory
of descent cannot but be regarded as a dis-
tinct gain, though few readers will be in-
clined entirely to agree with the author in
his total rejection of sexual selection.

The sixth essay applies the same general
principles to the colors of plants, and con-
tains some interesting speculations on the
beauty of Alpine flowers, and on the differ-
ence between succulent fruits and nuts. It
also touches briefly on the question of the
development in insects and vertebrates of a
faculty for the perception of colors, with re-
marks upon the theories lately advanced by
Geiger, Magnus, and Gladstone. This and
the succeeding paper are chiefly noticeable
for their exposition of the author's opinions
upon certain ultimate teleological questions.
In his book upon the Malay Archipelago,
Mr. Wallace advocated the belief that all
the beauty of the external world was due to
natural causes, without any divine after-
thought as to its effects upon the human
mind. But, since that time, the implications
contained in the doctrine of evolution seem
to have clashed with earlier prejudices, and
driven this otherwise acute and vigorous
thinker into a coquetry with so-called spir-
itualism, which has vitiated much of his
later work. In the present volume he sug-
gests that the colors of the organic world,
though developed by ordinary laws, may
have been specially directed by some supe-
rior agency with reference to the final en-
joyment of their beauty by man. In short,
he inclines to the purely gratuitous suppo-
sition that butterflies, birds, and flowers, ac-
quired brilliant tints in the Secondary and
Tertiary periods, partly in order that men
might look upon them in the Quaternary.
And the essay which we are now consider-
ing concludes with the ominous sentence,
" The emotions excited by color and by
music, alike, seem to rise above the level or
a world developed on purely utilitarian prin-
ciples." It is greatly to be regretted that
the joint discoverer of the theory of natural
selection should allow himself to make use
of such painfully dyslogistic and unscientific
language.

The seventh essay, the presidential ad-
dress, bears the title of " By-paths in the Do-

LITERARY NOTICES.

375

main of Biology," and consists of two to-
tally distinct portions. The first comprises
an excelleut monograph, in the author's
happiest manner, on the influence of local-
ity upon coloration, and brings together a
number of valuable facts upon which future
theory may be founded when the time be-
comes ripe. But the second part is a criti-
cism upon the views generally entertained
by the scientific world on the origin and
antiquity of man : and the conclusion tow-
ard which (though nowhere clearly stated)
it implicitly points is the author's favorite
dogma that the human intellect has not been
evolved by the same natural causes which
have developed the human organism. As
elsewhere, Mr. Wallace seems disposed to
believe in a special and solitary miracle,
whereby a new form of consciousness was
suddenly and supernaturally foisted upon
the human brain. Readers of Mr. Herbert
Spencer's "Psychology" will scarcely in-
cline to accept this incongruous and ill-
digested hypothesis.

The eighth essay treats of the " Distri-
bution of Animals as indicating Geograph-
ical Changes." The author here treads
again on firmer and more familiar ground,
and his conclusions carry considerable
weight.

As a whole, the work, in spite of many
crudities and a marked increase of the tele-
ological bias, is fully worthy of Mr. Wal-
lace's deservedly high reputation. Every
page is laden with fruitful and suggestive
ideas ; while the same charming and natural
style as ever carries on the reader with un-
flagging interest from the first page to the
last. The book is one which will arouse
much controversy upon special questions ;
but it cannot fail to extort praise for its
width of view, its subtilty, its firm grasp of
principles, and its perfect mastery of facts.
It should find a place at once in the library
of every thinking naturalist and every gen-
eral reader who feels an interest in the
great and absorbing problem of organic evo-
lution.

a statement of the present condition of the
sugar-beet industry in the United States.
Further, there is a synopsis of the results
obtained in beet-culture in Europe. The
information here contained would doubtless
be of interest to farmers everywhere, though
it is addressed primarily to those of North
Carolina, the author being chemist to the
Department of Agriculture of that State.

The Sugar-Beet in North Carolina. By

A. R. Ledoux. Raleigh: Farmer and

Mechanic print. Pp. 50.

We have in this pamphlet an account

of certain experiments in the cultivation of

su<mr-beets in North Carolina, together with

A Critical History of the Doctrine of a
Future Life. By William Rounseville
Alger. Tenth edition, with Six New
Chapters, and a Complete Bibliography
of the Subject comprising 4,977 Books re-
lating to the Nature, Origin, and Destiny
of the Soul. The Titles classified and ar-
ranged chronologically, with Notes and
Indexes of Authors and Subjects. By
Ezra Abbott, Librarian of Harvard Col-
lege. New York: W. J. Widdleton. 1878.
Pp. 913. Price $3.50.
The new and enlarged edition of this
erudite and exhaustive work is now especial-
ly timely and opportune, as the doctrine of
punishment in a future life is undergoing so
thorough and searching a scrutiny. Dr.
Alger's book is a perfect treasury of histo-
ry, analysis, and criticism, in relation to the
course of human speculation and of religious
belief respecting man's future state. We pub-
lished some strictures not long since, on the
doctrine of eternal punishment, and aimed
to show that the belief in hell is confined to
no religion and no period, but in a great
variety of forms is an ancient and univer-
sal belief. Our assertion has been feebly
contradicted by an eminent Catholic author-
ity, to whom we refer the encyclopedic work
now before us. The added chapters in the
tenth edition, it may be stated, greatly am-
plify and strengthen the proofs of the posi-
tion we assumed— proofs that were already
as overwhelming and demonstrative as any-
thing to be found in the history of human
opinion. Dr. Alger has contributed a stand-
ard and most valuable work to the litera-
ture of this interesting subject, which will
be made doubly useful to all scholars and
inquiring readers by the comprehensive and
careful bibliography which has been append-
ed to it, and we are glad to notice that the
liberal publisher has issued the book in a
handsome form and at a price so extremely
low that it may take its place in every pri-
vate library.

376

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Insanity in Ancient and Modern Life.
With Chapters on its Prevention. By
Daniel Hack Tuke, M. D. New York:
Macniillan & Co. Pp.226. Price, $1.75.
This is a popular volume by an authority
upon the subject which it treats, and which
is becoming constantly of greater general
interest. Formerly belonging to the med-
ical profession, questions of insanity are
now engaging the attention of legislators,
educators, and sociologists. The historical
chapters are curious and interesting, and
those on the management necessary for pre-
venting attacks of mental disorder are in-
structive and important.

The Boy Engineers. What they did
and how they did it. By Rev. J.
Lukin. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 344. Price, $1.75.
The design of the author of this book
is to inspire boys with an interest in engi-
neering aud mechanical work, and to devel-
op any latent capacity they may possess in
that direction. The work is written in the
form of a simple autobiography, wherein a
boy is supposed to chronicle his own and
his brother's labors as amateur mechani-
cians and engineers. Still the volume con-
tains something more than a record of boy
engineering, though at the same time, as the
author remarks, there is no work described
in it which a persevering and industrious
lad might not accomplish. The " Boy En-
gineers" cannot fail to exert a healthy in-
fluence on its youthful readers.

Intercultural Tillage. By Dr. E. Lewis
Sturtevant. Reprinted from the " Re-
port of the Secretary of the Connecticut
State Board of Agriculture." Pp. 42.
By " Intercultural tillage," Dr. Sturte-
vant means tilling, stirring the soil while the
plant is growing. The value of intercultu-
ral tillage has long been understood, but
not so its rationale. Hoeing and ploughing
serve to remove weeds, also to loosen the
soil, and both of these things favor the growth
of the plant. But Dr. Sturtevant finds that
the main advantage derived from intercult-
ural tillage is the pruning of the roots, caus-
ing them to branch out abundantly in every
direction, in search of food. He cites sun-
dry experiments made by himself, which go
to show that this is the true theory of " in-
tercultural tillage." The pamphlet is well
worthy of the attention of farmers.

Journal of the Academy of Natural Sci-
ences of Philadelphia. New Series.
Vol. VIII., Part III. Pp. 127, with 14
Plates.

Two paleontological memoirs arc con-
tained in this number of the Journal, viz.,
a "Description of Vertebrate Remains,
chiefly from the Phosphate Beds of South
Carolina," by Prof. Joseph Leidy, and a
" Description of a Collection of Fossils
made by Dr. Antonio Raimondi in Peru,"
by William M. Gabb. The vertebrate re-
mains determined by Prof. Leidy embrace
species of Equus, Hipparion, Elephas, Mas-
todon, Manatus, Cetacea, Fishes, and other
land and marine animals. Dr. Raimondi's
collection represents the labors of eighteen
years, and was described in part by Prof.
Leidy, some years ago, in the American Jour-
nal of Conchology. The work is now com-
plete, and there is appended a pretty full
" Bibliography of South American Paleon-
tology," together with a " Synopsis of South
American Paleontology."

Chemical Experimentation : Being a Hand-
book of Lecture Experiments in Inor-
ganic Chemistry. Systematically ar-
ranged for the Use of Lecturers and
Teachers in Chemistry, as well as for
Students in Normal Schools and Col-
leges, and for Private Study. By Sam-
ual P. Sadtler, Ph. D., Assistant Pro-
fessor of Chemistry in the University of
Pennsylvania. Louisville : J. P. Morton
& Co. Pp. 225. Price, $2.50.

This is a hand-book of chemical experi-
ments, and makes no claim to be a chemical
text-book. Following the order of Barker's
" College Chemistry," the work is desigued
to give full instructions for the illustration of
chemical lectures. A large variety of experi-
ments are fully described, from which teach-
ers may draw for such as are thought best
for class-room illustration. It is an excel-
lent compilation for an important purpose,
and cannot fail to be useful in institutions
which have ample command of chemical ap-
paratus. The illustrations are large, numer-
ous, and admirably executed.

At toe Court of King Edwin : A Drama.
By William Leighton, Jr. Philadel-
phia : J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 157.
Price, $1.25.
This is said to be considerable of a

poem, and we know nothing to the contrary.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

377

The author wrote " The Sons of Godwin," j
which was published a fortnight before
Tennyson's " Harold," and the Louisville
Courier-Journal said : " It appears at the
same time with Tennyson's poem, upon the
same theme, and does not suffer by com-
parison with it ; it has more dramatic fire,
and moves with brisker step, and has as
sweet songs in it, and as much poetry." If
all this be true, then there must undoubted-
ly be excellence in Mr. Leighton's present
work.

A New and Important Cook-Book. —
D. Appleton & Co. will shortly publish
the " Hand-Book of the National Training-
School of Cookery " at South Kensington,
London. These practical " lessons in cook-
ery " are the result of years of careful ex-
perience in training pupils of all grades and
capacities in the art of preparing food in
the best manner. The English press are
unanimous in declaring that, in point of sim-
plicity, clearness, and fullness of directions,
in presupposing complete ignorance on the
part of the learner, and adopting a method
that is easy to follow, this book is greatly
superior to any work upon the subject hith-
erto produced.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern
United States. By D. S. Jordan, Ph. D., M. D.
Second edition, revised and enlarged. Chicago :
Janson, McClurg & Co. Pp. 406. $2.50.

Machine Construction. By E. Tomkins.
Vol. I., Text, pp. 368, $1.50; Vol. II., Plates
(XLVIIL), $4.50. New York : Putnams.

Report of the United States Fish Commis-
sioner (1875, 1S76). Washington: Government
Printing-Offlce. Pp. 1024.

Science Lectures at South Kensington. Vol.
I. London and New York: Macmillan. Pp.290.
$1.75.

Current Discussion. Vol. II., Questions of
Belief. New York : Putnams. Pp. 370.

Art Hand-books — Sketching from Nature.
Pp. 74. — Landscape Painting. Pp. 74. New
York : Putnams. 50 cents each.

Encyclopaedia of Chemistry. (Parts 26 to 30
inclusive.) Philadelphia : Lippincott.

Iron-Works of the United States. Pp. 136.
Report of the Iron and Steel Association. Pp.
89. Philadelphia: The Association.

Flowering Plants and Higher Cryptogams
growing without Cultivation near Yale College.
New Haven : The Berzelius Society. Pp. 71.

Pacific Coast Minerals, Ores, etc., in the Paris
Exposition. San Francisco: E. Borqui & Co.
print. Pp.99.

Abstract of Statement of the Board appointed
to test Iron, Steel, and other Metals. Salem :
Printed at the Salem Press. Pp. 20.

Metric System of Weights and Measures.
Philadelphia : The Engineers* Club- Pp. 5.

Mental and Moral Science. By H. Howard,
M. D. From Canada Medical Journal. Pp. 15.

The Kirografer and Stenografer. Quarterly.
Amherst, Mass. : J. B. & E. G. Smith. Pp. 32.
$1 per annum.

Report on the State Asylum for Insane Crim-
inals. Auburn, N. Y. : Moses print. Pp. 23.

Remarkable Case of Morphine Tolerance.
By J. L. Little, M. D. From American Journal
of Obstetrics. Pp. 6.

Vital Magnetism in the Treatment of Disease.
By F. T. Parson. Brooklyn : The Author. Pp. 32.

Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture.
Raleigh, N. C. : Farmer and Mechanic print.
Pp. 18.

Perception of Color. By G. S. Hall. From
" Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences." Pp. 12.

Color-Blindness in Railroad Employes and
Pilots. By B. J. Jefl'ries, M. D. Boston: Rand,
Avery & Co. print. Pp. 40.

Medical Jurisprudence. By S. E. Chaille,
M. D. Philadelphia : Reported for " Transac-
tions of the International Medical Congress."
Pp. 40.

Filtration of Potable Water. By W. R. Nich-
ols. From the "Massachusetts Health Report."
Pp. 90.

Our Revenue System. By A. L. Earle. Pp.
47 : France and the United States. Pp. 44 ;
Suffrage in Cities. By S. Sterne. Pp. 41 ; Pro-
tection and Revenue. By W. G. Sumner. Pp.
38. New York : Free-Trade Club, 25 cts. each.

Report on the Retreat for the Insane. Hart-
ford, Conn. : Case, Loekwood <& Brainard Co.
print. Pp. 27.

Report of the Zoological Society of Philadel-
phia. Philadelphia : The Society. Pp. 28.

The Medical Expert. By W. J. Conklin. M.
D. From the Ohio Medical and Surgical Jour-
nal. Pp. 20.

New Method of planning Researches, etc.
By R H. Thurston. Salem : Printed at the Sa-
lem Press. Pp. 7.

The Psycho-Physiological Sciences and their
Assailants. Boston: Colby & Rich. Pp.216.

Contributions to Paleontology. By S. A.
Miller and C. B. Dyer. With 2 Plates. From
the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natu-
ral History. Pp. 16.

Petrography of Quincy and Rockport. By
M. E. Wadsworth. From the Proceedings of
the Boston Society of Natural History. Pp. 8.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Fossil mammal from the Jurassic of the
Rocky Mountains. — One of the most inter-
esting discoveries made in the Rocky Moun-
tain region is the right lower jaw of a small
mammal recently received at the Yale Col-
lege Museum, and described by Prof. Marsh
under the name Dryolestcs priscus. The
specimen was found in the Atlantosaurus
beds of the upper Jurassic, and the asso-
ciated fossils are mainly Dinosaurs. The
specimen is in fair preservation, although
most of the teeth have been broken off" in
removing it from the rock. The penulti-
mate molar, however, remains in place. The

378

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shape of the jaw and the position and char-
acter of the teeth show that the animal was
a small marsupial, allied to the existing
opossums (Didclphidce). The tooth pre-
served has the same general form as the
corresponding molar of Chironectcs varie-
gatus (Illiger). The angle of the jaw is im-
perfect, but there are indications that it was
inflected. The present specimen indicates
an animal about as large as a weasel. It is
of special interest, as hitherto no Jurassic
mammals have been found in this country.

Threatened Outbreak of Vesuyins. —

Mount Vesuvius is giving signs of an ap-
proaching season of great volcanic activity.
A bulletin issued by Prof. Palmieri states
that the new mouth, which opened at the
bottom of the crater in 1872, and which
has been more or less active since December
18, 1875, began on May 2d last to give in-
dications of being still more active. The
fire cannot be seen from Naples, as it is at
the bottom of the crater, and only its re-
flection is visible on the smoke which rises
from it. This reflection is of course greater
when the bellows of Vulcan blow up a
stronger flame. The smoke, which abounds
in acids, mingled with rain-water, is ex-
tremely injurious to vegetation, particularly
in the direction of Ottaiano, where the vint-
age has been destroyed for nearly two years.
So long as the eruption continues to be cen-
tral, a long time must elapse before the lava
will roll down the sides of the cone, as the
cavity of the crater is far from being full.
But, should the cone be opened laterally by
some extraordinary eruptive force, then the
lava will pour out in a deluge.

The Organ-Piano. — Many are the de-
vices that have from time to time been con-
trived for the purpose of giving to the notes
of the piano the " sustained " character
possessed by those of the organ. For what-
ever reason, none of these contrivances have
hitherto met with general acceptance, and
"organ-pianos'' are as yet merely curiosi-
ties. But an instrument of this kind is now
on exhibition in Paris, which appears to be
of practical value, and for which there is al-
ready a good demand. There is a brief de-
scription of this "organ-piano" in Nature,
from which we take the following particu-

lars : In this instrument the " organ " or pro-
longed sounds are produced by a succession
of extremely rapid hammer-blows. Besides
the usual piano-hammers, the piano-organ
has a series of additional hammers (one to
each string), mounted on watch-spring lev-
ers, all of which are carried by a bar of
brass lying across, but above and clear of,
the strings. To this bar is attached a rock-
ing lever which is set in very rapid motion
by means of an apparatus worked easily by
a pedal. The pianist works the pedal, and
thus sets the transverse bar with its series
of hammers into excessively rapid vibration.
By holding down any key of the instrument,
the string belonging to it is brought within
range of its corresponding hammer, and is
struck with corresponding rapidity, giving
out what sounds at a short distance like one
prolonged note, lasting as long as the pedal
is worked and the key is kept down. In
this way the performer can produce either
piano or organ notes at will.

Snn-Worsliip among the Moquis. — Traces
of sun-worship still exist among the inhabi-
tants of the Moqui villages in Arizona.
They have lost the substance of the antique
religion, but they retain a portion of the
ceremonial — the watching for the emergence
of the day-god in the eastern horizon. But
it ].'■ not the sun they now watch for, but
Motecuhzuma (Montezuma), their Messiah,
so to speak. Mr. Edwin A. Barber, in the
American Naturalist, describes as follows
the impressive scene witnessed every morn-
ing at dawn in the Moqui villages : " As
the faint streak of red lights up the low
horizon, tall, dark figures appear on the
parapets of the seven Moqui towns " (a de-
scription of which was given in Vol. VI.
of the Monthly), " and remain facing the
dawn until the sun has appeared entirely
to view. Then the muffled forms drop away
slowly and sadly, one by one, for another
morn has brought disappointment to the
souls of many that have watched so eagerly
and persistently for the coming of the great
Montezuma. The routine of another Moqui
day has commenced ; all is bustle and life,
and the subdued hum of household occupa-
tion floats out drowsily on the sullen, sultry
air, and the sound of the hundred flour-
mills (meiatcs), grinding steadily on every

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY

379

side, seems, as it issues from the doors and
windows of the stone houses, to pause in
mid-air like a droning bee. Then scores of
busy figures repair with their water-vessels
to the verge of the steep bluffs, and disap-
pear in the crevices of the rocks below."

How Monkeys dislike Siiakes. — That
monkeys, like man, have a peculiar instinc-
tive abhorrence of snakes, is shown by an ex-
periment made in the Philadelphia Zoologi-
cal Garden by Mr. Arthur E. Brown, and
recorded in the American Naturalist. Mr.
Brown having wrapped a dead snake in pa-
per, set the package on the floor of a cage
containing forty or fifty monkeys. It was
instantly spied by a female cynocephalus,
who quickly seized the paper and dragged
it away with her. Soon the paper unfolded
and the snake slipped partly out. On see-
ing what the package contained, the cyno-
cephalus instantly dropped it and sheered
off. The other monkeys now cautiously ap-
proached the dead snake, but all were care-
ful not to come too near, with the exception
of one, a large macaque, who would make
an occasional snatch at the paper, as though
to see whether the dreaded animal were real-
ly dead. A pull on a string attached to the
tail of the snake, causing it to stir, sent the
inquisitive monkeys scampering away, but
they would again return, ever keeping at a
respectful distance. The dead snake was
then successively introduced into cages oc-
cupied by animals of other orders — car-
nivores, rodents, ungulates, etc. — but none
of them paid it any special attention except
one peccary, which, finding that it was dead,
seemed disposed to eat it. The author ob-
served in a deaf and dumb lady the ex-
pression of the same emotions and feelings,
on beholding serpents, which had been ex-
hibited by the monkeys. There were the
same fear, the same attraction and repul-
sion ; and after watching for a long time,
with an expression of intense disgust, a cage
of boas, she was led away by her friends,
protesting that she wanted to stay.

Discoloration of Brick Walls. — Brick
buildings, in the neighborhood of New York,
are often seen disfigured by streaks and
patches of white ; but it is in Philadelphia
that the evil is most noticeable. There
these white incrustations are very general

on brick house-fronts, and the study of their
causes and their remedy has for some time
engaged the attention of builders. Mr. Wil-
liam Trautwine is, so far as we know, the
first who has attempted a thorough, scien-
tific investigation of the subject ; and his ob-
servations, published in the Journal of the
Franklin Institute, are eminently worthy of
the attention of architects in localities where
this disfiguration makes its appearance.
The evil, he says, is most noticeable in dry
weather on parts of walls subjected to damp-
ness, and on entire walls after rain-storms
have soaked them. The white coating is de-
rived primarily from both the bricks and the
mortar. In some instances it undoubtedly
comes from the bricks ; here the white sub-
stance is dissolved by moisture from the
bricks even before they are built into the
houses. The author has found it in bricks
just from the kiln. It has a peculiar taste — •
that of sulphate of magnesia ; but besides
this salt the bricks also contain sulphate of
lime. The author's theory is that the sili-
cates of magnesia and lime in the bricks are
converted into the sulphates by the sulphuric
acid evolved from the sulphide of iron and
iron pyrites contained in the coal which is
employed in the kilns. Now, sulphate of
magnesia effloresces in dry air, and sulphate
of lime is dissolved by moisture and appears
on the surface of the bricks. Hence, plain-
ly, one mode of preventing the incrustation
is the employment only of wood or of coke
free from sulphur in the kilns — at least this
might be done in the manufacture of pressed
brick for house-fronts. As for the incrusta-
tions having their origin in the mortar, the
author remarks that sulphate of magnesia
is largely produced by the decomposition of
mortar. His observations on this head have
special application to Philadelphia and its
vicinity, where most of the lime used in
building is from magnesian limestone. The
resulting mixture of limestone and magne-
sia, when slaked and made into mortar, is
very susceptible to the influence of sulphur-
ous fumes in the atmosphere, which pro-
duce in the mortar sulphates of lime and
magnesia. The great solubility of sulphate
of magnesia facilitates its diffusion ; sul-
phate of lime is comparatively insoluble,
and does not cause so much disfigurement.
Of course, mortar made with lime from
magnesian limestone quickly decomposes,

38o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the bricks it was intended to cement
become loose. The remedy for this evil is
the employment of lime from non-magne-
sian limestone.

This explanation of the phenomenon of
incrustation is pronounced to be the cor-
rect one by the editor of the Polytechnic
Review, who also approves Mr. Traut-
wine's proposed remedy for the evil. At
the same time he offers, on theoretical
grounds, a simpler remedy, which he pro-
poses to have subjected to the test of prac-
tical experiment. This remedy is the addi-
tion of a small quantity of baryta to the wa-
ter used for tempering the brick-clay. The
rationale of this process we will state as
briefly as possible, mainly in the author's
own words : The incrustation being due to
the process of soluble sulphates, caused by
the decomposing action of sulphuric acid on
the magnesia and lime silicate in the clay,
the presence of a small amount of free ba-
ryta would either altogether prevent or at
least greatly reduce the amount of this de-
composition. The baryta, having a strong
affinity for the free acid, would seize upon it,
and with it form insoluble sulphate of baryta.
Even though the free baryta did not alto-
gether prevent the formation of the soluble
sulphates, it is safe to assume that there
will be present in the finished brick suffi-
cient uncombined baryta to decompose and
cement into insoluble barium sulphate such
soluble magnesia and lime sulphates as may
have been formed during the process of burn-
ing, so soon as these sulphates are dissolved
by moisture. A like addition of baryta to
mortar after it is prepared for use may rea-
sonably be expected to check the tendency
to efflorescence, except of course where the
mortar, as in chimneys, is continuously ex-
posed to the action of sulphurous vapors.

Am Interesting Experiment. — A simple
experiment, devised by Prof. A. M. Mayer,
illustrates in a very effective way the action
of the forces of attraction and repulsion on
bodies freely moving in a plane, and serves
to give clearness to our conceptions of
molecular action. He takes a number of
needles, of the size known as " number 6,"
and magnetizes them, giving to all the points
the same polarity, say north. Then each
needle is driven into a small cork float, so

that it will keep the upright position in
water, the eye just coming through the top
of the float. If, now, three of the needles
be dropped into a bowl of water, and the
north-pole of a rather large cylindrical mag-
net be brought slowly down over them, the
mutually repel lant needles are made to ap-
proach one another, and then arrange them-
selves thus . ' . Raise the magnet, and the
needles go farther apart ; lower it, and they
come together again, the three needles al-
ways holding their places at the vertices of
an equilateral triangle. Add needles suc-
cessively, and the following arrangements
will be seen, viz. :

With 4 needles

or

The needles can be made to assume the
arrangements shown in the second column,
but these figures are not stable. So long as
the magnet is held directly over them, the
needles will remain in the positions indi-
cated ; but raise it, so as to let the needles
go apart, and then bring it down again
quickly, and in all probability the figure
given in the first column will be the result.
Prof. Mayer has obtained the figures up to
the combination of twenty needles. He
adds, in a note to the American Journal of
Science : " These experiments can be varied
without end. It is certainly interesting to
see the mutual effect of two or more vibrat-
ing systems, each ruled more or less by the
motions of its own superposed magnet ; to
witness the deformations and decomposi-
tions of one molecular arrangement by the
vibrations of a neighboring group ; to note
the changes in form which take place when
a larger magnet enters the combination, and
to see the* deformation of groups produced
by the side action of a magnet placed near
the bowl."

Experiments with the Electric Light.—

A public exhibition was recently made in
Cleveland, Ohio, of an electric-light machine

P OP ULAR MIS CELL AN 7

381

invented by Mr. Charles E. Brush, of that
city. The results were in the highest degree
satisfactory, as will be seen from the follow-
ing account of the experiment which we con-
dense from the Cleveland Herald:

The machine is capable of giving a light
of 12,000 caudle-power, the electric fluid
being distributed to four electric lamps, each
having the power of three thousand candles.
The exhibition was given in the establish-
ment of the Union Steel Screw Company,
where two of the lamps were placed on the
third and two on the fourth floor of the im-
mense building. The illumination was per-
fect. The rooms were flooded with a pure
white light like the light of the sun, and it
streamed out at all the windows, illuminat-
ing houses and streets for a long distance
in every direction. The light was very uni-
form and steady, free from the flickering
that used to be an accompaniment of elec-
tric light, and, considering the enormous
illuminating power, the light was unexpect-
edly soft and endurable to the eyes. An
opportunity was afforded to test the char-
acter and whiteness of the light. Worsteds,
scarfs, afghans, etc., of brilliant shades were
hanging against the wall at one side of the
room, and it was noticed that the colors
were brought out as clearly as by the full
light of the sun. Estimates were made as
to the amount that the light furnished by
this apparatus would cost, if used by the
Screw Company as it was used on the even-
ing of the exhibition, and it was ascer-
tained that the total cost of the whole light
from the four lamps, including the items of
consumption of carbon in the lamps, inter-
est on the investment, and wear and tear,
would not exceed thirty cents per hour. The
light produced was photometrically equal
to eight hundred gas-burners, burning five
feet of gas per hour each. This amount of
gas would cost eight dollars per hour in
Cleveland.

Ascent of Mount Ararat. — In September,
18*70, Mr. J. Bryce made the ascent of the
greater peak of Mount Ararat, and at a recent
meeting of the London Geographical Society
gave an account of the feat. Mount Ararat
is situated nearly in the centre of the region
known as Armenia — a territory divided be-
tween three empires, and lying round the

sources and upper courses of the A raxes,
Euphrates, and Tigris. The mass of Ararat
is about twenty-five miles long from north-
west to southeast, and from twelve to four-
teen miles wide. It consists of two peaks
joined together by a sort of neck. The
greater peak, Great Ararat, rises 17,000 feet
above sea-level, and the lesser peak, Little
Ararat, 12,800 feet ; both are of volcanic ori-
gin. Mr. Bryce began the ascent from a small
Tartar village on the northeastern face of
Great Ararat, being accompanied by a friend
and two guides, a Cossack and a Kurd. At
the height of about 11,500 feet Mr. Bryce's
friend abandoned the attempt to reach the
summit. The remainder of the climb had
to be made over beds of snow, and over bare,
loose, broken stones ; the latter course Mr.
Bryce chose. At the height of 15,000 feet
the Cossack and the Kurd refused to go any
farther, so he was compelled to journey
alone. The last part of the ascent was up-
on a slope of rotten rocks, rather soft and
sulphurous, which crumbled under his feet,
adding greatly to his fatigue. Near the top
of this slope Mr. Bryce could just discern
the edges of the plateau of snow, and hang-
ing on this a curtain of clouds. After as-
cending into these clouds two strong blasts
of wind swept them away, and then a won-
derfully grand and extensive view lay before
him. The Caucasus could be seen to the
north, distant about 250 miles ; the highest
ranges of mountains round Erzeroum to the
west ; the mountains of Assyria, and South
Kurdistan, the mountains in the direction of
Nineveh, and the valley in the direction of the
Zab, to the south ; to the east, the enormous
mountain-masses in Persia, and north as far
as the Caspian. But in his fondest anticipa-
tion Mr. Bryce was doomed to a sad disap-
pointment : he could find no fragment of
Noah's ark !

Prevention of Contagions Diseases. — Two

modes of fortifying the system against the
attacks of zymotic disease are pointed out by
Dr. E. M. Hunt, in the Medical Record, viz. :
topical application of substances inimical to
the development of contagia; and, secondly,
the introduction into the blood of substances
which shall prevent fermentive, defibrinizing
or destructive processes. On the hypothesis
that conlagium vivum is introduced into the

382

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

human system from without, and mostly
through the inbreathed air, the author advo-
cates the charging the mouth and nostrils
with antiseptic substances so as to render
the breath and the tissues more immediately
exposed unfriendly to the development of
the contagium. When the floating infective
particle presents itself either for local mani-
festation or for absorption, it may require
" but slight unfriendliness of reception to
prevent morbid result." In diseases like
diphtheria and scarlet fever, which at the
outset have such marked local manifesta-
tion as to lead us to believe that they are
local before they are constitutional, topical
application of remedies seems to be clearly
indicated. But the author thinks that the
introduction of certain substances into the
blood is a still more effectual mode of com-
bating contagia. In this way not only are
the portals of entrance protected, but the
fluids, glands, etc., of the system are so per-
meated with the antiseptic or antifermen-
tative agent as to be able to withstand the
action of the disease-germ. How much may
be due to the local hinderance to fertilization,
and how much to the constitutional resist-
ance established, may not in each case be
easy to determine. But when we consider
how readily chlorate of potassium, after be-
ing administered, is found in the secretions,
how soon a few grains of pure protochloride
of iron increase the number of the red glob-
ules of the blood, how defibrination of the
blood is retarded by certain agents, we are
justified in the hope that our power to sus-
pend the action of disease-poisons will yet
be greatly augmented.

Creosote as a Timber-Preserver. — Rail-
way-ties, dried, and saturated with creo-
sote, will last, according to Mr. E. R. An-
drews, for twenty years or more in good
condition. In ties so treated the spikes in-
tended to hold the rail do not corrode nor
work loose. Then, too, the surface of the
tie under the rail does not decay nor wear,
because it is not affected by alternate dryness
and moisture. In the construction of wharves
and in ship-building, creosoted timber is also
of great advantage. It is proof against the
ravages of the Teredo navalis and other mol-
lusks which cause such destruction of tim-
bers submerged in sea-water. The woods
best adapted for the crcosoting process are

those which are light and porous, as these
most readily absorb the creosote ; so treated
they become more solid and enduring than
the most costly species of timber. " The
cottonwood of the Southwest," writes Mr.
Andrews, in the American Gaslight Jour-
nal, " can be made as useful as oak for ties.
White pine absorbs creosote like a sponge,
and the yellow pine of the South takes it
readily also. In England fir from the Baltic
is used altogether for ties, and I do not see
why the despised fir from our forests may
not be used for the same purpose here.
Hemlock is good also ; spruce is a firm,
compact wood, and absorbs oil with more
difficulty ; neither does it require so much
to preserve it. Oak has a coarse fibre, and
is easily treated."

The Eyes of Deep-Sea Animals. — In giv-
ing to the National Academy of Sciences
an account of recent dredging and sound-
ing in the Gulf of Mexico, Prof. Alexander
Agassiz referred to the question of sight in
marine animals living at great depths. He
said that the crustaceans and fishes taken
from depths of from 1,500 to 1,900 fathoms
or more present conditions diametrically op-
posite to one another with respect to vision,
some of these creatures being eyeless or
nearly so, others having eyes enormously
developed, as if to enable them to see with
the faintest glimmer of light. In the former
class many very curious modifications of
structure are to be seen taking the place of
the eyes. The existence of these very wide
differences of structure under identical con-
ditions he regarded as strange, but, in the
discussion which followed the reading of
the paper, Profs. Cope and Gill held that
this difference was precisely what we might
expect, according to the evolution hypothe-
sis. There is nothing surprising in the fact
that in one set of animals " survival of the
fittest" should work obliteration, and in an-
other class abnormal development of the vis-
ual organs.

Studies of Embryo Life. — On opening
the shell of a hen's-egg in the third day
of incubation, Harvey noticed the heart-
beats of the embryo, which, however, soon
ceased. He then placed the egg in warm
water, and the heart commenced to beat
again. The same experiment, but with im-

NOTES.

383

portant modification, has been repeated by
M. Dareste, who for some years past has de-
voted himself with great assiduity to the
study of embryo life. He took from under
a hen an egg on which she had sat for three
days, and let it remain in the ordinary tem-
perature for two or three days. He then
again placed it under conditions favorable
to incubation, and in due time a chick was
hatched out, just as if there had occurred
nothing unusual in the mean time. The
result of this ingenious experiment, as M.
Stanislas Meunier observes in La Nature, is
to show that life may be suspended for a
considerable length of time in warm-blood-
ed animals without fatal effects, precisely as
in animals of a very low grade, such as Roti-
fera.

Mars's Fast Moon. — The periodic time
of the inner satellite of Mars is only very
little over seven hours, while the axial rota-
tion of Mars itself requires about twenty-
four hours. Now, this discrepancy is in
apparent conflict with the nebular hypothe-
sis, which assumes all the secondary bodies
of a system to have been evolved from
their primary at successive stages, with the
velocity of the primary's surface at the time
of their being dropped as rings of nebu-
lous matter. But here is a planet's satel-
lite possessed of a velocity of revolution
more than thrice as high as the velocity of
axial rotation possessed by its primary.
The problem, how to account for this accel-
erated movement of the inner Martial moon,
has occupied the attention of astronomers
since the discovery of Mars's satellites by
Prof. Asaph Hall, a few months ago. The
theory proposed by Prof. M. H. Doolittle,
of the Coast Survey, appears to solve all the
difficulties of the case. In three ways, ac-
cording to Prof. Doolittle, the relative veloci-
ties of Mars and his moon might be modi-
fied by the impact of interstellar matter, or
meteorites : 1. These bodies, by striking the
satellite and forcing it to travel in a nar-
rower orbit, its original absolute velocity con-
tinuing the same, would increase its relative
velocity ; 2. By striking the primary, they
would increase its mass and its attraction
on the satellite ; 3. By increasing the mass
of the primary and so reducing its absolute
velocity they would make the relative veloci-
ty of the satellite higher.

NOTES.

The American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science will assemble in St.
Louis, on August 21st. The officers are:
President, Prof. 0. C. Marsh; Vice-Presi-
dent of the Physical Section, Prof. R. H.
Thurston ; Vice-President of the Natural
History Section, Prof. Augustus R. Grote ;
General Secretary, Prof. H. Carrington Bol-
ton ; Secretary of Section A, Prof. Francis
E. Nipher ; Secretary of Section B, George
Little ; Treasurer, William S. Vaux ; Chair-
man of Chemical Sub-section, Prof. F. W.
Clarke.

The British Association meets this year
in Dublin, on August 14th, under the presi-
dency of Mr. William Spottiswoode, F. R. S.

During the summer vacation, teachers
of mathematics or astronomy will be ad-
mitted to the Cincinnati Observatory, there
to pursue the different branches of study
connected with their special departments
of instruction. Applications should be made
to the director of the observatory, Mr. Or-
niond Stone.

The French Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science will this year hold its
meeting at Paris, commencing August 22d.
The officers of the Association are : Presi-
dent, Prof. Fr6my, of the Academy of Sci-
ences; Vice-President, M. Bardoux, Min-
ister of Public Instruction ; Secretary, M.
Perrier, commandant d'etat-major.

The death of Dr. Charles Pickering, of
Boston, is announced. He was a grandson
of Timothy Pickering, and was born in Sus-
quehanna County, Pennsylvania, on Novem-
ber 10, 1805 ; graduated at Harvard College
in 1823, and three years later received his
medical diploma. He was a member of the
scientific staff on board of the United States
ship Viucennes during Commodore Wilkes's
Exploring Expedition around the world from
1838 to 1842. In 1843 he went to India
and Eastern Africa, to complete his ethno-
logical researches, and on his return home
two years later began the preparation of his
great work, "The Races of Man and their
Geographical Distribution" (1848). He
later published " Geographical Distribution
of Animals and Man " (1854), and "Geo-
graphical Distribution of Plants" (1861).

In the Azores, a Portuguese subscribes
himself at the foot of a letter as "your
watchful venerator " — an expression doubt-
less as sincere as " your obedient servant."
He dates all letters written from his own
house " S. C," meaning sua cam {your
house), and' he addresses them " S. I. C,"
i. e. Sua ilustre casa (to your illustrious
bouse). By a fiction of politeness, he as-
sumes that the house he lives in is one of

384

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the inferior mansions of the person he hap-
pens to be writing to, who, possessing a
more illustrious habitation, allows the writer
to occupy it by indulgence or sufferance.

During the discussion of hell-fire which
lately swept over this country, we did not
notice in any of the brethren such gracious
evidence of a meek and loving spirit as in
" Brother " Swigart, of Huntington, Pennsyl-
vania ; Brother Swigart is what is known as
a "Pilgrim Baptist." Says the Primitive
Christian: "At our last prayer - meeting
Brother Swigart took the position that we
have nothing to do with hell. It was not
prepared for the Christian, and therefore need
not concern us. Heaven is the place about
which we are concerned, and not hell."

The educational authorities of Berlin
maintain a vast garden for the purpose of
supplying fresh botanical specimens for the
public schools of the city. Over 4,000,000
plants are required for botanical instruction
during the year.

The biological department of the Johns
Hopkins University will this summer organ-
ize at Fort Wool, Virginia, a laboratory for
the study of marine zoology, the sessions
commencing June 15th, and continuing till
August 15th. The laboratory is designed to
meet the wants of advanced scientific in-
vestigators, but at the same time there will
be accommodations for a few less advanced
students. A fee of ten dollars will be charged
for the use of laboratory and apparatus, and
board will be furnished at cost. Address
Dr. W. K. Brooks, Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity, Baltimore.

A short time ago we published a few
specimens of the absurd anomalies of our
common " systems " of weight and measure.
Many others are cited in a late number of
the Polytechnic Review. Among these we
notice two as being specially absurd. Thus
a law of the colony of Pennsylvania, about
the year 1705, enjoined that all brewers
" shall sell beer and ale by wine-measure to
all persons as drink it in their houses, and
by beer-measure to all such persons as carry
the same out of their houses." The other
instance is quoted from Mr. Charles Reade,
who says that in Shropshire they at one
time actually had different weights for dif-
ferent market-days !

Exact experiments made by Grehant
show that a man, or one of the lower ani-
mals, compelled to breathe for half an hour
an atmosphere containing only j}y of car-
bonic acid, absorbs that gas in such quan-
tity that about one-half of the red blood-
corpuscles combine with it and become in-
capable of absorbing oxygen ; and that, in
an atmosphere containing i^Vff °f carbonic
oxide, about one-fourth of the red corpus-
cles combine with the gas.

Dr. Percy, F. R. S., at a recent meeting
of the British Iron and Steel Institute, gave
some particulars as to the manufacture of
Japanese copper. Bars of this metal pre-
sent a beautiful rose-colored tint on their
surface, which is due to an extremely thin
and enduring film of red oxide of copper,
and which is not in the least degree affected
by free exposure to the atmosphere. Dr.
Percy exhibited bars of Japanese copper
which had been in his possession thirty
years, and which had undergone no change,
though freely exposed to the action of the
air. The secret of this result is that the
copper is cast under water, the metal being
very highly heated, and the water, too, made
hot. Dr. Percy had himself succeeded in
casting copper in this way, with results the
same as seen in the Japanese metal.

Whitebait, a favorite fish among Brit-
ish epicures, has made its appearance in the
bay of New York. Mr. Eugene Blackford,
of Fulton Market, is satisfied of the identity
of the fish caught here with the English
whitebait. Only a few specimens have been
found as yet, but a full supply is anticipated
when the proper nets are procured, and
shoals of the fish are discovered.

The sum voted by the French Chambers
for the maintenance of the national mu-
seums during the present year is 762,780
francs. With this pittance have to be de-
frayed all the expenses of the great muse-
ums of the Louvre, the Luxembourg, of
Versailles, and St.-Germain-en-Laye, with
their branches. Attention is called in La
Nature to the significant fact that the single
Theatre de V Opera receives from the state
a larger bounty than all these great mu-
seums taken together. In consequence of
this parsimony on the part of the Govern-
ment, many of the great French collections,
once justly esteemed to be the completest
of their kind in the world, are now far sur-
passed by similar collections in other coun-
tries.

The state of the " temperance question"
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland may be inferred from the following
statistics, derived from official sources : In
1877 duty was paid in the United Kingdom
on 29,888,176 gallons of home-made spirits,
intended for home-use. This is 62,112 gal-
lons less than in 1876, but the decrease is
due exclusively to Ireland. England shows
an increase of 414,947 gallons, and Scotland
an increase of 16,051, but Ireland shows a
decrease of 493,110 gallons. The number
of gallons destined for consumption in Eng-
land was 16,853,082, in Scotland 6,987,189,
and in Ireland 6,047,905. The 10,618,564
proof gallons of imported foreign spirits en-
tered for consumption in the United King-
dom in 1877 were less by 883,176 gallons
than the quantity in the preceding year.

THOMAS A. EDISOIT.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

AUGUST, 1878.

B

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE.1

Br Professor EMIL DU BOIS-REYMOND,

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN.

PART II.

VI. — The Technico-Inductive Period.

UT there was still a long road to travel, before even the threshold
of the temple of truth was reached. Nothing is better fitted to
humble the spirit of speculation, which is ever and again lifting its head
in Germany, than a contemplation of the first faltering steps of natural
science, after it had at last been aroused from its slumber. If specula-
tion were of any avail, one might suppose that it would succeed, above
all, in throwing light upon a subject so comparatively accessible to our
understanding as the laws of motion. But as Kant in later times failed
to discover a priori the conservation of energy, so did the foremost
minds of the Renaissance fail to find a priori the simplest truths of
mechanics — truths since so transformed, if the expression be allowed,
into flesh and blood of civilized man, that nativists2 might be tempted
to regard them as innate. To us it appears inconceivable that once it
required the profoundest meditation to discover the first law of motion,
the inertia, as it is called, of matter, in virtue of which the motion of a
body does not change without an external cause ; that, down to the
period of which we are speaking, no one had acquired a clear notion
as to why a rolling ball at last stands still. Galilei even at first believed
that a body, water, for instance, may move in a circle, without being

1 An address delivered before the Scientific Lectures Association of Cologne. Trans-
lated from the German by J. Fitzgerald, A. M., and carefully revised by the author.
* Upholders of the doctrine of innate ideas.
vol. xin. — 25

3 86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

held in that course by an external cause.1 Kepler least of all had any
clear conception of the laws of motion, but held views closely resembling
those of Pythagoras. But when we consider that, not reckoning Archi-
medes, whose teaching was not understood or quickly forgotten, the
human mind had for two thousand years not made a step of progress
in this matter, we cannot but wonder at the rapidity with which such
ideas are now developing ; and herein we recognize the influence of
that new sense which has been awakened among civilized nations by
monotheism. Scarcely had the human mind abandoned the waving sea
of speculation, escaped from the mare tenebrosum of scholastic theology,
and set its foot on the firm land of inductive investigation, when it tri-
umphantly sped along a track which brought it at one bound, as we
might say, up to the highest accessible point ; for only fifty years sepa-
rate Galilei's "Discorsi" from Newton's " Principia," and the formula-
tion by Leibnitz, in the same year 1686, of the doctrine of the conser-
vation of energy.

And so at last with a rapid succession of geographical, astronomical,
physical, and chemical discoveries, came the period whose benefits we
enjoy, and to which we give the name of the technico-inductive period,
because its results are due to the fact that in natural science speculation
has given way to induction, the /ledodog eTcaKTUtrj, of which it is so hard
to give an idea to an outsider, because strictly it is nothing else but
common-sense applied to a given problem.

The study of this new phase of human history is as full of comfort
and encouragement as the study of the mind's enslavement, by the
phantasms of its own imagination during the " middle ages," was pain-
ful and depressing. Nay, who will deny that, in reviewing the whole
history of mankind, with the exception of the golden age of Grecian
civilization, which passed away as rapidly as everything beautiful does,
no nobler spectacle is to be seen than that which is beginning to unfold
itself to our view, and which is even now becoming grander from day
to day.

Here we have a universal history very different from the histories
which commonly go by that name, and which tell of nothing save the
rise and fall of dynasties and empires, treaties and disputed successions,
wars and conquests, battles and sieges, rebellions and party strifes, dev-
astation of cities and harassment of populations, murders and execu-
tions, court conspiracies and priestly intrigues ; which exhibit to us, in
the war of all against all, nothing but ambition, avarice, and sensuality,
violence, treachery, and revenge, fraud, superstition, and hypocrisy.
Only at rare intervals is this dark picture relieved by the cheering ap-
parition of genuine princely magnanimity, or of peace and prosperity
among the people, oftener by the soul-stirring deeds of a heroism which,
alas ! too often is spent in vain. For, whither ultimately leads this

1 Concerning this stage of the mind's development, consult Whewell, " History of the
Inductive Sciences," vol. ii., p. 23, et seq.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 387

road, whose track lies across rivulets of tears and through a sea of blood ?
Can we discern in political history any steady progress effected by the
play of the forces which constitute its subject-matter ? Do kings grow
wiser, or peoples more sober-minded ? On the contrary, does not the
lesson taught by history seem to be this, that history teaches no lesson ?
Till modern times, did humanity steadily and consecutively advance from
step to step in liberty, morality, power, art, well-being, and science ?
Does not the history of which we speak present to our view rather a
labor of Sisyphus, and does not the very conception of different periods
of civilization imply the downfall of those civilizations ?

Alas ! we know only too well that this kind of history was for a long-
time the only one known to man ; and for the mass of people it will
continue to be the only one. The mighty game of chance, played for
stakes the value of which is known of all men, and the strife of passions
it calls forth — this drama, whereof man himself is at once the poet and
the performer, irresistibly attracts the ingenuous mind, and is full of the
profoundest lessons, however little they may be regarded.

But contemplate for a moment infinite space strewed with nebulae
in the chaotic state, with star-clusters and solar systems. Imagine, as
an invisible point in this infinity, our own sun as it speeds on into un-
known regions of the heavens, surrounded by its planets, each one re-
volving in its own proper orbit — Jupiter, the giant-planet, with his moons,
and Saturn with his rings. Again, imagine our earth, a point in this
system, shooting through universal space at the rate of a falling star,
and rotating on its axis from morning to night, from night to morning —
" mountain and sea borne along in the ever-rapid course of the spheres."
Descend, in imagination, into its fiery interior, and learn the great out-
lines of its history. After ages innumerable, the flood of molten lava
at its surface became sufficiently cooled to admit of the existence of
life ; organisms succeeded one another till, at length, the history of our
own race begins in the twilight of fable, now, however, fllumined by the
discoveries of prehistoric research.

We will call this mode of looking at terrestrial phenomena, opposed
as it is to the anthropocentric point of view, the Archimedean perspec-
tive, because thereby we in thought take a standpoint beyond the earth,
just as Archimedes desired to have a locus standi outside the earth, in
order to move it.

How lowly and insignificant do earthly things appear when thus
contemplated ! How petty now seem all those occurrences which we
are wont to regard as so weighty, that we comprehend them under the
high-sounding name of " universal history," whereas, in truth, one half
of them belong to the history of the wars, and the other half to the his-
tory of the hallucinations of only a few civilized nations ! How vain
and foolish are wars for a patch of land or for blood-stained laurels ! In
presence of the sublime spectacle of the universe, may we not exhort to
reconciliation and harmony the race of man, ever wrangling about piti-

388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

able trifles ? How odd, from the Archimedean perspective, appear the
fevered imaginings of mankind about higher beings inhabiting some-
where above our heads the icy, ether-filled cosmical space, vibrating with
force-radiations, and pervaded by meteor-streams ! How utterly absurd
is the idea of an assembly of the gravest, most learned, and most pro-
found men of their times sitting to decide whether Father and Son are
of the same or of like substance ! How ridiculous, were it not so tragi-
cal, was the scene of Galilei's abjuration, when we think of him and his
judges being carried along together " in the ever-rapid course of the
spheres ! " But oh, how doubly hideous appear the massacre of St. Bar-
tholomew and those autos da fe, whose atrocities reach their culmi-
nation in the burnings of Giordano and Servetus ! For the objects of
veneration to whom these hetacombs were immolated there is no place
in infinite space from the Archimedean standpoint, and they will have
to be collocated in the fourth dimension.

In truth, in this so-called " universal history," there is but one light
to guide us, which, however, has not often been employed hitherto :
that is the doctrine of epidemic mental disease. As in mental diseases
occurring in individuals, so here, it is hard to draw the lines of distinc-
tion between insanity and depravity. But the few who contemplate,
as it were, from the lofty summit of an intellectual crag, in an Archi-
medean way, the doings of mankind here below, cannot be very far
wrong in holding that to be the true history of the human race which,
through all its ups and downs of fortune, its crimes and its errors, traces
for us its gradual rise out of a state of semi-brutishness, its progress in
arts and sciences, its growing dominion over Nature, its daily increasing
well-being, its liberation from the bonds of superstition, and its steady
approximation to those ends which make man what he is. In polity
and war, whose unprofitable and monotonous oscillations are the sub-
ject-matter of political history, man had predecessors among invertebrate
animals even ; but the human race alone offers a history of civilization.
Hegel calls the horse and iron the " absolute organs for establishing
civilized power." With greater justice we say that natural science is
the absolute organ of civilization, and hence that the history of natural
science is the proper history of the humayi race.

The punier man seems to be, as viewed from the Archimedean stand-
point, the grander appear his achievements in the face of Nature, the
nobler his efforts to subdue her, the more attractive the history of his
intellectual conquests. As this history has memorable days and places
different from those of political history, so, too, of course its kings and
heroes differ from the kings and heroes to whom the thoughtless world
is wont to pay homage. Who is it that in this history rivets our atten-
tion at the beginning of the eighteenth century ? Not that king, sur-
rounded by his confessors, his mistresses, and his incendiary marshals,
against whom, as Ranke said to Thiers, Ave still bore arms after Sedan ;
but that greatest of men, Sir Isaac Newton, deeply pondering on a prob-

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 389

lem beneath the elms of Cambridge. Who at the beginning of this
century ? Not, amid the ruins of Moscow, the indomitable man who
invented chauvinism as the instrument of his ungovernable selfishness,
but Alessandro Volta, contriving, at his villa on Lake Como, the artificial
electrical organ which gave to man the power of omnipresence, as it
were ; or that other conqueror of space, George Stephenson, setting in
motion, in his coal-blackened cottage at Killingworth, the model of his
rail way -locomotive.

It were a noble task to describe the revolution that natural science
has quietly produced in the condition of the human race during the last
two or three centuries. Just as it has lifted from over our heads the
confining roof of a solid firmament, so, too, has it liberated us intellect-
ually. For every one who hearkens to her teaching she has fulfilled
the aspirations of the poet, who, amid the throng of courtiers in the
antechamber of Octavian and all the splendor of historical greatness,
wistfully bethought him of the disciple of Epicurus as he reposes in
powerful calm :

" Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile faturu
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acberontis avari." x

" How blest the sage whose soul can pierce each cause
Of changeful Nature and her wondrous laws ;
Who tramples fear beneath his foot, and braves
Fate and stern Death, and hell's resounding waves! "

Sotheby's translation.

In the place of miracle, natural science has substituted law. Ghosts
and spectres have disappeared before it as before the first rays of light
in the east. It has broken the power of ancient lies ; it has put out
the fires in which witches and heretics used to be burned ; it has placed
a keen-edged weapon in the hands of historical criticism. But it has
also curbed the pride of speculation. It has discovered the limits of
knowledge, and taught its disciples to look down without dizziness
from the airy heights of sovereign skepticism. How easy and free one
breathes on those heights ! How nearly inaudible to the mind's ear
the hum of the vulgar multitude in the torrid lowland, the complainings
of disappointed ambition, the battle-cries of nations ! As of the anthro-
pocentric, so, too, of the Europocentric idea natural science has made
an end. As it opened the Ghetto, so it burst the fetters of the negro.
How different its conquest of the world from that of Alexander or the
Romans ! If literature is the true intranational bond of nations, their
international bond is natural science. Voltaire could abhor Shakespeare,
but Newton he revered. The triumph of the scientific view of Nature
will to future ages appear as a step in human development comparable
to the triumph of monotheism 1,800 years ago. It matters not that the

1 Virgil, " Georgics" ii., v., 490, et scq.

39°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

people will never be ripe for tbis form of religion, for where have they
ever realized the ideal of Christianity ?

If we ask ourselves where in literature did this conception of the
universe first make its appearance, the answer will be, " In Voltaire."
That mental characteristic of Voltaire, to which David Friedrich Strauss
has not done full justice, namely, the scientific habit of thought which
he contracted in England and developed at Cirey, enabled him clearly
to perceive the difference between political history — the only form of
history known down to his time — and the history of civilization ; and
in the latter with a boldness and perspicacity all his own to show retro-
spectively and prospectively the part played by natural science. In a
hundred of his essays, letters, and philosophical novels, this fundamental
idea rises to the surface ; but, with the amazing versatility of his genius,
he to-day, as in the " History of Charles XII.," looks upon events from
the anthropocentric standpoint ; to-morrow, as in the " Micromegas,"
from the Archimedean perspective.

Following in Voltaire's footsteps, the encyclopedists further devel-
oped this conception. They still more positively than he called atten-
tion to the methodical utilization of the forces of Nature as perceived
in their regular working. Hence Diderot's partiality for the mechanic
and useful arts, a trait well noticed by Rosenkranz, in which Diderot
agreed with a man who also in a moral sense had come to meet him from
the other shore of an ocean — with Benjamin Franklin, the father of
utilitarianism.

What they dreamed is now more than accomplished. Man, whom
we first met as a tool-making animal, is now become a rational animal
who travels by steam, writes with lightning, and paints with the sun-
beam. The reconversion into work of the sunlight stored up in " black
diamonds " multiplies his energy a million-fold. The Seven Wonders
of antiquity, the engineering works of the Romans, bear no comparison
with the enterprises every day undertaken by our own generation. The
periphery of our planet threatens to become too narrow for man's genius.
Hardly any secrets do its heights and its depths still conceal from him.
Whithersoever man is powerless to go bodily, his mind penetrates with
the aid of the magic key of calculation. In the blackest night, on the
stormiest sea, his bark steers the shortest course ; she dexterously shuns
the track of the destroying typhoon. Geology does all that the divining-
rod was once supposed to do, giving us plentiful supply of water, salt,
coal, and petroleum. The list of the metals is ever growing, and yet
chemistry has not discovered the philosopher's stone ; some day that too
Avill be found, perhaps. In the mean time, it vies with organic Nature
in producing things both useful and agreeable. From the black, noisome
waste-products of coal-gas, which has transformed every city into another
Baku, chemistry derives coloring-matters before which the splendor of
tropic plumage pales. It prepares perfumes without sun and without
flower-beds. And though it mijrht not have solved Samson's riddle

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 39i

who could have solved its own riddle of how to get sweetness out of
what is disgusting ? Gay-Lussac's art of preserving articles of food has
done away with the distinction of seasons for the poor as well as for
the rich. The poisoner, with impotent rage, sees all his crafty schemes
unveiled. The destroying angels of small-pox, plague, and scurvy, are
chained. Lister's bandage excludes from the wounds received on the
battle-field the insidious and poisonous germs revealed by the sunbeam.
Chloral spreads the wings of the god of sleep over the most tortured
soul ; and Chloroform sets at naught, at our pleasure, the Biblical curse
of woman.

Thus is fulfilled the saying of that prophet of science, Francis Bacon,
that knowledge is power. All European nations, the Old World and
the New, are running a race on this course. A distinguished critic of
art not long ago laid down the proposition that in the development of
the plastic arts is to be found the measure of the height attained by
humanity at any given time. If that is so, then the time from Phidias
down to Lysippus, and the cinque-cento, would have seen the highest
development of humanity ever reached hitherto, and perhaps never to
be attained again ; the present century would at best give out but a
feeble flicker of culture, as having produced the cartoons of Cornelius !
This measuring the height of man's development by one single aspect
of human activity is in itself a false idea, and hence the judgment ex-
pressed above is as erroneous as is, for instance, the one-sided ethical
conception of man held by Semitism. But if there exists any criterion
which, per se, gives a measure of man's progress, it would appear rather
to be the degree of mastery over Nature that has been attained in any
age. The history of art is influenced by accidental circumstances, as
talent, taste, patronage, prosperity. In the investigation and subjuga-
tion of Nature alone there is no standing still ; the store is ever increas-
ing, and the creative force is ever producing more and more. Here
alone does each successive generation stand securely on the shoulders
of their predecessors. Here alone is the disciple disheartened by no nee
plus ultra, oppressed by no weight of authority, and even mediocrity
finds an honorable place, if it does but seek the truth diligently and
conscientiously. Finally, it is not art that saves civilization from an-
other downfall. Art, with all its glory, would to-day, as often before,
under the same circumstances, fall a helpless prey to barbarism, were it
not that natural science gives to our present life a security, which we
are so accustomed to consider as the natural condition of the existence
of modern civilization that we do not even think of asking whence that
security is derived.

We are all familiar with Macaulay's prophecy of the tourist from
New Zealand who, while the Roman Church still exists in undiminished
vigor, shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken
arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. In this gloomy
picture Macaulay indulges pessimistic views such as are very likely to

392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be entertained by the historical investigator who has constantly before
his eyes the vicissitudes of political affairs. But in his taoerat r\\iap
the great rhetorician falls into the same error as he falls into immedi-
ately afterward in holding that the foundation of natural theology is
to-day just what it was in earlier times ; that, in philosophizing about
the origin of things, a thinker at the present day is not more favorably
situated than Thales and Simonides ; and that, as concerns the question,
what becomes of man after death, a highly-educated European, left to
his unassisted reason — in other words, unaided by revelation — is as
little likely to be in the right as is a Blackfoot Indian. In both cases
Macaulay overlooks a fact alien to him as a writer of political history,
and, as it would appear, particularly so to his special genius — namely,
the changes wrought, and daily being brought about with ever-increas-
ing rapidity, in the condition of the human race by natural science.
Modern humanity is different from mediaeval and ancient humanity ;
the condition, the views, and the ideas of our race, in ancient and in
modern times are no longer comparable inter se, thanks to the new ele-
ments introduced by natural science. Our science and civilization
securely rest on the basis of induction and the useful arts ; ancient
science and civilization were built upon the shaky foundation of specu-
lation and aesthetics.

VII. — The Dangers which threaten Modern Civilization.

What now can check modern civilization ? What lightnings can
ever shatter this tower of Babel ? It makes one dizzy to think of what
mankind is destined to be a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a hun-
dred thousand or more years hence. What is there to which it may
not attain ? As it nowadays, mole-like, works its way through moun-
tain-chains and under the ocean, why may it not at some future time
imitate the flight of the bird ? And, as it has solved the enigmas of
mechanics, why should it not solve also the enigmas of mind?

Alas ! it is decreed that trees shall not reach the sky. It is more
than doubtful that man will ever fly ; but the time never will come
when he can tell how matter thinks. It is easier for us to reconcile
ourselves to these limitations than to that everlasting age of ice which
science remorselessly points out to us as the last scene in the drama of
human affairs. Thus curiously enough it happens that, whereas natural
science had seemed to promise to civilization a perpetual duration by
insuring it against the inroads of barbarism, it again makes the assur-
ance void and robs us of our hopes of a stable habitation on the earth.
The day will come when man no longer can say, " Lo ! Homer's sun
sends down his beams even on us ; " l a day when the earth, over and
over ice-clad, will travel sluggishly around the sun, whose fires will
then burn only with a ruddy glow ; a day when, just as in the begin-

1 "Und die Sonne Homer's, siehe, sie lachelt auch uns" — concluding pentameter of
Schiller's " Spaziergang."

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 393

ning, " Light was," because then the first eye opened, so " Darkness
will be," because then the last eye closes.

But from this fate millions of years still separate our race. A
young man does not allow himself to be thwarted either in his pleasures
or in his ambitions by thoughts of the infirmities of age which await
also him, or of the inevitableness of death. So, too, we are but little
concerned about the fate that threatens our unimaginably remote pos-
terity. Should we feel greater alarm for the immeasurably nearer dan-
ger which threatens our present civilization in the exhaustion of our
coal-fields within a calculable period of time ? No one, who knows how
difficult it is to substitute another source of power, can contemplate
without solicitude our scandalous waste of coal. The present demands
of manufacturing industry are not very easily checked, it is true ; be-
sides, "the living are always in the right," ' and later generations must
find out for themselves a means of navigating the ocean without coal ;
nevertheless, the British Parliament would be better employed in de-
vising measures to prevent the waste of coal (which is greater in Eng-
land than elsewhere), than in busying itself with questions of experi-
mental physiology, as it has lately been doing to the injury of science
and the impairment of its own dignity.8

Civilization is also threatened in another quarter. In the face of a
new barbaric invasion, it need have no fear; but in the heart of everjr
great city, in the busy hives of industry, civilization has itself brought
forth a race which, misguided by insane or reprobate leaders, may be
to it a source of greater danger, by their ignorance and brutality, than
were the Huns and Vandals to the civilization of the ancient world.
So wrote Macaulay, and Macaulay did not live to see the year 1871.
Again, he takes too dark a view. In point of fact, these dangers are
confined to certain points in time and space. Culture in general has
nothing to fear even from the Red Internationale. The Servile War,
the War of the Peasants, and the Revolt of the Anabaptists, were class-
psychoses of the same character as the present disturbances. As we
regard the former, so will future generations regard the insurrection of
June and the Commune ; and they will themselves have to deal with
the same disease under other forms.

The peril of which I would here speak is not one which directly
threatens the stability of civilization. We are concerned rather about
the questionable form which civilization tends to assume, judging from
the direction in which it is at present developing. It is not easy to
define this peril, inasmuch as it is the product of a multitude of trivial
circumstances, amid which we ourselves live, and whose influence steals

1 " Der Lebende hat Recht." — Schiller.

2 See Ludimar Hermann, "Die Vivisectionsfrage," Leipzig, 1877. Translated into
English by Archibald Dickson, under the title of " The Vivisection Question popularly
discussed," London, 1877. E. Du Bois-Reymond, "Der physiologische Unterricht sonst
und jetzt," Berlin, 1878, § 21-23.

394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

over us so insensibly that some degree of abstraction and keen observa-
tion is needed in order to detect it. This danger has already often
been pointed out with apprehension ; in fact, it is a very common thing
to speak of the state of affairs from which it results as being one of the
evils of our time ; but yet it is not always clearly perceived that we
have here to do with a necessary consequence of the progress of civiliza-
tion as set forth in the preceding considerations.

When cultivated one-sidedly, natural science, like every other form
of activity under the same conditions, narrows the mental horizon.
Under such circumstances natural science confines our vision to what
lies nearest to us, what is palpable, what can be directly apprehend-
ed with apparent certitude by the senses. It turns the mind away
from more general and less positive considerations, and disaccustoms
it to act in the region of the quantitatively indeterminable. In a cer-
tain sense we hold this to be a priceless advantage for natural science ;
but, where this tendency dominates exclusive^, it is not to be denied
that the mind becomes poorer in ideas, the fancy in images, the heart
in sentiment, and the result is a narrowness, a dryness, and a hardness
of mental constitution, abandoned by the Muses and Graces. Again,
it is a peculiarity of natural science that on the one hand it has a part
in the highest aspirations of the human soul, while on the other by
insensible gradations it passes into handicraft, into activities whose
sole end is lucre. Under the ever-rising demands of every-day life, a
steady deviation in the latter direction is inevitable. That side of
scientific activity which has to do with the useful arts is ever, unnoticed,
coming more and more into the foreground ; generation after genera-
tion find themselves more and more bent on caring for material inter-
ests. Even the universal participation in the over-estimated benefits
of political life diminishes the respect for ideas. Amid the unrest
which has taken possession of the civilized world, men's minds live as
it were from hand to mouth. Who now has the time or the inclination
to go down into the deep well of truth, to plunge into the sea of the
Ever Fair? Education nowadays, too often an unorganized patch-
work, consists of individual facts plucked up by the roots, so to speak,
useful it is true, but dry and crude. Few now are concerned about the
mode in which the truth has been discovered, or about the relations be-
tween things perceivable only in reascending to their origin — to say
nothing of the charm of perfect form. Art and literature prostitute
themselves to the gross and variable taste of the multitude, swayed
hither and thither by the daily newspaper. Where fame lasts only for
a day, one of the noblest incitements of human nature — the thought
of being famous after death — ceases to have any effect. Hence the
decay of intellectual production, which brings forth imperishable mas-
terpieces only when the mind gives itself to its work with whole-
hearted devotion and with patient fidelity. And if, as Fontenelle has
said, industry is indebted for its quickening impulse mostly to pure

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 395

science, even industry is compromised by what is in part its own work.
In short, Idealism is succumbing in the struggle with Realism, and the
kingdom of material interests is coming.

It is no surprise that this aspect of modern civilization should be
most noticeable in a country where the creation of material resources
and the removal of natural obstacles were for a long time of prime
necessity ; where an immigrant population had, in a measure, to begin
a new life, and most of them had as it were burned their ships behind
them ; where no historic memories and literary traditions were availa-
ble for stopping the tendency of the popular life, too exclusively directed
toward the useful arts and the acquisition of wealth. It is no wonder
that America has become the principal home of utilitarianism. While
at times the very first conditions of human society are there in dispute,
it is in America especially that those existences come into being whose
wealth, luxury, and external polish, contrasting as they do with their
ignorance, narrowness, and innate coarseness, give one the idea of a
neo-barbarism. In view of this aspect of American life, which has
been again and again portrayed by writers, from Sealsfield down to
Bret Harte, it has come to be the custom to characterize as an Ameri-
canization the dreaded overgrowth and permeation by realism of Euro-
pean civilization, and the rapidly-growing preponderance of manufact-
uring industry. Later the starry flag has waved in a war for an idea,
a glory which the tricolor has been wont to claim for its own — and then
has, like your true mercenary, demanded its pay for service done. Still
another starry flag may the land of the future confidently oppose to
such reproaches as are implied in the term " Americanization " — the
flag of its young literary honors, each star being some name illustrious
in science, in song, or in story. However, the term " Americanization "
is now naturalized, nor will non-Americanized Americans object to the
employment of it, as most of them are quite ready to admit the weak
point in the young giant's education which this term is used to designate.

But, in thus animadverting on American civilization, is it not a fact
that we see the mote in our brother's eye, but perceive not the beam
that is in our own eye? What of the resistance that ought to be made
to these redoubtable tendencies by our German civilization, ancient and
firmly rooted as it is, when compared with the American? Unless we
give way to one of our latest-cherished self-delusions, wTe must confess
that we have already made such progress in " Americanization " as
should give us pause. Germany is become united and powerful, and
the longing of our youth to see the German name again respected by
land and sea has been fulfilled. Who would find fault with such an
achievement ? But go back in thought to the divided, powerless, pro-
vincial Germany of our youthful days — passing as it were from the cold
splendor of the imperial city into the narrow streets of some old town
in Middle Germany, with their overhanging gables, and the house-
fronts hung with grape-vine and ivy — is there not something lacking

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the noisy Present, with all its glittering and dazing magnificence ?
Must we not, in the words of the " Schwalbenlied," exclaim, " Oh, how
remote from me is that which once was mine ! " In the revolution
which Germany has undergone within a generation, has not the good
been sacrificed as well as the evil ? Besides its vague longings, its
futile struggling, its uneasy doubts as to its own powers, has not the
German nation furthermore dropped somewhat of its enthusiasm for
ideals — its unselfish striving after truth, its deep and quiet inner life ?
Like a dream the short-lived bloom of our literature has vanished. As
politics and natural science, with their harsh realities, have silenced the
delightful causerie of the Parisian salons, so here, too, have they given
poor entertainment to the descendants of the heroes of classic story
and of romance. Goethe himself, were he now a young man, would, in
all probability, leave " G5tz," and " Werther," and " Faust," unwritten,
and would rather practise in the Imperial Diet his power of public
oratory, diagnosed in him by Gall, but which, during his life, he tested
only w7ith the " birds of Malcesine." ' With all the splendor of German
science to-day, we painfully miss, in the rising generation, the noble
passion which alone guarantees the continuity of intellectual effort.
The recently reawakened liking of the Germans for philosophic specu-
lation simply proves the truth of the old saying —

" Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret ; "

but it is not calculated to quiet our apprehensions, with regard to the
universally-diffused and rapidly-increasing indifference of our youth tow-
ard everything that they cannot see through and through, or that does
not bring money or advancement.

[To be continued.]

PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADDRESS AT THE HARVEY

TRICENTENARY.

MR. PRESIDENT : In attempting to fulfill the task you have im-
posed upon me, I am mindful that I address myself to an audi-
ence which is already familiar with William Harvey's claims to the
honor which we are assembled to show him. For, within these walls,
the memory of your illustrious Fellow and chief benefactor is kept pe-
rennially green by the customary piety of the speaker of the annual
oration which Harvey founded; and his merits have been placed before
you, with exhaustive completeness, by a long succession of able and
eloquent orators. Even if the time and place were fitted for a disqui-
sition on these topics, I could not hope to be able to add to the facts

1 Birds in Aristophanes's sense. The allusion is not easy to explain in a few words.
— (See Goethe's " Italian Journey.")

THE HARVEY TRICENTENARY. 397

already known, or to place them before you in a new light. And,
happily, this is not my function ; I have to act simply as your remem-
brancer, to play the part of the herald who announces the familiar titles
of a monarch on a state occasion.

Harvey's titles are three : he was the discoverer of the circulation
of the blood; he wrote the " Exercitatio de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis; "
he formulated anew the theory of epigenesis, and thereby founded the
modern doctrine of development.

His first and, in general estimation, his greatest title to our honor
has been challenged ; but only to the confusion of the challengers. A
century ago, your Fellow, Dr. Lawrence, in the excellent memoir pref-
aced to the college edition of Harvey's works, met the arguments of
those who had, up to that time, attempted to dim his fame, with a solid
refutation, which has never been answered, and to my mind remains
unanswerable. In our own day, Dr. Willis has stated the facts of the
case, and deduced the inevitable conclusion, with no less force and
cogency. And, having taken some pains to get at the truth of the
matter myself, I may state my clear conviction that Harvey stands
almost alone among great scientific discoverers ; not so much that, as
Hobbes said, he lived to see the doctrine he propounded received into
the body of universally-accepted truth, but because that doctrine was
both absolutely original and absolutely new. I have yet to meet with
a single particle of evidence to show that, before Harvey declared the
fact that the blood is in constant circular motion, there was so much as
a suspicion on the part of any of his predecessors or contemporaries
that such is the case. Neither in Galen, nor in Servetus, nor in Real-
dus Columbus, nor in Cassalpinus, is there a hint that a given portion of
blood sent out from the left ventricle passes through the body and the
lungs and returns to the place whence it started ; yet this is the es-
sence of Harvey's discovery.

Hence, when we hear of pompous inscriptions being put up in Spain
to Michael Servetus, " the discoverer of the circulation," or in Italy to
Ccesalpinus, " the discoverer of the circulation," it is well to recollect
that churchyards have no monopoly of unhistorical inscriptions. In-
deed, have we not ourselves, within easy walking-distance, that famous
monument, the subject of Pope's scathing but just lines :

" And London's column, soaring to the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies? "

Sir, I have no sympathy with chauvinism of any kind, but, surely,
of all kinds that is the worst which obtrudes pitiful national jealousies
and rivalries into the realm of science. We will not shame ourselves
by permitting the fact of Harvey's English birth to enter into the con-
sideration of his claims as a discoverer ; but those claims once estab-
lished beyond dispute, it is, I hope, something nobler and better than
mere national vanity which brings vis together to celebrate his birth ;

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to take an honest pride that such a man came of our English race ; and
as, I hope, to feel the deep responsibility which is laid upon us to have
a care that the stock which in the same hundred years bourgeoned out
in a Harvey and a Newton, shall not have its capacity for producing
like growths, in the present and in the future, starved by devotion to
mere material interests, or stunted by ignorant outcries against scien-
tific investigation.

The second title which I have claimed for Harvey is that of author
of the " Exercitatio de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis." And that title is,
happily, quite indisputable. But some may suppose that I have so far
thrown myself into the spirit of my assumed office as to insert a super-
fluous appellation — a sort of " Defender of the Faith." However, this
would be an error. Harvey might have discovered the circular course
of the blood; he might have given sufficient evidence of his discovery;
and yet he might have been quite incapable of writing that little essay
of fifty pages which no physiologist of the present day can read with-
out wonder and delight. For, not only is it a typical example of sound
scientific method and of concise and clear statement ; but, in addition
to the evidence of the course of the blood through the body, it contains
the first accurate analysis of the motions of the heart ; the first clear
conception of the mechanism of that organ as a pumping apparatus ;
the first application of quantitative considerations to a physiological
problem ; and the first deductive explanation of the phenomena of the
pulse and of the uses of the valves of the veins. " Libellus aureus,"
Haller called it — and never was epithet more aptly bestowed.

Harvey's third title to honor is the authorship of the " Exercitationes
de Generatione." In this treatise Harvey grapples with two of the
most difficult problems of biology — the physiological problem of gener-
ation and the morphological problem of development. It was simply
impossible that he should solve these problems, for they can be ap-
proached only through the microscope ; and Harvey was dead before
Hooke, Malpighi, Swammerdam, orLeeuwenhoek, the fathers of micros-
copy, began their work. He saw the circulation in shrimps " ope perspi-
cillo" indeed — but the perspicillum was a mere hand-glass. Hence it is
not wonderful that Harvey's theory of fecundation is altogether erro-
neous ; and that he is no less mistaken respecting the nature of the
parts of the embryo which first make their appearance and the mode of
their formation.

Nevertheless, just as it is the fate of dullness to be blind to the
significance of justly-observed facts, so is it the rare privilege of men
of the highest genius to discern the true light among the ignes fatui of
error. They know the truth, as Falstaff discerned the true prince
among his pot companions, by instinct. Explain the matter how we
will, it is an indubitable fact that, though Harvey's fundamental observa-
tions were either inadequate or erroneous, some of his most important
general conclusions express the outcome of modern research.

THE HARVEY TRICENTENARY. 399

For a whole century Harvey's successors, even though the illustri-
ous Haller was among them, went wrong when Harvey was right; and
though Caspar Wolff returned to Harvey's views and thereby laid the
foundation of modern embryology, the definitive triumph of the doc-
trine of epigenesis is the result of labors which have been effected
within the memory of living men.

Such appear to me to be the chief claims of Harvey to be held in
everlasting honor among men of science. We know that they represent
a mere fraction of what he did. But the violence of an unhappy time
has robbed us of the rest. I should trespass unwarrantably on your
time if I insisted on the applications of Harvey's discoveries to medicine
and surgery in the presence of those whose daily avocations bear wit-
ness to them.

I have hitherto dwelt upon the claims to our honor of Harvey the
philosopher; one word, in conclusion, concerning Harvey the man.
There have been great men whose personality one would gladly forget :
brilliant capacities besmirched with the stains of inordinate ambition,
or vanity, or avarice ; or soiled by worse vices ; or men of one idea,
unable to look beyond the circle of their own pursuits. But no such
flaw as any of these defaces the fair fame of William Harvey. The
most that tradition has to say against him is, that he was quick of tem-
per and could say a sharp thing on occasion. I do not feel disposed to
cast a stone against him on that ground ; but rather, such being the
case, to marvel at the astonishing, not only self-control, but sweetness,
displayed in his two short controversial writings — the letters to Riolan ;
a man who really was nothing better than a tympanitic Philistine, and
who would have been all the better for a few sharp incisions.

Moreover, in such a temperament, while the love of appreciation is
keen, the sense of wrong at unjust and willful opposition is no less
strong. But I do not recollect, in all Harvey's writings, an allusion to
the magnitude of his own achievements, or an angry word against his
assailants.

Ready to welcome honor if it came, but quite able to be content
without it ; caring little for anything but liberty to follow in peace his
search into the ways of the unfathomable cause of things — " sive Deus,
sive Natura Naturans, sive Anima Mundi appelletur " ' — one fancies this
man of the true Stoic stamp would have summed up his eighty years
of good and evil in the line of the poet, which was the favorite aphorism
of his great contemporary, Descartes :

" Bene qui latuit bene visit."

But he lived too well that the memory of his life should be allowed to
fall into oblivion ; and we may hope that recurring centennial anniver-
saries will find our successors still mindful of the root whence their ever-
widening knowledge has sprung. — Nature.

1 " Exercitationes de Generatione," Ex. 50.

4oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE TEEEDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.1

By Dr. E. H. VON BAUMHAUER,

COMMISSIONER TO THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION FROM HOLLAND.

1.

DURING a period of about twenty -five years previous to 1858, the
injuries caused to the timber of marine constructions by the
Teredo navalis were rarely noticed in Holland, when, during the sum-
mer of that year, public anxiety was awakened afresh on that subject.
Some repairs, undertaken at that time, of the marine works of the port
of Nieuwendam, a village situated on the Y, brought to light the fact
that all the piles broke off at the slightest blow, and were found to be
entirely eaten off by the teredo.

The late secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Amster-
dam, Prof. W. Vrolik, called the attention of the Academy to this sub-
ject at a meeting held November 27, 1858, and the Academy appointed
a commission from its own members, composed of Messrs. W. Vrolik,
P. Harting, D. J. Storm Buysing, J. W. L. van Oordt, and E. H. von
Baumbauer, charged with the duty of collecting and examining into all
facts known concerning the natural history of the teredo, and, at the
same time, to inquire into the best means for preserving wood from de-
struction by that mollusk.

Considering the great importance of this question to our country,
bathed on all sides by the sea, the commission asked the assistance of
the Government in its work, which was readily granted. This subject be-
ing of equal importance to other countries situated on the sea, and re-
searches into the means of preventing the ravages of the teredo having
been undertaken and the results published, especially in England,
France, and Belgium, I have thought that a brief communication of the
results we reached would be interesting and perhaps useful abroad,
especially as our work was conducted on a large scale.

Before relating the experiments conducted by the commission, I pro-
pose to give a sketch of the examinations made by Mr. Harting, on the
structure of the teredo and its mode of life, which have been very care-
fully studied by M. P. Kater, at Nieuwendam.

On the Mechanism of the Apparatus with which the Teredo
perforates its Galleries. — The researches of several leading natu-
ralists into the habits and structure of mollusks which perforate hard
substances, such as wood and stone, have shown that some of them,
which are found in calcareous rocks, make their excavations through
some chemical means, i. e., by the dissolving action of an acid secretion,
while the teredos and some others employ in their work purely mechani-

1 Extract from the Archives of Holland, vol. i., translated by Edward R. Andrews.

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.

401

cal means only. The manner in which the teredos proceed in their work
has not, however, been clearly pointed out. In fact, while Hancock does
not consider the shell, but the fleshy foot, as the boring instrument,
and Quatrefages attributes that role to a part of the mantle of the ani-
mal, extending like a fold to the margin of the shell, Corilland has in-
dicated the shell itself as the perforating instrument. By fastening the
shell of a teredo on the end of a small stick of wood with gum, and
turning it between the thumb and finger, he has succeeded, after four
and a half hours' labor, in boring a hole in wood thirty millimetres
deep. Mr. Harting arrived at the same conclusions by a careful micro-
scopic examination of the shell and the muscular system of the teredo.
We will point out the principal results of his studies, with illustrations
to make them clear:

The shell is composed of two valves of equal size, which are not fast-
ened together with a hinge ; this is also the case with all other species
of the genus Teredo and Pholas. The valves are maintained in place
by a fold of the mantle in form of an .arc (Fig. 1, b), which encircles
them posteriorly. Moreover, the posterior part of the mantle has a

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

prolongation (Fig. 1, a, and Fig. 2, a) which covers, to a certain extent,
the dorsal side of the valves, and extends on each side to their margin,
forming two lobes (Fig. 1, c, and Fig. 2, b), which nevertheless do not
adhere to the shell; by this mode of union the relative position of the
valves is maintained. With other bivalve mollusks, which do not per-
forate, this relation is firmly fixed by a hinge ; but, with the teredo, the
valves have a certain play, which allows a slight displacement in their
relative positions. The valves are, moreover, connected by two ad-
ductor muscles, which we will soon examine more closely.

The shell presents, even when the valves are brought closely to-
gether, three large openings.
vol. xiii. — 26

402

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first, on the dorsal face (Fig. 3), is occupied in part by a pal-
lial prolongation, a continuation of which is introduced by this opening
into the interior of the shell, in part by the small adductor muscle.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4

The second opening is posterior (Fig. 4, a), and serves to open a
passage to the internal organs contained in the cavity of the mantle.

Finally, the third, placed obliquely in front (Fig. 5, a a; Fig. 4, «),
is the largest, and remains always gaping ojDen to allow the foot to pass
out (Fig. 5, 1).

Each of these valves, which form the shell, is formed of three parts,
viz. :

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

1. A posterior part (Fig. 3,/; Fig. 6,f; Fig. 7/), which we can call
the neck part ; this posterior is the least arched, and thinner than the
rest of the shell: its posterior edge is embraced by the folds of the
mantle, which we have already mentioned, and thus the mantle is sol-
idly attached to the shell.

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.

403

2. The middle part (Fig. 3, b ; Fig. 6, b ; Fig. 7, b), which is the
largest, is strongly arched, and presents, when seen from the side, the
form of a half-moon ; its ventral portion is a little more pointed, curved
inwardly, and terminated by a small swelling or tubercle (Fig. 4, b'/ Fig.
7, b'), which, when the shell is closed, comes in contact with the similar
tubercle on the opposite valve.

3. The anterior part, which is a continuation of the upper portion
of the preceding part, and is more or less spiral in form (Fig. 6, Cf Fig.
7, c; Fig. 3, c c; Fig. 4, c c), and its edge makes, when seen from the side
(Fig. 6), an angle of a little more than 90° with the free edge of the
middle part. The limit of these two parts is marked by a zigzag line,
which resembles a sort of suture (Fig. 3, e; Fig. 6, e e). This part of the
shell curves backward and inward, and there terminates in a small
rounded tubercle (Fig. 4, d; Fig. 3, d; Fig. 7, d), situated opposite the
corresponding tubercle of the other valve. This point is the axis of ro-
tation of the two valves ; that is to say, when the shell opens or closes,
the tubercles retain their relative positions, while all the other portions
of the valves describe about them an arc of circle more or less large.

On each of these tubercles is a short, pointed projection, on which
are implanted at about a right angle two other large projections, which
extend into the interior of the shell a third or half its length (Fig. 4, e e ;
Fig. 7, e). These projections are slightly curved and flattened ; they
penetrate among the soft parts, so that their inner face reposes upon
the visceral mass ; their outer face comes in contact with the thin lin-
ing or mantle, which covers the interior of the valves and extends to
their extreme edge.

Examining the shell with a magnifying-glass, one sees (Fig. 6) a
large number of curved lines of growth, parallel, as is usual, with the
free margin of the shell ; a closer examination shows that those lines
differ in each of the three parts of the valve, although in fact they
form a continuous whole.

On the back part of the neck of the valve (Fig. 6,/), the lines seem
to be simply curved lines without any especial peculiarities. This is
equally true of those on the posterior and largest portion of the middle
part of the shell (Fig. 6, b) ; they seem to be only linear thicknesses ;
yet, between each pair of the strongest lines, which are the lines of
growth, properly so called, one discovers a multitude of others, much
liner, which follow the same direction. Here (Fig. 6, e e) the lines of
growth form partitions between as many rows of small, sharp, wedge-
shaped teeth. Each of these teeth has two rectangular faces on either
side of two small triangular faces inclined toward each other (Fig. 8) ;
its cutting edge is placed in the direction of the axis of the animal.

The size of those small teeth varies according to the position they
occupy : those which are in the vicinity of the hinge-border are the
smallest, those which are on the outer edge are the largest. And, as
the part of the shell which is nearest the hinge is the earliest formed,

4°4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in fact the only portion which exists at a very early period, it follows
that the average dimension of the teeth increases with the size of the
shell, that is to say, with the growth of the animal. On a shell, for in-
stance, of 7i millim. in its largest dimension, where the total number

Fig. 7.

Fig. 8.

of rows of teeth reaches 41, the width of each row near the hinge-part
is 52 mmm. (^ millim.), and the size of each compartment occupied by
a tooth is 28 mmm. (^ millim.), while the same measures, taken on the
outer edge of the valve, give 145 and 45 mmm. (^ and ^V millim.). At
this last point the small, wedge-shaped teeth rise to a height of 32
mmm. (^3 millim.) above their common support. On an average, there
are in each row about 100 teeth, and consequently more than 4,000
on each valve, and more than 8,000 on the two valves together.

The anterior part, in the form of a spoon, has a similar structure,
but still more delicate. The lines of growth form an angle of a little
more than 90° with those of the middle part, of which they are a con-
tinuation. They appear like small, projecting ribs, the outer edges of
which are cut in the form of small teeth pressed one against the other
(Fig. 6, c, and Fig. 9). These denticles are also in form of wedges ;
their cutting surfaces are perpendicular to the axis of the animal, and
consequently form a right angle with the cutting surfaces of the teeth
of the middle part of the shell. But they are much smaller than the
latter ; their width is only 10 to 15 mmm. (Ti-g- to ^g- millim.). Their
number is also more considerable, even although that part of the shell
is less fully developed than the rest.

On the same shell of 7^ millim. diameter, the number of these
denticles is, on an average, 250 on each rib, which makes 10,250 on the
41 ribs, and 20,500 on the two valves.

We should also point out the fact that this spiral part of the shell
is evidently composed of more solid matter than the rest of the shell.
It has more lustre, and the look of porcelain, and its surface between
the ribs is smooth and glossy.

The consideration of the structure which we have related led Mr.
Harting to the conclusion that it would be difficult to imagine an in-
strument better adapted than this shell for boring galleries in wood.

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.

405

In fact, each valve presents in a certain way a combined auger-bit,
gouge, and file. The ordinary steel file is made with two rows of
notches, in order that the tool may cut simultaneously in two different
directions ; in this shell the same end is attained by the two rows of
denticles, the action of which is equally in two directions perpendicular
to each other ; and our shell has another advantage, that it does not
foul so readily with the filings as does an ordinary file.

Nevertheless, the winding direction of the galleries, in which it is
not unusual to find right angles, or even somewhat acute angles ; the
defective cylindricity in the form of the galleries, which often appear
as if composed of rings piled up one upon another, some larger and
some smaller; the form of the end of each gallerjr, which is always per-
fectly smooth and hemispherical without any projection in the centre
— all these facts show, according to Harting, that the action brought to
bear upon wood by the teredo is not that of an auger boring a hole by
rotary motion, but rather that of a file ; this is rendered more apparent
from the results of the careful anatomical study given by Harting to
the muscular system of the teredo.

Although confined during its entire life to the dwelling which it has
itself constructed, the teredo still has a strongly-developed muscular
system. It is evident, moreover, that he uses all his muscles, excepting
only those which serve to move the siphons, more or less directly, in
the perforation of his galleries.

The first svstem of muscles is that which one finds in the mantle.
That organ is provided through its whole length with longitudinal and

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

transverse muscular fibres. These fibres give the teredo the power of
elongating or shortening its body ; and also, by the partial action of
some bundles of fibres, to make a slight movement of torsion.

At the base of the palettes, at the posterior portion of the mantle,
is a powerful muscular ring (Fig. 10, 0) ; by means of this ring, when

T

406 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the posterior extremities are expanded, the siphons (Fig. 10, e and d)
can be carried outside into the water ; at the same time the access of
the two siphons, and consequently the entrance and exit of water, can
be more or less hindered. As we have seen, the mantle is prolonged
in the direction of the shell in an appendage which extends over the
two sides of the dorsal surface of the valves (Fig. 1, a, and Fig. 2, #),
the central portion of which forms a swelling of considerable thickness,
composed of various anatomical elements ; beneath the epidermis the
tissues are partly of vesicular and partly of membranous character,
which, through inherent powers of swelling and hardening under the
action of the blood, serve a purpose in operating the movement of the
valves.

To explain the physiological role of this organ (a, Figs. 1 and 2), it
is necessary to recall the fact that it receives on either side, in the
arched folds of the mantle, the neck-portions of the valves of the shells.
By the contraction of the bundles of muscular fibres, the two valves
would separate slightly one from the other, a movement which is still
better understood if it is proved that that organ can become hard by
the afflux of the blood and thus furnish a better fulcrum for the action
of the muscles. Up to a certain point this part is similar to the hinge-
ligament of other bivalve mollusks; but only in this respect, that it
serves to open the shell. For the true ligament, wherever it exists, is
always composed of elastic tissue, and its action is purely passive,
while with the teredo the opening of the shell is a muscular action and
consequently active. Moreover, the hinge is wanting in this case, which
allows the supposition that the animal has the power of modifying at
will, by the partial contraction of its muscles, the direction in which
the valves separate, so that it may be at one time the middle parts and
at another the anterior parts of the valves which separate most from
each other. Besides, the effort which this action demands is extremely
feeble, and the movement of the valves themselves is very limited.

There are two adductor muscles. The first and largest is already
well known ; it has been described by all writers who have made the
teredo an object of study. It extends (Fig. 11, m) between the two
valves in the form of a muscular mass, relatively quite large, and occu-
pies about two-thirds of the length of the shell and one-third of its
width. It rests on either side on a sort of pad situated at the limit
between the middle and neck parts of the valve. The second or small
adductor muscle, which appears to have escaped the attention of most
observers, is found near the dorsal side of the shell in the cavity be-
tween the anterior portions of the valves. One can see its exte-
rior surface, clothed with a thin epidermis and slightly projecting im-
mediately in front of the pallial prolongation, which extends over the
dorsal face of the shell ; in appearance it is only a continuation of this
muscle, but in reality it is entirely distinct.

The principal mass of this muscle is implanted upon the sides, bent

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. . 407

backward within the anterior, spiral parts of the valves (Fig. 11, p)
below the line which passes by the two tuberculous extremities,
coupled together, i. e., by the centre of rotation of the valves. From
this principal mass some slender muscular fibres extend over the two
thorny protuberances (Fig. 11, e e), which may be compared to two
arms of levers, whose common fulcrum is
found in the centre of rotation of the
valves. It is clear that, by this arrange-
ment, the action of the muscle is consider-
ably strengthened.

The two adductor muscles are com-
posed of the same microscopic elements,
that is, of fibres and fibro-cellular tissue,
easily separated in form of a ribbon, six
mmm. wide and one mmm. thick ; their
length is relatively considerable, and prob-
ably equal to that of the muscles them-
selves, inasmuch as one can nowhere dis-
cover any free extremities. These fibres

are distinguished from the fibro-cellular tissue of the mantle not only
by their greater length, but also by their darker outlines, which indi-
cate thicker walls and, consequently, greater solidity and strength.

The effect produced by these muscles in contracting is very evident.
The large adductor muscle, situated on a plane a little above the gen-
eral centre of rotation of the valves, serves to draw together the rounded
sides of the valves as well as all the other parts of the valves situated
posteriorly on the same side of the centre of rotation. The small ad-
ductor muscle, placed in front of the centre of rotation, exercises a more
limited action. When it contracts, the anterior extremities of the spiral
part of the valves approach each other ; simultaneously, all the parts
of the shell situated behind experience a slight displacement forward,
as if they tried to turn about an axis passing by the centre of rotation ;
but the one which they thus describe is necessarily very small, on ac-
count of the shortness of the muscle. It is evident that the direction
of the movement made by one of these adductor muscles is nearly a
right angle with that of the other ; the anterior and middle parts of the
valves, which are first acted upon by the action of the muscles, meet at
an angle of 90°.

Finally, the teredo has also a muscular organ, without which it
would be impossible for him to pierce his galleries. It is the part known
as the foot, which has the power of projecting outside between the an-
terior opening of the valves (Fig. 5, b ; Fig. 1, d — the dotted line indi-
cating the outline of the foot in the state of extension). This foot has
the power of extension and retraction, and terminates at the end with a
suction-disk, by the aid of which the animal can attach itself to the wood.

From what precedes, it is evident that the teredo, far from being,

4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as Deshayes has pretended, an animal having very few if any muscles,
is, on the contrary, richly provided with those organs. There are the
longitudinal and transverse muscles through the whole length of the
mantle, a true sphincter (Fig. 10, c) at the base of the siphons, a mus-
cular organ which receives and covers a part of the valves, two adduc-
tor muscles for the movement of bringing the valves together, and a
foot provided with a suction-disk and susceptible of extension and re-
traction— truly a profusion of motive organs which one would not expect
to find in an animal which passes its entire life in a narrow canal which
it can never quit. Moreover, all these motive powers have only one
essential end, namely, to endow the teredo with the power of boring
his gallery — his home.

But all the muscles which we have enumerated do not cooperate to
that end in an equally direct manner. When water has entered by the
incurrent siphon, the animal can, by contracting the transverse mus-
cles of the mantle, force the water through the whole length of its body
up to the end of the gallery, and then drive it out by the excurrent
siphon. The teredo undoubtedly makes use of this as a means of get-
ting rid of the fine filings of wood which the valves of the shell have
detached. He can then draw back a little the anterior part of his body
by the action of the longitudinal muscular fibres, supporting himself by
the two palettes pressed against the inner walls of the calcareous tube
at a distance of two or three millimetres from the exterior opening, by
which the siphons project outside the wood. It is probable that the
teredo takes that position during his periods of repose, which come
from time to time, and which he uses for repairing his tools.

The teredo possesses, on the other hand, the means of preventing or
hindering the outflow of water at will, so that its body, distended by
the liquid, occupies at that time the whole extent of the gallery, and his
anterior portion touches with the valves of its shell the end of the gal-
lery. In this position he can carry on his work of miner. He com-
mences then by extending his foot (Fig. 1, c?), which he fixes by suc-
tion against the side of the cavity. At the same time the valves sep-
arate a little ; then, while the foot draws the shell to itself and thus
presses its exterior surface against the wood, the valves close up again,
and the denticles with which they are furnished cut into the wood.

In this labor there are still two peculiarities worthy of notice : First,
the limited extent of movement with which the valves are endowed,
their anterior extremities moving only a very short distance from each
other. But this circumstance, in view of the narrow space in which the
teredo works, gives him this advantage, that, by the rapid succession of
movements of opening and closing the shell, he attains his end — namely,
to reduce the wood to an impalpable powder — better than if each blow
of the instrument had a wider range. In the second place, we should
recall the fact that the directions of movement of the two adductor mus-
cles are at right angles, as are also the directions of the cutting surfaces

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. 409

of the denticles on the two parts of the same valve. Hence it is clear,
after the description which we have given above, that if the large ad-
ductor muscle contracts, the denticles of the anterior or spiral part of
the valve cut the wood ; if, on the contrary, the small adductor muscle
is shortened, it is the middle part of the valve which undergoes a move-
ment of rotation, and the teeth which it bears are set at work. Thus,
then, whether the two muscles contract simultaneously or one by one,
the woody cells are cut by successive incisions, which would divide them
into small quadrangular pieces, if there be no rending of the fibres. It
is evident that the hardest task is demanded from the spiral part of the
valve, for it is that part which is first brought to bear upon the wood.
This part also has a more solid structure and the denticles are much
finer ; it is moved by a muscle of considerable size ; the power of this
muscle is, moreover, sensibly increased by the fact of its being implant-
ed upon the two middle parts of the valves, each of which can be con-
sidered as a long arm of a lever whose extremity passes over a space
at least four times as large as the portion of the valve which, strictly
speaking, does the work.

The foot remains fixed in the same spot a very short time only. The
form of the end of the cavity, that of a regularly rounded basin, suffices
to prove that the valves of the shell are placed every instant in contact
with a different spot. The foot displaces itself, little by little, so as to
give a rotating movement to the shell, and at the same time to all that
part of the body beyond the shell, even as far as the palettes. When
the torsion thus produced becomes excessive, the foot loosens its hold,
and the body returns to its former position. Thus, then, the rotary
movements remarked by some observers, far from being the cause,
should be considered rather the effect ; they are only the shifting of
position of the animal, and nothing more.

The teredo does not bore out his galleries, but he hollows them out
with an action analogous to that of a file, by means of the thousands of
cutting teeth with which its valves are armed. If the teeth do not
break away rapidly, it is due to their wedge-like form and to the ob-
lique direction of the planes which bound each of these wedges. More-
over, as the animal grows, new rows of teeth are formed, so that the
rows which have served in youth are no longer of any use in more
advanced age; they are principally the outer rows of teeth, the last
formed, which do the work.

The sense of touch exists in the teredo in the suction-disk. This is
not only a muscular organ, but one rich in nerves. Quatrefages has
already pointed out the two small ganglia, situated on the intestines,
which furnish the nerves for that part of the body. The foot, when ex-
tended, commences by feeling the place before attaching itself to it
and drawing the shell after it. Naturally, it avoids the places which
seem to offer too much resistance ; but he avoids with equal care the
parts where there only remains a wall of wood too thin for sufficient re-

4i o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sistance. In this case, in fact, the gallery is approaching either the sur-
face of the wood or a neighboring gallery ; a teredo is never known to
destroy the work of another ; that, moreover, would not serve -him, for,
even should he perforate the woody division between them, he would
drive against the calcareous tubes, which, being scarcely less hard than
the valves themselves, cannot be attacked by them. Whenever the
teredo encounters an obstacle, he simply turns aside; he acts like the
mole, which, excavating her trenches by preference in a rich loam,
makes a detour around the stones which she meets in her way, and
changes her direction when she comes near the breast of a ditch, to
avoid the open air.

I will state, moreover, that the conclusions regarding the manner
in which the teredo perforates his galleries, deduced at first by Har-
ting from the anatomical examination of his organs, have since been fully
confirmed by direct observation ; Kater, having opened laterally one of
the galleries, so as to partially expose the animal, has seen him at work,
executing all the movements above mentioned.

[To be continued.]

ON THE DEE AD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE.

By GEOKGE HENRY LEWES.

IN the struggle of life with the facts of existence, science is a bringer
of aid ; in the struggle of the soul with the mystery of existence,
science is a bringer of light. As doctrine and discipline its beneficence
is far-reaching. Yet this latest-born of the three great agents of civil-
ization— Religion, Common-Sense, and Science — is so little appreciated
by the world at large that even men of culture may still be found who
boast of their indifference to it, while others jegard it with a vague
dread which expresses itself in a dislike, sometimes sharpened into
hatred.

I shall be told, perhaps, that the growing demand for popular ex-
positions of scientific results and the increasing diffusion of scientific
inquiry point to a different conclusion. It is true that there never was
a time when science was so popular. It is true that every year the at-
tendance on lectures and the meetings of scientific associations is larger.
The tide is rising. The march of Science is bit by bit conquering even
the provinces which most stubbornly refuse allegiance to it. But,
meanwhile, among the obstacles it has to overcome are certain preju-
dices and misconceptions which are the grounds of a deep-seated dread.
No better illustration can be given of the general suspicion and dislike
of science as science than the great stress which is laid on the " iniquity
of vivisection," because experiments on animals are pursued for purely

ON THE DREAD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE. 411

scientific purposes. The animating impulse of an effort to awaken a
due sympathy with animal suffering and check an inconsiderate inflic-
tion of it is one which so entirely commands my esteem, that I would
willingly overlook the flagrant contradiction of people tolerating with-
out a murmur the fact that yearly millions of creatures are mutilated
and tortured to give a few men pleasure, to make food more palatable,
and domestic animals more tractable, yet are roused to fury by the fact
that a few score creatures are mutilated (a smaller number tortured) to
discover remedial agents and scientific truths. All the pain inflicted
for sport or other pleasure is condoned; the pain inflicted for scientific
ends is pronounced diabolical. Is it, therefore, not on account of the
suffering inflicted, but on account of the scientific purpose, that vivisec-
tion is to be reprobated ? Ten thousand times the amount of suffering
is disregarded if only its purpose be not that of acquiring knowledge.
And that this is so, is manifest in another case. For suffering may be
also inflicted on human beings, and on a large scale, without exciting
any outcry, if the motive be commercial advantage. Not to mention
wars undertaken to push commerce, let us only consider some industrial
experiment which will certainly drive hundreds of families from their
employment with starvation as the consequence ; yet the sufferings thus
occasioned, if they excite pity, weigh so little against the prospect of
the general good, that if the starving workmen revolt and destroy the
machinery, the philanthropist is ready to enforce on them the utmost
rigor of the law. Here the social benefit is allowed to override the
individual injury. That is to say, an experiment which has the pros-
pect of enlarging wealth may inflict suffering on men, women, and
children; but an experiment which has only the prospect of enlarging
knoioledge must be forbidden if it inflict suffering on animals ! Obvi-
ously such a contradiction could not be upheld if science were recog-
nized as a social benefit. It is not so recognized. And one indication
of this is the frequent accusation that physiologists are actuated by the
" selfish motive of acquiring reputation," not by the unselfish motive of
benefiting mankind. I will not pause to discuss the question of motives,
nor how far the selfish motive may further a social advantage; I will
only ask whether the motive of the industrial experimenter is less
selfish ? Unless science were a social benefit, no one would ardently
desire a scientific reputation.1

Having indicated the existence of the dread and dislike of science,
let us now glance at the causes.

The primary cause is a misconception of what science is. No ra-
tional being dreads and dislikes knowledge. No one proclaims the

1 When one observes those who believe hospitals and colleges to be important in-
stitutions, socially beneficial, threatening to withdraw all support unless the teachers
openly declare what they do not believe, namely, that vivisection for scientific ends is un-
justifiable, one is reminded of the recent outbreak of fanaticism on the part of the Jains.
This Hindoo sect has such a horror at the destruction of animal life that a group of the
most fervent murdered all the Mussulman butchers in the neighborhood.

4i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

superiority of ignorance as a guide of conduct. Yet science is simply
knowledge classified, systematized, made orderly, impersonal, and exact,
instead of being left unclassified, fragmentary, personal, and inexact.
Auguste Comte calls it " common-sense methodized and extended."
There is plenty of knowledge which is not exact, and of exact knowl-
edge which is not methodized. There is plenty of experience which is
personal and incapable of being communicated to others. "Wanting the
illumination of many minds, this store cannot do the work of science,
which is the experience of many enlarging the experience of each. If
there is immense benefit in knowing what are the facts and the order of
the physical world in which we live, and of the social world in which
our higher life is lived, there is clearly a great advantage that this
knowledge should be made orderly and communicable; and the dread of
such an arrangement of knowledge is obviously irrational. Thus en-
lightened, we recognize in science the deliberate effort to reduce the
chaos of sensible experiences within the orderliness of ideal construc-
tions, condensing multitudes of facts into simple laws — an effort which
the intellect acknowledges as a supreme duty, and which conduct ac-
knowledges as a guide.

Another source of the dislike is the opposition of our native tenden-
cies. Science is abstract, impersonal, whereas our experiences are con-
crete and personal. It is systematic, and systematization is trouble-
some : our native indolence renders us impatient of labor, and our im-
patience leads us to prefer the facile method of guessing to the difficult
method of observing : we have to be trained into the preference of ob-
serving what the facts are, instead of arguing as to what the facts must
be. Science, moreover, is greatly occupied with remote relations ; now,
to feel an interest in these we must first have had them "brought
home " to us. Knowledge springs from desire. It begins when pro-
longed observation, stimulated by emotion, replaces the incurious ani-
mal stare at things ; and for this prolongation there is needed a sus-
taining motive. The sustaining motive of research is the conviction of
the vast increase of our power which science creates. Measuring by a
foot-rule and measuring by trigonometry may be taken as types of com-
mon knowledge and science : the result reached may in some particular
case be the same, whichever method be used ; but the incomparable ex-
tent of the second method, which is applicable where the foot-rule can-
not reach — which measures the heights of mountains and the distances
of stars — furnishes the sustaining motive to the study of trigonometry.

Science demands exactness, and this demand irritates the vulgar
mind. The impatience with which your cook listens to your advice that
she should measure and not guess the quantities (advice you can never
get her to follow) is but the same movement which rouses your resist-
ance when any one desires to test your opinions by weighing the evi-
dence, or endeavors to show that your traditional beliefs rest on no
verifiable observations. Is not he who insists on evidence commonly

ON THE DREAD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE. 413

styled " a bore " by all whose opinions have been adopted quite irre-
spective of evidence ? Is it not pronounced " narrow " to hesitate
in accepting wide conclusions without a keen appreciation of their
data?

The distaste for accuracy, and the impatience at any restriction of
the divine right of judging without evidence, will disappear with the
advance of knowledge ; and with this advance will also disappear cer-
tain mistakeu pretensions of scientific men too ready to step beyond
their own domain. It is this which causes the distaste of artists, men
of letters, and moralists ; and their opposition to the spread of scientific
teaching. They do not oppose knowledge in the abstract, nor any
particular knowledge ; what they resist is the idea that the conclusions
reached in one department of inquiry are to dictate conclusions in an-
other. The artist is quite willing to accept the chemist's methodized
experience of chemical facts, but refuses to listen to the chemist theoriz-
ing about art. The moralist will accept from the physicist equations of
light, and from the anatomist relations of structure ; but reserves to
himself the right of deciding on a moral question.

One must admit that in the inarticulate resistance of sentiment and
common-sense against certain applications of scientific doctrines there
is often a justification. For example, there are mechanical laws and
equations which admirably explain the facts of motion, yet sentiment
is shocked at the attempt to explain Nature on mechanical principles
only, and is sustained by common-sense, which sees other facts besides
facts of motion, and sees that Nature is not mechanical only. Again,
when the stored-up wealth of sentiments laboriously evolved in civilized
life is set aside in favor of some analogy drawn from observed processes
in the inorganic world, when the moral impulse to cherish the weak and
sickly is condemned because Nature (which is not moral) cherishes the
strong and pitilessly destroys the weak, common-sense protests, and
the protest helps to intensify the popular distrust of science. Yet, in
truth, the wiser heads among men of science are equally alive to the
mistake of such applications.

What is to be understood by Science ? It means, first, a general
Method, or Logic of Search, applicable to all departments of knowledge ;
and, secondly, a doctrine, or body of truths and hypotheses, embracing
the results of search. In this second acceptation there are the particu-
lar sciences — such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychol-
ogy, etc. — which are the special applications of the general method to
special departments of knowledge ; and although there is an inter-
dependence of these sciences, each is restricted to its own class of facts,
none can legislate for the others. But because the various branches of
knowledge have been very unequally reduced to the exactness and
orderliness of science, those which have been most successfully reduced
have acquired the almost exclusive title ; so that science is generally
regarded as something apart — the peculiar study of a particular class.

4i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hence also the opinion that there is a profound separation between the
principles applicable in the physical sciences and the principles appli-
cable in the moral sciences. What has been the consequence ? It has
been that the method which is no longer regarded as a rational pro-
cedure in dealing with the phenomena of Nature is followed without
misgiving in dealing with the phenomena of human nature ; and the
supernaturalism long banished from physical theories is still invoked in
psychological and social theories.

Of late years this has ceased to be the universal error, though it
still remains a wide-spread error. We are slowly beginning to recog-
nize that there may be a science of History, a science of Language, a
science of Religion, and, in fact, that all knowledge may be systema-
tized on a common method. The facts of the External Order, which
yield a cosmology, are supplemented by the facts of the Internal Order,
which yield a psychology, and the facts of the Social Order, which yield
a sociology. These are all comprised in science. However imperfect
the second and third may be, in comparison with the first, the greater
complication of the phenomena does not warrant the introduction of
another Logic of Search. The principles which have guided us success-
fully in the first are to be followed in the others. The three classes of
facts are all facts of experience, so far as they are known, and must all
be tested, classified, and systematized, by the same rules.

This being so, we can separate the rational from the irrational an-
tagonism against science. It is rational when protesting against the
misplaced application of the results reached in one department to
problems belonging to a different department — for this is an offense
against scientific method. It is irrational when protesting against the
rigorous application of one logic to all inquiries. Those, therefore*
who sneer at science, and would obstruct its diffusion, are sneering
against the effort to make all knowledge systematic, and are obstruct-
ing the advance of civilization.

The notion, implied or expressed, of two Logics, two Methods of
Search, two systems of explaining phenomena, the natural and the
supernatural, is the foundation of the great conflict between Science
and Theology. And since, in the majority of minds, theology is iden-
tified with religion, and religion is of supreme importance to man, it is
natural that science should be regarded with dread and dislike. Before
proceeding to dissipate the confusions on this subject, it will be need-
ful to glance at the attitude of sincere theologians in our day, and at
the reasons which justify to their minds the acceptance of scientific
doctrines side by side with the acceptance of theological doctrines. It
would be equally ungenerous and short-sighted to suggest that a mind
which is deeply impressed with the truth of certain theological opin-
ions may not be also deeply impressed with the beneficence of science
in general, and the truth of scientific doctrines which do not directly
embrace moral and religious questions. We have too many conspicu-

ON THE DREAD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE. 415

ous examples of men eminent in science and sincere in their theological
professions, not to admit that the mind can follow two logics, and can
accept both the natural and the supernatural explanations. Whether
the mind ought to do so, is another question. Let no one, therefore,
suspect me of a doubt as to the sincerity of theologians who proclaim
that the sphere of science is limited to the processes of the physical
world, and may be frankly accepted in all that it teaches respecting
such processes, without in the least involving the moral world, or in
any way affecting the truths respecting that moral world which theol-
ogy derives from a source independent of experience. Science, they
say, systematizes whatever experience reveals ; its test is Reason.
Theology systematizes what had been revealed from a higher source;
its test is Faith. Between reason and faith there is an absolute de-
markation ; and between science, which relies on observation and in-
duction, and theology, which relies on precept and intuition, there is
no conflict. As the artist appeals to the chemist for a theory of salts,
and to the mathematician for a theory of singular integrals, but de-
clares both chemist and mathematician to have no voice in a theory of
art, so the theologian accepts the teaching of mathematician, physicist,
chemist, and biologist, in their respective departments, but peremp-
torily excludes each and all from the supreme department of moral and
religious duties founded on a theory of the relations of the world to its
Creator.

Thus stated, one must admit a sufficient logical consistency in the
present condition of compromise, and need suppose no kind of insincer-
ity, no conscious equivocation in the acceptance of both the natural and
the supernatural modes of explaining phenomena. Nor, indeed, could
the fundamental inconsistency of such a compromise have been even
recognized, until the quite modern extension of scientific method to
moral questions had come to complete the disintegrating effects of his-
torical and philosophical criticism applied to the sacred books on which
theology relied. In the earlier stages of development, although the
natural explanation was adopted in reference to the most familiar ex-
periences, and framed the rough theories of common-sense for the
habitual guidance of conduct, both in relation to the physical world
and to society, the supernatural was adopted in reference to whatever
was unusual and unseen ; and the wider range of this speculative
method was due to the immensity of ignorance. The slow progress of
positive knowledge has more and more enlarged the domain of natural
explanation, more and more restricted the domain of the supernatural.
Yet, even now, the majority of cultivated men regard the facts of hu-
man nature as only partly explicable without aid drawn from the super-
natural ; and resist, as impiety, the attempt to assign natural causes in
explanation of moral relations. That is to say, there where the opera-
tion of natural causes escapes our penetration, supernatural causes are
invoked. Just as to men, ignorant of natural conditions, thunder was

4i 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the fury of the storm-demon, or an eclipse was God's anger, so nowa-
days men, ignorant of natural conditions, interpret epidemics as " visi-
tations," and regard " intuitions " as of divine origin. The inconsist-
ency, then, of the acceptance of theological side by side with scientific
principles, is only a continuation of the primitive mental state, and
must vanish when there is a general conviction that science is orderly
knowledge, and is coextensive with experience. If we can have no
knowledge transcending experience in the widest sense, and if faith is
the vision of things unknown — dealing with what transcends knowl-
edge— then the conflict between science and theology is the conflict
between knowledge and ignorance.

Unless this be the character of faith, I dispute the claim of Theol-
ogy to the exclusive possession of faith as a principle of guidance.
Science also has its faith, and by it must all men to a great extent be
guided. But the faith of Theology and the faith of Science are very
different in their credentials. The former is the reliance on the truth of
principles handed down by tradition, of which no verification is possi-
ble, no examination permissible ; the latter is reliance on the truth of
principles which have been sought and found by competent inquirers,
tested incessantly by successive generations, are always open to verifica-
tion in all their details, and always modifiable according to fresh expe-
riences. We believe in the law of gravitation, though we never opened
the " Principia," and could not, perhaps, understand it; but we rely on
those who can understand it, and who have found its teachings in har-
mony with fact. We believe in the measurement of the velocity of
light, though ignorant of the methods by which the velocity is meas-
ured. We trust those who have sought and found. If we distrust them
the search is open to us as to them. The mariner trusts to the indica-
tions of the compass without pretending to know how these indications
were discovered, but assured by constant experience that they guide the
ship safely. That also is faith.

But if the mental attitude is one of the same obedience as the theo-
logical faith, its justification is different. Its credentials are conformity
with experience. Those of theology are the statements of the sacred
books : the Vedas, Zendavesta, Bible, Koran. The statements therein
made concerning the divine nature, its relations with the human, and the
providential government of the world, are not open to the verification of
experience, for they were not sought and found in experience. If we
ask for their credentials, we are told that they are of divine origin. If
we ask for evidence of this divine origin, we are referred to history or
to our moral consciousness. Tradition has handed down these state-
ments through successive generations ; yet if we ask, as we ought to
ask, how the tradition itself originated, we are brought face to face with
this twofold difficulty : we cannot recognize that those who first pro-
mulgated the statements had any better means of knowing the truth
than we have; and we are struck with the fact that the statements thus

ON THE DREAD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE. 417

handed down by tradition do not agree. That of the Hindoos is not
that of the Jews ; the Persians reject the traditions of both.

Modern historic criticism has made such havoc with the historical
pretensions that theologians are now throwing all the emphasis on
moral consciousness. The doctrine of our sacred books is said to be une-
quivocally ratified by our intuitions : we feel their truth, and we see in
their moral influence on mankind the verification of their divine origin.
But here again the scientific method, which applied to the historical evi-
dence has shattered its claim, applied to the evidence of moral conscious-
ness is equally destructive. Psychology not only enlightens us as to the
genesis of the intuitions, but, in a comparison with other nations and
the earlier stages of human development, shows how they vary. If the
intuitions of the savage are not those of the civilized, if precepts which
the Hindoo feels to be divine are opposed to precepts which the Chinese,
the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the Christian, feel to be divine, we need
a criterion beyond these varying standards.

There is a wide-spread superstition which regards whatever is innate,
or otherwise unexplained, as of a higher authority and diviner sanction
than what is acquired through individual experience or is explicable on
known laws. Our religious instincts are appealed to, as if instinct
were the infallible guide in conduct ; although a moment's reflection will
show that it is the great aim of civilization to correct and repress many
instincts. If the developed music of our day is of a higher order and
more adapted to our sensibilities than the music of the middle ages ; if
our theories of natural phenomena are of a higher order and approxi-
mate more nearly to the truth than the corresponding theories of Aqui-
nas and Albertus Magnus, why should our theories of moral phenomena
be deemed inferior to those of Judaism or the councils? Is the nursery
a school of riper wisdom than the laboratory ?

So much as to method ; now as to results. The sacred books of all
theologies claim to expound a theory of the universe and a theory of
human life and destiny. Their theories of the universe, both as general
conceptions and particular explanations, are in such flagrant contradic-
tion with the teachings of Science, that nowadays no one who is worth
a moment's consideration seeks astronomical, geological, or physiologi-
cal explanations in the sacred books. There has arisen the assertion
that the sacred books were never intended to teach man scientific truths,
but only to teach him his duties. The answer is twofold : first, that
man's duties are comprised among scientific truths ; secondly, that the
books do teach, not scientific truths, but doctrines which science shows
to be erroneous. We ask, therefore, if their dicta are proved to be erro-
neous on points where the control of observation is possible, what au-
thority can they claim on points beyond all such verification ? If their
astronomical, geological, and biological statements are false, why are
we to believe their statements respecting the origin of the universe, the
laws of its evolution, the nature of man, and the conduct of man ?
vol. xiii. — 27

4i 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The escape from this dilemma which is attempted by giving up the
physical world to science, reserving the moral world for theology, is
only a temporary escape. Let it be granted that the authority of the
sacred books refers solely to to the phenomena of human nature in the
double aspect of the relations of man to God and his relations to so-
ciety. If they contain explicit statements which are at variance with
our moral culture — such as that God is " jealous " and " vindictive," or
that sinners will be consigned to everlasting torment — they must have
some other guarantee of their truth than the ratification of moral con-
sciousness, since that rejects them; and if they contain statements re-
specting man's nature which are at variance with experience when they
can be verified, how shall we accept their authority when the statements
are beyond verification ?

When the statements are ratified by experience and moral culture,
theology can give these no extra sanction; when they are not so rati-
fied, theology cannot make them acceptable. By way of illustration of
the conflict between Science and Theology, in their explanations of
human phenomena, with the precepts which are founded upon each, let
us take the case of disease.

Very little is accurately known of its causes; but whatever they are,
science, recognizing disease as the result of some disturbance of the
organic functions, seeks the unknown causes in the known properties
of the substances composing the organism. Theology, which uniformly
explains the unknown by the unknown, invokes a supernatural cause
for this natural effect. It declares that God sends diseases as chastise-
ments and lessons. Nor is this declaration withdrawn when common-
sense objects that the chastisement is often an injustice and the lesson
an enigma. The innocent are seen to suffer even more than the guilty,
and no one knows why they suffer; no one can regard the punishment
of the child for the sin of its father as in agreement with human justice.
But you say, " All men are guilty ? " Then why are not all punished ?
And why are animals and plants also afflicted with diseases ? Have
they, too, the burden of Adam's disobedience ? There was a time when
such explanations reconciled the doctrine with observation; but nowa-
days cultivated minds shrink from the conception of " imputed sin " as
a rational explanation of human and animal suffering.

In applauding this progress we must also point out the logical in-
consistency of those wrho maintain the absolute authority of the texts
of which such conceptions are the necessary applications. Theology
maintains its doctrine even when theologians set aside the practice
which that doctrine ordains. To claim absolute submission to the
physician's formulas, and yet refuse to follow his prescriptions, is surely
irrational ? Yet this is the case nowadays. When the supernatural
theory of disease was undisturbed by positive knowledge, prayers and
incantations were the remedies in vogue ; but now even those who will
not acknowledge the theory to be an antiquated error practically disa-

ON THE DREAD AND DISLIKE OF SCIENCE. 419

vow it, for they replace prayers and incantations by drugs and diet.
Only the small sect called " The Peculiar People " trust entirely to
prayer ; and Christian magistrates are so outraged at this trust that
they punish it as a crime ! In vain are epidemics declared to be visita-
tions, in vain are books written with such titles as " God in Disease ; "
the practical sense of the nation decides that cholera or cattle-plague
are not to punish landlords and farmers for the skepticism of a few
speculative minds, and hence that we had better seek to avert them by
a course of treatment and " an order in council," than by pulpit elo-
quence and a " day of humiliation."

I have taken the case of disease because it is less open to the am-
biguities and difficulties which beset a moral problem, but a similar dis-
crepancy might be pointed out between the theological precepts and
the moral practices. Here, as everywhere, it is patent that as knowl-
edge advances, theology loses its hold; and morality, instead of remain-
ing stationary like theology, advances with an enlarging insight into the
healthy conditions of human relations. Science is often taunted with
its imperfections and its inability to explain the mysteries of life. Im-
perfect it is, and that is why we should all strive to make it less so.
Mysteries will doubtless forever encompass us. But Science may an-
swer the taunt by challenging Theology to show that its explanation of
the mysteries has any claim to our acceptance. The question is not
whether an explanation can be given, but whether the given explana-
tion has any verifiable evidence. Kant has truly said that now criticism
has taken its place among the disintegratory agencies, no system can
pretend to escape its jurisdiction. The Church has its texts, and has
decided once for all what meaning these texts must bear. But the
criticism of scientific method asks for the evidence which can prove these
texts to be of divine origin, and the evidence which can prove these in-
terpretations to be in agreement with fact. In both respects the an-
swer is unequivocal. There is no evidence to prove the texts. The
interpretations are discordant with experience. Thus the Catholic who
accepts Galileo and Newton must give up the texts, or take the first
step toward Protestantism, which asserts the right of interpreting the
texts according to private judgment. And the Protestant who asserts
this right of interpretation, and forsakes the literal meaning of the
texts, has taken a step toward rationalism, and implicitly disavowed
the authority of the texts, since what he obeys is not their teaching, but
the teaching of the culture of his day and sect. The rationalist, in
turn, has taken a step toward the scientific position ; he regards the
texts as symbols of an earlier stage of culture, which need the interpre-
tation of our present culture ; and when he learns — as easily he may
learn — that all the facts of the moral world are to be investigated and
systematized on the same principles as the facts of the physical world,
setting aside in the one as in the other all supernatural and metem-
pirical conceptions, because these cannot enter into the framework of

420 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

knowledge, he will learn that science, in the true meaning of the term,
embraces Nature and human nature, and moreover that it expresses
what is known of both, whereas theology is only " the false persuasion
of knowledge."

Many readers may vehemently deny the assertion just made. They
will maintain the validity of theological explanations, all the more be-
cause, persisting in the old confusion of theology with religion, they
refuse to acknowledge that a science of Nature and human nature, if
truly expressing the facts, must be a better foundation for religion than
a theology which untruly expresses those facts. The whole contest lies
between the two modes of explanation and the results reached by such
modes. I accept the appeal to history. This shows how, in proportion as
knowledge became exact and orderly in each department of inquiry, the
supernatural and metempirical explanations were silently withdrawn in
favor of natural and experimental explanations. Nowadays, among the
cultivated minds of Europe, it is only in the less-explored regions of re-
search, where argument is made to do duty for observation, that the
supernatural and metempirical explanations hold their ground. When
science has fairly mastered the principles of moral relations as it has
mastered the principles of physical relations, all knowledge will be in-
corporated in an homogeneous doctrine rivaling that of the old theolo-
gies in its comprehensiveness, and surpassing it in the authority of its
credentials. " Christian ethics " will then no longer mean ethics
founded on the principles of Christian theology, but on the principles
expressing the social relations and duties of man in Christianized so-
ciety. Then, and not till then, will the conflict between Theology and
Science finally cease ; then, and not till then, will the dread and dislike
of science disappear. — Fortnightly Review.

CURIOUS SYSTEMS OF NOTATION.

By T. F. BEOWNELL.

THERE is no example of a people without a system of numeration.
The rudest savages manage to count to some extent. The at-
tempts of many of them, however, do not succeed with numbers greater
than three or four. With increasing knowledge, they learn to count
larger numbers, but the process is a slow and troublesome one. It is
performed in all cases by the use of the device of grouping. All sys-
tems of numeration that are known consist of this device. In the first
stages, the groups are all of the first and lowest order. The savage,
counting from one to five upon his fingers, closes his hand to express
five ; then he again begins counting upon his fingers to form a second
group ; and he continues to form groups of five to as great a number

CURIOUS SYSTEMS OF NOTATION. 421

of groups as he can express. But all his groups are of the first order,
and consist of units. He must make great advance in intelligence
before he can take the next logical step in counting, by grouping the
groups of five and then indicating these groups of the second order by
a symbolic act.

In nearly all instances the method of grouping connects itself with
the number of fingers on one or both hands, or the number of fingers
and toes. Classification by pairs is also common. This is the simplest
method, and was probably the first that was used. It arose, without
doubt, from the common use of the hands in separating and combining
articles in pairs. But the bases found most commonly in use are five,
ten, and twenty. So universal is the selection of these numbers, that
systems founded upon them have been termed the natural systems.
There can be no doubt that the use of them arose from the number of
fingers and toes. But, as has been said, these systems are natural only
in the sense that ignorance is natural. They originated among the
most ignorant races, without alphabet or figures. They were selected
in crude attempts by unlettered savages to count game, or the days as
they passed. The fingers formed the most convenient counting-board,
and were therefore used.

The number of the fingers upon one hand was probably used in
counting before the device of using the number upon both hands was
thought of. In many of the Oriental languages the name for five means
also hand. Vestiges of a scale of five are found in the decimal systems
of many countries.

But the quinary system usually passes into the decimal for numbers
above twenty, and frequently at some higher point into a third system
in which twenty is a basis. Some of the Celtic dialects present a strange
mixture of the three. The French language shows the vicinary scale
in parts of its notation, and the use of this scale is much more common
than is usually supposed. The Greenlanders give to twenty a name
which means " a man." Our word " score " is probably a vestige of
this scale. Its use was at one time very common for numbers between
sixty and one hundred, where a similar counting now obtains in French.
There can be little doubt that our Teutonic ancestors formerly used the
vicinary scale for a portion of their counting. There are other instances
where the vicinary has preceded the decimal system ; but there is no
example where the twenty scale has been carried to groups of the
second order. Usually, like the five scale, it has been superseded by
the denary system, which is now universally used.

With devices for numeration, there have been developed different
systems of notation. By these, the attempt has been made to express
numbers by written signs or symbols. As a general rule, practical
methods of numeration have preceded the use of written symbols. The
different systems of notation which have been developed and used,
exhibit different degrees of excellence. The Greek and the Roman

422 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

systems need no description. The Hindoo notation now in use, which
superseded the Roman, differs from those which preceded it in many
respects, all of which are to its advantage. It requires only nine sym-
bols, together with the dot or zero. Its chief excellence, however, arises
from its principle of " local values." Each symbol has two values :
one intrinsic, and the other local. The intrinsic value is that which the
symbol has when it occupies the unit place. Thus, the nine significant
digits express the numbers from one to nine. The local value is that
which a digit derives from its position in the number to which it be-
longs. Thus thirty is expressed by 30, the 3 by being thrown into the
second place obtaining a positional value which is ten times greater
than its absolute value. Since this increase is tenfold, the system is
called decimal. If the figures are removed one place farther to the left,
their value is again increased tenfold, and a like increase obtains for
each removal. If removed to the right, their value is decreased ten
times for each place of removal. The number by which the positional
value changes is termed the root or radix of the system. It is one of
the advantages of this notation that it enables us to express numbers
with great ease, but its principal advantage appears in the simplicity
which it gives to computations of all kinds. Another peculiar merit
appears when fractions are involved, in the facility with which " deci-
mal " fractions may be used.

But the merit of the Hindoo notation does not arise from the fact
that it is decimal, but from its system of "local values." Ten was used
as its radix simply because that number happened to be the basis of
numeration universally in use when the notation was invented. Any
other radix might have been used, since the principle of local values
may be applied to all numbers. It has not, however, been popularly
applied except to the number ten. Discussion, however, has arisen
from time to time as to the merits of the number ten in comparison
with other numbers. It appears to be admitted by all who have con-
sidered the matter that ten is far from being the best number for the
purpose. It would be remarkable if it were. It came into use not on
account of any intrinsic excellence, but because the number of the fingers
is ten. For no other reason, ten was the number of objects placed in
each group when the device of grouping came into use ; then, natural-
ly, it became the basis of the early systems of notation, and when the
Hindoo notation was invented, it was taken for the radix of that system.
It evidently was not selected on account of its fitness for the position.
Were we eight-fingered, we should without doubt perform all our cal-
culations with a scale of eight, to our great advantage in all arithmeti-
cal work.

Ten is, theoretically, ill suited for the radix of a system of notation,
because it permits of only one bisection. The half of it is five, an odd
number. It also is incapable of any other division. On account of
these defects the system is ill adapted to the operations of the shop

CURIOUS SYSTEMS OF NOTATION. 423

and market. Although our calculations are universally made in the
decimal system, none of our tables of weights and measures are decimal
in any one of their subdivisions. In all departments of trade the current
prices have been derived from a process of successive halvings. The
shopman reckons by halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and thirty-
seconds, and not by fifths or tenths. The yardstick is divided in its
practical use into halves, quarters, eighths, etc., by successive bisec-
tions. Even the sixteenth of a unit is more commonly used in trade
than the tenth. In the stock-exchange, shares change in price by
eighths of a dollar, and not by tenths. Even with our decimal system
of money, we require coins for half and quarter of a dollar for practical
use in trading. Almost the entire price-list of our stores advances and
recedes by these fractions of a unit formed by successive bisections.

The attempt by the French to compel the use of the decimal system
shows the difficulty of such an undertaking. Popular necessities com-
pelled the introduction of binal divisions. The prices of their money
and stock markets are still frequently quoted in quarters and eighths.
The attempt to divide time decimally was a failure. After trying to
give to their decimal metrology a universal application, they have
been compelled to modify it in many of their weights and measures.
From the inherent defects of a ten scale, all attempts to introduce an
international decimal system of weights and measures have met with
strong opposition.

The decimal system, then, appears to be ill adapted both to arith-
metical calculation and to the practical needs of trade. Since the
principle of the Hindoo notation is one of universal applicability, its
merits do not arise from the number which happens to be used as its
radix. One number, however, may be better for that purpose than
another ; and attempts have been made to supply the place of ten with
numbers claimed to be more suitable. New systems have been elabo-
rated and offered as substitutes for the one now in use. There is prob-
ably no one, except perhaps the authors of these new systems, who
supposes that any of these, however theoretically perfect, will ever
supersede our common decimal system. Yet these new systems of no-
tation are not without a theoretical interest, for some of them are cer-
tainly better than the system which we are compelled to use. A brief
statement of some of these curious systems will enable the reader to
understand the advantages and disadvantages of our own.

The first and most noted is the binary system, first brought to the
notice of Europeans by Leibnitz. He esteemed it so highly that he
zealously urged its adoption. He claimed that its superiority to the
decimal system was so great that time would be saved by reducing the
decimal expressions of a problem to a binary form, performing the cal-
culation, and then restoring the answer to the decimal notation. A
short description of the system will show the peculiarities upon which
this claim was founded : In the Hindoo notation the number of signifi-

424 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cant digits is always one less than the value of the radix. In the
decimal scale there are nine digits ; in the binary, there would be only
one — the figure 1. The radix, whatever it be, has no separate symbol,
but is represented by 10. In the binary scale, since two is the radix,
two would be so written. The square of the radix is represented by
the symbols 100. In the binary these would, therefore, stand for four,
while eight, which is the cube of the radix, would be denoted by 1000.
The first ten numbers, counting from one, would be : 1, 10, 11, 100, 101,
110, 111, 1000, 1001, 1010.

In this system, then, the only digit employed is 1. The 0 plajTs the
same important part in it as in the decimal system. It multiplies the
figure that immediately precedes it by the value of the radix. The
symbol 40, in our denary scale, represents ten times four ; in the octenary
it would denote eight times four, and in the quinary five times four.
These two symbols, 1 and 0, then, are the only ones that enter into
calculations. It is evident that thought in arithmetical work is almost
superseded, and that all numerical operations are reduced to the manual
labor of writing. As the scale has only one digit, it would require more
figures to represent a number than other scales require. The present
year 1878, which is expressed in our scale by four figures, would require
eleven in the binary scale. It would be written — 10101010110. And,
generally, the binary scale would call for about three and a half times
as many figures as the denary. This fact would occasion increased ex-
penditure of time and manual labor in calculations. It is, however,
claimed by those who favor the system, that, since only two symbols
are used, and since almost all mental labor is saved, it would, probably,
in most calculations, afford a real economy of labor. But the great
number of figures required would unquestionably make the use of this
system a tedious process. It would no doubt be a favorite with chil-
dren, since it has no tables of addition or multiplication ; for all of its
processes of addition are simple counting, since only the figure 1 is ever
added, and there is no mental multiplication at all. Mathematical
thought, therefore, is almost entirely dispensed with. This simplicity,
it is claimed, gives the system a great merit on the score of accuracy.1

A system of notation with sixteen as a radix has also been proposed.
It was invented by a well-known civil engineer, who gave to it the name

1 The following illustration of a simple problem in multiplication will furnish to those
who are curious in numerical matters an opportunity to compare the two systems :

Decimal. Binary.

87 = 1010111

29 = 11101

783 1010111

174 1010111

1010111
1010111

2523 = 100111011011

CURIOUS SYSTEMS OF NOTATION.

425

of the Tonal System. He published an account of it about twenty-
years ago. It was carefully elaborated in all its parts, and a new sys-
tem of weights and measures proposed to conform with it. New meth-
ods of dividing time, the sphere, the barometer and thermometer, were
also proposed. A description, however, of so much of the system as re-
lates to the notation is all that is required for our present purpose.
The tonal system requires fifteen digits in addition to zero. Six new
symbols were accordingly invented to represent the numbers, from ten
to fifteen inclusive. New names were given to all the digits, in order
to avoid confusion in using the new system. The reader may find it
difficult to shift the symbols from their ordinary values to tonal ones ;
but, if it be borne in mind that 11 represents not ten and one but six-
teen and one, 22 twice sixteen and two, 100 the square of sixteen, and
that a similar change of value obtains with all the figures, the difficulty
will disappear. The tonal figures below are printed in heavier type
than the corresponding decimal ones, but the six new symbols are
omitted.

The names and figures in this curious notation are as follows :

1

an

2

de

3

ti

4
go

5

su

6

by

7
ra

8
me

9

ni

(10)
ko

(11)
hu

(12)

vy

(13)
la

(14)
po

(15)

10

ton

11

tonan

12

tonde

20

deton

21
detonan

30

titon

40

got on

50

suton

100

san

101
sanan

102

sande

120
sandeton

135

santiton

200
desan

1000
mill

10000
bong

100000
tonbong

1000000

sanbong

The new name " ton " given to 10 furnishes the system with its
name of tonal. 0 was called " noil." The names of the figures above
10 were formed by simple combinations of the names of the digits. The
present year, 1878, would be represented bj' 756 in this system, and
be called rasan suton by. A lady 35 years old would be only 23 were
the tonal system in use, and the grave author of the scheme called
attention to this fact in an ingenious endeavor to make the better half
of mankind warm advocates of the tonal counting.

However strange and fanciful this system may seem, its theoretical
advantages are many and valuable. Its radix is susceptible of indefinite
bisections, and is also a square and a fourth power. The vulgar frac-
tions in common use, which require from four to seven places of deci-
mals, would occupy only one or two when written in the tonal scale, as
the following table will show :

426 THE

1

4
*

tV

■h

i

1 28
TS~6

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY

Denary.

Tonal.

.5

.8

.25

.4

.125

.2

.0625

.1

.03125

.08

.015625

.04

.0078125

.02

.00390625

.01

The disadvantages also of this scale are many. It requires a multi-
plication-table for all numbers from one to sixteen. The mental labor
of calculating would, therefore, be increased. The number of symbols
required would not be quite so large, but the advantage from this source
would be slight. It may be noted, in passing, that in the Hindoo nota-
tion, the smaller the radix the greater is the number of symbols required
to express any number, but the easier the mental work of calculating.
The binary scale, which has the smallest possible radix, is an extreme
example under this rule. For instance, the lady who would be called
23 under the tonal system would have to confess to no less than 100011
summers were she living among people who counted with a binary
scale ! On the other hand, the larger the radix the less the number of
symbols required, but the greater the difficulty of computation. Thus
the tonal system expresses numbers more compendiously than the deci-
mal, but the difficulty of its many tables would make the use of it a
continual and severe strain upon the mind.

Its author proposed also a tonal unit of linear, superficial, and cubical
measurement, a tonal watch, a tonal compass, tonal wet and dry meas-
ures, a tonal currency for the world, a tonal division of time, tonal
thermometers and barometers, and tonal postage-stamps. There is not
opportunity in this paper to describe these schemes.

But other numbers might be used as radices, though most of them
will be found to be ill adapted to the purpose. The number three
would furnish a system which would possess no merits whatever. Its
scale would present only two digits, and the first ten numbers would
be 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 100, 101. But three is an odd number,
and the first bisection would result in an endless fraction. The same
is true of all systems in which odd numbers form the radix.

The number four, however, would furnish a practicable scale. It is
a square, and can be bisected indefinitely without producing an odd
number except at unity. The notation would be simple, and the tables
of combinations easy to learn. Theoretical^, the scale would be an
excellent one, but calculations in it would require much manual labor,
and consequently be more tedious than similar computations in our
system. There would be three digits and the first ten numbers would
be 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22.

The five scale, which is in use to a very limited extent among savage

CURIOUS SYSTEMS OF NOTATION.

427

tribes, does not furnish a good system of notation, because five is an odd
number. The first ten numbers would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20.

The six scale is theoretically superior in some respects to the deci-
mal, because its radix can be divided by three, but it is objectionable
for the same reason as the decimal. Its radix admits of only one bisec-
tion. Its notation would be somewhat simpler than that now in use,
but more places of figures would be required. Its first ten numbers
would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Of the seven, nine, and eleven scales, it needs only to be said that
they present no merits, since the numbers upon which they are founded
are odd numbers.

None of the scales to which we have briefly referred have been ad-
vocated as practicable systems, but the duodenary or twelve scale has
many striking advantages, and is used to some extent for certain classes
of calculation. Its radix is divisible by two, three, four, and six. It
can be bisected twice. The system has not only been the favorite with
many who have theorized upon the subject, but it has been used to a
great extent by different nations in the practical affairs of life. The
Scandinavian nations have a preference for this scale. Traces of its
use appear in our words dozen, gross, and great gross. It also appears
in quite a number of the primary divisions in our weights and measures.
Its use is quite common among mathematicians in long arithmetical
computations. The additional mental labor required to compute in this
scale is not very great, while the manual labor is somewhat less than in
using the decimal system. The scale has always been a favorite one
with those who object to the decimal notation.

The sexagenary system, founded upon the number sixty, deserves a
passing mention on account of its historical interest. It was used for a
long time by the Greeks in astronomical and other calculations. Our
subdivisions of time and the circle are made with reference to it ; but
for practical operations it is very laborious and complicated.

The octonary system, founded upon the number eight, most com-
pletely presents the qualities which are desired in a system of notation.
Eight is without doubt theoretically the best number of all to be used.
It is a cube, and admits of indefinite subdivisions by halving. The sys-
tem appears to have all the merits of the sixteen scale, while it avoids
the disadvantages of a large radix. It is much easier to use than the
decimal scale. It requires only seven digits. The figures 8 and 9 do
not appear, and its tables of addition and multiplication are much sim-
pler than those now in use.1 The danger of error in computations is

1 The following multiplication-table, given by the author of an octonary scale, will
show how simple must be the mental work of calculating in that system :

1

2
3

4
5
6

7

8

4
6
10
12
14
16

8

4

5

6

7

11
14
17
22
25

20
24
30
84

31
36
43

44
52

61

428 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

correspondingly lessened. The mental work in using it would not
probably be more than half that called for by our notation, while the
number of places of figures required would be only slightly greater.
The year 1878 would also be expressed by four figures, 3536, in the
eight scale. Its fractions would be much simpler than those of the
decimal system. They would differ very little from those of the sixteen
scale.

The merits of the octonary scale have long attracted the attention
of those interested in the subject of numerical notation. Charles XII.
of Sweden seriously proposed introducing it in his kingdom. He com-
missioned Swedenborg to prepare the necessary details of a plan for es-
tablishing it. It is said that a complete system was elaborated, but the
attempt to introduce it was prevented by the death of the king. No
record of the system has been preserved.

But a complete octonary system has been elaborated, and a descrip-
tion of it was read by its author before one of our scientific associations
about twenty years ago. In many respects, the details of it resemble
those of the tonal system, which, in point of time, it preceded. New
names were supplied for the digits as follows :

1

2 3

4

5 6

7

10 11 12

un

du the

fo

pa se

ki

unty unty un unty du

20

30

31

50

100

200 1000

duty

thety

thety

un

paty

under

duder untyder

10000

100000

unsen

untysen

The names of the larger numbers were made by compounding those
of the smaller. Thus the present year, 3536, would be called thetyder
pader thety se.

The octonary, like the tonal and quaternary scales, is without doubt
admirably adapted to a natural system of weights and measures, and it
is not without interest from a theoretical point of view. The disad-
vantages of the decimal system are clearly great, but the projects of
those who expect to subvert it, with its immense store of arithmetical
tables and formulas, are of course chimerical in the last degree. The
author of the octonary system, just described, declared that the change
involved no real difficulty, and that the national Government had only
to will it, in order to bring the octonary scale into general use in one
or two generations. But although the introduction of this or any other
numerical scale in the place of the decimal is a dream without any
probability of fulfillment, there can be no question that, theoretically,
the octonary system of notation would be a vast improvement upon the
one now in use, the basis of which was ignorantly bequeathed to us by
our savage and barbarous ancestors.

MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 429
MAN AND HIS STEUCTUKAL AFFINITIES.1

By A. K. GROTE, A. M.

AN average coroner's jury might sit on the skeleton of an anthro-
poid ape and return a verdict that the deceased came to his death
at the hands of parties unknown, with the sublime consciousness of
having performed their duty and earned their fees. The suspicions of
the more intelligent jurymen might easily be allayed by the common
conception of what the word " monstrosity " will cover, and the simi-
larity is indeed so great that I see no reason why the verdict should not
be unanimous.

The gorilla has no more tail than a professor, while the knowledge
that monkeys have tails, and the idea that these external appendages
are a badge of general monkeyhood, are deeply rooted in the popular
mind. But the apes are as tailless as man is, and no more so. I might
say even less so, for the gorilla seems to have one caudal vertebra less
than man ; but we must give more weight to the head than the tail in
matters of classification. In this world heads win throughout the game
of life. Certainly, the bones of a gorilla, for instance, may be readily dis-
tinguished from those of a man, but certain bones in woman differ also
slightly from the corresponding ones in man, and it is a recorded fact
that juries have in this way mistaken the sex of the human subject
of their deliberations. In England, in 1839, a double jury sat on the
skeleton of a woman accidentally found, and upon which a man had been
arrested for the supposed murder of his brother, for whose remains the
bones had been mistaken. Their real nature fortunately transpired be-
fore a verdict was rendered. It is evident, however, that the bones of
extinct animals have been mistaken for human remains, and so have in-
spired accounts of prehistoric giants ; while it is certain that the bones
of fossil mammalia have been revered as relics in Europe during the
middle ages, and even up to the time of Cuvier. The correct determi-
nation of bones is, indeed, a more difficult matter than may be supposed
from the readiness with which naturalists sometimes deal with the sub-
ject. A great deal depends on the state of preservation of the bone ;
and, again, what particular bone it is. Certain single bones, as the
tooth, or one of the bones of the feet or hands, are much more decisive
in their character than the ribs or vertebrae. The structure of the teeth
shows a relation to the character and consistency of the food, and there
is no doubt that, so long as the lion has his present dentition, and while
his appetite remains, he will always lie down with the lamb — inside of
him. In land-animals the bones of the limbs have more play in their
sockets than in air or water animals, because flexibility is necessary to

1 From a lecture delivered before the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, March 9,

1878.

43o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

speed over the ground or trees, but it is an objection where the limbs
are to be used as paddles against the air or water. In fact, the more
we know of the skeleton and the environment of the animal, the more
we see that its variations throughout the animal kingdom are the com-
bined results of the movements of the organism itself and the opposition
of the medium in which it moves. Where the actions of the animal are
slow, it is found that the bones of the limbs are more rigid and often
joined, as shown in the case of the sloth by Prof. Cope. The head and
the ends of the limbs, being in constant use against the vital conditions
of the environment, are the soonest modified. The bones are formed by
the muscles, and the muscles are developed through the movement of the
animal. We may all have noticed that, when Ae skin is stripped off,
and the extremities of the backbone, the head and tail, are cut off, to-
gether with the feet, the carcass of a cat looks much like that of a rab-
bit in the same condition.

Those who have not investigated such an instance of similaritj', yet
know that in a butcher's shop there is a superficial sameness in the ap-
pearance of meat which it is the business of a good marketer to see
through ; while a good many of us, who are unaccustomed to provide,
would no doubt be not a little puzzled to distinguish the body of a calf
from that of a sheep as it hangs in the stalls. The same thing holds
good with the bodies of birds and other animals : a duck is identified
most quickly by the webbed feet and flattened bill. Thus it is a matter,
perhaps, of general knowledge that an animal is difficult to recognize
when the head and extremities of the limbs are missing, and we see now
the reason that it is so. We may go even further than this and account
for the mistakes of antiquity on the same principle. It is not credible
that the head or feet of a mammoth could have been mistaken for those
of a man, nor were they as a fact ; but a thigh-bone, or rib, offered less
difficulty by reason of the greater resemblance. Hence we find that
these mistakes have been made with some excuse for their commission.
The difference existing between these fossils and the corresponding
bone in man was so small as to escape the notice of the anatomists of
antiquity. The general resemblance between the skeletons of all verte-
brate animals was not then fully appreciated. People distinguished
the animals in old times from man by their heads, feet, and fur, to say
nothing of their tails ; and, when they found a*n isolated internal bone,
they may readily be forgiven for having wrongly referred it.

Again, the bones being produced through the muscles, and these
through the nutrition of the animal, there is always a proportion be-
tween the skeleton and the stomach and soft parts of the body. The
skeleton is a very good index of the comparative bulk of the animal,
and this fact assists us when we attempt restorations of extinct species.

From the herd of monkeys found in the Oriental and Ethiopian
regions of the Old World, the apes are readily distinguished by certain
structural characters. The body is that of a human being, except that

MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 431

the arms are proportionally longer, and the legs shorter, than in the
average man. The face is very human from the structure and position
of the eyes and ears. A tail, external to the rump, is entirely wanting.
The body is covered with sparse and soft hair, except the face, toes,
palms, and soles, which are bare. The species which has been written
about the most, and about which, strange to say, we know the least, is
the gorilla ( Gorilla Savagei). Whether this ape was the species called
by this name two thousand j-ears ago by Hanno is doubtful and of no
importance.

Wilson and Savage, two American missionaries, seem to have been
the first, in 1846 and 1847, to bring us certain information of this com-
paratively near relative of ours. I do not think that we are grateful for
the discovery. Generally speaking, we could have dispensed with this
satire upon ourselves, although we have no responsibility in the case.
At any rate, we can appreciate one value of missionary labor. Ameri-
can missionaries, by their intelligence and perseverance, have given us
invaluable information from time to time concerning countries difficult
of access, and their strange inhabitants.

i

Fig. 1.— Head of Young Male Gorilla from Hamburg Museum. (From a photograph of

alcoholic specimen.)

Since this discovery of the gorilla, the animal has been written
about by several travelers. The accounts of personal encounter fur-
nishedby Du Chaillu are now known to be largely fanciful ; and Win-

432

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

wood Reade, a most reliable traveler, doubts if an adult has ever jet
been seen alive in its native haunts by a white man. The specimens
sent alive to Europe, and which have been claimed to be gorillas, have
almost always turned out to be chimpanzees in various stages of growth.
But the skulls and skins sent by Dr. Savage have been followed up by
complete skeletons and preparations sent by other travelers, and natu-
ralists have been able thus to study the appearance and structure of
the most formidable of the man-apes, which is credibly stated to in-
habit Central Africa from Sierra Leone in the north to Loango in the
south. Living in the dense forests of that region and avoiding the
presence of man, it is only with difficulty they are to be met with,
and, from the inefficiency of negro courage and weapons they are
rarely killed. We have thus no authentic portrait of the live adult
gorilla, but we give here (Fig. 1) a picture of the head of a young
male gorilla preserved in spirits in the collection of the Society of
Natural Sciences of Hamburg.

In comparing the skeleton of the adult gorilla with that of man, we
find that the vertebral column offers slight and unimportant differences.

The number of ribs is thirteen ; while in man it is
usually twelve, but occasionally also thirteen are
found. The curve of the back is slightly different
because the erect position is not always main-
tained, and to this circumstance I would also at-
tribute the difference in the shape of the pelvis.
In man the viscera have to be supported during
his usually erect position, and the bones of the
pelvic girdle are larger, giving space for the at-
tachment of the larger muscles of the spine and
thighs, which render the attitude possible without
inconvenient fatigue. But it is a fact that in a
child, before it learns to walk, the pelvis is as con-
tracted as in the apes. In its efforts to walk the
girdle is opened out, the sutures being flexible
durinor childhood. When we come to the skull
of the gorilla, we find a great difference in the
relative proportion of the different parts. The
bones of the face are large and the jaws project.
There is a variation in the different races of man
in this respect, as an examination of the skulls of
different races shows. The relative large size of
the jaws and lower parts of the face we see in the
negro races especially, as compared with our own, and to this type we
give the name prognathic.

The man-apes show an excessive development of this type. At
first sight this large development of the lower face and jaws might dis-
tinguish the apes from man with great clearness, but its importance

Fig. 2.— Skeleton op Go-
rilla, and Male (o) and
Female {b) Skulls.

MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 433

seems diminished 'when we compare the man-apes with the baboons
and lower, tailed monkeys in this respect. The cranium of the gorilla
is also very small in proportion to that of man. The contents of the
smallest skull of man is given at sixty -two cubic inches ; that of an
adult gorilla is given at thirty-four cubic inches. But this difference
loses much of its value when we see the amount of variation in men
of the skull measurements. Thus the largest human skull shows a ca-
pacity of 114 cubic inches, being about twice the size of the smallest
adult human skull.

Now, the difference thus shown in man of fifty-two cubic inches be-
tween the capacity of the largest and smallest skulls is greater than
that between the smallest human skull and that of the gorilla, which
is only twenty-seven inches. These figures will probably be still further
modified so soon as we get accurate measurements of the skulls of cer-
tain African and Indian hill tribes more recently discovered. Indeed,
it is already stated that twelve cubic inches of cranial capacity will
cover the difference between the smallest human and the largest simian
skull yet known. Again here, as with the prognathic characters, the
importance of the difference in cranial size is diminished by the fact of
its variation among the apes and monkeys, which latter are found to
fall as much below the apes in cranial capacity as the apes do as com-
pared with man. The skull of the gorilla exhibits considerable varia-
tion in the specimens which have been yet examimed. The males seem
to have a prominent bony ridge on the crown of the skull, but this de-
velopment of the bone stands in proportion to the muscles of the jaws
which reach on each side up to the crest which they deposit. Where the
jaws are weaker, as in the female, the crest is undeveloped, the muscles
do not reach up so far and they deposit smaller ridges on the side of the
skull. These crests are, however, wanting in the orang-outang, a lower
kind of man-ape than the gorilla, where they are replaced by two bony
ridges, a couple of inches apart, as we learn from Mr. Wallace's inter-
esting writings. But the variation among the skulls of the gorilla yet
examined is so great in the proportion of the different parts of the face,
that it is evident there is a greater amount of individual peculiarity in
this than in any other animal except man. This point is worthy of a
much more extended examination than it is now possible to give to it.
It is sufficient to state that these differences seem to have prompted
Dr. Wyman and Du Chaillu to suspect species where in fact we find
only one kind of gorilla as more specimens come to hand and supply
the intermediary links. With regard to the permanent teeth of the
gorilla they are thirty-two in number, just as in man. The principal
difference is that the canine teeth, at least in the adult males, are longer
than in man, and project. The jaws being more powerful and more con-
stantly in use, the teeth are stronger and proportionally stouter than
in man. And where we find any difference, such as is offered by the
large canines, and the break in the lower series to admit of the play of
vol. xm. — 28

434

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these fangs, we find, just as we did before, that there is a greater dif-
ference here between the man-apes and the lower monkeys than be-
tween the man-apes and man. The canines are either much more de-
veloped or there is a change in the total number of teeth indicative of
a greater departure from the human type of dentition.

You will remember that I called attention to the fact that through-
out the animal kingdom we were to find the greatest changes in the
structure of the extremities of the limbs, because these were brought

Fig. 3.— IIands and Feet of Apes and Monkeys: 1, 2, Gorilla; 3-6, Tschejro; 7, 8, Chimpanzee;
9, 10, Orangoutang; 11—13, Gibbon; 14, 15, Colobus ; 16-18, Malbrook; 19, 20, Baboon; 21, 22,
Silk Monkey. (After Brehm.)

into constant use against the immediate surroundings of the animal.
In truth, the greatest differences between the gorilla and man are found
in the feet. The hands are not very unlike a man's ; every bone and
muscle is here again in its place ; the thumb is a little shorter and the
whole hand heavier. The muscles of the arm are more powerful and
the hand is used for coarser work than man's, but after all not for work
very different in kind. With them the gorilla builds a nest to sleep in,
breaks off boughs, handles its food, and also attacks its enemy, holding
him fast so that it can bite him. We do all these things with our hands ;
and there is a legal term, mayhem, to denote the crime of mutilation

MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 435

with the teeth, which is not uncommon among brutal men of some
countries considered civilized. But the foot seems at first very differ-
ent from a man's, although here again every bone and the determining
muscle (peroneus longus) of the foot of man are present. The foot is
set more obliquely on the leg and the big-toe is farther from the rest,
proportionally shorter and weaker, and, above all, more flexible. Cer-
tainly these important differences are connected with its mode of life,
which is more arboreal than that of man.

With its foot the gorilla can steady itself in climbing and hold fast
to objects from which the rigid foot of man would slide away. Still our
feet are not wholly unfit for grasping, and you may have noticed bare-
footed boys cutting up " monkey-shines " on trees with entire safety to
themselves, though not to the complete satisfaction of their parents.
The female gorilla seems to consider her young one safe when he is up
the tree ; but the anxious human mother does not feel easy until the
child is on the ground again. Circumstances thus alter cases throughout
the range of experience. Again, we are familiar with the fact that men
who have lost their arms often learn to write and perform other actions
with their feet. But, notwithstanding these important differences be-
tween the feet of the gorilla and our own, there is again the greater
difference to be considered between the hands and feet of the loAver
monkeys and those of the gorilla. The thumb ceases to be opposable
in the American monkeys, and is again reduced to a mere rudiment cov-
ered by the skin in the spider-monkey. Indeed, we may say that, look-
ing through the succession of simian forms, from below up, there is a
constant increase of the characters which prepare us for man. And the
gorilla exhibits these in their fullest development. From the gorilla
it is indeed easy to predicate man — much easier than to suppose the
gorilla from the lowest monkeys.

Another interesting man-ape is the chimpanzee (Chimpanza nir/er).
Many living specimens have been brought to Europe and lately to New
York from Africa, where it inhabits the same territory as the gorilla.
It is a smaller species than the gorilla, the head proportionately larger
and less prognathic, the arm shorter. The foot is more hand-like, and
there is a slight difference in the dentition. In running, the chimpan-
zee goes on all-fours, but in walking or carrying anything the position
it assumes is nearly erect. In captivity the chimpanzee has developed
most amiable qualities. It has been taught to sit at table, and even to
conform to what we esteem good manners. It becomes passionately
fond of its keeper, clinging to him, and refusing to be separated on any
occasion. It is extremely kind to children, showing no trickish or
malicious temper, even endeavoring to amuse them, and induce them to
plav. As long as there is light in the room the chimpanzee will sit
up at night ; as soon as the light is withdrawn it goes to sleep, lying
stretched out with its hands under its head if the temperature is pleas-
ant, but, if cold, cowering together like a human being under similar

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

circumstances. It is evident that much might be done with the chim-
panzee to make him an agreeable companion to man. Fortunately, this
hard fate may be spared to the chimpanzee, because he cannot support
existence in the colder regions to which our race has become acclimated.

88T'
Fig 4.— Head of Chimpanzee.

The negroes do not seem to court his companionship. One notable feat-
ure in the chimpanzee remains to be stated, and that is his peculiar
behavior to other animals. He is perfectly contemptuous in his treat-
ment of our small, domestic animals, such as rabbits. He is frightened
at large and fierce dogs, and exhibits an extreme terror at snakes and
ugly reptiles. In this latter fact we recognize a mental state which is
still shared by man, suggesting the probable origin of the serpent as an
embodiment of the devil in the ideas of primitive man, and which still
survives among us at the present day. Another species of man-ape is
the tschego {Anthropopithicus tsehego), which is only known from a
single living female brought to Dresden from Loango. This species
seems to be but little smaller than the gorilla, intermediate in size be-
tween this and the chimpanzee. In the proportion of its parts the most
notable peculiarity seems to be that the legs are longer than in the
other man-apes. The behavior of the specimen in confinement did not
differ greatly from that already related of the chimpanzee.

The Asiatic man-apes differ from those of Africa by the proportion-
ally longer arms, which reach down to the ankles. The orang-outang
(Simia satyrus) inhabits most commonly the island of Borneo, and has
recently been collected in considerable numbers by Mr. Alfred Wallace.
It has only twelve pairs of ribs, as is usual with man. The body is
broad at the hips, and joined to a pyramidal-shaped head by a short
neck, which is still further concealed by heavy folds of the skin, which
can be puffed out by the animal when angry. The eyes and ears are

MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 437

small, but not unlike those of man. The nose is quite flat, the mouth
is large and ugly, from the thick lips. The jaws are extremely power-
ful, and the canine teeth prominent. The breast is thinly haired, and
the face, the fingers, palms, and soles, are naked. The back and top
of the head are thickly haired, and on the side of the jaws the hair de-

Fig. 5.— Head op Orang-outang.

scends like a beard. In color the hair is a dark, rusty red, sometimes
brownish on the back, the fringing hair of the face usually lighter than
the rest. The color of the skin is bluish-gray. The old males may be
distinguished by their longer beards, which are wanting in the young,
and by a peculiar swelling of the cheek from the eyes to the ears, which
makes their aspect more repulsive.

The orang-outang was certainly known to the ancients, and Pliny
gives an account of this species which has been extensively copied. One
peculiarity, only recently observed, is that the skull undergoes a greater
change in shape than usual during growth. The heads of baby-orangs
bear a close resemblance to those of infants ; but afterward the lower
portion of the face increases rapidly in size, and the aspect of the adult
is more repulsive and animal-like than the chimpanzee. Wallace says
they frequent swampy localities in Sumatra and Borneo, and visit the
orchards of the Dyaks for the purpose of devouring the fruit. They
build nests in the trees, of boughs, in which they sleep. They climb
with great ease, and traverse the forest from tree to tree in a semi-
erect position, assisted by their long arms, and are capable of progress-
ing at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour without any appearance
of hurry or fatigue, going as fast as a man on the ground beneath them
can run.

43 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The food of the orang-outang is strictly a vegetable one. It has the
habit of not rising very early in the morning, waiting until the sun has
dried the dews, and Nature has dressed herself for its appearance. Al-
though the orang does not court danger, it does not seem afraid to
fight if necessity obliges. Wallace narrates the combat between a
Dyak and an orang, in which the native was terribly bitten and might
have been killed had not assistance arrived. The orang was then killed
by numbers, and Wallace rescued the skin and head to be added to his
large collections, and taken later to England. Mr. Wallace also suc-
ceeded in finding a baby orang-outang, and gives his experience with it
as follows :

" When handled or moved it was very quiet and contented, but when laid
down by itself it would invariably cry; and for the first few nights was very
restless and noisy. I fitted up a little box for a cradle, with a soft mat for it to
lie upon, which was changed and washed every day; and I soon found it was
necessary to wash the little orang as well. After I had done so a few times it
came to like the operation, and as soon as it was dirty would begin crying, and
not leave oft* till I took it out and carried it to the spout, when it immediately
became quiet, although it would wince a little at the first rush of the cold wa-
ter, and make ridiculously wry faces while the stream was running over its head.
It enjoyed the wiping and rubbing dry amazingly; and when I brushed its hair
seemed to be perfectly happy, lying quite still Avith its arms and legs stretched
out, while I thoroughly brushed the long hair of its arms and legs. For the
first few days it clung desperately with all four hands to whatever it could lay
hold of, and I had to be careful to keep my beard out of its way, as its fingers
clutched hold of hair more tenaciously than anything else, and it was impossible
to free myself without assistance. . . . Finding it so fond of hair, I endeavored
to make an artificial mother by wrapping up a piece of buftalo-skin into a
bundle and suspending it about a foot from the floor. At first this seemed to
suit it admirably, as it could sprawl its legs about and always find some hair. I
was now in hopes that I had made the little orphan quite happy ; and so it
seemed for some time, till it began to remember its lost parent and try to suck.
It would pull itself up close to the skin and try about everywhere for a likely
place; but, as it only succeeded in getting mouthfuls of hair and wool, it would
be greatly disgusted and scream violently, and after two or three attempts let go
altogether."

This account is interesting, because it shows that in its actions the
young orang-outang recalls what we are familiar with in infants ; and
again it illustrates the activity of the limbs at an early age and before
they can be used intelligently. There can be no doubt that in this
way we come to use our limbs at first, by a sort of blind groping in the
uncertain light of infancy. We feel a sympathy for Mr. Wallace that
his baby orang-outang never w'ould do anything to reflect credit on its
bringing-up, and finally died in an obstinate and childish manner. It
was thought that it never entirely got over its separation from its
family, but this may have been a fancy.

Another long-armed ape is the gibbon (Hylobates far), which is
smaller than the orang-outang and exceedingly intelligent. This spe-

MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 439

cies readily assumes the erect position when not executing its incompa-
rable gymnastic feats, swinging with its arms and leaping from one rope
to another in the rooms fitted up for its dwelling in confinement. It
walks with the knees bent and the long arms stretched out with the
hands hanging down, reminding one of the position of a rope-walker.
The gibbon is extremely neat and cleanly with its person, and is not
distinguished by any peculiar odor, as are some of the other species of

Fig. 6.— Head' of Gibbon.

apes. As a prisoner the gibbon eats bread, milk, and fruit. Before
drinking, it has been remarked that it tastes the fluid doubtfully with
the tip of the tongue, which in the apes, as in man, is the most sensi-
tive portion of that organ. Dr. Hermes says that the gibbon is an
aristocrat among the man-apes and always on the best behavior.

I conclude this outline description of the man-apes with the state-
ment that the duration of life among them is not accurately known,
and probably varies with the different species. The gorilla and chim-
panzee probably attain the average age of man.

The position of science with regard to man and the anthropoid apes
is, that in no case can these latter be considered our progenitors or
descendants. The physical and mental characteristics are too diverse
to admit of such conclusions. The apes have evidently come down an-
other line of descent, although the time when both the apes and man
may have emerged from a common branch of the tree of animal life may
not be so very long past. But, whenever the line of man and that of the
anthropoid apes coincided, it is clear that now the tendency must be to
diverge more and more. The resemblances between the apes and man,

44o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

however, cannot be overlooked by the thinking mind. They are so
great that if we assumed the theory of degeneracy to be true, and so
were willing to throw the whole animal kingdom backward on its tail
instead of forward on its feet, we might consider them to be degener-
ate and " wild" men. And it is interesting to find that this is what
they were formerly held to be. The early pictures of the orang and
chimpanzee exemplify this notion by giving them perfectly human
features and erect position, brutalized only by their hairy body. They
were, in fact, assumed to be a very abandoned kind of man, and not a
very elevated kind of monkey. It is thought by some tribes of men
to this day that the apes could talk if they would, but they are afraid
that if they do they will be made slaves of and obliged to work. From
the naked white skin, through the yellow and red to the black and then
to the black with hair, does, indeed, seem a gradual transition ; and, if
we concede the erect posture, the admission of the ape into the human
family carries with it no little show of justice. It is not so long ago
that we denied human rights, and both openly and impliedly consan-
guinity, to the negro, as to make it impossible that we should not come
to regard the gorilla in a more affectionate light than we do at present.
But, in point of fact, the different races of mankind represent a kinship
remote in proportion to their structural differences ; and most of us,
perhaps, would be willing to admit at once the truth of this proposition.
Science insists that it is true throughout the animal world, and expects
that the time will come when it will be acknowledged, and our behavior
improved by an increasing kindness on our part to our inferior and
wreaker fellow-inhabitants of the earth. The proof of the evolution of
man we find first in the fact that for every bone and muscle or organ
in man there is a corresponding one in the anthropoid apes. Having
shown in this way that man is not separable from his physical charac-
teristics, science enters into a comparison with regard to the difference
in brain-power. The mass of the brain, as judged by the cubical contents
of the cranium, we have seen, can be no certain criterion for the intelli-
gence, but only of comparative value, because it was so variable in the
apes and man. It is, however, a guide from a physiological point of
view by which we can estimate an advance in thinking powers through-
out the animal kingdom. It has been amply shown by Prof. Marsh that,
as a whole, the proportion of the brain-case has increased through the
succession of fossil vertebrate life from the time when coal was formed
up to the present. And it can be shown that this proportion is greater
in man to-day as compared with existing mammals. When we come
to the structure of the mass of the brain, that of man offers no perceiv-
able difference of importance from that of certain apes. The discussion
on this point has been fully entered into by distinguished anatomists,
and need not be detailed in this place. Alone, the weight offers a dif-.
ference. The heaviest human brain known is given at 1,872 grammes,
the lightest brain of a sane person 907 grammes, both these extremes

A NEW PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS. 441

being furnished bjr women. The difference between the mass of the
brain of man and that of the gorilla is proportionally, perhaps, the great-
est that exists to separate the two. It has been considered by Huxley
to approximate to twelve ounces. But the difference between the ex-
tremes of brain-weight in man, as exemplified in the figures here given,
shows that we cannot consider intelligence to depend on the weight of
the brain. All that we can say is, that a man with a large brain has
capacity for the display of intelligence. It depends on his use of the
senses, which are the feeders of the intellect, whether he displays high
wisdom or not. It is quite possible that an ape may be more intelli-
gent than a human being who has not properly supplied his brain with
information. Human beings born dumb and blind are not born ipso
facto intelligent, but are taught with great trouble and patience
through the channels of the remaining senses. The facts known in
regard to afflicted persons are amply sufficient to warrant the state-
ment that the intelligence depends on the senses, and if these are in-
terfered with, either in the structure of the organs, or by giving them a
limited opportunity for activity, you have, as a result, less intelligence
in the individual, be it man or ape, or other animal. We can show that
the difference between man and apes is a quantitative and not a quali-
tative one.

-+*+-

A NEW PHOTOGKAPHIC PROCESS.1

SO manifold are now the uses of photography that we need not
dwell upon the importance of processes which allow of the em-
ployment of easily-handled apparatus, and which do awa}r with cum-
bersome and fragile glass plates. Deyrolle's photographic process,
described below, answers all the requirements of portability.

The idea of substituting sensitive paper for heavy, brittle plates of
glass is not new, but all the processes hitherto offered labor under the
serious disadvantage of necessitating a long exposure. Besides, the
proofs are usually imperfect on account of the granulations which the
paper leaves on the positive. M. Deyrolle's collodionized paper does
not present these difficulties. It is covered with a special coating,
insoluble in ether, alcohol, or water, and thus it undergoes all the opera-
tions of photography without change. This paper is collodionized and
treated precisely as though it were glass. It is, in fact, quite equal to
glass plate for the uses of photography, and in addition possesses the
following advantages :

The layer of collodion is so firmly attached to the coating of the
paper that it cannot be injured by contact with a hard object, nor even
by slight friction. Besides, the picture can be developed by total im-

] Translated from La Nature by J. Fitzgerald, A. M.

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mersion in the developing liquid, instead of pouring the latter on the
collodion layer, as in the case of plates of glass, an operation that re-
quires some dexterity and long practice.

This paper will retain all its sensibility for about two years, pro-
vided it be sheltered from light and moisture ; it is not affected either
by cold or heat. Hence it is destined to be of great use to travelers
who explore remote regions.

After the light-impression has been made on tho paper, it remains
to develop the image. This operation presents no difficulty, success
depending, so to say, only on the time of exposure. First, the paper
is dipped in common water, care being taken to make the immersion
complete. There it must remain for at least five minutes, or until the
paper, which was beginning to curl, becomes perfectly flat. In the
mean time the following solution is prepared in quantity only sufficient
for the pictures to be developed at once, for oftentimes it decomposes
in the course of a day or two :

Distilled water 1 litre.

Glacial acetic acid 20 grammes.

Citric acid 20 "

Pyrogallic acid 3 "

Into a basin with flat bottom, and of a size corresponding to that
of the proof treated, is poured enough of the above solution to com-
pletely submerge the proof ; a depth of three or four millimetres is
amply sufficient. Into this is dipped the proof after taking it from the
water and draining it, the collodionized side uppermost. After inclin-
ing the basin in every direction, so as to cause the liquid to pass sev-
eral times over the proof, a portion of it is poured into a glass, and
then we add to it a few drops of the following solution :

Distilled water 100 grammes.

Crystallized nitrate of silver 5 "

Stir well, so as to mix thoroughly. The whole is poured into the
basin, which again is inclined as before. The image now appears ;
seven or eight minutes suffice to completely develop it, with the sky or
the lighted parts of an intense black.

When the proof is sufficiently developed it is put in water, and
then dipped in a solution of hvposulphate of soda, 40 per cent., to fix
it ; it is then freelv washed in water in the usual way. It is now dried
between leaves of silk-paper or blotting-paper.

Treated in this way the proof is perfectly secure : it is not affected
by changes of temperature, and may be exposed either to damp or to
drought without the least injury. To preserve it, we have only to
place it in a book or in a portfolio, so that it may not be creased or
rubbed on the collodionized side.

When we would take positive proofs, we detach from the paper the
layer of collodion, thus getting the image on a thin transparent pellicle.

A NEW PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS.

443

This is a very simple operation, consisting merely in adding to the col-
lodion layer firm and transparent substances, till the cliche attains the
proper consistence. To this end, we prepare a normal collodion of the
following composition :

Gun-cotton 25 grammes.

Sulphuric ether £ litre.

Alcohol of 40° i "

Lay the proof on a plate of glass, having first turned up the edges
all round, so that the liquids to be poured upon it shall not overflow.
On the collodion layer containing the image pour the normal collodion,
beginning at one of the corners of the proof most remote from the
operator. Then incline it slightly, so as to cause the liquid to flow ; and,
after the entire surface has been covered, the excess of liquid, if any
there be, is poured back into the bottle. Then the cliche is laid flat in
a roomy box, or in any other place where it will be sheltered from dust,

and left for a few hours to dry. "When fully dried, or when it is no
longer sticky to the touch, we again, in the same way as before, pour
over the layer of -normal collodion a layer of caoutchouc dissolved in
benzine. When this has become dry, we apply a second layer of nor-
mal collodion, then caoutchouc again, and, lastly, a final layer of nor-
mal collodion.

444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The cliche is now left to dry for twenty-four hours, and it is trimmed
all around. Then, at one corner, the paper is separated by a finger-
nail from the coating formed upon it. Having in this way loosened
the coating at one corner, it may easily be stripped off altogether, with
a little care, leaving the paper clean and white, as though it had never
undergone any treatment. In this way is got a negative at least as
transparent as though it were on glass ; but it possesses the advantages
of not being brittle, of not being damaged by rubbing, of occupying
but little space, and, finally, of giving better proofs than can be got
from cliches on glass.

To utilize this process, M. Deyrolle has constructed a strong but
portable apparatus, made almost entirely of copper and iron, weighing
not over 400 grammes for one producing proofs 0.13 metre by 0.18
metre, or 700 grammes for one producing proofs 0.24 metre by 0.18
metre (see figure on page 443).

The camera, which, when folded, is only four centimetres high, is
held distended by two steel rods, which connect the frame of the object-
glass with that for the slide. The support for the apparatus consists of
three double legs with joints ; these are fastened by thumb-screws to a
triangular table. The stem supporting the camera is articulated with
the centre of this table by means of a ball-and-socket joint, which allows
the instrument to be turned in any required direction. The ball may
be made fast at will by means of a steel spring. This new form of
foot has the great advantage of being extremely light, and of allowing
the camera to rest in any plane whatever.

We would add that, when this system is employed, the complete
outfit of an explorer who wishes to take 300 negatives will not weigh
over six kilogrammes, including the instrument, the cliches, and all the
chemicals needed for developing the negatives.

■~+*+-

VOLUNTARY MOTION.

By Professor PAYTON SPENCE, M. D.

"The primitive elements of the will have been stated to be — 1. The sponta-
neity of movement ; and, 2. The link between action and feeling, grounded on
self-conservation. In the maturing or growth of tbe will, there is an extensive
series of acquisitions, under the law of retentiveness or contiguity " (Bain,
"Mental Science," p. 318).

" The elements of voluntary power being assumed as — 1. Spontaneity; and,
2. Self-conservation, we have to exemplify the connection of these into the
matured will, by a process of education'1'1 (Bain, "Mental Science," p. 325).

TO what extent we differ from the above propositions, and especially
from those parts of them which we have italicized, will more
fully appear in the following article.

VOLUNTARY MOTION. 445

To the superficial observer, a human being, during the interval be-
tween birth and adult life, seems to learn a great deal; but, if he did
really learn all that he seems to learn, it would be marvelous in a de-
gree wholly beyond the power of the human mind to conceive of, and
far beyond the power of human language to express. Omitting, at
present, that immense domain of the mind which is embraced under
the terms sensation, emotion, and intellection, we will endeavor to
make a comparative estimate as to how much we seem to learn, but
do not learn, and how much we do really learn, in that limited
department of the will which is covered by the term voluntary
motion.

We will begin by endeavoring to ascertain how much a child would
have to acquire in simply learning to pronounce the letter A, at will,
supposing that none of the movements, or combinations of movements,
which are made in the utterance of that one sound, are organic and in-
herited, but that they all have to be acquired or learned by practice
and experience.

Between the states of the greatest and the least contraction of any
muscle of the body, there are, of course, an infinite number of degrees
of contraction. In order, however, that we may not seem to exaggerate
the difficulties of the child's task, we will suppose that a muscle is sus-
ceptible of only three degrees of contraction, and that, therefore, three
experiments, at most, would ultimate in the production of the sound of
A, supposing it to depend upon the proper contraction of only one
muscle. But how many muscles are engaged in the production of that
one sound ? A great many, namely, the muscles of the vocal chords,
the muscles of the back part of the mouth, of the tongue, the cheeks,
the lips, and the muscles that expand and contract the chest. We will
largely understate their number, and suppose that there are only 20
involved in the pronunciation of A, each one of which, as we have al-
ready supposed, is susceptible of only 3 distinct degrees of contraction.
Now, 2 muscles, each one of which is susceptible of 3 degrees of con-
traction, can be made to contract together in 9 different combinations,
consisting of one degree of the contraction of each muscle to each
combination ; 3 muscles will give 27 possible combinations, 4 muscles
81 possible combinations, and so on, in a geometrical ratio of increase,
up to the supposed 20 muscles, with which there would be 3,113,884,401
possible combinations of muscular contractions. Now, in all this wilder-
ness of possibilities, there is but one combination which can produce
the sound of the letter A, and that one the child must find, although,
according to the supposition, he knows nothing about it, and has no
organic tendencies in the direction toward it. He can find it only by
experiment. Each possible combination must be successively tried and
rejected, until he comes to the right one. Assuming that his chances
of hitting upon the right combination are equal to his chances of
missing it, the number of experiments which he would have to make,

4+6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

before he "would hit upon the right one, would be just one-half of
3,113,884,401, which is 1,556,942,200. Supposing, therefore, that the
child makes 100 experiments in a minute, it would take him within
a fraction of thirty years to attain the first successful utterance of the
letter A.

But the child's task is not yet accomplished when he has succeeded
in pronouncing the letter once. He must pronounce it again and again,
before it is so completely within the reach of his will that he can pro-
nounce it immediately, making automatically all the required muscular
contractions of the combination the instant the volition calls for the
letter. It is evident that, in the absence of all knowledge of those 20
muscles, and of all organic tendencies in the right direction (which
could only be acquired b}' repeated successful experiments), it would
be almost as difficult for the child to hit upon the right combination the
second and the third time as the first ; and, therefore, only after many
successes would the required combination become automatic, and the
utterance of the letter A really be so completely brought under the do-
minion of the will as to be classed among the voluntary movements. If,
therefore, we again under-estimate the difficulties of the case, as we
have done all along, and suppose that only 10 successful experiments
would be necessary to accomplish the result — that is, to agglutinate
into a unitary movement the required group or combination of mus-
cular contractions, so that the group should be instantaneously and
automatically adjusted the moment a volition is made for the letter
A — we find that the child's lesson, the learning to joronounce a single
letter at will, is a task which would require for its accomplishment 300
years of steady work, night and day, at the rate of 100 experiments
every minute !

How insignificant, however, is the successful pronunciation at will
of one letter, when we reflect that the child ultimately attains the vol-
untary control of, not merely one of the billions of possible combinations
of 20 muscles, but that he attains the absolute voluntary command of
all the 450 voluntary muscles of his body, individually and collectively,
in all their possible combined, as well as isolated, contractions ! In some
of the combinations of muscular contractions which the child ultimately
becomes capable of executing, nearly every one of the 450 voluntary
muscles of the body participates ; as, for example, in the throwing of a
stone ; and yet the wonderful combination is made and the movement
executed with as much precision and promptness as the crooking of his
finger. We have no hesitation in saying that, if all this had to be
learned by the child, it would require a lifetime of many millions of
years ; and, as we know that the requisite knowledge or capacity is not
a miraculous donation to the child, but must be the accumulated acqui-
sitions of a slow process of experience of some kind, and at some time
or other, we should be appalled by the magnitude of our own figures,
did we not know that man is not the creature of to-day, but the child

VOLUNTARY MOTION. 447

of the ages, incubated in the primitive submarine protoplasm, born as
the simple monad, creeping for aeons of time as the blind-worm upon
its belly, swimming for untold ages as the fish of the sea, flying as a
bird in the air for hundreds of thousands of years, and, for centuries
without number, roaming the earth as a mammal, and walking the
globe erect as a man. But, all this time, immense and inconceivable as
it is, would be too insignificant to enable one individual, unaided and
alone, to learn (were it accomplished by learning) to execute all those
infinite muscular contractions, and combinations of contractions, of
which we have spoken ; and we are only helped out of the difficulty by
a knowledge of the fact that, in the evolution of the power of volun-
tary motion and of the will, in the animal kingdom, during all the
immensity of the past ages, the organized experiences and acquisitions
of all the millions of individuals of each species of animal life were, by
the process of reproduction and the law of heredity, so completely
interchanged and shuffled up with each other that the organized expe-
riences and acquisitions of each individual became the organized ex-
periences and acquisitions of the species, and the organized experiences
and acquisitions of the species became the organized experiences and
acquisitions of each individual.

We are now prepared to make an approximate estimate as to how
much of our command over our voluntary muscles is acquired by educa-
tion and experience, and how much is the result of the simple matura-
tion of an inheritance, which evolution had prepared and stored up for
us. If, as we have already shown, many millions of years would be
required to enable one individual to acquire as perfect a control of all
the voluntary muscles of the body as we know that each adult human
being has, how much of that could be acquired by the individual him-
self after birth ? Supposing him to reach the height of his muscular
capabilities at thirty years, and that only 3,000,000 years, instead of
many millions, are, as we have shown, necessary to enable him to ob-
tain that complete mastery over his voluntary muscles which he actually
possesses in. adult life, then his own individual acquirements would bear
the same ratio to his inherited acquirements that 30 bears to 3,000,000,
or that 1 bears to 100,000. Therefore, he inherits 99,999 parts, and
learns but 1 — a quantity so small as to dwindle into almost nothingness
in the comparison.

An apparent objection to our conclusions is met with in the fact
that the child does not use his 450 muscles, at birth, with the same
ease, precision, and freedom, that he does in after-years ; but, from the
helplessness of the babe, which can scarcely be said to make a single
voluntary movement, there is a gradual advance in the variety and ex-
tent of his control over his voluntary muscles, until we may say that,
by the time he reaches adult life, he is completely master of his volun-
tary muscular system. If, then, it is true that we acquire by education
and experience nothing, or almost nothing, of that vast department

448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of mental acquisitions which is embraced under the term voluntary
motion, yet it must be admitted that we seem to learn how to use
our muscles, and it seems as if all our voluntary control over them
were acquired by education and experience. It is but seeming, how-
ever ; and, instead of our learning how to use our muscles, we simply
learn that we can use them, in all the endless varieties of isolated and
combined contractions of which they are capable. The hoio of their
use is our vast organized inheritance ; and it is this which gives even
the child, as he matures, that sure, unerring tendency to the right move-
ment to attain any desired end, and soon teaches him that he can do
what he wills to do, thus obviating a resort to that infinitude of experi-
ments which, as we have shown, would otherwise be absolutely neces-
sary. It is the organized inheritance which takes the lead, and teaches
the child that he can make the required voluntary movements, and not
the child which teaches the organization how to make them. The
newly-born babe is helpless and capable of making only a few instinc-
tive or automatic movements, not for want of education and experience,
but for want of organic maturity • and, hence, we see that some ani-
mals which are more matured at birth, or when hatched, than the
human infant, walk, run, swim, or fly, as soon as they are born, or as
soon as they escape from the egg ; and the butterfly and those insects
which emerge from the chrysalis fidly matured need no experience or
education whatever to enable them to command at will all their volun-
tary muscles ; their organic maturity alone giving them at once full
control over that department of their nature.

In the case of the child, it is impossible, either by observation or
experiment, to separate the results of the maturation of the organiza-
tion from the results of education and experience, for the obvious
reason that the maturing of the child's nervous and muscular system
proceeds, at a very rapid rate, simultaneous with its education and ex-
perience ; and, therefore, were the point not already settled by the
estimate which we have just made, it would be impossible to form even
an approximate estimate as to how much of the child's progress is de-
pendent upon his own acquisitions, and how much upon the ripening of
an inherited organization. It is not possible, experimentally or other-
wise, to isolate these two factors and their results from each other so
as to ascertain, in that way, which factor is the largest and most im-
portant. The child's muscular education, the progress which he makes
in his voluntary control over his muscles, and the maturing of his
organization, all proceed simultaneously and inseparably together.
Nevertheless, facts do occasionally crop out, here and there, confirma-
tory of the calculations already made, and the inferences drawn from
them, if they needed confirmation. If our voluntary control over our
muscles is not an educational acquirement, but is the result of the
ripening of our organic inheritance, we would naturally expect an
occasional exhibition of muscular agility, precision, and dexterity, and

VOLUNTARY MOTION. 449

of complicated grouping1 and combinations of many muscles, far beyond
any educated capacity which the individual is known to have acquired.
This expectation is frequently realized in individuals when under the
dominion of exalted emotions, in insane persons, and in persons when
in mesmeric, somnambulic, trance, and other abnormal conditions, who
often perform feats of agility, dexterity, and wonderful freedom and
precision in the combined contractions of a great many muscles of the
body, equaling the nimbleness and mobility of the ballet-dancer, the sure-
footedness of the rope-walker, and the consummate skill of the trained
acrobat, although they had no special training calculated to qualify
them for the performance of such feats. In fact, in their normal states,
they did not believe themselves capable of performing such feats, be-
cause they had not yet learned that the feats, marvelous as they seemed
to themselves and others, were already accomplished facts, packed
away in their organizations, awaiting the magic word, the real " open
sesame" to command them to come forth. The records are loaded
with such unused facts, that are simply labeled " abnormal," and then
abandoned. It will generally be found, however, that the abnormal,
simply from the fact that it is abnormal — an outlaw to all that is now
considered fixed and established in science — is the key to a higher law
and a broader generalization. A few illustrations will suffice :

Dr. Rush relates the case of a young man named Wilkison, in whom
the habit of stammering was suspended during his mental derangement,
but returned as soon as he began to mend.1 It is evident that, in stam-
mering, the groupings of muscular contractions which produce articu-
late sounds are very different from those which produce the sounds
without stammering. From some cause, not yet understood, there is in
stammering an interference with the correct muscular groupings which,
we claim, are organic and inherited, and a series of random, confused,
and semi-spasmodic muscular movements become mixed up with the
correct groupings. In this instance, the mixture had continued from
childhood up to manhood, a period long enough surely to have agglu-
tinated them indissolubly together, if practice, habit, or education, ever
caused such agglutinations, as some believe. It is evident, therefore,
that this man not only had not learned or acquired by education the
correct use of his muscles of articulation, but had seemingly acquired
an incorrect use of them ; yet, the moment he became insane, the im-
pediment was removed, the habits of a lifetime vanished, and his
organically inherited command over those muscles asserted itself, and
enabled him to do what he had never done before, and what, unless
the views which we have presented are correct, must be acquired
after birth, and can only be acquired after birth by long-continued
practice.

The following case is related by Dr. Abercrombie : A lady laboring
under some disease of the nervous system, not disclosed by an autopsy,

1 Rush, " Medical Inquiries and Observations on Diseases of the Mind,1' p. 254.
VOL. xm. — 29

450 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

as she recovered, exhibited, among other things, the following remark-
able powers :

"After lying for a considerable time quiet, she would in an instant throw
her whole body into a kind of convulsive spring, by which she was thrown en-
tirely out of bed ; and in the same manner, while sitting or lying on the floor,
she would throw herself into bed, or leap on the top of a wardrobe fully five
feet high. During the whole of these symptoms her mind continued entire, and
the only account she could give of her extravagance was, a secret impulse which
she could not resist." l

This case cannot be disposed of by saying that the movements were
convulsive, because it is evident that they were definitely combined
and adjusted to the production of a well-defined result — the landing of
the patient's body either upon the floor, the bed, or the wardrobe — so
that a certain amount of mentality or volition accompanied the result ;
this she herself was awTare of, and called it a " secret impulse." It
is also evident that the movements were very complex, and required a
special and peculiar coordination of a great many muscles ; in -fact,
nearly every voluntary muscle of the body. The only conclusion at
which we can arrive is, that the patient, in the abnormal state into which
disease had thrown her, was able to draw upon an inheritance of mus-
cular capacity to which she had matured, but which she had not been
called upon to use before.

Dr. Abercrombie also relates the following case : A young lady,
fifteen years of age, was subject to attacks of catalepsy, in consequence
of a fall from a horse.

"On one occasion, she was playing from a book a piece of music which was
new to her, and had played a part of it, when she was seized with a cataleptic
attack. During the paroxysm she continued to play this part, and repeated it
five or six times in the most correct manner ; but, when she recovered from the
attack, she could not play it without the book." 2

In this case the young lady was able to execute, in the cataleptic
state, what she apparently had not learned and could not execute when
out of that state. From this and similar cases it would seem that much
of our inherited voluntary command over our muscles is ordinarily dis-
guised or marked, as it were — held in abeyance — how or why we know
not, and we are enabled to get glimpses of it during those states of
mental and organic spontaneity and mobility which, for want of a better
name, we call abnormal, and which often seem temporarily to put the
individual en rapport with the secret chambers of his own boundless
wealth — the countless treasures of ages of accumulation.

The following case, taken from the Globe-Democrat, of St. Louis,
Missouri, is as remarkable, perhaps, as any of a similar character on
record ;

1 Abercrombie, " Diseasse of the Brain and Spinal Cord," p. 292.
a Ibid., pp. 293-295.

VOLUNTARY MOTION. 451

" James H. Prior, of St. Louis, has an adopted daughter, of thirteen years,
who performs wonderful gymnastic feats in her sleep. Finding her room
vacant one night, Mr. Prior began a search, which resulted in discovering her
walking along a narrow iron railing which protected a gallery running the entire
width of the house. When she reached the end of the railing she deliberately
turned and walked back. This she performed with grace and apparent careless-
ness. In the mean time Mr. Prior, fearing that if he moved it would startle the
girl, and she would fall to the paved yard below, remained quiet while she con-
tinued her perilous walk. In a few moments she seemed to be satisfied, and,
carefully stepping to a chair, reached the floor, and glided slowly by Mr. Prior,
down the hallway into her apartment and bed, where she was soon sleeping
sweetly. At another time, Mr. and Mrs. Prior found the girl had crawled
through the skylight, and was promenading the length of the roof-ridge. She
was walking with her hands hanging listlessly by her side, and her head inclined
forward as if she were looking immediately in front of her feet. The moon was
shining brightly, and the white, lithe form of the sleeping girl could have been
seen a block distant. There was a chimney half-way to the ridge, and some-
times she made detours to the right or to the left, going completely around the
obstruction, regaining the ridge and traversing its entire length. Once she
leaned on a chimney, and seemed absorbed in meditation. Each time she reached
the end of the roof it appeared to be her deliberate purpose to walk off, but she
always checked herself when within a foot of the edge, and, slowly turning,
carefully retraced her steps. Twice she descended on the incline of the roof,
each time returning to the ridge very rapidly, as if she had met with something
that excited her fears. Several times she looked up, as if gazing at the stars or
listening to some distant sounds. Suddenly, while at the point of the ridge,
which she had first reached, she began to descend in the direction of the sky-
light, taking each step with great caution and making slow progress. "When
she had nearly reached the opening Mr. Prior quietly withdrew. In a moment
Laura followed, proceeding at once to the garret-stairs, and disappearing down
the dark passage. Mr. and Mrs. Prior followed, keeping behind her as close as
possible, but, before they could reach her, she was in her own room, and com-
posing herself in bed."

Whatever voluntary muscular movements we may make, therefore —
be they ever so new and wonderful to ourselves or to others — we make
because we can ; because they are already accomplished facts packed
up in our inherited organization. The truth of this proposition makes
its converse also true, and the proposition itself receives additional con-
firmation from the truth of the converse, namely, whatever muscular
movements are beyond our voluntary control are so because they
are not accomplished facts in our inherited organization. Take, for
example, the familiar, schoolboy, muscular puzzle, which seems to be a
very simple movement, and very easy of execution ; yet we doubt
whether it has ever been really mastered, even after the most protracted
efforts, so that it could be executed with the automatic ease and dex-
terity with which we execute our voluntary movements. It is easy
enough to extend the forefinger of the right hand, and revolve it rap-
idly so as to describe a cylinder as it moves ; it is also easy to do the
same thing with the forefinger of the left hand ; and it is equally easy

452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to revolve them both at once in the same direction ; but the puzzle is
to revolve them both at the same time, but in opposite directions, the
points of the fingers facing each other. Much practice may enable one
to execute it slowly, defectively, and awkwardly ; never, however, with
the same ease, freedom, and dexterity, with which we revolve either
finger alone, or the two fingers together in the same direction. Again,
it is not only difficult, but impossible, simply by a voluntary effort, or
by any amount of practice, to roll one eye up and one down at the same
time, or to turn both outward at the same time, beyond the parallelism
of their axes. The muscular combination or co5rdination required in
such movements is not organically possible, and no amount of educa-
tion can make it so ; otherwise, education would be a substitute for
evolution and maturation.

The current ideas of the growth of voluntary motion and the will
are based upon an ill-defined notion that the muscular and nervous sys-
tems were first developed, like a piece of complex machinery, and then
the mind somehow came into rapport with it, or happened to be there,
just at the right time, and commenced to learn how to work a certain
part of it — for it is admitted that the rest can get along without the
mind. But the truth is, the importance of the mind as a factor in the
movements of the body is vastly overrated. It never really learns
how to work even the limited portion of the organization which the
current theories assign to it. When a child or even a man makes a
certain voluntary movement for the first time, and practises it until he
can execute it with ease and rapidity, has he learned how to do it ? If
so, he can tell how it is done. But, the fact is, he has learned nothing
at all about the mechanism wrhich he seems to handle so dexterously,
and can give no account whatever as to how he does it — that is some-
thing which has staggered the most capable and profound students of
voluntary motion and the will. Look at it. A child reaches out after
a bright object and misses it. Does it know how or why it happened
to miss it ? It keeps reaching, fumbling, and trying, and now it grasps
it. Does it know how or why ? Does it know that now it opens an
outlet or a valve of nervous discharge which then was closed ; or, that
it shuts one which it had left open ; or, that it opens three instead of
two or one ; or, that it opens them one-half, one-third, or one-fourth, in-
stead of full flood ? Does it learn any of these things, and then treas-
ure them up in the memory consciously or intentionally, so as to be able
to do it again, next time, without balk or failure ? The growth of a
voluntary movement is an organic procedure, not such a mechanical
process as that. That would, indeed, make the organization a machine
for the mind to manipulate, instead of the mind being (as we think we
can easily show) but a symbolical representation in consciousness of the
workings of certain parts of the organization — the braiii. Then, when
we have mastered a voluntary movement, all that we have really learned
is that we can make it.

VOLUNTARY MOTION. 453

But, again, a bright object is presented to a child. Its desire for it
ultimates in a movement that misses it, and then in one that grasps it.
In what respect do the mental accompaniments of the movement differ
in the two cases ? In nothing whatever. The mental phenomena which
accompany both the failure and the success are a desire for the object
and a volition for the movement. Next week or month, you hold the
bright object before the child again, and he succeeds in grasping it
every time ; and still the mental accompaniments of the movement are
the same — the same desire for the object, and the same volition for the
movement — not for the wrong movement, even when the failure was
made. Then, if the desire and the volition are precisely the same in
both cases, why should one movement be a success and the other a
failure ? It is evident that the fact that the child has learned that he
can make the movement does not contribute to the success, for the first
success was made before he had learned that he could ; and the knowl-
edge that he can does not contribute to a future success, because it
does not contribute in the least to a knowledge of how to do it. Then,
where are we driven to ? The mental accompaniments or phenomena do
not (with a qualification which it is not important to explain here) con-
tribute to the success of our voluntary movements. Therefore, we must
look for the reason why one voluntary movement is a success and another
a failure, in the phenomena of organization, and not in those of mind.

If the final conclusion above reached is true, there should be no
difference, physiologically, between a voluntary and a reflex movement.
And such we find to be the case. The essential physiological phenom-
ena of a voluntary movement are, an impression upon a peripheral sur-
face, conducted thence along certain nerves to a nervous centre which
is thereby excited to a peculiar kind of molecular action, and that
action generates what is called a nervous force, which is discharged
through another set of nerves upon certain muscles, causing them to
contract. The essential physiological phenomena of a reflex movement
are precisely the same. The point of present interest in both, cases is
that peculiar molecular action of the nervous centres (which, as we
have stated, is essentially the same in both cases) which generates the
nervous force that is discharged upon the muscles, causing their con-
traction. Now, if there is no essential difference, physiologically, be-
tween a voluntary and a reflex movement, in what do they differ? Of
course, the former is the latter with volition superadded, or the latter is
the former with volition deducted. And what is volition ? Volition is
simply a peculiar molecular action of a nervous centre of motion re-
flected upon consciousness — translated into a state of consciousness —
symbolized in consciousness. The mental part of the phenomena — the
volition — being simply a state of consciousness — a consciousness of the
molecular action — then, the molecular action is a condition precedent
to that state of consciousness which is a symbolical representation of
it. The molecular action, being precedent to the symbol of itself, can-

454 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not be determined or controlled by that symbol — that state of conscious-
ness— that mental part of the phenomena which we call volition. There-
fore, if from a voluntary movement we strike out the only mental part
— the volition — which, as we have seen, is not a factor, what is left is
as purely organic, and hence as purely reflex or automatic, as the
movements of a decapitated frog upon the application of an external
irritant. Of the truth of this we may satisfy ourselves by simply look-
ing at the nature of a voluntary movement from another point of view.
Thus, I will to move my arm, and it moves. The only voluntary part of
that very complex operation is the volition itself. I do not intentionally
and knowingly direct the nervous discharge along one set of nerves
rather than another, or upon one set of muscles rather than another ;
nor do I knowingly and intentionally cause one set to contract and
another to relax, or one to contract much, and another little, and
another less. All these things, which are so numerous and complicated
in that one movement, and which constitute the whole of the mechan-
ism, are purely automatic, being not in the least dependent upon the
mental part — the volition — although wholly dependent upon that or-
ganic activity of which the volition is a symbol in consciousness. It is
easy to understand, therefore, that if the molecular action which
generates the nervous force that causes a reflex movement could be
symbolized in consciousness, that symbol could not be called anything
but a volition — a mandate for the movement. As many reflex move-
ments are movements which were once voluntary, and have become re-
flex by a withdrawal of them from the sphere of consciousness, to relate
them again to consciovisness would be to make them again voluntary.
While it is very easy to understand how a reflex movement might thus
be converted into, or restored back to, a voluntary movement, it is an
actual fact that by dislocating consciousness from its connections with
voluntary movements we at once make them reflex or automatic, as is
the case, for example, in many habitual or oft-repeated movements, such
as the fingering of the keys of a piano when the music is known by
heart. The following singular case is also in point : Many years ago, a
medical gentleman related to me a case which came under his own ob-
servation, namely, that of a lawyer, who, without any other perceptible
physical or mental disorder, would, in the course of ordinary conversa-
tion, let slip one or another legal term between words and in sentences
with which it had no connection whatever. They seemed to utter
themselves without any volition on his part, and in fact he did not know
that one was coming until it was pronounced. The muscular move-
ments in such cases are wholly automatic, which means wholly organic,
without any associated mental phenomena.

From the foreg'oinfr considerations it is evident that a scientific solu-
tion of the problem of voluntary motion (and that of the will which is
based upon it) requires a full and separate consideration and explana-
tion of four distinct branches of the subject, namely :

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 455

1. The genesis of the power of voluntary motion, or its differentia-
tion from some mental power which preceded it ; and how it was differ-
entiated.

2. The evolution of the power of voluntary motion considered as an
organic procedure in the entire animal kingdom, by which it was devel-
oped from its earliest genesis up to its highest capabilities in man, as
the result of such changes in the faculty, from any cause whatever, as
were transmissible and transmitted by inheritance.

3. The maturation of the power of voluntary motion considered as
an organic procedure in the individual (man, for instance), by which it
develops or ripens through the gradations of evolution independently of
the operation of any external cause, such as education and experience.

4. The acquisitions of the power of voluntary motion, or whatever
is added to the maturing or matured faculty, by which it is enabled to
do with greater ease, freedom, force, or dexterity, what, without evolu-
tion and maturation, it could not do at all, and could never be educated
to do.

In view of these obvious facts, were we to venture a criticism of
Bain's celebrated treatise on the will, we should say that his method is
defective, inasmuch as he has disregarded those natural and important
divisions of the subject which we have pointed out, each of which re-
quires a separate treatment. The careful reader will be able to discover
not a little confusion in that treatise, and will be able to trace it to the
fact that the distinguished author has treated as a unit things which
are so dissimilar ; and especially is this true of his method of dealing
with maturation and acquisitions, by which the reader is led to believe
that acquisition is maturation, and maturation is acquisition.

-♦•♦-

MONERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

By EDMUND MONTGOMERY, M. D.
I. — INTRODUCTORY — THE PROBLEM IN GENERAL.

OF late years the hypothesis of the gradual and continuous evolution
of the universe and its parts has become the growing conviction
of almost all scientific minds. The main drift of the new philosophy,
the central aim of scientific exertion, is to establish by means of exact
investigation the reality and true order of this natural development of
things. After much anxious guess-work in which the emotions have
been profoundly implicated, we begin at last calmly and positively to
desire to know how deeply our existence is interwoven with the sen-
sible world everywhere surrounding us. We wish to know whether we
are, body and mind, the veritable heirs and trustees of these stupen-

45 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dous achievements of ever-toiling Nature ; or whether we are merely
passing strangers, endowed with a principle of life otherwise sustained,
with an essence of being not vitally implicated in the general enchain-
ment of temporal occurrences. On all sides we are fervently striving
to gain assurance of, at least, this one leading position in our mysteri-
ous fate. To whatever sources of revelation seem available, there is
put in every imaginable shape this decisive question : " Do we or do we
not entirely belong to the actual state of things in which we at present
find ourselves involved ? "

This is evidently the real import of the momentous controversy
now provoked anew, on deeper grounds than ever before, by the adop-
tion of the evolution hypothesis on the part of Science. In all quar-
ters of our globe, from every laboratory and study, where the investi-
gation of any branch of Nature is methodically pursued, we hear the
voice of Science proclaiming, with all but unanimous accord, one and
the same truth, that through natural development, from lowest begin-
nings, has grown, step by step, all of which we can ever gain any knowl-
edge. This is certainly a grave conclusion, coming as it does from the
most cautious and reserved school of thinkers. If proved to be true it
must, in course of time, necessarily subvert all former creeds, changing
completely the groundwork of human faith, and prescribing to life
new guiding principles. To mistake this inevitable issue of the grand
contest entered upon by the students of Nature against the authority
of their own mental inheritance would betray either short-sightedness
or insincerity. Let none, then, remain in doubt that it is the serious
intent of evolutionists so to unfold the system of Nature, the philoso-
phy of synthesis, of organization, as to make it eventually the bearer
on a strictly scientific foundation of all manner of truth. On all sides
they are challenged to make good their assertions, and to show how we
ourselves, with our exalted faculties, have come to be part and parcel
of this same supposed onward flow of natural events.

The disciples of Science are accordingly everywhere at work to raise
to the dignity of a consistent theory what is promiscuously held on the
strength of much good evidence, though also in reliance upon the event-
ual verification of much vague foreshadowing: though it is incumbent
upon us as evolutionists to prove our opinion, yet it must be admitted
that at present we are far from having established a connected chain
of evidence in support of it. We cannot deny that, when from the
point of view of our present knowledge we attempt to survey the
gradual ascent from lower to higher cosmical manifestations, we are
abruptly checked at various critical points. The continuity of that sur-
face, on which our understanding is wont to skim the depths of reality,
presents sudden chasms. We experience one such sharp mental recoil
when we endeavor smoothly to glide from the inorganic into the organ-
ic world. For, whatever may be asserted to the contrary, Science does
not yet exactly comprehend the transition from lifelessness to life.

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 457

Nor can it account for, or even follow with any degree of precision, the
stages of transformation leading from apparent uniformity of structure
to diversity of organization. The origin of life, and the conditions
which have gradually given rise to organization, are essential evolutional
moments, as yet in the twilight of mere fanciful conjecture. Their
penetration and elucidation would yield the data for the solution of
what may be called the physical phase of the problem of life.

But, further on, in pursuance of evolutional continuity, we encounter
a still deeper mystery, separating most profoundly the world of matter
from the world of mind. We are all aware that this strange contrast
of matter and thought, of the extended and the inextended, has ever
constituted a fundamental dualism in human experience. Philosophy
in every one of its aspects is mainly the result of an effort to imagine
or to recognize the connection which necessarily must obtain between
the ideal and the real. But there has been far too much imagining,
and too little recognition, in the endeavor. So, till quite lately, in the
history of human thought, but very slight advance was made in the
solution of the central puzzle, concerning ideality and reality. Modern
Science, disgusted at the waste of so much precious energy and ear-
nestness, given up to the elaboration of mere whimsical and visionary
interpretations, set out with the positive intention to evade in its inves-
tigations any contact with this constant stumbling-block of certitude.
But the antagonistic powers of outwardness and inwardness are too
intimately blended in Nature to admit of any such artificial severance,
however skillfully attempted.

Scientists are becoming more and more conscious that, even in their
least complicated suppositions and inquiries, both those elements of the
actual world are always inextricably involved. Before the steadfast
glance of Science, the eternal, adamantine atoms, questioned as to the
essence of their subsistence and resistance, dissolve into unextended,
immaterial centres of force. Before the steadfast glance of Science, the
inscrutable forces, with their ideal sweep, traced to the immediate seat
of their activity, resolve themselves into the discrete multiplicity and
absolute impenetrability of adamantine atoms. Surely, if with witches
"fair is foul and foul is fair," with us benighted mortals confusion seems
to reign still more supreme, for, to our profoundest thinkers, matter is
force and force is matter ; motion somehow is sensation, and sensation
somehow motion. And yet how can we aspire ever clearly to compre-
hend the fundamental identity of such disparate manifestations as mat-
ter and mind ?

Naturalists are aware of and openly acknowledge this mysterious
polarity of phenomena, this double subsistence — one in reality and at
the same time also in ideality. To the former mode of existence they
give the name of motion, the latter they call sensation — motion being
the generalized fact of outwardness, of objectivity ; sensation being the
generalized fact of inwardness, of subjectivity.

458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But Science does not yet understand, nor does it pretend to under-
stand, the enigma. Like all previous systems of knowledge, it fails to
detect the actual concatenation, the necessary connection or continuous
transition, by which these two seemingly heterogeneous experiences are
bound together and unified in reality. It does not conceive how motion
can possibly generate sensation, or indeed how motion and sensation
can in any way be related to each other. Yet, to the vindication of the
hypothesis of evolution, it is quite indispensable to establish either the
essential identity of motion and sensation, or the gradual transforma-
tion of one of these modes of existence into the other. For how can
evolution maintain its pretensions to universality, if the ideal world
remains foreign to it — a mysteriously correlated entity, merely in close
correspondence with the outer world, but having with it no genuine
and intrinsic sameness of actuality ?

The penetration and elucidation of this ancient dilemma of motion
and sensation would furnish the data for the solution of what may be
called the psychical phase of the problem of life.

But intermediate between these two extreme aspects of the problem
— the one demanding the explanation of the origin of vitality and or-
ganization ; the other the proof of the identity or direct phenomenal
continuity of motion and sensation — there is disclosed by the require-
ments of the evolution hypothesis a third essential and very peculiar
aspect of the same problem. As the experience of sensation, the state
of so-called feeling is an exclusive attribute of vitality ; it is evident
that, granting the evolution hypothesis, feeling must make its appear-
ance and take its rise at some definite moment in the course of organi-
zation. The demonstration of the specific conditions of organization,
which constitute the starting-point of feeling or subjective experience,
would furnish the initial data for the solution of what we may call the
physico-psychical phase of the problem of life.

We have now gained some information regarding the ground which
has to be accurately explored before the hypothesis of continuous de-
velopment can be said to be adequately established. Having indicated
the exact points at which our scientific appreciation meets with the most
abrupt and startling breaks in the supposed continuity, we find ourselves
in a favorable position to estimate what, above all, has to be accomplished
before evolution can take the field as a consistent monistic system.

We have to show how life originates and how organization takes
its rise ; we have to demonstrate how in the course of organic develop-
ment the state which we call feeling is established ; and we have,
finally, to prove that this feeling is in essence identical with that which
is felt. How are we to set about this seemingly hopeless and endless
task? Are we to rummage the vast stores of accumulated facts in
search of the missing links ? Assuredly, had they been forged and
ready for the purpose, more competent and assiduous searchers would
have discovered them long ago.

MONERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 459

Are we, in our trial to establish the necessary connections, simply
to draw upon our innate power of synthesis, again once more to stimu-
late the much-jaded faculty of mental constructiveness ? Assuredly, if
the material for the verification of any logical supposition had been
extant, the master-minds, who have so admirably dealt with this great
subject of synthetical continuity, would have left no material chasm
unbridged. Are we to find what we are in need of by laying open to
inspection the subtile intricacy of the sanctuary of life, by minutely
investigating the intimate composition and working of the mysterious
organ of centralization? Dazzled by the wonders of this marvelous
fabric, the consummated fruit of the mighty tree of life, there is as-
suredly danger that we shall fail to catch any glimpses of its dark and
lowly origin.

It is very natural, then, and appropriate, that, seeking a way out
of our scientific perplexity, we should direct attention to the study of
vitality in its least complicated forms, which manifest the properties
of life, and at the same time do not confuse us with structural entan-
glements. For, wherever we find fixity of differentiated parts already
established, there the difficulty begins. The organism gains the ap-
pearance of a mechanical contrivance, and we feel at once puzzled as to
what is driving and what is driven in the living engine. We desire,
then, if possible, to become acquainted with life before it has assumed
any definite shape, before the manifoldness of its relations has acquired
any degree of stability, or settled morphological expression.

The least complicated forms of life now known are perhaps motion-
less, non-nucleated corpuscles, which are observed to grow and to multi-
ply by division. But vitality in these forms displays itself so torpidly,
or at least so clandestinely, that microscopic investigation is incom-
petent to detect the nature of the changes that constitute their vital
activity. Besides, these motionless corpuscles are probably all inclosed
in a membranous envelope, which special structure must be regarded as
an organic complication undesirable for our purpose.

Haeckel was the first to point out the most fascinating of all primi-
tive beings ; and he was the first also to recognize their true import
in biology. He named them, on account of the entire homogeneity of
their structure, Monera. It is now well known that monera consist of
nothing but a flake or globule of uniform viscid material. Yet these
unorganized specks of matter are most truly alive, for they are seen to
move, to nourish themselves, to react on outward impressions, and to
propagate their kind.

Here, then, we have all the fundamental properties of life, without
any of its morphological complications. By dispensing, for once, with
all elaborate equipment, and by executing her principal performances
with such deliberate distinctiveness and openness, it is as if Nature
were here purposely inviting us to penetrate her vital mysteries.

If we can only gain an actual insight into the conditions upon which

46o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these various well-defined vital phenomena are dependent, if we can
succeed in establishing their direct relation, their immediate continuity
with the rest of the world, then we cannot possibly be far from having
reached the solution of the first phase of our problem.

There can be no manner of doubt that the secrets of the origin of
vitality, and of the rise of organization, must all lie encompassed in
these most unsophisticated dots of living material. What more entic-
ing prospect for scientific investigation could be found ? The nature of
vital phenomena, if not disclosed even here in its plainest mode of
manifestation, must ever remain incomprehensible. It is the fundament-
al truth of living reality, in all its native force, which in this unorgan-
ized and quickened matter appeals to our understanding, and it needs
but candor, simplichvy, and courage, to become initiated into the mys-
tery of vitality. Let us, then, endeavor to cast away the incumbrance
of so much foreknowledge, misleading as it has proved. If at all at-
tainable, here it is, with our diminutive specimens of vitality, that true
insight is to be gained. At any rate, we cannot leave the inquiry till
we know, or till we have become fully convinced, that vital phenomena,
even in their elements, are impervious to human knowledge.

Having for the last four years concentrated his whole attention on
the manifestations of primitive life, and reached results which he deems
important, the present writer, in a succeeding and fuller article, will
attempt to convey to the general reader some idea of what he has
gained by these studies.

-♦♦•♦-

COMPOSITE PORTRAITS.1

By FRANCIS GALTON, F. K. S.

I SUBMIT to the Anthropological Institute my first results in carry-
ing out a process that I suggested last August in my Presidential
Address to the Anthropological Subsection of the British Association
at Plymouth, in the following words:

" Having obtained drawings or photographs of several persons alike in most
respects, but differing in minor details, what sure method is there of extracting
the typical characteristics from them ? I may mention a plan which had occurred
both to Mr. Herbert Spencer and myself, the principle of which is to superim-
pose optically the various drawings and to accept the aggregate result. Mr.
Spencer suggested to me in conversation that the drawings reduced to the same
scale might be traced on separate pieces of transparent paper and secured one
upon another, and then held between the eye and the light. I have attempted
this with some success. My own idea was, to throw faint images of the several
portraits, in succession, upon the same sensitized photographic plate. I may add
that it is perfectly easy to superimpose optically two portraits by means of a

1 Abstract of a paper read before the London Anthropological Institute, April 30,
1878.

COM P 0 SITE P OR TRAITS.

461

stereoscope, and that a person who is used to handle instruments will find a com-
mon double eye-glass fitted with stereoscopic lenses to be almost as effectual and
far handier than the boxes sold in shops."

Mr. Spencer, as he informed me, had actually devised an instrument,
many years ago, for tracing mechanically longitudinal, transverse, and
horizontal sections of heads on transparent paper, intending to superim-
pose them and to obtain an average result by transmitted light.

Since my address was published, I have caused trials to be made,
and have found as a matter of fact that the photographic process of
which I there spoke enables us to obtain with mechanical precision
a generalized picture ; one that represents no man in particular, but
portrays an imaginary figure, possessing the average features of any
given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality.
Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time would doubt its
being the likeness of a living person. Yet, as I have said, it is no such
thing ; it is the portrait of a type, and not of an individual.

I begin by collecting photographs of the persons with whom I pro-
pose to deal. They must be similar in attitude and size, but no exact-
ness is necessary in either of these respects. Then by a simple contriv-
ance I make two pinholes in each of them, to enable me to hang them
up one in front of the other, like a pack of cards, upon the same pair of
pins, in such a way that the eyes of all the portraits shall be as nearly
as possible superimposed ; in which case the remainder of the features
will also be superimposed nearly enough. These pinholes correspond
to what are technically known to printers as " register-marks." They
are easily made ; a slip of brass or card has an aperture cut out of its
middle, and threads are stretched from opposide sides, making a cross.

1I»

Fig. 1.

Two small holes are drilled in the plate, one on either side of the
aperture. The slip of brass is laid on the portrait with the aperture
over its face. It is turned about until one of the cross-threads cuts the
pupils of both the eyes, and it is further adjusted until the other thread
divides the interval between the pupils in two equal parts. Then it is
held firmly, and a prick is made through each of the holes. The por-
traits being thus arranged, a photographic camera is directed upon

462

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

them. Suppose there are eight portraits in the pack, and that under
existing circumstances it would require an exposure of eighty seconds
to give an exact photographic copy of any one of them. The general
principle of proceeding is this, subject in practice to some variation of
details, depending on the different brightness of the several portraits:
We throw the image of each of the eight portraits in turn upon the
same part of the sensitized plate for ten seconds. Thus, portrait No. 1

Fig. 2.

is in the front of the pack ; we take the cap off the object-glass of the
camera for ten seconds, and afterward replace it. We then remove
No. 1 from the pins, and No. 2 appears in the front ; we take off the
cap a second time for ten seconds, and again replace it. Next we re-
move No. 2, and No. 3 appears in the front, which we treat as its prede-
cessors, and so we go on to the last of the pack. The sensitized plate
will now have had its total exposure of eighty seconds ; it is then de-
veloped, and the print taken from it is the generalized picture of which
I speak. It is a composite of eight component portraits. Those of its
outlines are sharpest and darkest that are common to the largest num-
ber of the components ; the purely individual peculiarities leave little
or no visible trace. The latter being necessarily disposed equally on
both sides of the average, the outline of the composite is the average
of all the components. It is a band, and not a fine line, because the
outlines of the components are seldom exactly superimposed. The
band will be darkest in its middle whenever the component portraits
have the same general type of features, and its breadth or amount of
blur will measure the tendency of the components to deviate from the
common type. This is so for the very same reason that the shot-marks
on a target are more thickly disposed near the bull's-eye than away from
it, and in a greater degree as the marksmen are more skillful. All that
has been said of the outlines is equally true as regards the shadows ;
the result being that the composite represents an averaged figure,
whose lineaments have been softly drawn. The eyes come out with
appropriate distinctness, owing to the mechanical conditions under
which the components were hung.

A composite portrait represents the picture that would rise before
the mind's eye of a man who had the gift of pictorial imagination in an
exalted degree. But the imaginative power even of the highest artists
is far from precise, and is so apt to be biased by special cases that may
have struck their fancies, that no two artists agree in any of their typi-

COMPOSITE PORTRAITS. 463

cal forms. The merit of the photographic composite is its mechanical
precision, being subject to no errors beyond those incidental to all pho-
tographic productions.

I submit several composites made for me by Mr. H. Reynolds. The
first set of portraits are those of criminals convicted of murder, man-
slaughter, or robbery accompanied with violence. It will be observed
that the features of the composites are much better looking than those
of the components. The special villainous irregularities in the latter
have disappeared, and the common humanity that underlies them has
prevailed. They represent, not the criminal, but the man who is liable
to fall into crime. All composites are better looking than their com-
ponents, because the averaged portrait of many persons is free from
the irregularities that variouslv blemish the looks of each of them. I
selected these for my first trials because I happened to possess a large
collection of photographs of criminals through the kindness of Sir Ed-
mund Du Cane, the Director-General of Prisons, for the purpose of in-
vestigating criminal types. They were peculiarly adapted to my pres-
ent purpose, being all made of about the same size and taken in much
the same attitudes. It was while endeavoring to elicit the principal
criminal types by methods of optical superimposition of the portraits,
such as I had frequently employed with maps and meteorological traces,1
that the idea of composite figures first occurred to me.

The other set of composites are made from pairs of components.
They are selected to show the extraordinary facility of combining al-
most any two faces whose proportions are in any way similar.

It will, I am sure, surprise most persons to see how well-defined
these composites are. When we deal with faces of the same type, the
points of similarity far outnumber those of dissimilarity, and there is
a much greater resemblance between faces generally than we who turn
our attention to individual differences are apt to appreciate. A trav-
eler, on his first arrival among people of a race very different from his
own, thinks them closely alike, and a Hindoo has much difficulty in dis-
tinguishing one Englishman from another.

The fairness with which photographic composites represent their
components is shown by six of the specimens. I wished to learn wheth-
er the order in which the components were photographed made any
material difference in the result, so I had three of the portraits arranged
successively in each of their six possible combinations. It will be ob-
served that four at least of the six composites are closely alike. I should
say that in each of this set the last of the three components was always
allowed a longer exposure than the second, and the second than the
first, but it is found better to allow an equal time to all of them.

The stereoscope, as I stated last August in my address at Plymouth,

1 " Conference at the Loan Exhibition of Scientific Instruments," 18V8. Chapman
& Hall. Physical Geography Section, p. 312. " On Means of combining Various Data
in Maps and Diagrams," by Francis Galton, F. R. S.

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

affords a very easy method of optically superimposing two portraits, and
I have much pleasure in quoting the following letter, pointing out this
fact as well as some other conclusions at which I also had arrived. The

Fig. 3.

The accompanying woodcut is as fair a representation cf one of the composites as is practicable
in ordinary printing. It was photographically transferred to the wood, and the engraver has
used his best endeavor to translate the shades into line engraving. This composite is made
out of only three components, and its threefold origin is to be traced in the ears, and in the
buttons to the vest. To the best of my judgment the original photograph is a very exact
average of its components ; not one feature in it appears identical with that of any one of them,
but it contains a resemblance to all, and is not more like to one of them than to another.
However, the judgment of the wood-engraver is different. His rendering of the composite
has made it exactly like one of its components, which, it must be borne in mind, he had never
seen. It is just as though an artist drawing a child had produced a portrait closely resembling
its deceased father, having overlooked an equally strong likeness to its deceased mother, which
was apparent to its relatives. This is to me a most striking proof that the composite is a true
combination. (I trust that the beauty of the woodcut will not be much diminished by the
necessarily coarse process of newspaper-printing.)

letter was kindly forwarded to me by Mr. Darwin ; it is dated last No-
vember, and was written to him by Mr. A. L. Austin from New Zealand,
thus affording another of the many curious instances of two persons
being independently engaged in the same novel inquiry at nearly the
same time, and coming to similar results :

" Invercargill, New Zealand, November 6, 1877.
" To Charles Darwin, Esq.

" Sir : Although a perfect stranger to you, and living on the reverse side of
the globe, I have taken the liberty of writing to you on a small discovery I have
made in binocular vision in the stereoscope. I find by taking two ordinary carte-
de-visite photos of two different persons' faces, the portraits being about the
same sizes, and looking about the same direction, and placing them in a stereo-
scope, the faces blend into one in a most remarkable manner, producing in the case
of some ladies' portraits in every instance a decided improvement in beauty. The
pictures were not taken in a binocular camera, and therefore do not stand out
well, but, by moving one or both until the eyes coincide in the stereoscope, the

COMPOSITE PORTRAITS. 465

pictures blend perfectly. If taken in a binocular camera for the purpose, each
person being taken on one-half of the negative, I am sure the results would be
still more striking. Perhaps something might be made of this in regard to the
expression of emotions in man and the lower animals, etc. I have not time or
opportunities to make experiments, but it seems to me something might be made
of this by photographing the faces of different animals, different races of man-
kind, etc. I think a stereoscopic view of one of the ape tribe and some low-caste
human face would make a very curious mixture ; also in the matter of crossing of
animals and the resulting offspring. It seems to me something also might result
in photos of husband and wife and children, etc. In any case the results are
curious, if it leads to nothing else. Should this come to anything, you will no
doubt acknowledge myself as suggesting the experiment, and perhaps send me
some of the results. If not likely to come to anything, a reply would much
oblige mo. Yours very truly,

" A. L. Austin, 0. E., F. R. A. S."

Dr. Carpenter informs me that the late Mr. Appold, the mechani-
cian, used to combine two portraits of himself, under the stereoscope.
The one had been taken from an assumed stern expression, the other
with a smile, and this combination produced a curious and effective
blending of the two.

Convenient as the stereoscope is, owing to its accessibility, for deter-
mining whether any two portraits are suitable in size and attitude to
form a good composite, it is nevertheless a makeshift and imperfect way
of attaining the required result. It cannot of itself combine two images ;
it can only place them so that the office of attempting to combine them
may be undertaken by the brain. Now the two separate impressions
received by the brain through the stereoscope do not seem to me to be
relatively constant in their vividness, but sometimes the image seen by
the left eye prevails over that seen by the right, and vice ve)'sa. All
the other instruments I am about to describe accomplish that which the
stereoscope fails to do ;• they create true optical combinations. As re-
gards other points in Mr. Austin's letter, I cannot think that the use of
a binocular camera for taking the twTo portraits intended to be combined
into one by the stereoscope would be of importance. All that is want-
ed is that the portraits should be nearly of the same size. In every
other respect I cordially agree with Mr. Austin.

The best instrument I have as yet contrived and used for optical
superimposition is a " double-image prism " of Iceland spar. The latest
that I have had were procured for me by Mr. Tisley, optician, 172
Brompton Road. It has a clear aperture of a square, half an inch in
the side, and when held at right angles to the line of sight will separate
the ordinary and extraordinary images to the amount of two inches,
when the object viewed is held at seventeen inches from the eye. This
is quite sufficient for working with carte-de-visite portraits. One im-
age is quite achromatic, the other shows a little color. The divergence
may be varied and adjusted by inclining the prism to the line of sight.
By its means the ordinary image of one component is thrown upon the

VOL. xiii. — 30

466

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

extraordinary image of the other, and the composite may be viewed
with the naked eye or through a lens of long focus, or through an opera-
glass (a telescope is not so good) fitted with a sufficiently long draw-
tube to see an object at that short distance with distinctness. Portraits

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

Fig. 4 shows the simple apparatus which carries the prism, and on which the photograph is
mounted. The former is set in a round box which can be rotated iu the ring at the end of the
arm, and can be clamped when adjusted. The arm can be rotated, and can also be pulled out
or in if desired, and clamped. The floor of the instrument is overlaid with cork covered with
black cloth, on which the components can easily be fixed by drawing-pins. When using it
one portrait is pinned down and the other is moved near to it, overlapping its margin if
necessary, until the eye looking through the prism sees the required combination ; then the
second portrait is pinned down also. It may now receive its register-marks from needles
fixed in a hinged arm, and this is a more generally applicable method than the plan with cross-
threads, already described, as any desired feature— the nose, the ear, or the hand— may thus
be selected for composite purposes. Let A, B, C, . . . Y, Z, be the components. A is pinned
down, and B, C. . . . Y, Z, are successively combined with A, and registered. Then, before
removing Z, take away A and substitute any other of the already registered portraits, say B,
by combining it with Z ; lastly, remove Z and substitute A by combining it with B, and regis-
ter it.

Fig. 5 shows one of three similarly-jointed arms, which clamp on to the vertical rod. Two of
these carry a light frame covered with cork and cloth, and the other carries Fig. 6, which is a
frame having lenses of different powers set into it, and on which, or on the third frame, a
small mirror, inclined at 45° , may be laid. When a portrait requires foreshortening it can be
pinned on one of these frames and be inclined to the line of sight ; when it is smaller than its
fellow it can be brought nearer to the eye aud an appropriate lens interposed; when a right-
sided profile has to be combined with a left-handed one, it must be pinned on one of the frames
and viewed by reflection from the mirror in the other. (The apparatus I have drawn is roughly
made, and, being chiefly of wood, is rather clumsy, but it acts well.)

of somewhat different sizes may be combined by placing the larger one
farther from the eye, and a long face may be fitted to a short one by
inclining and foreshortening the former. The slight fault of focus
thereby occasioned produces little or no sensible ill-effect on the appear-
ance of the composite.

The front and profile faces of two living persons sitting side by
side or one behind the other, can be easily superimposed by a double-
image prism. Two such prisms, set one behind the other, can be made

COMPOSITE PORTRAITS. ^67

to give four images of equal brightness, occupying the four corners of
a rhombus whose acute angles are 45°. Three prisms will give eight
images ; but this is practically not a good combination, the images fail
in distinctness, and are too near together for use. Again, each lens
of a stereoscope of long focus can have one or a pair of these prisms
attached to it, and four or eight images may be thus combined.

Another instrument I have made consists of a piece of glass in-
clined at a very acute angle to the line of sight, and of a mirror beyond
it, also inclined, but in the opposite direction to the line of sight. Two
rays of light will therefore reach the eye from each point of the glass ;
the one has been reflected from its surface, and the other has been first
reflected from the mirror, and then transmitted through the glass.
The glass used should be extremely thin, to avoid the blur due to
double reflections ; it may be a selected piece from those made to
cover microscopic specimens. The principle of the instrument may
be further developed by interposing additional pieces of glass suc-
cessively less inclined to the line of sight, and each reflecting a differ-
ent portrait.

I have tried many other plans ; indeed, the possible methods of opti-
cally superimposing two or more images are very numerous. Thus I
have used a sextant (with its telescope attached) ; also strips of mir-
rors placed at different angles and their several reflections simultane-
ously viewed through a telescope. I have also used a divided lens,
like two stereoscopic lenses brought close together, in front of the
object-glass of a telescope.

I have not yet had an opportunity of superimposing images by
placing glass negatives in separate magic - lanterns, all converging
upon the same screen ; but this or even a simple dioramic apparatus
would be very suitable for exhibiting composite effects to an audience,
and if the electric light were used for illumination, the effect on the
screen could be photographed at once. It would also be possible to
construct a camera with a long focus, and many slightly-divergent ob-
ject-glasses, each throwing an image of a separate glass negative upon
the same sensitized plate.

The uses of composite portraits are many. They give us typical
pictures of different races of men, if derived from a large number of
individuals of those races taken at random. An assurance of the truth
of any of our pictorial deductions is to be looked for^in their substan-
tial agreement when different batches of components have been dealt
with, this being a perfect test of truth in all statistical conclusions.
Again, we may select prevalent or strongly-marked types from among
the men of the same race, just as I have done with two of the types
of criminals by which this memoir is illustrated.

Another use of this process is to obtain by photography a really
good likeness of a living person. The inferiority of photographs to
the best works of artists, so far as resemblance is concerned, lies in

468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their catching no more than a single expression. If many photographs
of a person were taken at different times, perhaps even years apart,
their composite would possess that in which a single photograph is
deficient. I have already pointed out the experience of Mr. Appold to
this effect. The analytical tendency of the mind is so strong that, out
of any tangle of superimposed outlines, it persists in dwelling prefer-
ably on some one of them, singling it out and taking little heed of the
rest. On one occasion it will select one outline, on another a different
one. Looking at the patterns of the papered walls of our room we
see, whenever our fancy is active, all kinds of forms and features ; we
often catch some strange combination which we are unable to recall on

CD

a subsequent occasion, while later still it may suddenly flash full upon
us. A composite portrait would have much of this varied suggestive-
ness.

A further use of the process would be to produce, from many inde-
pendent portraits of an historical personage, the most probable likeness
of him. Contemporaneous statues, medals, and gems, would be very
suitable for the purpose, photographs being taken of the same size,
and a composite made from them. It will be borne in mind that it is
perfectly easy to apportion different "weights " to the different compo-
nents. Thus, if one statue be judged to be so much more worthy of
reliance than another that it ought to receive double consideration in
the composite, all that is necessary is to double either the time of its
exposure or its illumination.

The last use of the process that I shall mention is of great interest
as regards inquiries into the hereditary transmission of features, as it
enables us to compare the average features of the product with those
of the parentage. A composite of all the brothers and sisters in a
large family would be an approximation to what the average of the
product would probably be if the family were indefinitely increased in
number, but the approximation would be closer if we also took into
consideration those of the cousins who inherited the family likeness. As
regards the parentage, it is by no means sufficient to take a composite
of the two parents ; the four grandparents and the uncles and aunts
on both sides should be also included. Some statistical inquiries I
published on the distribution of ability in families ' give provisional
data for determining the weight to be assigned in the composite to
the several degrees of relationship. I should, however, not follow
those figures in the present case, but would rather suggest for the
earlier trials, first to give equal " weights " to the male and female
sides ; thus the father and a brother of the male parent would count
equally with the father and a brother of the female parent. Secondly,
I should " weight " each parent as 4, and each grandparent and each
uncle and aunt as 1 ; again, I should weight each brother and sister as
4, and each of those cousins as 1 who inherited any part of the like-
1 " Hereditary Genius," p. 317. Column D. Macmillan, 1869.

COMPOSITE PORTRAITS. 469

ness of the family in question. The other cousins I should disregard.
The weights, as previously mentioned, would be bestowed by giving
proportionate periods of exposure.1

Composites on this principle would undoubtedly aid the breeders
of animals to judge of the results of any proposed union better than
they are able to do at present, and in forecasting the results of mar-
riages between men and women they would be of singular interest
and instruction. Much might be learned merely by the frequent use
of the double-image prism, as described above, which enables us to
combine the features of living individuals when sitting side by side
into a sino-le imao-e.

I have as yet had few opportunities of developing the uses of the
composite photographic process, it being difficult without much expla-
nation to obtain the requisite components. Indeed, the main motive
of my publishing these early results is to afford that explanation, and
to enable me to procure a considerable variety of materials to work
upon. I especially want sets of family photographs, all as nearly as
possible of the same size and taken in the same attitudes. The size I
would suggest for family composites is that which gives one-half of an
inch interval between the pupil of the eye and the line that separates
the two lips. The attitudes about which there can be no mistake are :
full face, an exact profile, say, always showing the right side of the
face, and an exact three-quarters, always showing the left ; in this, the
outer edge of the right eyelid will be only just in sight. In each case
the latter should look straight before him. Such portraits as these go
well into cartes de visite, and I trust that not a few amateur photogra-
phers may be inclined to make sets of all the members of their family,
young and old, and of both sexes, and to try composites of them on the
principles I have described. The photographs used for that purpose
need not be in the least injured, for the register marks may be made in
the case into which they are slipped, and not in the photographs them-
selves.— Nature.

1 Example : There are 5 brothers or sisters and 5 cousins whose portraits are avail-

100
able ; the total period of desired exposure is 100 seconds. 5 x 4 + 5 — 25 ; ~KT— ^ !

which gives 4x4 = 16 seconds for each brother or sister, and 4 seconds for each cousin
(5x16 + 5x4= 100).

4;o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ILLUSTKATIOlSrS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE,

By C. S. PEIECE,

ASSISTANT IN THE UNITED STATES COAST SURVEY.

SIXTH PAPER. — DEDUCTION, INDUCTION, AND HYPOTHESIS.

I.

THE chief business of the logician is to classify arguments ; for all
testing clearly depends on classification. The classes of the
logicians are defined by certain typical forms called syllogisms. For
example, the syllogism called Barbara is as follows :

S is M ; M is P :
Hence, S is P.

Or, to put words for letters —

Enoch and Elijah were men ; all men die :
Hence, Enoch and Elijah must have died.

The " is P " of the logicians stands for any verb, active or neuter.
It is capable of strict proof (with which, however, I will not trouble the
reader) that all arguments whatever can be put into this form ; but only
under the condition that the is shall mean " is for the purposes of the
argument " or " is represented by." Thus, an induction will appear in
this form something like this :

These beans are two-thirds white ;

But, the beans in this bag are (represented by) these beans ;

.\ The beans in the bag are two-thirds white.

But, because all inference may be reduced in some way to Barbara,
it does not follow that this is the most appropriate form in which to
represent every kind of inference. On the contrary, to show the dis-
tinctive characters of different sorts of inference, they must clearly be
exhibited in different forms peculiar to each. Barbara particularly
typifies deductive reasoning ; and so long as the is is taken literally, no
inductive reasoning can be put into this form. Barbara is, in fact,
nothing but the application of a rule. The so-called major premise
lays down this rule ; as, for example, All men are mortal. The other or
minor premise states a case under the rule ; as, Enoch was a man. The
conclusion applies the rule to the case and states the result : Enoch is
mortal. All deduction is of this character; it is merely the application
of general rules to particular cases. Sometimes this is not very evi-
dent, as in the following :

All quadrangles are figures,
But no triangle is a quadrangle ;
Therefore, some figures are not triangles.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 471

But here the reasoning is really this :

Mule. — Every quadrangle is other than a triangle.
Case. — Some figures are quadrangles.
Result. — Some figures are not triangles.

Inductive or synthetic reasoning, being something more than the
mere application of a general rule to a particular case, can never be re-
duced to this form.

If, from a bag of beans of which we know that f are white, we take
one at random, it is a deductive inference that this bean is probably
white, the probability being f . We have, in effect, the following syl-
logism:

Rule. — The beans in this bag are f white.

Case. — This bean has been drawn in such a way that in the long
run the relative number of white beans so drawn would be equal to the
relative number in the bag.

Result. — This bean has been drawn in such a way that in the long
run it would turn out white f of the time.

If instead of drawing one bean we draw a handful at random and
conclude that about •§ of the handful are probably white, the reasoning
is of the same sort. If, however, not knowing what proportion of
white beans there are in the bag, we draw a handful at random and,
finding -| of the beans in the handful white, conclude that about f of
those in the bag are white, we are rowing up the current of deductive
sequence, and are concluding a rule from the observation of a result in
a certain case. This is particularly clear when all the handful turn out
one color. The induction then is :

These beans were in this bag.

These beans are white._

All the beans in the basr were white

&

Which is but an inversion of the deductive syllogism.

Rule. — All the beans in the bag were white.

Case. — These beans were in the bag

Result. — These beans are white.

So that induction is the inference of the rule from the case and
result.

But this is not the only way of inverting a deductive syllogism so
as to produce a synthetic inference. Suppose I enter a room and there
find a number of bags, containing different kinds of beans. On the
table there is a handful of white beans ; and, after some searching, I
find one of the bags contains white beans only. I at once infer as a

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

probability, or as a fair guess, that this handful was taken out of that
bag. This sort of inference is called making an hypothesis. It is the
inference of a case from a rule and result. We have, then —

Deduction.

Rule. — All the beans from this bag are white.
Case. — These beans are from this bao\
.'. Result. — These beans are white.

Induction.

Case. — These beans are from this bag.
Result. — These beans are white.
.*. Rule. — All the beans from this bag are white.

Hypothesis.

Rule. — All the beans from this bag are white.
Result. — These beans are white.
.'. Case. — These beans are from this bajr.

We, accordingly, classify all inference as follows :

Inference.

Deductive or Analytic. Synthetic.

Induction. Hypothesis.

Induction is where we generalize from a number of cases of which
something is true, and infer that the same thing is true of a whole class.
Or, where we find a certain thing to be true of a certain proportion of
cases and infer that it is true of the same proportion of the whole class.
Hypothesis is where we find some very curious circumstance, which
would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of a certain
general rule, and thereupon adopt that supposition. Or, where we find
that in certain respects two objects have a strong resemblance, and infer
that they resemble one another strongly in other respects.

I once landed at a seaport in a Turkish province ; and, as I was
walking up to the house which I was to visit, I met a man upon horse-
back, surrounded by four horsemen holding a canopy over his head.
As the governor of the province was the only personage I could think
of who would be so greatly honored, I inferred that this was he. This
was an hypothesis.

Fossils are found ; say, remains like those of fishes, but far in the
interior of the country. To explain the phenomenon, we suppose the
sea once washed over this land. This is another hypothesis.

Numberless documents and monuments refer to a conqueror called
Napoleon Bonaparte. Though we have not seen the man, yet we can-

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 473

not explain what we have seen, namely, all these documents and monu-
ments, without supposing that he really existed. Hypothesis again.

As a general rule, hypothesis is a weak kind of argument. It often
inclines our judgment so slightly toward its conclusion that we cannot
say that we believe the latter to be true ; we only surmise that it may
be so. But there is no difference except one of degree between such
an inference and that by which we are led to believe that we remember
the occurrences of yesterday from our feeling as if we did so.

II.

Besides the way just pointed out of inverting a deductive syllogism
to produce an induction or hypothesis, there is another. If from the
truth of a certain premise the truth of a certain conclusion would neces-
sarily follow, then from the falsity of the conclusion the falsity of the
premise would follow. Thus, take the following syllogism in Barbara:

Mule. — All men are mortal.
Case. — Enoch and Elijah were men.
.*. Result. — Enoch and Elijah were mortal.

Now, a person who denies this result may admit the rule, and, in
that case, he must denv the case. Thus :

Denial of Result. — Enoch and Elijah were not mortal.
Rule. — All men are mortal.
.•. Denial of Case. — Enoch and Elijah were not men.

This kind of syllogism is called Baroco, which is the typical mood
of the second figure. On the other hand, the person who denies the
result may admit the case, and in that case he must deny the rule.
Thus :

Denial of the Result. — Enoch and Elijah were not mortal.
Case. — Enoch and Elijah were men.
.•. Denial of the Rule. — Some men are not mortal.

This kind of syllogism is called Bocardo, which is the typical mood
of the third figure.

• JBaroco and Bocardo are, of course, deductive syllogisms ; but of a
very peculiar kind. They are called by logicians indirect moods, be-
cause they need some transformation to appear as the application of a
rule to a particular case. But if, instead of setting out as we have here
done with a necessary deduction in Barbara, we take a probable deduc-
tion of similar form, the indirect moods which we shall obtain will be —

Corresponding to Baroco, an hypothesis ;
and, Corresponding to Bocardo, an induction.

For example, let us begin with this probable deduction in Barbara :

474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Hide. — Most of the beans in this bag are white.
Case. — This handful of beans are from this bag-.
/. Result. — Probably, most of this handful of beans are white.

Now, deny the result, but accept the rule :

Denial of Result. — Few beans of this handful are white.
Rule. — Most beans in this bag are white.
.'. Denial of Case. — Probably, these beans were taken from
another basr.

This is an hypothetical inference. Next, deny the result, but accept
the case :

Denial of Result. — Few beans of this handful are white.
Case. — These beans came from this bag.
.\ Denial of Rule. — Probably, few beans in the bag are white.

This is an induction.

The relation thus exhibited between synthetic and deductive reason-
ing is not without its importance. When we adopt a certain hypothesis,
it is not alone because it will explain the observed facts, but also be-
cause the contrary hypothesis would probably lead to results contrary
to those observed. So, when we make an induction, it is drawn not
only because it explains the distribution of characters in the sample,
but also because a different rule would probably have led to the sample
being other than it is.

But the advantage of this way of considering the subject might
easily be overrated. An induction is really the inference of a rule, and
to consider it as the denial of a rule is an artificial conception, only ad-
missible because, when statistical or proportional propositions are con-
sidered as rules, the denial of a rule is itself a rule. So, an hypothesis is
really a subsumption of a case under a class and not the denial of it, ex-
cept for this, that to deny a subsumption under one class is to admit a
subsumption under another.

Rocardo may be considered as an induction, so timid as to lose its
amplifiative character entirely. Enoch and Elijah are specimens of a
certain kind of men. All that kind of men are shown by these instances
to be immortal. But instead of boldly concluding that all very pious
men, or all men favorites of the Almighty, etc., are immortal, we re-
frain from specifying the description of men, and rest in the merely ex-
plicative inference that some men are immortal. So Raroco might be
considered as a very timid hypothesis. Enoch and Elijah are not mortal.
Now, we might boldly suppose them to be gods or something of that
sort, but instead of that we limit ourselves to the inference that they
are of some nature different from that of man.

But, after all, there is an immense difference between the relation of
Raroco and Rocardd to Rarbara and that of Induction and Hypothe-

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 475

sis to Deduction. Daroco and Bocardo are based upon the fact that if
the truth of a conclusion necessarily follows from the truth of a premise,
then the falsity of the premise follows from the falsity of the conclusion.
This is always true. It is different when the inference is only probable.
It by no means follows that, because the truth of a certain premise
would render the truth of a conclusion probable, therefore the fal-
sity of the conclusion renders the falsity of the premise probable. At
least, this is only true, as we have seen in a former paper, when the
word probable is used in one sense in the antecedent and in another in
the consequent.

III.

A certain anonymous writing is upon a torn piece of paper. It is
suspected that the author is a certain person. His desk, to which only
he has had access, is searched, and in it is found a piece of paper, the
torn edge of which exactly fits, in all its irregularities, that of the paper
in question. It is a fair hypothetic inference that the suspected man
was actually the author. The ground of this inference evidently is that
two torn pieces of paper are extremely unlikely to fit together by acci-
dent. Therefore, of a great number of inferences of this sort, but a
very small proportion would be deceptive. The analogy of hypothesis
with induction is so strong that some logicians have confounded them.
Hypothesis has been called an induction of characters. A number of
characters belonging to a certain class are found in a certain object ;
whence it is inferred that all the characters of that class .belong to the
object in question. This certainly involves the same principle as induc-
tion ; yet in a modified form. In the first place, characters are not
susceptible of simple enumeration like objects ; in the next place,
characters run in categories. When we make an hypothesis like that
about the piece of paper, we only examine a single line of characters,
or perhaps two or three, and we take no specimen at all of others. If
the hypothesis were nothing but an induction, all that we should be
justified in concluding, in the example above, would be that the two
pieces of paper which matched in such irregularities as have been ex-
amined would be found to match in other, say slighter, irregularities.
The inference from the shape of the paper to its ownership is precisely
what distinguishes hypothesis from induction, and makes it a bolder
and more perilous step.

The same warnings that have been given against imagining that
induction rests upon the uniformity of Nature might be repeated in
regard to hypothesis. Here, as there, such a theory not only utterly
fails to account for the validity of the inference, but it also gives rise to
methods of conducting it which are absolutely vicious. There are, no
doubt, certain uniformities in Nature, the knowledge of which will for-
tify an hypothesis very much. For example, we suppose that iron, tita-
nium, and other metals exist in the sun, because we find in the solar

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

spectrum many lines coincident in position with those which these
metals would produce ; and this hypothesis is greatly strengthened by
our knowledge of the remarkable distinctiveness of the particular line
of characters observed. But such a fortification of hypothesis is of a
deductive kind, and hypothesis may still be probable when such rein-
forcement is wanting.

There is no greater nor more frequent mistake in practical logic than
to suppose that things which resemble one another strongly in some
respects are any the more likely for that to be alike in others. That
this is absolutely false, admits of rigid demonstration ; but, inasmuch
as the reasoning is somewhat severe and complicated (requiring, like
all such reasoning, the use of A, B, C, etc., to set it forth), the reader
would probably find it distasteful, and I omit it. An example, however,
may illustrate the proposition : The comparative mythologists occupy
themselves with finding points of resemblance between solar phenom-
ena and the careers of the heroes of all sorts of traditional stories ; and
upon the basis of such resemblances they infer that these heroes are
impersonations of the sun. If there be anything more in their reason-
ings, it has never been made clear to me. An ingenious logician, to
show how futile all that is, wrote a little book, in which he pretended
to prove, in the same manner, that Napoleon Bonaparte is only an im-
personation of the sun. It was really wonderful to see how many points
of resemblance he made out. The truth is, that any two things resem-
ble one another just as strongly as any two others, if recondite resem-
blances are admitted. But, in order that the process of making an hy-
pothesis should lead to a probable result, the following rules must be
followed :

1. The hypothesis should be distinctly put as a question, before
making the observations which are to test its truth. In other words,
we must try to see what the result of predictions from the hypothesis
will be.

2. The respect in regard to which the resemblances are noted must
be taken at random. We must not take a particular kind of predictions
for which the hypothesis is known to be good.

3. The failures as well as the successes of the predictions must be
honestly noted. The whole proceeding must be fair and unbiased.

Some persons fancy that bias and counter-bias are favorable to the
extraction of truth — that hot and partisan debate is the way to investi-
gate. This is the theory of our atrocious legal procedure. But Logic
puts its heel upon this suggestion. It irrefragably demonstrates that
knowledge can only be furthered by the real desire for it, and that the
methods of obstinacy, of authority, and every mode of trying to reach
a foregone conclusion, are absolutely of no value. These things are
proved. The reader is at liberty to think so or not as long as the proof
is not set forth, or as long as he refrains from examining it. Just so,
he can preserve, if he likes, his freedom of opinion in regard to the

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 477

propositions of geometry ; only, in that case, if he takes a fancy to read
Euclid, he will do well to skip whatever he finds with A, B, C, etc., for,
if he reads attentively that disagreeable matter, the freedom of his opin-
ion about geometry may unhappily be lost forever.

How many people there are who are incapable of putting to their
own consciences this question, " Do I want to know how the fact stands,
or not ? "

The rules which have thus far been laid down for induction and hy-
pothesis are such as are absolutely essential. There are many other
maxims expressing particular contrivances for making synthetic infer-
ences strong, which are extremely valuable and should not be neglect-
ed. Such are, for example, Mr. Mill's four methods. Nevertheless, in
the total neglect of these, inductions and hypotheses may and some-
times do attain the greatest force.

IV.

Classifications in all cases perfectly satisfactory hardly exist. Even
in regard to the great distinction between explicative and arapliative
inferences, examples could be found which seem to lie upon the border
between the two classes, and to partake in some respects of the charac-
ters of either. The same thing is true of the distinction between
induction and hypothesis. In the main, it is broad and decided. By
induction, we conclude that facts, similar to observed facts, are true in
cases not examined. By hypothesis, we conclude the existence of a
fact quite different from anything observed, from which, according to
known laws, something observed would necessarily result. The former,
is reasoning from particulars to the general law ; the latter, from effect
to cause. The former classifies, the latter explains. It is only in some
special cases that there can be more than a momentary doubt to which
category a given inference belongs. One exception is where we ob-
serve, not facts similar under similar circumstances, but facts different
under different circumstances — the difference of the former having,
however, a definite relation to the difference of the latter. Such infer-
ences, which are really inductions, sometimes present nevertheless some
indubitable resemblances to hypotheses.

Knowing that water expands by heat, we make a number of ob-
servations of the volume of a constant mass of water at different tem-
peratures. The scrutiny of a few of these suggests a form of alge-
braical formula which will approximately express the relation of the
volume to the temperature. It may be, for instance, that v being the
relative volume, and t the temperature, the few observations examined
indicate a relation of the form —

v = 1 + at + bt2 + ct\

Upon examining observations at other temperatures taken at random,
this idea is confirmed ; and we draw the inductive conclusion that all

478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

observations within the limits of temperature from which we have drawn
our observations could equally be so satisfied. Having once ascertained
that such a formula is possible, it is a mere affair of arithmetic to find
the values of a, b, and c, which will make the formula satisfy the ob-
servations best. This is what physicists call an empirical formula,
because it rests upon mere induction, and is not explained by any
hypothesis.

Such formulae, though very useful as means of describing in general
terms the results of observations, do not take any high rank among
scientific discoveries. The induction which they embody, that expan-
sion by heat (or whatever other phenomenon is referred to) takes
place in a perfectly gradual manner without sudden leaps or innumera-
ble fluctuations, although really important, attracts no attention, because
it is what we naturally anticipate. But the defects of such expressions
are very serious. In the first place, as long as the observations are
subject to error, as all observations are, the formula cannot be expected
to satisfy the observations exactly. But the discrepancies cannot be
due solely to the errors of the observations, but must be partly owing
to the error of the formula which has been deduced from erroneous
observations. Moreover, we have no right to suppose that the real
facts, if they could be had free from error, could be expressed by such
a formula at all. They might, perhaps, be expressed by a similar for-
mula with an infinite number of terms ; but of what use would that be
to us, since it would require an infinite number of coefficients to be
written down? When one quantity varies with another, if the corre-
sponding values are exactly known, it is a mere matter of mathematical
ingenuity to find some way of expressing their relation in a simple
manner. If one quantity is of one kind — say, a specific gravity — and
the other of another kind — say, a temperature — we do not desire to
find an expression for their relation which is wholly free from numerical
constants, since if it were free from them when, say, specific gravity as
compared with water, and temperature as expressed by the centigrade
thermometer, were in question, numbers would have to be introduced
when the scales of measurement were changed. We may, however,
and do desire to find formulas expressing the relations of physical
phenomena which shall contain no more arbitrary numbers than changes
in the scales of measurement might require.

When a formula of this kind is discovered, it is no longer called an
empirical formula, but a law of Nature ; and is sooner or later made the
basis of an hypothesis which is to explain it. These simple formulae are
not usually, if ever, exactly true, but they are none the less important
for that ; and the great triumph of the hypothesis comes when it ex-
plains not only the formula, but also the deviations from the formula.
In the current language of the physicists, an hypothesis of this impor-
tance is called a theory, while the term hypothesis is restricted to sug-
gestions which have little evidence in their favor. There is some justice

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 479

in the contempt which clings to the word hypothesis. To think that
we can strike out of our own minds a true preconception of how Nature
acts, is a vain fancy. As Lord Bacon well says: "The subtlety of
Nature far exceeds the subtlety of sense and intellect : so that these
fine meditations, and speculations, and reasonings of men are a sort of
insanity, only there is no one at hand to remark it." The successful
theories are not pure guesses, but are guided by reasons.

The kinetical theory of gases is a good example of this. This theory
is intended to explain certain simple formula?, the chief of which is
called the law of Boyle. It is, that if air or any other gas be placed in
a cylinder with a piston, and if its volume be measured under the press-
ure of the atmosphere, say fifteen pounds on the square inch, and if then
another fifteen pounds per square inch be placed on the piston, the gas will
be compressed to one-half its bulk, and in similar inverse ratio for other
pressures. The hypothesis which has been adopted to account for this
law is that the molecules of a gas are small, solid particles at great dis-
tances from each other (relatively to their dimensions), and moving
with great velocity, without sensible attractions or repulsions, until
they happen to approach one another very closely. Admit this, and it
follows that when a gas is under pressure what prevents it from collaps-
ing is not the incompressibility of the separate molecules, which are
under no pressure at all, since they do not touch, but the pounding of
the molecules against the piston. The more the piston falls, and the
more the gas is compressed, the nearer together the molecules will be ;
the greater number there will be at any moment within a given distance
of the piston, the shorter the distance which any one will go before its
course is changed by the influence of another, the greater number of
new courses of each in a given time, and the oftener each, within a
given distance of the piston, will strike it. This explains Boyle's law.
The law is not exact ; but the hypothesis does not lead us to it exactly.
For, in the first place, if the molecules are large, they will strike each
other oftener when their mean distances are diminished, and will con-
sequently strike the piston oftener, and will produce more pressure
upon it. On the other hand, if the molecules have an attraction for
one another, they will remain for a sensible time within one another's
influence, and consequently they will not strike the wall so often as
they otherwise would, and the pressure will be less increased by com-
pression.

When the kinetical theory of gases was first proposed by Daniel
Bernoulli, in 1738, it rested only on the law of Boyle, and was there-
fore pure hypothesis. It was accordingly quite naturally and deserved-
ly neglected. But, at present, the theory presents quite another as-
pect ; for, not to speak of the considerable number of observed facts of
different kinds with which it has been brought into relation, it is sup-
ported by the mechanical theory of heat. That bringing together
bodies which attract one another, or separating bodies which repel one

43o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

another, when sensible motion is not produced nor destroyed, is always
accompanied by the evolution of heat, is little more than an induction.
Now, it has been shown by experiment that, when a gas is allowed to
expand without doing work, a very small amount of heat disappears.
This proves that the particles of the gas attract one another slightly,
and but very slightly. It follows that, when a gas is under pressure,
what prevents it from collapsing is not any repulsion between the parti-
cles, since there is none. Now, there are only two modes of force
known to us, force of position or attractions and repulsions, and force of
motion. Since, therefore, it is not the force of position which gives a
gas its expansive force, it must be the force of motion. In this point
of view, the kinetical theory of gases appears as a deduction from the
mechanical theory of heat. It is to be observed, howTever, that it sup-
poses the same law of mechanics (that there are only those two modes
of force) which holds in regard to bodies such as we can see and exam-
ine, to hold also for what are very different, the molecules of bodies.
Such a supposition has but a slender support from induction. Our be-
lief in it is greatly strengthened by its connection with the law of
Boyle, and it is, therefore, to be considered as an hypothetical inference.
Yet it must be admitted that the kinetical theory of gases would de-
serve little credence if it had not been connected with the principles of
mechanics.

The great difference between induction and hypothesis is, that the
former infers the existence of phenomena such as we have observed
in cases which are similar, while hypothesis supposes something of a
different kind from what we have directly observed, and frequently
something which it would be impossible for us to observe directly. Ac-
cordingly, when we stretch an induction quite beyond the limits of our
observation, the inference partakes of the nature of hypothesis. It
would be absurd to say that we have no inductive warrant for a gen-
eralization extending a little beyond the limits of experience, and there
is no line to be drawn beyond which we cannot push our inference ;
only it becomes weaker the further it is pushed. Yet, if an induction
be pushed very far, we cannot give it much credence unless we find that
such an extension explains some fact which we can and do observe.
Here, then, we have a kind of mixture of induction and hypothesis sup-
porting one another ; and of this kind are most of the theories of
physics.

v.

That synthetic inferences may be divided into induction and hypoth-
esis in the manner here proposed,1 admits of no question. The utility
and value of the distinction are to be tested by their applications.

1 This division was first made in a course of lectures by the author before the Low-
ell Institute, Boston, in 1866, and was printed in the " Proceedings of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences," for April 9, 1867.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 481

Induction is, plainly, a much stronger kind of inference than hy-
pothesis ; and this is the first reason for distinguishing between them.
Hypotheses are sometimes regarded as provisional resorts, which in the
progress of science are to be replaced by inductions. But this is a false
view of the subject. Hypothetic reasoning infers very frequently a
fact not capable of direct observation. It is an hypothesis that Napo-
leon Bonaparte once existed. How is that hypothesis ever to be re-
placed by an induction ? It may be said that from the premise that
such facts as we have observed are as they would be if Napoleon exist-
ed, we are to infer by induction that all facts that are hereafter to be ob-
served will be of the same character. There is no doubt that every hy-
pothetic inference may be distorted into the appearance of an induction
in this way. But the essence of an induction is that it infers from one
set of facts another set of similar facts, whereas hypothesis infers from
facts of one kind to facts of another. Now, the facts which serve as
grounds for our belief in the historic reality of Napoleon are not by any
means necessarily the only kind of facts which are explained by his ex-
istence. It may be that, at the time of his career, events were being re-
corded in some way not now dreamed of, that some ingenious creature
on a neighboring planet was photographing the earth, and that these
pictures on a sufficiently large scale may some time come into our poses-
sion, or that some mirror upon a distant star will, when the light
reaches it, reflect the whole story back to earth. Never mind how im-
probable these suppositions are ; everything which happens is infinitely
improbable. I am not saying that these things are likely to occur, but
that some effect of Napoleon's existence which now seems impossible is
certain nevertheless to be brought about. The hypothesis asserts that
such facts, when they do occur, will be of a nature to confirm, and not
to refute, the existence of the man. We have, in the impossibility of
inductively inferring hypothetical conclusions, a second reason for dis-
tinguishing between the two kinds of inference.

A third merit of the distinction is, that it is associated with an im-
portant psychological or rather physiological difference in the mode of
apprehending facts. Induction infers a rule. Now, the belief of a rule
is a habit. That a habit is a rule active in us, is evident. That every
belief is of the nature of a habit, in so far as it is of a general charac-
ter, has been shown in the earlier papers of this series. Induction,
therefore, is the logical formula which expresses the physiological pro-
cess of formation of a habit. Hypothesis substitutes, for a complicated
tangle of predicates attached to one subject, a single conception. Now,
there is a peculiar sensation belonging to the act of thinking that each
of these predicates inheres in the subject. In hypothetic inference
this complicated feeling so produced is replaced by a single feeling of
greater intensity, that belonging to the act of thinking the hypothetic
conclusion. Now, when our nervous system is excited in a complicated
way, there being a relation between the elements of the excitation, the

VOL. XIII. — 31

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

result is a single harmonious disturbance which I call an emotion. Thus,
the various sounds made by the instruments of an orchestra strike upon
the ear, and the result is a peculiar musical emotion, quite distinct from
the sounds themselves. This emotion is essentially the same thing as
an hypothetic inference, and every hypothetic inference involves the
formation of such an emotion. We may say, therefore, that hypothesis
produces the sensuous element of thought, and induction the habitual
element. As for deduction, which adds nothing to the premises, but
only out of the various facts represented in the premises selects one
and brings the attention down to it, this may be considered as the logi-
cal formula for paying attention, which is the volitional element of
thought, and corresponds to nervous discharge in the sphere of physi-
ology.

Another merit of the distinction between induction and hypothesis
is, that it leads to a very natural classification of the sciences and of the
minds which prosecute them. What must separate different kinds of
scientific men more than anything else are the differences of their
techniques. We cannot expect men who work with books chiefly to
have much in common with men whose lives are passed in laboratories.
But, after differences of this kind, the next most important are differ-
ences in the modes of reasoning. Of the natural sciences, we have, first,
the classificatory sciences, which are purely inductive — systematic bot-
any and zoology, mineralogy, and chemistry. Then, we have the sci-
ences of theory, as above explained — astronomy, pure physics, etc.
Then, we have sciences of hypothesis — geology, biology, etc.

There are many other advantages of the distinction in question
which I shall leave the reader to find out by experience. If he will only
take the custom of considering whether a given "inference belongs to
one or other of the two forms of synthetic inference given on page
472, I can promise him that he will find his advantage in it, in various
ways.

POISOXS OF THE INTELLIGENCE— HASHEESH.1

Bv CHARLES EICIIET.

HASHEESH is the extract of Indian hemp. This extract, mixed
with different aromatics and vegetable oils, forms dawamesk, a
sort of nauseous confection taken before a meal. Then there is the
hasheesh smoked in pipes or in cigarettes, and this is the form in which
the drug is most commonly taken in the East. The aqueous extract is
known as hafioun ; it is more active than the other two preparations.
It takes nearly four parts of dawamesk to make one of hafioun. It is

1 Translated and condensed by J. Fitzgerald, A. M.

POISONS OF THE INTELLIGENCE. 483

very difficult to find out any more concerning the Oriental modes of
preparing hasheesh ; still, though our pharmaceutical information be in-
sufficient, we are pretty familiar with the psychic effects of the drug.
I have taken it myself again and again in various doses, and have ad-
ministered it to many of my friends, and whatever I shall have to say
concerning its properties will be based upon my own observations.
Taken in moderate doses, it produces a kind of intoxication that is
very pleasant, highly advantageous for a correct knowledge of intellect-
ual phenomena, and at the same time free from serious consequences.
The worst that is to be expected when one takes either dawamesk or
hafioun in suitable quantities is slight disorder of the digestion, and a
little sense of heaviness and of cerebral excitation.

If one has not been told what to expect, the first effects of hasheesh
pass by unnoticed ; these consist of a certain motor and sensor excita-
bility of the spinal cord. There is a twitching in the nape of the neck,
the back and the legs, and a shivering that extends over the whole
body. It is as though there were puffs of hot and cold air rising to the
head; but withal there is a vague sense of comfortableness, and one
finds himself in a state of great good-humor, as is the case of most per-
sons after the absorption of a certain amount of alcohol. By degrees
the excitation of the spinal cord produces effects that are more charac-
teristic, as muscular exertion of every kind, walking, stretching, dan-
cing, lifting heavy weights ; but meantime the mind is calm. Sudden-
ly, however, on hearing some chance remark, the patient is seized with
a fit of laughing without any apparent cause, and this continues for a
length of time. This having passed, he comes to himself again, and
recognizes the first effects of the poison.

Ideas now come crowding on his brain, one following another with
bewildering rapidity. Thoughts come and go without any apparent
law of succession or concomitance, but in reality they are governed by
the immutable laws of the association of ideas and impressions. The
patient thinks the persons he sees around him very slow and dull.
Language is not swift enough to give expression to his rapid thoughts.
There is, as it were, an hypertrophy of ideas. What in the normal state
would cause very trifling discomfort, now becomes an unbearable evil,
and the patient cries and begs for commiseration. With the air of a
tragic actor he will tell you that it rains, or that the wind blows. One's
self-esteem is magnified, and he looks down with scorn upon the igno-
rance of others.

Thus, then, to say nothing as yet of the change in sensation, the
moral person is entirely transformed. I am not aware that the resem-
blance of these phenomena to those of hysteria has ever been noticed.
In general, hysterical women are very intelligent, with brilliant ideas
and a lively imagination ; but their mental activity labors under two
defects, namely, the exaggeration of the feelings and the absence of
will. The same thing is seen in the use of hasheesh.

484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But there are other phenomena that are still more characteristic of
hasheesh, especially its effects on our notions of time and space. Under
its influence, time seems to be of interminable length. Between two
clearly-conceived ideas the patient descries a host of others that are
indeterminate and incomplete, and of which he is only dimly conscious ;
but he is filled with admiration at their number and vastness. Now we
measure time by the memory of the ideas that have passed through the
mind, and hence an instant appears immensely long to one under the
hasheesh influence. Suppose, as is common enough in the use of this
drug, that in the space of one second fifty different thoughts enter the
brain ; now, since in the normal state it requires several minutes to
conceive fifty different thoughts, the inference will be that many min-
utes have gone by. Seconds become years, and minutes become ages.

This illusion has no parallel ; yet in dreaming, or rather in that inter-
mediate state which is neither sleeping nor waking, we experience some-
thing similar. I recollect having been at work one da\' with a friend,
and, as I felt drowsy, asking him to let me sleep for a few minutes. On
awaking, I was assured by him that I had slept hardly a second ; and
yet in that brief time I had had a very complicated dream, and, in con-
sequence of the multiplicity of my thoughts, the time had appeared to
be of considerable length. So, if a person be awakened by some sud-
den, loud noise, he will oftentimes, in the fraction of a second, pass in
imagination through scenes and adventures of a very complicated na-
ture. A like illusion may be procured at will by shutting the eyes
while one is riding in a carriage : under such circumstances the journey
will appear to have no end ; on opening the eyes from time to time, and
observing the landmarks, the progress will seem to be extremely slow.

But in dreaming and in sleep this illusion as to the lapse of time is
vague and ill-defined. Under the influence of hasheesh, on the contrary,
it becomes singularly definite. Nor is the illusion of the sight less as-
tonishing, which causes inconsiderable distances to appear enormously
great. I do not know whether this illusion has been observed under
any other conditions than those of hasheesh -poisoning, nor can I offer
any rational explanation of it. It is difficult even to describe it. It
causes a bridge, an avenue, to stretch out to unheard-of lengths. On
going up a ladder, the rounds appear to reach up to the sky. A river
whose opposite bank is in sight becomes an arm of the sea. And, be-
sides these two illusions of space and time, which by-the-way often per-
sist twenty-four hours or more, there are other illusions of the strangest
kind imaginable. Hallucinations, on the contrary, are infrequent, though
one remarkable instance has been observed by Dr. Moreau, of Tours.

It is oftentimes very hard to draw the distinction between illusion
and hallucination, but nevertheless there is a difference between these
two manifestations of morbid psychic activity. When an insane patient
sees at his elbow a walking, talking spectre, he has an hallucination.
But if in a dark forest, at night, one takes some deformed trunk for a

POISONS OF THE INTELLIGENCE. 485

ghost, he has an illusion. Illusion presupposes an actual sensation, the
perception of which is exaggerated and erroneous, whereas hallucination
comes spontaneously without requiring a sensation to give rise to it.
Now, under the hasheesh influence, the sensations are exaggerated so as
to produce endless illusions. The slightest sound becomes a crash, and
we hear the fall of waters, the roar of cataracts, the blare of trumpets,
or brilliant harmonies. I have seen persons, naturally almost insensible
to music, lifted by a few musical notes into an ecstasy such as we read
of in the lives of saints. But, for a description of all these sensa-
tions, I would refer the reader to the brilliant pages of Theophile Gau-
tier's " Club des Hachichins."

I will not go over ground trod by Gautier, but will content myself
with touching upon another point of psychological interest. We will
suppose the illusion to be stronger than anything noticed in the fore-
going instances ; that instead of being a simple disorder of the percep-
tive faculties, it affects the conceptive powers. Under normal con-
ditions, external impressions awaken manifold ideas in our minds ;
besides the association of ideas, there is association of impressions with
ideas. For instance, a certain taste, smell, or sound, gives rise to a mul-
titude of conceptions that follow one another according to the direction
we may be pleased to give them. The faculty of attention enables us
to check the uprising of the conceptions called forth by the taste, smell,
or sound. Often, while attention is fixed on an object, we neither hear
nor see what is passing without. In reality we do see and hear, but
these sensations are obliterated, and pass out of the mind without leav-
ing a trace behind. In the use of hasheesh, in virtue of the loss of will,
the intensity of the perceptions, and the excitation of the brain, every
external impression calls forth a series of delirious conceptions, and
there is no check.

Dr. Moreau lays great stress on the resemblance subsisting between
these hasheesh illusions and the systematic delirium of the insane. In
most lunatics the delirious idea has its origin in fact, in a sensation, a
pain, an impression from without. This forms for them the logical
basis of a system of erroneous judgments. If, for instance, they suffer
from nausea or gastric pains, they say the)7 have been poisoned ; that
their enemies have mixed poison with their food. Precisely the same
thing is found in the use of hasheesh. Every sensation immediately calls
forth an insane thought, or rather a thousand such thoughts. Hence it
really appears as though the veil were rent in twain, and that by the
use of this drug we are enabled to witness the mind itself at its work.
The mysterious and silent travail which in the normal state produces
our thoughts and judgments is no longer either mysterious or silent:
we can see how the whole is connected, and can look on while ideas are
being evolved. But, unfortunately, under the hasheesh influence one is
no longer master of his own thoughts, and must, perforce, follow them
in their disorderly course. Here we observe close resemblance between

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the three states of dreaming, insanity, and hasheesh intoxication. In all
these external impressions are all-powerful, and the mind is subject,
unchecked, to the excitation of the senses.

One great difference between intoxication by hasheesh and that by
alcohol and chloroform is that in the former, when the dose is light,
memory is intact : one remembers with marvelous exactitude all that
he saw, did, or said. But if the dose be strong, the loss of memory
is complete ; then, too, there is delirium, wild delirium. In such doses
hasheesh is dangerous, though I do not think a single case of death
from this cause has ever been recorded in Europe. But sometimes the
delirium has continued for several days, and assumed serious propor-
tions. No one should take hasheesh without having some person to
care for him while under the influence of the drug ; oftentimes the
hasheesh gives such a sense of lightness and agility that a person will
attempt to fly by leaping out of a window.

In the East hasheesh is in very general use. It is nearly always
smoked in large pipes, which are passed from mouth to mouth. The
smoke is very agreeable, possessing a peculiar aromatic odor. On en-
tering certain Arab cafes at Cairo or at Damascus, one perceives this
penetrating odor, which gently intoxicates even those who do not
smoke. In this mild dose hasheesh produces a sort of sleepiness,
during which external objects assume fantastic forms, and all is like a
dream. The monotonous, nasal music has a gentle, tranquilizing effect
during this sleep. On the walls of the cafe are rudely-pictured cam-
els, grotesque human forms, or the surface is marked with lines, quad-
rangles, and triangles. In the minds of the hasheesh-smokers these
rude pictures awaken delightful illusions, and they fancy themselves
to be transported to Mohammed's paradise. To further amuse the indo-
lence of the customers, a chanter drones out a long story, semi-religious,
semi-heroic. The tale is in couplets, and between the couplets the
music strikes up again its interminable rhythm. Now and then a
smoker will rise staggering to his feet, and will give expression by
3rells to the delight with which he contemplates some fantastic image
that he sees. The rest of the company then laugh uproariously, but
anon will greet the last speaker with " Allah be with thee ! Allah be
praised ! " Never shall I forget this spectacle, which, in a dark
corner of the noisy bazaars of Damascus, with the dim light of a smoky
lamp, to the sound of the tambourine and guitar with three cords, en-
abled me to understand one side of Oriental life.

SKETCH OF THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 487

SKETCH OF THOMAS ALYA EDISON.

By 6. M. SHAW.

THIS remarkable inventor, of whom the public has recently heard so
much, is still a young man, having been born in 1847 at Milan, Erie
County, Ohio. His mother was of Scotch parentage, but born in Mas-
sachusetts ; she was finely educated, literary and ambitious, and had
been a teacher in Canada. Young Edison's only schooling came from
his mother, who taught him spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic.
He lost his mother in 1862, but his father, a man of vigorous constitu-
tion, is still living, aged seventy-four. When he was seven years old,
his parents removed to Port Huron, Michigan. The boy disliked mathe-
matics, but was fond of reading, and, before he was twelve years old,
had read the " Penny Cyclopaedia," Hume's " England," and Gibbon's
" Rome." He early took to the railroad, and became a newsboy on the
Grand Trunk line, running into Detroit. Here he had access to a
librar}', which he undertook to read through ; but, after skimming over
many hundred miscellaneous books, he adopted the plan of select read-
ing on subjects of interest to him. Becoming interested in chemistry,
he bought some chemicals, and fixed up a laboratory in one of the cars.
An unfortunate combustion of phosphorus one day came near setting
fire to the train, and the consequence was, that the conductor kicked
the whole thing out. He had obtained the exclusive right to sell papers
on the road, and employed four assistants ; but, not satisfied with this,
he bought a lot of second-hand type, and printed on the cars a little
paper of his own, called the Grand Trunk Herald. Getting acquainted
with the telegraph-operators along the road, he took a notion to be-
come an operator himself. In his lack of means and opportunities, he
resorted to the expedient of making his own apparatus at home. A
piece of stove-wire, insulated by bottles, was made to do service as
the line-wire. The wire for his electro-magnets he wound with rags,
and in a similar way persevered until he had the crude elements of a
telegraph ; but the electricity being wanting, and as he could not buy
a battery, he tried rubbing the fur of cats' backs, but says that elec-
tricity from this source was a failure for telegraphic purposes.

About two months afterward, as a train was switching on to a side-
track at Mount Clemens Station, the station-agent's little boy, two
years old, crept on to the track ahead of the cars. Edison saw the
danger, sprang to the ground, and barely succeeded in saving the
youngster. Its father, the station-master, being a poor man, could not
show his gratitude by a money reward, but offered to teach young Edi-
son telegraph-operating. He gladly seized the chance, and for five
months we see him going back to Mount Clemens, at the close of his
day's work, to labor nights in learning to be an operator. At the end

488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of this time he was able to go into the telegraph-office at Port Huron.
Here he worked for six months, and then went to Stratford, Canada,
as night-operator. He soon after went to Adrian, Michigan, where, in
addition to his telegraph-office, he had a small shop and tools, to which
he turned his hand at odd moments for the purpose of repairing instru-
ments. This situation he lost by violating some rule while absorbed in
his workshop, but in two months after appeared in Indianapolis, where
he came out with his first invention, an automatic repeater — an arrange-
ment for transferring a message from one wire to another without the aid
of an operator. From this place he went in turn to Cincinnati, Memphis,
Louisville, New Orleans, and back again to Cincinnati, where we find
him in 18G7, at the age of twenty, absorbed in projects of invention. His
utter negligence of dress and appearance, his insatiable thirst for read-
ing, and his enthusiastic attempts to solve what appeared to others im-
possible, together with his willingness to work at all hours of the day
or night, earned him the name of " Looney," by which he was best
known for many years. Reaching his office here one night and finding
it " on strike," he took in the situation, and went to work, keeping it
up all night, working to his utmost, receiving the press dispatches.
For this act he was raised from a salary of $65 to $105 per month, and
given the best line in the office. While here he conceived the idea,
afterward perfected in Boston, of sending two messages at the same
time over the same wire. His " everlasting experiments " were looked
upon with disfavor by the management, and the imagined neglect of
his work caused so much dissatisfaction that he quit the office and re-
turned home to Port Huron.

Here he soon received a call from the manager of the Boston office
to be the Boston operator on the " crack" New York wire. The man-
ager knew him, but the appearance there of the very similitude of a
green country gawky raised a shout of laughter at his expense, which
almost unnerved him, and, to make the matter worse, before he had
time to compose himself, he was shown his place to make a trial. The
position was the dread of operators ; the New York man was one of the
fastest senders in the country, delighted in victims, and in this instance
sat at his instrument with a grim satisfaction, waiting to open on the
"new man," and chuckling with his Boston comrades over their expected
fun. They commenced, and the New York man crowded his sending-
speed to his utmost, with never a " break " by the new man receiving.
At the end of the message, the astonished and exhausted New York
operator adds, " "Who the deuce are you, anyhow ? " to which the
new man at Boston promptly replies, " I'm Tom Edison — shake
hands."

We can make but brief mention of a few of the many incidents
connected with Mr. Edison's history. In the Boston office one of his
first efforts was at " internal improvement." The office was infested
with cockroaches. He set up an apparatus for their automatic de-

SKETCH OF THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 489

struction. Mr. Edison's forte is automatic contrivances. He arranged
strips of metal around the bottom of the walls in the room, and con-
nected them with the opposite poles of a battery, so that when the
bugs stepped from one to the other, they closed the circuit and their
lives at one operation, and made room for others.

In Boston Mr. Edison fixed up a small shop and continued his ex-
periments, which he put into such practical shape that he saw more
money in them than in his salary. He worked out the idea of his
duplex telegraph, and went to Rochester in 1870 to test it between
that place and Boston. The effort failed, though Mr. Edison says it
ought to have succeeded. He then came to New York, scarcely know-
ing what to do next. He hung around the office of the Gold Indicator
Company, studying their cumbersome apparatus. One day some part
of it failed in a time of excitement ; Mr. Edison offered to remedy it ;
he was laughed at incredulously ; but the case was desperate, and he
was allowed to try. He succeeded ; and the managers, ready to per-
ceive the value of such a man, made him superintendent. He intro-
duced improved apparatus, invented the gold printer, put up a private
line, and finally sold it to the Gold and Stock Company, together with
his services, or the privilege of having the first option to buy his tele-
graphic inventions. He was now fully launched on a tide of success.
To furnish his instruments, he established a factory in Newark, New
Jersey, employing three hundred men. As a manufacturer he was not
a success. If he had an order for any of his inventions, and, after
having made a part or all of them, he invented an improvement, noth-
ing would do but he must incorporate it, even though at his own ex-
pense. At last, finding that the close attention demanded by his
manufacturing business was incompatible with the freedom demanded
for invention, he abandoned it, and, two years ago, bought a site for an
experiment-shop at Menlo Park, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, twenty-
four miles from New York, a mere flag-station, with about a dozen
houses, mostly his own and his workmen's.

On the crown of a knoll, and looking, for all the world, like a coun-
try meeting-house, minus the steeple, and with the addition of a porch,
is a long two-story white frame building, in the middle of a little lot,
surrounded by a white picket-fence. This is Mr. Edison's shop. On
the ground-floor, as you enter, is a little front-office, from which a small
library is partitioned off. Next is a large square room with glass
cases filled with models of his inventions. In the rear of this is the
machine-shop, completely equipped, and run with a ten-horse-power en-
gine. The upper story occupies the length and breadth of the building,
100 X 25 feet, is lighted by windows on every side, and is occupied as
a laboratory. The walls are covered with shelves full of bottles con-
taining all sorts of chemicals. Scattered through the room are tables
covered with electrical instruments, telephones, phonographs, micro-
scopes, spectroscopes, etc. In the centre of the room is a rack full

490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of galvanic batteries. On one of the tables is a phonograph, run by
steam-power, with a belt through the floor to the machine-shop, and
beside it a copy of Poe's poems. In the rear of the room is a fine pipe-
organ, with an open Moody and Sankey book on it. At the opposite
end of the room stands Mr. Edison, telling the writer that there is no
philosopher like Herbert Spencer, no writer like Victor Hugo, and no
poet like Edgar A. Poe.

The Associated Press wires run through his laboratory, and anon
he picks up his telephone and chats with Philadelphia, or with Prof.
Barker, at the University of Pennsylvania. When visitors call to see
him, they are most likely to inquire for Mr. Edison from the man him-
self— a boyish face, an unostentatious manner, a careless dress, and,
in fact, the unchanged whole that formerly put in an appearance as the
new man at the Boston office. The crowd of farm-boys that come over
to see the wonderful talking-machine find him as ready to gratify their
curiosity as the more pretentious "professor." While carrying on his
manufacturing at Newark, he married, and — well, Dot and Dash are
the nicknames of the little girl and boy that come every once in a
while to " see the wheels go round."

We cannot here speak at length of his numerous inventions. He
owns one hundred and fifty patents, but of these only about a dozen are
of real value, the others are taken out to guard all approaches to the
valuable patents. Among his pet patents are his quadruplex telegraphy,
by which four messages may be sent at the same time over the same
wire ; his electric pen, for multiplying copies of letters or drawings, and
which consists of a tubular pen in which a needle plays with a sewing-
machine-like motion driven by electricity, which perforates the lines
drawn with it, the perforated sheet being afterward inked and used in
a press ; the ink is pressed through the minute perforations and leaves
on another sheet a finely-dotted tracing like the original. His carbon
telephone and the phonograph are, perhaps, the most marvelous of his
inventions.

When Mr. Gray brought out his musical telephone, which set stu-
dents to experimenting in that direction, Mr. Edison was trying to im-
prove the Reuss telephone, the invention of a German. Mr. Gray's
apparatus gave promise of furnishing a method of multiplex telegraphy
— a subject in which Mr. Edison, as we have seen, was interested.
Between Mr. Gray and Mr. Edison an understanding was arrived at
by which Mr. Edison was to leave Mr. Gray to carry out his invention
unmolested in the direction of multiplex telegraphy ; while Mr. Gray,
on the other hand, would not interfere with Mr. Edison's attempt to
make a speaking apparatus. While Mr. Edison had all but succeeded
in making the electro-magnet telephone, Mr. Bell hit it and brought
it out at the Centennial. Mr. Edison acknowledged himself fairly
anticipated, and began to experiment with a view to finding a sub-
stance that would be elastic, so to speak, to the passage of a current

SKETCH OF THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 491

of electricity — that is, whose resistance to a current would vary with
pressure. He began at one end of his stock of chemicals and tried
every one of them — some two thousand — but met with no satisfactory
result. Finally, when everything was exhausted, and he was looking
around for what next to try, an assistant brought him a piece of broken
lamp-chimney with an incrustation of lampblack : this was scraped off,
pressed into a little cake, and tried. He had at last discovered what
he was in search of. By placing it between two plates of metal con-
nected with the opposite poles of the battery, and making one of the
plates large, to receive the force of sound-waves, this varying pressure
would make the carbon cake more or less elastic to the passage of the
current of electricity, and the invention of the transmitting part of a
new telephone — all his own — was complete. For the receiving part
nothing was necessary but an ordinary electro-magnet with a dia-
phragm. Experiments with this "carbon telephone," as it is called,
are unfolding every day its marvelous sensitiveness, as shown in its
microphonic manifestations, which have been exciting so much won-
der. No less successfully is it being brought to measure the pressure
caused by infinitesimal heat — for instance, that received by us from the
stars.

Coming, lastly, to the phonograph : while experimenting on an auto-
matic transmitter in the early part of last winter, Mr. Edison tried tin-
foil, instead of paper, to receive the indentations of the Morse recorder,
and was surprised to see how readily it received them. These indenta-
tions, passing under another needle, were to repeat the message auto-
matically to another wire. A few days after, while handling a tele-
phone, the fancy seized him to fix a needle-point to a diaphragm, and
see whether the vibration of the diaphragm when spoken against would
cause the needle to prick his finger. It did. Then he wondered what
sort of an indentation this would make in a slip of paper. He tried it,
and, sure enough, there was the semblance of an indented track ! What
would be the effect of drawing this slip under the point again, following
the working of the automatic transmitter ? He tried that, and the re-
sult was one which almost made him wild. A sound like the stifled cry
of words seeking birth came from the diaphragm. No sleep or food
until he had made a grooved cylinder, put a piece of tin-foil instead of
paper on it, attached the diaphragm, and shouted into it, when, upon
turning the crank, the words came back with a marvelous elocution,
and the phonograph was a success.

Mr. Edison has recently received the honorary title of Ph. D. from
Union College.

492

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

RELIGION' AND SCIENCE AT VANDER-
BILT UNIVERSITY.

IT is not yet three years since we
published an abridgment of the ad-
dress delivered by Dr. Deems at the
inauguration of Vanderbilt University,
in Nashville. The speaker chose " Sci-
ence and Religion " as a subject be-
fitting the occasion, and from his inti-
mate relations with the founder of the
institution, and the share he is supposed
to have had in determining the arrange-
ment, his discourse was regarded as in
some sense official and authoritative in
foreshadowing the spirit of its admin-
istration. Dr. Deems said : " This re-
cent cry of a conflict between Religion
and Science is fallacious and mischiev-
ous to the interests of both science and
religion, and would be most mournful
if we did not believe that in the very
nature of things it is to be ephemeral.
Its genesis is to be traced to the weak
foolishness of some professors of re-
ligion, and the weak wickedness of
some professors of science." From
which it is to be inferred that Vander-
bilt University, at all events, would lend
no countenance to this mischievous fal-
lacy.

"We protested at the time against
regarding a controversy that has raged
for centuries, that goes down to the
very roots of human belief, and that is
now more widely and intensely dis-
cussed than ever before, as " epheme-
ral.'" And we likewise protested against
that superficial view of the causes of
this conflict which ascribes them to the
foolishness of religionists or the wick-
edness of scientists. We said that the
cause of the warfare must be sought in
the relations of the two subjects, mean-
ing thereby the progressive nature of
scientific knowledge and the fixedness

of religious belief. That which i9 ad-
vancing must come in collision with
that which is stationary, if the latter
stands in the pathway of the former.
And there are but two possible ways
of avoiding collisions : either the mov-
ing body must stop, or the stationary
body must get out of the way. Science
will not cease to advance with its work,
come what may, and let who will be
hurt. It cannot pause, it cannot com-
promise. Its business is the study of
Nature ; its object to find out the ut-
most truth. It points to the vast body
of modern knowledge which it has es-
tablished, and to the conquest of Na-
ture which that knowledge has con-
ferred, as witnesses to the validity and
beneficence of its great tasks, and as a
presage of further triumphs in the fu-
ture. The command is often and loudly
given to Science to halt, but it would
be just as sensible to order the Gulf
Stream to halt, or to stay the course of
Nature itself. The only question, then,
is, whether Religion will take its un-
yielding theology out of the way, or
wait to have it crushed and cast aside.
At any rate, nothing is more futile than
to resolve the conflict between Religion
and Science into a mere question of de-
corum, propriety, or temper, between
the parties engaged.

But, though much remains to be
done before this warfare terminates,
great progress has undoubtedly been
made toward a better understanding,
and more pacific relations between the
parties. The spirit of liberality has al-
ready become so strong among the more
intelligent portions of the community
that demonstrations of bigotry on the
part of theological bodies are pretty
certain to incur a general condemna-
tion. It was therefore not without con-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

493

siderable surprise that we heard of the
recent action of Vanderbilt University
in repudiating the views of Dr. Deems's
inaugural address. It has illustrated
" the weak foolishness of some pro-
fessors of religion " with a promptness
and a sharaelessness that shows how
deep and intense is the living feeling
of hostility to Science that animates
large portions of the theological party.
Vanderbilt University decides not to
take its old traditions out of the way,
but to fight the progress of Science by
the same policy of bigotry, intolerance,
and proscription, that has been em-
ployed for centuries by the same party
in doing the same thing. The faculty
of the institution have dismissed from
his chair the Professor of Historical
Geology and Zoology, on account of the
opinions he holds concerning the an-
tiquity of the human race.

The reader will find a notice in its
place of Prof. Winchell's pamphlet
on " Adamites and Preadamites," the
publication of which has been made
the occasion of his exclusion from the
university. It will be seen that Prof.
Winchell has simply accepted the views
that now prevail in the scientific world
regarding the time that men have in-
habited the earth. The old notions
upon the subject are now no longer en-
tertained by intelligent men, because
the scientific evidence is overwhelm-
ingly against them. How long the hu-
man race has occupied the globe is an
open question, but two things are set-
tled: 1. That man has a much higher
antiquity than theology has been in the
habit of teaching, and has been cur-
rently believed ; and, 2. That the in-
vestigation belongs entirely to science,
and must be pursued and determined
on the basis of scientific evidence.
Prof. Winchell argues the subject strict-
ly as a scientist, but in no spirit of an-
tagonism to religion or to the authority
of the Bible. His argument, indeed, is
rather an attempt to harmonize the
teachings of Scripture with the conclu-

sions of science ; a task which he had
previously undertaken in a more gen-
eral way, by the publication of an able
book on " The Keconciliation of Science
and Religion." But he has met with
the not unusual treatment of peace-
makers, who miscalculate the temper
of the strife they would compose. The
stupid Southern Methodists that con-
trol the university, it seems, can learn
nothing. The fight over the antiquity
of the earth has but just closed. The
theologians battled long and fiercely
against the geologists on this question,
but have been so utterly routed that
hardly a man of them can now be found
who holds to the old belief. Prof. Sil-
liman led the scientific movement upon
that subject in this country, and so pro-
found was the theological alarm that
eminent doctors of divinity implored
him with tears to desist from the im-
pious crusade, because, if successful, it
would be certain to destroy the Chris-
tian college with which he was asso-
ciated. That institution had the good
sense not to disturb the distinguished
teacher in his work, but to abide by
the results of investigation ; and who
can now be found so foolish as to re-
gret its course? But half a century
later, when an analogous question arises,
Vanberbilt University adopts a differ-
ent policy, follows the exploded pre-
cedents of past centuries, and puts forth
its power to muzzle, repress, silence,
and discredit the independent teachers
of scientific truth.

There are features about this case
that call for further strictures. The
action of Vanderbilt University is not
a little aggravating when we consider
how the institution originated, and this
consideration will throw some further
light on the present phase of the con-
flict between Religion and Science. For
there is a sense of honor in which it
may be claimed that Mr. Vanderbilt's
donations and endowments belong pre-
eminently to science. How did he come
by his wealth ? It was by reaping the

49+

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

magnificent harvests of profit that had
grown up from the toilsome and un-
selfish labors of men of science. He
owed his fortune to the enterprising
use of steamships and railways, which
were made possible by the steam-en-
gine, a machine produced by the scien-
tific labors of many discoverers and in-
ventors, accumulated through genera-
tions. Mr. Vanderbilt's millions were
the ultimate but none the less direct
consequence of the self-sacrificing ex-
ertions of men of creative genius, work-
ing in poverty, obscurity, and difficulty,
with heroic devotion, to construct a
mechanism which they saw was to be-
come potent in the future, and which
has fulfilled their anticipations by revo-
lutionizing modern society and giving to
civilization the greatest impulse it has
ever received from any single agency.
It is therefore by no means a piece of
far-fetched sentimentality to claim that,
when the results of their work had
ripened to almost fabulous acquisitions
of wealth, some portion of it, at least,
should be devoted to the advancement
of the interests of science. Of course,
Mr. Vanderbilt had the right — the legal
right — to do what he pleased with his
money ; but if we recognize any higher
consideration, any sentiment of justice,
if we assume that there are such things
as moral indebtedness and obligations
of honor in the distribution of surplus
wealth for public objects, then was the
great harvester of millions by steam-
travel bound to do something liberal
and fair for the encouragement and
promotion of the great, beneficent work
of scientific investigation, which issues
in such large advantages to the world.
And this was the more incumbent
upon the rich custodian of tbe fruits of
inventive genius, because so little of the
scattered wealth of the rich finds its
way into these channels. It is here
that we see science and religion in prac-
tical rivalry, with the almost universal
defeat of science. When rich old men
and old women are about to distribute

their wealth and die, science has but a
sorry chance, and the Church generally
has its own way. Where a dollar is got
in such cases for the promotion of the
study of Nature, and the elucidation of
those laws upon which the amelioration
of the condition of humanity most vi-
tally depends, thousands are obtained
by the representatives of ecclesiasticism
for the propagation of faith. Eeligious
societies abound in wealth, and scien-
tific societies starve. If there is a sci-
entific society in New York that owns
a roof for shelter we do not know of
it; yet, if we rightly remember the
figures of the census, $53,000,000 are
invested in its churches. We refer to
these facts simply to illustrate the pre-
ponderance of theological influence and
agencies over those that are available
for the service of science, and to show
the disadvantage at which science is
placed in the struggle for means to carry
on its work.

But although some portion, at least,
of the immense wealth of Mr. Vander-
bilt was morally mortgaged to the use
of that class of men by whom it was
in reality created, we are not aware
that he ever in the slightest degree rec-
ognized such a claim. Some hundreds
of thousands of dollars, however, were
got out of him to found a sectarian uni-
versity. But, though Mr. Vanderbilt
had no care for science, one would have
thought that the trustees and faculty
of the institution which he endowed
might have gracefully acknowledged
that something was specially and hon-
orably due from them to the interests
of science, and have shaped the policy
of the university accordingly. They
might, at least, have been decently up
to the times in the spirit of its manage-
ment. An old educational establish-
ment hampered by traditions, and run-
ning in the deep ruts of long-settled
habit, has some excuse, perhaps, for
guiding its course by the illiberal pre-
cedents of the past ; but Vanderbilt
University was a new organization,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

495

opening fresh with the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, and free to
sliape its course in full harmony with
the enlightenment of the age. The
spirit of the age and the progress of
science, however, mean very little to
the " weak foolishness " of the sort of
Methodist theologians who have the
institution in charge. They hegin far
behind the age, and are already old in
bigotry and intolerance. They illus-
trate that hostility to science which
belongs to low theological instincts,
and now exhibit before the world the
curious spectacle of an educational body
into whose hands has fallen the wealth
that the labors of scientific men have
called into existence, and who use that
wealth, not for the promotion and en-
couragement of scientific thought, but
to hinder, defeat, and crush it.

AMERICAN INFLUENCE IN CIVILIZA-
TION.

In his masterly discourse on u Civili-
zation and Science," the second install-
ment of which is herewith printed,
Prof. Du Bois-Reymond refers to the
question as to how civilization is to be
measured, or by what tests we are to
determine the height to which humani-
ty has attained at any given time. Some
say that this standard is furnished by
the plastic arts, others by religion, oth-
ers by literature, others by forms of
government, and others by the diffusion
of education. It will no doubt be a
long while before parties entertaining
different views upon this subject come
to agreement ; meantime, we hold, with
the German professor, that the best
criterion of the position which a na-
tion has gained in the scale of civili-
zation is the contributions which its
men of thought have made toward
the understanding and the conquest of
Nature, and the popular and public ap-
preciation that has been reached re-
garding this kind of intellectual labor.
How does the community regard a man

who gives his life to the investigation
of the principles and laws, of the order
of things, in the midst of which he
finds himself placed, under the impulse,
first of all, of the desire to know the
truth, and, secondarily, to secure those
large and benign results which come
from the understanding of the method
of Nature? What is the feeling enter-
tained toward this class of men ? Are
they held in high honor, and encouraged
in their labors, or are they treated with
indifference, neglect, or contempt ?

The question here is one of the de-
gree of intellectual appreciation of dif-
ferent objects, and the relative inten-
sity of the national feelings by which
these objects are secured. In complex
modern societies there will, of course,
be found men devoted to different
ideals, and a certain amount of popular
favor or regard will be accorded to them
all. But which of them receives the
highest consideration, and what are the
predominant national passions ? Prof.
Du Bois-Reymond, in considering the
history of science in relation to civiliza-
tion, calls our attention to the growth
of the utilitarian spirit, which is grad-
ually substituting immediate, practical,
wealth-yielding studies for the more
elevated, disinterested, and ennobling
intellectual pursuits which have been
cherished in past times. He points out
that there is a decline of interest in this
loftier work, under adverse pressures,
that are increasing in intensity in the
existing age, until they threaten the
perversion and degradation of civiliza-
tion itself. This influence he recog-
nizes as strengthening in Europe, but
as so predominating in this country
that it is now generally known by the
term Americanization. It is not so
much that Americans are inappreciative
of the real claims of liberal culture,
or of the interests and requirements of
scientific study, as that they are so over-
whelmingly absorbed in material utili-
ties that the finer and purer inspira-
tions of study are dampened, smothered,

496

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and suppressed. There may be a ver-
bal recognition of the high claims of
science, and many compliments turned
to its heroic devotees, but the real feel-
ing is evinced in exclamations of won-
der at the curious eccentricity of mind
that can forego the solid advantages
of working for wealth, and prefer men-
tal occupations that lead to empty hon-
or and certain poverty.

An historical illustration will per-
haps bring out more clearly this view,
which is now coming to be regarded as
so peculiarly American. There lived
in England, in the last century, a man
of science, named Henry Cavendish,
who was born in 1731, and died in 1810.
He was a gentleman of fine cultivation,
an excellent mathematician, a profound
electrician, and a most acute and in-
genious chemist. He published many
papers, containing results of recondite
investigations and the most important
discoveries. He was not only a great
original thinker, but a most indefatiga-
ble and accurate experimenter, and one
of his main lines of research was the
chemical constitution of the atmos-
phere. He made no less than 500 anal-
yses of the air, and it is to him that
we owe our chief knowledge of the
composition of the breathing medium.
Now, there is not an American that
will not commend all this as most prop-
er and admirable. But there is another
side to the case. Henry Cavendish was
a man of enormous wealth, for which
he cared absolutely nothing. He was
one of the greatest proprietors of stock
in the Bank of England, and when on
one occasion his balance had accumu-
lated to $350,000, and the directors,
thinking it too much capital to lie un-
productive, asked him if they should
not invest it, he simply replied, " Lay
it out, if you please." That small por-
tion of his wealth which he could make
use of in his investigations was so
used, but he did not allow the remain-
der of it to divert his thoughts in the
slightest degree from the unremitting

prosecution of his scientific labors. He
died worth $7,000,000, which was an
immense sum of money at the beginning
of this century, but he had not the
slightest interest in those objects for
which wealth is generally prized. Now,
the whole case being given, to the eye
of the typical American, Henry Cav-
endish will be regarded as a fool.
" With all that money,1' the represent-
ative American would say, "I could
keep a yacht, and a stud of fast horses,
and build a church, and endow a col-
lege, and send a dozen missionaries to
the heathen, and run a whole political
campaign at my own expense ; and you
say this odd creature actually spent
life in the smudge and stenches of a
chemical laboratory, puttering with gas-
es, and worried about the composition
of the air! "

We do not here exaggerate the vul-
gar passion of Americans for money,
and their relative and consequent in-
difference to other things. The coun-
try does not breed Cavendishes, and, if
one should appear, he would stand a
first-rate chance of getting into a luna-
tic asylum, as the bare fact of his in-
difference to riches would be held as
prima-facie evidence of an unsound
mind ! The science that gives promise
of immediate results, that can be turned
into money, is appreciated ; that which
aims only at the extension of scientific
truth wins little support. Prof. Tyndall
devoted the profits of his lectures in this
country, all the results of six months'
labor, to assist in promoting the educa-
tion of such young men as possess a tal-
ent for physical researches, and wish
to qualify themselves for pursuing the
work. It was a noble object, and one
that had been nowhere provided for.
Prof. Tyndall did not propose to found
a school of research, but to help young
men to avail themselves of the best in-
stitutions already existing for the ac-
quisition of a special culture, the cult-
ure needed to carry on successful origi-
nal inquiries. There have been many

EDITOR'S TABLE.

497

applications to the trustees of the Tyn-
dall fund for aid to young men of gen-
ius and aptitude for research, which,
if it could have been granted, would
have given them a career, and told in
the most effectual way toward the ex-
tension of scientific knowledge. But
the sum consecrated by Prof. Tyndall
to this important end was not adequate
i to the wants of a nation. It was a large
gift for a scientific professor without
wealth, and, by the wise directions of
the donor, it will be productive of large
and lasting good, but it was given also
to call emphatic attention to a neglect-
ed field of education, well worthy of the
consideration of generous persons who
desire to be certain that their benefac-
tions will be well directed and confer
real benefit. We do not say that Prof.
Tyndall desired to set an example to
anybody, but only that he contributed
what was in his power to give an im-
pulse to science in this country in a di-
rection that was most needed ; but how
little Americans care for the object he
had in view is shown by the fact that,
amid all the multitudinous donations,
gifts, and squanderings of wealth, on
all sorts of objects, not a dollar has yet
been added to the Tyndall fund for
the promotion of scientific research by
helping to train capable and ambitious
young men for the work !

The country is characterized by the
mad pursuit of wealth and the worship
of riches ; but this is not the worst, for
along with this sordid passion there go
the most vulgar and ignoble ideals of
the uses of wealth. That ignorant, low-
minded men, who become millionaires
by inheritance or speculation, should
spend their money in tawdry ostenta-
tion is to be expected ; but the worst is,
that gentlemen of sobriety, cultivation,
and earnestness of character, who have
large means at their disposal, should
bestow them in charities that often do
more harm than good, or in endowing
professorships or building institutions
that give notoriety to their names, and

VOL. XIII. — 32

are of but little other use. Meantime,
the country stands arraigned before the
world for its lack of interest in those
higher developments of thought which
have given origin to civilization, and
for giving their most powerful impulse
to tendencies which threaten the de-
terioration of society and the degen-
eracy and debasement of civilization
itself.

THE LA TE MR. GEORGE S. APPLETON.

Since the appearance of the last
number of this magazine, one of the
company of brothers by whom it is
published has passed away. Most of
our readers have, no doubt, been in-
formed by the newspapers that Mr.
George S. Appleton died July 7th, at
the age of fifty-seven. His unexpected
death has been a painful shock to the
relatives and intimate friends, by whom
he was much beloved, and who are now
left with only the consolatory memory
of his many excellences of character.
A few memorial words in regard to him
will be appropriate in this place.

Mr. Appleton was a gentleman of
marked mental accomplishments, such
as are but rarely met with in the com-
mon walks of practical life. He was
liberally educated, his early tastes and
aptitudes for study being favored by
attendance upon the best schools at
home, and more completely developed
by a four years' course at a German
university. He was a wide and care-
ful reader, but, as he designed to de-
vote himself to the publishing business,
he was specially interested in lingual
studies, being a critical student of Eng-
lish and a master of the German, French,
and Italian languages. He also gave
early and prominent attention to the
subject of art, was familiar with its
history, and a discriminating critic in
several of its principal departments.

But, though a man of refinement,
of elegant culture, and fastidious tastes,
Mr. Appleton did not allow aesthetic

49?

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

feeling to narrow his nature, or to im-
pair his interest in the more robust and
solid work of modern science, and in
those broad and serious inquiries which
characterize the present age. He read
with appreciation and heartily wel-
comed those powerful contributions to
the advance of modern thought which
have so deeply impressed the mind of
our time, and which the bouse to which
he belonged has done so much to make
familiar to the reading public of this
country. Never forgetting as a busi-
ness-man that books are made to be
sold, he also never forgot that they are
the great means of popular enlighten-
ment and elevation, and that publishers
have a duty to society in respect to the
character of the works which they dis-
seminate.

It is, moreover, proper to remark
here that Mr. Appleton was a man of
deep and sincere religious feelings, and
earnestly devoted to the duties of Chris-
tian worship ; but his faith was too
settled and serene to suffer any disturb-
ance from that onward movement of
knowledge which is so apt to excite
alarm in men of restricted views and
less firmness of religious conviction.
Mr. Appleton illustrated in an eminent
degree that largeness of sympathy and
breadth of thought by which pure re-
ligious devotion is harmonized with
intellectual progress, and with an in-
telligent solicitude for the amelioration
of the secular interests of mankind.
Conservative in disposition and habits,
and no enthusiast, he was still much in-
terested in all rational social improve-
ments, and his influence was thrown in
favor of every measure that can exalt
and purify the public taste, and diffuse
sound and useful information among
the people. We are happy to add that
he was a regular and critical reader of
The Popular Science Monthly, cor-
dially approving its distinctive objects,
and frequently favoring its conductors
with valuable and important sugges-
tions.

Mr. Appleton was a man of quiet
and retiring manners, sensitive and
modest to a degree that was often mis-
interpreted into coldness of nature ; but
those who knew him well understood
that beneath a reserved and unobtru-
sive exterior there beat a warm heart
that was ever animated by a kindly
solicitude for the welfare of all who
came within the reach of his influence.
Although strict in the administration
of business, he was watchful for those
who needed care and encouragement,
and many of his employes bear grate-
ful testimony to his wise and kindly
forethought in circumstances where
the ministrations of genuine friendship
are invaluable. The character of the
man in his intercourse with his asso-
ciates is well summed up by the remark
of one who had been long and closely
connected with him, that "his good
words without flattery, and his honest
comments without circumlocution," al-
ways inspired respect, confidence, and
the truest esteem.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Adamites and Preadamites, or a Popu-
lar Discussion concerning the Remote
Representatives of the Human Species
and their Relation to the Biblical
Adam. By Alexander "Winchell, LL. D.
Syracuse, N. Y. : John T. Roberts. Pp.
52. Price, 15 cents.

This pamphlet is as readable as it is
instructive. It is spicy in style, meaty in
matter, and straightforward in its logic.
As an introduction to the study of the an-
tiquity of man, with an important side-bear-
ing upon the old doctrines that have been
entertained upon the subject, it is decidedly
the best thing that we have met with. The
discussion was originally contributed by
Prof. Winchell to the Northern Christian
Advocate, and now appears in ten chapters,
the scope of which is indicated by their
titles, as follows : Chapter I., " A Sagacious
Dutchman;" II., " Dispersion of the Noa-
chites ; " III., " The Black Races not Adam-
ites ; " IV., " The Negro preadamic ; " V.,

LITERARY NOTICES.

499

"The Negro preadamic " — continued; VI.,
" Scheme of Prehistoric Times ; " VII., " Re-
trospective of Primeval Man in Europe ; "
VIII., "Antiquity of Man;" IX., "Origin
of Man;" X., "Patriarchal Chronology."

It will be gathered from these heads of
his arguments that Prof. Winchell is con-
sidering the question of man's antiquity upon
the earth from the point of view of the
common Christian belief that the whole
human race is descended from the Script-
ure Adam. This he denies, affirming that
the black races have a much higher an-
tiquity than the period to which Adam is
historically assigned, and who, in so far
as he was a progenitor of races, must be
regarded as only the father of the white or
superior races. In the first chapter, en-
titled " A Sagacious Dutchman," Prof. Win-
chell calls attention to a small book that
appeared in Paris in 1665, written by a
Dutch ecclesiastic, named La Peyrere, on
the unheard-of subject, indicated by its
title of " PrBeadamita2." Prof. Winchell
says that La Peyrere was the first to prom-
ulgate to the world the idea of preadamite
men. Of course, the sciences of ethnology
and anthropology were at that time un-
known, and the inquiry was therefore con-
ducted entirely as a theological one — all
questions being Bible-questions, and the
meaning of the Bible being extracted ac-
cording to the canons of grammar. The
case was strongly made out by the Dutch
doctor, and, although it could be argued in
no other way at the time, Prof. Winchell
takes occasion to charaeterize the method
because there are plenty of learned men
with whom it is still in vogue. Upon this
point he says :

" There are doctors high in authority among
us at this day, who maintain that grammatical
structure and Hebrew usage are sufficient to
light the way to the meaning of the darkest pas-
sage's of revelation. I suppose a knowledge of
Hebrew history and usages is admitted to shed
its light upon interpretation, because the text
is generally occupied with Jewish affairs. But
the inspired writers have sometimes plunged
into the midst of the profound and mysterious
facts of science ; why not, then, summon all
our knowledge to the task of evoking the mean-
ing of the text? I maintain, against the narrow
and pernicious dogma that the Bible is sufficient
everywhere to interpret itself, that, on the con-
trary, it was ordained to be interpreted under
the concentrated light of all the learning which
has been created by a God-given intelligence in

man, I believe that the Bible was written for
all time, and that its meaning is so deep and so
rich that the accumulated learning of the latest
generation of men will be unable to exhaust it."

Prof. Winchell then proceeds to discuss
the question on its purely scientific basis,
or in the light of modern facts, as disclosed
by ethnological and archaeological research.
He concludes that the profound divergency
of the races of mankind, as now known, and
the demonstrated divergency that had been
reached in the earliest historic periods, make
the conclusion impossible that, if all the
races of men had one origin, that origin can
be brought within anything like the usu-
ally assigned period of six thousand years.
Scientific evidence " forces this alternative
conclusion upon us. If human beings have
existed but six thousand years, then the
human races had separate beginnings, as
Agassiz long since maintained — each race
in its own geographical area. But if all
human beings are descended from one stock,
then the starting-point was more than six
thousand gears back, as Huxley and the evo-
lutionists generally maintain, and the Duke
of Argyll and other anti-evolutionists equally
maintain."

"Now, every person remains free to con-
temn a logical difficulty, and commiserate the
unfortunate facts for being opposed to his be-
lief. But my training has been such that logic
and facts still command a degree of respect.
Nor am I enough of an actor to play the part of
an idiot. If I can avoid a difficulty I shall not
dash out my brains against it. Let us con-
sider Adam the father of the white and dusky
races. These, then, are Adamites ; and have
a chronology extending back about six thou-
sand years— perhaps all the time we require.
The black races, then, are preadamites ; and
there is no objection to allowing all the time
requisite for their divergence from some com-
mon stock. This view recognizes the unity of
man — the possession of 'one blood' by all the
races, one moral and intellectual nature, and one
destiny ; it recognizes Adam as the progenitor
of the nations which form the theme of biblical
history; it explains sundry biblical allusions
and implications — for instance, the wife found
by Cain in the land of Nod ; Cain's fear of vio-
lence from others when condemned to the life
of a 'fugitive and a vagabond ;' the antithesis
of the 'sons of God1 and the 'daughters of
men;' it validates the biblical chronology; it
satisfies the demands of facts. The only objec-
tion outstanding against this view is the au-
thority of an opinion formed two or three thou-
sand years ago, by men who also held the opin-
ion that witches ride broomsticks through the
air, and that the star9 were created two days

500

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

before Adam, though some of them are bo dis
tant that their light has been a hundred thou-
sand years in reaching us I "

Prof. ■ Wine-hell, of course, takes the
ground that the older or black race is of
an inferior type to the subsequent or, as he
calls them, the Adamic races; and to the
objection that the negro is not inferior to
the white man he makes the following reply :

"1. If, when the sun is shining brightly, a
man tells me it is dark, I can only pronounce
him blind. The inferiority of the negro is a fact
everywhere patent. I imply here only inferior-
ity of intelligence, the instrument of self-help-
fulness and of all civilization. I need not argue
the fact ; circumspice. But when this inferiori-
ty is conceded, we always hear the appeal to
unfavorable conditions.' This leads me to
note, 2. The African Continent has always been
favorably conditioned. In the first place, it had
a land connection with Asia and the seats of
ancient civilization. It even had a'remote civil-
ization planted within its own borders ; and the
fires of Egyptian civilization have never been
extinct ; while for two thousand years the en-
lightenment of Europe has been within accessi-
ble distance. In the second place, the salubrity
of the climate, the fertility of the soil, the vast
hydrographic system of lakes and rivers, have
all conspired to give the interior of the conti-
nent natural conditions unsurpassed by those
of the site of any civilization which ever exist-
ed. Thirdly, the indigenous productions of
Africa have supplied other conditions of human
advancement. There exist two native cereals,
negro millet and Caffre corn, which supply ma-
terial for bread. There are the edible ' bread-
roots ' and also 'earth-nuts,' which are ade-
quate to supply the daily food of whole villages.
As to fruit-trees, there are the doom-palm, the
oil-palm, and the 'butter-tree.' Moreover, for
thousands of years the way has been open, as
wide as the continent, for the introduction of
the cereals of Asia. In fact, they have long
been known to the natives ; and maize, the
manioc-root, and sugar-cane, as well as wheat
and barley, have spread far toward the interior.
There, too, have been domesticated animals, re-
ceived, probably, from the Egyptians in a do-
mesticated state; but no native animal has ever
been domesticated. The Aryans of India em-
ployed the elephant as a beast of burden ; but
the African elephant was never utilized. These
are not the conditions under which a whole race
could be crushed into a process of degeneracy.
3. Comparison with other races shows the ne-
groes inferiority. The Egyptian civilization was
reared on the African Continent by the side of
the barbarous negro, and under the same con-
ditions. If the materials of civilization were in-
troduced from Asia, it was certainly easier for
the negro to introduce them from Egypt. Amer-
ica is not naturally superior in its physical con-
ditions to Africa. Its only cereal is maize. Its
principal edible roots are the mandioca and the

potato ; and the feeble llama and vicuna are the
only native animals capable of domestication as
beasts of burden. Yet the civilization of the
Nahuatl nations of Mexico, the Quiches of Cen-
tral America, the Mayas of Yucatan, and the
Aymaras and Quichuas of Peru, had become,
both in respect to intellectual and industrial ad-
vances, and judicial, moral, and religious con-
ceptions, almost a stage of true enlightenment.
The glaring fact of negro inferiority in respect to
social conditions cannot be explained by any ap-
peal to adverse conditions. Such are the ethno-
logical facts and the coordinated circumstances.
But in proof of my position I make another
point : 4. The anatomical structure of the ne-
gro is inferior. The lean shanks, the progna-
thous profile, the long arms (which do not always
exist), the black skin, the elongated and oblique
pelvis — these are all characteristics in which, so
far as the negro diverges from the white man,
he approximates the African apes. The skull
also is inferior in structure and in capacity, and
in the relative expansion of its different regions.
Among whites, the relative abundance of ' cross-
heads ' (having permanently unclosed the longi-
tudinal and transverse suture on the top of the
head) is one in seven ; among Mongolians, it is
one in thirteen ; among negroes, it is one in
fifty-two. This peculiarity is supposed by some
to favor the prolonged development of the brain.
In any event, it is most frequent in the highest
races. Again, the prevailing form of the negro
head isdolichocephalous ; that of civilized races
is mesocephalous and brachycephalous. That
is, it lacks the breadth which we find associated
with executive ability. The broadest negro
skull does not reach the average of the Ger-
mans, nor does the best Australian skull, let me
add, reach the average of the negro. Finally,
the capacity of the negro cranium is inferior.
Assuming 100 as the average capacity of the
Australian skull, that of the negro is 111.6, and
that of the Teuton 124.8. Now, no fact is better
established than the general relation of intellect
to weight of brain. Welker has shown that the
brains of twenty-six men of high intellectual
rank surpassed the average weight by fourteen
per cent. Of course, quality of brain is an
equally important factor; and hence not a few
men with brains even below the average have
distinguished themselves for scholarship. But
this does not abolis-h the rule ; nor does it prove
that the racial inferiority of the negro brain, in
respect to size, is not to be taken as an index
of racial inferiority in respect to intelligence
and the capacity for civilization; and this all
the more, since the quality of the negro brain is
also inferior.

"I am not responsible for the inferiority of
the negro. I am responsible if I ignore the
facts. I am culpable if I hold him to the same
standard as the white man. My appeals to him
must be of a widely-different character from my
appeals to the Aryan Hindoo, or the Mongoloid
American savage. The ethnological facts have
their application in all missionary efforts."

Of the subsequent discussion on "Pri-

LITERARY NOTICES.

501

meval Man in Europe," and " The Antiquity
of Man," we have no room to speak. Prof.
Winchell deduces a general view, which
harmonizes all the phases of evidence, and
though contravening the old traditions, must
be accepted in proportion as men esteem
truth to be more desirable than error. He
says :

" This scheme of prehistoric times, embrac-
ing only a few conjectural features, weaves in
all the facts of history and science. If it trav-
erses old opinions, we need not mourn. New
truths are better than old errors. Fact is worth
more than opinion. Certainty is more desirable
than confidence. Progressive knowledge im-
plies much unlearning. The loss of a belief,
like the death of a friend, seems a bereavement-
but a false belief is only an enemy in a friend's
cloak. It is only truth which is divine ; and, if
we embrace an error, we shall not find it ratified
in the oracles of divine truth. We who hold to
the valid inspiration of the sacred records may
feel assured that nothing will be found affirmed
therein which collides with the final verdict of
intelligence. Nor has the color of the first man
any concern with a simple religious faith. If
our creed embodies a dogma which enunciates
what is really a conclusion, true or false, based
on scientiflc evidence— that is, evidence brought
to light by observation and research— that may
be exscinded as an excrescence. All such sub-
jects are to be settled by scientific investigation
—not by councils of the Church. Ecclesiastical
faith has had a sorry experience in the attempt
to sanctify popular opinions. A faith that has
had to surrender the geocentric theory and the
denial of antipodes, and of the high geological
antiquity of the world, should have learned to
discriminate between religious faiths and scien-
tific opinions. Religious faith is more enduring
than granite. Scientific opinion is uncertain ;
it may endure like granite or vanish like a sum-
mer cloud. Religious faith is simple, pure, and
incorruptible ; scientific opinion is a compound
of all things, corruptible and incorruptible. Let
us not adulterate pure faith with corruptible
science. An unadulterated faith can be defend-
ed by the sturdiest blows of reason and logic ;
a corrupt faith puts reason and logic to shame."

Principles and Practice of Teaching.
By James Johonnot. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 395. Price, $1.50.

As it is now the latest, so Prof. Johon-
not's new work on education is undoubtedly
the best manual of school guidance that
has yet been prepared. It is better adapted
to the present condition of educational
progress than any other teachers' manual
that we have yet seen. Two things have
come prominently forward in the recent de-
velopment of thought with reference to the

work of instruction: 1. Science is gaining
a more liberal recognition in our courses of
study, and is more and more coming to be
the chief thing ; and, 2. Teachers are com-
pelled to give more attention to psychologi-
cal science as an indispensable prerequisite to
the intelligent management of school-work.
There is still need enough for advancement
in both these directions, for there are plenty
of schools that are hardly beyond the middle
ages in their appreciation of science, and
plenty of teachers who are as ignorant of
the laws of mind as the untutored savage.
But these considerations are surely though
slowly emerging into confessed prominence,
and are beginning to take that controlling
position in the philosophy of education
which is bound to be universally conceded
to them in the not very distant future.

Prof. Johonnot is by no means a blind
admirer of things established in our educa-
tional systems. He clearly sees that the
whole subject is in movement, that in many
respects current education is profoundly im-
perfect, that a critical spirit widely prevails
in regard to it, and that there is plenty of
work for reformers in bringing the general
practice into harmony with principles that
have been definitely worked out. He is not
only a practical educator of large experi-
ence in the special work of training teach-
ers, but he has his independent views of
what is needed, and how to attain it; and
his work will accordingly be found fresh,
suggestive, and stimulating, to all teachers
and school officials who are devoted to or-
ganizing and carrying out the best plans of
instruction. That he has reached anything
like a finality in the policy of school man-
agement he would be the last to claim ; but
we must cordially concede to him the merit
of having grasped the problem of practical
culture in its latest exigencies and newest
developments. In a growing and unfolding
subject, methods must be tentative and
proximate : it is enough if they are better
than their predecessors. Prof. Johonnot
has well digested for us the latest theoreti-
cal wisdom regarding the principles of teach-
ing, and he has embodied these in an im-
proved system of practice, which has stood
the test of experience. Having unfolded
the general principles of culture in the ear-
lier and chief portions of bis work, the
author devotes the last hundred pages to

502

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

laying down courses of study, general and
special. This is the constructive part, which
is ever the most difficult and liable to criti-
cism, because of its conflict with preexist-
ing habits ; but there can be no doubt that
this portion of his volume involves a marked
advance on previous practice. We have
seen no popular scheme of study in which
Nature is so confessedly the groundwork
on which the whole fabric of mental culti-
vation is to rest, and in which science is so
intimately interwoven with the constant
course of school-work. Hitherto, scientific
studies have been too much looked upon as
secondary, intrusive, and to be superinduced
upon a preestablished scheme ; they are here
made the starting-point, and incorporated in
the plan of studies as an essential and fun-
damental element. In thus contributing to
the better organization of school exercises,
this book meets an urgent need of the times
which cannot fail to be appreciated by many
teachers.

The PsYcno-PHTSiOLOGiCAL Sciences and
their Assailants : Being a Response by
Alfred R. Wallace, of England; Prof.
J. R. Buchanan, of New York ; Darius
Lyman, of Washington ; Epes Sargent,
of Boston, to the Attacks of Prof. W.
B. Carpenter, of England, and Others.
Boston : Colby & Rich. Pp. 216.

This is the counterblast of the spiritu-
alists against the lectures of Dr. Carpenter
on spiritualism, mesmerism, etc. For three
hundred years the devotees of scientific
knowledge have been laboring to disen-
tangle the natural from the supernatural,
which had previously been so mixed up in
the traditions of learning that "Nature," as
a system of uniform and verifiable laws,
was unknown. The progress of science has,
in fact, consisted simply in tracing out and
giving expression to these regularities and
uniformities of the natural world. The spir-
itualists go back on all this, and declare it
to be a false process and a spurious prog-
ress. They claim that the supernatural is
to be included in the natural, and aver that
they can investigate it and work out its laws
so that they shall be a part of proper and
legitimate science. They maintain, indeed,
that they have already done this ; but the
difficulty is, that the whole scientific world
denies it. Nor is there the slightest pros-

pect that they will be able to convince sci-
entific men of the validity of their claims
on the basis of anything as yet accom-
plished. What they may do in the future
we shall not presume to say ; but we think
they will have to be content to go on work-
ing out such results as they find possible,
and trusting to time for that recognition
which they so vehemently demand shall be
accorded to them now. They make much
complaint of the inhospitality of the scien-
tific mind to what they call new truth, and
this complaint we consider as wholly ground-
less. Prejudices, no doubt, arise from in-
tense preoccupation in special lines of sci-
entific labor, so that the physicist, for ex-
ample, fails in appreciation of the biologist,
while the chemist is indifferent to the work
of the sociologist ; yet in these diverse and
widely-separated departments there is still
sufficient liberality of spirit to leave all in-
vestigators unmolested in their special work.
Why should the spiritualists wax wroth and
imprecate Science and scientific men, be-
cause they will not drop their own research-
es and come over to help exploit the won-
ders of the preternatural sphere ? If they
cannot appreciate such marvelous things,
why not leave them with due commiseration
to wriggle and squirm in their congenial
materialistic mud ? Let the spiritualists go
on and get out something worthy of atten-
tion, and it will be sure to get attention in
due time.

The Native Flowers and Ferns of the
United States, in their Botanical,
Horticultural, and Popular Aspects.
By Thomas Meehan, Professor of Vege-
table Physiology to the Pennsylvania
State Board of Agriculture, Editor of
the Gardener's Monthly, etc. Illustrated
by Chromo-lithographs. Boston: L.
Prang & Co. Pp. 16. Fifty cents per
number.

Botanical works with good colored il-
lustrations have hitherto been far too ex-
pensive for general use ; but the perfection
now attained in the art of chromo-lithog-
raphy makes possible a new departure in
pictorial botany. The series now projected,
the first two numbers of which are be-
fore us, show that a very considerable de-
gree of fidelity and naturalness in the repre-
sentation of flowers is already secured by
the chromo-lithographic process, and we

LITERARY NOTICES.

503

may safely assume, from the skill and enter- j
prise of the publishers, that they will attain
still greater perfection as the work proceeds.
Its editorial management is in the very best
hands. Mr. Meehan is the conductor of the
principal garden magazine of the country ;
and his thorough familiarity with botany,
and his long practical acquaintance with
horticulture, qualify him in a peculiar man-
ner for the management of such an enter-
prise as this. The work will, therefore,
combine great beauty of execution in the
colored illustrations with a careful, trust-
worthy, and judicious text. Accompanying
each plate there is a brief technical descrip-
tion, and three or four page3 of general
information in regard to the plant in ques-
tion, its genus, geographical distribution,
and mode of growth. The work is not of-
fered as a complete illustrated flora of North
America, the extent and expense of which
would put it beyond popular reach, and pro-
long its publication for many years. Its
scope is therefore limited to a selection of
the most beautiful and interesting native
flowers and ferns of the United States, pref-
erence being given to those most worthy of
cultivation and available for garden decora-
tion. After speaking of the difficulty of
preparing a thoroughly systematic scientific
work on the American flora, the editor re-
marks :

" It must not be inferred from this, however,
that the present work ia absolutely without sys-
tem. It will be seen that the selection made for
these two volumes covers a wide range of coun-
try, and offers a number of representatives of
leading genera, chosen with reference to their
various habits and to different geographical cen-
tres. These volumes are therefore absolutely
complete in themselves, and may be said to give
a good general idea of the floral wealth of oar
country. Those who are satisfied with the
knowledge thus obtained may rest here. But
it is hoped that the more enthusiastic lovers of
flowers will welcome the succeeding volumes,
which it is proposed to publish after the conclu-
sion of this series. Each of the following series
is also to consist of two volumes, and to form a
complete whole by itself."

In the preparation of the work Mr. Mee-
han has had the important advantage of
freely using the unrivaled facilities of the
botanical garden at Cambridge, which he
cordially acknowledges, as also the assist-
ance kindly given him by various eminent
botanists. The work is elegant, attractive,

and meritorious, and we think it is certain
to have a large patronage.

Experimental Science Series for Begin-
ners. II. Sound : A Series of Simple,
Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experi-
ments in the Phenomena of Sound, for
the Use of Students of Every Age. By
Alfred Marshall Mayer, Professor of
Physics in the Stevens Institute of Tech-
nology. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 181.

The second volume of this admirable
series of books is now published, and its
author is to be congratulated for more than
fulfilling the promise of the opening vol-
ume. No less than one hundred and thirty
experiments in sound are given, all of which
are original in the simplified means by which
the effects are produced. They, moreover,
cover the whole ground of acoustics in so
complete a manner that the pupil who goes
through the volume, making all the experi-
ments, will get an actual and living knowl-
edge of the science, such as he can never
acquire by reading any number of larger
works. A list of apparatus to be used in
the experiments on sound is given at the
close of the volume, and can be purchased
complete at the cost of $27.50. But, as
Prof. Mayer remarks in the preface, " the
student may find it cheaper to hunt up the
materials, and then make his own appara-
tus ; but so many have desired to have the
sets ready for use, that I have complied
with their request. Of course, it will be
understood that the instrument-maker must
be paid for the time taken in finding the
objects in the market, and for the labor and
skill spent in making the apparatus, and in
packing it in convenient boxes."

Matter and Motion. By J. Clerk Max-
well, M. A., LL. D. New York: D.
Van Nostrand. Pp. 224.

This monograph, by the eminent physi-
cist and professor of Cambridge, is one of
the best things that have yet appeared in Van
Nostrand's " Science Series." Like every-
thing from Clerk Maxwell, it is clear, and,
although the general treatment of dynamics
is mathematical, there are many valuable
definitions and much information iD the
book that will be available for the general
reader

5°4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Comparative Psychology ; or, The Growth
and Grades of Intelligence. By John
Bascom. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 291. Price, $1.50.
This small but thoughtful volume de-
serves to be very cordially commended to the
students of psychological science. Though
a controversial work, it is free from narrow-
ness and the usual effects of partisan dis-
cussion, and it is written by a thinker who
can appreciate views with which he disagrees,
and freely acknowledges his indebtedness to
the party with which he is, nevertheless, at
radical issue. Of the two great schools of
philosophy, the intuitional and the empirical,
one holding that mental faculties are imme-
diate a priori gifts to intelligent creatures,
and the other that they are results of de-
velopment through experience, the author
of this volume holds with the first ; but he ac-
knowledges that it has been written to eluci-
date problems and carry out inquiries " that
would hardly have been suggested but for
the empirical philosophy." The object of
the book is admirably stated in the following
extract from the author's preface :

" The advocates of the empirical philosophy are
wont to criticise the intuitional philosophy in two
respects: first, as overlooking the relation between
the mature mind and the mind of the infant— be-
tween rudimentary and developed powers; and,
second, as overlooking the still more important con-
nection between the intelligence of to-day and that of
remote previous periods, between the intelligence of
man and that of animals, and of the earlier human life
from which it has been derived We grant these
points to be well taken, especially the latter. With-
out tracing the history of intelligence, we are not
prepared to decide what is primitive and what is
acquired ; what is original material and what is the
deposit of growth. The empiricist cannot be fully
and fairly met without traveling with him these
spaces of evolution, and determining at least their
general facts and laws. This I have undertaken in
the present volume. It is my purpose to test the
nature and extent of the modifications put upon hu-
man psychology by its relations in growth to the
life below it ; and, in doing this, to reach a general
statement of each stage of development."

A philosophical writer of our time could
hardly occupy himself with a more pertinent
problem than is here presented. It has been
the reproach of the a priori method that it
has ignored the subject of mind in its lower
or comparative manifestations. It has nei-
ther worked from the base of fundamental
organic conditions, nor has it systematically
recognized them, and for this reason the
method was probably losing its hold upon

the scientific mind of the period. Clearly
aware of this deficiency, Dr. Bascom has ad-
dressed himself to the task of supplying it,
and his book will do much to rescue the
subject from the reproach into which it had
fallen.

Wisconsin Geological Survey. Report
for 1877. By J. C. Chamberlin, Chief
Geologist. Madison : Atwood print. Pp.
95.

The survey of Wisconsin is now com-
pleted, and the results will soon be in read-
iness for publication. The final report will
form three volumes, with maps, of which one
volume, with atlas, has already appeared.
During the season of 1877, eleven survey-
ing parties were in the field. The survey
suffered a serious loss by the accidental
death of Mr. Moses Strong, an enthusiastic
young mining engineer, of brilliant attain-
ments, who lost his life by the capsizing of
his canoe while ascending the rapids of the
Flambeau River.

State Regulation of Vice : Regulation
Efforts in America. The Geneva Con-
gress. By Aaron M. Powell. New
York: Wood & Holbrook. Pp. 127.
Price, $1.

Mr. Powell does not believe in the state
regulation of vice, and gives his reasons in
this book. The subject is considered from
the point of view of the philanthropist and
reformer, rather than from that of social
science.

Mineralogy. By J. H. Collins, F. G. S.
With 579 Illustrations. New York : G.
P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.206. Price, $1.50.

This little manual is remarkable for the
profuseness and neatness of its crystallo-
graphic illustrations. It is designed for
practical working miners, quarrymen, field-
geologists, and the students of the science
classes in connection with the department
of science and art in England.

Geographical Surveys west of the 100th
Meridian, in Charge of Lieutenant G.
M. Wheeler, Engineer U. S. Army.
Part II., Vol. IV. Paleontology. Let-
ter-press, pp. 365, with 83 Plates. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Office.

The present installment of Lieutenant
Wheeler's Report consists of a memoir, by

LITERARY NOTICES.

5°5

E. D. Cope, on extinct vertebrata from New-
Mexico. The fossils here described and de-
termined represent four geological periods,
in basins that had not previously been ex-
plored, viz., the Trias, the Eocene, the
Loup-Fork Epoch, and the Postpliocene of
the Sandia Mountains. The first vertebrate
fossils ever determined from the Trias of
the Rocky Mountains are included in this
memoir. Of the high intrinsic value of
Prof. Cope's work there is no need for us
to say anything: his memoirs on the pa-
leontology of our Western Territories are
authoritative documents throughout the
world of science. But we cannot refrain
from commending the truly admirable lith-
ographic plates by which the text is illus-
trated and adorned.

The Future of Sanitary Science. An Ad-
dress before the Sanitary Institute of
Great Britain. By B. W. Richardson,
M. D. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 47. Price,
25 cents.

Dr. Richardson has become the prophet
of our sanitary future, and discourses of its
prospects in this pamphlet in his peculiar
style. He does not fail to magnify his call-
ing, and presents its claims in a quite extraor-
dinary way, saying : " All political troubles
have a physiological cause. To the states-
man not less than to the physician, physi-
ology is the only true source of knowledge.
A society such as ours, therefore, possess-
ing as it does professed physiological skill,
may render most important service by trac-
ing out for the legislator the simplest sci-
entific means for removing atmospheric im-
purities, and by preparing for that sanitary
future when men universally shall breathe
purity even with their freedom."

Cerebral Hyperemia : The Result op
Mental Strain or Emotional Disturb-
ance. By William A. Hammond, M. D.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
108. Price, $1.

This is a very important little mono-
graph by an eminent medical authority, who
has had large special experience in all that
pertains to morbid conditions of the brain.
The reason for and character of his little
book are thus well represented by the au-
thor in his preface :

"The disease which Is considered iD the en-
suing pages is more common, according to my

experience, than any other affection of the ner-
vous system. It is especially an outgrowth of
our civilization, and of that restless spirit of en-
terprise and struggle for wealth so characteris-
tic of the American people. It is an easily pre-
ventable disorder, not for this purpose requiring
extensive hygienic operations, but simply the
acts of the individual in using his or her brain
with the same regard for its well-being as is or-
dinarily extended by the humane carter to the
muscular system of his horse. The brain of man
is strong: it will endure a terrible amount of ill-
usage ; but there are limits to the abuse which
may be inflicted upon it with impunity, and few
there be who do not pass them.

" It is, perhaps, too much to expect the emo-
tions to be entirely under the control of the in-
dividual, nor is it desirable that we 6hould be
reduced to the condition of intellectual auto-
mata, moved always by reason and judgment,
and never by feeling. But it is entirely within
the power of every one, by that self-discipline so
seemly in all, to obtain such a degree of mastery
over unworthy or excessive passions as will
prevent them dominating over the whole mind
and body, to the detriment of both.

"Ill-regulated emotions are even more pro-
lific of brain-disorders than severe mental labor,
and many a person considered to be suffering
from what is called nervous prostration or ex-
haustion is simply the subject of emotional dis-
turbance and a consequent condition of cerebral
hyperemia."

First Principles op Agriculture. By
Henry Tanner, F. C. S. New York :
Macmillan & Co. Pp. 95.

This is a very good little summary of
elemeutary scientific facts and principles re-
lating to agriculture. The difficulty about
it is that it is too small — a mere primer ; but
those who want an introduction to the sub-
ject, to be followed by the use of larger
works, will find it serviceable. Scientific
agriculture, from the complexity of all its
problems and the obscurity of many of
them, requires to be studied with some thor-
oughness, in fact to be mastered, before it
can be made practically and safely avail-
able.

A Dictionary op Music and Musicians.
Edited by George Grove, D. C. L. Vol.
I., Part II. New York: Macmillan &
Co. Pp. 127. Price, $1.25.

The second number of this elaborate
work is now ready, and its topics range
from Ballad to Bo'i'eldieu. Its character is
well sustained, and the admirable sketch of
Beethoven, with the analysis of his music,
is alone worth the price of the work.

506

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Elements of Dynamic. Part I. Kinematic.
By W. K. Clifford. London and New York:
Macmillan. Pp. 230. $2.50.

The Speaking Telephone, Talking Phono-
graph, and other Novelties. By G. P. Prescott.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 431. $3.

Physics of the Infectious Diseases. By Dr.
C. A. Logan. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co.
Pp. 212. $1.50.

A Course in Arithmetic. By F. W. Bardwell.
New York : Putnams. Pp. 166.

Physical Technics. By Dr. J Frick. Phila-
delphia: Lippincott. Pp.467. $2.50.

Visions : A Study of False Sight. By Dr.
E. H. Clark. Boston : Houghton, Osgood & Co.
Pp. 333. $1.50.

Eeport on Forestry. By F. B. Hough. Wash-
ington : Government Printing-Office. Pp. 650.

Manual of the Apiary. By Prof. A. J. Cook*
Chicago: T. G. Newman & Son. Pp. 286. Pa-
per, $1 cloth, $1.25.

Annual Record of Science and Industry. By
S. F. Baird. New York : Harpers. Pp. 494. $2.

The Ethics of Positivism. By G. Barzellotti.
New York: Somerby. Pp.327. $2.

Ferns of Kentucky. By J. Williamson. Lou-
isville: J. P. Morton & Co. Pp. 154. $2.

Sequel to "Essays." By C. E. Townsend.
New York: Somerby. Pp. 102.

Practical Chemistry for Medical Students.
By M. M. P. Muir. London and New York :
Macmillan. Pp. 64. 60 cents.

Report of the Ohio Commissioner of Common
Schools. Columbus : Nevins & Myers print. Pp.
384.

Report of the Wisconsin Board of Health.
Madison : Atwood print. Pp. 200.

The Railway in its Relation to Public and
Private Interests. By Simon Sterne. New York:
Press of the Chamber of Commerce. Pp. 38.

Chronic Aural Discharges. By Dr. J. J. Chis-
holm. Reprint from the North Carolina Medi-
cal Journal. Pp. 10.

Facial Neuralgia. By Dr. J. Martine Ker-
shaw. St. Louis fSchroback &Co. print. Pp. 66.

The Hessian Fly. By Prof. A. J. Cook.
Pp. 14.

Uniform Non-Local Time. Bv S. Fleming.
Ottawa, Can. : The Author. Pp. 32.

Deep-Sea Soundings. By Lieutenant-Com-
mander J. F. Jewell. U. S. N. Claremont, N.
H. : Claremont Manufacturing Co. print. Pp. 63.

Report of the Executive Board of the Roch-
ester City Board of Health. Rochester, N. Y. :
Democrat and Chronicle print. Pp. 27.

Metric Weights and Measures for Medical
Purposes. Washington : Government Printing-
office. Pp.40.

Opinion of the Ohio Attorney-General on the
Powers of Boards of Education. Columbus: Nev-
ins & Myers. Pp. 24.

Quarterly Report of the Chief of the Bureau
of Statistics. Washington: Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp. 126.

Certain Symptoms of Nervous Exhaustion.
By Dr. G. M. Beard. Reprint from the Virginia
Medical Monthly. Pp. 24.

The Army of the Republic. By Henry Ward
Beecher. New York : Christian Union print.
Pp. 23. 10 cents.

How to spend the Summer. New York :
Christian Union print. Pp. 105. 25 cents.

The Law of Population. By A. Besant. New
York : A. K. Butts. Pp. 47.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Archaeological Researches in the Great
American Bottom. — The alluvial plain known
as the " Great American Bottom," lying on
the east side of the Mississippi, in Illinois,
between Alton on the north and Chester on
the south, and having an average width of
eight or nine miles, is a region of wonderful
fertility now, and the remains of ancient oc-
cupation there abundantly found prove that
the mound-builders were not blind to the
agricultural value of this remarkable tract.
It was indeed " one of their greatest seats of
empire," in the language of Mr. H. R. How-
land, who has published, in the Bulletin of
the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, an
account of certain notable archaeological re-
searches made in the "American Bottom."
The mounds in this tract seem to have been
divided into three principal groups : one ly-
ing within the limits of East St. Louis;
another on the banks of Long Lake, twelve
miles northward ; and the third — one of the
most extraordinary groups in this country —
between Indian Lake and Cahokia Greek,
some six miles from the Mississippi, and eight
miles to the northeast of East St. Louis. In
this last group is the great Cahokia Mound,
by far the most important monument left
by the mound-builders. The several groups
are connected by lines of mounds at irregu-
lar intervals, and the total number is at least
two hundred. Some two or three years ago
Mr. Howland, having learned that one of the
mounds in the second group was being re-
moved to procure material for road-making,
repaired to the spot and found the work of
destruction already well advanced. In the
mean time some interesting discoveries had
been made. At the height of four or five
feet above the base of the mound the work-
men came upon a considerable deposit of
human bones, and on the same level were
discovered a number of valuable relics,
many of them wrapped in a sort of matting.
This was made of a coarse, cane-like fibre,
simply woven without twisting, the flat
strands measuring about one-eighth inch in

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

5°7

width. Among the articles found were sev-
eral tortoise-shells of beaten copper. One of
these was about one sixty-fourth of an inch
thick, two and one-eighth inches long, and
thirteen-sixteenths of an inch in height ;
this was the largest one of three in the au-
thor's possession. Their shape is remark-
ably true, the workmanship evincing deli-
cate skill. Each tortoise-shell appears to
have been originally covered with several
wrappings, first a woven cloth of vegetable
fibre, then a softer, finer fabric of rabbit's
hair apparently, next a membranaceous
coating, finally a layer of non-striated mus-
cular fibre — possibly intestine or bladder.
Besides these singular objects are two spe-
cimens of the lower jaw of the deer, the part
which contains the teeth being incased in
a thin covering of copper, and the whole
wrapped in the same manner as the tortoise-
shells. Other relics found in the same
mound — specimens of handicraft, sea-shells
from the Gulf of Mexico, etc. — give evidence
of the high grade of technical skill and the
far-reaching intercourse of the prehistoric
people who, in the long forgotten past, in-
habited the Great American Bottom.

Age of the Ohio " Forest-Beds."— The

" forest-bed " of the Ohio geological for-
mation is a "layer of carbonaceous mat-
ter, with logs and stumps, and sometimes
upright trees." It everywhere rests upon
true glacial drift, and in it are found remains
of mammoth, mastodon, and their contem-
poraries. The deposit overlying this " for-
est-bed " in Ohio is, by Dr. Newberry, de-
scribed as lacustrine drift, but Mr. W. J. Mc-
Gee, in the American Journal of Science,
shows that in Northeastern Iowa this same
" forest-bed " is overlaid by true glacial drift,
and therefore that it must be of intergla-
cial age. In the region just named the up-
permost deposit, overlying the " forest-bed,"
is beyond the shadow of a doubt glacial
drift very slightly or not at all modified,
and exhibiting no distinct stratification. The
only difference between the upper and lower
parts is that the lower part contains a larger
proportion of gravel and worn bowlders
from the immediate vicinity. The upper
part contains no bowlders, indeed, except
those of granite, syenite, quartzite, and oth-
er metamorphic rocks from far to the north-

ward. These, however, are quite abundant.
In some fields it has been necessary to re-
move dozens of bowlders of one hundred
pounds' weight and upward from eaeh acre
before the land could be ploughed. Some
also are quite large, reaching scores of tons
in weight. Glacier-marked bowlders are
rare, however. Perhaps one in a thousand
shows plainly grooves and deep scorings ;
but many others are less distinctly marked.
Still not more than one-tenth exhibit any
other marks of glacial action than a rounded
form.

Medico - Psychological Rubbish. — Dr.

Maudsley's Journal of Medical Science
quotes the following passage from the Brit-
ish Medical Journal as an example of the
rubbish that passes current in medico-psy-
chological matters : " One of the most curi-
ous facts connected with madness is the
utter absence of tears amid the insane.
Whatever the form of madness, tears are
conspicuous by their absence, as much in
the depression of melancholia or the excite-
ment of mania as in the utter apathy of
dementia. If a patient in a lunatic asylum
be discovered in tears, it will be found that
it is either a patient commencing to recover,
or an emotional outbreak in an epileptic who
is scarcely truly insane ; while actually in-
sane patients appear to have lost the power
of weeping; it is only returning reason which
can once more unloose the fountains of their
tears. Even when a lunatic is telling one
in fervid language how she has been de-
prived of her children, or the outrages that
have been perpretrated on herself, her eye
is never even moist. The ready gush of
tears which accompanies the plaint of the
sane woman contrasts with the dry-eyed
appeal of the lunatic. It would indeed
seem that tears give relief to feelings which,
when pent up, lead to madness. It is one
of the privileges of reason to be able to
weep. Amid all the misery of the insane,
they can find no relief in tears."

The Devil and the Oak-Trees. — A legend
current among the peasants of Unterinnthal
(Tyrol) accounts as follows for the sinuous
outline of oak-leaves (we translate the legend
from Die Natur) : The wicked old fiend one
day would tempt the good God, and so asked

508

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

if he would grant him a trifling request.
With a smile, the Lord answered, " What
you ask will be granted so soon as the oaks
have lost all their leaves." The Goltsei
beiuns (literally, " God-be-with-us " — in old
times people did not like to name the devil,
lest he should appear) was delighted, and
eagerly longed for the coming of autumn ;
but the oak-leaf gave no sign of falling. So
the devil, somewhat disappointed, deferred
his hope to winter. Winter came, but still
the leaves clung fast to the oaks, though
they rustled all yellow and brown in the
wind. Satan had then to comfort him-
self with the thought that at least they
would fall in the spring. But when joyous
Spring came, making its progress through
the verdant fields, first young leaves began
to sprout, and not until these had grown to
considerable size did the old ones drop off.
Then the prince of darkness knew that his
request would never be granted, for the oak
never loses all its leaves at once. So in his
rage he rushed howling and roaring at the
oak-trees, and with his claws tore the leaves
to pieces, and we, to this day, only see the
6hreds.

A Big Fish- Worm. — The people who in-
habit the highlands of Southern Brazil have
a firm belief in the existence of a gigantic
earthworm fifty yards or more in length,
five in breadth, covered with bones as with
a coat-of-mail, and of such strength as to
be able to uproot great pine-trees as though
they were blades of grass, and to throw up
such quantities of clay in making its way
underground as to dam up streams and di-
vert them into new courses. This redoubt-
able monster is known as the " Minhocao."
Dr. Fritz Miiller, who has for some years re-
sided in Brazil, studying in particular the
entomology of that country, has thought it
worth his while seriously to investigate the
grounds of this popular belief, and has pub-
lished the result of his researches in a Ger-
man periodical, from which Nature has taken
the gist of his communication. As will be
seen, he is inclined to admit, with consider-
able allowance, the truth of the popular
stories. The evidence of the existence of
the Minhocao is of this kind : About eight
years ago one of these monsters made its
appearance in the neighborhood of Lages,

but perhaps it will be safer to say that it
" is reported to have made its appearance."
One Francisco de Amaral Varello, at a place
distant ten kilometres from that town, saw,
lying on the bank of the Rio das Caveiras,
an animal nearly one metre in thickness,
not very long, and with a snout like a pig.
He went to call his neighbors, but when he
returned to the rescue the animal had disap-
peared, and the party saw only the trench
it had made in disappearing under the earth.
A week later a similar trench was seen at
the distance of some six kilometres from the
former one. One F. Kelling, a German,
from whom Dr. Miiller got this information,
was at the time a merchant at Lages, and
he saw these trenches. Another German,
E. Odebrecht, while surveying a line of road
from Itajahy into the highlands of Santa Ca-
terina several years ago, crossed a broad,
marshy plain traversed by an arm of the Ma-
rombas River, where his progress was much
impeded by " devious winding trenches which
followed the course of the stream, and occa-
sionally lost themselves in it." These trench-
es he is now inclined to believe to be the work
of the Minhocao. Other testimony, relating
to five or six earlier apparitions of the Min-
hocao, is cited, but we have no room to give
it here. To Dr. Miiller the conclusion ap-
pears inevitable that in the above-named
region of Brazil " long trenches are met with,
which are undoubtedly the work of some
living animal. It might be suspected," he
adds, " to be a gigantic fish allied to Lepi-
dosiren and Ceratodus ; ' the swine's snout '
would show some resemblance to Ceratodus,
while the other characters show rather an
analogy to Lepidosircn. In any case," he
concludes " it would be worth while to make
further investigations about the Minhocao,
and, if possible, to capture it for a zoologi-
cal garden."

Aurora Borealis. — From statistics of the
aurora borealis collected by H. Fritz, and
extending from 1846 to the present year, we
learn that out of 2,035 days in the months
from August to April, on which auroras
were seen, 1,107 were aurora-days in Finland,
and that of these 1,107 auroras 794 were
simultaneously visible in Europe and Amer-
ica, 101 only in Europe, and 212 were visi-
ble only in Finland. During the same period

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

509

and within the same months, 928 auroras
were seen in Europe or America which were
invisible in Finland. These statistics fur-
ther serve to show the geographical distri-
bution of auroras, which is as follows: The
zone of greatest frequency and intensity be-
gins near Barrow Point (latitude 72° north),
on the northern coast of America ; thence it
passes across the Great Bear Lake toward
Hudson Bay, which it crosses at latitude 60°
north, passing over Nain on the coast of
Labrador, keeping south of Cape Farewell.
Its further course is between Iceland and the
Faroe Isles, to the vicinity of North Cape
in Norway, and thence into the Arctic Sea.
Thence it probably passes round Nova Zem-
bla and Cape Isheljuskin, approaches the
north coast of Asia in the eastern part of
Siberia, in the longitude of Nizhni Kolymsk,
and thence returns to Barrow Point.

Analogies of Plant and Animal Life. —

Some very interesting analogies of plant and
animal life are pointed out by Mr. Francis
Darwin in a recent lecture. In the first
stage of individual existence — the egg or the
germ — the analogy is perfect ; it is no less
so in the stage just succeeding. Among
animals there are great differences as to the
degree of development attained by the young
ones before they enter the world. For in-
stance, a young kangaroo is born in a com-
paratively early stage of development, and
is merely capable of passive existence in its
mother's pouch, while a young calf or lamb
soon leads an active existence. Or com-
pare a human child, which passes through so
prolonged a condition of helplessness, with a
young chicken, which runs about and picks
up grain as soon as it quits the shell. As
analogous cases among plants Mr. Darwin
cites the mangrove and the tobacco-plant.
The ripe seed of the mangrove is not scat-
tered about, but remains attached to the eap-
sule still hanging on the mother-plant. In
this state the seeds germinate and the roots
grow out and down to the sea-level, and the
plant is not deserted by its mother until it
has got well established in the mud. For
the conditions of life against which the young
mangrove has to make a start are unfavor-
able enough. The most intrepid seedling
might well cling to its parent on finding that
it was expected to germinate in soft mud

daily flooded by the tide. Perhaps, adds
the author, the same excuse may be offered
for the helplessness of babies — the more
complicated the conditions of life, the great-
er dependence must there be of offspring
on parent. Compare a young tobacco-plant
with a young mangrove. All the help the
seedling tobacco receives from its parent is
a very small supply of food. This it uses
up in forming its first pair of leaves, and it
has then nothing left by way of reserve, but
must depend on its own exertions for sub-
sistence— that is to say, it must itself manu-
facture starch (which is the great article of
food required by plants) from the carbonic
acid in the air. In this respect it is like a
caterpillar which is formed from the con-
tents of the egg, but has to get its own liv-
ing as soon as it is born.

The Construction and Erection of Light-
ning-Rods.— Dr. R. J. Mann lately summed
up in a series of aphorisms the funda-
mental conditions to be observed in the
construction of lightning-rods. We have
not room here for the whole series, but
select a few of the most important. The
main stem of a copper lightning-conductor
should never be less than -fa of an inch
diameter ; this dimension is not sufficient
for a building more than eighty feet high.
Galvanized iron may be used instead of
copper, but then the diameter must be
greater in the ratio of 6. 7 to 2.5, the con-
ducting capacity of iron being to that of
copper as 14 to 77. A galvanized iron-rope
conductor should never be less than j% of
an inch diameter; a galvanized iron strip
should be 4 inches wide and \ of an inch
thick. A lightning-rod must be continuous
and unbroken from end to end. A rod need
not be attached to a building by insulated
fastenings ; metal clamps may be safely em-
ployed, provided the rod be of good con-
ducting capacity and otherwise efficient.
Above, the rod must terminate in metal
points, well projected into the air; these
points should be multiple and perfectly
sharp. The bottom of the conductor must
be carried down into the earth and be con-
nected with it by a surface-contact of large
extent. All large masses of metal in a
building should be metallically connected
with the lightning-rod, except when they

5io

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are liable to be occupied by people during
a thunder-storm — an iron balcony, for in-
stance. In such cases it is better not to
have the iron connected with the conductor,
for there is some risk of persons standing
on the balcony furnishing a path for the
lightning to the rod.

North American Archaeology. — The di-
rectors of the Smithsonian Institution con-
template the publication of an exhaustive
work on the antiquities of North America,
and earnestly invite the cooperation of
archaeologists and of all who may be pos-
sessed of information concerning the abo-
riginal history of North America. The an-
cient monuments to be described in the work
are mounds and earthworks, shell-heaps, cave
and cliff dwellings, masonry, sculptured slabs
or carved images, inscriptions, and rock-
paintings, graves and cemeteries, aboriginal
quarries, and salt-works, caches or deposits
of objects in large quantities, workshops or
places of ancient aboriginal industry, an-
cient roads or trails, reservoirs and aque-
ducts. In addition to original records and
descriptions of the objects here enumerated,
the Smithsonian Institution desires to ob-
tain copies of all books, memoirs, pamphlets,
extracts from periodicals, and newspaper
clippings, having any relation whatever to
American archaeology. Information is fur-
ther solicited concerning all collections of
American antiquities, however small, whether
in private hands or in public museums. Any
one can obtain, on application to the Smith-
sonian Institution, its " Circular in Refer-
ence to American Archaeology," in which
are stated in detail the different subjects
concerning which specific information is
wanted.

A New Fact in Natural History. — In the

books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy it is
forbidden to eat any creature living in the
waters that " hath not fins and scales." Of
such animals it is written : " They shall be
an abomination unto you ; ye shall not eat
of their flesh, but ye shall have their car-
casses in abomination." Christians, at least
modern Christians, are not wont to hold
oysters as " unclean " and " an abomina-
tion," notwithstanding the very high au-
thority on which they are so declared to be

in the Holy Scriptures. But the Jew still
obeys the divine command, as of old ; hence
the devout Hebrew knows nothing, from
personal observation, of the delicate flavor
of the oyster, and no doubt that savory
bivalve has oftentimes been a stumbling-
block and a scandal for the weaker ones of
the children of Israel. But a truly won-
derful discovery has been made by a learned
rabbi in England, which takes the oyster
out of the class of things forbidden, and
makes it as harmless to the conscience as,
doubtless, it will be grateful to the palate
of the Jew. This rabbi has read Mr. Dar-
win's works, and read them to some pur-
pose, for he finds that, " in consequence of
the theories" of that famous naturalist,
" oysters are plants, and may therefore be
eaten by Jews." We hasten to add that
as yet the rabbi's views are merely mat-
ters of private opinion, and hence no safe
guide for consciences ; but a grand council
will before long be summoned to render
authoritative judgment in the matter. Its
decision will be awaited with no little in-
terest. It is to be hoped that the vegeta-
ble side will prevail. One strong argu-
ment in its favor is the notorious fact that
oysters are planted, the result of course be-
ing the oyster-plant.

Peculiarities of Vision. — Mr. Galton, in
his paper on " Composite Portraits " (see
page 465 of this number), observes that
"the two separate impressions received by
the brain through the stereoscope do not
seem to be relatively constant in their vivid-
ness, but sometimes the image seen by the left
eye prevails over that seen by the rigJtt, and
vice versa." This remark has elicited from
a correspondent of Nature a communication
in which he describes a very curious defect
in his own eyesight. This correspondent's
right eye is fairly long-sighted, but the left
eye is short-sighted. Print which is read
distinctly by the one at the distance of eigh-
teen inches, cannot be easily read by the
other at a distance of over eight and a
quarter inches. The result of this is, that
the right — the long-sighted eye — closes in-
voluntarily when he reads. Again, when
he looks intently at a distant view, the left
or short-sighted eye shuts occasionally.
When both eyes are open he has two sep-

NOTES.

5ii

arate images presented to the brain, one
blurred and indistinct, even for faces a
yard distant, and the other clearly defined
for objects at ordinary distances. " How is
it," he asks, " that my brain or mind rejects
the blurred image, and chooses the distinct
one ? .... If I get a particle of dust in
the good eye, or close it, I immediately see
the blurred image. . . . This blurred image
always appears at a higher level than the
other. Things appear as a rule," he adds,
" much flatter to me than to people who
enjoy binocular vision. I know this be-
cause I have a pair of spectacles so arranged
as to equalize my sight. When I put them
on, objects like trees put on a delightful
fullness and roundness to which I am usu-
ally quite a stranger. I may add that two
of my brothers have a similar defect of
vision."

The Cactns as a Lava-Breaker. — A cita-
tion, in the bulletin of the Torrey Botanical
Club, from Dr. Peters, the famous asteroid-
hunter, gives an interesting fact in relation
to the doctor's earlier days, when he ate
prickly pears, or the fruit of the Indian-fig
cactus, on the sides of Mount Etna. He de-
scribes the lava-beds as covered with im-
penetrable patches of Opuntia jicus Lidica^
the Indian fig-cactus. These patches are
the result of economic planting, with the in-
tention of producing soil on the lava-beds.
The Sicilian throws down a handful of soil,
then drops upon this a bit of the cactus,
which immediately roots. The effect of this
cactus-growth is to facilitate the weather-
ing of the rock, and thus make soil. The
next step, after clearing off the cactus, is to
plant fig-trees. In this way the lava-beds
of Mount Etna are transformed into fruit-
ful gardens.

A New Septic Organism. — Mr. Dal-

linger lately gave, before the London Royal
Society, an interesting account of the life-
history of a peculiar microscopic organism
discovered by him in certain decomposing
fluids. This organism never exceeds the
4^00 of an inch in long diameter ; in shape
it is oval ; at its anterior extremity it has a
head-like protrusion bearing a delisate fla-
gellum. From the sides of the shorter or
front segment of the oval project two long
flagella, and these, as a rule, trail behind,

one on each side. It swims rapidly, but has
also the capacity of anchoring both of its
lateral flagella to the floor of the microscope-
stage, or to a decomposing mass in the drop
of liquid in which it is examined under the
microscope. By steadily observing it in the
free-swimming condition, it may be seen to
undergo self-division, the division beginning
in the front flagellum, and proceeding until,
by longitudinal fissure, a new lateral flagel-
lum is made for each half. There are now
two perfect organisms. The author con-
fined his attention for some time continu-
ously to one of the segmental portions, and
succeeded in tracing the process to its ulti-
mate results. Having so observed a num-
ber of the self-dividing organisms, he found
that in the majority of cases, when the pro-
cess of fissure ceased, there was simultane-
ous exhaustion of vital action, and death ;
but in a certain proportion of cases, in which
fissure was not so long continued, there was
a change to the amoeboid condition, the lat-
eral flagella being absorbed, and the body
becoming oval with anterior flagellum only.
It now swims easily, but only in a straight
line. It soon comes in contact with a col-
ony of the organism in the perfectly flagel-
late condition, attaches itself to one of them,
which soon unanchors, and both swim away.
In course of time their movements become
sluggish ; the sarcode of their bodies is pal-
pably blending, they become quite still, ex-
cept for amoeboid movements, and then be-
come one oval mass. After three or four
hours this pours out minute specks, which
appear to develop into the adult form and
size. The temperature of 142° Fahr. is fatal
to the perfect organism ; the " speck," germ,
or spore, can bear with impunity a temper-
ature of 250° Fahr.

NOTES.

The schooner Eothen, carrying the ex-
pedition to search for the relics of Sir John
Franklin's party, sailed from New York on
Wednesday, June 19th, under the command
of Captain Thomas F. Barry, whose discov-
ery of spoons bearing Sir John's crest, in
the hands of an Esquimaux tribe, was the oc-
casion of fitting out this expedition. Lieu-
tenant Schwatka, Third U. S. Cavalry, will
command the search-party, and will have
for guide and interpreter Joseph Ebarbing,
"Esquimaux Joe" of Polaris fame. The

512

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Eothen will touch first at Whale Point, in
Hudson Bay, and there recruit a force of
Esquimaux to reenforce the search-party;
from Whale Point the schooner will proceed
to Beach Point, Repulse Bay, one hundred and
forty miles north. Thence the search-party
will proceed inland by sleds five or six hun-
dred miles to a point in the northern portion
of Boothia Felix, where the last survivors of
the Erebus and Terror crews are said to
have perished, and where, according to the
natives, their bodies are buried.

Rediscovery of a lost Sphceria is noticed
by the bulletin of the Torrey Botanical
Club. This fungus, the S. barbirostris, was
discovered by Dufour in the department of
Landes, France, over forty years ago. Since
then no specimen has been found until
lately, when Mr. J. B. Ellis rediscovered it
on some maple-bark at Vineland, New Jer-
sey.

Among some insects sent to Prof. Lock-
wood, of Freehold, New Jersey, as damag-
ing the wheat, he identified that terrible
microscopic hemipteran, the chinch -bug.
The specimens came from Morris County.
The Hessian fly is unusually troublesome
this year in New Jersey.

In a recent lecture before the Natural
History Society of Harvard College, Prof.
J. D. Whitney asserted that the " Calave-
ras skull " is undoubtedly of Pliocene age.
Chemical analysis had shown it to be a true
fossil, its organic matter being almost en-
tirely lost, and the lime phosphate replaced
by carbonate. Prof. Whitney had himself
chiseled away from the skull the substance
of the matrix in which it was imbedded
when found in the strata underlying Table
Mountain.

The Polytechnic Review mentions the
discovery, in South America, of a species of
fibrous plant suitable for paper -making.
The specific nature of the plant and the lo-
cality of its growth are kept secret. It is
asserted that a No. 50 thread of the fibre
" cannot be broken by the strength of or-
dinary fingers without snapping." The
plant grows wild, and is, when full grown,
taller than a man, in some cases even higher
than a man on horseback. In the natural
state it is of a brown color, but is easily
bleached to pure white.

A series of grammars of Indo-Germanic
languages is announced as forthcoming from
the press of a Leipsic publishing-house.
There will be eight grammars in the series
— namely, Indian, Iranic, Greek, Italic, Ger-
man, Irish, Lithuanian, and Slavic. The
Indian grammar will be by Prof. W. D.
Whitney, of Yale College, and he has gone
to Europe to see the work through the
press.

Dr. Brown-Sequard has been appoint-
ed the successor of Claude Bernard in the
professorship of Physiology in the College
of France — an eminently well-merited ap-
pointment. Dr. Brown-Sequard is a native
of Mauritius, born in 1818, soon after that
island had been taken from the French and
made a British possession. His father, Dr.
Edward Brown, was a native of Philadel-
phia, and his mother a native of Mauritius
and of French origin. He is eminent as an
investigator of brain and nerve organiza-
tion.

It has been observed by Pasteur that
some bacteria are killed by a temperature
of 109° Fahr. This fact he uses to explain
the impossibility of inoculating birds with
anthrax or carbuncle. But if the tempera-
ture of birds be lowered artificially, they
would, he inferred, be inoculable, supposing
the temperature to be the obstacle. This
inference he confirmed by experiment ; hav-
ing kept a fowl for some time in water of
75° Fahr., he succeeded in inoculating it
with anthrax.

We have to record the demise of two Eu-
ropean astronomers of note — namely, Prof.
Wolfers, of Berlin, editor of the " Year-
Book " of the observatory attached to the
university of that place ; and Rev. R. Main,
F. R. S., director of the Radcfiffe Observa-
tory, England. The former died in the sev-
enty-sixth year of his age and the latter in
the seventieth.

Magnus Nyren writes to the St. Peters-
burg Academy of Sciences that the great
earthquake on the South American coast, in
May, 1877, was perceptible at Pulkowa by
a tremor of the instrument with which he
was observing the passage of a star. He
further states that the tremor continued
sufficiently long to be satisfactorily verified,
and that there was no disturbance in the
neighborhood by which it could have been
occasioned.

In Natal, South Africa, grass is kept in
the moist state for months by being buriod
in pits, the process being known as " ensi-
lage." A pit is dug in the ground in a dry
situation, and filled with fresh-cut grass,
which is packed closely down and then cov-
ered with a thick layer of soil, to exclude
the air. Grass thus stored is apparently
unchanged in its nutritive properties ; cat-
tle consume it with avidity, and thrive well
upon it.

A statue commemorative of Giordano
Bruno, the philosopher and martyr of sci-
ence, will be dedicated at Rome on Febru-
ary 17, 1879. He was burned at the stake
in that city on the same day of the year
1600, on the charge of being an " obstinate
heretic."

Prof. 0. C. MARSH.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

SEPTEMBER, 1878.

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION.

By Eev. T. W. FOWLE.

OF all the objections and difficulties that sprang into life the mo-
ment that the doctrine of evolution was propounded for our
acceptance, very few indeed (exclusive of the purely scientific ones)
now give evidence of persistent vitality. Time, which, if age and ex-
perience can give wisdom, ought to be so much wiser than any of us,
has consigned the greater part of them to oblivion, and evolution is
taking its place, one might say, as part of the furniture of the human
mind. Chief among these objections was the assertion that evolution
could give no satisfactory account of the origin of morality and the
genesis of conscience.

Many persons, religious thinkers especially, among whom Mr.
Charles Kingsley may be cited as an instance, while willing to accept
any reasonable conclusion of science, as to the origin and constitution
of man, appeared determined to reserve conscience as something inex-
plicable by any effort of human thinking, and therefore as a direct gift
of God to his creatures ; others, again, have gone so far as to assert
that the idea of duty as of divine obligation must perish, if the nature
and growth of conscience could be explained, as part of the evolution
of the race, by natural causation. This feeling, natural and indeed
honorable, was strengthened by the fact that the explanation given of
the place of conscience in evolution seemed to unprejudiced minds —
seemed also to that communis sensus which is, after all, the ultimate
court of arbitration in these matters — on the whole inadequate to
account for the phenomenon for which explanation was desired. These
persistently averred that they were conscious of something within them
wdiich no considerations derived from utility or from social life, or from
the transference of external sanctions to the inward individual con-
vol. xiii. — 33

5i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sciousness, at all explained or enforced. To a certain extent this feel-
ing was itself a justification of resistance to the claims of evolution to
be regarded as a sufficient history of the creation of man. The evolu-
tionists had claimed to be able to make clear to its possessors the mys-
tery of conscience ; and if reasonable men asserted that, so far as they
were concerned, the sense of mystery remained, it was clear that the
last word on the subject was not yet spoken.

I am certainly very far from thinking that the last word will be
spoken for some time to come, but I make bold to believe that it is
possible to throw further light upon the subject without at ail depart-
ing from the general principle of evolution to which I have for long
given such intellectual adherence as was in my power. Let us, then,
begin by endeavoring to understand what were the precise features in
the power called conscience, which seemed to intuitional thinkers to
baffle and defy the explanations of the evolutionists.

Their general point of view may be fairly expressed by the state-
ment that the conscience must have had an existence prior to the con-
ditions out of which it was supposed to have been evolved. Drawn
out in detail, this statement contains the three following propositions :

1. Conscience is instantaneous — that is, innate — in its origin, and
therefore not to be accounted for by the supposition that by degrees it
was impressed upon the mind from without. It bears so strong a
resemblance to the other faculties, the senses and emotions, that, like
them, it must have formed part of the original constitution of man.
When examined it seems to testify that it is in no sense a composition,
not made up of long and varied experiences, but the result of a single
creative act, or at any rate the instantaneous product of certain condi-
tions brought for the first time into relation with each other. In other
words, the length of time postulated by evolutionists for the develop-
ment of man is not granted them in the case of conscience. We shall
see presently whether they really require it.

2. Conscience is instantaneous — that is, intuitional — in its opera-
tions, and therefore not to be accounted for by the action and reaction
of social relationships. Had there been but one man, that one man
would have been able to say, " I must do this ; " and, again, there must
have been a sense that it was right to combine for social purposes of
mutual help and comfort before men could have conceived the idea of
doing so. The notion that I ought to act in a certain way toward my
neighbor is, if not a primary, at least a very easy one, whereas the no-
tion that I ought to act in a certain way, because it is for his or our
advantage, seems prima facie a much later one. There is, in short, a
correlation between the conscience and an external rightness, which is
just as natural, as rapid, as unaffected by later relationships, as is the
correlation between the eye and light. In primeval man the conscience
detects, however dimly and imperfectly, morality in actions just as the
eye detects shape and color in objects. Social and civilized life may

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION.

515

enable him to see more clearly and explain more completely, but it can-
not give him either the eye or the conscience.

3. Conscience is also instantaneous — that is, imperative — in its com-
mands. It never stops to argue when once the right is, or is thought
to be, ascertained. But if mankind had reached the lofty heights of
duty by the ladder of utility or the gradually-growing influence of ex-
ternal sanctions, it might have been expected that some fragments of
the ladder, some traces of the process, some memory of the time when
" ought " was a word of dubious meaning and uncertain cogency, would
have been preserved. The evidence derivable from the histories of sav-
age existence seems plainly to indicate that this imperativeness of con-
science is inseparable from the most rudimentary stage of moral and
social life. In short, to put the matter as briefly as possible, those who
object to the theory of evolution maintain that it is impossible to con-
ceive of any creature entitled to the name of a human being who was
not as much furnished with a conscience as anv of his successors. True,
the primeval conscience had not begun to construct moral rules any
more than the primeval eye had formed theories of light and form ; but
the existence of both was equally indisputable and essential to the idea
of man.

Now, if it can be shown that there is a place in evolution for the
formation of a conscience fulfilling all these conditions — if, that is, the
theory of evolution can be proved to account precisely for those phe-
nomena that seem prima facie to militate most strongly against it — if
this feature, which I have called instantaneousness, and have exhibited
in three of its leading characteristics, is exactly what one might expect
to find in the evolution of the human race — then I submit we have
obtained a confirmation of the truth of the said theory of that nature
which appeals most forcibly to the common-sense and practical judg-
ment of mankind. Let this, then, be the judge as to whether all that is
instantaneous in conscience is not fully accounted for by the considera-
tions I am about to urge.

In seeking to account for the origin of man by evolution we are fre-
quently obliged to confess that the entire absence of contemporary evi-
dence compels us, at any rate for the present, to say of many phenomena,
that if we knew more we should be able to answer difficulties and clear
up perplexities which seem at this present moment wellnigh insuperable.
The gaps are such that they cannot be filled up even by the imagina-
tion. Science has done but little yet to enable the intellect to form an
idea to itself of the way in which organic life and reasoning man began
to exist upon the earth. Impenetrable darkness hangs over vast epochs,
nor is it possible in the present absence of materials to fill in the pict-
ure of that critical time when man (slowly or suddenly, who can tell?)
rose up from among the beasts and said, or rather felt without being
able to say, "I am." But then by our hypothesis this is also the time
when he also said, " I must." We may feel assured that at this time,

5i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

by orderly development and natural process of causation, all that is
most vital and precious to humanity, all the seeds of man's present and
eternal future, came into existence ; but none the less is the darkness
so great that even the imagination refuses to move from its place. The
surrounding objects are there if the light would but dawn so as to ena-
ble us to see them. It is very necessary to remind ourselves of this,
lest we seem to be expressing ourselves with too much certainty in
doubtful matters. But however necessary this may be when we are
dealing with many other questions respecting the origin of man, it is, I
firmly believe, by no means so necessary in our present investigation.
That phenomenon, called conscience, which seemed at first sight the
most likely to resist analysis by way of evolution, proves upon experi-
ment to yield most readily to it.

As usual in questions of this description, philosophy has been made
the slave, the victim, and finally the accomplice of language. The word
conscience has come to suggest a kind of special faculty, not exactly
thought and not exactly feeling, which presides over a specific depart-
ment of man's being, namely, his moral conduct. Whereas, reduced to
its simplest elements, conscience is merely the power which the mind
possesses of discerning rightness. Just as we discern something called
beautiful which we must admire, or something called pleasurable which
we must seek, so do we perceive something right which we must do.
And so our specific question comes to this, " How did the idea or the fact
of rightness enter into the world ? "

There can, I think, be no doubt that the general tendency of the
teaching of evolution has been to reintroduce into philosophy the idea
that such things as virtue, goodness, happiness, right, are absolute and
fixed quantities, formed for man and not by him, existing independently
of him, and therefore the same to all men in all circumstances. They
are realized by the complete and harmonious adjustment of the self-con-
scious ego to the circumstances out of which it came and by which it is
surrounded. Can, then, evolution help us to perceive how the idea of
there being such a thing as absolute fixed rightness came into the world ?

Let us transfer ourselves in thought as far back as the time when
the origin of man took place, and let us imagine a being slowly or sud-
denly arriving at the stage of self-conscious existence. For our present
purpose it matters little whether we attribute this to a gradual progress,
or (what is surely possible) to a sudden but natural leap in evolution,
or to a special act of creation adapting itself to materials already at
its disposal. (I mention this last alternative merely to show that this
theory of the origin of conscience does not conflict with any reasonable
hypothesis as to the origin of man.) Now this Being owed his origin
to the law or process of natural selection. He had been cradled, so to
speak, under conditions which prescribed a continual struggle for ex-
istence, and which permitted only the strongest and fittest to survive
and multiply. His " conduct " up to the moment or epoch when it be-

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION. 517

came self-conscious was confined to these two spheres of action, flying
(by combination and otherwise) for life and killing for* life. There
were creatures whom it was natural for him to kill, and others who, it
was equally natural, should kill him. This was the state of things in
which he found himself a living, thinking being; this was the law
which he found not only confronting him on every side of his exterior
life, but also deep rooted in his inmost nature as an indubitable, un-
answerable fact.

Having arrived at this point, let us as our next step remind our-
selves that it is impossible to imagine a rational human being in whom
there is not present the assurance that he has a right to himself, to be
allowed to live in the first place, afterward (as the result maybe of
long years of evolution) to be allowed to live happily. That no one
has a right to take my life from me is a thought inseparable from my-
self, it is at any rate the first piece of knowledge of which I become
possessed. The infant's cry for nourishment and warmth contains this
much meaning to those who can discern how moral feelings grew out
of physical conditions. But then this thought remains a mere mystery,
and therefore quite unsuitable for affording a basis on which to explain
the origin of conscience, until we set it in the light of evolution. So
regarded, the mystery vanishes in an instant. For this thought is
merely the necessary result of the correlation of the first self-conscious
being with his environment, and conscience is the struggle for existence
become aware of itself in the mind of a thinking person. The first
man, in however dumb, inarticulate a fashion, did nevertheless prac-
tically contrive to claim of the universe, of Nature, of creatures like
himself, nay, ultimately of the unknown Author of all things, that thej7
should not destroy the life which they had originated. He made his
appeal (makes it in truth now) to all the tremendous forces amid which
he moved, and in the balance and play of which he endeavored to main-
tain an independent personal existence, that they should minister to
Mm, the one thinking creature among them, and therefore (for the first
man was also the first philosopher) their centre and final cause. It
seemed to him, in short, right, could not indeed seem otherwise, the
past being what it had been, that his environment should be such as
would make life possible to him at once, and in due time useful and
enjoyable. ,

Observe that the condition essential to all knowledge, namely, con-
trast or the perception of dissimilarities, is here present. As light is
meaningless without darkness, or heat without cold, so is right without
its contrast of force or wrong. No doubt primeval man may have for
long perceived by sensation the contrast of heat and cold, day and
night, before he so far separated the ideas as to give them abstract
names. So, too, the same man may have for long felt the indescribable
contrast between the external force that was everywhere threatening
his existence and the internal force that was resolutely bent on con-

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tinuing to be, before he called the two by the names right and wrong.
But as the mere fact that the contrast was there, and always had been
there, at the very root of things, produced at once the appropriate feel-
ing in the first mind, so did the feeling produce in due time the words
in which it is expressed. Take the first and commonest action in the
struggle for existence. The meanest creature that lives seeks instinc-
tively to escape from its enemy by flight. But man alone can think, as
t he flies from his pursuer, with an energy quickened by his knowledge
of what death is and means : " All this is unutterably wrong. I have a
right to save my life, this thing or creature has no right to take it from
me." Such, or something like this, were the first thoughts of the first
conscience, the first expression of the conviction that there was a Tight-
ness in the world.

"Whatever else may be urged against this account of the origin of
conscience, it seems to me certain that those phenomena, upon which
intuitionalists have particularly relied as being beyond the reach of
analysis, and therefore of discovery, are fully and precisely accounted
for. Take, for instance, the word creation, which men have used be-
cause of their feeling that there were things in the world of instanta-
neous, and therefore of specially divine, origin — a feeling which gave
rise to the most sublime utterance of antiquity : " God said, Let there
be light, and there was light." Now the poetical beauty and religious
truth of such phrases are surely not in the least degree prejudiced by
the scientific statement that these "creations" correspond to those
critical epochs in the progress of evolution when, by the union or mar-
riage of one set of conditions with another, a third is instantaneously,
and for the first time, called into being. Such an epoch, resulting in
the origin of conscience, was that in which a being conscious of him-
self said, or thought, or felt, "I am," and then, confronted with a world
of opposing and destructive forces, added, " and I have a right to be."

So, too, the truth contained in the assertion that conscience is
innate, intuitional, and imperative, is seen to be in harmony with the
foregoing account of its origin. It is innate in the sense that, though
undoubtedly impressed from without during long periods upon man in
his animal state y it was not gradually impressed upon him in his intelli-
gent state, but was, from the first, part of the mental furniture with
which as a rational being he commenced his life upon earth. It is, in
short, not a composition, i. e., the result of various tendencies such as
pleasure, utility, and the like, but, in the sense explained above, a cre-
ation, coeval with man himself, the inheritance of the first human being
no less than of the last.

Again, it is intuitional in the sense that it has a direct necessary and
immediate perception of an external something, named Tightness, with
which it is correlated. Man, by virtue of his conscience, is obliged to
believe that there is right and wrong, just as by virtue of his eye he is
obliged to believe there is light and darkness. And this belief exists

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION. 519

and must exist independently of all theories as to what in the abstract
constitutes right and wrong, and in spite of mistakes in particular cases.

Lastly, conscience is imperative, because the inwrought conscious-
ness in human nature that man has a right to himself makes every other
consideration whatsoever subordinate to itself. This is the right which
must be at every cost pursued by myself and conceded to me by others,
which dominates every action, lies at the root of all human progress,
shapes every institution of our devising, and presides over the destiny
of mankind to its remotest end. For, travel as far as we please, we can
never escape from the conditions under which we were called into being.

So far, then, the task we set before us of ascertaining how the sense
of rightness came into the world has been in some degree accomplished.
The process by which from this prolific germ the vast fabric of human
morality, together with the exquisitely delicate machinery of the indi-
vidual conscience, as we now see it, has by slow degrees grown up, can
be indicated in a sentence. Morality consists in transferring to other
beings like ourselves those rights which we feel that we ourselves pos-
sess, in learning that what is due to us from them is also due to them
from us, in ascertaining in what those mutual rights consist, in adjust-
ing the rights of individuals within the limits of one society, lastly, in
forming to ourselves notions of abstract right and wrong by the meth-
ods of philosophical inquiry. Manifestly, therefore, this account of the
origin of conscience does not conflict with any one proposition that has
ever been formulated by any of the great masters of experimental phi-
losophy ; it does but claim to add to them that undefinable something
which seemed to the common-sense of mankind deficient in their account
of conscience. The true method of inquiry is surely not to ask what
such words as "conscience," "ought," "duty," "happiness," mean in
the mind of a modern thinker, but to discover, if we can, what they
meant, or rather to what instinctive impressions they corresponded, in
the minds of the forefathers of our race. For the question is not " How
did I come by my conscience ? " but " How did those remote ancestors
of mine, the first man and after him the first society of men, come by
theirs ? "

The history of the process by which, under the influence of social
life, its wants, obligations, utilities, arrangements, and sanctions, the
sense of a right due to ourselves was elaborated into the voice of con-
science prescribing what is due to others, would be a valuable and in-
teresting contribution to moral science. But though quite beyond our
present limits it is, I think, possible to sketch in mere outline the stages
through which conscience passed till it reached its full growth. I dis-
claim any pedantic desire to show that these stages are chronologically
successive ; on the contrary, they act and react upon each other, and
may be immensely varied in their operations among different races or
at different times. But with this proviso the seven ages of conscience
may be briefly indicated as follows :

5 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

1. The Animal Stage. Mr. Darwin's book has familiarized us with
the idea that the moral and mental elements in man's nature, no less
than the physical and material, were derived from " irrational creatures
by the process of evolution. How far this is capable of being proved
in other respects it is not for me to say (whatever I may believe), but
I am sure that it is true of that element which seems at first sight most
opposed to it — the conscience. Making all allowance for the tempta-
tion and tendency to read our own thoughts into the minds of animals,
and also for the effect upon the animals themselves of man's moral
control, it yet remains certain that the materials out of which con-
science has been constructed are everywhere discernible, like the rough
unhewed stones of a quarry, in animal life and in Nature itself. The
mere fact that animals can be taught and made to feel what they ought
to do (how can we avoid using the word " ought ? ") settles the ques-
tion. But, without relying upon this, is it not evident that the con-
trast between the external force that would destroy and the internal
power that will live existed long before it became an object of per-
ception and reflection in the brain of a reasoning creature ? And this
contrast produced such actions as the following — flight, combina-
tion for defense, appealing looks, cries of remonstrance, self-defense to
the last moment of existence. For instance, the sight of an object ac-
customed to pre}7 upon a weaker animal then and there stimulated that
animal to immediate flight by putting into motion the appropriate mus-
cles and limbs. But the animals with which man is in closest alliance
were those whose weakness must certainly have made the necessity
of escape a large part of their experience. With this would come a
great number of painful and also pleasant emotions. The need of hor-
rible exertions, the terror of anticipation, the sense of unavailing wrath,
sometimes the ecstasy of deliverance, which must have been so strong
in the heart of every hunted animal that turned to bay at last, are seen
to border closely upon that instinct of Tightness which so evidently be-
longs to our individual inherited experience. It needed but the touch
of self-consciousness to make the instinctive feeling pass by a bound
into an instinctive thought in the mind of a being that "could look be-
fore and after." And whatever difficulty there may be in accounting
for the evolution of man lies not in his moral but in his mental growth.
How he became conscious of himself we may possibly never be able
even to imagine, but that being1 conscious of himself he was bv mere
force of circumstances possessed of the germ of conscience, is a state-
ment that presents no difficulty at all.

2. The Intermediate Stage. What was the moral condition of the
" ape-like man ? " He was a creature who had a vivid and intense con-
ception of his own right to exist, and no conception whatever as to the
rights of other creatures to the same existence. He was the inheritor
of conditions and tendencies which wrought in him such thoughts as
these : " You shall die before I will ; " "I will use you to please my-

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION. 521

self; " " I am born to pursue my own happiness ; " " The whole world
is mine to occupy, plunder, and rule over, so far as I find a power within
me to do it and to prevent others." He was, in short, the incarnation
of perfect selfishness. No one, of course, supposes that these " thoughts "
amounted to anything more than vague impressions in the minds of the
first men, till they grew into positive convictions under the fostering
power of progressive and multiplied experiences. All that seems cer-
tain is, that there was an era in the history of man when there was add-
ed to his nascent conscience that sense of ph}Tsical or necessary obliga-
tion expressed in our word " must." If he was to avoid destruction, it
was borne in upon his mind that he " must " act in such and such a way;
his perception of right, that is, of his claim to existence, demanded of
him a csrtain course of action (hardly yet perhaps of conduct), and de-
manded it in the most brief and imperative fashion. In this stage of
human life, before men entered into social relations, we can plainly dis-
cern that aspect of conscience which we have described by the word
"instantaneous," and which has seemed to so many minds indepen-
dent of, and prior to, any social experiences. We do but reproduce
this ancient fashion of our race when, putting aside all opposing con-
siderations, and refusing to listen to arguments based upon expediency
or advantage, we say peremptorily and decisively, " I owe it to myself
to do this at once."

3. The Family Stage. The phenomena of primeval family life are
so obscure, so varied, and so complicated by institutions like polygamy
and polyandry, that in making even the most general and apparently
common-sense observations we are obliged to express ourselves with
caution and reserve. One indubitable fact, however, stands out impres-
sively amid all the chaos, and affords us a sufficient standpoint for indi-
cating the precise growth of conscience at this stage of its existence.
I mean, of course, the maternal care of offspring. It was from this
deeply-rooted instinct that men first learned to transfer to the beings
whom they loved, and whose helpless weakness appealed to them for
protection, the same rights which they claimed for themselves. But
however important and indeed enormous is the step thus made in the
evolution of conscience, we must beware of making too much of it at
this stage of its growth. For the first parents, even when preserving*
and protecting their children, could only regard their children's rights
as part of their own, which they were entitled to defend against all op-
posing forces ; nor could they possibly have imagined that their chil-
dren had any rights as against themselves. Still, when every deduction
has been made, the fact remains that the sense of an obligation due to
others besides ourselves, and perhaps too from ourselves, became part
of the human consciousness, and men learned that if they wished to do
well unto themselves they must make efforts of care and protection for
the life and for the welfare of others. All the earlier annals of our race
seem to show that this consideration for others, even those dearest to

5 22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

us, was at first but a very flickering and transitory feeling as opposed
to our inherited selfishness; but, for all that, it was the bridge by which
men first began to cross from self-love to benevolence, and to become
social beings. An interesting survival of this primeval state of things
may perhaps be traced in Roman law, under which the father's control
over his children seems to point back to the time when men did their
duty to their children only as part of themselves, and exercised to the
fullest extent the right to do what they pleased with their own. A less
pleasing reminiscence of the primitive conscience is to be found in the
plea of the slaveholders, that they do not ill-treat their slaves because
it is for their own interests to keep them alive, healthy, and happy.

4. The Social Stage. At a certain period of his mental growth
primeval man must have begun to form conceptions or ideas of the
various objects that came within his experience, so as to be able to say,
"This is a flower, and this a stone, and this a man." Now his idea of
man must of necessity have been framed upon his knowledge of himself.
Whatever qualities or properties he recognized as belonging to himself,
these he would transfer to all other beings of whose likeness to himself
in all essential conditions he had become aware. Hence it would fol-
low that as he had a distinct and vivid impression of his own right to
existence, he would have the same impression, in a faint and dubious
form, of other men as possessing the same right. It seems probable
that to this rudimentary perception of mutual likeness may be traced
all that part of our social feelings which owes its origin to an intel-
lectual as opposed to physical sources. Anyhow this recognition of
likeness selects for man the kind of beings with whom he is willing to
enter into those social relations to which he finds himself impelled in
part by inherited instincts, and in part by the necessity of living to-
gether with other creatures in the same territory, and upon the same
means of subsistence which they must procure in common. Thus the
important fact emerges that man brought (in germ) the idea of right
and wrong with him to the formation of society, and did not obtain it
as a result of social intercourse acting through the agency of pains and
pleasures. From the moment that A, B, and C, recognizing a likeness
of nature, and therefore a possibility of intercommunion, resolved upon
trying the experiment of living together, they must have perceived
that they could only do so by acknowledging each other's independent
claims to be allowed to live. In respect of all that pertains to life and
death they must, in short, have acted up to what Mr. Mill called the
"golden ethics" of doing to others as we would they should do unto
us. Let us note, in passing, that this "golden" saying, when seen in
the light of evolution, becomes not merely a moral rule but also a state-
ment of a scientific fact, for it was only by acting in accordance with
it that "neighborhood" became possible. "Who is my neighbor but
he to whom I assign the same right to exist that I claim for myself
from him ? "

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION. 523

We are now in a position to describe how man came by that social
modus vivendi which we call utility, and define as all that makes for
the continued existence and progressive welfare of the community.
Utility is scientifically " the result of the conflict of individual rights,
with survival of the fittest.'1'' The first right that passed away was the
right to kill my neighbor ; the first that survived was the right that my
neighbor should not kill me. And to these rights conscience paid an
intuitive deference (rendered perhaps all the more striking by the con-
trast presented by men's habitual practice) from the moment that the
mind conceived the possibility of social relations. Things being as
they were, it could not do otherwise. But then this right to one's self
soon passes, under the fostering nurture of social life, to mean not
merely bare animal existence, but all that conduces to make life
happy, free, good, and useful. During the long course of advancing
ages, rights are being conceded to the individual or being abandoned
by him according as experience shows what is possible and best for
human life and happiness. And all the while the conscience plays its
part in this upward progress by transferring to any recognized reason-
able rightness (alas ! also to a thousand wrongs, which, yet true to its
innate origin, the universal conscience persists in regarding as doomed
to pass away) the same intuitive deference that it could not help but
pay to the first moral inference evolved by the needs and the instincts
of social life, " If you have no right to kill me, then have I no right to
kill you."

5. The Political Stage. The earliest and (in a certain sense) most
authentic records of the human race represent the murder of a brother
as the first crime, the murderer's fear of vengeance as the first idea of
punishment, and " Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood
be shed " as the first effort of criminal law to curb the murderous in-
stincts. We have in this a very impressive representation of the next
stage in the history of conscience. At first the faint and shadowy idea
of my neighbor's right to existence must have been a poor and frail
defense indeed against the storms of innate passion, the cruel, selfish
lusts, the reckless and savage assaults of men just emerged from the
animals and beginning a social life, which, unlike theirs, involved a con-
scious sacrifice of the individual's will to the community. But no so-
ciety could have lasted for long without there growing up a distinct and
profound conviction that the indiscriminate taking of life cut at the
root of its own existence. There are many interesting (in a scientific
sense) survivals (blood-feuds, for instance, or the cheapness of human
life, which invariably accompanies the dissolution of society at revolu-
tionary epochs) of this primeval state of man, during which some of the
strongest sentiments we possess were engraved upon our mental and
moral constitution by the external action of laws and customs. It was
now that the voice of the community began to proclaim in no hesitating
tones to the individual conscience " Thou shalt not kill," and to take

524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

very decisive steps indeed to make its decrees heard and obej'ed. And
so the word duty began to be in the air.

Now, I hold it to be quite impossible that any such external com-
mand could create in the mind the sense that it is a matter of duty to
obey it ; nay, all law must have presented itself to the individual
merely as part of that very external force which was originally, and is
still liable at any moment to become, the natural enemy of his personal
rights. And if I (that is to say, my ancestor of thousands of years
ago) am merely forced by laws acting upon my fear of punishment to
surrender my desire to slay another man, I may of course yield to su-
perior force, but I cannot possibly thereby acquire the sense of duty,
which may be defined as the pleasure resulting from intelligent acqui-
escence in self-sacrifice that makes self-sacrifice possible. But when the
law appeals to a sense of right and wrong already existing, when the
command " Thou shalt not kill " is met by a response in the conscience,
"I know that this is true, for I had the thought before, or rather at the
moment when, I became a social being," then there results the joyful
sense of duty which makes obedience pleasant. "Wherefore," the
conscience cries, " the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just,
and good." It is welcomed as the interpreter of conscience, as that
which explains a man to himself. And so through countless avenues
of utility, and through as many sanctions of social opinion embodied in
law, custom, or tradition, the conscience advances toward the percep-
tion of the rights of men and of a corresponding internal sense of duty
toward them. And thus, as I think, we get an explanation of the
pleasurable element in duty. For while the law is becoming more and
more imperative, and sacrifice of self more and more exacting, and our
personal rights more and more circumscribed, there goes along with us
the sense that we are but finding our true selves and expressing our
own convictions and obeying our own highest wills, and are thus en-
abled to experience the greatest possible delight in doing our duty.
For what is this, after all, but the satisfaction of finding our life when
we were willing to lose it?

6. The Ideal or Moral Stage. The next step in the history of con-
science carries us a long way forward in the course of man's mental evo-
lution, because it brings us to the time when he became capable of
forming abstract notions. But it must be borne in mind that long be-
fore these notions were formed, the tendencies and impressions in which
they culminated were busily, if silently, at work ; hence it is possible
to trace the line of advance along which the conscience passed from the
primitive sense of rightness to the complete ideal state.

It is natural for men, under the pressure of social obligations, to fall
back upon their personal rights and innate egoism, and to question the
authority to which they have submitted more from a gregarious irstinct
than from any exercise of their reasoning powers. Questions like the
following lie deep down in the nature and necessity of things, and ex-

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION. 525

ercise powerful effect upon the mental and moral modes of thought
long before they become articulate in language: " Why am I restricted
from doing what I please? Why does law or custom pronounce it
wrong to kill one man, right to kill another ? Why would my fellow-
men think it right to kill me under certain circumstances ? Why is the
law on this and other points so unfair, so irregular, so incomplete, that
were I to fashion my conduct by it alone, I should be always doing
something of which I did not approve ? Above all, am not I, the unit
of which society is composed and for whose benefit it exists, in danger
of losing my right to myself and becoming merged in a mere aggregate
mass of my fellow-units ? Is right and wrong to be determined for me
without effort or remonstrance, or even cooperation of my own?" x

Now the answer which man has made for himself to such questions
is, by common confession, the discovery and the assertion that there is
an absolute lightness belonging to society as such, with which individ-
ual rights may be harmonized, but which they can never supersede.
How did he come to make this discovery and assert it with so unhesi-
tating a conviction ? Of justice in the abstract (for this is what we call
the social lightness) it is true that primitive man could have no con-
ception ; that idea has been generalized from experience. Now we
have seen that the first man was dominated by the consciousness of a
primitive rightness due to himself. We have seen also that, compelled
by the instincts of forming a social life, he extended the same Tightness
to individual men like himself. We are now to see that, under the
stress of questions such as the above, and strengthened by the growing
power of forming general ideas, the mind transferred to society, to Nature,
nay, to inanimate matter, the same idea of absolute Tightness which it
claimed for itself. Man perceived right everywhere and in all things
just as he had done at first — then in the simple concrete form of the
right to his own existence, 11010 in the highly-abstract form of every-
thing having its own right and wrong. At first all Nature is indebted
to him, now he is indebted to all Nature. Utility prescribed in what
rio-ht and wrong consisted, but did not give the idea of it ; or, to speak
more accurately, if we are willing to define utility as that which makes
for the existence of anything, then just as utility or the needs of his own
existence had suggested to man the idea of primitive Tightness, so did
it impress upon him the idea of Tightness as inherent in the constitu-

1 The relation between the power of law in enforcing rights and the power of con-
science in detecting Tightness is well illustrated by a sentence of Sir Henry Maine's, de-
scribing the action of English law upon Indian modes of thought: " Unfortunately for us,
we have created the sense of legal right before we have created a proportionate power of
distinguishing good from evil in the law upon which the legal right depends" ("Village
Communities," lect. iii.). I may add that the history of village communities presents a
curious illustration of the way in which the conflicting rights of egoism and society were
preserved in early times, i. e., by what would now be considered an exaggerated expres-
sion of them side by side. See his remarks on the isolation of households and the secrecy
of family life, in the fourth lecture.

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion of tilings, and especially of society, if it were to continue to exist.
Men come to think that they have no business wantonly to destroy any-
thing, not even an insect or an inanimate object. Yet if they do it at
all, they answer that it was because it was " useless." It is thus by
tracing ideas apparently dissimilar to the same root that we obtain the
strongest possible confirmation of the truth of our contention.

It was thus, then, that men began to form to themselves moral
ideas, having an absolute and universal existence as opposed to the
mere passing dicta of laws and opinions. In the special case before us
the inference ran thus : " If it is not right for me to kill, then all killing
is naturally wrong, necessary exceptions notwithstanding." And thus
the ideal was formed of the sanctity of human life, and society was re-
garded only as a means for this end, all its arrangements and institu-
tions being of necessity submitted to the moral judgment of the indi-
vidual mind, and approved only so far as they came up to the ideal. It
must, indeed, be confessed that there are survivals from earlier stages
of moral growth which cast a strange and ironical reflection upon man's
claim to wisdom and advancement, and cause his practice to fall lamen-
tably short of even so early and obvious an ideal as the sanctity of life.
How else are we to account for the fact that while all England will
thrill at the news of some specially savage murder, or while we our-
selves would be saddened to the end of our days by the result of some
homicidal carelessness, we yet contrive to read morning after morning
without a sigh or even a passing remark of battles in which thousands
of human beings have perished for a cause in which they had no more
real concern than they had for the politics of the planet Jupiter ?

It was thus, then, that men embarked upon that process of forming
ideals which led them from the primitive thought, " Self-preservation is
the first (and only) law in Nature," up to the highest abstract expres-
sion of moral duty, " Fiat justitia, ruat ccelum." But now observe the
immensely important influence which the formation of ideals exercised
upon the moral constitution. It was this which enabled men, amid the
pressure and conflicts of life, to vindicate their primeval claims to them-
selves, and to establish an independent moral existence in the midst
of society, as they had at first established an independent physical ex-
istence in the midst of the universe. The immediate effect was that
they became a law unto themselves. (For instance, under the influence
of such an ideal as the sanctity of human life, they refuse to kill even
when authority commands them ; na\', they prefer themselves to die.
That is to say, the original claim to bodily life reappears in the form of
a claim to moral life, to which we insist that the same deference shall
be paid as our forefathers claimed for their natural existence, and which,
thanks to the innate law of our being, we refuse to surrender upon any
conditions whatever. And thus we have come to understand what is
meant by the significant phrase, "rights of conscience." Can it be
said that this has been satisfactorily explained up to the present time ?

THE PLACE OF CONSCIENCE IN EVOLUTION. 527

Mr. Herbert Spencer finds the origin of the sense of justice to self in
the egoistic sentiment known as the love or instinct of personal free-
dom. Carry the analysis one step further back, to the innate demand
for personal existence, and, like finding a diamond in a coal-mine, we
come upon just that element of absolute, all-pervading, essential light-
ness for which we might otherwise search in vain.

No wonder, then, that men have almost deified the power they
possess of discerning right and wrong, to which they owe in the last
resort the possession of themselves. But, unhappily, egoism is easily
overdone, and egoism, identifying itself with liberty and duty, is liable
to all kinds of mischievous exaggerations and delusions. Conscience
comes to be regarded as a special faculty instead of being an ordinary
operation of thought directed to special objects. It is ascribed to a
divine origin and erected into a test of religion and truth. The chief
stress of practical exhortation is laid not upon finding out the right,
but upon doing what we believe to be right, very often irrespective of
advice, common-sense, and obvious consequences. Nay, men go so far
as to assign to conscience a sort of lordship or supremacy over them-
selves, and so, by a roundabout way, only end at last in doing what they
please. Like Arthur, they "reverence their conscience as their king,"
and, like that excellent but unprosperous monarch, they contrive, with
the best intentions in the world, to make a bad business of life. In
short, they glorify not the sun which gives the light, but the eye which
perceives it, and thus give rise to a reaction against the pretensions,
nay, the very existence of conscience, which causes whole volumes of
philosophy to be written with barely so much as the mention of its
name. To redress the balance, recourse must be had to the good genius
of philosophy — evolution.

7. The Religious Stage. I have placed this stage last because the
association, much more the identification, of religion with morality
comes so late in the history of man, that religion has but little to do
with the conscience in its elementary state. Among savages, religion
can hardly be called moral at all, although the gods might, on the
whole, be believed to be on the side of what the tribe thought to be
right — subject, however, to the very important qualification that the
gods of another tribe held different views. Still, so far as primitive
man believed that the gods would visit him with rewards and punish-
ments by an exercise of superhuman power, to that extent there was
added to the conscience a feeling of responsibility and solemnity togeth-
er with an awful imperativeness which must have considerably modified
llis moral constitution. Moreover, by calling attention to a will exter-
nal to our own, something was done to counteract the egoistic tendency
which I have just described. And so it was that morality did not take
final refuge in stoicism until religious belief had died away.

The truth, of course, is that religion can and does become definitely
moral when the human mind rises to a belief in one Almighty God with

528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

whose will righteousness is of necessity identified. How the Hebrew
oranch of the Semitic family came by this belief (along with other
peoples who, however, did not retain it) cannot at present be positively
affirmed, but it is of exceeding interest to observe that the earliest idea
of the moral will of God is connected with the instinct of self-preser-
vation, to which we have traced the genesis of conscience. What in
other races is the voice of tribal opinion condemning murder, is, among
the Hebrews, regarded as the voice of God, " who at the hand of every
man's brother will require the life of man." In this we see how records,
old in themselves, and pointing back to tendencies and traditions lost
in the mists of antiquity, identify the primitive rightness with the will
of God, by whom first Nature, then man, then the family, then the so-
ciety, had been established. And thus the will of the Creator has been
by degrees definitely set up as the standard of right and wrong to which
men must conform, so that the supreme effort of human morality is
breathed in the prayer, " Thy will be done." And this accounts for
the remarkable fact that the idea of conscience had little or no hold
upon the Jewish mind. Modern theology bases religious belief mainly
upon a supernatural origin of the conscience and a supernatural revela-
tion as to the conditions of the future life. The Bible, for all practical
purposes, has nothing to say about either of them.

To sum up, then, the result of our investigation, the conscience
which we now possess is the primitive sense of a rightness due to one's
self, resulting from the struggle for existence ; extended to others as
men entering into the social state perceived a likeness to themselves in
their fellows ; intensified and sanctioned by the urgent pressure of ex-
ternal law in the political state ; becoming a law to itself as men be-
came capable of forming abstract notions ; and saved from egoism by
the Christian development of the Hebrew monotheism.

Now the truth and adequacy of this statemant may be tested in
two ways : Is it conformable to what we know to be true of evolution
generally ? and is it in harmony with the phenomena presented by the
conscience now ? It has been impossible to do more than here and
there indicate an answer to the second question ; but if opportunity
offered it would be, I believe, easy to answer it at length by an exami-
nation of the operations of conscience in actual practice, and by sur-
veying the conflicting forces, the curious survivals, the metaphysical
theories, with which the word conscience is associated. Anyhow, the
history of the conscience from an evolutionist point of view remains yet
to be written.

But is this theory of its origin in harmony with evolution itself?
How far, for instance, are we justified in using such words as " think,"
"say," "feel," or "law," "idea," and "consciousness," in describing
the moral condition of primitive man? To this we must reply that the
inchoate tendencies and slowly-deepening impressions which finally
culminated in the phenomena described by words like the above, pre-

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 529

sent an inward and personal aspect of the nature and progress of evo-
lution which ought not to be overlooked. For the very method and
circumstances of man's creation by evolution planted within him a con-
sciousness from which, when acted upon by myriads of slowly-widening
experiences, were evolved all the fundamental powers of his moral
nature. Let us illustrate this position by the cognate example of the
genesis of religious beliefs. These were developed, let us say, either
from the worship of ancestors, or (according to the mythological theory)
by personifying the operations of Nature. But it seems to me totally
impossible that any merely external cause could have produced a belief
so primitive, so powerful, so universal, so permanent, and above all so
strongly marked by certain original and undeviating characteristics,
unless they had been correlated with the consciousness of a creature in
whom by the very law of his origin the Spirit of Evolution was always
suggesting an unanswerable question : " Where wast thou when I laid
the foundations of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding."
Primitive man had enough of philosophy to ask this question, and
enough of science to attempt to answer it out of such materials as lay
ready to hand ; hence it is that speculations as to their own origin are
common, if not universal, among savage races. As in religion so in
morality. All the external impressions arising out of society, law,
utility, and the like, were related to and conditioned by an innate sense
of Tightness in the individual, wrought in him by the power of evolution
itself by which he was created. And thus we arrive at that inward and
spiritual side of evolution to which I have endeavored to call atten-
tion, in the belief not only that justice remains yet to be done to it,
but also that it contains a reconciling and adjusting element much
needed amid the conflicts and misunderstandings of modern thought.
But from the further pursuit of this thought I am obliged, however
reluctantly, to turn away. — Nineteenth Century.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE.1

Br Professor EMIL DU BOIS-REYMOND,

OP THE THSTIVERSITY OF BERLIN.

PART III.

VIII. — Prussian Gymnasium Education in" the Struggle against
the Progress of Americanization.

HOW are we to guard our youth against this debasing influence ?
The answer appears to be easy, and has often been given before.
Let us set up the palladium of humanism against that natural science
which would subject to dissection our ideals, which contemptuously re-

1 An address delivered before the Scientific Lectures Association of Cologue. Trans-
lated from the German by J. Fitzgerald, A. M., and carefully revised by the author.
VOL. XIII. — 34

530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

jects whatever it cannot bring into the cold light of reason, which would
divest history of its profound interest, and would even tear away the
veil which adds to the charms of Nature. As humanism rescued man
from the prison-house of scholastic theology, so let it enter the lists
once more to battle against the new enemy of harmonious culture. The
gods and heroes of antiquity, with their immortal fascinations ; the
myths and stories of the Mediterranean nations, in which, as we might
say, is enshrined all that is good and beautiful ; the spectacle of a civili-
zation which subsisted, it is true, without natural science, but out of
which prominent men rose to a mental greatness hardly ever attained
since — it is from the action of such influences as these upon the mind
of youth that we can most confidently hope for victory in the struggle
with the neo-barbarism which, though as yet its hold upon us is loose,
is, from day to day, tightening its iron grasp. It is Hellenism that must
ward off from our intellectual frontier the onset of Americanism.

But is it, then, possible to bring our youth into more intimate and
more stable contact with classic antiquity than heretofore ? In our
old and tried gymnasia have we not most careful provision made for
this very thing ? "What other country can boast of imparting so thor-
ough and so learned a classical education, and that to so large a pro-
portion of its youth, even of the less wealthy classes ? Other enlight-
ened countries of Europe have their eminent university professors, but
the profoundly-erudite, unassuming, and hard-working Oberlehrer is a
German type, of which the nation may well be proud. Thus not only
do we hold the foremost rank in gymnasial education, but we even, in
all probability, have reached the limits of the possible ; and were there
no other means of staying the decline of German idealism, save by in-
creased study of Latin and Greek in the gymnasia, we could have but
little hopes of checking the downward tendency.

It will now seem paradoxical for me to assert that more Latin and
Greek certainly will not, but that perhaps a little less of them might,
insure this result. In fact, if our gymnasia are not to promote Ameri-
canization, instead of counteracting it, I hold that certain reforms of
the plan of study are imperatively necessary.

The gymnasial education of the youth of Germany, like the consti-
tution of the army, exerts an enormous influence on German life. The
gymnasium has gradually come to possess a simply despotic power over
the family. For every educated citizen, therefore, who has himself
made the gymnasium course, or who has sons in the gymnasium, it be-
comes a right and a duty to concern himself about the organization of
those schools. Doubly is it his right to do this if, belonging to a learned
profession, he has had opportunities of observing the results of gymna-
sium education. This is the case with myself. As a professor in the
university, not only am I in constant relations with students in the early
semesters, and frequently, through my public lectures, with those who
are not studying medicine, but also, for upward of twenty-five years, as

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 531

examiner for the state and for the Faculty, I have learned more or less
accurately the educational standing of some 3,000 young men who had
left the first class of the gymnasium from two to four years previously.

But there is a special reason why I should express my views about
the organization of gymnasia. In 1869 the rectors and senates of the
Prussian universities were invited by the Government to report on the
question " whether and to what extent the pupils of the Realschulen1
could be admitted, as well as those of the gymnasia, to the faculty
courses of the universities." As being at that time Rector of the Berlin
University, it fell to my lot to draw up the report of its senate. Not
merely as reporter of the senate, but also with the warmth of personal
conviction, I pronounced against the admission of the realschulen pupils,
and took all pains to inculcate the importance of classical studies, for
which nothing else could be substituted. In harmony with the senate,
however, I even then insisted that, in taking sides with the gymnasia
against the realschulen, one is not bound to look on the former as per-
fect— i. e., as not susceptible of, or not requiring, reformation in one
point or another.

If I had now again to make a report in the same sense, I should find
myself embarrassed. My opinion as to the advantages imparted by
classical training is unchanged. My objections to making the pupils
of the realschulen the peers of those of the gymnasia are as strong as
ever. But the conviction has ever been growing in me that our present
gymnasium education is no sufficient preparation for the study of medi-
cine, nay, that as viewed from a general standing-point, it does not quite
perform the task which it has proposed to itself. Hence I could no
longer justify the exclusion of the realschulen pupils, at least from the
medical classes, unless certain reforms were granted in the gymnasial
plan of studies. Inasmuch as formerly, when placed in prominent posi-
tion, I maintained a different opinion, I consider myself under a sort of
obligation publicly to state my change of views, and to give the reasons
therefor. Should that report come up for discussion in the course of
the debates upon the education act, which we suppose will soon be laid
before the Parliament, I, for my part, do not wish to be held answerable
for it any longer. For the rest, of course I abstain here from an ex-
haustive discussion of this subject, and purpose simply to indicate in
brief the direction in which I should like to see our gymnasial plan of
studies modified.

I regret that, in the first place, I have to state an impression which
has been steadily growing on me, that the humanistic education of the
average medical student is, with us, sadly defective. Such is their un-
familiarity with Latin etymology, such the poverty of their Latin and
Greek vocabularies — for instance, many of our medical students, a few
years after passing the maturity examination, are unable to trace to
their source Greek technical terms — that we can only conclude that

1 Industrial schools.

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these evidences of defective scholarship were glossed over at the time
of the examination by some mechanical contrivance. How far these
young men were familiar with the personages, the thoughts, and the
forms of the ancient world, whether they had any sense of our depend-
ence on the ancients, and of our being their intellectual descendants
— for that is the sum and substance of humanism — I of course have
had no opportunity for determining. Nor did I get any systematic
information of their historical knowledge. However, their indifference
toward broad ideas and historic sequence makes it difficult for me to
believe that they are permeated with the spirit of antiquity, or that
they had received a sound historical training.

To all this I must add another deplorable fact. For the most part
these young people wrote 'in ungrammatical and inelegant German.
Owing to the unsettled state of our orthography, our word-formation,
and our construction of sentences, instruction in the mother-tongue is
more difficult among ourselves than among people who have a settled
usage in language. But the young people, as a rule, did not even
suspect that any one could care about purity of language and pronun-
ciation, force of expression, brevity, or pointedness of style. One is
ashamed, as a German, of such barbarism as this, knowing what care
instruction in the mother-tongue receives from the French and Eng-
lish, in whose eyes an infraction of its rules appears to be, as it were,
a sacrilege. The more closely this blemish in our educational prac-
tice is connected with a deep-lying national defect, the more is it to be
wished that the gymnasia had been successful in removing it. This
neglect of the mother-tongue is, in the youth of the present day, ac-
companied b}r a lack of acquaintance with the German classics that is
oftentimes astounding. Time was when, in Germany, no one any
longer quoted from the first part of " Faust," because quotation had
been overdone. Is the time now coming when it can no longer be
quoted, because no one would understand the allusion ?

With respect to instruction in mathematics, I know that but few
masters succeed in advancing all their pupils equally. Clearly there
are minds highly gifted in other respects, but to which mathematics is
a book with seven seals. I would only remark upon the mathematical
programme prescribed by tradition and convention for the highest class
in our gymnasia. In a semi-official plan of studies this programme is
given as follows : " Geometry of solids, with mensuration of surfaces and
volumes ; geometrical and stereometrical problems ; problems in alge-
bra, particularly in its application to geometry ; indetermined equa-
tions ; continued fractions ; the binomial theorem." Though under
"problems in algebra, particularly in its application to geometry,"
analytical geometry might be included, that branch is omitted from
the gymnasial plan of studies by a ministerial decision of ancient date,
but still in full force, and the mathematical programme of the highest
realschulen surpasses in this respect that of the gymnasia.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 533

Now, this I hold to be a serious error. The influence of mathe-
matics as an educating force is not fully exerted till the student passes
from these elementary studies to analytical geometry. No doubt, even
simple geometry and algebra accustom the mind to strict quantitative
reasoning, and to assuming as true nothing but axioms or demonstrated
propositions. But the representation of functions by curves or sur-
faces opens a new world of ideas, and teaches us the use of one of the
most fruitful methods whereby the human mind has increased its own
powers. What the invention of this method by Viete and Descartes
was to mankind, that will initiation into it still be to every mind that
has any turn for such studies — namely, an illumination marking an
epoch in life. This method has its roots in the profoundest depths of
the human intellect, and hence is of far higher importance than the
most ingenious analytical processes which are applicable only to a par-
ticular case. True, trigonometry is analytical geometry ; as taught in
the gymnasia, trigonometry, like stereometry, as both these terms indi-
cate, has to do rather with mensuration, and its use is restricted to a
certain class of problems. On the other hand, between any two quan-
tities whatsoever, of which the one can be regarded as dependent on
the other, there never exists a relation so complicated but that it may
be represented by a curve ; of this fact Quetelet has furnished an in-
structive demonstration — as, for example, where he represents by curves
criminal tendency, literary talent, etc. This mode of representing the
mutual dependence of things is of as much advantage to the govern-
ment functionary and the political economist as to the physicist and
the meteorologist.

But in medicine it is indispensable. In the preface to my " Unter-
suchungen uber thierische Elektricitiit," which bears the date of March,
1848, I spoke in commendation of it as a means of bringing mathe-
matics to bear on physiology, even in cases where the complexity is so
great as to preclude the possibility of measuring, of weighing, or of
calculating time. I then first laid an absciss-axis in a nerve, while
Ludwig made the blood-circulation itself trace in curves its variations
of pressure, and Helmholtz made the muscle in like manner trace its
own contractions. Nowadays, thanks mainly to the labors of Marey,
there is scarcely any department of experimental physiology or pathol-
ogy that does not yield, through the graphical method, results of high
importance. But, as our students of medicine may have quit the gym-
nasium without ever having so much as heard of a system of coordi-
nates, I am compelled, at the opening of my lectures on physiologj',
to make my hearers acquainted with the elements of analytical
geometry.

From the reasons assigned for the above-quoted decision of the min-
istry, whereby conic sections are excluded from the gymnasium course
of study, it is plain that its author was unacquainted with the general
scope of the branch of science he put under ban, and that he considered

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it as too difficult for the prima? This is a mistake. On the contrary,
there are minds which, though highly gifted, and of a philosophical
turn, yet lack the sort of subordinate attention that is necessary in order,
for instance, to carry out a long trigonometrical calculation, and which
find themselves much more at ease in analytical geometry. The fact
that analytical geometry prepares the way through the differential and
integral calculus to the last and highest aims of mathematics, and hence
to their most difficult portion, should only form one reason more for be-
ginning the study of it in the gymnasium. And, not to pass by unan-
swered an objection which might be raised, I would remark that, owing
to the flourishing state of mathematical instruction in our universities
for a long time past, the present masters of mathematics in the higher
classes of our gymnasia are, almost without exception, qualified to teach
analytical geometry, and would even be glad were they authorized to
teach that branch. Many of the highest living authorities in this de-
partment share in the views which I have here expressed. Then, too,
in several gymnasia of non-Prussian Germany, analytical geometry is
already taught. *

I will not now dwell on the fact that the freshmen in our medical
classes, who, in the course of their studies, and later, in the practice of
their art, have to depend largely on a right use of their senses, bring
from the gymnasium only a very defective training in this respect. I
omit the consideration of this, because we have not to do here with the
medical student as such, but only in so far as he typifies the student in
general ; and I take him as a type because my observations on the work
of the gymnasium are based principally on the results seen in him. Here
the question arises, whether the gymnasium attains its end better in
the case of students belonging to the other faculties. To a certain ex-
tent it does. With those who later devote themselves to the intellect-
ual sciences, natural disposition and home-surroundings will oftentimes
be more favorable to humanistic studies than with those who are im-
pelled by hereditary realism toward medicine and the investigation of
Nature. Besides, students of theology and jurisprudence are more fa-
vorably situated for retaining their humanistic culture than are students
of medicine, who from their first semester have to do with a world of
things which have no connection, save through their terminology, with
classical studies. Hence the average degree of humanistic culture
among medical students is a very good test for determining how far
the gymnasium is in a condition to oppose the encroachments of realism.

But even when we take into account all the youths who receive a
gymnasium education, however diverse their tendencies as regards
branches of study, we do not find in them so quick an interest in clas-
sical studies as would justify us in seriously expecting from it a reac-
tion in the idealistic sense. Not reckoning philologists, who of course
are not within the scope of our remarks just now, there are but few stu-

1 Highest class in the gymnasium.

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 535

dents, indeed, who in later years ever open an ancient author. So far
from having any warm love for the classics, most persons regard them
with indifference ; not a few with aversion. They are remembered only
as the instruments by means of which they were made familiar with the
rules of grammar, just as the only conception they retain of universal
history is that of learning by rote insignificant dates. Was it for this
that these youths sat for thirty hours weekly on a school-bench till their
eighteenth or twentieth year ? Was it for this that they devoted most
of their time to studying Greek, Latin, and history ? Is this the result
for the attainment of which the gymnasium remorselessly englooms the
life of the German boy ?

In view of this state of things, we ask whether everything is going
on aright ; whether it is not time, and whether it is not worth our while,
to make an effort at reform ? Here as elsewhere it is easier, especially
for outsiders, to find fault than to determine how to repair the defect.
Here, as is so often the case in complicated questions of administration
and of human life in general, there are many causes in operation. We
take into consideration one, while ten others of no less importance escape
unnoticed. Still, though I expose myself to this danger, I will not re-
frain from expressing my views.

Without meaning any offense to the distinguished men who have
taken an active part in organizing our gymnasia, or who are still so en-
gaged, I cannot conceal my conviction that the spirit of the gymnasium
does not sufficiently keep pace with the development of the human mind
in modern times. As is evident from what has already been said, I am
fully alive to the perils with which our intellectual culture is threatened
by an excess of realism. At the same time, we cannot shut our eyes
to the fact that natural science has given a new aspect to human ex-
istence. We should be imitating the ostrich in burying its head in the
sand were we to deny the mighty revolution described above, and it
were a vain and perilous thing to try to stop the rolling wheel of such
a process of development. But hitherto the gymnasium has not taken
this development sufficiently into account. Despite a few concessions,
which are apparent rather than real, it is still what the Reformation
made it, when as yet there was no natural science — namely, a learned
school essentially designed as a means of preparing for the study of the
intellectual sciences.

In this backwardness of the gymnasium and its refusal to comply
with the demands of the time lies the strength of the realschule. I do
not propose to enter here on the intricate question of the competencies
proper to each of these two kinds of institutions. For the rest, I agree
with the views of those who desire only one species of higher schools,
which should fit their pupils equally for the university, the industrial
or architectural academy, the army, etc. Plainly, this would be simply
the humanistic gymnasium transformed so as to meet these new require-
ments. Apart from measures of administration, all that is needed to

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

put an end to the rivalry of the realschule is, that the gymnasium should
sacrifice to the needs of the time some of its time-honored but antiquated
claims, and conform itself somewhat more to the tendencies of the mod-
ern world. So soon as the gymnasium becomes imbued bona fide with
a new spirit, and insures fitting preparation even to those who devote
themselves to other than intellectual sciences, this rivalry will cease of
its own accord. The much-mooted question of the admission of real-
schulen pupils to faculty classes would thus be settled, for then the real-
schule would revert to its original intent, and be an industrial school —
an institution of great importance in its proper sphere.

What, then, do I demand of the gymnasium so that it shall appear
to meet the requirements of the time ? Essentially, very little, indeed.
First, I demand more mathematics. The mathematical course must in-
clude the discussion of equations of the second degree, and a few other
plane curves, and must also give an introduction to differential calcu-
lus through the theory of tangents. To this end, a greater number of
hours must of course be given to mathematics — six or eight, instead of
four. In the examinations for advancement and graduation, mathe-
matics must really stand on an equality with the ancient languages and
history. The equality of the teacher of mathematics with the teachers
of the other branches would in this way be made an actual fact.

It will now, perhaps, be expected that I will further demand a large
increase in scientific instruction. But I do not at all purpose to convert
the gymnasium into a school for science-teaching. All that I ask is
that as much shall be done to meet the wants of the future physician,
architect, or military officer, as those of the future judge, or preacher,
or teacher of classical languages. Thus, I ask for only so much natural
history in the lower classes of the school as will awaken the faculty of
observing, and that facilities be given for .familiarizing the lads with
the method of classification, which is rooted in the depths of the un-
derstanding, and whose educational force is so eloquently described by
Cuvier. Let Darwinism, of which I am myself an adherent, be excluded
from the gymnasium. In the higher classes, for the reasons assigned
in my report, I should like to have taught, not physics and chemistry
with experiments, but mechanics, the elements of astronomy, also of
mathematical and physical geography — to which studies one hour more
than heretofore could be devoted without injury.

But how are we to find time for these innovations ? In the prima
two hours might be gained by doing away with the religious instruc-
tion. We cannot understand the use of such instruction in a class
whose Protestant pupils have all been confirmed; and yet, in the semi-
official plan of studies already quoted, more than half a page of fine
print is expended in setting forth the subject-matter of this instruction,
while five lines suffice to dispatch the mathematical programme. On read-
ing this half-page and the corresponding half-page for the upper second
class, one imagines he has before him the programme of a theological

CIVILIZATION AND SCIENCE. 537

seminary. Even with the best intentions, it is not easy to see how
" the reading of the Augustan Confession in connection with instruct-
ing in the differences between various symbols of faith " can form part
of the general culture which it is the object of the gymnasium to im-
part to its pupils.

My second scheme for giving more room to mathematics and natural
science will probably seem more objectionable, at least to a larger circle
of people, than the first. I dare hardly express it, but I would restrict
the study of Greek grammatical forms. My enthusiasm for the beau-
ties of Grecian literature is assuredly not less than that of any German
schoolman. But, unless I am greatly mistaken, the proper aim of
studying Greek — namely, acquaintance with Grecian myth, history, and
art, and beina- imbued with Greek ideas and Greek ideals — can be at-
tained without the unspeakable labor — mostly labor in vain — which it
costs to acquire the power of putting together a couple of Greek
phrases. Surely neither Goethe when he wrote his " Iphigenie," nor
Thorwaldsen when he modeled "The Triumph of Alexander," could
write a Greek composition such as is written by the pupils in the lower
second class of our gymnasia. If there is one Greek author whom all
pupils read understandingly, and even with enthusiasm, and whom
many of them hold dear and commit to memory, it is old Homer. And
yet Homer's dialect is so different from that in which the extemporalia l
are written that the practice gained by such exercises is of no account
as far as his works are concerned. Hence without written exercises
one can acquire such mastery of a dead language as is needed in order
to read the authors who have written in it ; and, as Homer, so, too,
might the great Attic masters of style be read, the written exercises
being restricted to preparation and translation. On a former occasion
I gave utterance to the heretical opinion that our German style has been
impaired by too extensive a study of the Greek. For exercising the
intellectual faculties, and for awakening and developing a sense of the
fundamental properties of a good style — namely, correctness, precision,
and brevity of expression — there is no doubt that Latin with its limpid
clearness, its rigorous precision, and its absolute definiteness of mean-
ing, is a better object of study than Greek with its multitudinous forms
and particles, the import of which is matter rather of skilled conjecture
and artistic feeling than of logical analysis. Since the time when our
system of gymnasium education assumed its present shape, our knowl-
edge of the ancient world has undergone an almost entire transforma-
tion : barren philology has become the living science of that defunct
wrorld, and even daily our store of pictures of ancient life is enlarged
by successful excavations. To one not versed in the study of pedagogy
it would appear as though wonderful results might be attained here,
just as in natural science, by the demonstratio ad oculos. Such a one
is inclined to think the pupil would, by studying copies of antique

1 Off-hand compositions.

538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

works of art, in a few hours imbibe more of the true Hellenic spirit
than he could by listening ever so long to dissertations on the aorist
tense, the subjunctive and optative modes, and the particle av.

In the teaching of history, the course of instruction which often
loses itself in unimportant details — as, for instance, the party struggles
of ancient Rome, or the rivalries of emperors and popes in the middle
ages — I should like to see more fully illustrated than is usually the
case, with general views of the state of civilization, exhibiting the
heroes of science, literature, and art. The mass of very unprofitable
dates which the young are required to commit to memory seems all the
more pitiable when we remember that these pupils are suffered to re-
main ignorant even of the existence of the most important constants
of Nature. Can it be that a knowledge of the date of an agrarian law,
or of the accession of a Salico-Frankish emperor, is of more importance
for a liberal education than is a knowledge of the combustion-heat of
carbon or the mechanical equivalent of heat ?

I have not time to enter on the question of the modern languages
in the gymnasium. Besides, to me it appears to be a matter of greater
moment to find out how we can secure for pupils in the gymnasia more
thorough instruction in the mother-tongue. As I have already re-
marked, we have here to do with overcoming a national defect. But
to discuss this point more fully here would carry us too far away ; be-
sides, I have already discussed it elsewhere.

So far I have spoken only ol my own wishes. But I do not stand
alone. I know of a large number of eminent men who share my views.
Under the banner with the motto " Conic sections ! No more Greek
compositions ! " I am sure I could assemble a meeting for gymnasium
reform which would be formidable for the amount of intellect which
would be there represented. I am very glad to find myself, as regards
every topic of importance, in accord with my colleague, Prof. Adolph
Fick, of Wurzburg, who quite recently has written a paper entitled
" Considerations on Gymnasium Education."

It were rash to attempt to penetrate the future in so complex a
matter as this. But, in conclusion, to come back to the train of
thought which led us up to this practical question, it appears to me
that in such a reform of the gymnasium as I have here indicated is to
be found the best security against the inroads of realism on our intel-
lectual culture. The transformed gymnasium, again harmonized with
the requirements of the period, will for the first time be fully equipped
for the struggle with realism. Instead of burdening its pupils with
classical studies till they turn from them in disgust, rendering them in-
sensible to the charms of the Hellenic spirit, and giving them an aver-
sion to humanism by the torturing drill in pedantic forms ; instead of
violently giving to their ideas a direction which sets them at variance
with the world around, the gymnasium will insure to them an harmoni-
ous education in accordance with modern ideas. While based on an

ARTIFICIAL PRECIOUS STONES. 539

historic foundation, this education will at the same time embrace the
elements of modern civilization in due measure. By itself giving free
play, within certain limits, to realism, it will be all the better enabled
to resist its encroachments. By yielding a little of its own, it will in-
sure the safety of all the rest ; and thus perhaps it will defend — if it is
not already too late — the nation's treasure which has been intrusted
to it, German idealism.

■»»»

ARTIFICIAL PEECIOITS STONES.1

By CAEUS STERNE.

ONE day, not long ago, the jewelers of Paris were in a high state of
excitement, and justly so, for the news had reached them from
the Academy of Sciences that two chemists, MM. E. Fremy and Feil,
had discovered a process for the manufacture by the pound of certain
kinds of precious stones ranking in value next to the diamond, and fre-
quently commanding still larger prices than the latter — namely, the
ruby, the sapphire, and the most precious of all, the Oriental emerald.
At first the Parisian jewelers consoled themselves with the thought that
the genuine stones would always be preferred to the artificial ones, but
the excitement increased when it became known that MM. Fremy
and Feil did not propose to imitate precious stones, but that their pro-
ductions would be perfectly equal to the natural ones, and that a watch
would run on their artificial rubies as well as on natural ones, because
both of them were equally hard. Now the dealers in precious stones
asserted that it was sinful to imitate Nature's work in that manner, and
that the Government ought to prohibit it. On the other hand, a few
enthusiastic feuilletonistes proclaimed that the discovery in question
foreshadowed a still more important one — that of making gold and dia-
monds ; that the dreams of the alchemists were about to be realized,
and that poverty and wretchedness would be no more.

Of the prospect of poverty and wretchedness coming to an end we say
nothing here. As for the transformation of lead and other base metals
into gold and silver, we have to declare that this branch of alchemy is
something altogether different from the manufacture of precious stones.
Most of our modern chemists hold metals to be simple, immutable ele-
ments, which have always been what they are now, and which may
change their form, but never their peculiar nature. Not so with pre-
cious stones, most of which, and especially those that are most highly
prized, are of very lowly origin indeed. In the eyes of the chemist the
ruby, the sapphire, the topaz, etc., are simply modifications of one sub-
stance (alumina), which, as clay, forms the greater portion of the earth's

1 Translated from the Gartenlaube.

54o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

crust ; and the diamond, which is the prince of all precious stones, is
simply pure crystallized carbon, and so allied to charcoal, lampblack,
etc. Other highly-esteemed precious stones, such as the emerald, the
aqua-marina, and chrysoberyl, on the one hand, and the hyacinth, on the
other, contain " earths " chemically related to argillaceous earth — namely,
the former consist of beryl-earth, and the latter of zirconia ; but these
earths in themselves are neither rare nor precious, so that in some
countries the streets are paved with the impurer brothers of the emerald.
The same is true of all other precious stones, including pearls ; in the
main they are formed of substances of no value whatever, and to be
found everywhere, such as argillaceous earth, silicic acid, fluor-spar,
boracic acid, lime, magnesia, etc. Their only superiority consists in the
fact that the common substance in them has reached an extraordinary
degree of crystallization, for, aside from their beauty, their rarity en-
hances their value in the market.

Chemical combinations and simple substances of mineral as well as
of organic nature assume their due crystal shapes, which are so well
defined as frequently to bear a strong resemblance to those of cut
stones, only when they pass from the liquid into the solid state, and
they assume a large size only when this transition takes place very
slowly. For instance, if we dissolve in hot water as much alum as can
be dissolved therein, and suspend in the fluid, while allowing it to cool
in a quiet place, a wire vessel — a basket, a rosette, or a crown, wrapped
in wool — we shall find next morning that wire vessel covered with glass-
like, transparent, more or less large, glittering octahedral crystals.
Cold water is unable to hold in solution as large a quantity of the salt
as warm water; and the surplus, as the temperature of the water de-
creases, has to separate slowly from it. In so doing, small crystals are
formed. They grow constantly as the separation goes on, and, if we
leave the solution exposed to the fresh air so that it slowly evaporates,
we shall at last obtain very large crystals. If the alum contained an
impure admixture of other salts, they would remain in the water.
Crystallization, as a general thing, is also a purification of foreign ad-
mixtures.

In all probability, in Nature many precious stones have formed in
the same manner; and most mineralogists concur in the opinion that
rock-crystals, consisting of nothing but silicic acid, and frequently
weighing hundreds of pounds, have originated thus. It is almost cer-
tain that this formation from liquids into solid bodies has taken place
in a large class of half-precious stones, such as quartz and pyrites, con-
sisting likewise of nothing but silica — namely, agate, jasper, opal, chal-
cedony, chrysoprase, carnelian, heliotrope, and others.

At the same meeting of the Parisian Academy where MM. Fre-
my and Feil described their process of manufacturing artificial rubies
and sapphires, M. Monnier stated that he had obtained artificial opals
by pouring a highly-diluted solution of oxalic acid cautiously upon a

ARTIFICIAL PRECIOUS STONES. 541

solution as thick as molasses of silicate of soda, which brings about
a slow separation of the silicic acid. When, in so doing, he used a
solution of the sulphate of nickel protoxide, he obtained apple-green
stones, such as the chrysoprase. Thus we see that, as long as the
process of separation lasts, we may talk of the growth of precious
stones ; and we perceive, from the laws of crystallization, how by the
attraction of similar parts, and the exclusion of foreign ones, the forma-
tion of precious stones of perfectly " pure water " among the more im-
pure ones, which are frequently found, becomes more intelligible.

Another process of crystallization is the slow cooling of molten sub-
stances. This can be explained very strikingly to students of chemistry
if a kettle of sulphur or molten bismuth is cooled slowly, until it is
covered with a crust of congealed matter, so to speak. Pierce that
crust in the middle, and pour out a portion of the liquid, and there will
form on the walls of the cavity thus created crystals of surpassing
beauty, and the whole assumes the appearance of a so-called crystal
druse, a form often assumed by amethysts and other half-precious
stones. It has been thought that, to make artificial diamonds, it was
necessary only to melt coal ; but, unfortunately, the results thus far
obtained are of no value.

Nature's most successful way of producing precious stones was not
to dissolve minerals, but to put them into a fiery liquid condition, and
to separate the new productions slowly from their former impure parts
by chemical and electric influences, as we shall see directly. The earth,
like the sun and most fixed stars at present, was undoubtedly former-
ly in a fiery, liquid condition. Then the elements were commingled ;
all substances met, and entered the strangest combinations ; the whole
globe was an immense chemical laboratory. The earthy substances with
the light metals, at the last period of those gigantic processes, proba-
bly formed the " mother-liquor," from which, under various chemical
agencies, there separated now valuable metals, now grains of gold, and
still more frequently substances which were ennobled by crystallization.
The " mother-liquor," cooled with its productions, we call primitive for-
mations— granite, feldspar, porphyry, etc. It may here be stated that
these primitive processes have recently been imitated in part, and that
two principal components of feldspar, albite and orthoclase, have lately
been obtained from a fiery, liquid mixture of minerals.

Precious stones so formed would be colorless if, in the terrible fur-
nace of the primordial world, fire-proof metals had not taken upon them-
selves the task performed by aniline in our present dying-works. Long
before there were colored plants and animals, metals played the part
of pigments in Nature, and thus produced, in stones, colors almost
surpassing in brilliancy those to be found in the animal kingdom.
Rubies and emeralds are probably colored with chrome, sapphires with
cobalt, lapis-lazulis with iron, and other precious stones with copper,
nickel, manganese, etc. But we only have to refer our readers to the

5 4 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

magnificent windows of Gothic cathedrals, with their gorgeous colors,
produced by combinations of metals in the molten state. The false
precious stones made in Paris with so much perfection from heavy
strass-glass are colored with metallic oxides in as lasting a manner as
the genuine stones.

The first precious stone reproduced, not only in its appearance,
but its real nature, and in all its component parts, is the lapis-lazuli,
the sapphire of the ancients, not to be confounded with the sapphire
of our modern jewelers. This untransparent stone, of a magnificent
azure-blue color, was most highly prized by the ancient Hindoos, As-
syrians, Persians, Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, etc.; and this irrefragably
refutes the erroneous theory of some archaeologists that the ancients
were unable to distinguish the blue color. When pulverized, this stone
furnishes the surpassingly beautiful ultramarine color with which the
artists of the middle ages delighted to paint the mantle or gown of the
Virgin Mary, although they had to pay the most extravagant prices for
the pigment, which they always charged in the bills of those who had
ordered a sacred picture from them. Some fifty or sixty years ago,
Gmelin, the German chemist, discovered that this most beautiful of
blue colors could be artificially produced by heating argillaceous earth
with soda, sulphur, and carbon ; and now that Guimet, the French chem-
ist, has practically introduced this process, Europe manufactures annu-
ally about 100,000,000 pounds of this pigment, most of which is pro-
duced in Germany.

At a very early period chemists devoted their attention to the arti-
ficial reproduction of rubies and sapphires, which, as we have said be-
fore, consist of nothing but crystallized argillaceous earth, colored by
minute particles of metals. Several decades ago, the chemist Gaudin
succeeded in obtaining small ruby pellets from pure argillaceous earth,
precipitated from dissolved alum and moistened with chromate of pot-
ash. The color of these rubies, according to the quantity of chromate
which they contained, was either that of a rose or bordering on purple.
The pellets were so hard that they easily cut glass, garnets, and topazes;
but they were not crystals, and their transparency was by no means
perfect. Similar experiments were made by the chemists De Bray,
Sainte-Claire Deville, Caron, Senarmont, Ebelmann, and others. It
was long acknowledged that a crystallization of argillaceous or beryl
earth had to be obtained, and to that end it was necessary to reduce
them with the requisite quantities of the coloring metallic combinations
into a state of fiery liquefaction. Boric acid was selected for that pur-
pose, because when heated it slowly evaporates. It appears as vapor
in volcanic countries, and is especially obtained in Tuscany. The belief
that this fiery means of reduction had played in Nature a part in the
formation of precious stones was perfectly justifiable ; and so boric acid
was placed in comparatively large quantities with argillaceous or beryl
earth in open platinum crucibles, which were subjected to a long-eon-

ARTIFICIAL PRECIOUS STONES. 543

tinued heat in porcelain furnaces. In fact, as soon as the larger por-
tion of the boric acid has evaporated, there are evolved from the fiery,
liquid mass small rubies, sapphires, or emeralds. This was discovered
some twenty years ago, but the crystals were too small to make the
process a remunerative one.

Far more satisfactory were the results of Fr6my's recent experi-
ments. They are based upon a different principle, namely, that of
separating the argillaceous earth slowly from its usual combination
with silicic acid, as it is found in Nature everywhere, by bringing to
bear upon it a substance of stronger affinity for the acid. In conse-
quence, small crystals of argillaceous earth are formed in the fiery,
liquid " mother-liquor," which, in the course of further separation, grow
slowly. In the glass-factories of M. Feil, quantities of this " mother-
liquor" of precious stones, weighing from twenty-five to fifty pounds,
were Basil}' kept in a fieiy, liquid state for two and three weeks, and in
this way very favorable results were obtained. The most advantageous
process turned out to be the separation of the argillaceous earth from
the silicic acid by means of oxide of lead, for which purpose a mixture
of equal parts of pure porcelain-clay and red-lead was placed in a large
crucible of fire-proof clay and exposed for weeks to an intense red heat.
Usually, the lead also extracts the silicic acid which the walls of the
crucible contain, and eats holes through them. Hence, to avoid losses,
the precious-stone crucible should be placed in another.

After several weeks of patient waiting, vividly recalling the expect-
ant watching of the old alchemists at their crucibles in which the phi-
losopher's stone was to be created, the crucible is taken out and cooled.
After destroying the crucible, the contents are found to consist of two
strata, above a glassy one, consisting principally of silicate of lead, and
below a crystalline one, containing the most beautiful crystals of argil-
laceous earth in round clusters. If nothing but argillaceous earth and
red-lead has been placed in the crucible, these crystals are as colorless
as glass. They will cut glass and rock-crystal, nay, even the very hard
topaz ; in short, they are precious corundums or diamond-spar, so called
because, next to the diamond and crystalline boron, it is the hardest of
all stones.

Now rubies, sapphires, and Oriental emeralds, are nothing but colored
corundums, and the former two can be easily obtained by the addition
of the requisite quantities of the coloring metallic combinations. When
there was added to the mixture of argillaceous earth and red-lead two
or three per cent, of bichromate of potash, the c^stals showed the
beautiful rose-color of the ruby; when only a small quantity of that
salt was used, and simultaneously a still smaller quantity of oxide of
cobalt was added, sapphires were obtained. The precious stones thus
produced, as a rule, are covered with a firm crust of silicate of lead, which
is best removed chemically by melting it with oxide of lead or potash,
or by means of hydrate of fluor-spar. Among a number of pounds of

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

such crystals of argillaceous earth which the inventors submitted to the
Academy, there were numerous pieces that could not be distinguished
at all from natural rubies and sapphires. They possessed their crystal-
line shape, their weight, hardness, color, and adamantine lustre, al-
though the latter was not altogether faultless.

How completely the imitation of Nature has succeeded, oay be
inferred from a peculiarity which the artificial rubies have in common
with the natural ones : both, upon being heated, lose their rose-color,
and do not recover it until they are cooled again. The diamond-cutters
who were requested to grind these artificial rubies found them not only
as hard as the natural ones, but in many instances even harder ; they
were not long in blunting their best tools made of the hardest steel.
For the use of watch-makers they are, perhaps, better than the natural
stones.

But jewelers, too, are certain, sooner or later, to derive a great
deal of benefit from these discoveries. The rubies hitherto obtained,
although very beautiful, did not equal the first-class natural stones ;
but they are only the first productions of a new process, and it is de-
cidedly creditable to the inventors that they immediately divulged
their method without trying to mystify the public. Now others, too,
may follow up this new branch of a promising alchemy. Perhaps more
time should be given to the crystals for their formation, for Nature had
a great deal of time for such productions, and it was owing to this fact,
perhaps, that it achieved such glorious triumphs. There can be no
doubt but that, at some future time, these crystals of argillaceous earth
will be colored also green, 3'ellow, and purple, and that thus the pre-
cious stones, which were hitherto distinguished as Oriental emeralds,
topazes, and amethysts, from inferior stones of the same name, will be
produced. The addition "Oriental," in this connection, has no geo-
graphical meaning, and was applied by jewelers to the harder and
better classes of emeralds, topazes, and amethysts. Perhaps these
Oriental stones will be cheaper at an early day than the inferior ones,
and the middle classes may wear as brilliant stones as princesses do
now.

Diamonds, too, were the objects of similar processes, that is, by try-
ing to bring about a slow separation of carbon from its combinations.
However, Chemistry has to admit here that it cannot demonstrate, with
any degree of accuracy, how Nature really produced the diamond. Some
think that it could only have been formed at an enormously high tem-
perature ; others consider its very slow formation in a cold condition
more probable; nay, there are scientists who regard it as the production
of some organic agency, because there are frequently discerned in them
green, cellular formations resembling certain alga?. In view of the
rapid progress of synthetic chemistry, it might, perhaps, be as well for
the diamond to maintain even in the eyes of chemists its time-honored
name " adamas " — that is, the indomitable one. For what should the

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. 545

"fine lady" wear in the future if the prince of precious stones should
follow the example of those standing closest to its throne, and allow
itself to be reproduced for a few shillings ?

■♦»»■

THE TEEEDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.1

By Dr. E. H. VON BAUMHAUER,

COMMISSIONER TO THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION FROM HOLLAND.

II.

CONTRARY to the opinion of Sellius, who regarded the teredos as
hermaphrodites, Quatrefages has taught us that they are of both
sexes and that the ratio of males to females is about one to twenty.
The females are oviparous. The eggs are expelled by the branchial
siphon : Quatrefages found them in that siphon and in the branchial
canal itself. The mode of fecundation is, however, unknown ; it is sup-
posed that, in that act, two different teredos project their siphons and
bring them in contact.

As regards the metamorphoses which the eggs undergo, either in
the branchial tubes or in the water, nothing has been added to what
was made known through the researches of Quatrefages in 1849. That
naturalist has taught us that the eggs pass through the series of modi-
fications, from the starting-point, which one meets with in the examina-
tion of all animals — i. e., the formation of the germinative area and of
the vesicle of Purkinje, the disappearance of this and the breaking up
of the vitellus. The eggs undergo their development in the branchial
cavity of the mother; the embryos resemble very small, rounded ani-
malcula of vesicular form, and are provided with vibratile cilia, by the
aid of which they have regular movements, and probably are expelled
from the branchial cavity into the siphon. In a third phase of devel-
opment the bivalve shell is formed, the foot appears on the outside,
the vibratile cilia form a sort of crown, and the embryo thus possesses
the faculty of locomotion as well by creeping as by swimming. The
development of the eggs takes place from time to time, and especial-
ly in the month of June, although even as late as the 29th of July
Harting found eggs in all the teredos which he opened. The devel-
opment of the eggs progresses very rapidly ; in four days they pass out
of the embryonic state, fully equipped for living in wood. Toward the
end of June, Kater observed them in large numbers on the surface
of wood, and by the 15th of July he found them in the interior in the
form of perfectly-developed teredos. Even in the month of December,
but no later, he saw young teredos enter into pieces of wood placed by

1 Extract from the "Archives of Holland," vol. i., translated by Edward R. Andrews.
VOL. XIII. — 3fi

546

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

design in the water ; at that time they were from eight to fourteen
days old, and, although very small, they resembled in every respect
older teredos.

Teredos penetrate wood naturally by very small openings in a direc-
tion perpendicular to the surface (Figs. 12 and 15, C) ; then they gen-
erally turn about in order to follow the direction of the woody fibres,

usually upward, but sometimes down-
ward. Although they do not enter into
the earth or mud, one generally finds
the first traces immediately above the
line of the mud in which piles are
driven ; it is at this point that piles
destroyed by the teredo generally break
off.

''lit''' lP fISi When the teredos are lodged in a

piece of wood, one recognizes them by

very small holes on the surface, and the

'Iftlf ':.^!'|./; f'^^flSlt extremely delicate tubes which project

from them (Fig. 12, e, d). These are
the siphons, only one of which shows at
first, the other appearing later. These
siphons are generally kept outside the
wood in the water, but the slightest
touch causes the animal to retract them.
One of them is shorter and larger than
the other, but they both seem to serve
for the expulsion of the fasces, which
largely consist of particles of wood
reduced to a very fine powder. It is
known that the teredo does not per-
forate wood for nourishment, but only
to procure a suitable abode ; the woody
substance, detached in the boring,
passes through the intestinal canal,
and then is expelled in the form of a
very fine white substance by one of
the siphons, generally, according to
M. Vrolik, by the shorter, but some-
times by the longer. The long siphon
appears to serve principally for the introduction of food, which consists
of infusoria, diatoms, and other inferior animalcula, which the sea-water
brings with it into the siphons. It is nevertheless still uncertain
whether the matters expelled through the longer siphon come directly
from the intestinal tube, or if they are first introduced from outside with
the inflowing water to be expelled again after a short sojourn inside.
The teredo requires for respiration a clear, pure water. It has often

Fig. 12. — Wood exposed from November,
1874, to September, 1876, in erib at Pier
No. 1, New York, North River, twenty-
five feet below mean low tide.

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. 547

been remarked that piles placed in dirty, muddy water, near drains,
for example, are protected thereby. The water should have, moreover,
a certain degree of saltness; the teredo cannot live in brackish water;
that is a point to which we shall return later.

The teredo continues to grow in the wood ; while the gallery which
it forms presents near the surface a diameter of only one-quarter to
half a millimetre, it enlarges little by little, until it reaches a diameter
of five millimetres and more ; as regards his length, and consequently
that of the tube which incloses him, we have sometimes found it to be
thirty to forty centimetres. He never goes upward more than half-way
between the flow and ebb of the tide ; although the teredo is thus, for
a short time, partially above the water, yet it appears that the wood
holds a sufficient amount of moisture to sustain his life temporarily.

The researches of Kater have still further shown, what had already
been remarked by Sellius, that the teredo can hibernate in the wood,
and that it is those individuals, thus preserved, which in the spring go
through with all the phenomena of reproduction — i. e., the formation of
eggs, fecundation, development, and expulsion of the young.

The part of the external integuments which constitutes the man-
tle deposits a calcareous matter, forming an interior lining to the
gallery in the wood (Fig. 12,/*); between this calcareous casing and
the body of the animal there remains a space sufficient to prevent
any inconvenience, at least during the act of respiration ; for it is
possible that when the teredo absorbs water, which serves for respira-
tion, his body is distended, and fills exactly the calcareous tube. The
form of this tube, secreted little by little, corresponds exactly with
that of the gallery, which has been slowly perforated in the wood ; it
has the appearance, also, of a series of rings placed one against the
other. As the animal progresses, a new ring is added to those which
existed before, so that when the tube is closed at its extremity by a
calcareous film, its length represents the total length of the animal
(Fig. 12, b to c). Among the segments of the tube, those which are
nearest the surface of the wood are the oldest and hardest ; in the in-
terior of the wood, where the gallery ends (Fig. 12, g), the calcareous
ring, newly formed, is at first soft, flexible, and of slight consistency ;
later, it becomes solid, and closes up the tube, as has been remarked
by Sellius. In the variety of teredo described by us, we have never
observed the formation of two openings surrounded by calcareous
matter, situated side by side, like an eight placed sidewise, 00, * and
serving as a passage for the siphons, as described by Deshayes.

The calcareous tube, once formed, constitutes for each teredo his
own abode, where he isolates himself from his companions, and has
nothing to fear from their close proximity. One never sees a teredo
pierce the tube of another. The tubes make their way side by side,

1 Some Oriental varieties have this form. I have seen them at the Boston Institute of
Technology, with solid tubes one and a half inch in diameter. — Translator.

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and cross each other in every direction, but, be the wood ever so worm-
eaten, there always remains a woody wall, often very thin, it* is true,
between two adjoining tubes.

The very existence of the adult teredos seems dependent upon the
wood. Withdrawn from their galleries and placed in sea-water, they
could be kept alive by Kater scarcely more than three or four days.
Left in the wood, but taken out of sea-water, they would die within
twenty-four hours. Deprived at the same time of contact with wood
and sea-water, they perished at the end of one or two hours. In damp
wood, that is, wood soaked with salt-water, their existence is prolonged
somewhat. Wood and sea-water are, then, both necessary. If these
two conditions of existence are furnished them, one can, Kater assures
us, keep them alive during several months.

The teredo does not always remain in peaceable enjoyment of the
home he has constructed, and the nourishment the water brings to him.
He finds himself exposed to the attacks of an enemy, of an
annelide to which the late M. W. de Haan has given the
name of Lycoris fucata (Fig. 13). In our day, as well as at
former epochs, this annelide is constantly found wherever the
teredo exists. His eggs and embryos are met with in the
midst of those of that mollusk.

Kater has remarked that the adult annelide, leaving the
muddy bottom, where he has hibernated, and in which the piles
are driven, climbs along the surface of the wood toward the
opening made by the teredo ; there he sucks away the life and
substance of his victim ; then, slightly enlarging the aperture,
he penetrates and lodges in place of the teredo. Later the an-
nelide reappears and seeks for new prey. All the early writers
on this subject state that they have found this annelide in wood
at the same time with the teredo. It is remarkable that a
Flo 13 similar annelide, and perhaps the same, has been found in the
cavities hollowed out in stone by the pholades.
It is important that it should be generally understood that this an-
nelide is not only harmless, but renders the greatest service in devour-
ing the wood-destroyer. It is a narrow annelide, ten to fifteen centi-
metres long, provided on his sides with a great number of small feet
terminated with a point and garnished with hairs and showing in front
a pair of strong upper jaws, horny and sharp, and lower jaws bent
backward in form of hooks and carried outside by the aid of the lower
lip, which is developed somewhat like the finger of a glove turned
backward. Behind the head are four pairs of tubular-formed gills.
With these weapons the annelide pursues and devours the teredo.
The observations of Kater teach us that he is generally found in
the empty galleries with the remains of the teredo ; sometimes even
he is seen as if clothed with the integuments of the teredo, while he
is occupied in ransacking his intestines. Once Kater had the rare

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.

.549

chance (which, by-the-way, only secures such good fortune to very care-
ful observers) to seize the moment when an annelide, coming out of one
of the openings of wood, at once took possession of a teredo that he
had placed on the bottom of the vessel which held the wood. He saw
the annelide seize the teredo with his jaws, draw him into the canal
which he occupied, and devour him so completely that there only re-
mained the two valves of the shell.

It is in an entirely different manner that the cirripeds (Balanus
sulcatus) aid in preserving wood. When these animals, to which sail-
ors and the inhabitants of our coasts give the name of Pustules of
the Sea, or Sea-Thorns, multiply to such an extent on the surface of
wood that their disks touch, without leaving the least vacant space,
the natural consequence is, that the young teredo cannot find any
place where it can attach itself, and hence it is impossible for him to
penetrate the wood. This preservative effect is produced even when
the shells have fallen, provided the disks adhere to the wood.

III.

On the Circumstances which favor the Ravages op the Te-
redo.— The commission gave in its first report an historical epitome of
the injuries done by the teredo at different epochs in Holland.

When the teredo was remarked for the first time, an idea prevailed
that it was imported from abroad ; vessels coming from the East Indies
were accused of having brought that destructive guest. Two facts
show the incorrectness of this idea. On the occasion of the deepening
of the Dumbart Dock at Belfast, William Thompson ' found, twelve
feet below the surface of the earth, in a blue, argillaceous soil, the
trunk of a tree entirely riddled by the teredo. Considering the depth
at which this debris was found, and the fact that it lay beneath a series
of strata of shells, it is certain that it was deposited there ages ago,
long before a vessel, coming from the East or West, could touch the
coast at Belfast.

Fossil wood, perforated by the teredo, has been found in different
localities : for example, in the London clay, in the Eocene formations
at Brussels, where Van Beneden discovered fossil wood, inclosing the
remains of the teredo; and at considerable depth, also, near Ghent, at
the time of the construction of the citadel.

The teredo existed in a geological period earlier than our own, and
he appears to have been always an inhabitant of our coast. Why is it,
then, that at certain epochs, as in the years 1730, 1770, 1827, 1858,
and 1859, he multiplied so prodigiously as to destroy entire dikes in a
very short space of time ? Even as early as 1733, Massuet assigned
as a cause an increase of the degree of saltness of the water, resulting

i W. Thompson, on " The Teredo navalis and Limnoria terebrans" in Edinburgh
New Philosophical Journal for January, 1855.

55°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from a diminution in the quantity of the rainfall ; the same opinion is
found expressed in the reports of many chief engineers of Waterstaat.
To decide whether this opinion was well founded, careful analyses were
made in 1859, which, compared with those made at other epochs, showed
that the proportion of salts found in the water of the Y was just double

what it was in 1855, and a third more than in 1825.

i

The three circumstances, under which this exceptional increase of

the teredo was observed, were a mod-
erate rainfall, and, as a direct or
remote consequence, a falling of the
level of the rivers, and an increase
of the saltness of the water of our
arms of the sea. As an additional
favoring circumstance should also be
noted an increase in the tempera-
ture.

IV.

Experiments in the Preserva-
tion of Wood from the Attacks
of the Teredo. — To justly appre-
ciate the experiments tried by the
commission, it must be borne in mind
that when it was discovered, in 1858
and 1859, that great injury was be-
ing done to our marine works by the
teredo, very many methods of pres-
ervation were recommended on all
sides to the Government, and that
the nature of many of these remedies
was kept secret by the persons extol-
ling them. In order that its labors
should offer every guarantee of im-
partiality, and although convinced in
advance of the inefficacy of a large
number of the means proposed, the
commission decided not to lay aside
any without a trial. Moreover, as far
as possible, it had the pieces of wood
to be experimented with prepared by

the inventors or proposers of the processes, in order to protect itself

from every accusation of unfairness.

The experiments were made the first year in the ports of Flessingue,

1 Several pages omitted, of no especial interest to American readers, describing local
observations of the state of the water and atmosphere, and analyses of the waters, to
show their chemical character.

Fig. 14.— This cut was made from a Teredo
navalis, taken from a pile exposed two
seasons (1876 and 1877) at Horn Island,
Gult of Mexico. When first taken from
the wood it was eighteen inches long.

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. 551

Harlingen, Stavoren, and Nieuwendam, and afterward in the ports of
Nieuwe-Diep and Stavoren. The woods employed were oak, red fir,
ordinary fir, and Pinus sylvestris, generally in pieces one metre long
by two or even three decimetres square. These blocks were prepared
in different ways, and care was taken to place by their side blocks of
the same kinds of wood without any preparation as counter-proofs.

The trials made by the commission may be placed under three prin-
cipal groups :

1. Coatings applied to the surface of wood, or modifications of the
surface itself.

2. Impregnation of wood with different substances, which modify
the interior as well as the surface of the wood.

3. Employment of exotic woods, other than ordinary woods of con-
struction.

Coatings applied to the Surface op Wood. — The methods be-
longing to this group, which have been examined by the commission, are
the following :

1. Method invented by M. Claasen, and kept secret by the inventor.

2. Metallic paint, invented by M. Claasen and likewise kept secret.

3. Method of M. Brinkerink, consisting of a mixture of Russian
talc, coal-tar, resin, sulphur, and finely-powdered glass, applied hot on
wood previously roughened by a toothed instrument ; this application
was two millemetres thick.

4. Method of M. Rijswijk, analogous to the preceding.

5. Paraffine varnish, obtained by the dry distillation of peat, from
the factory of MM. Haages & Co., at Amsterdam.

6. Coal-tar, applied cold on the wood in several successive layers,
or applied hot on wood whose surface had been previously carbonized.
Some pieces were treated as follows : Holes were first bored in them
and filled with tar, then plugs were fitted closely to the holes and driven
in with sufficient force to make the tar penetrate the wood ; other
pieces still were painted over with a mixture of tar with sulphuric acid,
or sal ammoniac, or turpentine, or linseed-oil.

7. Painting with colors mixed with turpentine and linseed-oil —
among others with chrome-green or with verdigris.

8. Singeing or superficial carbonization of the wood.

The pieces of wood thus prepared were placed in the water at the
end of May, 1859, and the first examination, made toward the end of
September of the same year, showed that neither of these methods af-
forded any protection from destruction by the teredo. There was one
partial exception, and that was the pieces of wood treated according to
No. 6 ; these showed only traces of the teredo here and there. But,
at a later examination, in the autumn of 1860, when the wood had been
exposed a year and a half, these were also fcund to be equally severely
attacked by the teredo.

The results of these experiments strongly convinced the commission

552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that no exterior application of any nature whatever, or modification of
the surface merely, would give any efficacious guarantee of protection
against the teredo. Even supposing that one or another of these means
would prevent the young teredos from attaching themselves to the
wood, yet the constant friction of the water or ice, or any accident,
might break the surface of the wood sufficiently to give access to the
teredo.

This seems a proper place to mention a practice in general use in
Holland for warding off the teredo : this consists in covering wood with
a coat-of-mail made of nails. This operation is very costly ; for, to
really protect wood in this way, it is important that the square heads of
the nails join exactly ; for insuring the best results, the armored piles are
exposed in the open air for some time before being placed in the water,
that rust, forming on the surface of the iron, may close up the interstices
inevitably remaining between the heads of the nails. But this precau-
tion is not infallible, as the commission examined piles more than once, in
the course of its investigation, which had been several years in the water,
and whose surface was entirely incrusted with rust more than a centi-
metre thick, but which were, nevertheless, eaten in the interior by the
teredo.

Sluice-gates are frequently covered by sheets of iron, copper, or zinc.
It is evident that, so long as such covering remains intact, there is no
cause for anxiety on the score of the teredo. Unfortunately, experience
has taught us that this protection is not permanent, but is rendered in-
effectual by being broken by the force of the water or blocks of ice.

Nature affords sometimes, as we have seen above, a more efficacious
protection in covering wood with barnacles or other shell-fish, with the
condition that this covering be made before the young teredo attaches
itself to the wood. Facts of this sort have led Lehmann to propose the
planting on wood of the common mussel (Mytilus edulis).

Impregnation of Wood with Different Substances. — The
commission examined in this category the following methods :

1. Sulphate of Copper. — The impregnation of the blocks with this
salt was performed at the factory of MM. Van der Elst and Smit, at
Amsterdam. Experience proved, even in the first summer (of 1859),
that this preparation had absolutely no power against the teredo.
Nevertheless, to make sure that the failure of this experiment was not
due to insufficient preparation, the commission procured from the estab-
lishment of M. Boucherie, at Paris, two pieces of beech-wood covered
with its bark, two pieces of beech without bark, and two pieces of pine,
all prepared with sulphate of copper. These blocks, when exposed,
did not resist the teredo any better than those prepared at Amsterdam.
These trials completely confirmed the results obtained by the engineer
Noj'on (" On the Inefficacy of the Boucherie Process in Sea-Water,"
Annals of Bridges and Roads, April, 1859).

2. Sulphate of Protoxide of Iron ( Green Vitriol). — The blocks were

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS.

553

impregnated with this salt at the establishment of MM. Van der Elst
and Smit. The first summer proved that this method would not in the
least prevent the wood from being destroyed by the teredo. And the
same was true of the following method :

3. Acetate of Lead. — The blocks impregnated with this salt were
prepared at the same establishment.

Surprise may be expressed that the commission did not try experi-
ments with corrosive sublimate. It felt that it could dispense with
them, as its inefficacy had already been sufficiently established by pre-
vious experiments on a large scale at the marine dock-yards at Rotter-
dam. Experiments with mercurial and arsenical salts were tried, in
1730 and later, but without satisfactory results.

4. Soluble Glass and Chlo-
ride of Calcium. — Pieces of
oak and red fir were impreg-
nated at the same establish-
ment at Amsterdam, first with
a solution of soluble glass (sil-
icate of soda), and afterward
with a solution of chloride of
calcium ; the object of this
double impregnation was to
produce in the pores of the

Fig. 15.— This cut was made from a piece of pine-slab, partially creosoted and exposed one sea-
sou (1877) in the Gulf of Mexico. Only the rlark-colored portion on the right side of the block
was creosoted for this experiment. The rest of the block, untreated, was entirely riddled by
the Teredo navalis, up to the edge of the creosoted portion, but that the destructive marine
worm carefully avoided.

wood a silicate of lime. The pieces thus prepared were left in the open
air during six months before being placed in the water, in order that
the chemical combination might be as complete as possible. These
pieces were exposed in the water at Nieuwe-Diep, in March, 1862, and

554 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

when withdrawn, in October of the same year, the preparation was
found to be powerless as a protection against the teredo.

5. Oil of Paraffine. — The firm of Haages & Co., at Amsterdam, de-
livered to the commission some pieces of oak and red fir injected with a
substance produced by the dry distillation of peat, to which they gave the
name of oil of paraffine. In the month of July, 1860, the commission
placed at Stavoren and Nieuwe-Diep ten pieces thus prepared. They
were examined in the course of the same year, after they had passed one
summer in the water, and it was found that they had resisted the attacks
of the teredo.

The commission conducted all its experiments thus : They placed in
the water ten pieces of each variety of wood, treated according to the
prescribed method, so that they could withdraw each year, during ten
consecutive years, one of the pieces to be submitted to examination.
In making the examination, they removed with an adze the outside of
the wood to a depth of some millimetres, which was sufficient to show
the galleries of the teredos, if there were any. The pieces found intact
were replaced in the water, and the following year their condition was
tested in the same way, by removing the shavings as before. By this
plan the commission felt certain that, if the blocks were not injured by
the teredo during several successive years, they did not owe that pro-
tection to a superficial covering, but that the wood itself resisted the
destructive efforts of the teredo, and that there would be no reason for
fearing that piles, prepared in a similar manner, would, at any time,
lose their power of resistance, when injured on their surface by water
or ice, or by slow dissolution of the active principle of the preserva-
tive substance.

When the pieces of wood treated with oil of paraffine were taken
from the water in 1862, after a sojourn of more than two years, or
rather during three summers, traces of the teredo were found in the
pieces of oak, but not on those of red fir ; but when examined in No-
vember, 1863, fully-developed teredos were found everywhere, in the
fir as well as in the oak, in the pieces whose surfaces had been removed
by the adze, but not more than in those which had not been submitted
to any examination.

6. Oil of Creosote. — This is, as is very well known, a product of the
dry distillation of coal-tar, separated by distillation from the more vola-
tile parts, which serve for the preparation of benzole and naphtha, the
residuum being pitch. Experiments had already been tried abroad, as
well as in Holland, with this substance, and from the beginning of their
experiments the commission paid especial attention to this very impor-
tant method of preparation.

Wood of various kinds, prepared with creosote-oil at the works of
the Society for the Preparation and Preservation of Wood, at Amster-
dam, was placed in the sea. in the month of May, 1859, at Flessingue,
Harlingen, and Stavoren. In the month of September following, at

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. 555

Flessingue, the pieces of oak, pine, and red fir, were found intact, while
those unprepared were perforated. In the month of October, of the
same year, the pieces of creosoted pine and fir at Harlingen showed a
perfect state of preservation. At Harlingen the treated and untreated
pieces were fastened together ; the teredo penetrated the latter, but
had not touched the creosoted wood. The same was true of the creo-
soted wood exposed at Stavoren, when visited in 1859.

At Nieuwendam, in March, 1859, three pieces each of oak, pine, and
red fir, all creosoted at Amsterdam, were exposed in the sea. They
were examined in September of the same year. They had been fast-
ened together by cross-pieces of unprepared wood : it was found that
the teredo had penetrated, at the juncture of these cross-pieces, even
into the creosoted wood, and that sometimes he stopped immediate-
ly beneath the surface, at others he penetrated to a depth of several
millimetres ; in the oak, he worked his way into the interior through
those parts of the surface which were not in contact with the unpre-
pared wood.

Experiments with creosote-oil were recommenced in July, 1860,
with ten pieces each of oak and red fir, following the plan indicated in
paragraph 5 ; the localities chosen were Nieuwe-Diep and Stavoren ; in
the latter place the pieces which remained intact the previous year
were again placed in the water after their surface had been removed
by the adze. Still later, in August, 1861, a further trial was made
at these same places with pieces of pine, beech, and poplar, sent to
the commission by Mr. Boulton, and prepared at his works in
London.

All these pieces were examined toward autumn in 1862, 1863, and
1864 ; while the unprepared pieces, placed near the others as counter-
proofs, were found each year filled with teredos, one could not discover
any traces of the teredo in the creosoted pieces except in the oak creo-
soted at Amsterdam ; in cutting these, it was found that the creosote
had penetrated them very imperfectly.

A third examination, in 1864, showed that all the pieces prepared
by Mr. Boulton, and which had been exposed in the sea since August,
1861, were entirely intact ; the most careful examination could not
show the slightest trace of the worm, even in the pieces withdrawn from
the water in 1862 and 1863, and each time scraped to a depth of several
millimetres and again placed in the water. They resisted the attacks
of the teredo perfectly.

An equally favorable and decisive result was obtained from the
pieces of fir creosoted at Amsterdam. Notwithstanding they had been
exposed in the sea since July, 1860, during five consecutive summers,
nothing could be discovered which resembled the galleries of the tere-
do : one of the pieces, at a point where the color of the wood indicated
an insufficient penetration of the creosote-oil, showed a very slight
worm-eaten appearance; but the absence of the calcareous deposit, and

556 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the whole character of the opening, indicated clearly that it should
be attributed to some other animal than a teredo.

As to the unprepared pieces, there only remained small ends, which
reached above the water. All the rest was converted into a spongy
mass, which broke at the slightest effort.

The experiment with the creosoted oak was less satisfactory. In
all the pieces were found, here and there, galleries of the teredo, but
always in small numbers ; in sawing the wood, it was found that the
injuries were invariably in those parts where the color showed that the
oil had not been able to penetrate. Although, as far as is known, no
effort has been made elsewhere to preserve oak from the teredo, the
commission places great value upon experiments with this wood. In
fact, for many marine works, oak cannot be replaced by any soft wood
which absorbs creosote-oil easily. Hence, the commission has had
creosoted at Amsterdam, by a newly-perfected process, some pieces of
oak, which were exposed in 1864 at Nieuwe-Diep ; these will not be
examined until tested during three summers.1

Petroleum has also been recommended to the commission, but it
was not deemed worth while to experiment with it, especially on ac-
count of its high price; even although petroleum should prove to be as
efficacious as creosote-oil for protecting wood against the teredo, its
price would prevent its use for that purpose.

Experiments with Exotic Woods, other than Ordinary "Woods
of Construction. — The commission has not been able to make many
experiments in this direction. It acquired a certainty that the green-
hart of Surinam, the bulletrie, the American oaks, and wood as hard as
mamberklak, are not spared by the teredo. The commission received
a large piece of the wood of guaiacum, which had been five or six years
in the water at Curacoa, and was found to be entirely eaten by the tere-
do— an evident proof that even the hardest woods are not safe from the
attacks of that mollusk.

The commission has received, it is true, many communications
relative to different kinds of woods known to be poisonous to fish, but
it has not had an opportunity to experiment with them. We await
some light on this point, from researches which the Government has
ordered to be made at our possessions in both the East and West
Indies.

Conclusions. — By way of recapitulation, the results of the experi-
ments, tried by the commission during six consecutive years, were as
follows :

1. The different coatings applied to the surface of wood, with the
design of covering it with an envelope on which the young teredo can-
not attach itself, offer onlv an insufficient protection ; these coverings
are likely to be injured either by mechanical means, such as the action
of the water, or by being dissolved by the water. Just so soon as
1 American oaks of coarse, open fibre are easily impregnated. — Translator.

THE TEREDO AND ITS DEPREDATIONS. 557

a point of surface of the wood is uncovered, be it ever so small, the
teredo, still microscopic, penetrates into the interior. Covering wood
with sheets of copper or zinc, or with nails, is a too expensive process,
and only protects the wood so long as they form an unbroken surface.

2. Impregnation with inorganic, soluble salts, generally consid-
ered poisonous to fish and animals, does not protect wood from the
attacks of the teredo. This want of efficacy must be attributed in part
to the fact that the salts absorbed by the wood are extracted by the
dissolving action of sea-water, and in part, also, because those salts do
not appear to have a poisonous effect upon the teredo.

3. Although we do not know with any certainty if, among exotic
woods, there may not be found those which will resist the teredo, we
can affirm that hardness is not an obstacle which prevents that mollusk
from perforating his galleries ; the ravages observed in the wood of
guaiacum and mamberklak prove this.

4. The only means which can be regarded with great certainty as a
true preservative against the injury to which wood is exposed from the
teredo, is the oil of creosote ; nevertheless, in employing this means,
care is necessary that the oil be of good quality, that the impregnation
be thorough, and that such woods be used as will absorb oil readily.1

The conclusions arrived at by our commission are confirmed by the
experience of a large number of engineers in the Netherlands, and also
in England, France, and Belgium. M. Crepin, a celebrated Belgian
engineer, expresses himself thus, in a report on experiments tried at
Ostend, under date of February 5, 1864 :

" The result of our experiments now seems decisive, and we think we can
draw from them this conclusion : that soft woods, well prepared with creosote,
are protected from the attacks of the teredo, and are in a condition to assure a
long duration. The whole matter, in our opinion, is reduced to a question of
thorough impregnation with good creosote-oils, and the use of such woods as
are adapted to the purpose. It has been found that resinous 2 woods are im-
pregnated much better than other varieties."

M. Forestier, a French engineer at Napoleon-Vendee, in a report
dated March 3, 1864, makes a resume of experiments conducted by
himself in the port of Sables-d'Olonne, in the following words :

" These results fully confirm those established at Ostend, and it seems to us
difficult to refuse to admit that the experiments at Ostend and Sables-d'Olonne
are decisive, and prove in an incontestable manner that the teredo will not
attack wood properly creosoted."

Under date of Haarlem, April 20, 1878, Prof. Von Baumhauer writes
to Edward R. Andrews, of Boston :

" I have deferred answering your favor of the 22d of February until I had

1 The efficacy of creosote-oil in protecting wood from decay and marine worms is
largely due to the fact that it is insoluble in water. — E. R. A.

s The yellow pine of the Southern States absorbs oil very readily. — E. R. A.

558 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

corresponded with the chief-engineers of the Waterstaat as to the results ob-
tained in their experience in the use of cresoted timber in all our marine
works, in large quantities and during some tens of years. They all unani-
mously agree that the teredo will not penetrate timber thoroughly impregnated
with creosote; but that, to obtain the best results, the work must be thor-
ough, as they had observed that the teredo had destroyed piles only superficially
injected.

" Fir, if the sap be first withdrawn in a vacuum and then treated with hot
oils under a heavy pressure, can be most thoroughly creosoted ; but oak is more
difficult. Still, I have often seen heavy oak-piles where the creosote had entered
into the very heart.

" Creosoted wood is also used in our country for railway-sleepers and tram-
ways, and everywhere with the best results. They last four or five times longer
than when unprepared, while experience shows that wood treated with sulphate
of copper or chloride of zinc (Burnettizing) is neither protected from the teredo
nor the influences of humidity and of the atmosphere."

SCIENCE IN THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS.

THE rejection of Sir John Lubbock's motion for the addition of ele-
mentary science, or, rather, as the matter was more happily put by
Dr. Lyon Play fair in the course of the debate, of elementary knowledge
of common things, to the subjects for which grants are given under the
education code, although an inevitable and foregone conclusion, is not
on that account the less to be deplored. As happens in many similar
cases, the argument was all on the side of the minoritv, and Lord G.
Hamilton, in opposing the suggestion on the part of the Privy Council,
was only able to say that its adoption would, perhaps, entail some tem-
porary uncertainty about the subjects in which inspectors would be
required to examine and children to pass. If schools existed for the
convenience of inspectors, or oven in order that children might not be
troubled by uncertainties, the objection would have been a valid one ;
but upon any other supposition it seems to tell against, rather than in
favor of, the contention which it was intended to support. The nation
is spending large and rapidly-increasing sums of money upon schools,
and it will every year become a matter of greater urgency that these
sums should not be misapplied, either by the omission from the code of
subjects which would be useful or by the inclusion of others which have
no apparent tendency to promote the attainment of the ends to which
education is supposed to be directed. These ends, in the case of a
peasant-child, are presumably to render him a more useful and a better
conducted member of society than he would become by the unaided
light of Nature ; and it is obvious that the means to their attainment
are twofold — first, to cultivate the intelligence in such a way as to facili-
tate the acquirement and the application of knowledge ; and, secondly,

SCIENCE IN THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS. 559

to impart the knowledge which has to be applied. Until a compara-
tively recent time, however, the imparting of knowledge was consid-
ered to be the sole purpose of education, and to be in itself the best
means of mental training ; so that educationists occupied themselves
more about the seed than about the soil, and were chiefly concerned to
teach those things which they thought it most important that a child
should know. The instruction given to the poor for many years was
almost limited to reading, writing, arithmetic, and elementary religious
instruction, while that imparted to the rich was laid upon the same
foundation, and was only carried further because the pupils had more
time at their disposal. In the employment of this time the instructors
could only teach what they knew; the most famous public schools and
the two great universities restricted themselves to giving their pupils
some knowledge of classics and mathematics.

As soon as physiologists had discovered that all the faculties of the
intellect, however originating or upon whatever exercised, were func-
tions of a material organism of brain, absolutely dependent upon its in-
tegrity for their manifestation, and upon its growth and development
for their improvement, it became apparent that the true office of the
teacher of the future would be to seek to learn the conditions by which
the growth and the operations of the brain were controlled, in order
that he might be able to modify these conditions in a favorable man-
ner. The abstraction of the " mind" was so far set aside as to make it
certain that this mind could only act through a nervous structure, and
that the structure was subject to various influences for good or evil. It
became known that a brain cannot arrive at healthy maturity except-
ing by the assistance of a sufficient supply of healthy blood — that is to
say, of good food and pure air. It also became known that the power
of a brain will ultimately depend very much upon the w;iy in which it
is habitually exercised, and that the practice of schools in this respect
left a great deal to be desired. A large amount of costly and preten-
tious teaching fails dismally for no other reason than because it is not
directed to any knowledge of the mode of action of the organ to which
the teacher endeavors to appeal ; and mental growth in many instances
occurs in spite of teaching rather than on account of it. Education,
which might once have been defined as an endeavor to expand the
intellect by the introduction of mechanically compressed facts, should
now be defined as an endeavor favorably to influence a vital process ;
and, when so regarded, its direction should manifestly fall somewhat
into the hands of those by whom the nature of vital processes has been
most completely studied. In other words, it becomes neither more nor
less than a branch of applied physiology ; and physiologists tell us with
regard to it that the common processes of teaching are open to the
grave objection that they constantly appeal to the lower centres of
nervous function, which govern the memory of and the reaction upon
sensations, rather than to those higher ones which are the organs of

56o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ratiocination and of volition. Hence a great deal which passes for edu-
cation is really a degradation of the human brain to efforts below its
natural capacities. This applies especially to book-work, in which the
memory of sounds in given sequences is often the sole demand of the
teacher, and in which the pupil, instead of knowing the meaning of the
sounds, often does not know what " meaning" means. As soon as the
sequence of the sounds is forgotten nothing remains, and we are then
confronted by a question which was once proposed in an inspectorial
report : " To what purpose in after-life is a boy taught if the interven-
tion of a school vacation is to be a sufficient excuse for entirely forget-
ting his instruction ? "

In order to avoid such faulty teaching, few agencies are more valu-
able than what are technically called " object " lessons, in which the
faculties of the pupils are exercised about things instead of about words;
and the suggestion of Sir John Lubbock would lead to object lessons of
a very useful character. To be taught something about gravitation,
about atmospheric pressure, about the effects of temperature, and other
simple matters of like kind, which would admit of experimental illus-
tration, and which would call upon the learner to make statements in
his own words instead of in those of somebody else, would be so many
steps toward real mental development. At the end of a vacation, even
if the facts of any particular occurrence had become somewhat mixed,
the pupils would nevertheless preserve an increased capacity for acquir-
ing new facts, and would probably retain these for a longer period ;
and such are precisely the changes which it should be the province of
education to bring about. We would even go further than Sir John
Lubbock, and in elementary schools would give an important place to
the art of drawing, which teaches accurate observation of the forms of
things. The efforts of a wise teacher should always be guided with
reference to the position and surroundings of a child at home, and
should seek to supplement the deficiencies of home training and exam-
ple. Among the wealthier classes the floating information of the family
circle often, though by no means always, both excites and gratifies a
curiosity about natui'al phenomena; but among the poor this stimulus
to mental growth is almost, if not entirely, wanting. An explanation
of the physical causes of common events, such, for instance, as the rising
of water in a pump, would usually be a revelation to the pupils of a
board school, and would start them upon a track which could hardly
fail to render them more skillful workers in any department of industry,
and which misrht even lead some of them to fortune. A wise and be-
nevolent squire set on foot many years ago a school for the children of
his laborers, in which drawing and the elements of natural science were
carefully taught ; and the result was, that the children educated there, in-
stead of remaining at the plough's tail, passed, in an astonishingly large
number of cases, into positions of responsibility and profit. On every
ground, therefore, we hope that Sir John Lubbock's proposal will at no

SCIENCE IN THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS. 561

distant time be adopted by Parliament ; but in the mean while there is
a still more important department of teaching which is wholly neglected,
and concerning which the deficiencies of home instruction are at least
equally manifest. We refer to a proper knowledge of the influence of
conduct upon life. It should be the duty of every schoolmaster to try
and make his pupils understand how production — that is to say, indus-
try— leads to wealth ; and how destruction — that is to say, idleness —
leads to poverty. The reason why confidence in others is necessary to
all enterprise, and the reason why honesty, in the largest sense of the
word, is the only root of confidence, should in like manner be enforced
by precept and illustrated by example ; and such teaching, if it could
only be made general, would do more to heal the breach between capi-
tal and labor than all the panaceas of all the politicians who have ever
sought to figure as the "friends of the working-man." — London Times.

We print with pleasure on another page a remarkable article from
the Times of Monday. In itself the article may present nothing re-
markable to the readers of Nature, but, as the deliberate utterance of
the leading organ of opinion in this country, it marks a distinct stage
of progress toward a more enlightened conception of what constitutes
education. We hope that it is significant of the near approach of a
radical change of the conception in this country of what subjects should
be included in elementary education. We need not be surprised at the
fate of Sir John Lubbock's bill for the introduction of elementary
science into schools, when such erroneous conceptions of what science
is apparently exist in the mind of the Minister of Education in the
House of Commons, Lord George Hamilton. The Vice-President of
the Council has much to learn, when his idea of the Royal Society, one
of the most venerable institutions in the country, is that of a kind of
select Polytechnic, where " lectures " are delivered on " biology, chem-
istry, natural history, mechanics, astronomy, mathematics, and botany."
But he is new to his work, and we must hope that the debate of Thurs-
day last may lead him to obtain a more accurate conception of what is
meant by elementary science.

Dr. Lyon Playfair, we believe, pointed out what is one of the great
hinderances to the introduction of science into elementary schools ; the
mere name, " science," frightens ministers, inspectors, school boards,
and teachers ; perhaps if the simpler phrase, " elementary knowledge,"
were used, the simple-minded individuals in whose hands is the train-
ing of our future citizens might find that they themselves had been com-
pelled to become acquainted with it to their cost after they left school,
and that it would have been much better for them had they had some
little training in it before entering into the thick of the fight.

The most notable feature in the Times article, as well as in Thurs-

YOL. XIII. — 36

5 62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

day's debate, is the fact that it has at last dawned upon the leaders
of opinion and the makers of our laws that "education" and "instruc-
tion " are different things, and that a man may learn a great manv
" facts " at school, and have his education to begin when he leaves it.
It is lamentable that we have to be continually reminded that we are
the only one of the great European countries where this distinction is
not recognized and practically carried out in education. Our whole
system of education, hitherto, has been a mere cramming of the chil-
dren's memories with words, words, words, to the weariness of children
and teachers, and with results unsatisfactory to all concerned. As the
Times puts it, " To be taught something about gravitation, about at-
mospheric pressure, about the effects of temperature, and other simple
matters of like kind, which would admit of experimental illustration,
and which would call upon the learner to make statements in his own
words instead of in those of somebody else, would be so many steps
toward real mental development." Sir John Lubbock gave a most con-
clusive refutation of the idea that the teaching of science must be at-
tended with hitherto unexperienced difficulties, and at the same time
proved what a relief science-teaching would be to the ordinary dull
routine of instruction, when he told the House that in the Scotch
schools the authorities began to take alarm because science-teaching
was found so comparatively easy and pleasant by the children. As to
the argument that children who have been taught to know something
about the object and forces with which they come every day into con-
tact contract a distaste for manual labor, we should have thought it
had been long ago played out ; it has almost as much force as the story
told by another speaker of the boy who had been impudent to his
master because the latter could not read his newspaper.

It is unnecessary for us to go again into the merits of the question
which has been so often and so thoroughly discussed in these pages,
especially as the Times has put it quite as forcibly as there is occasion
for doing at present. It certainly seems sad, nationally suicidal, indeed,
that a few more millions of those who will have the destinies of this
country in their hands are likely to be launched into active life, with
all their education to acquire, ere legislation steps in to give us the ad-
vantages which nearly every other civilized nation gives to its children.
Every day we hear of the ignorance of the working-classes, every other
month "congresses" are held to devise means to remedy the conse-
quences of this ignorance — ignorance of the laws of health, ignorance
of household economy, ignorance of the implements and objects of
labor, ignorance of the laws of labor and production, ignorance of the
nature of the commonest objects with which they come into contact
every day, ignorance of almost everything which it would be useful
and nationally beneficial for them to know — an ignorance, alas ! more
or less shared by the " curled darlings " of the nation. Yet while every
day's paper showTs how keen is the industrial competition with other

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 563

nations, and how in one department after another we are being out-
stripped by the results of better — i. e., more scientific — knowledge, the
poor pittance of " elementary knowledge " asked for in Sir John Lub-
bock's bill is refused by a minister whose own " education " leaves
much to be desired. This state of things cannot long continue, and
with such advocates for the children as the Times and Mr. Forster, we
may hope that next time Sir John Lubbock brings forward his bill it
will meet with a happier fate. — Nature.

-♦•♦-

MONERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

By EDMUND MONTGOMERY, M. D.
II.— THE PHYSICAL PHASE OF THE PROBLEM.

LET us suppose that we have before us a living spherule of the uni-
form viscid material of so-called protoplasm. It is seen slowly to
push forth, at some part of its circumference, a conical process ; and,
after a while, it is seen still more slowly to retract the same. We are
here brought face to face with the initial and fundamental manifesta-
tion of one of the chief properties of life. For, what we are observing
is living motion, incipient motility. How is it accomplished ? What
changes in the protoplasm have given rise to this duplex movement,
first of protrusion, and then of recoil, on the part of a peculiar portion
of the living material ?

When the phenomenon is closely watched in different kinds of
monera, it becomes evident that the conical projections are formed by
a portion of the protoplasm, in which the bonds of cohesion are in
some way being loosened ; for the matter flows out into space with a
certain pushing force — it liquefies and expands. This view is quickly
corroborated by the unmistakable recontraction and resolidification
of the material forming the projections, when retrogression is taking
place. It is plain, then, that alternate expansion and contraction are
the visible elements of motility.

Strange to say, biologists have as yet only realized the importance
of the latter, less fundamental part of this twofold process. They
have been so struck with the peculiar contractile power, with the seem-
ingly sensitive shrinking exhibited by the living substance, that they
have deemed it the most salient and characteristic manifestation of
life. To convey this notion, they generally give to the protoplasm the
name of contractile substance.

Now, " contractility " may be a very expressive term for the prop-
erty by which the protoplasm is enabled to accomplish the second
part, the retrograde half of motility ; but, even thus restricted, it in-

564 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eludes too much vitalism to suit our present purpose, which is to link
the organic to the inorganic world.

We, therefore, cannot allow our scientific inquisitiveness to be ar-
rested by the interposition of a mere name, or qualitas occulta. We
do not wish to make known to others that contraction actually occurs
in the living substance, for that is notorious. We wish to ascertain
for ourselves how this contraction is effected — whether it is the work
of entirely new forces exclusively appertaining to life, or whether it is
the mechanical expression of molecular forces, with which we are al-
ready familiar in the domain of inorganic activities. Is it a specifically
vital force which executes the contraction of motility ? Or is it a
molecular activity of a known kind which gives rise to vital motion ?

This simple question may appear to some very unexciting; yet,
upon its answer turns, nevertheless, the entire problem of life ; for it
is just at this point that the doom of vitalism has to be sealed. Vital-
ism or evolution : these two conceptions of Nature are incompatible.
Vitalism means essentially the era of metaphysical agencies, the sway
of extraneous powers coercing a resisting world of stubborn matter.
Evolution means the era of inherent efficiency, the interaction of intrin-
sic powers ever elevating the constant realm of transient existences.
It is of great importance, then, not to be deceived with regard to the ex-
act manner in which this decisive vital act, the contraction of motility,
is at all times being performed in Nature.

Fortunately, our monera give us plain information upon this point.
It can be proved that it is chemical decomposition by which the lique-
fied and expanded material of the conical projection is caused to assume
its former condition and place in space. The living substance contracts
because it suffers decomposition, as can be directly witnessed. On the
strength of this observation it would be quite legitimate to infer that
it must have been chemical composition which also caused the reverse
activity — which made a portion of the protoplasm start out from its
globular limitation, and form a projection measuring in length in some
cases more than three times the diameter of the main body. But \vTe
are not reduced to mere inference in this instance, so important to
the understanding of vitality. By means of various accompanying ap-
pearances we can visibly ascertain that it is really a process of chemical
composition which underlies the liquefaction and expansion of motility.
This leading property of vitality is brought into actual play by the
expansion of a certain substance in course of composition, and by the
contraction of the same substance in course of decomposition, expan-
sion and contraction being merely the physical concomitants of a defi-
nite chemical occurrence. This is shown on the one hand by the
products of decomposition being separated and eliminated under our
view, and on the other hand by the combining substances being brought
together, and effecting their union during inspection. We have no
occasion, then, to appeal to the intervention of any specific force in

MOJYERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 565

order to understand motility ; that is, to understand it in the same
manner as we understand other natural processes not belonging to vi-
tality. We have here evidently only a display of specific chemistry.
But, then, chemistry is specific all through down to H20, C02, and NH3,
and who knows how much further ?

Expansion and contraction are, as is well known, no uncommon
physical concomitants of mere chemical activity, even without addition
or subtraction of masses ; and it is of fundamental importance clearly
to comprehend that vital expansion and contraction are of the same
chemical kind, being due to the intrinsic nature of the compound, not
to the mere addition or subtraction of mass.

A part of the protoplasm of a moner expands. Chemical compo-
sition of a specific kind has taken place, and now it is the physical
property of this peculiar compound to occupy more space than before ;
then the same part of the moner contracts in consequence of chemical
decomposition. It is the physical property of the less complicated
organic molecule to occupy so much less space. The mass of the added
or separated material fills but a very small part of the entire space of
expansion or contraction. The expansion as well as the contraction
forms part of the specific nature of those different kinds of protoplasm.
The organic substance of the moner, plus the separating molecule, is
the expanded material. The organic substance of the moner, minus
the separating molecule, is the contracted material. The activities of
expansion and contraction are merely the physical expression of the
gradual process of composition or decomposition occurring within the
living substance ; they are marks of the shifting of the special relation
existing between the protoplasm and its medium during the transi-
tional stages from one state of equilibrium to another.

The great truth which I wish to make quite evident is, that the
specific nature of the acting substance constitutes the real power in
motility, and not, as is usually believed, the addition of something
from outside.

Vital processes will never become intelligible until it is clearly per-
ceived that all vital efficacy resides in the living substance itself, forms
an integral part of its specific nature. Many serious misconceptions
are afloat with regard to the source of vital power. Science has as
yet scarcely penetrated into the outermost precincts of the laboratory
of life. The so-called vital dynamics of the present day are beggarly
conceptions when measured against the actual wealth of vital mani-
festations. All we know is, that if so much pressure, so much heat,
etc., will effect a new molecular equilibrium in a certain substance,
that substance will return to the medium what it has received from it
in reassuming its former state.

Will any one pretend to compute the value of the influences which
the living substance in the course of ages has absorbed from its me-
dium, in order to become what it at present is ? Yet it is these assimi-

5 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lated, equilibrated influences which constitute its real wealth, its
source of power, its store of potential energy, whence all its perform-
ances emanate.

In the execution of vital motion matter is to some extent " con-
sumed." During expansion it is consumed — taken up by the expand-
ing substance at the cost of the medium. During contraction it is
consumed — taken up by the medium at the cost of the contracting sub-
stance.

Now, in conformity with the prevailing one-sided view of motility,
which attributes the entire phenomenon to so-called contractility, it is
generally supposed that the force displayed during living motion is
derived exclusively from the consumption of matter on the part of the
medium ; and it is also generally supposed that this consumption con-
sists in a process of oxidation. Oxidation, it is said, generates a cer-
tain amount of heat ; this heat is the real motor power in the case.

It does not much affect the bearings of this view whether the oxi-
dizing material be derived, as some maintain, from the contracting
substance itself, or whether, as others think, it be derived from food-
ingredients. The combustion of matter, with accompanying evolution
of heat, is deemed to be the true source of power; and the contracting
substance — the muscular fibres in higher animals — are stated to be
playing merely the part of machinery.

Thus viewed, the problem of life may be considered altogether hope-
less. The organism then represents nothing but a force-directing en-
gine, in which the combustion of compounds previously put together
in vegetables constitutes the actual driving force. Vital manifesta-
tions, accordingly, can be only due to the action of the force liberated
from vegetable compounds and applied to the organic machinery.
Poor Science, of all-powerful vitality, thou art very young yet, and
amazingly unconscious withal !

The moving substance, the protoplasm, plays just so much or just
so little the part of machinery as the steam does in the steam-engine.
The substance H20 in a calorific medium from about 32° to 212° Fahr.,
under ordinary atmospheric pressure, occupies a certain space. In a
calorific medium above 212°, under the same pressure, it occupies an
enormously larger space. This specific property of filling such different
spaces, under these different thermal conditions, is the very source of its
power — of that motor power which sets the engine going. Whoever
wishes to become fully convinced of the fact that it is not the heat of
combustion, but the specific expansibility and contractility of H20, by
which the engine is driven, may just throw, instead of so much H20, a
proportionate weight of Au into the boiler.

If this remark should happen to appear far too commonplace for
the purposes of scientific illustration, I can merely state in defense of
it that, perhaps, in pondering over its meaning, the reader will find
himself initiated into a deeper view of force than is usually accepted.

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. ■ 567

It is for the sake of a somewhat commensurate appreciation of
vitality, of high-wrought molecular organization, that it is necessary,
again and again, to point out the might of potentiality intrinsic to
matter, the vast and specific stores of force locked up in the peculiar
molecular entanglements which constitute our different substances.
All forms of matter are essentially magazines of equilibrated energies :
inert against such other energies as have no power to disturb their
equilibrium, but seething with incalculable commotion against such
other energies as have power to disturb their equilibrium.

What HQ0 is to the steam-engine, the moving substance, the pro-
toplasm, is to the living engine. Machinery is fastened on to both
these motor powers exactly in the same manner. The expansion and
contraction of H20 give motion to the prearranged and molecularly
unyielding levers of the steam-engine. The expansion and contraction
of the protoplasm give motion to the prearranged and molecularly
unyielding levers of the animal engine. We see the correspondence
between an engine and a higher organism is even more complete than
is generally conceived by philosophers of the purely mechanical school.

Only, the specific power of the slightly complicated molecule H20
cannot possibly afford any standard for the estimation of the specific
power of the immensely more complicated molecule constituting proto-
plasm. Protoplasm differs from water in proportion to its synthetical
wealth. Whatever synthetical wealth may be the symbol of, in its
gradations is to be sought the source of all difference in Nature. This
is the gist of what chemistry teaches : the work of Nature consists in
molecular synthesis. It has required the ceaseless toil of endless ages
to build up the molecule of living matter. Let us then value it accord-
ingly, and nevermore view it under the degrading aspect of stolid
machinery.

Motility, then, consists in the alternate expansion and contraction
of protoplasm, which expansion and contraction are incited by a process
of chemical composition and decomposition occurring within the pro-
toplasm. The property of occupying so much more or so much less
space, under these different conditions, belongs entirely to the respec-
tive organic substances, which alternately fill the larger and the smaller
space. The forces which are brought into activity during the process
are forces of a known kind, but essentially inherent in the living sub-
stance. They are stimulated, not transferred. They are a display of
intrinsic power, not an application of extrinsic power. They are not
the heat of combustion pushing together or dragging asunder the
molecules of the organic substance ; they are part of the expression,
i. e., of the influence on the medium, of those most specific chemical
affinities which synthetical elaboration has ingrained into the constitu-
tion of the protoplasm.

If, in contemplating this truth, so positively disclosed by the study
of living matter, it should become evident that the display of all other

5 68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

force is exactly of the same stimulated and not transferred nature,
then, surely, a great advantage will have been thus gained toward a
correct understanding of natural phenomena and their relation to each
other.

It would then be clearly perceived that Nature does not consist of
so many particles of inert matter, held together or pushed about by a
set of mysterious agents ; but that it rather consists in the disturbance,
the overthrow, and the new formation, of equilibrated states of energies.

I have found myself reluctantly compelled to advance this general
statement, in order to fulfill the obligations undertaken in this section.
For, how am I to establish the gradual, unbroken development of the
organic world from inorganic beginnings, when already in the domain
of inorganic activity there are believed to exist so many different
modes of force, so many kinds of self-sustained and transferable agents ?
It is true, the so-called forces, the specific motive activities, by diving
into certain substances, are said to be in some unknown way " trans-
formed " or " converted " into each other : so much friction into so
much heat, or so much electricity. In this conception the identity of
a supposed agent or force is evidently sustained in thought. Struck
by the definite proportionality found to obtain between the changes
occurring simultaneously in the substratum from which the force is
thought to have been transferred, and the substratum to which it is
thought to have been transferred, the mind is induced by means of a
fictitious entity substantially to connect the changes as such, losing
sight of the true substances, of which the changes are in reality mere
affections. However much the notion may be formally repudiated, the
forces are nevertheless in science still conceived as specific entities ; to
which the current expressions " correlation of forces, " equivalence of
forces," "transmutation of forces," etc., bear sufficient witness.

If friction can become electric force, why cannot heat become vital
force ? And this is exactly what is generally maintained. If it be the
rubbing that is or makes the electricity in the sealing-wax, then,
surely, it must be the heat that is or makes the vitality in the hen's-
egg. This also, but somewhat more reservedly, is at times advanced.
So much mechanical force converted into so much electric force, in
the former instance, whereby — as easily perceived — the preestablished
specific molecular constitution of the sealing-wax is counted for noth-
ing : so much heat converted into so much vital force, in the latter in-
stance, whereby the preestablished most specific molecular affinities
within the egg-substance are counted for nothing. Is not even the
proportionality between the changes entirely limited and quantitatively
determined by the nature and state of the manifesting substances ?

Whether the forces be conceived as specific entities, as definite modes
of motion, or as different affections of matter, the idea of their equiva-
lence and convertibility is just as unwarranted, though not so palpably
incongruous, as the idea of the equivalence and convertibility of air-

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 569

vibrations and sound-perception, of ether-vibrations and light-perception.
A certain, even quantitatively definite relation obtains between the
intensity of stimulation and the stimulated effect, but that relation is
neither one of equivalence nor of convertibility. This fact is universal
in Nature, but becomes the more obvious the less the mutuallv affect-
ing substances resemble each other. It is just as impossible that one
kind of force can be converted into another kind of force, as it is im-
possible for any kind of force to originate out of nothing, or to exist
without substratum.

A " force-directing " machine or apparatus corresponds to a well-
known intelligible fact. A " force-transforming " machine or apparatus
corresponds to something altogether unintelligible. If substances had
really any such transforming effect on forces, even then they would
themselves constitute specifically intervening powers. But this also is
hyperbolical, for it does not adequately express the part which sub-
stances actually play in the manifestation of forces.

The now so famous notion of the equivalence and convertibility of
forces indicates certainly a desirable attempt to bring under the grasp
of Science the subtile balance of energies constituting our phenomenal
world, but it partakes still too much of the old metaphysical weakness,
under which we are wont to seize the shadow and lose the substance.
By admitting molecular affections into the vicious circle of mechanical
equivalence, it has, however, imported into it an insuppressibly quali-
tative element, that sooner or later, by its intense expansiveness, will
break the narrowing spell, and open to scientific knowledge new fields
of unexpected wealth.

The whole mechanical view of Nature rests chiefly on the suppo-
sition that effects are equal to their causes, that they are indeed the
causes themselves, metamorphosed in appearance. This notion is radi-
cally erroneous, and can never lead to an understanding of reality.
Causa non wquat effectum. In Nature there exists nothing correspond-
ing to the so-called efficient causes of science, whether single or plural.
The scientific conception of cause is a dynamical fiction, made to suit
a realm of phantasmal inertia, in which molecularly imperturbable
masses pursue forever an unopposed course in a resistless medium.
How can we gain an insight into reality by always mathematizing it
away ?

In Nature all manifestations are the work of opposition and pertur-
bation ; agitation of preexisting states, and subversion of the same.
It is in this intrinsic potentiality and mutual affectibility of so-called
masses that Nature has its being, its subsistence, and its perfectibility.
The substrata of reality are not merely ponderable or imponderable
vehicles of locomotion ; but concentrations of actual and potential
energies, thrilling through and through with consonant sensitiveness,
reverberating with an accent of their own every commotion from the
centre of the skies to the centre of the earth.

57o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The entire result of development is preserved in the synthetical in-
tricacies of matter and ether, the sensible and the supersensible sub-
stratum. All developmental achievement is embodied in what we
chemically call complexity of composition. The more complex a sub-
stance, the greater its intrinsic value, the more specific its inherent
power, and the less congruous in consequence its response to outside
influences.

We cannot make any considerable progress in the philosophy of
reality, of which the understanding of our own life is the consumma-
tion, before we have first formally reenthroned into their actual seat of
power the sovereign energies, so strangely slighted during the long
reign of visionary potentates — the eras of anthropomorphism and meta-
physics.

Now that we are avowedly appealing to Nature for knowledge, it
behooves us to become natural in our mode of thinking. To fix our
attention merely on changes and their relation to each other is to grasp
at the shadow of reality. That which changes is in every respect the
substance, the potentiality and actuality in the case ; and it is essen-
tially its specific molecular constitution which determines the nature
of the change qualitatively and quantitatively. The scientifically ascer-
tained, most specific behavior shown by the various substances, with
regard to their manifestation of different modes of force, or even of one
and the same mode of force, is in itself abundant proof that that which
we call forces are merely specific modes of reaction on the part of the
various substances.

This somewhat lengthy but indispensable discussion on the nature
and seat of force will save us the far greater labor of attempting to
account for life by computing the foot-pounds of mechanical energy
of which it is supposed to be the transformation ; or of seeking a stand-
ard for the valuation of brain-power, or any other vital activity, by ac-
curately determining the units of heat obtainable from the substances
which exhibit these activities.

" But," it will be asked, " if combustion is in no way essential to the
manifestation and production of motility, what part is actually played
by the oxygen, which is known to permeate all protoplasm, and which
is inhaled in such vast quantities by higher organisms ? "

Oxygen is the mighty scavenger in the vital economy, the general
purifier and clearer. Everywhere among the crevices and interstices of
the vital nexus it lies in wait, seizing upon all stray stuff — waste prod-
ucts of function and unassimilable matter of all kinds — and converting
the same forthwith into harmless and eliminable compounds. Besides,
the heat evolved during this entirely depurative process helps essen-
tially to compose the calorific medium of the organism. But oxidation
is in no manner directly conducive to vitality. Within the organism
combustion merely hides away death ; does not kindle the flame of
life ; belongs to the domain of destruction, not to that of construction.

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS. 571

Having thus to some extent prepared the way for a more strictly
chemical and physical appreciation of vital phenomena, we will pro-
ceed, in the next paper, to inquire by what agencies the chemical com-
position and decomposition of the living substance are effected.

[To be continued.]

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS.

By Professor DANIEL VAUGHAN.

THE information which geologists derive from the evidences of
organic remains does not wholly satisfy the keen appetite of edu-
cated minds for a knowledge of the mysteries of Nature and the
revolutions of past times. The relics disentombed from our globe give
no clew to its origin ; and they throw but little light on the great physi-
cal events which transpired before life appeared on its surface. There
are, however, reasonable hopes that the records which are wanting on
this earth may be supplied from the heavens ; and that some general
cause, to which the numerous orbs of celestial space are indebted for
their existence, may be revealed from the peculiar character of their
movements, or from some of the mysterious phenomena which they occa-
sionally exhibit. In associating his researches with those of the geolo-
gist, and in taking cognizance of the great events in the course of time,
the astronomer may enhance the value of the inquiries which more com-
monly fall to his lot. A knowledge of the condition of the earth in
past ages is calculated to give much insight into the state of similar
orbs in remote space ; and opinions of the habitability of other planets
must be more valuable in proportion as geology and terrestrial physics
show more definitely how our globe acquired and how long it can retain
the conditions necessary for the maintenance of life.

The tendency to widen the range of its inquiries and to speculate
on the origin of the celestial bodies cannot be considered as a new
feature of astronomy. The sudden appearance of the new stars, in
1572 and 1604, led Tycho Brahe and Kepler to the belief that the cos-
mical vapor or exceedingly rarefied matter of space was occasionally
condensed to form great stellar orbs. These crude notions of the quick
growth and ephemeral life of great suns were gradually replaced by
views less repugnant to reason and experience. In the succeeding
age the faintly luminous spots which the telescope revealed in the
heavens were regarded as primitive chaotic matter exceedingly rarefied
by intense heat, and they were supposed to be undergoing a slow cool-
ing and a gradual condensation which would ultimately convert them
into suns or into planetary systems. This opinion, however, though

572 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

held by many astronomers, was controverted by others who maintained
that the light, supposed to come from primitive fire-mist or nebulous
matter, was in reality emitted by extensive sidereal groups, or vast
universes too distant to show their individual stars. But, after some
time, the round and the oval forms of many of these faint objects were
looked upon as marks of a concentration around a centre, and the rare
matter seemed to be emerging from its original chaotic state. It was
thus that Kant, guided chiefly by the observations of Maupertuis, ob-
tained a basis for his nebular hypothesis, which he published in 1755,
and which, in essential features, differs little from that which has been
held during the present century.. Yet the subject excited little atten-
tion until many years afterward, when Sir William Herschel made his
extensive and careful observations on planetary nebula, and pronounced
them incipient solar systems, while he looked on irregular nebulosity
as indicative of the presence of distant collections of stars.

As the doctrine founded on these observations was generalized by
Laplace and supported by him with additional evidence, it obtained for
a while much currency in astronomical circles ; but it was seriously
shaken in 1845, when many of the supposed embryonic systems of Her-
schel were resolved into stars by the powerful telescope of Lord Rosse.
Yet, after a decline for a few years, the nebular hypothesis was revived
on this side of the Atlantic by the announcement of Kirkwood's anal-
ogy ; and some time afterward it obtained more decided support from
the authority of Kirchhoff, as, on the discovery of spectrum analysis, it
seemed to furnish a good explanation of solar phenomena. When Hug-
gins obtained positive proof of the gaseous constitution of many of the
irresolvable nebulae, the tide of scientific opinion set more strongly in
favor of the views of Herschel and Laplace ; but it was soon checked
when it was found that all the true nebulous objects had a uniformity
of composition, and consisted entirely of hydrogen, nitrogen, and an
unknown gas. It seems impossible that the vast diversity of material
objects in future families of worlds could be afforded by the agency of
three elements, one of which is noted for its reluctance to take part in
chemical combinations. In addition to this difficulty, the periodical
and the permanent changes, detected in certain nebulous objects by
Hind and Holden, differ widely from a slow transition into a planetary
system ; and they are fatal to the idea that these cosmical clouds were
in past ages impassive to physical influences and departed little from
their primitive condition. But facts still more difficult of explanation,
in regard to these celestial objects, have been made known by the re-
cent observations on Nova Cygni ; and the apparent metamorphosis
which was witnessed, of a temporary star into a nebula, was so little
expected that theory seems much at fault ; and it is evident that many
of the views on this obscure department of astronomy must be either
considerably modified or entirely abandoned.

According to the crude opinions prevailing during the infancy of

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS. 573

modern science, matter and motion were all required for calling a world
into existence ; but it was soon found that, unless, in the beginning, the
materials which formed the solar system moved with a certain order
and regularity, they could never have risen from the chaotic to the cos-
mical condition. As all the planets move around the sun in the same
direction, Laplace was led to believe that in remote times all must have
been connected together ; and such a primitive connection might be af-
forded if the sun and his attendants were originally a vast fire-mist,
their matter being so much attenuated by heat that it extended far
beyond its boundaries of the solar domain. He supposed that such an
immense rarefied mass, on being set in motion by some cause which he
does not specify, would ultimately be compelled by its own friction and
by gravity to rotate with a uniform angular velocity in all its parts and
around a common centre. In accordance with the principles of physi-
cal astronomy, he concluded that this rotation would become rapid as
the immense solar nebula cooled and contracted, until at last the cen-
trifugal force became great enough to overpower gravity and to throw
off matter from the equator of the whirling mass. Laplace considered
that, under the most probable circumstances, the nebulous matter thus
thrown off, or abandoned by the shrinking spheroid, would all collect
together to form a planet ; but that, in some unusual cases, it would
assume the expanded figure of a vast solar ring ; and that, under cer-
tain conditions, it might break up into a number of asteroids. The
singular group of bodies revolving between Mars and Jupiter is sup-
posed to have come into existence in consequence of some rare acci-
dent, which made the great solar ring a prey to many centres of aggre-
gation, instead of allowing it to coalesce around a single one. In all
other cases, the cooling and contraction are said to have been success-
ful in giving birth to a great planet, whenever the centrifugal force
became sufficient to separate the equatorial portions of the rotating
solar nebula. According to the views of Laplace, Neptune must be
regarded as the first-born world of those already known ; while Uranus
is next in age, and the other planets were launched into being in a suc-
cession depending on their distances from the sun ; so that Mercury is
the youngest member of the solar family. It has been also concluded
that from the condition of its birth each planet must have commenced
its career as a rotating nebula ; and that many of the larger ones, by
subsequent cooling and contraction, were at certain periods enabled to
throw off their equatorial matter, which in all but two instances was con-
verted into a satellite. Of these minor worlds or moons, Saturn has
succeeded in obtaining eight, in addition to the double ring, which in
the eyes of Laplace appeared as two embryonic satellites, and which
has been so often appealed to for proof of the world-making doctrine
under consideration.

Yet, when examined with care and impartiality, the evidence derived
from the condition of the Saturnian girdle will be found unfavorable, if

574 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not fatal, to the views which it has been so frequently adduced to sus-
tain. The superficial character of the examination which Laplace has
given to this subject is betrayed by two statements which he makes in
regard to it in two different parts of his writings. In setting forth the
nebular hypothesis in his " Systeme du Monde," he asserts that the
matter separated from a contracting nebula would take and maintain an
annular figure, if there were a complete uniformity in its entire circuit
and in its rate of cooling ; but in the "Mecanique Celeste," in treating
on Saturn's rings, he concludes that their preservation would be impos-
sible without some decided irregularities in their structure. It is scarce-
ly necessary to say that the annular appendage could not be of long
duration if the conditions necessary for its existence or security in one
age were fatal to it at another. On examining the alleged history of
its birth, also, we feel at a loss for some cause of intermission in the
work of detaching matter from the cooling nebula. It is difficult to
imagine why, after the outer ring was completed, the separation of mat-
ter from Saturn, after a long continuance, should have ceased for a
while ; and why, after the completion of the inner ring, the centrifugal
force again became weak, and that it has declined steadily until the
present time, when, at the planet's equator, it is scarcely one-sixth of
the force of gravity. Since the period when Saturn is supposed to have
launched forth the zone of matter circulating nearest to him, his move-
ments could be but little retarded by tidal action ; and there seems to
be no cause which could reduce his angular velocity of rotation during
a contraction from the loss of primitive heat.

Kant, who regarded the rings as composed of aeriform matter sepa-
rated from Saturn, was led to the natural inference that the time in
which the planet turns once on his axis must be equal to that which the
nearest annular zone requires to make a circuit around him. From such
considerations, the eminent savant was induced to assign for the rotation
of the planet the period of six hours, twenty-three minutes, and fifty-
three seconds. But this theoretical or predicted length of Saturn's day
is only about three-fifths of the actual value which was first revealed by
the observations of Sir William Herschel, and lately determined with
more precision by Prof. A. Hall. From the difficulties which the facts
present in this case, Laplace endeavors to extricate his doctrine of
planetary evolution by maintaining that it requires only that Saturn's
day should be shorter than the period of revolution due to the inner
ring, supposed to be one unbroken solid mass. But the basis on which
this conclusion is founded has been exploded by modern researches,
which show the impossibility of the existence of such vast solid annular
structures ; and Prof. Kirkwood, though long a supporter of the views
of the great French astronomer, has lately pronounced the evidence ob-
tained from the Saturnian system and from the inner moon of Mars as
adverse to the nebular hypothesis.

While all scientific researches are exposed to uncertainty in propor-

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS. 575

tion as they aim to penetrate very far into space and time, the ordi-
nary means for avoiding error are wanting, and mathematical investiga-
tion is unavailable, in dealing with the supposed primitive fire-mist to
which the birth of worlds has been ascribed. It would be hazardous to
attempt to calculate or to trace the precise effects of gravity, motion,
and friction, on matter more than 100,000,000 times more rarefied
than the air we breathe, and diffused over a spheroidal space more than
6,000,000,000 miles in extent. It may seem easy to suppose all its parts
rotating with regularity in the same direction around a common axis ;
but it would be very difficult to determine how many millions of years
or centuries must elapse before such a regular rotation of the entire
mass would be produced by an impulse at any locality. Inquiries re-
specting the arrangement of matter in the primitive solar nebula may
seem to come within the scope of physical science ; yet they have been
hitherto unproductive of the evidence expected from them. Reasoning
from the principles of hydrostatics, Kant regarded the great density of
the planets near the sun and the rarity of Saturn as a proof of their
nebulous origin ; and he ventured to predict that, on future discoveries,
the most remote members of the solar system would be found to re-
semble comets, in being composed of very light matter and deviating
widely from circular paths in their revolutions. Yet time has shown
the fallacy of his predictions, and of the proof on which he placed so
much reliance. The evidence which late writers have endeavored to de-
duce from the large size of Jupiter and Saturn is equally weak and un-
satisfactory ; for the most distant planets are not the largest, and there
is no definite law calling for an increased size of worlds in proportion
as they are distant from the solar orb. According to the most gen-
erally received theory of its variability, the star Algol presents the case
of a remote sun with a planet nearly as large as himself, yet confined to
so small an orbit that the period of revolution is less than three days.
But the defects and the utter inadequacy of the hypothesis are rendered
most apparent when it is called on to furnish an account of the origin
of binary systems, and to show the cause of the great eccentricities of
the ellipses which pairs of distant suns describe around a common cen-
tre of gravity.

In modern times the doctrine of the nebular origin of worlds has
been much modified by new speculations and inquiries ; and it has been
extended far beyond the state in which it was left by Herschel and
Laplace. More than twenty years ago Helmholtz advanced the hy-
pothesis that the sun's heat and light are produced by the contraction
of his mass; and that, in concentrating from primitive nebulous diffusion
and shrinking to its present dimensions, the solar orb has derived from
the same cause the calorific energy which enlivened the ancient world.
When the views of Mayer, who regarded falling meteors as the solar
fuel, were exploded, chiefly through the discoveries by the spectroscope,
the contraction theory of Helmholtz gained many votaries ; and it be-

576 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

came more attractive as it held out the hopes of giving a means of
definitely measuring vast periods of time. It was calculated that the
concentration from a widely-diffused nebula to its present size would
produce as much heat as the sun would lose in 20,000,000 years, ac-
cording to the present rate of radiation. This period was accordingly
fixed as the age of the sun and the duration of solar light. Another
step was soon taken in this direction by fixing a limit to the age
of worlds. It was concluded, with much confidence, that less than
20,000,000 years have elapsed since the earth became a planet, and
that previously it must have formed a part of the solar atmosphere. In
Prof. Tait's " Recent Advances in Science," the estimate obtained in
this way for the age of our globe is placed between 15,000,000 and
20,000,000 years ; and geologists are given to understand that they
must recognize the infallibility of mathematical authority and abstain
from their usual extravagance in making exceedingly large drafts on
the limited fund of time.

But the conditions on which this surrender of geological belief has
been demanded are far more liberal than any which the eminent mathe-
matician is legitimately authorized to offer. The estimate on which
he relies has been made for an homogeneous nebula supposed to be
equally dense at its borders and in its central regions, whereas there
must be a preponderating density near the centre, according to the
necessary inferences from the doctrines of Laplace. This early central
condensation must be adopted to account for the great mass of the sun
compared with that of the planets. In an able investigation on the
subject, in this point of view, published in Sillimari's Journal in 1864,
Prof. Trowbridge concludes that, even in the earliest stage of planetary
development, there must have been a very great concentration of mat-
ter around the central nucleus of our solar nebula. If we adopt the law
which he deduces for the rapid increase of density toward the centre,
it may be found that the amount of heat due to contraction since the
supposed birth of our world would not be enough to compensate for
the calorific waste which the sun sustains in 1,000,000 years.

To obtain information of the age of the earth's crust from the in-
crease of subterranean temperature with the dej)th, according to the
method devised by Fourier, is an object to which much labor has been
devoted, and from which valuable fruits may be expected. On this
principle, the time since the permanent solidification of the surface of our
globe has been estimated by Sir William Thomson at about 100,000,000
years. But this estimate, which is obtained by taking 7,000° Fahr. as
the highest limit of internal temperature, will appear too low when we
consider the vast amount of heat arising from the primitive concentra-
tion of terrestrial materials, and the obstacles which central density or
igneous fusion may present to its escape. Instead, however, of contro-
verting the peculiar views of the eminent scientist on physical geology,
I will only trace the consequences to which they lead. He maintains

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS. 577

that, in a molten globe, the rocks which became solid should sink into
the fiery menstruum; that permanent solidification must have according-
ly commenced at the centre and ended at the surface, leaving some in-
ternal lakes or pockets of lava to keep up volcanic action. Now, such
reservoirs of molten rock should have a small size in order to receive a
roof in opposition to the laws of hydrostatics; and, if much of the origi-
nal fluidity of their contents is still preserved, notwithstanding their
immense losses of heat, especially during volcanic eruptions, we are
compelled to make a very high estimate of the time required for the
solidification of a fused globe 8,000 miles in diameter ; and we must
conclude that the time since the earth was covered by a permanent
crust is but a very small part of that which has elapsed since terrestrial
matter began its career in a gaseous or in a molten condition.

Though deprived by recent investigations of much of the support
first claimed for it by Hopkins, the doctrine of the almost total solidity
of the internal earth is still held by many ; and, in the hands of Thom-
son and Tait, it is made to contribute to the evidences of the youth of
our planet. They consider that, with such a solid and inflexible consti-
tution, the terrestrial structure must have retained almost immutably,
to the present day, the exact shape impressed on it in the beginning.
As the figure which it now bears differs little from that of equilibrium,
and as the polar compression is nearly the same as that which the
present diurnal movement would occasion in a molten world, it has
been concluded that, during geological history, the length of our day
has changed little, though it would be increased by tidal friction one
per cent, in the course of 20,000,000 years. From such considera-
tions, the period since our earth assumed its terraqueous character
has been estimated at not more than 10,000,000 years. Yet, in the
vague use of this round number for marking the career of our globe,
there is shown a wish rather to fix a limit to geological time than to
adhere to strict mathematical precision. So little does the earth devi-
ate from a figure of equilibrium, and so imperfect are the means for as-
certaining the exact amount of the deviation, that it would be hazardous
to say whether the age obtained by this course for the terrestrial crust
is nearer to 1,000,000 or to 10,000,000 years.

Far more satisfactory would be the issue in dealing with a case like
the hypothetical one which Prof. Tait introduces for illustration. Al-
luding to the ancient world he says: "Suppose, for instance, that it
had not consolidated at less than 1,000,000,000 years ago. Calcula-
tion shows that at that time, at a moderate computation, it must have
been rotating twice as fast as it now rotates ; that is to say, the day
must have been twelve hours instead of twenty-four. Now, if that had
been the case, and the earth still fluid throughout or even pasty, the
double rate of rotation would have produced four times as great centrif-
ugal force ; and the flattening of the earth's poles and the bulging out
of the equator would have been much greater than we find them to be."
vol. xni. — 37

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY..

There is, indeed, no doubt that, under such circumstances, the flattening
would be about four times as great as it is now, so that the difference
between the equatorial and polar diameters would be about a hundred
miles ; and then the age of our world might be found as accurately as
its distance from the sun. Now, the neighboring zone of the solar sys-
tem presents an actual case very similar to the extreme one under con-
sideration. The difference between the equatorial and polar diameters
of Mars is at least three times as great as that which could be expected
from his present rotation if he were in a fluid condition. On taking
even the lowest values which observers give for his compression, it
must be concluded that, since changing his primitive fluid state and
becoming solid and inflexible, the planet must have lost about forty per
cent, of its diurnal motion. It evidently follows, according to Prof.
Tait's rule, that about 800,000,000 years elapsed since the solidification
took place, supposing the length of the day of Mars increased at the
same rate as that of our globe. But the same great number will seem
scarcely adequate to express the centuries since the event, when we
consider that the rotation of our planetary neighbor is checked, not by
strong tidal friction, but by the more feeble impediment from the re-
sisting medium of space.

In two publications, during 1856 and 1858, I discussed the geologi-
cal consequences of the slow reduction in the earth's diurnal motion ;
and many reasons led me to the conclusion that the long-continued
decline of centrifugal force would make our planet undergo a change
of form, by the gradual retirement of water to the poles, and, after long
ages, by the upheaval of the bottoms of the polar oceans. I also main-
tained that such upheavals of circumpolar lands would be prevented by
the strength of the crust of a small planet, and that Mars would be able
to preserve for an exceedingly long period the form impressed on him
in the very early term of his existence. The earth's internal fluidity,
which I regarded as playing a very important part in such rare par-
oxysmal events, has been long a favorite doctrine with geologists, and
has been often invoked as a means of accounting for the oft-repeated
cases of elevation and submergence in the ancient world. But, on a
globe entirely solid and inflexible, there would seem to be no scope or
even possibility of the vast changes recorded in geological history ; and
speculative astronomy, in curtailing the time and restricting the means
of great physical revolutions, makes the information from organic re-
mains difficult to be understood and deficient in value. Since the au-
thority of Hopkins gave currency to the doctrine of the internal solid-
ity of our globe, much scientific talent has been expended in attempt-
ing to account for the great geological changes ; but the causes which
have been appealed to would require millions of centuries to produce
the results ascribed to them. It seems very difficult to set aside the
opinion which has been formed of the high antiquity of the physical
world, not only from the marks in the terrestrial crust of repeated ele-

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS. 579

vations and depressions, but also from a knowledge of the insignificant
alterations in the outline of continents during the last 3,000 years.

In the imaginary systems of celestial architecture which Aristotle
and Ptolemy gave to mankind, there was a very narrow limit assigned
to the extent of the heavens ; the entire stellar host was supposed to be
confined to a very scanty domain, and the human mind was prevented
by these erroneous dogmas from rising to a knowledge of the magni-
tude or the riches of the universe. If science, in former ages, had been
crippled by being restricted to too narrow a region of space, it cannot
avoid suffering, at the present day, from being subjected to similar
restrictions with respect to the range of time which its researches should
embrace. On grounds as uncertain as those which sustained many of
the exploded doctrines of antiquity, it has been too hastily concluded
that the past career of the earth and the duration of solar light must
have been comprised within the course of a few millions of years. It
is even supposed that, within a like circumscribed period of change
and activity, the myriads of solar systems in the wide domains of space
around us came into existence from chaotic fire-mist which filled the
entire universe. The transitory character which modern speculation
would thus assign to many important cosmical arrangements will
appear more surprising if contrasted with the long endurance of others,
as revealed by the older and the ripe fruits of physical astronomy.
From the planetary theories of Lagrange and Laplace it would appear
that the future life of the solar family, if not absolutely eternal, must
be many thousand or even a few million times as long as the period
into which certain modern scientific writers are endeavoring to squeeze
geological history. According to Proctor, 20,000,000,000,000 years
must elapse before even Mercury can meet a natural death by incor-
porating with the sun ; and this estimate, which I believe to be somewhat
too high, is introduced here to give an idea of the opinions prevailing on
the subject in astronomical circles. It may, however, be safely asserted
that the future age of the earth cannot be much less than a million
times as long as the period during which the sun's contraction could
supply heat and light, at the equable rate which the purposes of life
require ; and there is no reason to admire a course of creation which
makes worlds outlive so long their term of utility, and condemns solar
systems in coming time to endure an interminable reign of darkness.

In proceeding to trace the course of the great cosmical events
throughout the universe, it seems necessary to begin with a careful
study of the permanent alteration in the movements of the earth and
many of the celestial bodies. During the prevalence of the ancient
doctrine of the immutability of the heavens, the occurrence of such
unperiodical changes was denied. Even in modern times they were
long ignored, as they proceed so slowly that it is only in a few cases
that they can be revealed by the most refined methods of theory and
observation. During the last century the doctrine of the uniformity

580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of Nature held such a sway over scientific opinion that even slight
accession of foreign matter to the earth by falling meteors would not
be admitted. As, even at the present day, the origin of meteoric stones
and shooting-stars cannot be said to be entirely free from doubt, I
shall not introduce them for evidence in this stage of my inquiry, as
items of the greatest certainty must claim the first attention. There
is, indeed, no doubt that, if the mass of the sun were increased by fall-
ing meteors, his greater attractive power would make the planets de-
scribe smaller ellipses and occupy less time in their revolutions. Were
the large worlds also to have their attraction increased by similar acces-
sions of meteoric matter, they would reduce the orbits and quicken the
speed of their satellites. Analogous results should be indirectly occa-
sioned to both classes of planets by the resistance of the medium sup-
posed to pervade space. But tidal friction is the best known impedi-
ment to planetary motion, and the changes which it slowly occasions
in the condition and the career of the celestial bodies come more
decidedly within the range of the investigations of modern science.

This retarding influence has been studied much in modern times, in
so far as it affects the rotation of the earth, and even the movements of
the moon. More than a hundred years ago Kant maintained that the
tide-wave, in rolling from east to west, would reduce the earth's diurnal
motion ; but no positive proof of this conclusion could be given for a
long time, in consequence of the peculiar difficulties of the inquiry and
the imperfect condition of the tidal theory. Laplace, in dealing with
the problem, concluded that within the last 2,000 years the length
of the day has not been perceptibly affected by the alternate rise
and fall of our oceans. But about thirty years ago, when science was
enriched by the development of the doctrines respecting the conser-
vation and the transformation of energy, the question of the effects
of tidal friction was again opened for discussion, and Mayer was able
to reproduce and to maintain on new grounds the almost forgotten
doctrine of Kant. The evidence on which Mayer based his convictions
was subsequently strengthened by a discovery which Prof. Adams
made, of an error in the investigations of Laplace ; and soon afterward
Delaunay, in taking up the inquiry and repeating the previous opera-
tions with great care, found that the earth's diurnal motion is reduced
on a scale corresponding to the waste of power involved in tidal move-
ments. Although the amount of energy thus wasted has been esti-
mated as over two thousand times greater than that of the united labor
of the entire human population, yet so great is the stock of working
force embodied in terrestrial rotation that 20,000,000 years must
elapse before the length of our day is increased one per cent, by tidal
friction.

The alteration which the moon occasions in terrestrial gravity is too
small to be detected by the most delicate experiment; and it might re-
main forever unknown if our watery domain were not so sensitive to

THE ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY OF WORLDS. 581

extraneous disturbance. A tidal force more than a thousand times great-
er prevails on the majority of the known secondary planets. If our
globe, while keeping its present rotation, could exchange orbits with
Jupiter's first satellite, our oceans would feel a periodical disturbance
more than 20,000 times as powerful as that which now affects them ;
and perhaps few mountains would be high enough to escape being
covered by the daily swelling of the waters. But by such a violent
oceanic movement the earth's rotation should rapidly change until it
kept pace with the revolution ■ and then the destructive tides would
come to a close, as our planet, having the same hemisphere ever turned
to Jupiter, would ever elongate in the same direction, and our oceans
would be elevated in the same localities. Now, all the secondary plan-
ets, so far as observation has been able to decide, have their movements
so adjusted as to keep the same ever turned to the primary. This ar-
rangement, so necessary for security against excessive tides in a terra-
queous satellite, would be the inevitable result of tidal friction during
past ages. Even in the absence of a liquid envelope, the same result
would be produced by the deformation which a solid satellite would ex-
perience from the enormous tidal force, if it turned at such a rate as to
present its different sides alternately to the primary.

Yet, notwithstanding this arrangement, a satellite would experience
tidal oscillation, though on a lower scale, if its path deviated much
from a true circle. If a watery envelope had been given to the moon
in the same proportion as it has been to our globe, there would be tides
occasioned by the periodical change of distance between the two bod-
ies, the lunar waters pressing during nearly fourteen days to the points
nearest and most distant from the earth, and then retiring to other lo-
calities. The friction in such tidal movements would have the effect of
making the moon describe an ellipse somewhat smaller and nearer to a
circle in form, but the alterations which it could produce in the lunar
distance could not exceed two or three miles in the course of a million
years. Yet the agency of permanent changes, so feeble in the sup-
posed case, may in the vicinity of great central orbs, and in the absence
of great periodical disturbances, become potent enough to impress pe-
culiar features on the paths of secondary planets. To the tides which
rose on their surfaces in past times, as well as to oscillations in their
solid matter, the first and second satellites of Jupiter seem mainly in-
debted for their peculiarity in revolving in true circles ; while in the
orbit of the third moon there is a slight and in that of the fourth a con-
siderable deviation from a circular figure.

I shall now proceed to the examination of cases in which the cause
under consideration becomes far more potent, and under the required
conditions makes its effects recognizable by observation, and admitting
of no doubt. The powerful tidal action which a great central orb is
capable of exerting in its immediate vicinity would render it impos-
sible for satellites to hold their parts together if revolving close to its

582 •

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

surface. In a somewhat wider zone, the planetary structure could be
only preserved under the form of an ellipsoid, which would deviate
widely from a sphere, not so much on account of its rotation as from
the effects of the unequal attraction which its different parts receive
from the primary. The accompanying diagram shows the equilibrium
form of a satellite moving in a circle around a large sphere, both bodies

•

being equally dense and separated by small distances. In a somewhat
greater proximity to the primary, the satellite would be reduced to a
state of instability ; and its matter, if not kept together by a great co-
hesive power, would scatter into independent orbits, and ultimately form
a ring. There are, perhaps, in our solar domain too few cases to show
how excessive tidal action can produce its definite results in its various
degrees of power. If the nearest satellite of Mars bore to its primary
such relations of size and density as subsist between the earth and the
moon, it would, no doubt, surpass all known planets in deviating from
a true sphere, even though its materials were not of the most yielding
character. If similar relations existed between Saturn and his closest
secondary, the latter would show a greater deviation than the primary
does from a spherical form.

GENEALOGY. 583

In the limited number of cases which one system is capable of af-
fording, we cannot expect to see the last struggles of a satellite to
maintain its planetary structure when moving in a very close proximity
to its primary. But the wonderful annular girdle around Saturn shows
evidence not only of a great conflict for planetary existence in past
times, but even of lesser ones, on an extensive scale, at the present day.
From the investigations which I have published on the subject in the
Philosophical Magazine, it appears that in the zone of the outer ring
a satellite as dense as Saturn could not hold its parts together, and that
one twice as dense could not move in safety in the central zone of the
inner ring. If, in treating on stability in small orbits, I have generally
supposed the satellite fluid in my papers on the subject, it was because
they were chiefly intended to decide whether or not it was possible for
the matter of the rings to unite and form two secondary planets.

The long-cherished idea that the rings are two integral solid masses
is now generally abandoned. For such a constitution the nearer ring
would require to be composed of materials over 200 times as strong as
wrought-iron, in order to escape rupture ; but even this condition could
not avert destruction from other dangers to which it is exposed. From
the estimates and observations of Bond, as well as from the theoretical
researches of Pierce and Maxwell, it appears certain that the innumerable
parts of Saturn's ring cannot be all connected together, in a rigid or per-
manent manner, but must move independently around the great planet.
But, while affording much valuable negative information on the subject,
the investigations of these eminent mathematicians do not show how
the floating matter eternally circulating in these extensive zones is kept
from concentrating into two satellites by the impulse of gravity. The
cause which prevents this aggregation is to be found in the proximity
of Saturn, whose tidal action either annuls gravity or reduces it so
much in two directions as to render a planetary structure unstable ;
and though an incipient satellite may constantly grow by appropriating
the floating matter around it, yet it must fall to pieces before it has at-
tained any considerable magnitude. The state of the rings thus depends
not on accidental but on -inevitable circumstances ; and, with this basis
for our inquiries on the subject, we may arrive at very important in-
formation in regard to the past and the future condition of worlds.

GENEALOGY.

By JOHN AMP H LETT.

THERE can be no doubt that, as each person now living has had
a father and mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, and so on,
every one really comes of as old a family as every one else. Moreover,
every living eldest son is the heir male of either the senior or a junior

584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

branch, not onlv of the family of the man who first bore his name, but
of progenitors hidden still deeper in the mists of antiquity. We so
often hear of families either dying out altogether or ending in females,
that we come to think that such a fate is the eventual end of all fami-
lies ; but this is far from being the case. Every man living could, if
he only knew where to find the data, count up from son to father, from
father to grandfather, from generation to generation, until he came to
Adam himself. And this is the great difference between good families
and families of all other kinds : the members of a good family can tell
who their forefathers were, where they lived, and whom they married ;
while those who belong to no families in particular are classed in a
body as those who don't know their own grandfathers, or who perhaps
never had any to know. The goodness of a family depends much more
on the number of its known generations than on any other condition.
Given two families in which the numbers of recorded generations are
equal, doubtless the family whose members have been the more illustri-
ous would be reckoned the better of the two ; but a family of only two
or three generations, however illustrious their members might have
been, would certainly not constitute what is known as a good family.
As in the case of many popular ideas, there is some little substratum
of reason in this belief. If to be educated and cultivated is an object
of ambition, and if there is anything in the doctrine of heredity, it may
be supposed that the members of a family who have been of impor-
tance enough to leave their names scattered on the bank of the river of
time have had a better chance of being polished, and of handing down
their good qualities to their posterity, than those who were swept away
by the tide without leaving any mark.

It is not much to be wondered at that there is such a general misti-
ness as to the ancestors of any particular person. I wonder how many
readers of this page can tell straight off the Christian names of their
two grandmothers — very few, I suspect — and yet these are facts very
close at home in any one's genealogy. I am sure no one who has not
especially looked up the point could tell the Christian names of his
great-grandmothers, though they also stand at the threshold of a pedi-
gree. Unless recorded in the family Bible or otherwise committed to
writing, such names soon fade from the memory. People are anxious
enough that they themselves shall not be forgotten. Such a feeling is
the root of all ambition ; and there is a difference in degree only, not
in kind, between writing one's name on the page of the history of one's
country and carving one's initials on a wooden bench, or scribbling them
with pencil on the walls of some famous and frequented house. But
r people are not so desirous to perpetuate their father's memory, or to
hand down to future ages their grandfather's name, and they take no
steps to that end ; and the consequence is that of the mass of the peo-
ple below the class immortalized in such books as Burke's " Landed
Gentry," but few know whence they come, or anything at all about

GENEALOGY. 585

their antecedents. And yet among all ranks of people, from the high-
est to the lowest, there is some curiosity upon the subject, which, though
usually languid, is always ready, should circumstances so direct, to burst
into a flame.

It is a pity, however, that this flame should be fed with improper
fuel to the extent that it is. When a new man rises up above the
mean to such a degree that he thinks it necessary to inquire into his
ancestry, his first conclusion is that he must necessarily be related to
the best-known family of the name he happens to bear. Should that
name be Howard, he considers himself related to the house of Norfolk ;
should his patronymic be Percy, he deems himself sprung from the
same ancestry as the Duke of Northumberland ; and if his name be
Herbert, he claims affinity with the ennobled family of that name.
While his ardor is fresh upon him, in his ignorance he probably applies
to some professed pedigree-monger, who at once furnishes him with
the missing links between himself and the great family he considers
himself to belong to, and affixes to the sophisticated article the trade-
mark, the coat-of-arms and crest, which belongs to the real thing;
thereby confirming the parvenu in his ideas, and satisfying him that
his views are correct. Of course it may be that the Howard in ques-
tion is really sprung from the same ancestry as the Duke of Norfolk ;
and, indeed, the longer back a family can be traced to have existed,
the more likely it is that some of its collateral branches will have sunk
down to a lower level of society and have lost all knowledge of their
origin. In fact, in the neighborhood of the seat of an old family are
usually to be found persons bearing the same name, in all ranks of life,
from the yeoman to the laborer. Perhaps they are not all related, for
before surnames became fixed in the lower ranks of life the name of a
leading family might have been assumed by persons whose connection
>with it was not that of blood, but of servitude or tenancy, or of some
similar nature. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a practice
existed of alienating coats-of-arms from one person to another by deed,
and grants by barons to their tenants of their own bearings more or
less modified were not uncommon. If this occurred with matters so
important as coats-of-arms were in those times, we may be sure that
the same thing went on with regard to surnames ; and in the rush to
secure a name which must have taken place in the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries, and which worked from above downward, the name
of a neighboring family which was already provided with that desirable
appendage must frequently, either with or without permission, have
been assumed or obtained ; sometimes, perhaps, without any connection
at all with the original owners, but merely because such a name was
already in existence.

The earliest documents in which names occur in any plenty, and
from which we can judge of their distribution, are parish registers. In
these we find that in each parish there is usually a marked preponder-

586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ance of one name, which is probably peculiar to the parish, or to a
group of parishes, of which the one in question forms a component
part. We find names localized in groups, each group having a centre
of density, thinning off, so to speak, toward the edges, and overlapping
the groups of other names. In those times locomotion was difficult,
and country -people were content to remain where they were born, and
intermarry with their near neighbors ; but nowadays people are more
gad-about, and we should expect to find that such centres of names
were broken up. Let us look at a book which deals with names on a
large scale — I mean the new " Doomsday-Book." This is not a very
good source for information on the subject, for the area, the county, is
too large, and the standard of admission for a name, the ownership of
land, too high for our purpose ; but it is easily consulted, and can give
us some idea of the localization of names. It will be seen that many
names are nearly confined to, or greatly preponderate in, certain coun-
ties. For instance, Goddard is a south-country name, numerous in
Hampshire and Wiltshire, occurring but seldom in the midland coun-
ties, and not met with in the north, not one person of that name ap-
pearing in the list of landowners for Yorkshire. Charlton occurs plen-
tifully in Northumberland, and seldom in the southern half of England.
Booth, Ibbotson, and several other names, have their headquarters in
the West Riding of Yorkshire, while even such common names as Tay-
lor, Robinson, and such like, occur much more frequently in some coun-
ties than in others. Five Shakespears hold land in Warwickshire, and
one in the adjoining county of Worcester, but in no other county does
the name appear. If names occur thus in groups in modern times, we
can easily understand that they were still more localized three or four
hundred years ago ; and if they are thus localized in a return of land-
owners, we should find the localization still more apparent if we were
to take into account the whole population of the various neighbor-
hoods.

Of the importance of keeping a record of the genealogy of a family
it is needless to speak. It is to appeal to a very low standard of use-
fulness to point to the numbers of advertisements for next of kin, and
notices of unclaimed money. Since the establishment of a national
system of registration of births, marriages, and deaths, there is not so
much chance of the relationships of families being lost as there was in
the days of the more careless registration which preceded its institution.
But this only dates from 1837 ; and, moreover, the all-embracing nature
of the system causes so many names to be brought together, that an
extended search among them is a long and tiring process. It is a use-
ful auxiliary to private registration, but cannot wholly supersede it.
The date and place of either of the three occurrences in the life of a
person with which genealogy especially concerns itself being known, it
is easy to get an official record of the fact from the registrar-general ;
but to start with only a name, and to have to look through index after

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 587

index to find the date of the birth or death of the particular person in
question, is a very different matter.

And no one should say that he is too humble in station to make
care about such things necessary. Fortune's wheel has many surpris-
ing turns, and sometimes carries those round with it who least expect
to be raised from their station underneath it. To those higher in rank
also the due recording of such things is equally important, for many
facts concerning their families can be jotted down which must be inter-
esting and may be useful to those who come after them, and which
their posterity can learn in no other manner. In fact, it seems to me
that the higher the state of culture of society becomes, the more care
will be demanded in matters which so closely concern the family and
the race ; the more society will ask what it is and whence it springs,
and in an increased degree will it be true that " the glory of children
are their fathers." — Gentleman's Magazine.

-+++-

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE.

By FREDERICK POLLOCK.

THE following notes were made in humble following of Mr. Darwin's
and M. Taine's example, at first for my own amusement and with-
out any distinct purpose of letting them go further. I found, however,
that they grew under my hands, and that the editor of Mind thought
further contributions on the subject of children's mental growth would
be desirable. Here I have kept in the main to the one point of lan-
guage, and, though I have probably omitted much, I think I have set
down nothing as fact which has not been actually and distinctly ob-
served. Exact dates I have not attempted to give, conceiving that
they would be of no use unless for the comparison of a very large num-
ber of observations. Children differ so much in forwardness that the
time of particular acquisitions seems of little importance as compared
with their order. Though I have no pretensions to skill in phonetics, I
thought it at least desirable to use some consistent notation for the
sounds actually produced. For this purpose I have taken the Indian
Government system, with a few additional signs which will speak for
themselves. I may explain that in this notation, while a, t, are the
long Continental a and i, unaccented a is not the short Continental
a, but the obscure or neutral vowel ( ITrvocal) heard in English " at,"
" that," " but," when not emphatic ; when strongly given, it becomes
the full sound of u in emphasized " but." Thus the Punjaub, Lucknow,
Kurrachee, of popular use, become in the official spelling Panjab, LaJch-
nau, Karachi. " Governor and Company " would be written Gavarnar

588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and Kampani. The vowel-sound in " bank," which does not occur in
Indian languages, could be expressed only by some special symbol. I
use d for the broad sound of a in " fall." Words in italics are in the
Indian Government spelling. Words between inverted commas are in
ordinary English spelling.

Age, twelve months. M-m often repeated; Bd bd repeated an
indefinite number of times.

M-m generally indicated a want of something. Bd bd was : 1. A
sort of general demonstrative, standing for the child herself, other peo-
ple, or the cat (1 do not think she applied it to inanimate objects) ; 2.
An interjection expressing satisfaction. Both sounds, however, seemed
often to be made without distinct intention, as mere exercise of the
vocal organs.

Thirteen months. Dd dd ; Wa wa (water, drink) ; Wah wah,
with a guttural sound distinct from the foregoing (dog, cat) ; Nd nd
(nurse — of course as proper, not generic name).

Dd dd was at first a vague demonstrative. I noted, however, with
a query, man as a second and specialized meaning. About six weeks
later it became a distinct proper name for the child's father, and has
been consistently so used ever since. By this time the significance of
pictures was in a general way understood. The child said wah wah to
figures of animals, and attempted to smell at trees in the illustrations
of the Graphic. (Six months later she pretends to feed the dogs in
a picture.) The fact is curious, having regard to the inability of adult
savages, as reported by many travelers, to make anything of even the
simplest representations of objects. About this time the ticking of a
watch gave great pleasure, and for some months afterward the child
constantly begged to have one put to her ear, or, still better, to have it
in her hand and put it there for herself. Five or six months later she
had left off asking for it.

J»

Fifteen months. M-m discontinued. Sometimes bd bd used in-
stead ; sometimes she simply cried for a desired object.

Imitative sounds to represent dog, cat, sheep, ticking of clock. Wah
wah, mian, soon became generic names of dog and cat (wah tcah, which
at first included cat, becoming appropriated to dog). I think, however,
wah wah would include any middling-sized quadruped other than a cat
or a sheep. As to cat, her name for it became, a few months later,
aya-m or ayd-m, which, so far as I know, she invented for herself. The
conventional " gee-gee " for horse was very soon understood by her,
though she could not form the j sound. She recognized a zebra in a
picture-alphabet as " gee-gee," and showed marked dissent when told
it was a zebra.

These imitative sounds were all learned on the suggestion of adults,

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 589

but studied from the real sounds ; for as made by the child they are
decidedly nearer to the real sounds than the baa baa, etc., used by
adult voices.

"Baby" (or rather be bi). This word was now formed with fair
success, but soon dropped for a time. About a month afterward it was
resumed, and became the child's name for herself. This was long be-
fore she attempted any other dissyllable. It was pronounced, however,
rather as a reduplicated monosyllable.

Sixteen months. JBd (ball), sometimes ba. Td (1, thanks ; 2, take,
when offering something) : this was deliberately taught her.

Playing with a ball became a favorite amusement at this time. She
would throw a ball out of the window and expect it to be returned.
When we tried a regular game of ball she seemed to think the point
of the game was to get possession of the ball and keep it. A certain
capacity for dramatic play was now first observed. The child knew
the various animals in a toy menagerie by name, and would make be-
lieve to feed them with a spoon. About a month later she was taught
a piece of rudimentary drama. The picture of the "little boy that
cries in the lane " and gets no wool had fixed her attention in a book
of nursery-rhymes, by this time constantly in hand, and now, on being
asked, " What does the little boy that cries in the lane do ?" she puts
up her hands to her eyes and whimpers. She laughs afterward, which
I think is fair evidence that she understands the performance and con-
siders it a good joke.

Seventeen months. Ni (knee). This is a real word, used in a
special and at the same time extended meaning. It signifies, Take
me on your knee and show me pictures ; and also expresses in a gen-
eral way the idea of something (generally the cat) being on a person's
lap, so that rii not unfrequently means, I want to see the cat on your
lap. She also puts a toy dog on her knee and repeats ni several times
with great satisfaction. About this time " baby " came to be freely
used as an imperative or desiderative, combined with movements or
gestures indicating an object — the sense being, J" want that.

Seventeen to eighteen months. Ma md, mother. I have no note
of when this word began to be used (probably it was some months be-
fore this), but it was well established by this time at latest.

Nd ni or fid ni (granny).

P'l (please). On learning to say " please " in this fashion the child
left off putting her hands together to ask for things, which she had
been taught to do before she could speak.

Pe pe, pencil (only once heard).

Pa pa. This was taught her as a synonym for da dd, but she
would not use it. Both " paper " and " pepper " (as common objects

59°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

at the breakfast-table) became in her mouth something not easily dis-
tinguished from pd pd. This may perhaps account for her unwilling-
ness to take up the new name.

Ba or bo, book.

" More," or rather md, often prolonged to md-a or mo-a — to ask
for more of some food, etc., or to ask for any action that pleased her
to be repeated. This word enabled her to form an approach to a sen-
tence : thus, md . . . md md (" more, mama ").

Td td (taught her as the usual baby word for good-by, but extended
by herself) ; always distinguished from the single td noted above. Td
td not only is used to say good-by, but expresses the general idea of
going out-of-doors. Thus she says td td to her perambulator, and on
seeing one take up a hat or overcoat.

A final nasal sound is now produced : she tries to say " down," what
she does say being roughly dad — take me down from my chair — a very
frequent request, as she can by this time walk easily, and is fond of
running about the room.

The vocabulary is now increasing fast, and almost any word proposed
to the child is imitated with some real effort at correctness. The range of
articulate sounds is still very limited : a, a, i (short and long) are the
only vowels fully under command ; d occurs in a few words, and is the
usual result of attempts to form o : thus, nd — nose. The long sound
of English i (at) cannot be pronounced ; when she tries to imitate it
she says id or i-a. No approach is yet made to the peculiar English
short sound of a in such words as hat, bat. Of consonants g, I, r (the
true consonant initial sound ; the final semi-vowel, as in more, poor, is
easy enough to her), and sibilants, aspirates, and palatals, are not yet
mastered. " Guy " (a younger cousin's name) is called dd, or perhaps
rather dd, the d or d produced far back and apparently with effort ; k
is also produced far back in the mouth, with an approach to t. Final
consonants are seldom or never given, and the vocabulary is essentially
monosyllabic, the only exceptions being in the nature of proper names
("baby," ; d-ni, nd-nd), and even these are reduplicated monosyllables
rather than dissyllables proper. She once said " lady " pretty well, but
did not take it into use. No construction is yet attempted ; the first
approach to a sentence above noted has not been repeated. Even with
these resources the child already contrives to express a good deal, filling
up the meaning of her syllables with a great variety of tone, and also
with inarticulate interjections. Impatience, satisfaction, disappoint-
ment, amusement, are all very well marked ; and perhaps even intel-
lectual dissent (in the case of " zebra" and "gee-gee," see above).

After this time (viz., her eighteenth birthday, reckoning birthdays
by calendar months, as for this purpose is convenient) the child's prog-
ress became much more rapid, and it would not have been possible to
take down all her new words without giving much more and more con-
tinuous attention than I had at my disposal. I also doubt if anything

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 591

would have been gained by it. The subsequent notes must be taken as
being rather selections than a full record.

Eighteen to nineteen months. "Poor" (should perhaps have been
set down earlier) : no appreciable difference from ordinary adult pro-
nunciation. Darn (gum), a word of large significance ; see next para-
graph.

"Poor" was taught as an expression of pity, but extended to mean
any kind of loss, damage, or imperfection in an object, real or supposed.
Some of her reasons for assuming imperfection were curious. She said
"poor" to the mustard pot and spoon, taking, as we suppose, the mov-
able spoon for a broken part. " Gum," on the other hand, with which
toys are often mended, is conceived as a universal remedy for things
broken or disabled. Later (at twenty-two and a half months) she says
"poor" to a crooked pin, and on my beginning to straighten it, "dada
mend."

The sound of g is now coming, and a final nasal is developed.
"Down "is pretty well pronounced. Ding=d'mner — not the meal or
meal-time, but a toy dinner-service.

Be be~ biscuit, with desiderative-imperative tone and meaning.

Nineteen months. 0 sound now distinctly made, and g distinct by
the end of the month. " Guy" is now gd instead of dd. A final / once
or twice observed: £'«/=: shawl. Final t distinctly made: hat or hot
(hot). Soon afterward p (in "top," pronounced tap or top) ; pu =
foot ; after mastering final t she said fat. The monosyllabic form (one
consonant and one vowel) still prevails. K is a favorite sound, and
she has several words formed with it, which are carefully kept distinct.
./£w=stool. Kah (later &ac?)=cod [liver oil], which she considers a
treat. 7ib="cozy" (on teapot); later ka-zi or ka-zhi. ii^=cold.
Kd kd= chocolate. Khi-en or kli-en= clean; her first real dissyllable,
for so she pronounced it. Be for biscuit has now become bek. Sh?ad
(thread). She has now observed the process of sewing, and tries to
imitate it. Things broken, etc., are now divided into those which are
to be mended with dam and those which are to be mended with sh'ad.
Approach to chu (sugar) and shu (shoe, also sugar) sometimes quite
distinct. I also note "jar" as well said, but s, sh, ch, j, are on the
whole indistinct, and attempts to form them give curious palatal and
sibilant sounds which I cannot write down. TPJ v, f, are now formed,
but not well distinguished. Vdk or wdk= walk, fdk= fork. Here also
we get intermediate sounds. The w is often more German than Eng-
lish, though she cannot have heard the German w spoken.

The fork is a toy fork in the set of things generally called ding or
din. But fdk has another unexpected meaning. The child likes to
look at an old illustrated edition of Dr. Watts's poems, and she has

592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

turned "Watts" also into fdk. It is possible, as M. Taine suggests,
that to her there is some shade of difference in the sounds which escapes
adult ears. At twenty months twenty-five days she said vats or vats.
"Walk" has its proper sense as a mode of motion, opposed to riding,
in perambulator for herself, or in carriage for others. She is much in-
terested in watching callers going away, and says to them dyi dyi or
zhi zhi (gee-gee) . . . wdk, as if to ask how they mean to go ; or, per-
haps, merely to show her knowledge. Sometimes she begins to say td
td to a visitor, not that she is tired of his or her presence, but that she
wants the amusement of seeing the departure.

She has learned to repeat no no after she has been told not to do
something, as an act of assent to the prohibition, and she seems to take
pleasure in saying no no to the cat.

Twenty months. Dash or <#«sA=dust. Td'sh or tdi'sh, learned, I
think, from " touch," one day repeated several times without assignable
meaning, and then dropped. Tdsh, however, is adopted for [musjtache.
N. B. — Final sibilants are more under command than initial. Final g
now produced: geg=fizgig (toy so called).

At this time a sudden advance was made to dissyllables. Several
words were produced with success on or about the same day : " Fanny,
honey, money " (these two learned from the rhyme of " Sing a song of
sixpence "), very distinct. " Money," however, seems to be confused
with " moon : " when told to say moon she says money. Others are
attempted with more or less success: as fd-wd, flower; la-ta, letter;
ha-pi, happy (taught her as opposite of "poor," but I doubt if she sees
the meaning. She has taken up ha-pi to stand for " empty," which we
tried to teach her, and in that sense uses it without prompting). Bd-ta,
butter. The child's own name, Alice, is given as A-si, or perhaps A-si
(later d-si). As to sound, she is now acquiring the English long sound
of i (ai). H is still impracticable, and attempts to form it sometimes
give d (but this was very transient, and I soon became the common
substitute) : compare the converse Bengalese treatment of Sanskrit d,
which, I believe, is in Bengal regularly pronounced as r. " P'ram," for
perambulator, becomes thlarn : the th, with an extra aspiration, almost
%B. A few weeks later this was simplified into khlam. There seems
to be a difficulty about initial vowels : " egg^ becomes lleg (or perhaps
yleg would be nearer), which I can only write symbolically : the sound
marked as 11 or yl is something like the Spanish 11 with an aspiration.
A few days later the initial sound was more sibilant and less vocal, say
(symbolically) zhy.

Early in March (at twenty months) we noted the first attempt at
sustained conversation. The child was looking, or pretending to look,
for a lost object on the floor. We told her she would get her hands
dirty. On this she exclaimed, in a tone of dissenting interrogation,
"Dirty!" (da-ti), and then, after looking at her hands, holding them

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 593

out to us, and with triumphant affirmation, " Clean ! " (JcWn). Here
we have not merely vocal signs, but intercourse by speech — one may
say an elementary form of repartee and argument. She can now say
"yes" (es, or is, sometimes as) and "no" in answer to questions with
fair intelligence, though she sometimes answers at random, and some-
times gives the wrong answer on purpose for a joke. One of her new
words isfa-ni (funny), which she uses in a wider sense than adults, for
anything that pleases and surprises her. The imitative name for the
cat is dropped, and she now says (for "pussy") pil-si (U as in South-
German, coming very near to i). " Funny " is also used to disguise fear,
e. g., on being introduced to a strange dog. When left to play alone
she talks to herself constantly. The staple of one of these monologues
(March 10th) was d-did (formed on "O dear"). I half suspect a dra-
matic intention in her proceedings.

The peculiar short sound of English a (represented by ce in Mr.
Ellis's general notation) is now forming. She can say " bag " nearly
like an adult. But, as a rule, she still substitutes (Indian) a or d, say-
ing, e. g., " cub," or " kahb," for " cab."

Twenty-one months. Progress is now less marked and rapid. New
words continue to be acquired, but the power of putting them together
does not seem to increase much. The child is, however, now more or
less able to answer direct as distinguished from leading questions.
Thus, when she had been paying a visit to some relations and cried to
go home, she gave afterward (March 17th) a pretty connected account

of it in monosyllabic answers. Q. What did you do to-day at ?

A. Klai ("cry"). Q. And what did you cry for? A. Ham ("home,"
i. e., I cried to go home). Also, when told not to handle a forbidden
object, such as a knife, she will say, in a tone of intelligent acquiescence :
No — da da (i. e., I may not have that, but da dd may). One trisylla-
ble is in common use : Tenisi= Tennyson, an illustrated edition, which
divides her attention with Vats (Watts).

As to sounds, r is generally replaced by I or 11, or (approximately)
hi: Man or Wcm="run." The prosthetic initial sound for words be-
ginning with vowels is now zh, or an aspirated y.

She begins, too, to put now and then a substantive and adjective
together : " clever baby," " happy man " (in picture) ; the meaning of
which she now seems to understand well enough.

Twenty-one and a half months. There is now a distinct advance in
constructive power. Substantives and adjectives are freely put to-
gether (e. g., "dirty boots"), and I have noted one instance of the use
of a real predicate, so as to form a complete proposition. The child
had been told, half in joke, that cabs were dirty as compared with her
perambulator. For some days she had been accustomed to say " dirty "
on the mention of cab, " clean " on the mention of perambulator. Now
vol. xiii. — 38

594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

she made the whole statement for herself : Kabz dati Mam ' Jclhi
(" cabs dirty, peram' clean "). She still talks constantly to herself, and
with a continuity giving more or less evidence of continuous trains of
thought. I am informed of dramatic conversations with her doll, such
as pretending to make it look at things, and describing them to it.

The doll furnishes an illustration of the process of making generic
names. A doll was named " Bessie," in honor of the donor ; some time
afterward another doll was given by another person. The child insisted
on calling this " Bessie," too. She does not seem to feel the want of a
specific distinction between the two dolls ; when she does wish to speak
of one as distinct from the other, she says " other Bessie." In like
manner, bet (bacon) is used with a generalized meaning, nearly= oxpov,
to denote any dish that appears at breakfast.

Twenty-two months. Vocabulary and power of expression are
gradually and steadily extending. A certain number of the words
called symbolic by some recent philologists have been mastered :
" now," " there," " other," or " 'nother," are in constant use ; the child
often says "there it is" (in the compendious form, zhdtis), and almost
always adds "now" to the statement of anything she wants (e. g.,
" Bring — cake — now "). " Again " is also in use, though not quite so
much. The following approach to a complex sentence is reported :
" Out — pull — baby — pecs " (spectacles). Simpler combinations are
freely used : subject and verb, as " run away man ; " or, subject, verb,
and regime, as " mama get Bessie." The sense is generally optative
or imperative, but sometimes indicative. She often says es es (yes) to
emphasize her demands, as : " Es es — baby's book there."

Articulation is firmer, and very distinct. She says " good-by "
better than most adults, but making two separate words of it, and
dwelling strongly on the " good." The vowel-range is increased, but
a, d, are still favorite sounds. Of consonants ch, j, and th (both sounds),
are still imperfect (th hard mostly becomes s, th soft, z), and conso-
nantal r is not yet formed at all.

At twenty-two months one day, a real verbal inflection was used.
She said of a younger child, " naughty babj" ; " and being asked why it
was naughty answered without hesitation, Maid (cried). That she
appreciates the general force of the inflection is shown about a week
later by her using " corned " for the participle " come."

At twenty-two months ten days, a sentence is noted ex relatione,
containing not only a direct but an indirect regime : " Annie — gave —
baby — sugar ; " and again, a day or two later, " Dada give bdtd (butter,
i. e., bread and butter) baby." Talk to the doll is now very common,
as, " Bessie look," " Bessie walk away : " sometimes the child repeats
to the doll what has been said to her by elders. She also puts the doll

1 Simple k is now substituted for the initial kh in this word ; which again, as noted
above, had replaced a more complicated aspirate sound.

AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 59 5

to bed, takes it out for a walk and brings it home, etc. On one occa-
sion she scolded it for two or three minutes, saying " naughty Bessie "
with much gravity. We could not discover what the supposed offense
was. I may observe on this that I have no reason to doubt that all the
play with her doll is purely and consciously dramatic, not animistic ; in
other words, I have seen nothing- to indicate a belief that the doll is reallv
alive, nor is there, so far as I can observe, any tendency to attribute
life to other inanimate objects. I think the child is perfectly aware of
the difference between animals and things, though I am unable to give
specific reasons for this impression. " x\gain" is now used to strengthen
" more : " when she wants anything repeated she says " more 'gain."
The following is an actual short conversation, on seeing an ivory ring
spun teetotum-wise : " Baby do't . . . [after failure to make it spin
herself] more 'gain . . . ma-ma 'gain . . . ma-ma do't . . . [then
turning to another object of interest] . . . baby's belts (basket) . . .
ma-ma, take off cover." Command of general and symbolic language
continues to make almost daily progress. Zdt sing (that thing) is now
used to call attention to any desired object, the name of which has not
been mastered.

At twenty-two and a half months, besides the dramatic play with
the doll, we have now some quasi-dramatic imitation of grown-up
people's action. For some time the child has been accustomed to bring
the newspaper to the breakfast-table, and she always pretends to read
it herself before handing it over. To-day, seeing her mother writing,
she scratched the paper with a dry pen, saying, " Baby lait (write)
ma-ma's letter."

Twenty-three months. Fluency and command of language increase.
We note the first appearance of a question, viz. : " Where's pussy ?
baby look up-'tairs. "

The palatals, dental aspirates, and the peculiar English short a (as
in " hat ") are still imperfect, and r is represented by I. When s comes
before another consonant, one of the two is dropped. K is in some
words confused with p or t. She says " oken " for " open," " kek " for
" take."

The child takes pleasure in quasi-dramatic games and actions with
her parents as well as with her doll. Sometimes, when saying good-
night, she pretends to refuse a kiss, and lets me make a fausse sortie,
as if annoyed or indifferent, and then calls " dada come back " (or
" corned," for she uses this form for present and past indiscriminately,
which compels me to set a lower value on her appreciation of inflec-
tions), and gives the kiss after all. (At twenty-three and a half months,
however, she uses " made " correctly). I think she considers the thing
a joke, but not without a shade of fear that it may be taken seriously.
The last time, she completed the performance by saying " goody girl "
in a tone of extreme self-complacency.

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Seeing lines of dots on a printed page, thus ... (in a table of con-
tents), she said, " Oh ! pins," and made repeated attempts to pick them
out. This would seem to have some bearing, however slight, on the
gradual character of the process by which our vision of solid objects
and perceptions of things as in three dimensions is acquired.

She now has a settled formula to ask for things she wants, and also
to express acquiescence when told she is not to have them, e. g., " baby
have pdpd (pepper)," " baby have pdpd no." The " no " is not given as
it would be by an adult, as a distinct exclamation following a pause.
There is no stop and no raising of the voice. When she is impatient,
" baby have, baby have, baby have," is rapidly repeated. She is very
persistent in trying to get a desired object, and if she cannot have it
at once does not give it up, but proceeds to make the best terms she
can ; e. g., she asks for bacon, and is told it is not for her, but her
parents must have it first. She answers, " then baby have bacon."
Here is an elementary notion of bargain and compromise. The child
is already twXitikov £woi>.

Bacon has lost its former generality, meats which appear at break-
fast being now divided into egg, bacon, sis (fish), and beef. Once,
after calling a new dish " bacon," and being corrected, she said " bacon
no " — recognizing, one may say, the logical division into bacon and
not-bacon. The child is now able, however, to take up new words very
quickly. She has reached, so far as concerns the names of things, the
advanced stage of knowledge in which the provisional character of gen-
eralizations is recognized.

At about twenty-three months ten days she cried violently on find-
ing that her doll's head was coming off, and was pacified only when it
was put out of sight with a promise that it should be mended. Her
own report of the cause of her grief was " Bessie's head poor." The
dramatic personification of the doll may probably count for something
in this. But one is not strictly entitled to assume that she would cry
less for damage to any other toy.

There are increasing signs of a desire to find explanations. Seeing
in an illustrated advertisement a device of a griffin rampant supporting
a kind of banner, the child invented a meaning of her own for it :
" pussy ling (ring) bell." The figure of a man making pottery, which
was part of the same advertisement, became " man open door," so as
to form a single composition with the griffin. On hearing sounds in
the street, knocks at the door, etc., the child readily (and, as a rule,
spontaneously) assigns causes for them, saying " band," " organ,"
"man," "post," etc., as the case may be. Strange sounds, and at
times sounds of a known class coming from an unfamiliar direction,
appear to frighten her.

I should add that the greater part of these notes was already
written before I saw M. Bernard Perez's very interesting book, " Les
trois premieres Annees de l'Enfant" (Paris, 1878). I have retouched

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS.

597

and rearranged them as little as possible, preferring the certainty of
leaving them in an inartificial state to the risk of spoiling by manipu-
lation whatever value they may possess as records made at the time. —
Mind.

■♦»»

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS.

By Professor GRANT ALLEN.

IN the whole museum of Nature the eye of the artist can find nothing
lovelier than flowers ; but the second rank in beauty may be fairly
claimed on behalf of fruits. Whether we look at the golden oranges,
the pink-cheeked mangoes, the purple star-apples, and the scarlet cap-
sicums of the south, or at our own crimson cherries, blushing grapes,
bright holly-berries, and rosy apples, we are equally struck with the
delicacy of their melting tints and the graceful curves of their rounded
form. Our painters have reveled in their rich coloring ; and even our
sculptors, whose fastidious art compels them to reject that meretricious
charm, have loved to chisel their swelling contours in snowy stone. As
they hang pendent from their native boughs, clustering in brilliant
masses, or scattered here and there as points of brighter light amid the
dark foliage which throws up in strong relief their exquisite hues, we
may recognize in their beauty the ultimate source of all that refined
pleasure which mankind derives from the varied shades of earth and sea
and sky, of flower and bird and butterfly, and even of the " human face
divine " itself. From the contemplation of ruddy or snowy berries in
primeval forests the frugivorous ancestors of our race first acquired the
taste for brilliant hues, whose final outcome has produced at length our
modern picture-galleries and palaces, our flower-gardens and conserva-
tories, our household ornament and our decorative art.

In a previous paper on " The Origin of Flowers," ' we endeavored
to trace the mutual reactions of insects and blossoms upon one an-
other's forms and hues. But we then deferred for a while the consider-
ation of the further question — " Why do human beings admire these
bright whorls of colored leaves, whose primitive function consisted in
the attraction of bees and butterflies? Through what community of
origin or nature does the eye of man find itself agreeably stimulated by
the tints which were first developed to suit the myriad facets of primeval
insects ? " The answer to this question we have now to attempt, by
showing the various steps through which the coverings of certain seeds
acquired, for the vertebrate orders — the birds and quadrupeds — exactly
the same allurements of color, scent, and taste, which flowers had
already acquired for the articulate orders — the bees and butterflies.

1 See Popular Science Monthly Supplement, No. XIV., p. 151.

598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

To the attractive hues of fruit, I believe, we must ultimately trace
back our whole artistic pleasure in the pure physical stimulation of
beautiful colors, displayed by natural objects or artificial products.

Our present inquiry, then, will yield us some account of that primi-
tive delight in red, purple, orange, and yellow, which we usually take
for granted as an innate instinct of humanity, savage or civilized.
When, some few months back, we analyzed the various elements of
pleasure which make up our aesthetic enjoyment of a daisy, we were
compelled, for the time being, to leave the original bdauty of its pink-
and-white rays wholly unexplained. We regarded the delight in color,
relatively to the subject we were then examining, as an ultimate and
indecomposable factor in our developed consciousness. To-day, how-
ever, I hope we shall be able to go a little further back, and to show
that this delight, like all other feelings of our nature, is no mere chance
and meaningless accident, but the slow result of a long adaptation
whereby man has gradually become fitted to the high and responsible
station which he now occupies at the head of organic existence.

The sole object of flowering is the production of seeds — that is to
say, of embryo plants, destined to replace their parents, and continue
the life of their species to future generations. Flowers and seeds go
together ; every flower producing seed, and every seed springing from
a flower. Ferns and other like plants, which have no blossoms, bring
forth spores which grow into shapeless little fronds, instead of true
seeds containing a young plantlet. But all flowering species produce
some kind of genuine fruit, supplied with more or less nutriment for
the tender embryo in its earlier days. And this matter of nutriment is
so important to a right comprehension of our subject that I venture,
even at the imminent peril of appearing dull, to digress a little into the
terrible mysteries of Energy, which comprise the whole difficulty of the
question.

Wherever movement is taking place in any terrestrial object, the
energy w7hich moves it has been directly or indirectly supplied from the
sun. In the green parts of plants, the solar rays are perpetually pro-
ducing a separation of carbon and ox}Tgen, the former element being
stored up in the tissues themselves, while the latter is turned loose
upon the atmosphere in a free state. Whenever they recombine,
motion and heat will result, as we see alike in our grates, our steam-
engines, and our own bodies. An animal is a sort of machine — viewed
from a purely physical standpoint — in which the energetic materials
laid up by plants are being reconverted into the warmth which reveals
itself to our touch, and the evident movement which we see in its
limbs. The vegetable or animal substances which are capable of yield-
ing these energies to our bodies we know as food or nutriment. They
perform exactly the same part in the physical economy of men or
beasts as that which fuel performs in the physical economy of the
steam-engine. Of course, from the mental point of view, we have the

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 599

immense difference between a self-conscious, self-guiding organism, and
a dead machine requiring to be supplied and regulated by an external
consciousness ; yet in the fundamental physical necessity for energetic
material, either as food or as fuel, both mechanisms follow essentially
the self-same mechanical laws.

But what has all this to do with the origin of fruits ? Very little at
first sight, indeed, yet everything when we look at the bottom of the
question. In fact, what is thus true of animals and steam-engines is
equally true of plants. No motion can take place in a growing shoot
without the aid of solar energy, directly supplied by the sunshine, or
indirectly laid by in the older tissues. In the green parts of a plant
this energy is immediately derived from the bounteous light which
bathes and vivifies the leaves on every side ; but in many other por-
tions of the vegetable organism, energies previously accumulated by
older organs are perpetually being utilized, for the production of move-
ment and growth, by lazy structures which cannot work for themselves,
and so feed upon the useful materials collected for them by more in-
dustrious members of the plant-commonwealth. Especially is this the
case with those expensive organs which are concerned in perpetuating
the species to future generations. A flower or a seed cannot directly
transform waves of light into chemical separation of atoms ; they de-
pend for their growth and the due performance of their important
functions upon similar separations already carried on for their behoof
by the green leaves on whose bounty they rely for proper subsistence.
Carbon, set free from oxygen in the leaves, has been carried to them
in loose combinations by the sap ; and as the bud unfolds or the seed
germinates, the oxygen once more unites with this carbon (just as it
unites in the furnace of the steam-engine, or the recesses of the animal
body), and motion is thereby rendered possible. But without such an
access of free oxygen to recombine with the energetic materials, the #
blossom or the embryo could never grow at all. So we may regard
these portions of a plant, incapable of self-support, and dependent for
their due function upon energetic compounds laid by elsewhere, as the
exact analogues of the animal or the steam-engine. They are in fact
similar mechanisms, where food is being used up, and fuel is being con-
sumed ; and we find accordingly, as we might naturally expect, not
only that motion results, but also that heat is evolved in quantities
quite sufficient to be measured by very delicate thermometers.

Now, every growing portion of a plant shares, more or less, in this
animal function of feeding upon previously-fabricated nutriment. But
there are two sets of organs, both intended ultimately to subserve the
same purpose, in which that function becomes especially apparent.
The first is in the case of the whole regular reproductive mechanism,
including in that term buds, flowers, fruits, and seeds ; the second is in
the case of such subsidiary reproductive devices as tubers, rhizomes,
corms, and all the other varieties of underground stems or roots, which

600 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

botanists divide into so many puzzling technical classes, while ordinary
people are content to lump them roughly together as bulbs. If we
glance briefly at each of these two cases, we shall be able to compre-
hend more fully their connection with the doctrine of energy, and also
to see more clearly the problem before us when we endeavor to unravel
the origin of fruits.

A germinating pea or a young blade of wheat is supplied by its
parent with a large stock of nutriment in the shape of starch, albumen,
or other common food-stuffs. If we were to burn the wheat instead of
planting it, the energy contained in its substance would be given off
during the act of combustion as light and heat. If, again, we were to
adopt a more usual course, by grinding, baking, and eating it, then the
inclosed energy would minister to the warmth of our bodies, and do its
little part in enabling us to walk a mile or to lift a heavy weight. But
if, in lieu of either plan, we follow the original design of Nature by cov-
ering the seed with moist earth, the chemical changes which take place
within it, still resulting in heat and motion, produce that special form
of movement which we know as germination. New cells form them-
selves about the feathery head, a little sprout pushes timidly its way
through the surrounding soil, and soon a pair of rounded leaves or a
spike of pointed blades may be seen spreading a mass of delicate green
toward the open sunlight overhead. By the time that all the stored-up
nutriment contained in the seed has been thus devoured by the young
plantlet, these green surfaces are in a position to assimilate fresh mate-
rial for themselves, from the air which bathes them on ever}' side, under
the energetic influence of the sunbeams that fall each moment on their
growing cells. But I need hardly point out the exact analogy which
we thus perceive between the earliest action of the young plant and the
similar actions of the frugivorous animals which subsist upon the food
intended for its use.

If, however, we look at the second great case, that of bulbs and
tubers, we shall see the same truth still more clearly displayed. You
cannot grow a blade of wheat or a sprouting pea in the dark. The
seed will germinate, it is true ; but, as soon as the primitive store of
nutriment has been used up, it will wither away and die. Naturally
enough, when all its original energy is gone, and no new energy is
afforded to it from without in the form of sunshine, it cannot miracu-
lously make growth for itself out of nothing. But if you put a hyacinth-
bulb in a dark cellar, and supply it with a sufficiency of water, it will
grow and blossom almost as luxuriantly as in a sunny window. Now,
what is the difference between these two cases ? Simply this : the
wheat-grain or the pea has only nutriment enough supplied it by the
parent-plant to carry it over the first few days of its life, until it can
shift for itself ; while the hyacinth has energetic materials stored up
in its capacious bulb to keep it in plenty during all the days of its sum-
mer existence. If we plant it in an open spot where it can bask in the

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 60 1

bright sunshine, it will produce healthy green leaves, which help it to
flower and to carry on its other physiological actions without depend-
ing entirely upon its previous accumulations ; but if we place it in some
dark corner, away from the sun, though its leaves will be blanched and
sickly-looking, it will still have sufficient nutriment of its own to sup-
port it through the blossoming season without the external aid of fresh
sunshine.

Where did this nutriment come from, however ? It was stored up,
in the case of the seed, by the mother-plant ; in the case of the bulb, by
the hyacinth itself. The materials produced in the leaves were trans-
ferred by the sap into the flower or the stem, and were there laid by in
safety till a need arose for their expenditure. All last year — perhaps
for many years before — the hyacinth-leaves were busily engaged in
assimilating nutritive matter from the air about them, none of which
the plant was then permitted to employ in the production of a blossom,
but all was prudently treasured up by the gardener's care in the swell-
ing bulb. This year, enough nourishment has been laid by to meet the
cost of flowering, and so our hyacinth is enabled to produce, through its
own resources, without further aid from the sun, its magnificent head
of bright-colored and heavily-scented purple bells.

Each species of plant must, of course, solve for itself the problem,
during the course of its development, whether its energies will be best
employed by hoarding nutriment for its own future use in bulbs and
tubers, or by producing richly-endowed seeds which will give its offspring
a better chance of rooting themselves comfortably, and so surviving in
safety amid the ceaseless competition of rival species. The various
cereals, such as wheat, barley, rye, and oats, have found it most con-
venient to grow afresh with each season, and to supply their embryos
with an abundant store of food for their sustenance during the infant
stage of plant-life. Their example has been followed by peas and other
pulses, by the wide class of nuts, and by the majority of garden-fruits.
On the other hand, the onion and the tiger-lily store nutriment for them-
selves in the underground stem, surrounded by a mass of overlapping or
closely-wound leaves, which we call a bulb ; the iris and the crocus lay
by their stock of food in a woody or fleshy stalk ; the potato makes a
rich deposit of starch in its subterraneous branches or tubers ; the turnip,
carrot, radish, and beet, use their root as the storehouse for their hoard-
ed food-stuffs ; while the orchis produces each year a new tubercle by
the side of its existing root, and this second tubercle becomes in turn
the parent of the next year's flowering stem. Perhaps, however, the
common colchicum or meadow-saffron affords the most instructive in-
stance of all ; for during the summer it sends up green leaves alone,
which devote their entire time to the accumulation of food-stuffs in a
corm at their side ; and, when the autumn comes round, this corm
produces, not leaves, but a naked flower-stalk, which pushes its way
through the moist earth, and stands solitary before the October winds,

602 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

depending wholly upon the stock of nutriment laid up for it in the
corm.

If we look at the parts of plants which are used as food by man of
other mammals, we shall see even more clearly the community of nature
between the animal functions and those of seeds, flowers, and bulbs.
It is true that the graminivorous animals, like deer, sheep, cows, and
horses, live mainly off the green leaves of grasses and creeping plants.
But we know how small an amount of food they manage to extract from
these fibrous masses, and how constantly their whole existence is de-
voted to the monotonous and imperative task of grazing for very life.
Those animals, however, who have learned to live at the least cost to
themselves always choose the portions of a plant which it has stored
with nourishment for itself or its offspring. Men and monkeys feed
naturally off fruits, seeds, and bulbs. Wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats,
rice, millet, peas, vetches, and other grains or pulses, form the staple
sustenance of half mankind. Other fruits largely employed for food are
plantains, bananas, bread-fruit, dates, cocoanuts, chestnuts, mangoes,
mangostines, and papaws. Among roots, tubers, and bulbs, stored with
edible materials, may be mentioned beets, carrots, radishes, turnips,
swedes, ginger, potatoes, yam, cassava, onions, and Jerusalem arti-
chokes. But if we look at the other vegetables used as food, we shall
observe at once that they are few in number, and unimportant in eco-
nomical value. In cabbages, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, succory, spinach,
and water-cress, we eat the green leaves ; yet nobody would ever dream
of making a meal off any of these poor food-stuffs. The stalk or young
sprout forms the culinary portion of asparagus, celery, seakale, rhubarb,
and angelica, none of which vegetables are remarkable for their nutri-
tious properties. In all the remaining food-plants, some part of the
flowering apparatus supplies the table, as in true artichokes, where we
eat the receptacle, richly stocked with nutriment for the opening florets ;
or in cauliflower, where we choose the young flower-buds themselves.
In short, we find that men and the higher animals generally support
themselves upon those parts of plants in which energy has been accu-
mulated either for the future growth and unfolding of the plant itself,
or for the sustenance of its tender offspring.

And now, after this long preamble, let us come back to our original
question, and seek to discover what is the origin of fruits.

In botanical language, every structure which contains the seeds
resulting from the fertilization of a single blossom is known as a fruit,
however hard, dry, and unattractive, may be its texture or appearance.
But I propose at present to restrict the term to its ordinary meaning in
the mouths of every-day speakers, and to understand by it some kind
of succulent seed-covering, capable of being used as food by man or
other vertebrates. And our present object must be simply to discover
how these particular coverings came to be developed in the slow course
of organic evolution,

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 603

Doubtless the earliest seeds differed but little from the spores of
ferns and other flowerless plants in the amount of nutriment with which
they were provided and the mode in which they were dropped upon the
nursing soil beneath. But as time went on, during the great secondary
and tertiary ages of geology, throughout whose long course first the
conifers and then the true flowering plants slowly superseded the gi-
gantic horsetails and tree-ferns of the coal-measures, many new devices
for the dispersion and nutrition of seeds were gradually developed by
the pressure of natural selection.1 Those plants which merely cast
their naked embryos adrift upon the world to shift for themselves in
the fierce struggle of stout and hardy competitors must necessarily
waste their energies in the production of an immense number of seeds.
In fact, calculations have been made which show that a single scarlet
corn-poppy produces in one year no less than 50,000 embryos ; and
some other species actually exceed this enormous figure. If, then, any
plant happens by a favorable combination of circumstances to modify
the shape of its seed in such a manner that it can be more readily con-
veyed to open or unoccupied spots, it will be able in future to econo-
mize its strength, and thus to give both itself and its offspring a better
chance in the struggle for life. There are many ways in which natural
selection has effected this desirable consummation.

The thistle, the dandelion, and the cotton-bush, provide their seeds
with long tufts of light hair, thin and airy as gossamer, by which they
are carried on the wings of the wind to bare spaces, away from the
shadow of their mother-plant, where they may root themselves success-
fully in the vacant soil. The maple, the ash, and the pine, supply their
embryos with flattened wings, which serve them in like manner not less
effectually. Both these we may classify as wind-dispersed seeds. A
second set of plants have seed-vessels which burst open explosively
when ripe, and scatter their contents to a considerable distance. The
balsam forms the commonest example in our European gardens ; but a
well-known tropical tree, the sand-box, displays the same peculiarity in
a form which is almost alarming, as its large, hard, dry capsules fly
apart with the report of a small pistol, and drive out the disk-shaped
nuts within so forcibly as to make a blow on the cheek decidedly un-
pleasant. These we may designate as self-dispersed seeds. Yet a third
class may be conveniently described as animal-dispersed, divisible once
more into two sub-classes, the involuntarily and the voluntarily aided.
Of the former kind we have examples in those seeds which, like burs
and cleavers, are covered with little hooks, by whose assistance they
attach themselves to the fur or wool of passers-by. The latter or vol-
untarily aided sort are exemplified in fruits proper, the subject of our

1 1 trust that in the sequel the critical botanist will excuse me for having neglected
the strict terminology of carpological science, and made no distinction between seeds and
fruits. Some little simplification is absolutely necessary for general readers in this the
most involved department of structural botany.

604 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

present investigation, such as apples, plums, peaches, cherries, haws,
and bramble-berries. Every one of these plants is provided with hard
and indigestible seeds, coated or surrounded by a soft, sweet, pulpy,
perfumed, bright-colored, and nutritious covering, known as fruit. By
all these means the plant allures birds or mammals to swallow and dis-
perse its undigested seed, giving in, as it were, the pulpy covering as
a reward to the animal for the service thus conferred. But before we
go on to inquire into the mode of their development we must glance
aside briefly at a second important difference in the constitution of
seeds.

If we plant a grain of mustard-seed in moist earth and allow it to
germinate, we shall see that its young leaves begin from the very first
to grow green and assimilate energetic matter from the air around
them. They are, indeed, compelled to do so, because they have no
large store of nutriment laid up in the seed-leaves for their future use
by the mother-plant. But if we treat a pea in the same manner, we
Ishall find that it long continues to derive nourishment from the abun-
dant stock of food treasured up in its big, round seed-leaves. Now of
course any plant which thus learns to lay by in time for the wants of its
offspring gives its embryo a far better chance of surviving and leaving
descendants in its turn, than one which abandons its infant plants to
their own unaided resources in a stern battle with the unkindly world.
Exactly the same difference exists between the two cases as that which
exists between the wealthy merchant's son, launched on life with abun-
dant capital accumulated by his father, and the street Arab, turned
adrift, as soon as he can walk alone, to shift or starve for himself in the
lanes and alleys of a great city.

So, then, as plants went on varying and improving under the stress
of over-population, it would naturally result that many species must hit
independently upon this device of laying by granaries of nutriment for
the use of their descendants. But side by side with the advancing de-
velopment of vegetable life, animal life was also developing in com-
plexity and perfect adaptation to its circumstances. And herein lay a
difficult dilemma for the unhappy plant. On the one hand, in order to
compete with its neighbors, it must lay up stores of starch and oil and
albumen for the good of its embryos ; while, on the other hand, the
more industriously it accumulated these expensive substances, the more
temptingly did it lay itself open to the depredations of the squirrels,
mice, bats, monkeys, and other clever thieves, whose number was daily
increasing in the forests round about. The plant becomes, in short,
like a merchant in a land exposed to the inroads of powerful robbers.
If he does not keep up his shop with its tempting display of wares, he
must die for want of custom ; if he shows them too readily and un-
guardedly, he will lay himself open to be plundered of his whole stock-
in-trade. In such a case, the plant and the merchant have recourse
to the self -same devices. Sometimes they surround themselves with

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 605

means of defense against the depredators ; sometimes they buy them-
selves off by sacrificing a portion of their wealth to secure the safety of
the remainder. Those seeds which adopt the former plan we call nuts,
while to those which depend upon the latter means of security we give
the name of fruits.

A nut is a hard-coated seed, which deliberately lays itself out to
escape the notice and baffle the efforts of monkeys and other frugivor-
ous animals. Instead of bidding for attention by its bright hues, like
the flower and fruit, the nut is purposely clad in a quiet coat of uniform
green, indistinguishable from the surrounding leaves, during its earlier
existence ; while afterward it assumes a dull-brown color as it lies upon
the dusky soil beneath. Nuts are rich in oils and other useful food-stuffs ;
but to eat these is destructive to the life of the embryo ; and therefore
the nut commonly surrounds itself with a hard and stony shell, which
defies the stoutest teeth to pierce its thickened walls. Outside this
solid coating it often spreads a softer covering with a nauseous, bitter
taste, so familiar to us all in the walnut, which at once warns off the
enemy from attacking the unsavory morsel. Not content with all these
protective devices, of color, taste, and hardness, the nut in many cases
contains poisonous juices, and is thickly clad in hooked and pointed
mail, which wounds the hands or lips of the would-be robber. In brief,
a nut is a seed which has survived in the struggle for life by means of
multiplied protections against the attacks of enemies. We cannot have
a better instance of these precautions than the common cocoanut palm.
Its seed hangs at a great height from the ground, on a tall and slender
stem, unprovided with branches which might aid the climber, and al-
most inaccessible to any animal except the persevering monkey. Its
shell is very thick and hard, so extremely impermeable that a small pas-
sage has to be left by which the germinating shoot may push its way
out of the stronghold where it is born. Outside this shell, again, lies a
thick matting of hairy fibres, whose elasticity breaks its fall from the
giddy height at which it hangs. Yet, in spite of all these cunning precau-
tions, even the cocoanut is not quite safe from the depredations of
monkeys, or, stranger still, of tree-climbing crabs. The common Brazil-
nuts of our fruiterers' shops are almost equally interesting, their queer,
shapeless forms being closely packed together, as they hang from their
native boughs, in a hard outer shell, not unlike that of the cocoanut.
It must be very annoying to the unsuspecting monkey, who has suc-
ceeded after violent efforts in breaking the external coat, to find that
he must still deal with a mass of hard, angular, and uncanny nuts, which
sadly cut his tender gums and threaten the stability of his precious
teeth — those invaluable tools which serve him well in the place of
knives, hammers, scissors, and all other human implements.

A fruit, on the other hand, lays itself open in every way to attract
the attention of animals, and so to be dispersed by their aid, often amid
the nourishing refuse of their meals. It is true that, with the fruit as

606 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with the nut, to digest the actual seed itself would be fatal to the life
of the young plant. But fruits get over this difficulty by coating their
seeds first with a hard, indigestible shell, and then with a soft, sweet,
pulpy, and nutritious outer layer. The purely accidental or functional
origin of this covering is testified by the immense variety of ways in
which it has been developed. Sometimes a single seed has shown a
slight tendency to succulence in its outer coat, and forthwith it has
gone on laying up juices from generation to generation, until it has
developed into a one-seeded berry. Sometimes a whole head of seeds
has been surrounded by a fleshy stem, and the attention of animals has
thenceforward encouraged its new habit by insuring the dispersion of
its embryos. A few of the various methods by which fruits attain their
object we shall examine in detail further on ; it will suffice for the pres-
ent to point out that any property which secured for the seed dispersion
by animal agency would at once give it an advantage over its fellows,
and thus tend to be increased in all future generations.

So, then, as birds, squirrels, bats, monkeys, and the higher animals
generally, increased on the face of the earth, every seed which showed
a tendency to surround itself with succulent pulp would obviously gain
a point thereby in its rivalry with other species. Accordingly, as we
might naturally expect, fruits, which have been developed to suit the
taste of birds and mammals, are of much more recent geological origin
than flowers, which have been developed to suit the taste of insects.
For example, there is no family of plants which contains a greater
number of fruity seeds than the rose tribe, in which are comprised the
apple, pear, plum, cherry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, quince,
medlar, loquat, peach, apricot, and nectarine, besides the humbler hips,
haws, sloes, and common hedge-fruits, which, though despised by lordly
man, form the chief winter sustenance of such among our British birds
as do not migrate to warmer climates during our chilly December days.
Now, no trace of the rose tribe can be discovered until late in tertiary
times ; in other words, no fruit-bearers appear before the evolution of
the fruit-eaters who called them into existence : while, on the other
hand, the rapid development and variation of the tribe in the succeed-
ing epoch show how great an advantage it derived from its tendency
to produce edible seed-coverings.

But not only must these coverings be succulent and nutritious,
they must also be conspicuous and alluring. For the attainment of
these objects the fruit has recourse to just the same devices which had
already been so successfully initiated by the insect-fertilized flowers.
It collects into its pulpy substance a quantity of that commonly -dif-
fused vegetable principle which we call sugar. Now sugar, from its
crystalline composition, is peculiarly adapted for acting upon the ex-
posed nerves of taste in the tongue of vertebrates ; and the stimulation
which it affords, like all healthy and normal ones, when not excessive
in amount, is naturally pleasurable to the excited sense. Of course, in

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 607

our own case, the long habituation of our frugivorous ancestors to this
particular stimulant has rendered us peculiarly sensitive to its effects.
But even from the first, there can be little doubt that a body so spe-
cially fitted to arouse sensation in the gustatory nerve must have
afforded pleasure to the unspecialized palates of birds and rodents :
for we know that even in the case of naturally carnivorous animals,
like dogs, a taste for sugar is extremely noticeable. So, then, the sweet
juices of the fruit were early added to its soft and nutritive pulp as an
extra attraction for the animal senses.

Perfume, of course, follows in the wake of sweetness. Indeed, the
difference between taste and smell is much smaller than most people
imagine. When tiny floating particles of a body, in the gaseous state,
affect certain exposed nerves in the cavity of the nose, we call the
resulting sensation an odor ; when larger particles of the same body,
in the liquid or dissolved state, affect similar exposed nerves in the
tonerue, we call the resulting; sensation a taste. But the mechanism of
the two senses is probably quite similar, while their exciting causes
and their likes or dislikes are almost identical. As our great psycho-
logical teacher, Mr. Herbert Spencer, well puts it, " smell is anticipa-
tory taste." So we need not be surprised to find that the delicate fra-
grance of peaches, strawberries, oranges, and pineapples, is a guide to
their edibility, and a foreshadowing of their delicious flavor, leading
us on by an instinctive action to place the savory morsels between our
lips.

But the greatest need of all, if the plant would succeed in enticing
the friendly pai*rot or the obsequious lemur to disperse its seed, is that
of conspicuousness. Let the fruit be ever so luscious and ever so laden
with sweet sirups, it can never secure the suffrages of the higher ani-
mals if it lies hidden beneath a mass of green foliage, or clothes itself
in the quiet garb of the retiring nut. To attract from a distance the
eyes of wandering birds or mammals, it must dress itself up in a gor-
geous livery of crimson, scarlet, and orange. The contrast between
nuts and fruits is exactly parallel to the contrast between the wind-
fertilized and the insect-fertilized flowers. An apple-tree laden with its
red-cheeked burden, an orange-bough weighed down with its golden
spheres, a rowan or a holly-bush displaying ostentatiously its brilliant
berries to the birds of the air, is a second edition of the roses, the rho-
dodendrons, and the May-thorns, which spread their bright petals in
the spring before the fascinated eyes of bees and butterflies. Some
gay and striking tint, which may contrast strongly with the green foli-
age around, is needed by the developing fruit, or else its pulpiness, its
sweetness, and its fragrance, will stand it in poor stead beside its
bright-hued compeers.

How fruits began to acquire these brilliant tints is not difficult to
see. We found already in the case of flowers that all external portions
of a plant, except such green parts as are actually engaged in assimi-

608 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

lating carbon, under the influence of solar energies, show a tendency
to assume tints other than green. This tendency would, of course, be
checked by natural selection in those seeds which, like nuts, are de-
stroyed by animals, and so endeavor to escape their notice ; while it
would be increased by natural selection in those seeds which, like
fruits proper, derive benefit from the observation of animals, and so
endeavor to attract their attention. But it is noticeable that fruits
themselves are sour, green, and hard, during their unripe stage — that
is to say, before the seeds are ready to be severed from the mother-
plant ; and that they only acquire their sweet taste, brilliant color,
and soft pulp, just at the time when their mature seeds become capa-
ble of a separate existence.

Perhaps, however, the point which most clearly proves the purely
functional origin of fruits is found in the immense variety of their struct-
ure, a variety far surpassing that of any other vegetable organ. It
does not matter at all what portion of the seed-covering or its adjacent
parts happens first to show the tendency toward succulence, sweetness,
fragrance, and brilliancy. It serves the attractive purpose equally well
whether it be calyx, or stalk, or skin, or receptacle. Just as, in the case
of flowers, we found that the colored portion might equally well con-
sist of stamens, petals, sepals, bracts, or spathe — so, but even more
conspicuously, in the case of fruits, the attractive pulp may be formed
of any organ whatsoever which exhibits the least tendency toward a
pulpy habit, and an accumulation of saccharine deposits.

Thus, in the pomegranate, each separate seed is inclosed in a juicy
testa or altered shell ; in the nutmeg and the spindle-tree, an aril or
purely gratuitous colored mass spreads gradually over the whole inner
nut ; in the plum and cherry, a single part, the pericarp, divides itself
into two membranes, whereof the inner or protective coat is hard and
stony, while the outer or attractive coat is soft, sweet, and bright-
colored ; in the strawberry, the receptacle, which should naturally be
a mere green bed for the various seed-vessels, grows high, round, pulpy,
sweet, and ruddy; in the rose, the fruit-stem expands into a scarlet
berry, containing the seed-vessels within, which also happens in a
slightly different manner with the apple, pear, and quince ; while in the
fig, a similar stem incloses the innumerable seeds belonging to a whole
colony of tiny blossoms, which thus form a compound fruit, just as the
daisy-head, with its mass of clustered florets, forms a composite flower.
Strangest of all, the common South American cashew-tree produces its
nut (which is the true fruit) at the end of a swollen, pulpy, colored
stalk, and so preserves its embryo by the vicarious sacrifice of a falla-
cious substitute. These are only a few out of the many ways in which
the selective power of animals has varied the surroundings of different
seeds to serve a single ultimate purpose.

Nor is any plan too extravagant for adoption by some aberrant
species. What seed-organ could seem less adapted for the attraction

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 609

of animals than a cone like that of pines and fir-trees ? Yet even this
hard, scaly covering has been modified, in the course of ages, so as to
form a fruit. In the cypress, with its soft young cones, we can see
dimly the first step in the process ; in the juniper, the cone has become
quite succulent and berry-like ; and finally, in the red fruit of the yew,
all resemblance to the original type is entirely overlaid by its acquired
traits.

Equally significant is the fact that closely-allied species often choose
totally different means for attracting or escaping observation. Thus,
within the limits of the rose tribe itself we get such remarkable varia-
tions as the strawberry, where the receptacle forms the fruit; the apple,
which depends on the peduncle, or swollen stalk, for its allurement ;
the raspberry, where each seed-vessel of the compound group has a
juicy coating of its own, and so forth : while, on the other hand, the
potentilla has no fruit at all, in the popular sense of the word ; and the
almond actually diverges so far from the ordinary habits of the tribe as
to adopt the protective tactics of a nut. Similarly, in the palm tribe,
while most species fortify themselves against monkeys by shells of ex-
travagant hardness, as we see in the vegetable ivory, and the solid
coquilla-nuts from which door-handles are manufactured, a few kinds,
like the date and the doom-palm, trust rather to the softness and sweet-
ness of their pulp, as aids to dispersion. The truth which we learn
from these diverse cases may be shortly summed up thus : Whatever
peculiarities tend to preserve the life of a species, in whatever opposite
ways, equally aid it in the struggle for life, and may be indifferently
produced in the most closely-related types.

And now let us glance for a moment — less fully than the subject
demands, for this long exposition has run away with our space — at the
reactive effects of fruit upon the animal eye. "We took it for granted
above that birds and mammals could discriminate between the red or
yellow berry and the green foliage in whose midst it grows. Indeed,
were other proof wanting, we should be justified in concluding that
animals generally are possessed of a sense for the discrimination of
color, from the mere fact that all those fruits and flowers which depend
for their dispersion or fertilization upon animal agency are brightly
tinted, while all those which depend upon the wind, or other insentient
energies, are green or dull-brown in hue. But many actual observa-
tions, too numerous to be detailed here, also show us, beyond the possi-
bility of error, that the higher animals do, as a matter of fact, possess
a sense of color, differing in no important particular from that of civil-
ized man.

Whether this sense was developed, however, by the constant search
for berries and insects, or whether it was derived from a still earlier
ancestry, it would be very difficult to decide. It is possible that, as
we saw reason to believe in the case of the flowers and the insect vi-
sion, the colors of fruits and the color-sense of birds and mammals may
vol. xin. — 39

6 io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have gone on developing side by side ; each plant surviving in pro-
portion as its seeds grew more and more distinctive, and each animal,
in turn, standing a better chance of food in proportion as its discrimi-
nation of such seeds grew more and more acute. But as there are ex-
cellent reasons for crediting fishes and reptiles also with a high faculty
for the perception of color, it may be safer to conclude that the sense
was inherited by birds and mammals from our common vertebrate pro-
genitors, being only quickened and intensified by the reactive influence
of fruits.

Yet it must be remembered that the earliest fruit-eaters, though
they might find the scarlet, crimson, or purple coats of their food an
aid to discrimination in the primeval forests, would not necessarily
derive any pleasure from the stimulation thus afforded That pleasure
has been slowly begotten in all frugivorous races by the constant use
of these particular nerves in the search for food, which has at last pro-
duced in them a calibre and a sensitiveness answering pleasurably to
the appropriate stimulation. Just as the peach, which a dog would re-
ject, has become delicious to our sense of taste ; just as the pineapple,
at which he would sniff unconcernedly, has become exquisite to our
sense of smell — so the pure tints of the plum, the orange, the mango,
and the pomegranate, which he would disregard, have become lovely
to our sense of color. And, further still, just as we transfer the tastes
formed in the first two cases to the sweetmeats of the East, or to the
violets, hyacinths, and heliotropes of our gardens, so do we transfer
the taste formed in the third case to our gorgeous peonies, roses, dah-
lias, crocuses, tiger-lilies, and chrysanthemums ; to our silks, satins,
damasks, and textile fabrics generally ; to our vases, our mosaics, our
painted windows, our frescoed walls, our Academies, our Louvres, and
our Vaticans. Even as we put sugar and spices into insipid dishes to
gratify the gustatory nerves, whose sensibility was originally developed
by the savor of tropical fruits, so do we put red, blue, and purple, into
our pottery, our decoration, and our painting, to gratify the visual
nerves, whose sensibility was originally developed by the rich tint of
grapes and strawberries, star-apples and oranges.

And here again, as in the case of flowers, the feeling once aroused
has found for itself new objects in the voluntary selection of beautiful
mates — that is to say, of mates whose coloring gratified the rising de-
light in pure tints. The taste formed upon blossoms produced, by its
reaction, crimson butterflies and burnished beetles, the sun-birds of the
East, and the humming-birds of the West. So, too, the taste formed
upon fruits produced, by a like reaction, parrots, cockatoos, toucans,
birds-of-paradise, nutmeg-pigeons, and a thousand other tropical creat-
ures of exquisite plumage and delicate form. As we mount up through
the mammalian series, we scarcely come upon any hues brighter than
dull-brown or tawnj'-yellow among the marsupials, the carnivores, the
ruminants, or the thick-skinned beasts; but when we arrive at the

THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 611

seed-eating classes, such as the rodents, the bats, and the quadrumana,
we find a profusion of color in many squirrels, flying-foxes, and mon-
keys ; while Mr. Darwin does not hesitate in attributing to the same
selective action the rosy cheeks, pearly teeth, blue eyes, and golden
hair, of the human species.

Nor is it only in the choice of mates that the nascent taste for
color displays itself. Even below the limits of humanity bright-hued
objects afford a passing pleasure to more than one aesthetically-endowed
species. Monkeys love to pull crimson flowers in pieces, dart in pur-
suit of brilliant tropical birds, and are attracted by the sight of red or
yellow rags. Those queer little creatures, the bower-birds, carry the
same feeling a step further by collecting fragments of brilliantly-col-
ored objects to decorate their gaudy meeting-places. But, when we
reach the race of man, we find the love of color producing far more
conspicuous secondary results. The savage daubs his body with red or
blue paint, and plants his garden with the scarlet hibiscus or the pur-
ple bougainvillia. Soon, with the rise of pottery and cloth-making, he
learns the use of pigments and the art of dyeing. Next, painting
proper follows, with all the decorative appliances of Egypt, India,
China, and Japan, until at last our whole life comes to be passed in
the midst of clothing and furniture, wall-papers and carpets, books and
ornaments, vases and tiles, statuettes and pictures, every one of which
has been specially prepared with dyes or pigments, to gratify the feel-
ing originally derived from the contemplation of woodland berries by
prehistoric man, or his frugivorous ancestors. And all these varied
objects of civilized life may be traced back directly to the reaction of
colored fruits upon the structure of the mammalian eye.

What a splendid and a noble prospect for humanity in its future
evolutions may we not find in this thought that, from the coarse animal
pleasure of beholding food, mankind has already developed, through
delicate gradations, our modern disinterested love for the glories of
sunset and the melting shades of ocean, for the gorgeous pageantry of
summer flowers, and the dying beauty of autumn leaves, for the exqui-
site harmony which reposes on the canvas of Titian, and the golden
haze which glimmers over the dreamy visions of Turner ! If man, base
as he yet is, can nevertheless rise to-day in his highest moments so
far above his sensuous self, what may he not hope to achieve here-
after, under the hallowing influence of those chaster and purer aspira-
tions which are welling up within him even now toward the perfect
day ! — Cornhill Magazine.

612 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR 0. C. MARSH.

By G. B. GEINNELL.

AMONG the younger workers in science in America, no name stands
higher than that of Prof. O. C. Marsh. Enthusiastic, energetic,
and capable of an unlimited amount of work, he has already contrib-
uted more than any one else to our knowledge of the ancient life of this
continent. Many of his discoveries have proved of the greatest interest
to the student of biology, and have a direct and highly-significant bear-
ing on some of the most important scientific problems of the day. The
genealogy of the horse, brought forward by Prof. Huxley in his New
York lectures as the demonstrative evidence of evolution, was worked
out mainly by Prof. Marsh, and was the result of his vigorous field-
work and patient study.

Prof. Othniel Charles Marsh was born in Lockport, New York,
October 29, 1831, and his boyhood was spent mainly in that vicinity.
As a boy he was passionately fond of field-sports, and devoted much of
his time to fishing and shooting. The writer has heard him remark that
he was a sportsman before he was a naturalist ; and it cannot be
doubted that the open-air life of his early years gave him the vigorous
health he has since enjoyed, while to the habits of observation acquired
in the woods and fields much of his subsequent success in science has
been due. He is still a keen sportsman, and very hard to beat with
rod or gun. In 1852 he entered Phillips Academy at Andover, Massa-
chusetts, where he graduated in 1856, the valedictorian of his class.
He entered Yale College the same year, and graduated with high
honors in the class of 1860. The next two years were spent in the
study of chemistry and mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific School at
New Haven. He then went to Europe, and spent three years in the
Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Breslau. While in Germany
he studied zoology and geology under the eminent teachers Ehrenberg,
Rose, Bunsen, Peters, Beyrich, and Roemer. His vacations were de-
voted to Alpine explorations and other work in the field, during which
he made several discoveries of interest, and published accounts of them
in papers read before the Geological Society of Germany. He returned
to New Haven in 1866, to fill the chair of Paleontology in Yale College,
a position which he now holds.

During his school-days at Andover, and throughout his college
course, Prof. Marsh was a devoted student of mineralogy, and many
of his vacations were spent in Nova Scotia, collecting minerals and
investigating the geology of that peninsula. It was here that he dis-
covered, while yet in college, the two celebrated vertebrae of Eosaurus
Acadianus, which still remain unique, and are thought to have been

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR 0. C. MARSH. 613

the first remains of reptiles found in the Palaeozoic rocks of America.
His studies in archaeology also began in college.

To many readers, Prof. Marsh is best known in connection with his
explorations in the Rocky Mountains, which he has crossed no less than
eleven times on his various expeditions. His first visit to that country
was a short excursion in 1868, which produced results of no little in-
terest. From an alkaline lake in Wyoming he then obtained live speci-
mens of larval Siredons, the remarkable change in which, occurring,
under his own eye, after his return, called forth the paper " On the
Metamorphosis of Siredon into Arribly stoma." On this trip, too, a num-
ber of interesting Tertiary fossils were obtained from a well at Ante-
lope Station, Nebraska, in the bed of an ancient lake, and at several
other localities. The discoveries thus made indicated to Prof. Marsh
the importance of this previously-unknown field, and he made prepara-
tions to undertake its systematic exploration. During the years imme-
diately following his return from Europe, he had studied with much
care the Cretaceous and Tertiary fauna of New Jersey ; but it now be-
came apparent to him that the fossil resources of these deposits were
of much less importance than those of the West. In June, 1870, the
first of the Yale Scientific Expeditions was organized and took the
field, returning after an absence of five months, richly laden with fossil
treasures. Over one hundred species of extinct vertebrates, new to
science, were discovered on this trip. Most of these were from two
Tertiary lake-basins before unknown. During the four years which
followed, Prof. Marsh led other expeditions, which were scarcely less
successful than the first, and the vertebrate fossils thus collected soon
came to be reckoned by tons, instead of by hundreds or thousands of
specimens. These various expeditions were attended with much danger
and hardship, as the regions explored were often infested with hostile
Indians, and explorations could be carried on only under the protection
of a strong escort of Government troops. Prof. Marsh's early experi-
ence as a sportsman was also of great advantage, as the fact that he
was the quickest and best shot in the expedition was soon acknowl-
edged, and commanded respect from the soldiers and rough mountain-
eers who accompanied him. The expenditure of time which the leader-
ship of these expeditions involved was, however, so great, that recently
parties of trained collectors have been sent out, who pack the fossils on
the ground and ship them to the Peabody Museum of Yale College,
where they are examined by Prof. Marsh and his assistants. The ex-
penses incurred in these various explorations have been great, and
were mainly borne by Prof. Marsh, who has already contributed more
than $100,000 to this work.

Among the most interesting of Prof. Marsh's recent discoveries are,
a new mammal (Dryolestes) ; a new order of Reptilia (Stegosauria),
and many new and gigantic Dinosaurs, all from the Jurassic of the
Rocky Mountains, and the first found in this formation in this country.

6h THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

From the Cretaceous of Kansas he has obtained the first American
Pterodactyles, including a new order (Pteranodontia), a new sub-class
of birds with teeth (Odontornithes), including two new orders, the
OdontolccB and Odontotormce • and many new Mosasauroid reptiles.
In the anatomy of the latter group he has made a number of interest-
ing discoveries which have been of great value in determining its rela-
tionship. From the Eocene Tertiary of the Rocky Mountains, he has
brought to light the first monkeys, bats, and marsupials, found in this
country; two new orders of mammals, the Tillodontia, which seem to
be related to the Carnivores, Ungulates, and Rodents ; and the Dinoce-
rata, which were huge Ungulates, elephantine in bulk, bearing on their
skulls two or more pairs of horn cores. From the same Eocene come
the two earliest equines, Eohippus and OroMppus, and a host of other
strange forms, all of them widely different from anything now living.

In the Miocene lake-basins of the West, Prof. Marsh has found
numerous other forms, many of them apparently descendants of their
predecessors in the Eocene, while others seem to stand alone. In the
Miocene of the Plains occur the huge Erontotheridce, a new family of
Ungulates, first defined by Prof. Marsh. In size they equaled the Di-
nocerata of the Eocene, and like them their skulls were armed with
horns. The same formation has also yielded to this explorer the first
Miocene monkey found in America, while from the Oregon lake of this
age he has described the oldest known Edentates. The new fossils ob-
tained from the Pliocene lake-basins of the Plains and of Oregon are
not less numerous than those from the earlier ones, but they are of less
interest to the general reader. The remains of these ancient creatures,
preserved in the Museum of Yale College, present a series which, for
its interest and value to the biologist, is not surpassed by any collec-
tion in the world. Not less than four hundred new species of fossil
animals have been collected by Prof. Marsh, and their remains are all
at present in New Haven.

Prof. Marsh is President of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, and will preside at the St. Louis meeting this
year; and, as retiring president, will deliver his address in 1879. At
the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, in
April last, he was elected vice-president of that body, and, by the death
of Prof. Henry, he has become its presiding officer. He is a member of
several scientific societies in Europe, and has recently received from the
Geological Society of London the Bigsby medal for his important dis-
coveries in paleontology.

Prof. Marsh is a nephew of the late George Peabody, Esq., of Lon-
don, and the most important gifts to science by this philanthropist are
due to his influence. The Peabody Museum of Natural History, at
New Haven, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, at
Cambridge, as well as the Peabody Academy of Science, in Salem, Mas-
sachusetts, are largely the results of his advice and carefully-considered

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR 0. C. MARSH. 615

plans. He has followed his uncle's example in princely gifts to science,
and, thus far, likewise, we may add, in remaining a bachelor.

Prof. Marsh is a firm believer in evolution, and enjoys the personal
acquaintance and friendship of Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, Spencer, and
other prominent advocates of this doctrine. He is at present in Eng-
land with his scientific friends, but will return in time for the St. Louis
meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science.

Aside from his scientific reputation, Prof. Marsh became well known
to the general public, a short time since, through his contest with
Secretary Delano and the Interior Department. It will be remembered
that while Prof. Marsh was on his perilous expedition to the " Bad-
Lands," near the Black Hills, in the winter of 1874, he was twice driven
back by the Sioux Indians, who supposed him to be in search of gold
rather than bones. In endeavoring to propitiate the savages, he held
various councils with Red Cloud and the other principal chiefs, and at
last gained permission to proceed with his party only by promising
Red Cloud to take his complaints and samples of his rations to the
Great Father at Washington. The fulfillment of this promise, together
with an exposure of the frauds which he had seen practised upon the
Indians,1 led to a sharp fight with Secretary Delano and the Indian
ring. Secretary Delano began by calling the professor " a 3Ir. Marsh,''''
and ended by retiring to private life and political death in Ohio. The
scalps of several lesser officials and contractors were taken by the pro-
fessor in the same fight, and subsequent events have more than sub-
stantiated all of the charges he made. This is perhaps the only in-
stance in which a private citizen has successfully fought a department
of the Government in his efforts to expose wrong-doing. Red Cloud
has since sent the professor an elegant pipe and tobacco-pouch, as a
token of his gratitude, and with them the complimentary message that
" the Bone-hunting Chief," as he calls the professor, " was the only
white man he had seen who kept his promises."

Prof. Marsh's scientific publications, which began while he was a
student, number more than one hundred, and are mostly papers in
scientific journals. One of the most important of these publications is
his address as Vice-President of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, delivered in August, 1877, at Nashville, Tennes-
see, and published in The Popular Science Monthly for March and
April, 1878. He is now engaged in the preparation of a series of
monographs, with full illustrations, of his discoveries, which will be
published under Government aiispices. The first volume, upon the
" Odontornithes, or Birds with Teeth," illustrated with forty quarto
plates, is now in press, and will soon be published.

Among the more noteworthy of Prof. Marsh's scientific papers are
the following :

1 A statement of affairs at the Red Cloud Agency, made to the President of the United
States, Yale College, July, 18*75.

616 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The Gold of Nova Scotia {American Journal of Science (2), vol. xxxii., pp.
395-400, November, 1861).

Description of the Remains of a New Enaliosaurian {Eosaurus Acadianus),
from the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia {American Journal of Science (2), vol.
xxxiv., pp. 1-16, November, 1862).

Catalogue of Mineral Localities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and New-
foundland {American Journal of Science (2), vol. xxxv., pp. 210-218, March,
1863).

Description of an Ancient Sepulchral Mound near Newark, Ohio {American
Journal of Science (2), vol. xlii., pp. 1-11, July, 1866).

Contributions to the Mineralogy of Nova Scotia {American Journal of Science
(2), vol. xliv., pp. 362-367, November, 1867).

Observations on the Metamorphosis of Siredon into Amblystoma {American
Journal of Science (2), vol. xlvi., pp. 364-374, November, 1868).

Notice of some New Mosasauroid Reptiles from the Greensand of New
Jersey {American Journal of Science (2), vol. xlviii., pp. 392-397, November,
1869).

Notice of some Fossil Birds from the Cretaceous and Tertiary Formations
of the United States {American Journal of Science (2), vol. xlix., pp. 205-217,
March, 1870).

On the Geology of the Eastern Uintah Mountains {American Journal of
Science (3), vol. i., pp. 191-198, March, 1871).

Description of some New Fossil Serpents from the Tertiary Deposits of
Wyoming {American Journal of Science (3), vol. i., pp. 322-329, May, 1871).

Notice of some New Fossil Reptiles from the Cretaceous and Tertiary For-
mations {American Journal of Science (3), vol. i., pp. 447-459, June, 1871).

Note on a New and Gigantic Species of Pterodactyle {American Journal of
Science (3), vol. i., p. 472, June, 1871).

Notice of some New Fossil Mammals from the Tertiary Formation {Ameri-
can Journal of Science (3), vol. ii., pp. 35-44, July, 1871).

Notice of some New Fossil Mammals and Birds from the Tertiary Forma-
tion of the "West {American Journal of Science (3), vol. ii., pp. 120-127, August,
1871).

On the Structure of the Skull and Limbs in Mosasauroid Reptiles, with
Descriptions of New Genera and Species {American Journal of Science (3), vol.
iii., pp. 448-464, June, 1872).

Preliminary Description of New Tertiary Mammals ; Part I. {American Jour-
nal of Science (3), vol. iv., pp. 122-128, August, 1872).

Preliminary Description of New Tertiary Reptiles ; Part I. {American Jour-
nal of Science (3), vol. iv., pp. 299-304, October, 1872). Part II. {American
Journal of Science (3), vol. iv., pp. 305-309, October, 1872).

Notice of some New Tertiary and Post-Tertiary Birds {American Journal of
Science (3), vol. iv., pp. 256-262, October, 1872).

Notice of some Remarkable Fossil Mammals {American Journal of Science
(3) vol. iv., pp. 343, 344, October, 1872).

Notice of a New and Remarkable Fossil Bird {American Journal of Science
(3), vol. iv., p. 344, October, 1872).

Discovery of Fossil Quadrumana in the Eocene of "Wyoming {American Jour-
nal of Science (3), vol. iv., pp. 405, 406, November, 1872).

On the Gigantic Fossil Mammals of the Order Dinocerata {American Jour-
nal of Science (3), vol. v., pp. 117-122, February, 1873).

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR 0. C. MARSH. 617

On a New Sub-Class of Fossil Birds (Odontornithes) {American Journal of
Science (3), vol. v., pp*. 161, 162, February, 1873).

0» the Structure and Affinities of the Brontotheridaa {American Journal of
Science (3), vol. vii., pp. 81-86, January, 1874).

Notice of New Equine Mammals from the Tertiary Formation {American
Journal of Science (3), vol. vii., pp. 247-258, March, 1874).

New Order of Eocene Mammals {American Journal of Science (3), vol. ix.,
p. 221, March, 1875).

On the Odontornithes, or Birds with Teeth {American Journal of Science
(3), vol. x., pp. 403-408, November, 1875).

Principal Characters of the Dinocerata {American Journal of Science (3), vol.
xi., pp. 163-168, February, 1876).

Principal Characters of the Tillodontia {American Journal of Science (3),
vol. xi., pp. 249-251, March, 1876).

Principal Characters of the Brontotheridae {American Journal of Science (3),
vol. xi., pp. 335-340, April, 1876).

On a New Sub-Order of Pterosauria {American Journal of Science (3), vol.
xi., pp. 507-509, June, 1876).

Recent Discoveries of Extinct Animals {American Journal of Science (3),
vol. xii., pp. 59-61, July, 1876).

Notice of New Tertiary Mammals; Part V. {American Journal of Science
(3), vol. xii., pp. 401-404, November, 1876).

Principal Characters of American Pterodactyles {American Journal of Sci-
ence (3), vol. xii., pp. 479, 480, December, 1876).

Notice of a New and Gigantic Dinosaur {American Journal of Science (3),
vol. xiv., pp. 87, 88, July, 1877).

Principal Characters of the Coryphodontidsa {American Journal of Science
(3), vol. xiv., pp. 81-85, July, 1877).

Characters of the Odontornithes, with Notice of a New Allied Genus {Amer-
ican Journal of Science (3), vol. xiv., pp. 85-87, July, 1877).

Address on Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in America
{American Journal of Science (3), vol. xiv., pp. 338-378, November, 1877).

A New Order of Extinct Keptilia {Stegosauria) from the Jurassic of the
Rocky Mountains {American Journal of Science (3), vol. xiv., pp. 513, 514, De«
cember, 1877).

New Species of Ceratodus, from the Jurassic {American Journal of Science
(3), vol. xv., p. 76, January, 1878).

Notice of New Dinosaurian Reptiles {American Journal of Science (3), vol.
xv., pp. 241-244, March, 1878).

Notice of New Fossil Reptiles {American Journal of Science (3), vol. xv., pp.
409-411, May, 1878).

Fossil Mammal from the Jurassic of the Rocky Mountains {American Jour-
nal of Science (3), vol. xv., p. 459, June, 1878).

Other scientific papers of interest by Prof. Marsh will be found in the
same journal, as well as in the Zeitschrift of the Geological Society
of Germany ; American Naturalist ; " Proceedings of the Philadel-
phia Academy of Natural Sciences ; " " Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society ; " Proceedings of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science ; " and in other periodicals.

6i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

TEE ENGLISH REPORT ON INTERNA-
TIONAL COPYRIGHT.

THE report of the English commis-
sion on the general subject of
copyright is now complete and before
the public. It shows that there has
been a searching investigation into the
existing condition and working of copy-
right-laws in that country, with an hon-
est view to such amendments as are
necessary to more thorough protection
of the right to literary property. The
report is able and exhaustive, and
recommends parliamentary measures
which, if carried out, will be of great
advantage to authors, and will be an
honor to England. The commissioners
found the subject encompassed with
serious and perplexing difficulties, but
they did not make these the occasion
of shrinking from the duty that had
been assigned to them. If any Ameri-
can wishes to preserve a decent self-
respect, we advise him not to pass from
the reading of the English copyright
report to the report of the United
States Senate upon the same subject,
made in 1873, by Mr. Morrill, of Maine.
The contrast between the two docu-
ments is remarkable. The English re-
port is grave and formidable, and shows
that there has been long and earnest
work over a question that is felt to be of
great national importance ; the Ameri-
can report is a miserable tract of half
a dozen pages, evincing by its meagre-
ness the utter indifference of those who
drew it up to the subject which they
had been appointed to consider. The
English report recognizes extensive de-
fects in the legislation of that country
upon the question, and recommends
bold changes in it to secure a better
state of things; the American report
sees nothing wrong that it is desirable

to amend, and recommends Congress
to take no action in the matter. It
treats the subject from the low and
selfish point of view of the American
political demagogue, enters with a relish
into the sordid squabbles of book-man-
ufacturers, and pays not the slightest
attention to the important principles
that should be recognized as at the basis
of a just and enlightened policy of in-
ternational copyright. The English re-
port, on the contrary, treats the subject
with dignity and seriousness, bringing
out clearly the great principles that
should control it, and taking high and
impregnable moral ground in regard to
the duty of the English Parliament in
legislating with reference to it. It is
a question of international ethics, and
England has shot a long way forward
by adopting the Christian standard of
conduct in this relation, and saying we
are prepared to do as we would be done
by. The high-water mark of interna-
tional morality hitherto reached has
been to do as you are done by, to re-
ciprocate, to concede benefits if benefits
are granted, and to deny them if they
are denied. England takes the lead in
affirming that the thing which is right,
just, and equitable, must be done,
whether other nations reciprocate or
not. She took an important step in
this direction in entering upon the poli-
cy of free trade, and now proposes to
carry it out in her international treat-
ment of literary property and the rights
of authors. The commission recom-
mends to Parliament to grant copy-
rights to American authors whether
the United States will do the same
thing for English authors or not. They
say : " It has been suggested to us that
this country would be justified in taking
steps of a retaliatory character, with

EDITOR'S TABLE.

619

a view of enforcing, incidentally, that
protection from the United States which
we accord to them. This might be
done by withdrawing from the Ameri-
cans the privilege of copyright on first
publication in this country. We have,
however, come to the conclusion that
it is advisable that our law should be
based on correct principles, irrespective
of the opinions or policy of other na-
tions. We admit the propriety of pro-
tecting copyright, and it appears to us
that the principle of copyright, if ad-
mitted, is one of universal application.
We, therefore, recommend that this
country should pursue the policy of
recognizing the author's rights, irre-
spective of nationality."

On a subject which presents so much
that is conflicting and unsettled, it is
not to be supposed that there would be
complete unanimity of opinion among
the fifteen members of this commission,
who were chosen because they are men
of intelligence, and capable of forming
their own views. The subject, besides,
was one of great extent and complica-
tion of rival interests, involving the
policy to be pursued regarding home
and foreign copyrights, abridgments of
books, musical compositions, dramati-
zation of novels, lectures, newspapers,
paintings, photographs, translations,
registrations, forfeitures, infringements,
and scores of other matters hitherto
left to a chaotic system of legislation.
But, considering the task they had be-
fore them, the commissioners have come
to substantial agreement as to the meas-
ures recommended. There were two
or three wrong-headed and crotchety
men, who made dissenting reports on
various points, although concurring in
the main practical results. Chief among
these eccentric dissentients was Sir Lou-
is Mallet ; he could not agree with his
coadjutors, and with some of the lead-
ing gentlemen who testified before
them, as to the ground of rights in lit-
erary property. Many ingenious and
fanciful arguments have been made to
prove that men have no right to the

property they create by brain-labor, or
have only such a qualified right to it
that to appropriate it without consent
is not stealing. What a man earns by
his hands, and by capital invested in
tools and machinery, they admit he has
a right to against the world ; but what
he earns by laborious thinking, and by
capital invested in education, may be
taken from him by anybody who wants
it. Many funny reasons, as we have
said, have been offered for allowing
those who can make anything by it for
themselves to plunder authors of the
products of their toil, but Sir Louis
Mallet has the honor of contributing
the last curious pretext for this sort of
robbery. He says: "The right con-
ferred by a copyright-law derives its
chief value from the discovery of the
art of printing; and there appears no
reason for giving to authors any larger
share in the value of a mechanical in-
vention, to which they have contributed
nothing, than to any other member of
the community." But, if authors are
not to be permitted to hold their prop-
erty because the discovery of the art
of printing has contributed to its value,
what right has anybody to hold any
property that is the result of an inven-
tion or discovery to which he has not
contributed ? The doctrine would make
sad havoc of the rights of capitalists and
laborers in all countries, whose earnings
and accumulations are due to the use of
steam-engines, telegraphs, spinning-ma-
chinery, and a thousand other devices
to which they have never contributed.

Sir Louis Mallet coincides in the
practical recommendations of the re-
port, although not agreeing with the
grounds upon which they are made.
Yet he exhibited a good deal of ingen-
ious perverseness in embarrassing the
inquiry. This was well illustrated by
the case he undertook to make out
against the necessity of international
copyright by the success of the " Inter-
national Scientific Series," where for-
eign authors are paid without the com-
pulsion of an international copyright-

620

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

law. His case, in a word, is this : By
a satisfactory arrangement contributors
to the " International Scientific Series "
are liberally paid by the English pub-
lisher, and then fairly paid again by
the American publisher — what more is
wanted ? The answer, of course, is very
simple : There is wanted legal protec-
tion to the property. The American
publishers concede that there is a prop-
erty-value in the books they reissue, for
which they are willing to pay under a
voluntary contract; but how does that
proceeding absolve the United States
Government from the duty of protect-
ing tbat property as it protects other
property? Reasonable men will see
that the convention of publishers in
different countries, to carry out such a
project, is but a weighty testimony to
the just claims of authors which it is
the duty and office of government to
sustain and enforce by the proper legis-
lation. It is the one great duty of gov-
ernment to protect the rights of its citi-
zens, and prominent among these is the
right of property. All civilized coun-
tries recognize the right of property in
books, and there have been attempts to
make this recognition international, that
is, to induce nations to extend their
morality beyond their geographical bor-
ders. In the absence of any such ar-
rangement, a few parties agree that they
will voluntarily recognize the rights of
intellectual property, and the very do-
ing of this is to be made a new excuse
for neglecting to enforce the funda-
mental obligations of justice.

COOKERY AND EDUCATION.

It was a suggestive remark of Count
Rumford tbat "the number of inhabi-
tants who may be supported in any
country upon its internal produce de-
pends about as much upon the state of
the art of cookery as upon that of agri-
culture ; but, if cookery be of so much
importance, it ought certainly to be
studied with the greatest care. Cook-

ery and agriculture are arts of civilized
nations ; savages understand neither of
them."

There is a great deal of important
truth wrapped up in this passage, of
vital interest to society in general and
to individual welfare, but which it has
taken a hundred years to appreciate so
fully that any considerable number of
people can begin to cooperate in re-
ducing it to practice. But, if what
Rumford said is true, if the scale of
population as well as the comfort and
health of the people depends to such
a degree upon the art of cookery, what
are all the issues of politics over which
men are fighting with such desperation
in comparison with the systematic im-
provement of the culinary art? How
greatly the public weal is dependent
upon the condition of agriculture be-
gins now to be widely understood, and
since the time of Rumford great prog-
ress has been made in its scientific
study through the establishment of
special schools and colleges for the pur-
pose. Agricultural education is now a.
recognized branch of popular culture
which is destined to be greatly devel-
oped and extended in the future. The
next great step must be to do the same
thing for the art of cookery; and the
friends of genuine social improvement
may congratulate themselves that the
progress of education is beginning to
take effect upon this important depart-
ment of domestic life. Cooking-schools
are springing up in many places in this
country and in England, and the Eng-
lish are taking the lead in organizing
them as a part of their national and
common school system.

Of the importance, the imperative
necessity of this movement, there can-
not be the slightest question. Our
kitchens, as is perfectly notorious, are
the fortified intrenchments of igno-
rance, prejudice, irrational habits, rule-
of-thumb, and mental vacuity, and the
consequence is that the Americans are
liable to the reproach of suffering be-
yond any other people from wasteful,

EDITOR'S TABLE.

621

unpalatable, unhealthful and monoto-
nous cookery. Considering our re-
sources, and the vaunted education and
intelligence of American women, this
reproach is just. Our kitchens are, in
fact, almost abandoned to the control
of low Irish, stupid negroes, and raw
servile menials that pour in upon us
from various foreign countries. And,
what is worse, there is a general acqui-
escence in this state of things, as if it
were something fated, and relief from
it hopeless and impossible. We profess
to believe in the potency of education,
and are applying it to all other inter-
ests and industries excepting only that
fundamental art of the preparation
and use of food to sustain life which
involves more of economy, enjoyment,
health, spirits, and the power of effec-
tive labor, than any other subject that
is formally studied in the schools. We
abound in female seminaries and female
colleges, and high-schools, and normal
schools, supported by burdensome tax-
es, in which everything under heaven is
studied except that practical art which
is a daily and vital necessity in all the
households of the land.

Acquiescence in this state of things
as something permanent and irremedi-
able is no longer possible. If, as Rum-
ford says, cookery is an art of civilized
nations, it must improve with the ad-
vance of civilization. It is undoubtedly
the most backward of all the arts, and
various causes conspire to its continued
neglect. But, whatever the difficulties
to be overcome, the time has arrived
when the advance of intelligence and
the spirit of improvement must invade
that last stronghold of traditional stu-
pidity, the kitchen. Nor are the diffi-
culties of doing this by any means so
great as is commonly supposed ; they will
vanish as soon as the task of alleviation
and amendment is earnestly undertaken.
As soon as thought and cultivation are
brought to bear upon the domestic op-
erations of the kitchen, they will be
elevated in the common respect, and a
most formidable impediment will thus

be removed. American women have
been driven out of the kitchen because
all its associations are degrading, and
they demand education as a preparation
for all those other activities to which
educations leads. When the art of
cookery becomes a matter of intelli-
gent study, so that its practice will no
longer be a badge of debasement and
humiliation, occupation will be sought
and honored in this field as elsewhere.
The establishment of cooking-schools
is, therefore, in the direct line of our
domestic amelioration and emancipa-
tion. They are already, as we have
said, established, and, considering the
embarrassments of an initial movement
of this kind, are in most successful op-
eration. Though at present narrow
in their scope, they will develop and
widen so as to afford a training in the
broader field of general household ac-
tivity ; but we are well content with
what has been already gained. The
South Kensington Cooking-School, in
London, is a normal school for training
teachers to go out and take charge of
other schools in different parts of the
country. How successful this institu-
tion has been may be inferred from the
fact that it has already given us the
best practical cook-book that we now
have. We call attention to the notice
of this work in the following pages,
from which the reader will gather some
interesting information as to what has
been accomplished on the other side of
the Atlantic in relation to this impor-
tant subject, and which will afford im-
portant hints for carrying out a similar
work in the United States.

SCIENCE IN RELATION TO TEACHING.

Of all the applications of science to
the practical arts, there is none that can
for a moment bear comparison with its
application to the art of teaching. Sci-
entific education, as currently under-
stood, refers to something of greatly
inferior importance : it means instruc-

622

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion in the sciences. Many of the teach-
ers in our schools know something of
these sciences, and do what they can to
expound them. This, of course, is use-
ful, but it is the lowest agency for the
diffusion of science. Of the uses of
science to themselves as professors of
the art of teaching, or of its value in
guiding the processes of education, it
is not too much to say that the mass of
teachers as yet know nothing. This,
however, is the main and essential thing
now to be imperatively demanded, and
which, when attained, will do more tow-
ard the universal promotion of science
than all other modes of influence com-
bined. Scientific education is far less
a question of the number of hours per
week that are to be devoted to this
kind of study than a question of bring-
ing scientific knowledge to bear upon
the operations of the school-room.

We took this ground decisively
twenty years ago. When applied to
by Mr. Greeley to write some articles
for the Tribune on " Scientific Educa-
tion," we devoted them to a statement
of the ground that science requires all
intelligent teachers to take in the pur-
suit of their profession. We illustrated
and enforced the position that, to de-
velop the mind and form the character,
the starting-point of the teacher must
be a knowledge of the brain and of
nervous physiology, and that all teach-
ing without this knowledge must be
empirical, is certain to be faulty, and
liable to be injurious. The discussion
was premature. We sowed upon un-
prepared ground. It was objected that
all beyond the bare introduction of more
chemistry and physics in the schools
was impracticable and fanciful ; while to
talk of " brain " instead of " mind " was
dreaded as dangerous, and condemned as
leading " straight down to materialism."

In a work published a dozen years
ago, " On the Culture demanded by
Modern Life," this view was reaffirmed
and more fully illustrated. It was in-
sisted that to gain definite ideas of the
laws of mind so as to work the forces of

education quantitatively, if we may so
speak, for the production of permanent
effects, we must recognize the law of
mental limitations that is educible from
cerebral physiology. In an essay treat-
ing of the philosophy of mental disci-
pline we said :

" It no longer admits of denial or cavil
that the Author of our being has seen fit to
connect mind and intelligence with a ner-
vous mechanism ; in studying mental phe-
nomena, therefore, in connection with this
mechanism, we are studying them in the
relation which God has established, and
therefore in the only true relation. Noth-
ing is more certain than that, in future, mind
is to be considered in connection with the
organism by which it is conditioned. When
it is said that the brain is the organ of the
mind, it is meant that in thinking, remem-
bering, reasoning, the brain acts. The basis
of educability, and hence of mental disci-
pline, is to be sought in the properties of
that nervous substance by which mind is
manifested. When it is perceived that what
we have to deal with in mental acquirement
is organic processes which have a definite
time-rate of activity, so that, however vigor-
ously the cerebral currents are sustained by
keeping at a thing, acquisition is not in-
creased in the same degree ; when we see
that new attainments are easiest and most
rapid during early life — the time of most
vigorous growth of the body generally ;
that thinking exhausts the brain as really
as working exhausts the muscles, while rest
and nutrition are as much needed in one
case as the other ; when we see that rapidity
of attainment and tenacity of memory in-
volve the question of cerebral adhesions,
and note how widely constitutions differ in
these capabilities, how they depend upon
blood, stock, and health, and vary with
numberless conditions — we become aware
how inexorably the problem of mental at-
tainment is hedged round with limitations,
and the vague notion that there are no
bounds to acquisition except imperfect ap-
plication disappears forever."

The general view (here illustrated in
a special application) has been main-
tained in The Popular Science Month-
ly from the outset. We have published
papers from the ablest scientific men of
different countries, illustrating the con-
trol of physiological and psychological
principles over the objects and methods

EDITOR'S TABLE.

62:

of education. These able discussions,
we are happy to say, have been increas-
ingly appreciated ; and it is gratifying
to note that the view we have steadily
urged for these many years begins to
be widely accepted as the basis of a new
departure in the progress of scientific
education. A conspicuous illustration
of this has recently been afforded by
the course of the most influential jour-
nal in England. There has been a sys-
tematic movement in that country to get
a larger share of scientific study in the
lower schools ; and, under the vigor-
ous leadership of Sir John Lubbock,
in the House of Commons, efforts have
been made to modify school legislation
so as to enforce this result. A majority
has not yet been gained, but the op-
position is giving way, and the end
sought will undoubtedly soon be at-
tained. Upon the last and recent de-
feat of Sir John Lubbock's measure,
the London Times came out with a
leading editorial on the right side, and
which is chiefly remarkable for the ad-
vanced and unqualified position which
it takes. We reprint this article of the
Times in the present number of the
Monthly, together with the comments
of the editor of Nature upon it. How
completely the writer sustains the views
that we have long labored to inculcate,
is well shown in the following instruc-
tive passage :

" As soon as physiologists had discov-
ered that all the faculties of the intellect,
however originating or upon whatever ex-
ercised, were functions of a material organ-
ism or brain, absolutely dependent upon
its integrity for their manifestation, and
upon its growth and development for their
improvement, it became apparent that the
true office of the teacher of the future
would be to seek to learn the conditions
by which the growth and the operations
of the brain were controlled in order that
he might be able to modify these condi-
tions in a favorable manner. The abstrac-
tion of the ' mind ' was so far set aside as
to make it certain that this mind could
only act through a nervous structure, and
that the structure was subject to various in-
fluences for good or evil. It became known

that a brain cannot arrive at healthy matu-
rity excepting by the assistance of a sufficient
supply of healthy blood; that is to say, of
good food and pure air. It also became
known that the power of a brain will ulti-
mately depend very much upon the way in
which it is habitually exercised, and that
the practice of schools in this respect left a
great deal to be desired. A large amount
of costly and pretentious teaching fails dis-
mally for no. other reason than because it is
not directed by any knowledge of the mode
of action of the organ to which the teacher
endeavors. to appeal; and mental growth,
in many instances, occurs in spite of teach-
ing rather than on account of it. Educa-
tion, which might once have been defined
as an endeavor to expand the intellect by
the introduction of mechanically compressed
facts, should now be defined as an endeavor
favorably to influence a vital process ; and,
when so regarded, its direction should man-
ifestly fall somewhat into the hands of those
by whom the nature of vital processes has
been most completely studied. In other
words, it becomes neither more nor less
than a branch of applied physiology; and
physiologists tell us with regard to it that
the common processes of teaching are open
to the grave objection that they constantly
appeal to the lower centres of nervous func-
tion, which govern the memory of and the
reaction upon sensations, rather than to
those of higher ones which are the organs
of ratiocination and of volition. Hence a
great deal which passes for education is
really a degradation of the human brain to
efforts below its natural capacities. This
applies especially to book-work, in which
the memory of sounds in given sequences is
often the sole demand of the teacher, and
in which the pupil, instead of knowing the
meaning of the sounds, often does not know
what 'meaning' means. As soon as the
sequence of the sounds is forgotten, noth-
ing remains, and we are then confronted by
a question which was once proposed in an
inspectorial report: 'To what purpose in
after-life is a boy taught, if the intervention
of a school vacation is to be a sufficient
excuse for entirely forgetting his instruc-
tion?'"

THE CLASSICS IN GERMANY.

TnosE of our readers who have pe-
rused the previous portions of Prof.
Du Bois-Reymond's article on " Civili-
zation and Science " will hardly need
that we should call their attention to

624

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the concluding part herewith published.
After a survey of the progress of the
human mind as illustrated in the great
scientific movement of 'modern times,
he comes to the practical question of
German education, considered in rela-
tion to those extreme utilitarian ten-
dencies of the age against which he
protests. How is the Americanization
of European culture to he withstood in
Germany ? — that is his question. The
reply has been, through the liberalizing
influence of classical studies. The pro-
fessor acknowledges himself a devotee
to these studies, and has a high opinion
of their educational value ; but he ad-
mits that, although prosecuted with
great vigor, they have failed to produce
the desired effect. " "What other coun-
try can boast of imparting so thorough
and so learned a classical education,
and that to so large a proportion of its
youth, even of the less wealthy class-
es? " But all this is a humiliating fail-
ure. They neither acquired a critical
familiarity with Latin and Greek vo-
cabularies, nor did they arrive at any
such conception of the thought of the
ancients as to see in what way we are
their intellectual descendants. " Their
indifference toward broad ideas and
historic sequence makes it difficult for
me to believe that they are permeated
with the spirit of antiquity, or that
they had received a sound historical
training." This, it will be remem-
bered, is the complaint everywhere — in
the English universities and the Amer-
ican colleges : not one in ten of those
who consume years in the study of
classics gets any intelligent acquaint-
ance with the subject. It is, moreover,
an old and cogent objection to the usual
study of Latin and Greek, both in Eng-
land and in this country, that, so far
from favoring a critical knowledge of
English, it hinders and defeats the
mastery of the mother-tongue. Prof.
Du Bois-Reymond alleges that the sajne
effect is produced in Germany. Of the
graduates of the gymnasia who had

drilled so long, though ineffectually, in
Latin and Greek, he says, "For the
most part these young people wrote in
ungrammatical and inelegant German."
They " did not even suspect that any
one could care about purity of language
and pronunciation, force of expression,
brevity, or pointedness of style." The
study of classical authors is again ar-
raigned with us as obstructing the
proper study of the great English clas-
sics; and Prof. Du Bois-Reymond re-
marks, " This neglect of the mother-
tongue in the youth of the present day
is accompanied by a lack of acquaint-
ance with the German classics that is
oftentimes astounding." It is again
said that the classical students of Eng-
lish and American colleges very rarely
acquire any permanent interest in these
studies, so as to keep them up as a part
of the mental occupation in after-life.
The same complaint is made in Ger-
many. The professor says :

"There are but few students, indeed,
who in later years ever open an ancient au-
thor. So far from having any warm love
for the classics, most persons regard them
with indifference ; not a few with aversion.
They are remembered only as the instru-
ments by means of which they were made
familiar with the rules of grammar, just as
the only conception they retain of univer-
sal history is that of learning by rote insig-
nificant dates. Was it for this that these
youths sat for thirty hours weekly on a
school-bench till their eighteenth or twen-
tieth year? Was it for this that they de-
voted most of their time to studying Greek,
Latin, and history ? Is this the result for
the attainment of which the gymnasium re-
morselessly englooms the life of the Ger-
man boy ? "

Prof. Du Bois-Reymond therefore
acknowledges a serious modification of
opinion in regard to the employment of
classical studies in the German schools.
The gymnasia, or higher schools, have
failed with their classics, and the indus-
trial schools in which these studies are
but little taught are entitled to increas-
ing consideration. Classical studies, he

LITERARY NOTICES.

625

urges, should be retrenched in the gym-
nasia, and greater attention given to
mathematics and the physical sciences.
This conflict, therefore, belongs to no
nation, but is as broad as the inter-
ests of science and the course of civili-
zation itself.

Peof. William Monroe Davis, of
Cleveland, Ohio, died on the 21st of July,
at the age of seventy years. He was born
in New Hampshire, and his ancestry on
the father's side went back to the Pil-
grims of the Mayflower, while on the
mother's side he was closely related to
the family of President Monroe. He
went to Cincinnati in his boyhood, and
grew up there with but a limited edu-
cation. It was only when married and
having children to be trained that he
first began the study of science; but
such was his native genius that he
soon mastered a position as an original
thinker and investigator in astronomy.
The distinction he had won could not
be better shown than by the fact that,
when Prof. Mitchell abandoned science
and took to the vocation of war, Mr.
Davis was called to succeed him as di-
rector in the Cincinnati Observatory, a
position which he filled with satisfac-
tion and credit. His health failing five
years ago, he came to Cleveland to re-
side with his son-in-law, Mr. A. J. Rick-
off, the eminent educationist of Ohio.
He constructed a very valuable tele-
scope, the lenses of which were ground
by his own hands. He published in the
July number of The Popular Science
Monthly a paper containing an able
and profound discussion of the nebular
hypothesis and the phenomena of plan-
etary rings and satellites, the immediate
occasion of the article being the recent
discovery and apparently anomalous
motions of the moons of Mars. Prof.
Davis had worked out his own views
on these recondite questions, and ex-
pected to develop them in a series of
essays for the Monthly, when his work
VOL. xiii. — 40

was arrested by death. It is to be
hoped that his manuscript notes may
have been sufficiently full to make it
practicable and desirable for his friends
to print them in a collected form.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Lessons in Cookery: Hand-Book of the
National Training-School for Cook-
ery (South Kensington, London). To
which is added The Principles of Diet
in Health and Disease, by Thomas K.
Chambers, M. D. Edited by Eliza A.
Youmans. New York : D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 382. Price, $1.50.

Two thiDgs closely connected are much
and justly complained of in this country —
the everlasting multiplication of new cook-
books and the general badness of cookery.
Publications of every form and variety
abound upon this subject, with no corre-
sponding improvement in the art by whieh
food is prepared. It would be going too
far to ascribe the low state of our culinary
practice to the qualities of the literature
that deals with it, for in many cases cook-
books have no influence at all upon kitchen
operations; but it is equally certain that
the current manuals do much to perpetuate
the bad methods to which they are con-
formed. The reason of their failure to ef-
fect much improvement is obvious enough,
for our popular manuals of cookery make
no provision for learning the business in the
way all other arts have to be learned if
they are to be successfully prosecuted.
They proceed upon the false principle that
a practical vocation, depending upon a
knowledge of the properties of numerous
substances, involving constant manipulation
and the production of delicate and compli-
cated effects, can be learned by simply
reading about it. This mischievous error,
however, is beginning to be recognized in
various quarters, and it is seen that cook-
ery, like all other subjects, must be studied
in a rational way, in accordance with the
nature of the subject. England has the
honor of taking the lead in a vigorous
movement to make the art of practical
cookery a branch of common education.
The effort has been successful in so emi-
nent a degree that it promises to be perma-

626

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nent and to become of immense advantage
to the community. But no important step
of advancement can be taken in this direc-
tion without a wide diffusion of its advan-
tages ; whatever has been gained by English
experience is ours as well as theirs. One
of the fruits of the establishment of the
London Training-School is that we have at
last got a hand-book of cookery upon the
right method, and which, if used as it can
be everywhere, will be certain to elevate
this hitherto neglected branch of domestic
economy. The claims of this work upon
American households are so important, and
so clearly presented by the editor in her
preface to the American edition, that we
cannot better serve the interested readers
of the Monthly than by quoting the main
portions of the statement :

" The present work on cookery appeared
in England under the title of ' The Official
Hand-Book of the National Training-School
for Cookery,' and it contains the lessons on
the preparation of food which were prac-
tised in that institution. It has been re-
printed in this country with some slight
revision, for the use of American families,
because of its superior merits as a cook-
book to be consulted in the ordinary way,
and also because it is the plainest, simplest,
and most perfect guide to self-education in
the kitchen that has yet appeared. In this
respect it represents a very marked advance
in an important domestic art hitherto much
neglected.

" A glance at its contents will show the
ground it covers, and how fully it meets the
general wants. The dishes for which it
provides have been selected with an unusual
degree of care and judgment. They have
been chosen to meet the needs of well-to-do
families, and also those of more moderate
means, who must observe a strict economy.
Provision is made for an ample and varied
diet, and for meals of a simple and frugal
character. Receipts are given for an excel-
lent variety of soups, for cooking many
kinds of fish in different ways, for the prep-
aration of meats, poultry, game, and vege-
tables, and for a choice selection of entrees,
souffles, puddings, jellies, and creams. Be-
sides the courses of a well-ordered dinner,
there are directions for making rolls, bis-
cuits, bread, and numerous dishes for break-

fast and tea, together with a most valuable
set of directions how to prepare food for
the sick. The aim has been to meet the
wants of the great mass of people who are
not rich enough to abandon their kitchen
to the management of professional cooks,
and who must keep a careful eye to ex-
pense. But, while the costly refinements
of artistic and decorative cookery are
avoided, there has been a constant refer-
ence to the simple requirements of good
taste in the preparation of food for the
table.

" But the especial merit of this volume,
and the character by which it stands alone
among cook-books, is the superior method
it offers of teaching the art of practical
cookery. It is at this vital point that all
our current cook-books break down ; they
make no provision for getting a knowledge
of this subject in any systematic way. So
much in them is vague, so much taken for
granted, and so much is loose, careless, and
misleading, in their receipts, that they are
good for nothing to teach beginners, good
for nothing as guides to successful prac-
tice, and only of use to those who already
know enough to supply their deficiencies
and protect themselves against their errors.
In fact, the hand-book required to teach
cookery effectually cannot be made by any
single person in the usual manner, but it
must be itself a product of such teaching.

" The present volume originated in this
way, and embodies a tried and successful
method of making good practical cooks.
The lessons given in the following pages
came from a training-kitchen for pupils of
all grades, and the directions of its receipts
are so minute, explicit, distinct, and com-
plete, that they may be followed with ease
by every person of common-sense who has
the slightest desire to learn. They are the
results of long and careful practice in teach-
ing beginners how to cook, and have grown
out of exercises often repeated with a view
of making them as perfect as possible. It
is commonly regarded as a good thing in a
cook-book that its compiler has tested some
of its receipts, and points out the troubles
and failures likely to occur in early trials.
But the completeness of the instructions in
this work was attained through the stupidi-
ties, blunders, mistakes, questionings, and

LITERARY NOTICES.

627

difficulties, of hundreds of learners of all
capacities, doing the work over and over
again under the critical direction of intelli-
gent, practical teachers, who were bent upon
finding out the best method of doing each
thing, and the best method of teaching
others how to do it. Not a single item ne-
cessary to perfect the required process is
omitted. The steps are separated, and given
in numerical order, so as to enforce atten-
tion to one thing at a time, and the right
thing at the right time, while the precautions
against mistakes are so careful that even
the dullest can hardly go wrong. Each re-
ceipt in the volume is not only the formula
for a dish, but it is also a lesson in a prac-
tical process, so that in the preparation of
every article of food something is gained
toward greater proficiency in the art of
cooking well.

"A few words in regard to the origin
of the school in which it was produced will
still further illustrate the character of this
work. A vigorous movement has been
made in England to elevate this branch of
domestic economy by establishing schools
for training pupils in the art of cookery.
These schools have grown immediately out of
the need of greater general economy among
the working-classes, as it was seen that the
high prices of provisions were seriously ag-
gravated by not knowing how to make the
most of them in their kitchen preparation.
The attention of the managers of the South
Kensington Museum of Arts in West Lon-
don was several years ago drawn to the
subject ; and, feeling that something required
to be done, they established public lectures
on the preparation of food, with platform
demonstrations of various culinary opera-
tions. But it was quickly found that mere
exposition and illustration, though not with-
out use, were wholly inadequate to the ob-
ject in view ; because a cooking school, to
be thorough, must provide for practice.
Lecturing, and explaining to pupils, and
barely showing them how things are done,
are sure to fail, because cookery, like music,
can only be learned by actually doing it.
As well undertake to teach the piano by
talking and exhibiting its capabilities as to
teach a person how to make a dish properly
by only listening and looking on. Provision
had therefore to be made for forming

classes to do themselves what they at first
only saw others dq.

" But this task- was by no means an easy
one. There were no preexisting plans to
follow ; qualified teachers and suitable text-
books were wanting ; it was an expensive
form of education ; the public thought it a
doubtful innovation ; and educational au-
thorities discouraged it. But the parties
interested decided that the time had come
for a systematic and persistent effort. They
felt their way cautiously, and iu 1874 organ-
ized classes for graded courses of practice.
The object was to give women the best
possible instruction in practical cookery
and for this purpose the school was open
to all. But, to make its work most largely
useful, it was constituted as a normal
school for training teachers to go out and
establish other cooking-schools in different
parts of the country. This has been since
done with the most encouraging success, so
that there are already a large number of
cooking-schools in England connected with
the national or common school system.

"As no cook-book to be found was
worth anything to aid the practical instruc-
tion proposed, the teachers had to take
this matter in hand at the outset. They
began by drawing up a careful set of di-
rections to be followed by the learners in
doing their work. For each lesson in all
the grades each pupil was furnished with a
printed sheet of these directions, stating
the ingredients of each dish to be prepared,
the quantities and separate cost of these
ingredients, what was to be done first, what
next, and so on through the whole series of
operations, nothing being assumed as known,
and all the minute steps being indicated in
the order that was found best. These guides
were necessarily imperfect at first, and were
subject to constant revision and extension
as experience suggested corrections ; in
fact, they embodied the progress of the
school in the successful attainment of its
object. At each new printing the improve-
ments that had been made were incorpo-
rated, and only after years of trial were these
guides to practice at length combined and
issued in a book-form. The lessons or re-
ceipts of this volume were all slowly elabo-
rated in this painstaking manner, and the
mode of working proved perfectly success-

6zS

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ful with the pupils. It was easy and pleas-
ant, yet careful and thorough, and secured
a rapid and gratifying proficiency.

" In saying that the South Kensington
Cooking-School has been successful, I speak
from direct knowledge of it. I was a pupil
there for several weeks, and carefully ob-
served its operations. The classes showed
the most extraordinary mental and social
diversity. There were cultivated ladies, the
daughters of country gentlemen, old house-
keepers, servants, cooks, and colored girls
from South Africa, together with a large
proportion of intelligent young women who
were preparing to become teachers. They
worked together with a harmony and good
feeling that, I confess, somewhat surprised
me, but they were all closely occupied and
thoroughly interested in a common object.
There were teachers to provide materials,
to plan the daily work, to direct operations,
and to be consulted when necessary ; but
the admirable method adopted left each
learner to go through her task with but a
small amount of assistance. Indeed, the
completeness of the directions in hand
seemed to assure the success of every pupil
from the start. There was, of course, a
difference in dexterity, and in facility of
work previously acquired ; but raw begin-
ners went on so well that they were as-
tonished at what they found themselves able
to do.

" American ladies, when looking over
these lessons, are apt to smile at their ex-
treme simplicity and triviality, but it must
be remembered that the difference between
good and bad cookery is very much a mat-
ter of attention to trifles. Slight mistakes,
small omissions, little things done at the
wrong time, spoil dishes. The excellence
of these lessons consists in their faithful-
ness in regard to minutias, and the habits
they enforce of attention to trifling particu-
lars. They make no claim to literary merit.
The receipts are homely, direct, and meant
only to be easily and distinctly understood.
They are full of repetitions, because pro-
cesses are constantly repeated, and it was
necessary that the directions in each re-
ceipt should be full and complete. They
are not enticing reading, because they were
made to work by. The book, in fact, be-
longs in the kitchen where cookery is done ;

and it is now republished because its suc-
cess there has been demonstrated. Many
hundred persons totally ignorant of the
subject have become efficient and capable
cooks by pursuing the mode of practice
here adopted — by going through these les-
sons— and the same results can be obtained
by pursuing the same method anywhere.
American housekeepers who have any real
interest in home improvement, and are will-
ing to take a little pains to instruct their
daughters or their servants in the art of
cooking well, will find the volume an ade-
quate and invaluable help toward the at-
tainment of this object. It will prove a use-
ful text-book in the cooking-schools that
are springing up in this country, and classes
could be advantageously formed in it for
kitchen practice in every female seminary
in the land."

Appended to the volume is an admirable
essay on " The Principles of Diet in Health
and Disease," by Dr. Thomas K. Chambers,
one of the highest living authorities upon
that subject. This is a most valuable ad-
dition to the work. As food is prepared in
order to be eaten, as the subject of cookery
is therefore in close relations with that of
diet, and commonly receives too little atten-
tion on the part of housekeepers, it was an
excellent idea to furnish an authoritative
summary of the facts and rules of the most
recent dietetical science. Good cookery and
rational diet are equal conditions of health-
ful enjoyment.

Annual Record of Science and Industry,
for 1877. By S. F. Baird. New York :
Harper & Brothers. Pp. 494. Price,

$2.

The "Record" for 1877 is consider-
ably less voluminous than its predecessors,
and the reduction in size has been effected
by summarily omitting one of the two main
divisions of the work, namely, that con-
taining abstracts of notable scientific pa-
pers. In truth, it would be simply impos-
sible to compress within the limits of an
ordinary volume an intelligible synopsis
of the important scientific papers annually
contributed to the proceedings of learned
societies and the periodical press. Hence,
we cannot but approve the action of Prof.
Baird in omitting that feature of the " An-

LITERARY NOTICES.

629

nual Record." By so doing, he is enabled
to give more space and fuller treatment to
the " Summary of Scientific Progress," and
the result is a remarkably satisfactory re-
view of the scientific work of the year in
the various departments of research. Each
particular science, and, in some instances,
particular departments of a science, are
treated by writers eminent in their respec-
tive specialties.

The Ethics of Positivism : A Critical
Study. By Giacomo Barzellotti, Pro-
fessor of Philosophy at the Liceo Dante,
Florence. New York : Charles P. Somer-
by. Pp. 327. Price, $2.
This book, the first edition of which
appeared in Florence a few years ago, and
is now translated into English and printed
in this country with a new introduction by
the author, is a study of those more recent
aspects of philosophy which have culmi-
nated in the British school of psychologists.
It seems to have been written with a prin-
cipal view of instructing the Italians in re-
gard to the great modern movements of
thought that are going on most actively
outside the limits of that country. But the
writer's object is by no means purely ex-
pository of current thought: he dips into
controversy with opinions of his own, and
avows his aim to be to defend "the princi-
ples of morality against the attacks of an
empirical utilitarianism." The appellation
of positivism, which the author connects
with his discussion, he informs us has been
criticised by leading authorities as inexact,
and we think the objection was certainly
well taken. At any rate, the propriety of
the term, as designating the English school
of thinkers with which he is chiefly dealing,
has been so strenuously contested as mis-
leading by prominent members of that
school, that it seems somewhat assuming
in Prof. Barzellotti to persist in this ques-
tionable or disputed application of the word
in the title of his book.

The work is similar in scope to Masson's
"Recent British Philosophy," and its topics
are discussed in an excellent spirit and in
an intelligent and instructive manner ; but
it will be more valued as a delineation of a
system of ideas than for any contribution
it offers toward their further development.
We notice that Prof. Barzellotti differs very

widely from President Porter in his estimate
of the philosophical position and influence
of Herbert Spencer. For, while to the Presi-
dent of Yale College Spencer is little bet-
ter than a pretender and a verbal trickster,
whose illusive reputation is destined to van-
ish so speedily that the world will wonder
how the delusion lasted so long, the Italian
professor, on the other hand, accords to him
a regnant place as the commanding mind of
the most vigorous and powerful philosophi-
cal school of the present age. He says,
" Modern psychological inquiry reaches its
highest degree of development in Herbert
Spencer." He closes an elaborate account
of the doctrines and methods of this thinker
as follows :

" Such is in outline the psychology of Her-
bert Spencer. The idea that rules it is that of
a harmony of things which extends by degrees
from one form of life to another and culminates
in mind. It is not an original idea, but it ac-
quires particular aspects when thus treated ac-
cording to the positive method ; and, in the in-
termediate path which Spencer pursues, between
popular empiricism and a priori speculations,
the conception of an evolutionary process cer-
tainly assumes an original character. Spencer
has been led into this course by his closely in-
ductive genius. He is opposed to too abstract
generalizations, and likes generalizations to im-
ply carefully-observed facts ; but, by a bold syn-
thesis, he surpasses all that his predecessors
have achieved by analysis only. This equilibri-
um of faculties makes Spencer worthy of being
considered in more aspects than one. He marks
in the history of psychological inquiry the latest
stage that the inductive method has attained in
England by the work of a powerful mind im-
pressed with the refinements of modern science;
and this is not less true, although some traits, and
particularly a certain metaphysical touch in the
works of this most distinguished philosopher,
remind us of Schelling and Hegel. The tenden-
cy of the method of the English school, as it is
applied by Spencer, seems to become ever more
and more distinct from the general tendency of
psychological studies on the Continent, and
marks in him the climax of the course of thought
exhibited, in successive phases, by James Mill,
John Stuart Mill, and Alexander Bain. It is a
movement of thought, implying the tendency to
find the basis of mental science in the knowledge
of concrete facts, and the progress of that ten-
dency we can estimate by the successive ad-
vances made in psychological analysis by Hart-
ley, James Mill, Bain, and Spencer. The inquiry
into the facts of the world of consciousness, as
we have indicated, had no definiteness in the
vague mechanism of Hartley and James Mill;
it was more logical in John Stuart Mill, more
minute in Bain, and is to-day broader and more
comprehensive in Spencer, who is the one so

630

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

far that has brought the theory of the reduc-
tion of psychological facts to the finest point.
But with respect to the substance of method
and details of analysis he has, in common with
Mill and Bain— in fact, with all the school— that
which constitutes the organism of English psy-
chology and gives it a physiognomy of its own
in contemporary history."

Elements of Dynamic. An Introduction
to the Study of Motion and Rest in
Solid and Fluid Bodies. By W. K.
Clifford, F. R. S. Part I., Kine-
matic. New York: Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 221. Price, $2.50.

This little book plunges into depths
where only mathematicians can follow ; but
its opening sentences are so characteristic
of the author's clearness of perception and
statement, that, as they involve no formula,
and are withal instructive, we quote them:

"Just as geometry teaches us about the sizes
and shapes and. distances of bodies, and about
the relations which hold good between them,
bo dynamic teaches us about the changes which
take place in those distances, sizes, and shapes
(which changes are called motions), the relations
which hold good between different motions, and
the circumstances under which motions take
place.

"Motions are generally very complicated.
To fix the ideas, consider the case of a man
Bitting in one corner of a railway-carriage, who
gets up and moves to the opposite corner. He
has gone from one place to another; he has
turned round; he has continually changed in
shape, and many of his muscles have changed
in size during the process.

"To avoid this complication we deal with
the simplest motions first, and gradually go on
to consider the more complex ones. In the first
place, we postpone the consideration of changes
in size and shape by treating only of those mo-
tions in which there are no such changes. A
body which does not change its size or shape
during the time considered is called a rigid
body.

" The motion of rigid bodies is of two kinds ;
change of place, or translation, and change of
direction or aspect, which is called rotation. In
a motion of pure translation, every straight line
in the body remains parallel to its original posi-
tion ; for, if it did not, it would turn round, and
there would be a motion of rotation mixed up
with the motion of translation. By a straight
line in the body we do not mean merely a straight
line indicated by the shape or marked upon the
surface of the body ; thus, if a box have a move-
ment of translation, not only will its edges re-
main parallel to their original positions, but the
same will be true of every straight line which
we can conceive to be drawn, joining any two
points of the box.

" When a body has a motion of translation,
it is found, that every point of it moves in the

same ; bo that to describe the motion of the
whole body it is sufficient to describe that of
one point. When a body is so small that there
is no need to take account of the differences in
position and motion of its different parts, the
body is called a particle. Thus the only motion
of a particle that we take account of is the mo-
tion of translation of any point in it.

"A motion of translation mixed up with a
motion of rotation is like that of a corkscrew
entering into a cork, and is called a twist.

"Bodies which change their size or shape
are called elastic bodies. Changes in size or
shape are called strains.

"The science which teaches how to describe
motion accurately and how to compound dif-
ferent motions together is called kinematic.''''

The volume is a college text-book, and
the genius and position of its author are a
sufficient guarantee of its originality and ex-
cellence. Prof. Clifford has broken down
so sadly in health that he has been com-
pelled to suspend work at University Col-
lege, in London, and leave England for the
more genial climate of Southern Europe.
His work on the "Fundamental Ideas of
Mathematics and Physics explained to the
Non-Mathematical," with which he has been
long occupied for the " International Scien-
tific Series," is well advanced, and it is to
be hoped that he will recover his health to
complete it, and carry out the other impor-
tant intellectual projects of which his teem-
ing head is full.

Physical Technics. By Dr. J. Frick.

Translated by J. D. Easter, Ph. D.

With 797 Illustrations. Philadelphia:

Lippincott. Pp. 467. Price, $2.50.

Teachers of physical science and stu-
dents who are without the aid of competent
instructors and good laboratory apparatus
will find this a very useful manual. The
volume, in the first place, contains a great
deal of valuable, practical instruction for
making experiments in physics. The ma-
nipulation of apparatus, the construction of
apparatus at the least possible cost, the
points to be considered in the purchase of
instruments, on these and many other like
topics the author supplies a good deal of
common-sense information, gathered in the
course of his own experience as a teacher
of science, and selected from technical
manuals. Having aided the student in
choosing his apparatus or constructing it,
and given him some insight into the secrets
of physical manipulation, the author, in the

LITERARY NOTICES.

631

second part of the book, gives directions for
making experiments illustrative of the prin-
cipal laws of physics, as the equilibrium of
forces, motion, acoustics, light, magnetism,
heat, etc. The work appears to be very
well adapted to meet the wants of the read-
er for whom it is intended.

Current Discussion : A Collection from the
Chief English Essays of Questions of
the Time. Edited by Edward L. Bur-
lingame. Vol. II., Questions of Belief.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
360. Price, $1.50.

The first volume of this new series of
reprinted contemporary discussion was de-
voted to international politics, and very
naturally gave special prominence to the
treatment of the Oriental question which
has latterly excited so much attention. It
consisted of a judicious selection of the
most important papers that have appeared
in the English reviews by distinguished
writers on the various aspects of Eastern
politics. The second volume, devoted to
what the editor terms, somewhat vaguely,
" Questions of Belief," is occupied with
radical speculations in theology, most of
the space being taken up by the Symposi-
ums from the Nineteenth Century that have
appeared in The Popular Science Supple-
ment. There is an article on " The Course
of Modern Thought," by G. H. Lewes ; one
on " The Condition and Prospects of the
Church of England," by Thomas Hughes ;
and the paper of W. H. Mallock entitled
" Is Life worth living ? " Nothing needs
to be said in commendation of these able
discussions, and they are brought out in a
neat and attractive shape by the publishers.

Ferns of Kentucky. By J. "Williamson.
Louisville : J. P. Morton & Co. Pp. 154.

$2.

The collector of ferns in Kentucky will
find in this neat little volume a guide to the
principal localities in which the different
kinds occur, and a key for determining the
different species which he meets in his ram-
bles. The volume further contains hints on
the cultivation of ferns, and on the proper
method of drying and preserving them.
Sixty full-page etchings and six woodcuts
serve to illustrate the ferns of Kentucky.

Bulletin of the United States Geological
and Geographical Survey of the Ter-
ritories, F. V. Hayden, Geologist-in-
Charge. Vol. IV., No. I. Washing-
ton: Government Printing-Office. Pp.
311.

The memoirs contained in this number
of the Bulletin are all on zoological sub-
jects, viz. : " The Ornithology of the Lower
Rio Grande of Texas ; " " Fishes from the
Cretaceous and Tertiary, west of the Mis-
sissippi ; " three papers on " Tineina ; "
" JVoctuidce, chiefly from California ; " " The
North American Species of Alpheus ; "
" Mammals of Fort Sisseton, Dakota ; "
" American Herodiones ; " " Butterflies from
Southern Utah ; " " Herpetology of Dakota
and Montana; " " Consolidation of the Hoofs
in the Virginian Deer ; " "A Breed of Solid-
Hoofed Pigs ; " " Prof. Owen on the Pylho-
nomorpha."

Manual of the Apiary. By A. J. Cook,
Professor of Entomology in the Michi-
gan State Agricultural College. Chi-
cago : T. G. Newman & Son. Pp. 286.
Price, cloth, $1.25 ; paper, $1.

A large edition of this " Manual " hav-
ing been sold within two years of its first
publication, Prof. Cook was encouraged to
revise the work and make it more complete
in both its scientific and practical aspects.
The result is a handsome volume, elegantly
illustrated, and containing all the informa-
tion needed by those who desire to keep
bees. We have received, from the same
author, a pamphlet on "The Hessian Fly,"
giving its natural history and habits, and
describing the methods of protecting the
wheat-plants against its ravages.

Manual of the Vertfbrates of the North-
ern United States. By David Starr
Jordan, Ph. D., M. D. Second edition,
revised and enlarged. Chicago : Jansen,
McClurg & Co. 1878. Price, $2.50.

It speaks well for this book, and for the
growing activity in natural history studies,
that it has grown to become so useful an
apparatus in its own line. It is barely four
years since that novel brochure appeared
of Jordan and Van Vleck, " A Popular Key
to the Birds, Reptiles, Batrachians, and
Fishes, of the Northern United States, east
of the Mississippi River." Soon came as
an outgrowth the " Manual of the Verte-

632

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

brates ; " and now comes its second edition.
To Elliott Coues must always be given the
merit of leading grandly on this line by the
" Key to American Birds." Prof. Jordan
has, in this new book of over 400 pages,
put the amateur student in the classifica-
tion of the home vertebrates under a great
debt of gratitude. The manual is a very
efficient analyst of animal forms. It is tru-
ly multum in parvo, but perhaps a little too
condensed.

Twenty-five-Cent Dinners for Families
of Six. By Juliet Corson, Office of the
New York Cooking-School, 35 East
Seventeenth Street, Union Square. 72
pages. Price, 15 cents.

Miss Corson has published various use-
ful books on the subject of cookery, and,
among others, a little brochure entitled
"Fifteen-Cent Dinners for Working-Men's
Families." This attracted a good deal of
attention, and set many people to thinking
about the possibilities of living cheaply and
well, if they only knew how to do it. Hav-
ing thus raised the question of economical
diet in a practical way, Miss Corson was ap-
plied to by letters from numerous parties to
show what could be done on a little more
liberal scale of expense, and " Twenty-five-
Cent Dinners " is the result. There is a large
amount of valuable, well-digested informa-
tion in this pamphlet. Miss Corson not only
speaks from experience, both in cooking and
teaching (as she is superintendent of the New
York Cooking-School), but from a special
study of culinary economics, or how to get
good food in sufficient allowance at the low-
est cost. Her results will excite some sur-
prise in people of careless habits in these
matters, and who would be astonished to be
told that good cookery would give them
better diet than they are in the habit of get-
ting, at half the cost. Miss Corson begins
with some serviceable hints on marketing,
and the economical selection of articles of
food, and then offers various valuable sug-
gestions on the best methods of cooking to
make them go the farthest. Several chap-
ters follow of well - selected receipts for
economical dishes, and the whole is fully
indexed at the close. Besides her sugges-
tive preface, addressed " To Economical
Housewives," she offers at the outset the
daily bills-of-fare for one week, with the

price of each dish, of each meal, of the
three daily meals, and the total meals of the
week. The dishes are wholesome, attrac-
tive, and by no means stinted, and their
very moderate cost conveys an instructive
lesson to lax and thriftless housekeepers.
Miss Corson's little work is opportune in
these stringent times, and its wide circulation
would be productive of much public benefit.

Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of
Natural Sciences. (1877). Minneapolis:
Young & Winn print. Pp. 126. Price,
50 cents.

This number of the Bulletin contains,
besides the annual address of the president,
a report on the " Mycological Flora of Min-
nesota," another on "Ornithology," a paper
on '' Tornadoes and Cyclones," and the
Curator's " Report." The additions to the
Academy's Museum were larger in 1877
than in any previous year, besides being
much more valuable.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Short Studies of Great Lawyers. By J.
Browne. Albany : Law Journal print. Pp.382.
$2.

The Nature of Thioes. By J. G. Macvicar,
D.D. Edinburgh: Blackwood. Pp.120.

How to take Care of our Eyes. By H. C. An-
gell, M. D. Boston : Roberts Brothers. Pp. 70.
50 cents.

Handbook of Modern Chemistry. By C. M.
Tidy. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. Pp.
795. $5.

Report of the Commissioner of Education
(1876). Washington : Government Printing-of-
fice. Pp. 1152.

The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States. Parts 3, 4, 5. Illustrated by Chromo-
lithographs. Boston : L. Praug & Co. 50 cents
each.

New Encyclopaedia of Chemistry. Parts 31
to 35 inclusive. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 50
cents each.

The Dance of Death. By W. Herman. New
York: American News Company. Pp.131.

In the Wilderness. By C. D. Warner. Bos-
ton : Houghton, Osgood & Co. Pp. 176.

Dosia. By H. Greville. Boston : Estes &
Lauriat. Pp. 260. $1 50.

Instructions for observing the Total Solar
Eclipse of July, 1878. Washington : Govern-
ment Printing-Offlce. Pp. 30, with Plates.

Report of the Wisconsin Dairymen's Associa-
tion (1878). Madison : Atwood print. Pp. 150.

Sound and the Telephone. By C. J. Blake,
M. D. Pp. 14.

True and False Experts. By E. Gissom, M.
D. From American Journal of Insanity. Pp. 36.

Report of the New York Meteorological Ob-
servatory (1877). New York : Lees print. Pp.
32.

Follies of the Positive Philosophers. By T.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

633

L. Clingman. Raleigh, N. C. : Nichols print.
Pp. 25.

Twenty-five Cent Dinners for Families of Six.
By J. Corson. Pp. 72. 15 cents.

Separation and Subsequent Treatment of Pre-
cipitates. By F. A. Gooch. From "Proceed-
ings of the American Academy." Pp. 8.

Vortrag fiber den Mexicanischen Calender-
Stein. Von Prof. Ph. Valentine. New York :
Marrer und Sohn. Pp. 33, with Plates.

Instinctive Operations of the Human System.
By J. F. Hibberd, M. D. Cincinnati: Lancet
print. Pp. 16.

Malaria and Struma. By L. P. Yandell, M. D.
From American Practitioner. Pp. 15.

Honest Money. By T. M. Nichol. Chicago :
The Honest Money League of the Northwest.
Pp. 56.

Report of the Board of Schools, St. Louis
(1876-'77). St. Louis: Daly & Co. print. Pp.

280.

Notes from the Chemical Laboratory of the
Johns Hopkins University. Nos. 9—12.

Duty of Literary Men. By Rev. T. A. Good-
win. New York: Buruz& Co. Pp.16.

Spelling Reformer. Vol. I., No. 5. Same
publishers. Pp. 6.

The Currency. By J. Johnston. Chicago :
Honest Money League of the Northwest. Pp. 38.

Physical Exercise and Consumption. By Dr.
R. B. Davy. Cincinnati : From the Lancet and
Observer. Pp. 16.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Recent Solar Eclipse.— The tele-
graphic reports from the various stations
for observing the solar eclipse of July 29th
are of necessity meagre and confused. The
atmospheric conditions were eminently fa-
vorable along the line of totality, indeed in
the whole region west of the Mississippi,
while throughout the East clouds generally
concealed the phenomenon from view. Dr.
Henry Draper, stationed at Rawlins, Wyo-
ming Territory, took four photographs of
the corona, two of them with his large spec-
troscope. These latter are declared to be
" very sharp and full of detail." This is a
very fortunate circumstance, for it will ena-
ble scientific men to ascertain the precise
truth touching a very important difference
between the observations of Dr. Draper and
those of the other astronomers. Dr. Draper
reports that he finds the corona spectrum
marked with the usual Fraunhofer's lines of
the sun's spectrum. These lines were not
seen by the other observers, whether at the
same station or at the many other stations in
the track of the total eclipse. Mr. Lockyer,
in a dispatch, says that " Newcomb's party
and Barker made careful search for dark

lines in the corona, but none were observed.
Young," he adds, " telegraphed that there
were no lines observed in the ultra-violet
at Denver." Again, most of the spectro-
scopic observers report the presence of
bright lines in the coronal spectrum, Prof.
Young seeing several bright bands, and in
particular the Kirchhoff line 1447. This
observation, too, is negatived by that of Dr.
Draper, whose photographs of the corona
exhibit none of these bright lines. The
world of science will await with profound
interest the minute examination of all these
coronal photographs ; the result will decide
whether, in accordance with the almost
unanimous opinion of physical astronomers,
the corona is a self-luminous liquid or solid
body, or only reflected sunlight.

Prof. Langley, stationed at Pike's Peak,
Colorado, reports that he " saw the corona
elongated ; " that it " resembled the zodiacal
light." Further, that he " followed it a dis-
tance of twelve diameters of the sun on one
side and three on the other." This observa-
tion, if confirmed (and we may observe that
none of the other astronomers appear to
have confirmed it), would go to prove an ex-
tension of the corona into space about five
times greater than the highest estimate hith-
erto made. Search was made during the
eclipse for an intramercurial planet. Here-
in only one of the observers, Prof. Watson,
claims to have been successful : he reports
having discovered an intramercurial planet,
of magnitude four and a-half, in right as-
cension eight hours twenty-six minutes ; dec-
lination north 18°. The solar protuber-
ances were much less prominent than in
most recent eclipses.

Prof. Colbert, of Chicago, stationed at
Denver, Colorado, reports that his observa-
tions tend to show that the moon's path in
the heavens lay a little farther to the south-
ward than is indicated by the lunar tables,
or else that the estimate of the moon's di-
ameter is too large. Possibly both sup-
positions are correct. Of Edison's "tasi-
meter," Mr. Lockyer writes from Rawlins :

"The tasimeter, the new instrument on
which Edison has been working unceasingly
here, has proved its delicacy. During the eclipse
he attached it to Thomson's galvanometer,
which was set to zero. When the telescope
carrying the tasimeter was pointed several de-
grees from the sun, the point of light rapidly

634

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

left the Bcale as the corona was brought upon
the fine slit by which the tasimeter itself was
protected."

Progress of the Electric Light. — Prog-
ress is being steadily made with the electric
light, both in the sense of improving the
apparatus needed for utilizing it and in
finding for it practical application. In Paris
the railway-station Gare St.-Lazare is now
very effectively lighted with the aid of the
instrument known as Lontin's distributing
machine. The contrast between the pure,
clear white electric light and the dull-yel-
low gaslights in the surrounding streets is
enough to convince the most skeptical of
the superiority of electricity over gas as an
illuminating agent. In the Lontin machine
ordinary prepared carbon-wicks are em-
ployed, which are regulated by a Lontin
burner : the light is remarkably steady, and
the wicks burn in the open air without
globes or shades of any kind. A strong
objection to this machine, unfitting it for
use in private houses, is the hissing noise
it makes when in operation. The electric
candle invented by Jobloshkoff is used for
illuminating the Place de l'Opera in the
same city. Across the open area of the
Place, and extending toward the new Ave-
nue de l'Opdra, there is a double row of large
lamp-posts down each side, each surmounted
by a large cylindrical lamp of clouded glass,
and containing twelve electric candles. The
whole space is lighted as bright almost as
day. As soon as a candle burns down, an-
other is moved by mechanism into its place
without much appreciable disturbance of the
general effect. There is no flickering. The
great drawback to the Jabloshkoff candle is
its costliness, the illumination being as ex-
pensive as when gas is used.

Bathing as a Canse of Ear-Disease. — In-
flammation of the middle ear, often resulting
in chronic deafness, is a not infrequent con-
sequence of bathing. The damage, accord-
ing to Dr. Sexton, in the Medical Record,
consists in the admission of water to the
ear, either through the external auditory
canal or the Eustachian tube. When water
finds admittance to the former, if cold or
salt, inflammation of the meatus alone may
result ; or, if violently injected, as in surf-
bathing, or long retained in the canal from

diving, the disease may affect the drum-
head and middle ear. Whenever water is
forced from the mouth and nostrils into the
middle ear through the Eustachian tube, in-
flammation of the middle ear is almost sure
to occur, even though the water be warm.
According to the author, several thousand
severe cases of aural disease result annual-
ly from bathing in New York City alone.
The bather, when in the surf, should take
the water on his chest or back, with mouth
and nostrils closed, and never presenting
the ear to the in-coming wave. A firm
pledget of cotton-wool in the ears is some
protection.

The Carpet-Beetle. — Notices have ap-
peared from time to time during the last
four or five years of a new carpet-beetle
said to be far more destructive than the
familiar carpet-moth. This insect has been
identified by Dr. J. L. Le Conte as Anthre-
nus scrophtdarice, a European species. A
good account of it is given in the American
Naturalist by Mr. J. A. Lintner, who has
studied this insect attentively since its first
appearance on our shores. The larva, he
says, measures at maturity about three-
sixteenths of an inch in length, and it is in
this stage of its existence that Anthrenus
preys upon carpets. A number of hairs
radiate from its last segment in nearly a
semicircle, forming a tail-like appendage
almost as long as the body. The front part
of the body, which has no distinct head, is
thickly set with short brown hairs and a few
longer ones. Similar short hairs clothe the
body. The body has the appearance of be-
ing banded in two shades of brown, the
darker one being the central portion of each
ring, and the lighter the connecting portion
of the rings. Having attained its full larval
growth, it prepares for its pupal change
without forming a cocoon, but merely seek-
ing some convenient retreat. Here it re-
mains motionless until it has completed its
pupation, when the skin is rent along the
back and through the fissure the pupa is
seen. A few weeks later the pupal skin is
split down the middle of its dorsal aspect,
and the brightly-colored wing-covers of the
beetle are disclosed. Soon after their emer-
gence from the pupal case during the fall,
winter, and spring, the beetles pair and the

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

63?

females lay their eggs for another brood of
larvae. The Anthrenus once introduced into
a house quickly infests it in every part.
Thus, in a house at Cold Spring, New York,
which had remained shut up for twelve
months, they "took complete possession
from the cellar to the attic, in every nook
and crevice of the floors, under matting and
carpets, behind pictures, eating everything
in their way." No effectual means of com-
bating this insect pest has yet been discov-
ered ; they are said to " grow fat " on cam-
phor, pepper, tobacco, turpentine, carbolic
acid, and the other ordinary applications.

The Earthquake-Scare in North Caro-
lina.— Bald Mountain, in Western North
Carolina, forming part of the Blue Ridge of
the Alleghanies, has for two or three years
been receiving a good deal of attention in
the newspapers. Rumbling noises have
now and then been heard in the mountain,
and these were by the people of the sur-
rounding country taken to be conclusive
evidences of volcanic action. As is usual
in such cases, these actual phenomena were
magnified enormously by the popular im-
agination, and to them were added others
which had no objective existence. Prof.
Clarke, of the University of Cincinnati,
having devoted the early days of his sum-
mer vacation this year to investigating
the causes of these rumblings, declares, in
a letter to the New York Tribune, that
" Bald Mountain is no more an earthquake
centre than is Central Park," and that " it
is merely a locality in which some large
rock-slides of an exceedingly gradual char-
acter are going on." Nevertheless, the
mountain is an object well worthy of study.
It forms one side of a pass through the
Blue Ridge, Chimney Rock forming the
other. While the latter mountain is made
up of smooth sheets of what appears to be
gneiss, Bald Mountain is all over cracked
and fissured, the fissures in some places
forming large caves. The recent disturb-
ances have chiefly affected a low spur of the
mountain, rising about one thousand feet
above the valley. From below the appear-
ance is as if the whole side of the spur was
sliding down.

Prof. Clarke first climbed up the side
of this spur to a cave which had been

discovered a very short time previously.
Here he found himself below a precipitous
mass of rock two or three hundred feet
high, at the foot of which immense numbers
of fallen bowlders had formed crevices and
caves innumerable. But the new cave was
the largest of all. The floor of the cave
was everywhere covered with fallen rocks.
The newspaper accounts tell of powerful
" currents of ice-cold air " issuing from
the caverns ; but Prof. Clarke found no
strong currents, and a difference of only
four degrees of temperature between the
inside and the outside air. The "smoke
of the Bald Mountain volcano " is not smoke
at all, but fine dust formed by the grind-
ing and clashing of the rocks. Prof.
Clarke next visited " the Crack," a crevice
very probably of quite recent origin. This
is merely a rent in the rock about one hun-
dred feet in length, seventy-five in depth,
and nowhere over ten in width. The ex-
planation given of these cracks and the
noises is found in the geological constitu-
tion of the mountain, which is built up of
sheets of an easily decomposable gneiss,
inclined at a slight angle and sliding down-
ward. These sheets of gneiss are full of
cracks running at approximately right an-
gles to the pseudo-stratification. The caves
are merely spaces which have been left
when an upper sheet of rock has slidden
off and become inclined against a lower.
Nowhere is any sign of volcanic action to
be seen. As for earthquakes, the sur-
rounding country is as free from them as
any other in the whole country. Prof.
Clarke accounts as follows for the rum-
bling noises : The rocks, as we have seen,
are cracked across their stratification.
When a large sheet of gneiss is gradually
sliding down, there comes eventually upon
some part of it a strain sufficient to produce
a fracture. This breaking is, of course,
attended by a noise, to which the immense
caves and crevices serve as resounding
chambers.

Material Resources of European Russia.

— Russia in Europe, considered with regard
to its economic products, may be divided
into five distinct zones or regions, viz. :
Starting from the north, the tundras, the for-
est and agricultural regions (forming three

636

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

zones), and the steppe. The peculiarities
of each of these are described by a writer
in the Geographical Magazine, who derives
his information from authentic sources.
Of the tundras, those bare, damp, arctic
wastes, mostly situated between the arctic
circle and the polar ocean, he says that in
winter they are frozen, and that in summer
they thaw to the depth of a foot or so.
The tundra area is about 144,820 square
miles, and almost the sole vegetable pro-
ductions are turf-moss and reindeer-moss.
This region does not promise ever to be
of any considerable economic value. The
forest zone extends from the limit of trees
southward to 60° north latitude, and em-
braces the greater part of Finland, the
governments of Olonetz, Vologda, most of
Archangel, and the northern districts of
Novgorod, Vyatka, and Perm. Area, 815,-
790 square miles. Population, between
thirteen and fourteen souls per square
mile. The economic products are fur, tim-
ber, tar, and potash. The four northern
governments of Archangel, Vologda, Olo-
netz, and Uleaborg, cannot expect ever to
attain a much higher degree of cultivation
than at present. The inhabitants prefer
the chase to agriculture, and devote only
three months in the year to the latter. The
agricultural zone extends from the sixtieth
parallel to the steppe. Of this zone, the
northern and central portions are a diluvial
deposit, forming a thin, sandy soil that re-
quires plentiful manuring ; but the south-
ern zone, the " black-earth " region, yields
rich harvests without manuring or labor.
Thus this zone may be divided into two
belts, northern and southern. The north-
ern belt includes fifteen entire governments
and parts of others, with a total area of
371,900 square miles ; average population
fifty-four to the square mile. The region
yields too little wheat for the support of its
inhabitants, i. e., of the minimum allowance,
2.3 chetverts per head, only 1.7 chetvert is
produced at home. The industrial wealth
of Russia is mostly confined to this north-
em agricultural zone, the centre of manu-
facturing industry being the government of
Moscow. The forests are gradually being
diminished, through supplying fuel to carry
on these industries, and there is the same
improvident waste of timber which is to be

seen in our backwoods. The output of
coal in the Moscow district rose from 1,500,-
000 puds in 1860 to 9,000,000 puds in 18*72 ;
in the same year the Polish yield was 17,-
500,000 puds. The coal-deposits on both
sides of the Ural, though rich and easily
worked, are only used for the neighboring
iron and copper works. The southern agri-
cultural zone is so destitute of timber that
the only fuel obtainable there, besides the
droppings of cattle, is dry, half-wooded
grain-stalks. The total area of the " black
earth " is estimated at 250,760 square miles,
extending over twenty-two governments,
eight of which belong to the steppe region.
In addition to these, six of the West Rus-
sia governments and Poland are noted for
their fertility. The wheat produced in the
black-earth country amounts to more than
two-thirds of Russia's total yield, while
potatoes are chiefly grown in the Polish
and Baltic provinces. The population of the
black-earth region forms 53 per cent, of the
entire population of the country, and its
crops 68 per cent, of the total yield. The
manufacture of sugar from the beet is car-
ried on extensively in the Kiev government.
The crying want of this region is good
roads. The chief vegetation found on the
steppe is grasses, spiniferous and leafless
plants, bulbous plants, etc. Forest-growth
and cultivation are found only near the
rivers ; fuel is very scarce. The population
of the steppe zone is very sparse, and the
chief dependence of the inhabitants is on
their cattle. In the south and southeast
portions of the empire horses are bred in
great numbers. The steppe zone is also
rich in oxen and sheep. The grape is culti-
vated here to a considerable extent. South-
ern Russia is furthermore the chief source
of salt-supply to the other governments of
the empire.

Meteorological Notes. — Prof. Loomis's
ninth paper on meteorology in the Ameri-
can Journal of Science and Arts for July is
based on the observations of the United
States Signal Service made between Sep-
tember, 1872, and October, 1874.

In tracing the rise and phenomena of
the great storms which traverse the northern
United States and British America, observa-
tions made at Portland, Oregon, were stud-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

637

ied. During the period named, comprising
twenty-six months, there were sixty-three
instances of low barometer, corresponding
to eighteen different storms.

Each of these instances of low pressure
appears to have moved eastward, and can
be traced to the Atlantic coast. All oc-
curred in the six colder months of the year,
and were most numerous in January. Their
origin appears to have been northwestward
of Portland, and probably over the Pacific
Ocean.

Simultaneously with low barometer at
Portland, there occurred high barometer
eastward from that city, at an average dis-
tance of about fifteen hundred miles. The
areas of low barometer advancing eastward
crossed the continent in an average pe-
riod of five days. The path traversed,
however, was not a direct one. The low-
pressure areas were developed as far north
as latitude 50° ; but in the middle of the
continent the centres of low pressure were
in latitude 40°, whence the direction was
north of east, reaching the coast in lati-
tude 45°.

From observations, which include those
made in a previous paper, it appears that
areas of low pressure are not only preced-
ed, but are followed, by areas of high ba-
rometer. These conditions, each succeed-
ing the other, traverse the continent with
wonderful uniformity. Mountain - ranges
from 6,000 to 10,000 feet high do not ar-
rest, and but slightly modify, the east-
ward movement of these great atmospheric
waves.

The high barometer following the areas
of low pressure in their progress is usually
attended by winds of great violence, from
the north and northwest, attaining in some
cases a velocity of from thirty to fifty-seven
miles an hour. Extreme cold occurred too
in many instances, the mercury falling in
one case to —36° Fahr.

A fact of great interest presented by
Prof. Loomis in a former paper is more
fully illustrated in the present one ; it is
this, that while the air continually flows in-
ward and spirally upward in a storm-area,
or area of low barometer, it as continually
flows outward at great elevations to areas
of high barometer, where it descends to the
earth's surface. Here it resumes its motion

inward toward the storm-centre, gather-
ing vapor in its progress, to be condensed
into rain. It is seen from this that a con-
stant vertical circulation occurs. The tables
and charts presented by Prof. Loomis, show-
ing these facts, are elaborate and conclu-
sive. The direction of the movement of
the upper air is determined by that of the
clouds which float in it.

" The clouds," says Prof. Loomis, " were
in all cases seen to be moving away from
the low centre outward, toward an area of
high pressure, where the air descends to
the earth ; here it again moves inward, and
finally upward, in the gyrations of the storm."

Death to the English Sparrow. — The

right of the European house-sparrow to set-
tle in the "United States is hotly contested
in the American Naturalist, by Dr. Elliott
Coues, who regards that bird as an unmiti-
gated nuisance. The author makes no se-
cret of his aversion for the sparrow and his
contempt for the sparrow's friends. The
former is a " wretched interloper " that
" does not do any appreciable good ; does a
very obvious amount of damage ; and has
no place in the natural economy of this
country." The sparrow's friends are di-
vided into five categories, viz. : 1. The silly
ones (though Dr. Coues by a circumlocution
avoids the use of this plain language, it is
clear to see that he means it). This class
is composed chiefly of " children, women,
and old fogies." 2. Those who were in-
strumental in getting the birds here. 3.
Quasi-ornithologists. 4. The clacqueurs of
the quasis. 5. A very few intelligent and
scientific persons. Having thus cleared the
ground, Dr. Coues presents the specific ar-
ticles of his indictment of the sparrow. In
substance they are : 1. That the sparrows
neglect entirely or perform very insufficient-
ly the business they were imported to do,
videlicet destroying worms and insects. 2.
That they do "attack, harass, fight against,
dispossess, drive away, and sometimes actu-
ally kill, various of our native birds which
are much more insectivorous by nature
than themselves." 3. That they commit
great depredations in the kitchen-garden,
orchard, and grain-field. 4. In this speci-
fication" the author delicately alludes to cer-
tain evidences of a lack of moral restraint

638

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the sparrow, offensive to many persons.
Item, nervous invalids are fretted and an-
noyed into positive illness by the unceasing
noisiness of these birds. 5. "They (the
sparrows) have at present practically no
natural enemies, nor any check whatever
upon limitless increase," though, even with
the most unobjectionable species of birds,
a check would be desirable. And now what
course must we adopt in order to abate this
sparrow nuisance ? — for abate it we must, or
else the sparrows will eat us all out of house
and home. Dr. Coues's recommendations
on this head are: 1. Let the birds shift ^or
themselves. Take down the boxes and all
special contrivances for sheltering and pet-
ting the sparrows ; stop feeding them ; stop
supplying them with building-material. 2.
Abolish the legal penalties for killing them.
" Let boys kill them if they wish. Let them
be trapped and used as pigeons or glass
balls in shooting-matches among sports-
men." This last recommendation shows
very plainly that Dr. Coues has lost all pa-
tience with the sparrow. For ourselves, we
hope the evil will be checked by some dif-
ferent means.

Agencies of Nitrification. — The research-
es of Schloesing and Miintz in nitrification
have resulted in the very important discovery
of a nitrifying organism analogous to the
ferment organism of yeast. The evidence
of the existence of a nitrifying organism is
found in the fact that the process of nitrifi-
cation, however actively it may be going on,
is immediately stopped when chloroform-va-
por is introduced, the effect being precisely
the same as that seen when chloroform-va-
por comes in contact with yeast. Again,
these authors find that when nitrification
has thus been stopped for several weeks,
the addition of a small quantity of a nitrify-
ing body will start the process again. They
also find that the temperature of boiling
water is sufficient to destroy all power of
nitrification, and that soil which has once
been heated to that point produces, in air
free from germs, carbonic acid and ammo-
nia, but no nitrates. If, however, this soil
is moistened with water containing a little
untreated soil, the production of nitric acid
again commences. This new theory, as we
learn from Nature, has been tested in Eng-

land with results fully confirmatory of the
views set forth by Schloesing and Miintz.
Hence the evidence is very strong that the
nitrates in soil owe their origin to oxida-
tion brought about by living organisms.

How Ants distinguish Each Other. —

Ants are eminently pugnacious, and oppos-
ing hosts belonging to the same species may
any day in summer be seen waging inter-
necine wars on one another. But how are
they able to distinguish friend from foe in
their tumultuous strife ? Mr. McCook, mem-
ber of the Academy of Natural Science of
Philadelphia, has made sundry experiments
which appear to show that difference of odor
constitutes the means of discrimination.
Of course, it is not possible to demonstrate
this hypothesis directly by showing the ex-
istence, either of distinct odors, or of dif-
ferent intensity of odor, in opposing hosts.
But, if we introduce into the scene of conflict
some strong foreign odor which shall oblit-
erate the odors peculiar to the two groups of
combatants, we may deprive them of the pow-
er of telling friend from foe, and make them
live together in harmony as one community.
Such was the idea which occurred to Mr.
McCook. He collected a number of comba-
tants, and placed them, friend and foeman,
together in a glass jar upon some soil. The
battle was continued, and when it was again
at its height a pellet of paper saturated
with cologne-water was introduced into the
jar. The effect was instantaneous. The
ants showed no signs of pain, displeasure,
or intoxication; indeed, some ran freely
over the paper. But in a very few seconds
the combatants had unclasped mandibles, re-
leased their hold of enemies' legs, antennae,
and bodies, and after a momentary confu-
sion began to burrow galleries in the earth
with the utmost harmony. The quondam
foes dwelt together for several days in unity
and fraternity, amicably feeding, burrowing,
and building. Another experiment was as
follows : A large number of warring ants
were placed in a box partly filled with soil,
and communicating by a glass tube with a
smaller box. The larger box was about ten
inches long and eight inches in depth and
width ; both boxes had sliding glass cov-
ers. Cologne was introduced as before into
that end of the box in which the coinba-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

639

tants were principally engaged. In less
than two minutes every sign of hostility
had ceased except in the case of one small
group and two single combatants in the op-
posite end ; but a small pellet of perfumed
paper, dropped in their neighborhood, put
an end to the battle here. Previous to
this, occasional stragglers had passed along
the connecting glass tube into the smaller
box. Most of them seemed to be of one
faction, only one of the opposition having
entered, upon whom six or eight ants were
expending their wrath. This was the only
remaining centre of strife, when Mr. McCook
replaced ants and earth upon their native
territory. The battle was continuing there,
between greatly-diminished numbers of
course, after the removal of the large bat-
talions into the box, but the application of
a feather dipped in cologne to the neighbor-
hood of the warriors caused the instant
cessation of controversy. The next day
there were no ants found upon the surface,
but digging two inches under ground, close
by the fence, he observed a few. The bat-
tle was evidently over. There had been in
the mean time a great change of tempera-
ture, from 96° to 47° Fahr., and this may
have had some effect in sending the ants
underground.

How the Lake-Dwellers lived. — A re-
cently-published work on " The Lake-Dwell-
ings of Switzerland " throws much needed
light on the mode of life followed by the
inhabitants of those curious constructions.
That they must have been expert fishermen
is shown by the large number of fish-skel-
etons, especially the skulb of very large
pike, found buried among the piles. So,
too, the bones, which lie about in the lake-
dwellings in astonishing numbers, of stags,
roes, wild-boars, beavers, squirrels, etc., are
an evidence of the abundance of game, and
of the ability of the settlers to capture even
the higher description of wild animals. But
the lake-dwellers did not depend on the
chance products of hunting and fishing.
They had already domesticated many of the
animals, which to-day are the companions
of man — as cows, sheep, goats, pigs. A
great variety of seeds and plants were also
cultivated by them for their own use and
that of their domesticated animals. They

cultivated flax of excellent quality ; and
their textile and other manufactures show
considerable proficiency and skill. Tools
and utensils of flint, of bronze, and of iron,
have been found in the sites of these lake-
dwellings, and the question arises whether
the inhabitants were one people through the
three successive ages of Stone, Bronze, and
Iron, or whether each age was heralded by
a new invasion. The evidence goes to
prove the former hypothesis, of one race
successively advancing from one stage of
civilization to another.

Rapid Deeay of Timber.— Till recently
chestnut-timber has been always employed
for beams in constructing houses in Rome,
but, in most of the houses built since the
occupation of the city by the Italian Gov-
ernment, pine joists have been used. After
a few years the roofs and floors in which
the pine had been employed were found to
be falling, the joists having rotted at the
point of junction with the walls, while the
intermediate portions remained sound. The
cause of this decay was discovered by acci-
dent on taking down the scaffold which
had been erected for the use of the work-
men engaged in building the hall of the
Ministry of Finance. A correspondent of
Prof. Tyndall's, writing from Rome, states
that around one of the scaffold-poles, which
was imbedded some four feet in the ground,
had accumulated a heap about six feet high
of pozzuolana mortar — that is, mortar made
of lime and the peculiar argillaceous sand,
of volcanic origin, known as pozzuolana.
The underground portion and that above
the mortar-heap were perfectly sound ; that
covered by the mortar was utterly rotten.
Hence it was clear that the mortar was to
blame. In what respect, then, does Roman
mortar differ from that used in Venice, for
instance, where pine-timber has stood in
mortar for centuries without impairment?
The sole difference was in the use of poz-
zuolana, which therefore seems to have some
special chemical affinity for pine, while, as
regards chestnut, it is neutral. It is stated
that, in consequence of this peculiar action
of the Roman mortar on the pine-timbers
of the numerous buildings erected on the
Esquiline Hill since 1870, many of the roofs
and floors have had to be renewed.

640

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

NOTES.

In consequence of the growing interest in
Industrial drawing and of the few facilities
in the State for instruction in this subject,
the Faculty of Cornell University have con-
sented to receive teachers as special stu-
dents, and to afford them all the advantage
which the university offers in the various
departments of drawing. The departments
now established are free-hand drawing,
mechanical engineering, civil engineering,
and architecture. Special students will
enter the same classes as the general stu-
dents, and on the same terms. No one but
teachers will be received — no entrance ex-
amination will be required, and no diplomas
will be given.

The remains of a mastodon were lately
found near Elkhart, Indiana, which evident-
ly belonged to a monster specimen, one of
the largest yet discovered. The section of
a tusk which was unearthed gave evidence
of having been about ten feet long. A mon-
ster tooth, six inches over the top, exceed-
ingly well preserved, was dug up, and a
shoulder-bone, which shows the animal to
have been at least twelve feet high. The
bones are to be presented to the city Mu-
seum Association lately formed at Elkhart.
Several large specimens of the remains of
mastodons have been found in Elkhart and
adjoining counties within the past four or
five years.

The German Association of Naturalists
and Physicians will assemble this year at
Cassel on September 18th, the sessions con-
tinuing for one week. Among the addresses
promised are the following : " Relations of
Darwinism to Social Democracy," by Oscar
Schmidt ; " Symbiosis, Parasitism," etc., by
Prof. De Bary ; " The Education of the Phy-
sician," by Prof. Fick ; " The Color-Sense
and Color-Blindness," by Dr. J. Stilling.

We regret to announce the death, at
Philadelphia, of William M. Gabb, paleontol-
ogist, at the early age of thirty-nine years.
His life-work commenced in 1862, when he
was appointed as paleontologist on the staff
of Prof. Whitney in the Geological Survey
of California. In 1868 he visited Santo
Domingo and made a survey of that island.
He went on a similar mission to Costa Rica
in 1873. " His various contributions to sci-
ence," says the American Journal of Science,
" are a great honor to the country, and emi-
nently so to the State of California, for
which a large share of his work was done."

Dk. Carl Rokitansky, for thirty years
Professor of Pathological Anatomy in the
University of Vienna, died in that city on
July 23d, aged seventy-four years. His
greatest work, a "Manual of Pathological

Anatomy," was translated into English,
and published in London by the Sydenham
Society.

The death of Admiral Sir George Back
is announced, aged eighty-one years. Back
entered the naval service of Great Brit-
ain in 1808, and the following year was
taken prisoner by the French, and held in
captivity till 1814. In 1819 he did noble
service with Franklin in exploring the ex-
treme northernmost coast of America. His
perseverance and his fertility of resource on
that expedition were above all praise. In
1825 he again visited the arctic regions un-
der the same commander. On both of these
expeditions the explorers were rescued from
death in the inhospitable north by the heroic
exertions of Back. He commanded polar
expeditions in 1833-'35 and 1836-'37.

The Commissioner of Agriculture has
recently appointed Prof. J. H. Comstock, of
Cornell University, and Prof. A. R. Grote,
of Buffalo, New York, director of the Buffalo
Society of Natural Sciences, as special ex-
aminers, under the direction of Prof. C. V.
Riley, entomologist of the department, in
an investigation now being initiated of the
insects injurious to the cotton-plant. Sev-
eral local observers in various parts of the
South have also been appointed, and it is
the intention of Prof. Riley to make a com-
plete report on all insects affecting the South-
ern staple and the best means of counteract-
ing their injuries, that shall be to the people
of the South what the report of the entomo-
logical commission on the Rocky Mountain
locust is to the people of the West. The
department is especially fortunate in se-
curing the services of Prof. Grote for this
undertaking, as he has already given the
subject much attention, and has carefully
worked out the life-history of the cotton-
worm, one of the worst enemies of the cot-
ton-plant. The results of these investiga-
tions are contained in a paper read at the
Hartford meeting of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, and
published in the " Proceedings" of that year.

To ascertain the influence of light upon
cement, Heinzel divided into three portions
a lot of cement, and exposed one of these
(A) to the air and full light, another (B) to
the air and diffused light, and secluding the
third (C) in darkness from the air. After
six months it was found that A made a weak
mortar by absorbing 38 per cent, of its
weight in water, and it had become friable ;
B with 33^ per cent, of water made a mortar
too adhesive to the trowel, and it yielded
up some of its water; C with 33^ per cent,
of* water made an excellent mortar, easily
stirred and flowing, and it parted with some
of its water. After setting for twenty-eight
days, the relative strengths were A 3, B
37.9, C 44.6.

CLAUDE BERNARD.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

OCTOBER, 1878.

THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ISLAND AND HARBOR

By J. S. NEWBEEKY.

I NEW YORK in Ancient Geological Times. — The rocks which
• compose New York Island and underlie the adjacent country
on the north and east are chiefly gneiss and mica-schist, with heavy
intercalated beds of coarse-grained, dolomitic marble and thinner layers
of serpentine. These are all distinctly stratified, and have once been
sedimentary beds deposited horizontally — sandstones, shales, and lime-
stones— but now, upheaved and set on edge, are by metamorphism
converted into compact crystalline strata with the obliteration of all
fossils — if fossils they contained. The age of these rocks has not yet
been accurately determined, although they have usually been supposed
to be Lower Silurian, and a continuation of those which contain the
marble-beds of Western Massachusetts and Vermont. There are some
reasons, however, why they should be regarded as still older. That
they do not form the southern prolongation of the marble belt of
Vermont is indicated by the facts that both the marble-beds and the
rocks associated with them are so unlike in the two localities that they
can hardly be parts of the same formation. In Vermont, the marbles
occur in what is essentially a single belt, are fine-grained, usually band-
ed and mottled, are nearly pure carbonates of lime, and the rocks im-
mediately associated with them are gray siliceous limestones, quartzites,
and slates. In Westchester County, and on New York Island, on the
contrary, the marbles are very coarsely cr}rstalline dolomites (double
carbonates of lime and magnesia), which occur in a number of parallel
belts, are generally of uniform white or whitish color, and have no
rocks associated with them that can represent the quartzites and argil-
lites of Vermont. On the whole, the group of strata which forms New

VOL. XIII. — 41

6+2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

York Island has so great a similarity to some portions of the Lauren-
tian series in Canada that it is difficult to resist the conviction that they
are of the same age.

The Canadian series is supposed to be not less than 50,000 feet in
thickness, consisting of somewhat different elements in different parts,
but mainly of gneiss and crystalline schists with numerous beds of dolo-
mitic marble and serpentine, and containing, as most characteristic
minerals, magnetic iron-ore and apatite (phosphate of lime). The beds
stand at a high angle, and, although having once formed great folds and
even mountains, by ages of surface-erosion they have been worn down
to a merely undulating surface. On the east bank of the Hudson, at
and above New York, we have almost precisely the same state of things,
viz. : 1. A belt of crystalline rocks forming apparently a continuous
series to and beyond the Connecticut line ; 2. Strata set nearly vertical,
once forming high hills or mountains, now worn down by long exposure
to a mere rolling surface ; 3. The series composed chiefly of gneiss and
crystalline schists, with heavy beds of dolomitic marble and thinner
bands of serpentine ; and, 4. Containing in its western portion where
it joins the New Jersey iron belt — with which it is inseparably connect-
ed— important beds of magnetic iron-ore, while apatite is one of the
most common disseminated minerals. From these and other reasons
which might be mentioned, the New York rocks are regarded by the
writer as of Laurentian age. They seem to have formed a ridge which
was a part of a range of highlands that ran down on the eastern side
of our continent, having the same general direction with the Allegha-
nies, but being very much older than the more recent folds of that
chain. Indeed, judging from the character of the rocks composing it,
the immense amount of surface-erosion it has suffered, and the absence
of overlying strata, we must regard it as one of the oldest portions of
the continent.

Staten Island is in part a continuation of the New York belt of
Laurentian rocks — the eastern side being composed of granite and ser-
pentine, the western of trap and Triassic sandstone — and owes its relief
to that fact. South of this point the ridge sinks down and is covered

*

Hudson River Laurentian? Belt Trias Conn. R,

Profile Section from the Hudsdn to the Connecticut..

Fig. 1.

with more recent strata, but it apparently reappears at Trenton and
Philadelphia. Thus it would seem to be a sort of spur of the Blue
Ridge, the oldest chain of the Alleghany belt, diverging from it in
Fulton County, New York, and following a nearly parallel course south-
westward.

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 643

During the Palaeozoic ages, the New York ridge seems to have been
a land-surface ; for the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks were
deposited on both sides of it in New England, New York, and Penn-
sylvania, but no traces of them have been found upon it. In each of
these ages the sea flowed in over some portion of the continent, and
deposited on the inundated surfaces sediments containing more or less
complete representatives of the prevalent forms of life ; and these, now
fossilized, afford means for identifying and classifying the strata.

In the Cambrian age the continent, composed of Lauren tian and
Huronian rocks, was broad and high, and the Cambrian strata (Acadian
group) were deposited only along its margin.

At the beginning of the Silurian age the sea rose over its shores,
covering most of the land-surface, but leaving the Canadian highlands,
the Adirondacks, the Blue Ridge, with its New York spur, unsubmerged.
Then during all the thousands of years in which the Trenton limestone
group was accumulating by organic agencies, the slow growth and de-
position after death of the hard parts of animals, and the other thou-
sands of years in which the Hudson River and Utica shales were formed
in a shallowing sea, this old land was exposed to wear from rain and
wind, sun and frost.

In like manner when the Upper Silurian and Devonian seas in turn
flooded more limited portions of the adjacent lands, covering them with
new layers of sediment, the old ridges and highlands which have been
enumerated, with large additions to their areas made in the Silurian
age, were suffering constant abrasion and reduction of altitude.

In the Carboniferous age all the country for a great distance east,
north, and west of New York, was above the sea, but along the coast in
Rhode Island and Eastern Massachusetts were marshes where a luxuriant
vegetation was forming peat-beds that were destined, in after-times,
to become seams of coal; and in Pennsylvania, and thence westward in
Ohio and Illinois, were vast tracts of swamp — half water, half land —
which are now the most extensive coal-basins in the world. During all
these ages the belt of highlands which separates the valley of the Hud-
son from that of the Connecticut was probably much higher than now,
and stood as a witness of the varying phases of the unending war be-
tween land and sea, and saw the continent created and destroyed again
and again ; but in all these changes it took no part.

In the latter part of the Carboniferous age the Alleghanies proper
were gradually elevated, the convex folds forming mountain-ridges,
the depressed or synclinal arches becoming the slowly-deepening coal-
basins. In the end all the country between the Atlantic and the Mis-
sissippi stood as a broad and elevated continental area. Subsequently
the sea rose and fell upon its margin, leaving there the record of its
oscillations in the deposits of the recent geological ages, but no con-
siderable portion of its surface has since been submerged.

The Triassic age was a stormy one in the region about New York.

644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The trough between the New York axis and the Blue Ridge was occu-
pied by water, and in this trough the Triassic shales and sandstones
were deposited. A similar trough east of New York, where now is the
valley of the Connecticut, was also a lagoon or estuary in which similar
sediments accumulated, but not so quietly as the strata composing the
older formations in the same region were laid down. It is evident that
Nature's forces were in great activity during the period under consider-
ation, for we find the greatest diversity in the product of these forces.
The Triassic beds consist of shales, sandstones, and conglomerates. Of
these the shales accumulated in comparatively clear and quiet water;
and at various levels we find them filled with the remains of fishes that
inhabited the lagoons where they were deposited. These fishes occur
in thousands, confined to layers a few inches thick, mostly complete
and mature individuals, showing that they were killed suddenly by some
poisoning of the water in which they lived, its complete withdrawal, or
a substitution of fresh for salt, or vice versa. These fish-bearing shales
alternate with conglomerates that are sometimes beds of large bowl-
ders— the result of violent water-action alone: a shore — or with strata
of ripple-marked, sun-cracked sandstone, pitted with the impressions of
rain-drops, and bearing the footprints of thousands of animals, great
and small, which made these mud-banks their feeding-grounds. Here
and there we find twigs of coniferous trees of the Araucarian family, or
fragments of the fronds of cycads and ferns ; much more frequently casts
of the trunks and branches of trees mingled pell-mell, and evidently col-
lections of drift-wood.

The footprints referred to above are generally three-toed, and resem-
ble the tracks of birds. In dimension they vary from one to twenty
inches long, and are supposed to have been made by a peculiar group of
biped, birdlike reptiles, which possessed the world in Mesozoic times,
and inhabited the shores of North America in great numbers during the
Triassic age.

The alternations of coarse and fine strata, with their characteristic
fishes and footprints, are repeated in the Trias on the west side of the
Hudson until they form a series which has a thickness of several thou-
sand feet. As the ripple-marks, sun-cracks, and other evidences of
exposure to the air, occur at several levels, they prove the gradual sub-
sidence of the trough where those sediments accumulated, with which
the filling from the wash of the land kept pace, affording a succession
of fresh surfaces where the winds and waves as well as living creatures
left their autographs. Although as yet but partially examined and
imperfectly read, these records, like the Assyrian tablets, have told us
many interesting things, and they constitute a treasury of ancient lore
which is destined for ages to supply new material for the geological
historv of this region.

From what we have already learned of the circumstances in which
the Triassic rocks of our neighborhood were formed, we may conclude

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 645

that a depressed area once existed between the New York ridge and
the New Jersey highlands, and that this trough was an estuary swept
by the tides, much like the Bay of Fundy. Here, as there, the shallows
and mud-flats exposed by the ebb were places of resort for many of the
animals inhabiting the district ; but there is this difference, that in the
lapse of time the fauna of the country has completely changed, and
the fishes which inhabited the waters of the Triassic estuary, as well
as the reptilian monsters that perambulated its shores, have now ut-
terly disappeared from the face of the earth.

The fishes of the Trias, being found at various localities both in
New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley, early attracted attention, and
many of them were described by Mr. W. C. Red field — for many years
a leading scientist of New York. More recently large collections of
them have been made by the writer, so that now they are pretty well
known. They form some twenty species of four genera — all ganoids —
related to the Lepidosteus and Amia of our interior lakes and rivers.

Of the molluscous life of the age in this region we, know almost
nothing, since the marine deposits which contain its remains are not
now above the ocean-level, and the fresh-water and estuary beds ex-
posed to our observation have yet yielded none. Of the land-animals
scarcely any traces have been found except their footprints. These
prove that a motley crowd of reptiles and amphibians, some of huge
size, and, according to our notions, of uncouth and hideous shapes,
thronged the shores of our Triassic bay in such numbers, so swift and
so well armed for attack and defense, that this must have been anything
but a congenial place of residence for a peaceably-disposed citizen.

The hills which overlooked the Triassic lagoons — as they now do
their exposed beds, the plains of New Jersey — were covered with for-
ests of Araucarian pines, and the lowlands with thickets of sago-
palms and ferns, while gigantic scouring rushes lined the marshy shores.
There were no oaks, maples, nor walnuts in the forests, and proba-
bly no flower-bearing shrubs or herbs in the undergrowth, for nearly
all the fruits and flowers belong to the angiosperms and palms, nei-
ther of which had yet made their appearance on the earth's surface.
Hence, the vegetation must have been sombre and uninteresting, com-
pared with that of the present day, and, as there were no grasses in
it, ill-adapted to the wants of man or the higher animals.

At the close of the Triassic age this region became the scene of
great and destructive physical changes, which must have completely
altered its aspect. Along the Triassic belt, both east and west, sub-
sidences took place, or displacements by lateral pressure which tilted
up all the strata until they stood at an angle with the horizon of 15°,
where they still remain — those on the east dipping eastward, those of
New Jersey toward the west. At the same time deep fractures reached
the source of molten matter below, and this was forced up, either in
dikes through vertical fissures, or in sheets between the beds of the

646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stratified rocks. Cooling in place, these trap-sheets are now conform-
able to the associated strata, and seem at first sight to be normal por-
tions of it, but the metamorphism which they have produced in the
beds above and below them show that they are intrusive. The erosion
which has since acted upon the surface of this region has cut away the
softer sandstones and shales, leaving the outcropping edges of the trap-
sheets in high-relief, and these are now known as the Palisade Range,
First and Second Newark Mountains, etc.

It has been suggested that the New Jersey and Connecticut basins
were once connected by strata which occupied all the interval between
them, and that by the subsidence of the sides or the elevation of the
central portion an arch was formed the crown of which has been re-
moved by erosion. It seems, however, scarcely probable that some
thousands of feet of Triassic rocks, including thick beds of hard and
resistant trap, should have been so completely carried away from the
interval of 100 miles now separating the Triassic basins, that not a
trace of them should be anywhere left. There is apparently good evi-
dence also that the trap-sheets of the Connecticut Valley issued from
fissures there, and appertained to a distinct line of disturbance ; and,
further, that the materials composing the Triassic series in each belt
were derived from the adjacent highlands, and were spread by currents
which swept up and down two narrow troughs.

To some persons, the most interesting fact in regard to the Trias
yet remains to be mentioned, and this is that from the quarries sunk in
its sandstone-beds — of which the most important are at Bellville, New
Jersey, and Portland, Connecticut — has been taken the brown-stone
to which we owe the architectural beauty and monotony of the best
portions of our city. Copper is also frequently found impregnating the
Triassic rocks, but it has generally proved only a snare to those who
have attempted to work it, the deposit being small and unreliable.

a!

Triassic Series.

Tbowbriose Mt, 2??Mountain I?!Mountain Snake Hill Palisades

Profile Section from Trowbridge Mt. to the Hudson River,

Fig. 2.

During the time in which the Jurassic rocks were deposited in other
places, the Atlantic coast of North America seems to lmve been above
the sea-level, for we find here no strata which are certainly of that age.
Some writers have called Jura-Trias the beds described as Triassic on
the preceding pages, but up to the present time no facts have been
brought to light which justify this usage. Possibly the uppermost
beds of the series may hereafter be found to contain Jurassic fossils,

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 647

but none such have yet been discovered, while a number of well-known
European Triassic species have been obtained from what are considered
as the highest portions of the group in Virginia and North Carolina.

In the Cretaceous age the region about New York sunk below its
Triassic level, and the sea came in over a belt of country which was
before, and is now, dry land. The waves in their advance cut away
much of the shore which opposed their progress, both rock and soil, and
spread a sheet of sea-beach composed of gravel and sand as far as they
reached inland. This old beach we now know as the Raritan sands,
and they contain great quantities of leaves, branches, and trunks of
trees, which had grown on the sinking coast. On examination, they
prove to be entirely different from those contained in the Triassic rocks,
consisting mainly of the remains of angiospermous plants — the highest
botanical group, and such as form the prevailing vegetation of the
present day. Among these Cretaceous plants we find the leaves of
oaks, magnolias, and other genera now living in our forests. These
prove that, in the long interval — the Jurassic age — which intervened
between the Triassic and Cretaceous, the vegetation of the world had
been completely revolutionized ; at least, that most of the genera and
species which prevailed during the Triassic age had passed away, and
been superseded by such as had been before unknown.

When the water stood at a moderate depth over the sunken shore,
the Amboy clays settled down upon the sandy bottom. These were
apparently derived from the feldspar of the granites which compose the
neighboring highlands ; the quartz, unaffected by chemical action, and
less finely comminuted, remaining as sand and gravel nearer its place
of origin.

As the water deepened, true marine conditions supervened along
the coast, and the first two of the New Jersey marl-beds were formed
from the remains of animals which inhabited the sea, and such as were
washed into it from the adjacent shore. The green-sand of these marl-
beds is derived chiefly from the countless number of microscopic shells
of the Foraminifera, which filled the waters of the Cretaceous sea
here, as in many other places. Its green color is due to glauconite, a
silicate of lime, potash, alumina, etc. White chalk is likewise com-
posed chiefly of the shells of Foraminifera, but these lived in deeper
water, and were of different kinds from those that produced the green-
sand. The fertilizing property of the marls is due to the potash and
phosphorus they contain.

The marl-beds are also vast cemeteries, in which are stored the more
or less perfect remains of the larger land and water animals of Creta-
ceous times. Among these we find the shells of Ammonites — the great
coiled cephalopods — and a large number of other mollusks characteristic
of the Cretaceous fauna. There have likewise been discovered in the
marl-beds numerous remains of large reptiles, both herbivorous and car-
nivorous. Among these are Hadrosaurus and Lwlaps — the represent-

648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

atives of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus of the Old World — 3fosasaurns,
and many others. Hadrosaurus was herbivorous, while Lcelaps was a
carnivore. Both were biped, terrestrial reptiles, thirty feet long, stand-
ing fifteen to twenty feet high, and of very peculiar and interesting
structure. The former will be remembered as that of which the spirit-
ed restoration, made by Prof. Hawkins for the Central Park, was de-
stroyed by the order of Judge Hilton. Mosasaurus was a snake-like,
marine lizard, some sixty or seventy feet long, and of pronounced car-
nivorous habits. These, with their associates, probably densely popu-
lated the land and sea, while the air was the special domain of the
huge flying dragons — the pterodactyls. With such a numerous and
so enterprising a population, it is evident that life in this time and
region was full of variety.

At the close of the Cretaceous age the animal life, both sea and land,
was again revolutionized, but by causes which we cannot yet fully un-
derstand, as the physical conditions remain nearly the same, and the flora
suffered little change. The facts, however, are unquestionable. All
the great reptilian fauna disappeared as if by magic, and gave place to
herds of mammals, numerous and large it is true, but far inferior in size
and armament to their predecessors. In the sea, the whole Ammonite
family disappeared at once, and other great changes took place, so that
in the upper or Tertiary bed of green-sand, deposited in the same place
and under nearly the same conditions as the lower and Cretaceous two,
but tee knoic not how many thousands of years after, not a single one
of all the species of Cretaceous mollusks, radiates, or marine vertebrates,
mingled its remains with those of the new-comers.

'to'

II. New York in the Ice Period. — The excavation of New York
Harbor and the trough of the Hudson seems to have been effected in
late Tertiary times. During the first portion of the Tertiary age — the
Eocene — the coast from New York southward was low, and the sea
washed the base of the Alleghany Mountains, covering the coast-plain
and depositing upon it the uppermost and most recent of the marl-beds
of New Jersey. But in the middle and later Tertiary epochs — the
Miocene and Pliocene — all the northern portion of the continent stood
higher above the sea than now, for we find there no marine deposits of
that age; and the immense numbers of fiords, or submerged valleys
which fringe the coast, are, as Dana long since pointed out, the results
of subaerial erosion and proofs of elevation. A genial climate then
prevailed to the Arctic Sea, and all the continent was covered with a
more luxuriant flora, and inhabited by a more varied fauna, than can
now be found anywhere on its surface.

This was, indeed, for America, the golden age of animals and plants,
and in all respects but one — the absence of man — the country was more
interesting and picturesque than now. We must imagine, therefore,
that the hills and valleys about the present site of New York were

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 649

covered with noble trees, and a dense undergrowth of species, for the
most part different from those now living there ; and that these were
the homes and feeding-grounds of many kinds of quadrupeds and birds,
which have long since become extinct. The broad plain which sloped
gently seaward from the highlands must have been covered with a sub-
tropical forest of giant trees and tangled vines teeming with animal
life. This state of things doubtless continued through many thousands
of years, but ultimately a change came over the fair face of Nature
more complete and terrible than we have language to describe. From
causes which are not yet fully understood, and into the discussion of
which we cannot here enter, the climate of the northern hemisphere
became gradually more severe, and that of Greenland, from being what
it had been for ages, like that of our Southern States, became arctic as
we now find it, and its luxuriant forests were replaced by fields of snow
and ice. But the change did not stop here, for with increasing cold
the ice-sheets spread southward and covered successively the moun-
tains of Labrador, the Canadian highlands, and the hills of New Eng-
land and New York. At the culmination of the Glacial period the ice
reached as far south as Staten Island and Trenton, and all the country
north of this line was buried under a great moving mass of ice, in
places several thousand feet in thickness. At this time the present
climate of Greenland had been transferred to New York ; in the strong-
est possible contrast to that earlier time when the present climate of
New York prevailed in Greenland. In the advent of the Ice period
not only were all kinds of animals and plants exterminated or driven
southward, and thus what had been a paradise was converted into a
howling wilderness, but even the topography of the country was greatly
modified. The ice-sheet moving from the north ground down or rounded
over all projecting rock-masses, and filled up valleys with the debris,
producing great abrasion in some places, and accumulations in others,
until the whole face of the country was changed. In the vicinity of
New York the ice moved from north-northwest to south-southeast, and
was of such thickness that it crossed the trough of the Hudson diago-
nally, and probably, because this had been filled with transported ma-
terial, was by it little deflected from its course. In other localities the
old river-valleys were sometimes completely obliterated, and the drain-
age of the surface given new channels and even new direction. To
this cause we may attribute the blocking up of the old line of drainage
from the lake-basin through the Hudson, and its diversion to the pres-
ent course of the St. Lawrence.

Now that the glaciers have left this region and have retreated again
to the far north, we everywhere see evidence of the stupendous changes
they wrought in the country over which they moved. North of the
line which marks the margin of the glacier, we find the contour-lines
rounded over and softened, ridges of granite converted into domes, and
the hardest rocks grooved and striated, or ground smooth and even

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

polished. The whole surface of New York Island, where the rock is
exposed, shows marks of glacial action, the upturned edges of gneiss
being ground off to form a nearly plane surface, or, where ridges of
more massive rock had existed, these are rounded over to form roches
moutonnees. Fine examples of the latter may be seen in Central Park
and on the east side of the island near Harlem.

The material which occupies so much of the troughs of the Hudson
and East River is mostly glacial drift, clay, gravel, sand, and bowlders,
scraped from the highlands by the great ice-sheet into these preglacial
gorges. It is probable they were once filled to the brim, and that they
were subsequently reexcavated in part by the floods of water which re-
sulted from the melting ice. After these ceased, and they were occu-
pied by water standing at its present level, and moved only by tidal
action, they were more or less silted up by the deposit of fine mud
brought down by the larger and smaller streams, here checked in their

N.Y. Island Long Island.

_^L East R

^/T77TrrT77777TTTTTTmTrpTTr^-^

^f'i /'■'•■' /;/'/''|p , ' ■ 1 11 1 1 ■' 1 1 1 1 ' 1 \ v. - *■

Waxm/tiiV'li'i i m'm' iuU|[i'V$|l|f

I I rap 2.Triassic 3.Laurentian 4.Drift 5. Boulder Clay 6.SILT.

Fig. 3.

flow and losing their transporting power. The southern and lower
portion of New York Island, which was under the lee of the higher, was
covered with deposits left by the retreating glacier, and these were
never afterward entirely removed. Here are now beds of sand and
gravel which have in places been penetrated to the depth of one hun-
dred feet or more. On the higher parts of the island and the adjacent
country, the rock is generally bare or covered with soil, but even here
depressions are filled with bowlders, clay, or gravel, often to the depth of
several feet, and large transported bowlders are everywhere scattered
over the surface. These latter have sometimes been derived from the
rocks of the island, but most of them seem to have come from distant
points, and always from the north and west. Rounded masses of trap
are very common among the bowlders, and these have been brought
across the Hudson, for there is no trap in place on the east side of the
river. The trap-ledge which forms the summit of the Palisades is
everywhere worn and scratched by glacial action, and the markings
which it bears are generally concordant in direction with those of the
rocks of New York Island and Westchester County, viz., about north-
northwest and south-southeast. Even on the river-face of the hills
which form the east bank of the Hudson, the bearing of the glacial
scratches is essentially the same, showing that the movement of the
great ice-sheet was little affected by any such trifling irregularity of
the surface beneath it as the Hudson Valley.

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 651

We have no measure of the amount of erosion which New York
Island and the adjacent country suffered during the Ice period, but it
is not improbable that a mass a hundred feet in thickness was taken
from the surface of all the region occupied by the ice.

Most of the finer material ground up by the glaciers was washed
out to sea and deposited as the " Champlain clays." Of these there is
very little showing in the vicinity of New York, since none of the coast
from this point southward has been raised to display them ; but a great
continental elevation has since taken place toward the north, bringing
them at Croton Point 100 feet, at Albany 250, at Burlington 400, at
Montreal 500, at Labrador 800, at Davis Straits 1,000, and at Polaris
Bay 1,800 feet above the present sea-level.

The coarser portion of the grist ground by the glacier remains as
beds of gravel and sand, or heaps of bowlders scattered over the surface
of the country where they were left as local moraines, or as the gravel-
bars of streams flowing beneath the glacier. The greatest accumula-
tion of material transported by the ice in all the country about New
York is seen on Long Island, which is indeed a great terminal moraine
heaped up along the margin of the continental glacier. As is generally
known, Long Island is mostly composed of heaps of gravel and sand,
which sometimes form hills from 200 to 300 feet in height, and in these
no solid rock has been found in any exploration yet made. The forma-
tion of this huge gravel-bank seems to have been, in brief, as follows :
The great ice-sheet, moving down from the north in Connecticut and
Southern New York, passed over a region occupied mostly by hard,
crystalline rocks. These were extensively worn away by it, and much
of the material taken from the surface was pushed on as by a great
scraper to its margin. When the ice-sheet reached the line of Long
Island Sound, it passed from the area of upturned cnystalline rocks on to
the comparatively soft horizontal Tertiary and Cretaceous strata, which
here formed a plain stretching seaward, from the highlands, just as
they now do in New Jersey and more southern States. These were
scooped out to form the basin of Long Island Sound, and the material
excavated from it, as well as much brought from the country lying
farther north, was banked up between this basin and the ocean. Thus
it will be seen that, of the water-connections of New York Harbor,
Long Island Sound is much the most modern ; and yet, as a part of it
occupies the site of the valley of a large stream — the Housatonic, with
perhaps the Connecticut — which passed through the Hell Gate gorge,
its formation must have been begun in preglacial times.

As has been said, the rock foundations of Long Island are almost en-
tirely concealed, but a number of cases are reported of the penetration
in wells of strata containing Cretaceous fossils, and there is little doubt
that the Cretaceous series of New Jersey and Staten Island, represented
by the Raritan sands, and the Amboy, Keyport, and Staten Island clays,
once formed a continuous margin to the continent, all the way around

652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to Nantucket. These strata still probably underlie a large part of
Long Island where they have been protected from erosion by the heavy
beds of drift that cover them, while the shore-waves have eaten away
all exposed portions. Evidence strongly confirmatory of the view that
Cretaceous rocks have been scooped out of the basin of Long Island
Sound is afforded by the fact that the drift of Long Island contains in
immense numbers imperfectly -rounded blocks of a reddish-broAvn sand-
stone, filled with the impressions of dicotyledonous leaves — a rock no-
where yet found in place, but one which is probably the representative
of the leaf-bearing Cretaceous sandstone of the Raritan River.

Whether the overlying Tertiary beds will be found on Long Island
is perhaps doubtful, since they are not conterminous with the Creta-
ceous ; but, from the fact that an outlier of this formation exists at Gay
Head, Martha's Vineyard, it is highly probable that it was once con-
tinuous from Southern New Jersey.

On the preceding pages the history of the vicinity of New York
has been traced backward for some millions of years. This history has
been read from rock-graven records, which, although meagre and muti-
lated, give the generalities of the narrative with a truth and fidelity
which shame all human history. It would be a pleasant duty to pre-
dict the future of this region, even in the same degree of fullness ; but
the future is as unknown to the geologist as to others. He learns,
however, from his studies, that what we call terra firma is a type of in-
stability, and that there is nothing stable but the law of change ; and he
can prophesy with confidence that in the distant future the history of
the distant past will be, in part at least, repeated. Even now changes
are in progress which, if they should continue a few thousand years,
would very profoundly affect not only the aspects of this region, but its
adaptability to human occupation. A number of facts indicate that the
coast of New Jersey and Long Island is gradually sinking. From the
marshes of New Jersey are taken the trunks of trees which could not
have grown there except when it was drier ground, and on the shore
stumps are seen, now under water, of trees which must have grown on
land. So, too, the sea throws up in storms portions of turfy soil, once
covered only by the air, and similar soil has been reached below the
sea-level in pits dug through drifted sand along its margin. It is also
said that the land boundaries have been changed and farms diminished
even where the wash of the shore-waves produced no effect. The rate
of this subsidence is very slow — only a few inches in a century — and it
may at any time be arrested or reversed ; but, should it continue, as
it may, for some thousands of years, it would result in a submergence
of land now valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, and a complete
change of position in the seats of commerce and industry, which must
always centre about this harbor. This possible catastrophe is, how-
ever, so uncertain and remote that it seems hardly sufficient to disturb
the equanimity of at least this generation of inhabitants.

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 653

III. Why New York is the Commercial Metropolis op the
United States. — The great commercial advantages of the site of the
city of New York attracted the attention of the first voyagers who
came to these shores. When Hendrick Hudson, passing through the
Narrows, found within a commodious, landlocked harbor, and a broad
and beautiful river, which floated his ships in safety more than a hun-
dred miles into the interior of the continent, he clearly foresaw, and
predicted, that this would be the great entrepot of foreign trade for the
New World. The subsequent history of New York has fully demon-
strated the advantages of its position, since a population of more than
2,000,000 has gathered immediately around its harbor, and it has be-
come not only the business metropolis of a great nation, but the second
in importance of the markets of the world. Those who have witnessed
and shared the progress and prosperity of the city have been generally
well satisfied to enjoy these, without any special inquiry into the causes
which have produced them ; and, indeed, it is not unlikely that they
have accepted them as simply the fruit of their own intelligence and
energy. It is doubtful, however, whether the merchants of New York
have been more shrewd and enterprising than those of the other ports
on our coast. It is not flattering to the vanity of men to assert that
they are what their surroundings make them, but it is nevertheless in
a great measure true, and New-Yorkers are probably no exception to
the rule. The real secret of the unparalleled growth of New York lies
in the peculiar topography of its vicinity.

The city is set on an island, of which the shore on every side is
swept by tide-water. On the west it is bounded by the Hudson — river
we call it, but really an arm of the sea — in which the ebb and flow of the
tide are perceptible as far as Troy, one hundred and fifty miles from its
mouth. On the east the island is encircled by tideways called Spuyten
Duyvel Creek, Harlem River, and East River, the latter a deep channel
which connects New York Harbor with Long Island Sound, and thus
affords an important artery of internal commerce, and another outlet to
the ocean. These two great natural canals, the Hudson and East Rivers,
embracing the long and narrow island between them, unite in New
York Harbor, one of the most beautiful and commodious in the world.
Seen from the city, it seems to be completely landlocked, but commu-
nicates with the ocean through the Narrows, with Newark Bay through
the Kill van Kull, and thence by Arthur's Kill with Raritan Bay.

Thus it will be seen that New York Harbor is the centre of a series
of navigable tideways which add greatly to its adaptation to the wants
of commerce, and constitute the most peculiar physical features in its
surroundings. The little map given on the next page will show the
connection of this system of water-wTays more distinctly than any ver-
bal description can.

To those who have not made topography a study, the interest and
mystery of the origin of the navigable channels leading into New York

654

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Harbor will not be apparent, and it may seem an easy explanation to as-
sume that they have been formed by the ebb and flow of the tide which
sweeps through them. The tides at New York, however, do not rise
to a great height, and have very little eroding power. It should also be
said that the channels are far too deep to have been cut by any agents
now in operation. For instance, at Polhemus's Dock the depth of Hell

Fig. 4.— Bird's-eye View of New Yoke Hakbor and its Connections.

Gate channel is 170 feet, and there are many places in the East River
where the depth is over 100 feet. The greatest depth of water in New
York Harbor and the Hudson River is about sixty feet, but this does
not represent the true depth of the channels, since they have been very
much silted up, and their rock-bottoms are probably 200 or 300 feet
below the water-surface. If they could be cleared of clay, sand, and
gravel, they would be seen to be narrow gorges cut in solid rock as deep
as that of Niagara, and resembling some of the canons of the Western
rivers. It is therefore certain that they could not have been produced
by tidal action. There are only two ways in which such chasms could
be formed: first, by earthquakes, opening fissures in the rocks; and^
second, by the erosion of flowing streams. That they are not earthquake
fractures is certain, since no such fissures are found in the country about
in the line of these channels, and their rocky walls show no sign of dis-
turbance, being similar on opposite sides, and doubtless continuous be-
low. They have, in fact, been formed by draining streams when this part
of the continent stood much higher than now above the ocean-level.
The evidence of this is cumulative and conclusive. The facts which
prove it are, briefly, as follows :

1. The trough of the Hudson has been shown, by the soundings of

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 655

the Coast Survey, to be distinctly marked upon the sea-bottom out to a
point some eighty miles southeast of New York, and where the water is
now over 500 feet deep. Here we reach the true margin of the conti-
nent, where the shore plunges rapidly down into the depths of the
ocean ; and here was for ages the mouth of the Hudson River ; for the
channel which leads to it could not possibly have been excavated except
upon a land-surface.

2. Explorations made over a large part of the territory lying be-
tween the Atlantic and the Mississippi show that many of the drain-
ing streams are now flowing far above their ancient beds, and that these
sometimes lie below the present ocean-level. For example, the Ohio
flows in a valley the bottom of which is occupied by sand and gravel
at least 100 feet thick. The rock -bottoms of the streams which empty
into the Great Lakes are at their mouths sometimes 200 feet below the
water-level. The Mohawk Valley is filled to a great depth with loose
materials, the surface of which forms for long distances a nearly level
plain, through which the present river meanders.

Innumerable instances of this kind could be cited, all of which go to
prove that for ages the eastern half, at least, of this continent stood 500
to 600 feet higher above the ocean than now, and that during this time
the draining streams with swiftly-flowing currents cut the surface into
a network of deep channels not unlike the canons of some of the rivers
of the far West.

There seems to be good reasons for believing also that in this
period of elevation the stream which drains the basin of the Great
Lakes, called in different parts of its course the St. Mary's, the Detroit,
the Niagara, and the St. Lawrence, flowed not through the modern
channel, which passes the Thousand Islands and the Lachine Rapids,
but, leaving the basin of Lake Ontario at its southeastern corner, trav-
ersed the now deeply-buried channel of the Mohawk, and entered the
present valley of the Hudson somewhere near Albany — precisely where
has not 3'et been determined, as heavy beds of drift cover and conceal
its course for many miles in that vicinity. From Albany this ancient
Hudson River flowed through a deeper and wilder valley than the
present one, which is half filled with water, passed what is now New
York Island, far below the present water-surface, was joined at the
Battery by a large tributary from the east, issued from the highlands
by a picturesque gate at the Narrows, and, traversing a littoral plain,
emptied into the ocean eighty miles southeast from New York.

The limits of this article will not permit the presentation of all the
facts which sustain this view, but a few of them will suffice to show
that it hardly admits of doubt. These are briefly as follows :

An ancient connected line of drainage passes through the basin of
the Great Lakes at least 200 feet below the present water-surface, deep-
ening eastward, and reaching a level much below that of the bed of
the St. Lawrence.

656

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

An old channel at least 200 feet deep connects Lake Huron and
Lake Erie. Detroit is situated on the western side of it, and the rock
lies there 130 feet below the surface.

Many of the streams now flowing into Lake Erie were once tribu-
taries to the ancient river which traversed its valley and joined it far
below the present water-level.

The old channel connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario apparently
passed through Canada between Long Point and Hamilton. Heavy
beds of drift, by which it is filled and concealed, here occupy the sur-
face. The Niagara now flows over a rock -bed, for this is a compara-
tively modern river, which, following the line of lowest surface-levels,
passed over a spur from the south shore of the lake-basin when the
old channel was filled by glacial drift.

Some of the streams draining into the basin of Lake Ontario in
former times cut their channels below the present ocean-level. All the
salt-wells of Syracuse are sunk in one of these, which is filled with
gravel and sand saturated with brine issuing from the Salina group
that forms its walls. The rock-bottom of this old river-bed was reached
in some of these wells at a depth of fifty feet below the present level
of tide-water.

•; '"' Old Mouth

OF THE

/ Hudson River

Fig. 5.— Map showing Old Drainage op the Lake Basin.

The valley of the Mohawk is a very deep channel of erosion, now
half filled, which must have been traversed by a large stream flowing
eastward at a level below that of the present ocean ; and everything
indicates that this was the ancient outlet of the basin of the Great
Lakes.

The channel of the Hudson is apparently the only possible continu-

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 657

ation of this long line of drainage. As has been remarked, it is of
great and yet unknown depth. The clay by which it is partially filled
has been penetrated to a depth of about 100 feet along its margins.
How 'deep it is in the middle portion can only be conjectured ; but
Hell Gate channel, which has been kept comparatively free by the force
of the tides, is in places known to be nearly 200 feet deep ; and, since
this is a channel of erosion formed by a stream draining into the Hud-
son, the ancient bed of the Hudson must be still lower.

From the depth and distinctness of the old river-course on the sub-
merged plain outside of the Narrows, we may reasonably infer that
the old channel at New York is not much less than 300 feet deep.

We are compelled to conclude from these and other facts of similar
import: 1. That the topographical features of the vicinity of New York
were for the most part fashioned by the erosion of a system of water-
courses which, in preglacial times, when the continent was higher than
now, cut their valleys much deeper than would now be possible.

2. That there was here a group of hills composed of crystalline
rocks, a sort of spur from the Alleghany belt, and that this range of
hills was then seventy or eighty miles inland from the ocean, separated
from it by a plain similar in its topographical relations to that which
lies between the highlands of our Southern States and the present
shore of the Atlantic.

3. At the period under consideration a river draining the basin of
the Great Lakes, and in size the second on the continent, followed the
course of the Mohawk and Hudson, and, passing through the New York
hills, there left the highlands and flowed quietly on to the ocean.

4. Where New York Harbor now is, this great river received two
important tributaries — one from the east through Hell Gate channel,
which joined it at the Battery, the other from the west through the
gorge of the Kill van Kull. Of these, the first is now represented by
the Housatonic, then a larger stream, with a longer course and more
tributaries ; the second was formed by the Passaic and Hackensack,
which united at the head of what is now Newark Bay, arid emptied
into the Hudson at the entrance to the Narrows. The junction of
these two considerable branches so near each other seems to have pro-
duced the expansion of the valley which is now New York Harbor.
This must then have been a very picturesque spot, as its outlet ocean-
ward was a narrow pass bordered by the hills of Staten and Long Isl-
and, 500 feet in height. On the north, it was overlooked on one
hand by the great wall of the Palisades, which rose 700 feet above the
river; on the other, by a bold shoulder or headland, 400 feet in height,
now New York Island, then a promontory, which separated the Housa-
tonic and the Hudson to their junction at its southern extremity.

5. After the lapse of unnumbered ages, during which this nook
among the hills was slowly prepared for the important part it was to
play in the history of the yet unborn being — man — a quiet subsidence

vol. xiii. — 42

658

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the land or elevation of the water began in this region. Gradually
the sea flowed in over its shores, crept up the valleys of the streams,
checking their flow and converting them into tideways, until it washed
the base of the highlands. Up to this time the surface of the littoral
plain in its gradual submergence formed a broad expanse of shallow

Fig. 6. — New York Harbor in Pre-glacial Times, from South End of New York Island.

water bounded by a monotonous line of beach, with no good harbors —
a shifting, dangerous shore, such as is most dreaded by mariners. By
further subsidence, however, the water flowed up into the valleys among
the New York hills and into the deeper river-channels, making of the
first safe, landlocked harbors, of the second navigable inlets or tide-
ways. In this manner were produced the magnificent harbor and the
system of natural canals connected with it, which determined the posi-
tion and created the subsequent prosperity of the commercial emporium
of the New World.

The subsidence which resulted in the formation of New York Har-
bor and its connections seems also to have affected all the coast, and
the influx of the sea-water filled the valleys of the rivers which drained
the Atlantic slope south of New York, and gave it the fringed and
irregular outline which constitutes its most striking characteristic.
James River, York River, the Potomac, the Susquehanna, and the Dela-
ware, are, like the Hudson, half-drowned rivers — if we may use the
expression — for all the lower portions of their valleys are estuaries, in
which the tide sets up to the base of the highlands. But that portion
of the littoral plain which separates these estuaries is too low, too
much cut up with water-ways, and its harbors are too shallow and ill-

GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK.

659

defined, to afford proper sites for great shipping-ports. Hence the
cities of this region — Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, and Phila-
delphia— are situated at the head of navigation, where the rivers come
down from the highlands on to the plain; and they are located like Al-
bany, remote from the seaboard, with which they are connected by
lono- and somewhat tortuous channels of inland navigation. New
York, on the contrary, is located directly on the coast, because here
alone the highlands reach to the sea, and their submerged valleys and
river-channels form commodious, rock-girt harbors, immediately acces-
sible from the ocean. It will be seen at a glance that this fact gives
it great commercial advantages, and has been the most potent influ-
ence in making this the chief port of entry for the country.

Fig. 7.— Map showing Old Channel and Mouth op the Hudson.

On the Southern coast there is no harbor at all comparable with
that of New York except Norfolk. This is deep, roomy, and accessible
to the sea — advantages which are destined to give it permanent and in-
creasing importance. But it is less central to the population and busi-
ness of the country ; and, while its inland water connections through
Chesapeake Bay and the tidal rivers which open into it are more ex-
tensive than those which the harbor of New York possesses, they are
less favorably situated in their relations to the present and future
internal commerce of the country.

The great advantage which New York enjoys for trade with the
interior consists in its accessibility from the basin of the Great Lakes
where the most rapid accumulation of population and wealth of the last
half-century has taken place, and where the business of the country is
destined to concentrate in the future. As has been stated in the
preceding pages, the drainage of the lake-basin apparently flowed for

660 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ages by New York; and it is an interesting fact that the great tide of
population and business which has set in from the Eastern States tow-
ard the interior has chiefly passed through the gap cut in the highlands
by the old river whose course we have endeavored to trace. The topo-
graphical features of this pass led to the construction of the Erie Canal,
and it was comparatively easy to reestablish there the old line of water
communication. In later years the same influences caused the con-
struction through it of the most important railroad line of the world.
The natural advantages of this route are such as to give New York and
her connections with the interior a positive and inalienable superiority
over all competing ports and lines of traffic — a superiority which,
though it may be temporarily abrogated by municipal misgovernment,
or be diverted from public to private profit by individual or corporate
rapacity, will ultimately and always assert itself, and give to this city
a continuance of the prosperity that has attended her past career.

-♦♦♦-

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE.

By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.,

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN.

V.— THE EMOTION'S IN" EDUCATION".

THE Emotiox of Power. — The state named the feeling or emo-
tion of power expresses a first-class motive of the human mind.
It is, however, shown, with great probability, not to be an inde-
pendent source of emotion. It very often consists of a direct refer-
ence to possessions or worldly abundance. In other cases, I cannot
doubt that the pleasure of malevolent infliction is an element ; the
love of domineering, or subjecting other people's wills, Avould be much
less attractive than it is if malevolent possibilities were wholly left out.

Power in the actual is given by bodily and mental superiority, by
wealth, and by offices of command. Hence it can be enjoyed in any
high degree only by a few. It is, however, capable of great ideal ex-
pansion ; Ave can derive gratification from the contemplation of superior
power, and the outlets for this are numerous, including not merely the
operations of living beings, but the forces of inanimate Nature. For
example, the sublime is an ideal of great might or power.

We have now almost, but not quite, led up to the much-urged edu-
cational motive, the gratification of the sense of self-activity in the
pupils. This must afterward undergo a very searching examination.
Let us, however, first briefly review another leading class of well-
marked feelings, those designated by the familiar terms, self-compla-
cency, pride, vanity, love of applause. Whether these be simple or

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 661

compound in their nature, they represent feelings of great intensity,
and they are specially invoked in the sphere of education.

The Emotions of Self. — " Self " is a very wide word. " Selfish,"
" self-seeking," " self-love," might be employed without bringing any
new emotions to the front. All the sources of pleasure, and all the
exemptions from pain, that have been or might be enumerated under
the senses and the emotions, being totalized, could be designated as
" self " or " self-interest." But, connected with the terms self-esteem,
self-complacency, pride, vanity, love of praise, there are new varieties
of feeling, albeit they are but offshoots from some of those already
given. It is not our business to trace the precise derivation of these
complex modes, except to aid in estimating their value as a distinct
class of motives.

There is an undoubted pleasure in hnding in ourselves some of those
qualities that, seen in other men, call forth our love, admiration, rever-
ence, or esteem. The names self-complacency, self-gratulation, self-
esteem, indicate emotions of no little force. They have a good influ-
ence in promoting the attainment of excellence ; their defect is ascriba-
ble to our enormous self-partiality : for which cause they are usually
concealed from the jealous gaze of our fellows. It is only on very spe-
cial occasions that persuasion is made to operate through these power-
ful feelings ; they are too ready to turn round and make demands that
cannot be complied with.

A still higher form of self-reflected sentiment is that designated by
the love of praise and admiration. We necessarily feel an enhanced
delight when our own good opinion of self is echoed and sustained by
the expressions of others. This is one of the most stirring influences
that man can exert over man. It exists in many gradations, according
to our love, regard, or admiration, for the persons bestowing it, as well
as our dependence upon them, and according to the number joining in
the tribute.

The bestowal of praise is an act of justice to real merit, and should
take place apart from ulterior considerations. But in rewarding, as in
punishing, we cannot help looking beyond the present ; we have in our
eye merits that are yet to be achieved. The fame that attends intel-
lectual eminence is an incentive to study, and the educator has this
great instrument at his command.

Praise, to be effectual and safe, has to be carefully apportioned, so
as to approve itself to all concerned. As the act of praising does not
terminate with the moment, but establishes claims for the future,
thoughtless profusion of compliment defeats itself. Praise may oper-
ate in the form of warm, kindly expression, and no more ; in which
sense it is an offering of affection, and has a value in that character
alone. A pleased smile is a moral influence.

Discipline, properly so called, works in the direction of pain ; pleas-
ures are viewed in their painful obverse. The positive value of delights

662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is of consequence as the starting-point wherefrom to count the efficacy
of deprivations. The pains opposed to the pleasures of self-esteem and
praise are among the most powerful weapons in the armory of the dis-
ciplinarian. They are the chief reliance of such as deprecate corporeal
inflictions. Bentham's elaborate scheme of discipline in the " Chres-
tomathia"is a manipulation of the motives of praise and dispraise,
which he would fain make us believe to be all-sufficient.

Of the two divisions of the present class of emotions, namely, self-
esteem on the one hand, and desire of praise on the other, the opposite
of the first — self-reproach, self-humbling — is very little under foreign
influence. To induce people to think meanly of themselves is no easy
task; with the mass of human beings it is wellnigh hopeless. Any
success that attends the endeavor is an offshoot from the second mem-
ber of the class under discussion, namely, dispraise, depreciation. There
is no mistaking our aim here ; we can make our power felt in this form,
whether it has the other effect or not. People live so much on one an-
other's good opinion that the remission tells in an instant ; from the
simple abatement or loss of estimation there is a descent into the depths
of disesteem with a result of unspeakable suffering. The efforts that
the victim makes to right himself under censure only show how keenly
it is felt. There can be little doubt that on the delicate handling
of this instrument must depend the highest refinements of moral
control.

The Emotions of Intellect. — The pleasurable emotions incident
to the exercise of the intellectual powers have not the formidable
magnitude that we have assigned to the foregoing groups. Indeed, on
the occasions when they seem to burst forth with an intense glow, we
can discern the presence of emanations from these other great foun-
tains of feeling.

It is an effort of prime importance to trace exhaustively the induce-
ments and allurements to intellectual exertion. What are the intrinsic
charms of knowledge, whether in pursuit or in possession ? The diffi-
culty of the answer is increased rather than diminished by the flow of
fifty years' rhetoric.

Knowledge has such a wide compass, embraces such various ingre-
dients, that, until we discriminate the kinds of it, we cannot speak pre-
cisely either of its charms or of its absence of charm. Some sorts of
knowledge are interesting to everybody ; some interest only a few.
The serious part of the case is, that the most valuable kinds of knowl-
edge are often the least interesting.

The important distinction to be drawn here is between individual
or concrete knowledge and general or abstract knowledge. As a rule,
particulars are interesting as well as easy ; generals uninteresting and
hard. When particulars are not interesting, it is often from their be-
ing overshadowed by generals. When generals are made interesting,
it is by a happy reflected influence upon the particulars. It would serve

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 663

nearly all the purposes of the teacher to know the best means of over-
coming the repugnance and the abstruseness of general knowledge.

Waiving for a time the niceties of the abstract idea, and the obsta-
cles in the way of its being readily comprehended, we may here adduce
certain motives that cooperate with the teacher's endeavors to impress
it. A little attention, however, must first be given to the various kinds
of interest that attach to individual or particular facts.

Any kind of knowledge, whether particular or more or less general,
that is obviously involved in any of the strong feelings or emotions
that we have passed in review, is by that very fact interesting. Now,
a great many kinds of knowledge are implicated with those various
feelings. To avoid pains, and obtain pleasures, it is often necessary to
know certain things, and we willingly apply our minds to learn those
things ; and the more so, the more evident their bearing upon the grati-
fication of our desires. A vast quantity of information respecting the
world, and respecting human beings, is gained in this way ; and it con-
stitutes an important basis of even the highest acquisitions.

The readiness to imbibe this immediately fructifying knowledge is
qualified by its being difficult or abstruse ; we often prefer ignorance,
even in matters of consequence, to intellectual labor.

All the natural objects that bear upon our subsistence, our wants,
our pleasures, our exemptions from pain, are individually interesting to
us, and become known in respect of their special efficacy. Our food,
and all the means of procuring it, our clothing and shelter, our means
of protection, our sense-stimulants, are studied with avidity, and re-
membered with ease. This department of knowledge, notwithstanding
its vital concern, is apt to be considered as groveling ; it has, howerer,
the recommendation of truth. We do not encourage ourselves in any
deceptions in such matters ; and, if we make mistakes, it is owing to
the obscurity of the case, rather than to our indifference, or to any mo-
tive for perverting the facts. Indeed, this is the department that first
suj^plied to mankind the best criterion of certainty.

There is a different class of objects that appeal, not to the more
pressing utilities of subsistence, safety, and comfort, but to the gratifi-
cations of the higher senses and the emotions : the pleasures of touch,
sigrht, and hearing: ; the social and anti-social emotions. These com-
prise all the more striking objects of the world : the sun and celestial
sphere, the earth's gay coloring and sublime vastness ; the innumer-
able objects, inanimate and animate, that tickle some sense or emotion.
In proportion as human beings are set free from the struggle for sub-
sistence do they lay themselves open to the seinfluences, and so enlarge
the sphere of natural knowledge. Individual things become interesting
and known from inspiring these feelings. The culminating interest,
however, is in living beings, and especially persons of our own species.
The intellectual impressions thus left upon us are lively, but not neces-
sarily correct as to the facts.

66^. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

However all this may be, it is to individual things that we must
refer the first beginnings of knowledge, the interest and the facility of
acquisition. There are great inequalities in this interest and conse-
quent facility ; many individual objects inspire no interest at all in the
first instance ; while some of these become interesting afterward, in
consequence of our discovering in them relationships to things of in-
terest.

One notable distinction among the objects of knowledge is the dis-
tinction between movement or change, and stillness or inaction. It
is movement that excites us most ; still-life is rendered interesting by
reference to movement. We are aroused and engrossed by all moving
things ; our attention is turned away from objects at rest to contem-
plate movements ; and we imbibe with great rapidity the impressions
of moving objects.

This brief survey of the sphere of individuality and of the various
attractions presented by individuals is preparatory to the consideration
of the most arduous part of knowledge — the knowledge of generals or
generality. All the difficulties of the higher knowledge have reference
to the generalizing process — the seeing of one in many. The arts of
the teacher and the expositor are supremely requisite in sweetening
the toil of this operation. At the present stage, however, the question
is to assign the motives connected with general knowledge as distinct
from individual knowledge.

General knowledge, represented by science, consists in holding to-
gether, by a single grasp, whole classes of objects, of facts, of opera-
tions. This must, by the very nature of the case, be more severe than
holding an individual. To form an idea of one tree that we have
repeatedly surveyed at leisure, round and round, is about the easiest
exertion whether of attention or of memory. To form an idea of ten
trees partly agreeing and partly differing among themselves is mani-
festly an entirely altered task ; it is to exchange comparative simplicity
for arduous complexity ; yet this is what is needed everywhere in the
higher knowledge.

The first emotional effect attendant on the process of generalizing
facts, and serving to lighten the intellectual burden, is the flash of
identity in diversity, an exhilarating charm that has been felt in every
age by the searchers after truth. Many of the grandest discoveries in
science have consisted, not in bringing to light any new individual fact,
but in seeing a likeness between things formerly regarded as wholly
unlike. Such was the great discovery of gravitation. The first flash
of the recognition of a common power in the motions of the planets
and the flight of a projectile on the earth was unutterably splendid ;
and, after a hundred repetitions, the emotional charm is unexhausted.

With the emotion of exhilarating surprise at the discovery of like-
ness among things seemingly unlike, there is another grateful feeling,
the relief from an intellectual burden. This appears at first sight a

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 665

contradiction to what has been already said respecting the greater labo-
riousness of general knowledge : but the contrariety is only appar-
ent. To contract an impression of one single individual, after plenty
of time given to attend to it, is the easiest supposable mental effort.
But such is the multiplicity of things, that we must learn to know and
remember vast numbers of individuals ; and we soon feel ourselves
overpowered by the never-ending demands upon us. We must know
many persons, many places, many houses, many natural objects ; and
our capability of memory is in danger of exhaustion before we have
done. Now comes in, however, the discovery of identities, whereby
the work is shortened. If a new individual is exactly the same as the
old, we are saved the labor of a new impression ; if there is a slight
difference, we have to learn that difference and no more. In actual ex-
perience, the case is that there are numerous agreements in the world,
but accompanied with differences ; and, while we have the benefit of
the agreements, we must take notice of the differences. What makes
a general notion difficult is that it represents a large number of objects
that, while agreeing in some respects, differ in others. This difficulty
is the price that we pay for an enormous saving in intellectual labor.

The overcoming of isolation in the multitude of particulars, by
flashes of identity, is the progress of our knowledge in one direction ;
it is the satisfaction that we express when we say we understand or
can account for a thing. Lightning was accounted for when it was
identified with the electric spark : besides the exhilarating surprise at
the sameness of two facts in their nature so different and remote, men
had the further satisfaction of saying that they learned what lightning
is. Thus by discoveries of identity we are enabled to explain the world,
to assign the causes of things, to dissipate in part the mysteriousness
that everywhere surrounds us.

When a discovery of identification is made among particulars hith-
erto looked upon as diverse, the interest created is all-sufficient to secure
our appreciation. This is the alluring side of generalities. The repug-
nant aspect of them is seen in the technicalities that are invented to
hold and express them — general or abstract designations, diagrams,
and formulas. When it is proposed to indoctrinate the mind in these
things, by themselves, and at a stage when the condensing and explain-
ing power of the identities is as yet unawakened, the whole machinery
seems an uncouth jargon. Hence the attempt to afford relief to the
faculties by teaching the dry symbols of arithmetic and geometry,
through the aid of examples in the concrete, and in all the abstract
sciences to afford plenty of particulars to illustrate the generalities.
This is good so far ; but the real interest that overcomes the dryness
arises only when we can apply the generalities in tracing identities, in
solving difficulties, and in shortening labor ; an effect that comes soon-
est to those that have already some familiarity with the field where the
formulas are applicable. The liking for algebra and for geometry pro-

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ceeds ap3.ce when one sees the marvels of curious problems solved, un-
likely properties discovered, among numbers and geometrical figures.
A certain ease in holding in the memory the abstract symbols, after a
moderate application, is enough to prepare us for a positive relish in
the pursuit. Such is the case with generalities in all departments. If
we can hold on till they bear their fruits in the explanation of thino-s
that we have already begun to take notice of, the pursuit is sustained
by a genuine and proper scientific interest, whose real groundwork,
however deeply hidden, is the stimulus of agreement among differing
particulars, and the lightening of the intellectual labor in comprehend-
ing the world. These are the feelings that have to be awakened in the
minds of pupils when groaning under the burden of abstractions.

The opposition of the concrete and the abstract, while but another
way of expressing the opposition of the particular and the general,
brings into greater prominence the highly composite or combined char-
acter of individuality. The individual thing is usually a compound of
many qualities, each of which has to be abstracted in turn, in rising to
general notions ; any individual ball has, in addition to its round form,
the properties called weight, hardness, color, and so on. Now, this
composite nature, by charming several senses at once, gives a greater
interest to individuals, and urges us to resist that process of decompo-
sition, and separate attention, to which are given the designations " ab-
straction" and "analysis." It is for individuals in all their multiplicity
of influence that we contract likings or affections ; and, according as
the charm of sense, and especially the color-sense, is strong in us, we
are averse to the classing or generalizing operation. A fire is an object
of strong individual interest: to rise from this to the general notion of
the oxidation of carbon under all varieties of mode, including cases with
no intrinsic charm, is to quit with reluctance an agreeable contempla-
tion. The emotions now described — the pleasure of identity, and the
liarhteninjr of labor — are of avail to counterwork this reluctance.

The second of the two motives that we have coupled together — the
easing of intellectual labor — may be viewed in another light. When
objects are viewed as operating agents in the economy of the world, as
causes or instruments of change, they work by their qualities or powers
in separation, and not by their entire individuality or concreteness. An
iron bar, or a poker, is an individual concrete thing; but, when we come
to use it, we put in action its various qualities separately. We may
employ it as a weight, in which case its other properties are of no
account ; we use it as a lever, and bring into play simply its length and
its tenacity. We can put it in motion as a moving power, wherein its
inertia is alone taken into account, with perhaps its form. In all these
instances, the magnetical and the chemical and the medicinal properties
of iron are unthought of. Now, this consideration opens up an impor-
tant aid to the abstracting process, the analytic separation of properties,
as opposed to the mind's fondness for clinging to concrete individuality.

EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 667

When we are working out practical ends, we must follow Nature's
method of working ; and, as that is by isolating the separate qualities,
we must perform the act of mental isolation, which is to abstract, or
consider, one power to the neglect of the rest. When we want to put
forth heavy pressure, we think of various bodies solely as they can
exert weight, in however many other ways they may invite or charm our
sense. This is to generalize or to form a general notion of weight ; and
the motive to conceive it is practical need or necessity.

This motive of practical need at once brings us to the very core of
causation, viewed as a merely speculative notion. The cause of any-
thing is the agent that would bring that thing into being, suppose we
were in want of it. The cause of warmth in a room is combustion
properly arranged : we use this fact for practical purposes ; and we
may also use it for satisfying mere curioshty. We enter a warm room ;
we may desire to know how it has been made warm, and we are satis-
fied by being told that there has been, or is now somewhere, a fire in
communication with it.

Thus it is that in proportion as we come to operate upon the world
practically ourselves, and from that proceed to contemplate causation
at large, we are driven upon the abstracting and analyzing process, so
repugnant to one large portion of our feelings. Scieuce finds an open-
ing in our minds at this point, when otherwise we might need the
proverbial surgical operation.

These observations will serve to illustrate the working of the emo-
tion named Curiosity, which is justly held to be a great power in teach-
ing. Curiosity expresses the emotions of knowledge viewed as desire ;
and more especially the desire to surmount an intellectual difficulty
once felt. Genuine curiosity belongs to the stage of advanced and
correct views of the world.

Much of the curiosity of children, and of others besides children, is
a sham article. Frequently it is a mere display of egotism, the delight
in giving trouble, in being pandered to and served. Questions are put,
not from the desire of rational information, but for the love of excite-
ment. Occasionally the inquisitiveness of a child provides an oppor-
tunity for imparting a piece of real information ; but far oftener not.
By ingeniously circumventing a scientific fact, one not too high for a
child's comprehension, we may awaken curiosity and succeed in im-
pressing the fact. Try a child to lift a heavy weight first by the direct
pull, and then by a lever or a set of pulleys, and probably you will
excite some surprise and wonder, with a desire to know something
further about the instrumentality. But one fatal defect of the childish
mind is the ascendency of the personal or anthropomorphic conception
of cause. This, no doubt, is favorable to the theological explanation
of the world, but wholly unsuited to physical science. A child, if it
had any curiosity at all, would like to know what makes the grass

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

grow, the rain fall, the wind howl, and generally all things that are
occasional and exceptional ; an indifference being contracted toward
what is familiar, constant, and regular. When anything goes wrong,
the child has the wish to set it right, and is anxious to know what will
answer the purpose ; this is the inlet of practice, and, by this, correct
knowledge may find its way to the mind, provided the power of com-
prehension is sufficiently matured. Still the radical obstacle remains —
the impossibility of approaching science at random, or taking it in any
order ; we must begin at the proper beginning, and wTe may not always
contrive to tickle the curiosity at the exact stage of the pupil's under-
standing. Every teacher knows, or should know, the little arts of
giving a touch of wonder and mystery to a fact before the explanation
is given ; all which is found to tell in the regular march of exposition,
but would be lost labor in any other course.

The very young, those that we are working upon by gentle allure-
ment, are not properly competent to learn the " how " or " wherefore "
of any important natural fact ; they cannot even be made to desire the
thing in the proper way. They are open chiefly to the charm of sense
novelty and variety, which, together with accidental charm or liking,
impresses the pictorial or concrete aspects of the world, whether quies-
cent or changing, the last being the most powerful. They further are
capable of understanding the more palpable conditions of many changes
without penetrating to ultimate causes. They learn that to light a fire
there must be fuel and a light applied ; that the growth of vegetables
needs planting or sowing, together with rain and sunshine through a
summer season. The empirical knowledge of the world that preceded
science is still the knowledge that the child passes through in the way
to science ; and all this may be guided so as to prepare for the future
scientific revelations. In other respects the so-called curiosity of
children is chiefly valuable as yielding ludicrous situations for our
comic literature.

THE PEOGEESS OF AKTHEOPOLOGY.1

By Professor T. II. HUXLEY.

WHEN I undertook, with the greatest possible pleasure, to act as
a lieutenant of my friend the president of this section, I stead-
fastly purposed to confine myself to the modest and useful duties of
that position. For reasons, with which it is not worth while to trouble
you, I did not propose to follow the custom which has grown up in the
Association of delivering an address upon the occasion of taking the

1 Address before the Department of Anthropology of the British Association at its
recent meeting held in Dublin, August 14, 1878.

THE PROGRESS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 669

chair of a section or department. In clear memory of the admirable
addresses which you have had the privilege of hearing from Prof.
Flower, and just now from Dr. McDonnell, I cannot doubt that that
practice is a very good one ; but I would venture to say, to use a term
of philosophy, that it looks very much better from an objective than
from a subjective point of view. But I found that my resolution, like
a great many good resolutions that I have made in the course of my
life, came to very little, and that it was thought desirable that I should
address you in some way. But I must beg of you to understand that
this is no formal address. I have simply announced it as a few intro-
ductory remarks, and I must ask you to forgive whatever of crudity and
imperfection there ma}' be in the mode of expression of what I have to
say, although naturally I shall do my best to take care that there is
neither crudity nor inaccuracy in the substance of it. It has occurred
to me that I might address myself to a point in connection with the
business of this department which forces itself more or less upon the
attention of everybody, and which, unless the bellicose instincts of
human nature are less marked on this side of St. George's Channel than
on the other, may possibly have something to do with the large audi-
ences we are always accustomed to see in the anthropological depart-
ment. In the Geological Section I have no doubt it will be pointed
out to you, or, at any rate, such knowledge may crop up incidentally,
that there are on the earth's surface what are called loci of disturb-
ance, where, for long ages, cataclysms and outbursts of lava and the
like take place. Then everything subsides into quietude ; but a similar
disturbance is set up elsewhere. In Antrim, at the middle of the Ter-
tiary epoch, there was such a great centre of physical disturbance.
We all know that at the present time the earth's crust, at any rate, is
quiet in Antrim, while the great centres of local disturbance are in
Sicily, in Southern Italy, in the Andes, and elsewhere. My experience
of the British Association does not extend quite over a geological
epoch, but it does go back rather longer than I care to think about ;
and, when I first knew the British Association, the locus of disturbance
in it was the Geological Section. All sorts of terrible things about the
antiquity of the earth, and I know not what else, were being said there,
which gave rise to terrible apprehensions. The whole world, it was
thought, was coming to an end, just as I have no doubt that, if there
were any human inhabitants of Antrim in the middle of the Tertiary
epoch, when those great lava-streams burst out, they would not have
had the smallest question that the whole universe was going to pieces.
Well, the universe has not gone to pieces. Antrim is, geologically
speaking, a very quiet place now, as well cultivated a place as one need
see, and yielding abundance of excellent produce ; and so, if we turn
to the Geological Section, nothing can be milder than the proceedings
of that admirable bod}-. All the difficulties that they seemed to have
encountered at first have died away, and statements that were the hor-

670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rible paradoxes of that generation are now the commonplaces of school-
boys. At present the locus of disturbance is to be found in the Bio-
logical Section, and more particularly in the anthropological department
of that section. History repeats itself, and precisely the same terrible
apprehensions which were expressed by the aborigines of the Geologi-
cal Section, in long far-back time, is at present expressed by those who
attend our deliberations. The world is coming to an end, the basis of
morality is being shaken, and I don't know what is not to happen, if
certain conclusions which appear probable are to be verified. Well,
now, whoever may be here thirty years hence — I certainly cannot —
but, depend upon it, whoever may be speaking at the meeting of this
department of the British Association thirty years hence will find,
exactly as the members of the Geological Section have found, on look-
ing back thirty years, that the very paradoxes and conclusions, and
other horrible things that are now thought to be going to shake the
foundations of the world, will by that time have become parts of every-
day knowledge and will be taught in our schools as accepted truth, and
nobody will be one whit the worse.

The considerations which I think it desirable to put before you, in
order to show the foundations of the conclusions at which I have very
confidently arrived, are of two kinds. The first is a reason based en-
tirely upon philosophical considerations, namely, this: that the region
of pure physical science, and the region of those questions which
specially interest ordinary humanity, are apart, and that the conclu-
sions reached in the one have no direct effect in the other. If you ac-
quaint yourself with the history of philosophy, and with the endless
variations of human opinion therein recorded, you will find that there
is not a single one of those speculative difficulties which at the present
time torment many minds as being the direct product of scientific
thought which is not as old as the times of Greek philosophy, and
which did not then exist as strongly and as clearly as they do now,
though they arose out of arguments based upon merely philosophical
ideas. Whoever admits these two things — as everybody who looks about
him must do — whoever takes into account the existence of evil in this
world and the law of causation — has before him all the difficulties that
can be raised by any form of scientific speculation. And these two
difficulties have been occupying the minds of men ever since man began
to think. The other consideration I have to put before you is that,
whatever may be the results at which physical science as applied to
man shall arrive, those results are inevitable — I mean that they arise
out of the necessary progress of scientific thought as applied to man.
You all, I hope, had the opportunity of hearing the excellent address
which was given by our president yesterday, in which he traced out the
marvelous progress of our knowledge of the higher animals which has
been effected since the time of Linnaeus. It is no exaggeration to say
that at this present time the merest tyro knows a thousand times as

THE PROGRESS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 671

much on the subject as is contained in the work of Linnreus, which was
then the standard authority. Now, how has that been brought about ?
If you consider what zoology, or the study of animals, signifies, you
will see that it means an endeavor to ascertain all that can be studied,
all the answers that can be given respecting any animal under four pos-
sible points of view. The first of these embraces considerations of
structure. An animal has a certain structure, a certain mode of devel-
opment, which means a series of stages in that structure. In the sec-
ond place, every animal exhibits a great number of active powers, the
knowledge of which constitutes its physiology ; and under those active
powers we have, as physiologists, not only to include such matters as
have been referred to by Dr. McDonnell in his observations, but to take
into account other kinds of activity. I see it announced that the Zoo-
logical Section of to-day is to have a highly-interesting paper by Sir
John Lubbock on the habits of ants. Ants have a polity, and exhibit a
certain amount of intelligence, and all these matters are proper sub-
jects for the study of the zoologist as far as he deals with the ant.

There is yet a third point of view in which you may regard every
animal. It has a distribution. Not only is it to be found somewhere
on the earth's surface, but paleontology tells us, if we go back in time,
that the great majority of animals have had a past history — that they
occurred in epochs of the world's history far removed from the present.
And, when we have acquired all that knowledge which we may enumer-
ate under the heads of anatomy, physiology, and distribution, there re-
mains still the problem of problems to the zoologist, which is the study
of the causes of those phenomena, in order that we may know how those
things came about. All these different forms of knowledge and inquiry
are legitimate subjects for science, there being no subject which is an
illegitimate subject for scientific inquiry, except such as involves a con-
tradiction in terms, or is itself absurd. Indeed, I don't know that I ought
to go quite so far as this at present, for, undoubtedly, there are many
benighted persons who have been in the habit of calling by no less bard
names conceptions which our president tells us must be regarded with
much respect. If we have four dimensions of space we may have forty
dimensions, and that would be a long way beyond that which is con-
ceivable by ordinary powers of imagination. I should, therefore, not
like to draw too closely the limits as to what may be contradiction to
the best-established principles. Now, let us turn to a proposition which
no one can possibly deny — namely, that there is a distinct sense in
which man is an animal. There is not the smallest doubt of that prop-
osition. If anybody entertains a misgiving on that point, he has simply
to walk through the museum close by in order to see that man has a
structure and a framework which may be compared, point for point and
bone for bone, with those of the lower animals. There is not the small-
est doubt, moreover, that, as to the manner of his becoming, man is
developed, step by step, in exactly the same way as they are. There

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is not the smallest doubt that his activities — not only his mere bodily
functions, but his other functions — are just as much the subjects of
scientific study as are those of ants or bees. What we call the phe-
nomena of intelligence, for example (as to what else there may be in
them, the anthropologist makes no assertion), are phenomena follow-
ing a definite causal order just as capable of scientific examination, and
of being reduced to definite law, as are all those phenomena which we
call physical. And just as ants form a polity and a social state, and
just as these are the proper and legitimate study of the zoologist, so
far as he deals with ants, so do men organize themselves into a social
state ; and, though the province of politics is of course outside that of
anthropology, yet the consideration of man, so far as his instincts lead
him to construct a social economy, is a legitimate and proper part of
anthropology, precisely in the same way as the study of the social state
of ants is a legitimate object of zoology. So with regard to other and
more subtile phenomena. It has often been disputed whether in ani-
mals there is any trace of the religious sentiment. That is a legiti-
mate subject of dispute and of inquiry ; and, if it were possible for my
friend Sir John Lubbock to point out to you that ants manifest such
sentiments, he would have made a very great and interesting discovery,
and no one could doubt that the ascertainment of such a fact was com-
pletely within the province of zoology. Anthropology has nothing to
do with the truth or falsehood of religion — it holds itself absolutely and
entirely aloof from such questions — but the natural history of religion,
and the origin and the growth of the religions entertained by the dif-
ferent kinds of the human race, are within its proper and legitimate
province.

I now go a step further, and pass to the distribution of man. Here,
of course, the anthropologist is in his special region. He endeavors to
ascertain how various modifications of the human stock are arranged
upon the earth's surface. He looks back to the past, and inquires how
far the remains of man can be traced. It is just as legitimate to ascer-
tain how far the human race goes back in time as it is to ascertain how
far the horse goes back in time ; the kind of evidence that is good in the
one case is good in the other ; and the conclusions that are forced on
us in the one case are forced on us in the other also. Finally, we come
to the question of the causes of all these phenomena, which, if per-
missible in the case of other animals, is permissible in the animal man.
Whatever evidence, whatever chain of reasoning justifies us in con-
cluding that the horse, for example, has come into existence in a cer-
tain fashion in time, the same evidence and the same canons of logic
justify us to precisely the same extent in drawing the same kind of
conclusions with regard to man. And it is the business of the an thro-
pologist to be as severe in his criticism of those matters in respect to
the origin of man as it is the business of the paleontologist to be strict
in regard to the origin of the horse ; but for the scientific man there is

THE PROGRESS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 673

neither more nor less reason for dealing critically with the one case
than with the other. "Whatever evidence is satisfactory in one case is
satisfactory in the other; and if any one should travel outside the lines
of scientific evidence, and endeavor either to support or oppose con-
clusions which are based upon distinctly scientific truths, by considera-
tions which are not in any way based upon scientific logic or scientific
truth — whether that mode of advocacy was in favor of a given position,
or whether it was against it — T, occupying the chair of the section,
should, most undoubtedly, feel myself called upon to call him to order,
and to tell him that he was introducing considerations with which we
had no concern whatever.

I have occupied your attention for a considerable time ; yet there
is still one other point respecting which I should like to say a few
words, because some very striking reflections arose out of it. The
British Association met in Dublin twenty-one years ago, and I have
taken the pains to look up what was done in regard to our subject at
that period. At that time there was no anthropological department.
That study had not yet differentiated itself from zoology, or anatomy,
or physiology, so as to claim for itself a distinct place. Moreover,
without reverting needlessly to the remarks which I placed before you
some time ago, it was a very volcanic subject, and people rather liked
to leave it alone. It was not until a long time subsequently that the
present organization of this section of the Association was brought
about ; but it is a curious fact that, although proper anthropological
subjects were at the time brought before the Geographical Section —
with the proper subject of which they had nothing whatever to do — I
find that even then more than half of the papers that were brought
before that section were, more or less distinctly, of an anthropological
cast. It is very curious to observe what that cast was. We had systems
of language — we had descriptions of savage races — we had the great
question, as it then was thought, of the unity or multiplicity of the
human species. These were just touched upon, but there was not an
allusion in the whole of the proceedings of the Association at that time
to those questions which are now to be regarded as the burning ques-
tions of anthropology. The whole tendency in the present direction
was given by the publication of a single book, and that not a very
large one — namely, " The Origin of Species." It was only subsequent
to the publication of the ideas contained in that book that one of the
most powerful instruments for the advance of anthropological knowl-
edge— namely, the Anthropological Society of Paris — was founded.
Afterward the Anthropological Institute of this country and the great
Anthropological Society of Berlin came into existence, until it may be
said that now there is not a branch of science which is represented by
a larger or more active body of workers than the science of anthropol-
ogy. But the whole of these workers are engaged, more or less inten-
tionally, in providing the data for attacking the ultimate great problem,

VOL. XIII. — 43

674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

whether the ideas which Darwin has put forward in regard to the
animal world are capable of being applied in the same sense and
to the same extent to man. That question, I need not say, is not
answered.

It is a vast and difficult question, and one for which a complete
answer may possibly be looked for in the next century ; but the method
of inquiry is understood ; and the mode in which the materials are now
being accumulated bearing on that inquiry, the processes by which
results are now obtained, and the observation of these phenomena,
lead to the belief that the problem also, some day or other, will be
solved. In what sense I cannot tell you. I have my own notion about
it, but the question for the future is the attainment, by scientific pro-
cesses and methods, of the solution of that question. If you ask me
what has been done within the last twenty-one years toward this object,
or rather toward clearing the ground in the direction of obtaining a
solution, I don't know that I could lay my hand upon much of a very
definite character — except as to methods of investigation — save in
regard to one point. I have some reason to know that about the year
1860, at any rate, there was nothing more volcanic, more shocking,
more subversive of everything right and proper, than to put forward
the proposition that, as far as physical organization is concerned, there
is less difference between man and the highest apes than there is
between the highest apes and the lowest. Now, my memory carries
me back sufficiently to remind me that, in 1860, that question was not
a pleasant one to touch on.

The other day I was reading a recently-published valuable and in-
teresting work, " L'Espece Humaine," by a very eminent man, M. de
Quatrefages. He is a gentleman who has made these questions his
special study, and has written a great deal and very well about them.
He has always maintained a temperate and fair position, and has been
the opponent of evolutionary ideas, so that I turned with some inter-
est to his work as giving me a record of what I could look on as the
progress of opinion during the last twenty years. If he has any bias
at all, it is one in the opposite direction to which my own studies would
lead me. I cannot quote his words, for I have not the book with me,
but the substance of them is that the proposition which I have just
put before you is one the truth of which no rational person acquainted
with the facts could dispute. Such is the difference which twenty
years has made in that respect, and, speaking in the presence of a
great number of anatomists, who are quite able to decide a question
of this kind, I believe that the opinion of M. de Quatrefages on the
subject is one they will all be prepared to indorse. Well, it is a com-
fort to have got that much out of the way. The second direction in
which I think great progress has been made is with respect to the
processes of anthropometry, in other words, in the modes of obtaining
those data which are necessary for anthropologists to reason upon.

THE PROGRESS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 675

Like all other persons who have to deal with physical science, we con-
fine ourselves to matters which can be ascertained with precision, and
nothing is more remarkable than the exactness which has been intro-
duced into the mode of ascertaining the physical qualities of man with-
in the last twenty-five years. One cannot mention the name of Broca
without the greatest gratitude; and I am quite sure that, when Prof.
Flower brings forward his paper on cranial measurements on Monday
next, you will be surprised to see what precision of method and what
accuracy are now introduced, compared with what existed twenty-five
years ago, into these methods of determining the physical data of
man's structure. If, further, we turn to those physiological matters
bearing on anthropology which have been the subject of inquiry within
the last score of years, we find that there has been a vast amount of
progress. I would refer you to the very remarkable collection of the
data of sociology by Mr. Herbert Spencer, which contains a mass of
information useful on one side or the other in getting toward the
truth. Then I would refer you to the highly-interesting contributions
which have been made by Prof. Max Muller and by Mr. Tylor to the
natural history of religions, which is one of the most interesting chapters
of anthropology. In regard to another very important topic, the de-
velopment of art and the use of tools and weapons, most remarkable
contributions have been made by General Lane Fox, whose museum at
Bethnal Green is one of the most extraordinary exemplifications that I
know of the ingenuity, and, at the same time, of the stupidity of the
human race. Their ingenuity appears in their invention of a given
pattern or form of weapon, and their profound stupidity in this, that,
having done so, they kept in the old grooves, and were thus prevented
from getting beyond the primitive type of these objects and of their
ornamentation. One of the most singular things in that museum is
its exemplification — the wonderful tendency of the human mind when
once it has got into a groove to stick there. The great object of sci-
entific investigation is to run counter to that tendency.

Lastly, great progress has been made in the last twenty years in
the direction of the discovery of the indications of man in a fossil
state. My memory goes back to the time when anybody who broached
the notion of the existence of fossil man would have been simply
laughed at. It was held to be a canon of paleontolog}7 that man could
not exist in a fossil state. I don't know why, but it was so ; and that
fixed idea acted so strongly on men's minds, that they shut their eyes
to the plainest possible evidence. Within the last twenty years we
have an astonishing accumulation of evidence of the existence of man
in ages antecedent to those of which we have any historical record.
What the actual date of those times was, and what their relation is to
our known historical epochs, I don't think anybody is in a position to
say. But it is beyond all question that man, and not only man, but,
what is more to the purpose, intelligent man, existed at times when

676 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the whole physical conformation of the country was totally different
from that which characterizes it now. Whether the evidence we now
possess justifies us in going back further, or not — that we can get
back as far as the epoch of the drift is, I think, beyond any rational
question or doubt ; that may be regarded as something settled — but
when it comes to a question as to the evidence of tracing back man
further than that — and recollect drift is only the scum of the earth's
surface — I must confess that to my mind the evidence is of a very
dubious character.

Finally, we come to the very interesting question — as to whether,
with such evidence of the existence of man in those times as we have
before us, it is possible to trace in that brief history any evidence of
the gradual modification from a human type somewhat different from
that which now exists to that which is met with at present. I must
confess that my opinion remains exactly what it was some eighteen
years ago, when I published a little book * which I was very sorry to
hear my friend Prof. Flower allude to yesterday, because I had hoped
that it would have been forgotten among the greater scandals of sub-
sequent times. I did there put forward the opinion that what is known
as the Neanderthal skull is, of human remains, that which presents the
most marked and definite characteristics of a lower type — using the
langmagre in the same sense as we would use it in other branches of
zoology. I believe it to belong to the lowest form of human being of
which we have any knowledge, and we know from the remains accom-
panying that human being that, as far as all fundamental points of
structure were concerned, he was as much a man — could wear boots
just as easily — as any of us, so that I think the question remains pretty
much where it was. I don't know that there is any reason for doubt-
ing that the men who existed at that day were in all essential respects
similiar to the men who exist now. But I must point out to you that
this conviction is by no means inconsistent with the doctrine of evolu-
tion. The horse which existed at that time was in all essential re-
spects identical with the horse which exists now. But we happen to
know that going back further in time the horse presents us with a
series of modifications by which it can be traced back from an earlier
type. Therefore it must be deemed possible that man is in the same
position, although the facts we have before us with respect to him tell
in neither one way nor the other. I have now nothing more to do than
to thank you for the great kindness and attention with which you have
listened to these informal remarks. — Nature.

1 " Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature."

M ON ERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 677

MONERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

By EDMUND MONTGOMERY, M. D.
Ill— THE PHYSICAL PHASE OF THE PROBLEM.— (Concluded.)

IT has been shown in former articles that living motion is the result
of alternate expansion and contraction on the part of the proto-
plasm ; and we could not fail to perceive that this occupation of so much
more or so much less space is the physical property of the protoplasm
under different states of chemical composition. It remains to be ascer-
tained by what agencies the chemical composition and decomposition
of the living substance are affected. What are the influences that dis-
integrate the protoplasm ? and what are the influences that reinte-
grate it ?

A little attention to the visible changes which occur in the expand-
ing material of different monera, when being checked in its onward
course, soon demonstrates that it is the resistance of the medium, the
counteraction of the energies composing the immediate environment,
which causes chemical rupture in the organic substance. The molecule
of protoplasm, like all very high compounds, and, in fact, like almost
all nitrogenous compounds, is in a considerable degree explosive.
During the expansion of the protoplasm, the medium is pushing against
it with a force of its own ; and it is this opposing energy, exerted by
the medium, which, at some definite moment of its increasing composi-
tion and consequent expansion, causes this living substance at last to
explode.

No unscientific conjecture has been allowed to enter into the above
conception of this highly-important vital occurrence. It is as a mental
sketch, in its outline, as positive and certain as any fact of Nature can
possibly be.

In observing this process of decomposition, first the outer envelope
of the projecting cone is seen to become disintegrated, and, in lower
monera, also solidified. In these lower specimens the expanding mate-
rial pushes still onward along the central axis of the cone, breaking
through its apex, until it is at last also overcome by rigidity.

As the expanding material is perfectly translucent, the slightest opti-
cal change in it can be easily detected. The whitish, somewhat more
opaque appearance of the stagnating protoplasm indicates that an im-
portant molecular alteration has taken place. That this alteration is
of a chemical nature is actually proved by the products of decom-
position being in many instances visibly gathered into a separate
globule.

Thus the dynamical energy of the medium applies the match, gives
the turning-stroke to the pending explosion, and it is by this dynami-

6; 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cal act that the specific chemical rupture is effected, in consequence of
which the protoplasm reassumes its former contracted state in space.

In physiology, the peculiar activity displayed by the protoplasm, and
induced by the dynamical influence of the medium, is called the func-
tion of the acting substance. The function is said to be stimulated by
the dynamical influence, and the material compounds which separate
from the living substance during this operation are distinguished as
products of functional disintegration.

The special function of living contraction, which we have been en-
abled so plainly to follow up in our primitive organisms, is typical of
all motor and sensory functions whatever. Contractility is the funda-
mental expression of vital function. It is the first unmistakable, dis-
tinctly visible manifestation of living activity.

All these functional performances, these visible and otherwise di-
rectly sensible parts of organic activity, compose the open spectacle of
life — the ostensible conspicuous display of vitality. They correspond
to the manifest figurative exhibitions of an exquisitely-contrived clock,
all set in motion during its unwinding. But beyond this variegated
automatic show perceived on the outside, what depths of unsolved mys-
tery, molecular and other, remain behind in the impenetrable recesses
of organization, affording a boundless field for scientific exploration, as
well as teleological speculation.

All those of the past and present who, in the stronghold of final
causes, have fortified their faith in a spirit of guiding forethought —
Voltaire, the sprightly scoffer, with Paley, the sifting advocate, and so
many more who have sought to interpret the secret scheme of apparent
design traceable in the all-befitting coaptation of things — to me it seems
they have but slightly and superficially used their strong means.

The wonder lies essentially in the unification and integration of
manifold influences into the compass of one single individual entity,
not so essentially in the subsequent spontaneous correlation of that
individual to those manifold influences. The wonder lies chiefly in the
concentrated and unified organization of the relations, not so much in
their functional display afterward. The problem is the established
unity of the multifariously related individual, not the planning and
fitting of these multifarious relations themselves. The power of our
life is intrinsically wrought, not extrinsically derived.

This most weighty truth the science of organization maintains not
on mere general grounds or formal conclusions drawn from assumed
premises, but it is ready to prove it step by step by actual verification.
The subsistence of the reverse supposition is altogether emotional and
metaphysical; it rests on fictitious ontology. From foreign spheres
an outside hand of power is made to reach forth, and to set going, by
dint of will or deed, the precious clock of life, with all its play of sen-
sation and motion, its revealing and its conquering beats. From out the
indefinite infinitudes an unlimited skill is evoked, and upon it are im-

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 679

posed the effortless contrivance and accomplishment of all that is so
laboriously painful, joyful, marvelous to us.

This, in its best sense, means blind surrender of all knowledge to
implicit trust. But life, grown conscious amid incessant struggle and
remorseless fate, feels now sufficiently inured and emboldened not to
shrink from prying with utmost earnestness into the secret of its own
significance. It yearns to comprehend.

However, one obstacle removed, another at once takes its place.
It so happens, namely, that we ourselves are most ingenious contrivers,
all of us inveterate mechanists from our birth, using with much advan-
tage things that already are. And, very likely, because of such uni-
versal human propensity, the advanced thinkers of our race conceive
that a chaos of some kind of original stuff must have served a similar
purpose to an infinitely mightier contriver, maker, Nature, or whatever
special appellation anthropomorphic or metaphysical predilection may
dictate for it. Poor philosophy this, that has to beg the entire ques-
tion. No, we are very far yet from having solved the riddle of final
causes and natural synthesis. We stand on the outside, perplexed as
ever, in spite of Hume's concentrative naturalism, and Kant's schools
of criticism and transcendentalism. No word of prophetic speech, or
weighing knowledge, has yet uttered the true meaning of things. Our
mind, with its shallow dip, emotional and mechanical, does but pierce
the rippling face of creative profundity.

One point, however, one steadfast point, is everywhere discernible
among the phantasmal shifting of appearances and thoughts ; and this
one positive element of truth thus enunciates itself : Only by unremit-
ting, infinitely graduated, indwelling travail, does at all times the fruit
of existence receive its birth. The import of this guiding truth can be
but superficially reprojected and numerically symbolized by the recog-
nition of signs of inorganic evolution, and the heaping of ages upon
ages of geological time. Its real value can be realized only by the dis-
covery and penetration of its actual source of emanation — organization.

Perhaps our monera will materially assist us in gaining some esti-
mate of the potency of organization. In its adequate composition will
consist the arduous task of the philosophy of the future.

The study of moneric protoplasm has disclosed that so-called con-
tractility is not merely a property of the living substance, but that it
is its function, stimulated by the dynamical influences of the medium,
and effected by means of chemical disintegration. The organic mole-
cule, before it experienced its chemical, its functional rupture, was held
together by the bond of inwrought chemical affinities. Now that dis-
association has been accomplished, these chemical affinities are left un-
satisfied. The disintegrated protoplasm forms but one complemental
part of a higher, most definite combination. If the other complemental
part should happen to be in readiness somewhere, and be brought, by
some means or other, into actual contact with the mutilated protoplasm,

68 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

then surely the existing affinities would exert their influence, and the
higher compound would be restored in its former integrity and com-
pleteness. This — expressed in the language of chemistry— is exactly
what in reality occurs.

The union of the disintegrated protoplasm with complemental ma-
terial, furnished by the medium, can be directly witnessed without any
possibility of misapprehension. We see the disintegrated protoplasm.
We see it combine with substances drifted to it bv the medium, and
we see it in consequence reassume its former state.

Now, at last, we have actually entered the threshold of organiza-
tion. We have discovered the fundamental fact of its statics. We
know positively that reintegration of the living substance, restoration
of the disturbed vital equilibrium, is the work of preestablished chemi-
cal affinities, and that it requires extraneous matter of a specific kind
to enable this restitution to take place.

The statical aspect of all organization offers nothing but a compli-
cation of this one event of chemical equilibrium, a vast complication in
the molecular gradations of functionally disintegrated protoplasm, a
vast complication also in the gradations of restitutive material.

The integration and differentiation of vital function on the one
hand, and the preparation and composition of food-material on the
other hand, form — as we will become fully aware further on — the two
great divisions in the subject-matter of the science of organization,
divisions corresponding to the fundamental biplicity of all advanced
organization, its animal and its vegetative life. Organization in the
sphere of animal life is the expression of the development of manifold
outside relations in the vital unit. Organization in the sphere of vege-
tative life is the expression of the preparation of more and more elabo-
rate material, fit to restore the functional waste of those developed
relations.

I believe no candid critic can deny that the above related observa-
tions have laid open to inspection the secret mechanism of life ; have
reduced to the domain of operations known in the inorganic world the
performances that, in a primitive state of life, visibly constitute vital
activity.

With little more mental exertion than is required for the faithful
interpretation of obvious appearances, a scientific feat has been accom-
plished which but yesterday seemed totally impracticable. I am aware
that, on account of its strange simplicity, many will deem that, after
all, not much advantage has been gained by it. But let no one deceive
himself in this. By dint of this internal as well as external under-
standing of motility, we know at this very moment more, much more,
about the property of life in the living substance than we do of any
other property belonging to any other substance.

We clearly conceive the manner how, and the conditions by which,
motility, this most prominent vital manifestation, constitutes an inher-

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 63 1

ent property of the living1 substance. Do we as yet comprehend in
the same way the intimate modes of activity which constitute the prop-
erties appertaining to inorganic substances ? Is any kind of those
peculiar motions which form the scientific essence of the various forces
of inorganic Nature so strictly and deeply intelligible as has now be-
come that specific motion which forms the scientific essence of the
force of life ?

Motion of any kind stands at present just in the same relation to
dead matter as that special mode of motion called contractility stood,
before this, to living matter. Mechanical motion, heat, electricity, etc.,
are all qualities occultisimal, known only by the relative measurement
of the spaces of contraction and expansion which their manifesting
substrata occupy, or are thought to occupy.

Comparative expansion and contraction are, and must be, the subject-
matter of all quantitative science. All intensities are made quantitative-
ly scientific by being " converted " into modes of space. Time itself is
thus measured, and the intensity of heat can be ascertained only by the
expansion and contraction of the manifesting substances. So with all.
Our modulatory theories are expressions of the same helpful makeshift ;
an expanding and contracting substratum.

Motility is precisely such another expansion and contraction. But,
now, we know not merely the fact. We know, besides, bow it is
effected. We know something about the working of it within the
manifesting substance. By this qualitative penetration, this more sub-
stantial insight into natural operations, we have broken the consolidated
crust of mere superficial shiftings in space, and have forced a scientific
entry into deeper spheres of knowledge.

The comparisons between motility and other modes of motion are
strictly appropriate. How much so cannot be adequately appreciated
until the origin and development of sensation have been traced ; of
which all modes of motion are, in the last instance, accurately corre-
sponding affections or reactions.

And, now, what has become of this most vexed problem of prob-
lems— the origin of life ? Is not protoplasm a chemical compound like
other substances, merely varying from them in its degree of molecular
complexity? Its most characteristic manifestation, its distinguishing
mode of motion, its peculiar force — the one specific activity constitut-
ing its most vital difference — is better known to us than any quality
which forms the distinguishing feature between other substances. Do
we greatly concern ourselves about the origin of MgO,S03+7HaO, or
any other mineral substance ? Why, then, should the origin of some
combination of C, H, N, O, be made a question of the life and death
of our principal philosophies? Has it actually come to this, that the
scientific foundation of our creed rests on the decision whether COO is
or was once changed into CHO by natural or supernatural means ; and
this when there is plenty of H about in our world ? Yes, it is even so,

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

however incredible, however little flattering to our intellectual preten-
sions. The contending claims of naturalism and supernaturalism, the
fate of the most momentous question touching the guidance of our life,
turn actually, in the field of science, upon the paltry issue of the
synthesis of ternary carbon compounds, whether this be chemically or
whether it be superchemically effected. COO is undisputably an inor-
ganic compound. CHO is undisputably an organic compound. This
designates accurately the actual depth of the gulf existing between
organic and inorganic Nature.

The chief vital manifestation of protoplasm, its contractility, can
no longer startle us, for we know exactly how it is produced by well-
known chemical and physical means. The combination of C, H, N, O,
constituting protoplasm, is nothing but a very complicated chemical
compound. CHO is a less complicated compound. COO is a still less
complicated compound.

We do not in the least know how COO originates. We know a lit-
tle better how CHO originates. And, perhaps, it will presently appear
that we know still better how the combination of C, H, N, O, consti-
tuting protoplasm, originates. The advantage of intelligibility lies all
on the side of organic Nature. It is astounding fro contemplate in what
a degree this may actually prove to be the case.

We owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to quantitative science.
In our panic-stricken minds it has established the certainty of serene
order everywhere. Through the never-failing verification of inflexible
laws it attests the necessary connection and absolute interdependence
of all accessible changes in Nature. Thus it has liberated us from a
thralldom infinitely more pitiful than any form of common slavery — the
thralldom of our own vicious and cruel superstitions. In many ways
it has enriched our lives a thousand-fold, and we may, in future, expect
from it an ever-increasing harvest of similar benefits.

It appears to me as if I could discern with some degree of distinc-
tiveness— just beginning to loom in the distant twilight of consciousness
— an entirely new era of knowledge ; an era governed by the science of
organization, by means of which more concentrative appreciation the
synthesis of reality will receive a deeper explanation, and all facts of
Nature appear in an organic light, in a qualitative interdependence,
evolution being then understood as creative evolution, and not as mere
transformation of modes of motion and atomical redistribution of mat-
ter. I have conjured up into the medium of shadowy words this most
vague fancy of an organic epoch in science, because I firmly believe that
we are already in possession of a clew to the means and ways by which
the development of the living substance has been and is still being
achieved ; while, on the contrary, we possess no clew whatever to the
means and ways which have led to the development of the now existing
inorganic substances from the supposed primordial substratum.

We watch a moner for hours, for days. There it is, ever continuing

M ON ERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 683

without intermission to expand and to contract ; alternately to suffer
decomposition and to accomplish its recomposition. A blank sameness,
an almost thought-paralyzing monotony of life, is thus exhibited by
many of these primitive beings. Only always expansion and contrac-
tion, by means of that same kind of reintegration and disintegration.
Nothing more, apparently. It would almost seem as if the anti-evolu-
tionists were right after all in their main view of life. It, indeed, resem-
bles most strikingly a perpetual seesaw ; the very same thing always
over again — a mere organic toy, ingeniously contrived, so as to main-
tain itself intact, in spite of encroaching outside influences ; the un-
meaning disturbance of a most delicate equilibrium, and the following
exact reestablishment of that very same equilibrium. This, reduced to
its most simple biological expression, is the foundation of the opinions
which oppose evolutionism by maintaining the permanence of organic
species, or their archetypal origin.

All turns upon the decision of the following point : Does there exist
an absolute equivalence, a total identity between the compound sepa-
rated from the protoplasm by the dynamical influences of the medium
and the restitutive compound taken up from the medium by dint of the
specific affinities inherent in the protoplasm ? Does there normally
exist a complete fixity in the observed play of equilibrated activities ?
Does this ever-reiterated exhibition of motility fulfill only its own mo-
tory object ? Or, translated into the language of volition, Does the
organism merely move to feed, and feed to move ? This, in truth, is the
pith of this momentous question.

The chemical affinities inwoven in the protoplasm are, like all chem-
ical affinities, of a most definite kind. This chemical definiteness is
even outwardly manifest in the strict preservation of all peculiarities
in the different living substances which constitute the varieties of mo-
nera. Now, this functional restitution of protoplasm is effected entirely
by means of these inherent chemical affinities. It is clear, therefore,
that, if a deviation is ever to occur in the beats of this chemically so
firmly established vital pendulum, it can be operated only in two ways :
Either the dynamical influences succeed in splitting off from the ex-
panding protoplasm a slightly-differing molecule, affecting thus the
total chemical equilibrium in such a manner as to bring about a some-
what altered reintegration of the same, or the restitutive material
possesses, by dint of its own peculiar molecular composition, the power
of forcing the disintegrated substance to reintegrate itself with some
slight deviation.

In other words, variations in the molecular constitution of the pro-
toplasm can only be effected either by the dynamical influences of the
medium, or by the restitutive material of the medium. Spontaneous
variations, starting from within the already-established molecular equi-
librium of the protoplasm itself, would be like all other spontaneous
changes, an inadmissible supposition, an effect without a cause.

68 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In another stage of the inquiry we will learn the exaot effect which
restitutive material, when not accurately complemental, does actually
exert on the protoplasm. I will here only mention that it has, very
demonstrably, only the power specifically to deteriorate the same, and
not in the least the power to give it any impulse toward higher develop-
ment. In the course of organic progress it is the living substance which
lifts the food to the level of its own requirements ; not the food which
confers higher vital powers on the protoplasm.

There remains only one path, then, through which development can
make its entry into the living substance, and this is — be it fully under-
stood— the infinitely toilsome elaboration of molecular complexity by
means of ever-reiterated functional disintegration. If it, namely, should
happen, that the dynamical influences of the medium are so attuned as
to shift and complicate — by force of their sundry specific modes of
operation — the molecular equilibrium of the protoplasm, ever so im-
measurably little at a time, then, by incessant perseverance, an appre-
ciable organic effect may, at last, be attained.

There are strong reasons which make it highly probable — I do not
say certain, because it lies in the nature of the process that it cannot
be directly witnessed — but there are manifold occurrences which make
it very evident that this mode of development is actually the one
adopted in Nature.

In a general way we all know, with perfect certainty, that previous
functional exercise of an organ fits the same all the better for further
functional performances. Use develops functional structure ; disuse
involves its atrophy. All educational acquirement rests on this foun-
dation, and also all degradation of skill or culture.

We will endeavor to form some mental representation of the activi-
ties which are elaborating these great and evident results.

The energy of the dynamical influences is exerted on protoplasm in
the course of chemical composition. It is a substance in process of
molecular cumulation which encounters, in its onward flow, the forces
of the medium. The foremost part of an advancing conical projection,
for instance, will consist of higher material than its lateral part, and
will therefore be differently affected even by the same forces of the me-
dium. But, if we further take into consideration that the influences of
the medium are themselves of a manifold nature, each kind affecting
the protoplasm with a specific energy of its own, it can be readily con-
ceived that .a most complicated molecular disturbance must ensue.
This must be all the more the case in a substance in which the forces
of the medium have not each their definite, circumscribed, and attuned
channel of functional stimulation ; but are attacking more or less every
part of its circumference.

Dynamical considerations, too abstruse to be here introduced, make
it extremely probable that a preponderance of effect in favor of the
dynamical energies best attuned to the highest, foremost portion of

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 685

the expanding living substance will give rise to a restitution of the
entire mass more in the likeness of the higher protoplasm disintegrated
by the more subtile dynamical influences. Thus the constitution of the
protoplasm at the very beginning of its next pulse of recomposition
will, by this slight increment of complication, resemble a whit more its
molecular state, when at the height of its former expanding pulse.
The decomposition caused by the combined specific energies of the
medium will be followed by a somewhat higher composition.

The elaboration of organic substances in plants is at all times
notably effected by a process similar to the one here indicated. It is
brought about by a twofold chemical activity, incited by a specific
dynamical influence of the medium. First there occurs a specific de-
composition, and then, in consequence, a somewhat altered recomposi-
tion ; or, technically expressed, there occurs reduction followed by
substitution. It is believed that under the influence of light there is
split off from carbonic acid one atom of oxygen, which is then replaced
by one atom of hydrogen: 2COO + H20-C2H202 + 000.

But, before examining the conditions under which this fundamental
and most weighty transformation of the inorganic into the organic
takes place, I will state, in further support of the gradual development
of the living substance, that the phenomenon of individual growth
gives in itself plain evidence of organic development having actually
occurred in the past. Growth is essentially a concise recapitulation of
developmental changes.

But, not to complicate matters too much, I have here purposely left
out of consideration all manifestations appertaining to growth, as well
as those appertaining to propagation. Both these phases of organic
existence do not belong to the domain of production, but entirely to
that of reproduction. Propagation multiplies, growth reconstructs,
organic results previously achieved.

Though it cannot be denied that the attentive observation of moneric
protoplasm has restricted the physical phase of the problem of life to
the limits of a purely chemical question, and though it may be con-
ceded that organic development is truly effected by means of chemical
activity dynamically incited, yet with many there will persist an un-
gratified curiosity concerning the origin of life. This dissatisfaction,
expressed in clear words, can only amount to the following objection :
" Granting that motility is merely the scientifically intelligible property
of a specific chemical compound, yet it has not been shown how on our
planet the first organic compound has actually started into existence."

Against this rather radical claim on the science of life might be
urged, that we do not precisely know how, for instance, carbonic acid
has naturally originated. But we will be told that one has only to
bring carbon, under certain known conditions, together with oxygen,
and that then carbonic acid will invariably result.

To this might again be replied that organic substances can also be

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

made to originate in the same manner ; that from inorganic material
Woehler produced urea, Strecker taurin, Kolbe acetic acid. etc.

However, I am perfectly aware that this is not the kind of infor-
mation which will satisfy the somewhat unscientific but historically
justifiable craving for positive and circumstantial enlightenment con-
cerning the origin of living substance. The desire is to understand
the genuine organic synthesis which has legitimately led to the for-
mation of such peculiar compounds as now actually manifest vital phe-
nomena.

With the protest, clearly defined, and well sustained in these pages,
that this question is not at all one of vitality, but merely one of specific
chemistry, I will venture a few tentative gropings. Their verification
would constitute not a biological but a purely chemical task.

The transformation of the inorganic into the organic world is at
present, so far as we are aware, exclusively accomplished by the medi-
ation of protoplasm, containing that peculiar kind of coloring-matter
to which the greenness of vegetation is due, and which has received
the name of chlorophyl. This chlorophyl-tinged protoplasm is the
substratum in which carbonic acid is deprived of its oxygen, and or-
ganically incorporated. Here, and here alone, organic substance ori-
ginates in Nature.1 It is the one magic gate through which the inor-
ganic effects its passage into the organic; the one transubstantiating
medium by which the death-like spell of inertness is broken and the
dormant energies of matter admitted to bloom forth into life.

By what agencies is this stupendous chemical feat, this vivifying
transmutation, wrought ? How is so signal a synthesis of material
constituents dynamically incited ? If we possessed no further knowl-
edge concerning this initial shaping of organic compounds, it might
be supposed that the chlorophyl-tinged protoplasm exerted some kind
of catalytic influence on carbonic acid, causing by its mere presence
decomposition of the same, and affording thereby to the free carbon an
opportunity of entering into the organic nexus. But it is far other-
wise— exceedingly more wonderful.

Prompted by Priestley's discovery of oxygen — the vivifying gas in-
haled by animals and exhaled by plants, and its contrast to carbonic
acid, the suffocating gas exhaled by animals and inhaled by plants —
the entire scientific world, during the first decades of the present cen-
tury, became deeply agitated by the recognition and elucidation of
what was called the chemical and pl^siological balance of organic
Nature."

It was taught — and to the present day this teaching forms the
groundwork of most physiological conceptions — that plants imbibe and

1 The experimental synthesis of organic compounds, found to be accomplished, under
certain artificial conditions, by normally parasitic organisms, containing no chlorophyl,
need not be taken into consideration in the above argument, however interesting in
itself it may otherwise prove to be.

M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 687

reduce carbonic acid furnished by animals, forming1 therefrom organic
compounds of high calorific value ; and that these food-compounds
reunite in the animal with the oxygen inhaled by it, yielding by this
combustion all the power exhibited in its vital manifestations.

While this — from our present point of view — fundamentally errone-
ous and most misleading conception exerted an all but universal sway
over scientific minds, it happened that, under its influence, so early as
1844, our illustrious and veteran scientist and philosophical historian,
Dr. John "W. Draper, succeeded in establishing, by a series of beauti-
ful experiments, a far deeper and vastly more essential connection in
Nature.

This connection, if I am not greatly mistaken, is destined to become
the redeeming thread by which Science will extricate itself from the
mechanical maze of rigid resistance and equivalent mass-motion. By
dint of so significant and mathematically available a clew, it may in
time reach a somewhat more commensurate recognition of effects
synthetically secured, of inherent cumulative elaboration, the unforfeit-
able boon of specific dynamical influences, which with restless toil are
ever busy, widening the scope of qualitative wealth, intensifying the
intestine sensitiveness and sympathetic response by which substances
inwardly answer the inward call of other svibstances.

The marvelously slender thread of vivifying connection, traced to
its origin by Draper, is an ethereal but most definite band of vital
dependence, absolute dependence. It is a truly promethean beam, for
without it no life, no fire on earth. You suppress from the entire
amount of solar influence — calorific, luminous, and chemical — solely the
yellow rays, and you have quenched life at its starting-point : no more
elaboration of organic compounds by chlorophyl-protoplasm, no more
food-supply, no more vitality. You have cut off the thread of life, the
golden band of union by which the still embryonic vitality of our planet
receives sustenance from the mighty parent-orb. This great discovery
of Draper the recent researches of Sachs and Pfeffer have only essen-
tially corroborated.

It is here, then, that the knot of organic complexity is being really
tied in Nature, and this is, therefore, the exact point at which the
mystery of organic synthesis has to be unraveled. A most specific
dynamical influence meets here in a peculiar preexisting substratum
with certain inferior matter, and under this confluence of conditions,
by a chemical process of reduction and substitution, molecular organi-
zation is effected.

In framing my hypothesis of the origin of organic compounds on
our globe, I would closely adhere to the above facts. After what I
have learned with regard to the yellow rays, I would not expect abo-
riginal organic synthesis to have taken place at the bottom of the sea,
where all dynamical influences must be dispersed, or so suffused as to
have lost their definite efficiency. • I would then imagine some probable

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

preexisting substratum — some compound of silicium, for instance.
Silicium is evidently a very wonderful substance, strangely like carbon
in many respects. It is capable of existing in at least as many similar
molecular modifications ; and, above all, some of its compounds, though
inorganic, occur in the colloid state.

It would not be an extravagant supposition to assume a film of
some such colloid compound of silicium floating on the top of the sea,
exposed to specific solar influences, imbibing carbonic acid from the
air, and being traversed by currents of sea-water, holding carbonate of
lime and other salts in solution. Under such favorable circumstances
it is not altogether improbable that carbon may have actually by de-
grees been chemically substituted for silicium, and that thus the first
hydrocarbons were allowed slowly to slide into existence.

When we consider what a prominent part silicious and cretaceous
organisms play in the history of our globe, it would not be so very
astonishing to learn that the inorganic substance has to be looked upon
as the original matrix, and not merely as the skeleton of such organisms.

There may have been an age in which silicium was the leading ele-
ment, followed by an age in which lime ruled organic composition,
followed again by an age in which Carbon and Company is the thriving
firm, to be supplanted by an age in which nitrogen will be foremost, till
this also is forced into the background by phosphorus, etc.

It would not be difficult to fill a volume with plausible reasonings
in support of the above nevertheless completely hypothetical concep-
tions. Side by side with the great and positive truths revealed by the
study of incipient motility, truths most scrupulously verified during
years of closest application, I would have grudged such fanciful conject-
ures even the little space here allotted to them, if it had not been my
intention to invoke their assistance by way of contrast.

It cannot be too forcibly impressed on all who take an earnest inter-
est in science that we have constantly to bear in mind the radical differ-
ence obtaining between verified scientific results and analogical scien-
tistic suggestions. The former represent tasks performed, the latter
tasks imposed. The former constitute our accredited store of premises,
on the ground of which we may with some safety indulge our reason-
ing propensities; the latter is the more or less skillful performance
under such reasoning license. To reason from premises not verified
as forming an integral part in the necessary enchainment of natural
events is, however, to move in a world of thought in no way contiguous
to the realm of science.

"Whoever, therefore, wishes to form an opinion regarding the truths
here advanced, whether they be in strict accordance with Nature, or
whether they be merely mistaken interpretations, need only to examine
monera for himself.

Motility is the key to the understanding of vitality and organization.
With little trouble any one can now convince himself that living motion

ELECTRICITY IN THUNDER-STORMS. 689

is actually accomplished by the operations which I have here dis-
closed.

A certain organic substance expands under chemical composition,
and afterward contracts under chemical decomposition. Its disintegra-
tion is incited by the dynamical influences of the medium ; its reinte-
gration is brought about by its own inherent chemical affinity, which
affinitive power effects its combination with complemental material
furnished by the medium.

In pursuing the inquiry here begun, the next step would be to show
how complications of these sundry phases of the one central fact of
motility lead to definite organization in various directions, and to the
rise of sensation.

♦**

ELECTEICITY IN THUNDEB-STOEMS.1

Br ELISHA FOOTE.

THE great development of electricity in thunder-storms has been a
subject of much speculation. Its explanation, however, is still an
unsettled question. Some views on this subject are presented in this
paper.

We have no evidence that the production of fogs or clouds — the
change from invisible to visible vapor, or from combined to uncombined
moisture — produces any electricity. All experiments to establish such
a supposition have had a negative result.

These particles of vapor we may suppose to be small spherules, each
with its normal portion of electricity that surrounds or occupies the sur-
face of the sphere. "When two of these particles unite and form one,
the combined particle will have twice the electricity of either of the sepa-
rate parts, but not twice the surface. There will then be an accumulation
of electricity upon the surface of the combined particle; and still more
will this be so when thousands of these spherules unite to form a drop of
water.

We may well conceive, therefore, that a cloud forming water should
become surcharged with electricity, that will escape in violent explosions
when the accumulation is too rapid or the circumstances are unfavor-
able to its being carried off by the surrounding moist air.

It is not, then, the formation of vapor, but its condensation to rain,
that produces thunder and lightning. And this, it is believed, accords
with all our experience. Clouds are constantly forming and disap-
pearing; fogs and vapors are accumulated in some places in great abun-
dance, but no electrical excitement has ever been observed. But, on
the other hand, there is never a flash of lightning without a manifest

1 Paper read before the Philosophical Society of Washington.
roL. xiii, — 44

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

deposition of rain. To this there is no exception. There is, indeed, a
manifest relation between the two. The more sudden and rapid the
condensation, the more violent and terrific the explosion.

Sometimes, in thunder-storms we hear a loud crash, and then, soon
after, comes an increased pouring down of water. Sound travels more
rapidly than rain, and, although the report reaches us first, the interval
between the events and the distance traveled plainly indicate that the
explosion succeeded the condensation ; and we naturally infer that it
was caused by it. The loud crash and simultaneous lightning show the
nearness of the explosion, at the origin of the rain-drops.

I next inquire whether we have experimental proofs corroborating
these views.

A few years since an accidental escape of steam from a steam-boiler
was found to strongly electrify a person who stood upon an insulator
and held one hand in the escaping steam. This excited much interest
at the time, and it was investigated by Armstrong and others, and led
to our present steam-boiler electrical machine. The phenomena were
at first supposed to throw much light upon the causes of atmospheric
electricity. The subject was subsequently taken up by Faraday, who
instituted a series of experiments, and came to a different conclusion.
His theory, using his own words, was : '

" The electricity is due to the friction of the particles of water which the
steam carries forward against the surrounding solid matter of the passage, . . .
and is in its nature like any other ordinary case of excitement by friction."

Again (section 2145), he says :

" Finally, I may say that the cause of the evolution of electricity by the lib-
eration of confined steam is not evaporation ; and, further, being I believe fric-
tion, it bas no effect in producing and is not connected with the general electricity
of the atmosphere."

The great authority of Faraday has made this, ever since, to be the
generally-accepted explanation of the phenomena. It may seem pre-
sumptuous to question it, but I cannot think that a careful examination
of his experiments will justify all of his conclusions.

Faraday's apparatus consisted of a small steam-boiler, which he in-
sulated, and for the discharge of steam he attached a pipe about four
feet long, terminating in an iron globe. This had an orifice to which
other appendages could be attached, and there was also a device for
injecting water into the exit-pipe. His first experiments were directed
to evaporation. He found that when the steam was at full pressure,
and the valve was suddenly raised and taken out, and the evaporation
was very rapid, no electricity was produced. He charged the boiler
with electricity by an electrical machine before the valve was raised,
and found that the escape of steam did not affect the charge. It was
hence inferred that no electricity was produced by evaporation.
1 "Researches in Electricity," vol. ii., section 2085.

ELECTRICITY IN THUNDER-STORMS. 691

The circumstances under which electricity was produced were the
next subjects of his inquiry, and he says (section 2084) :

" The issue of steam alone was not sufficient to evolve electricity. Attach-
ing appendages to the globe, with no water in it, after a few moments and when
the apparatus became hot, the issuing steam excited no electricity ; but when
the steam-globe was filled up with water so far that the rest of the condensed
water was swept forward with the steam, abundance of electricity appeared.
If then the globe was emptied of its water, the electricity ceased ; but, on filling
it up again to the proper height, it immediately reappeared in full force. So
when the feeder-apparatus was used, while there was no water in the passage,
there was no electricity ; but, on letting in water from the feeder, electricity was
immediately evolved.1'

It thus appears that, without water to condense the steam, there
was no electricity, but with condensation an abundance appeared.
Other experiments were to the same effect.

Faraday further says (section 2089) :

" If there be no water in the steam-globe upon opening the steam-cock, the
first effect is very striking: a good excitement of electricity takes place, but it
very soon ceases. This is due to the water condensed in the cold passages pro-
ducing excitement by rubbing against them. Thus, if the passage be a stopcock,
while cold it excites electricity with what is supposed to be steam only; but as
soon as it is hot the electricity ceases to be evolved ; if then, while the steam
is issuing, the cock be cooled by an insulated jet of water, it resumes its power.
If, on the other hand, it be made hot by a spirit-lamp before the steam be let
on, then there is no first effect. On this principle I have made an exciting pas-
sage by surrounding one part of the exit-tube with a little cistern, and putting
spirits of wine or water into it."

Experiments with air were also made. It was compressed within a
receiver and allowed to escape, impinging against ice or cones of wood
or brass (section 2129). With common undried air electricity was pro-
duced. He says :

" This I attributed to the particles of water suddenly condensed from the
expanding and cooled air rubbing against the metal or wood. Such particles
were very visible in the mist that appeared, and also by their effect of moisten-
ing the surface of the wood and metal. ... I proceeded to experiment with
dry air (artificially dried by absorbents), and found that it was in all cases quite
incapable of exciting electricity against wood or sulphur or brass in the form of
cones; yet if in the midst of these experiments I let out a portion of air imme-
diately after its compression, allowing it no time to dry, then it rendered the
rubbed wood or brass negative. This is to me a satisfactory proof that in the
former case the effect was due to the condensed water, and that neither air
alone nor steam alone can excite these bodies, wood, brass, etc., so as to produce
the effect now under investigation."

Under all circumstances, then, condensation produced electricity.
Without it there was none. The theory of friction is wholly unneces-
sary to the explanation of the phenomena. It has to assume that water,

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a conductor, rubbing against iron, another conductor, will accumulate
electricity. But this is opposed to our experience. It requires friction
with a non-conductor to excite electricity. We have instances daily
of the passage of water through pipes, sometimes with great force and
velocity. Did friction between the two excite electricity, it should be
produced in great quantities. But no such effect has been observed.

Mr. Patterson, who experimented with the same boiler that Arm-
strong used, tried the effect of blowing out water instead of steam
through a pipe from the boiler, and no electricity was thereby pro-
duced {Philosophical Magazine, vol. xvii., p. 459, 1840).

Were it indeed true, as Faraday assumed, that the friction of water
against the sides of the exit-pipe produced electricity, it would be con-
ducted away as fast as formed by the metallic tube to the negative
boiler. Indeed, when he placed in the tube any saline or acid sub-
stance that increased the conducting power of water, no electrical
effects were obtained. In some cases negative electricity, like that of
the boiler, was manifested.

I do not find, from an examination of Faraday's paper, that he made
any experiment upon steam at a distance from its exit, where its con-
densation to water mostly took place. His mode of experimenting he
describes as follows. He says (section 2082) :

" "When the issuing steam produces electricity, there are two ways of exam-
ining the effect. Either the insulated boiler may be observed or the steam ex-
amined ; but these states are always contrary one to the other. ... To examine
the state of the boiler or substance against which the steam is excited, is far
more convenient, as Mr. Armstrong has observed, than to go for the electricity
to the steam itself. And in this paper I shall give the state of the former, un-
less it be otherwise expressed."

I infer, therefore, that, in all the experiments hereinbefore detailed,
the tests for electricity were made at or near the boiler, and the very
important inquiry of the electrical effects at a distance, where conden-
sation alone was concerned, seems not to have attracted his attention.
This point, however, has been fully investigated by others.

Mr. Patterson attached ten or twelve pointed wires to a copper rod.
These were bent downward and held in the escaping steam. He says
(ibid., page 458) :

" The sparks were larger when the points of the conductor were held in tbe
steam about two feet above the valve ; but large sparks were obtained by hold-
ing the conductor entirely out of the cloud of steam and at a distance from it,
for the air in the wooden shed in which we operated became speedily electrical
throughout. The electricity was positive."

Mr. Armstrong also states (ibid., page 453) :

" Upon trying the steam in the first instance by the method adopted in the
previous cases, that is to say, by standing upon an insulated stool and holding
with one hand a light iron rod immediately above the safety-valve while the

ELECTRICITY IN THUNDER-STORMS. 693

steam was freely escaping, and then advancing the other hand toward any con-
ducting body, sparks of about an inch in length were obtained. But it was
soon observed that, by elevating the rod in the steam, the electricity was gradu-
ally increased, and that the maximum effect was not obtained until the end of
the rod was raised five or six feet above the valve, at which point the length of
the sparks occasionally reached two inches. Small sparks were even obtained
when the rod was wholly removed from the steam and held in the atmosphere
at the distance of two or three feet from the jet ; and the electricity thus drawn
from the air was positive like that of the steam. When the rod was extended
into the cloud of vapor which accumulated in the upper part of the shed, elec-
tricity was drawn down as by a lightning-conductor from a thunder-cloud."

These results seem to me to point out very clearly the cause of the
electrical excitement. If it were the friction of steam against the sides
of the exit-pipe, then at that point should be the greatest manifesta-
tion. If, on the contrary, it be condensation, then at a distance from
the exit, where the greatest condensation takes place, should be the
greatest development — and such is the fact. At the valve, Faraday
found no electricity. At five or six feet from it, according to Arm-
strong and to Patterson, its development was abundant. The conclu-
sion seems to me inevitable. All the facts point to condensation as
the cause of the excitement.

A phenomenon that occurs daily at Pike's Peak has been described
to me. The tops of the mountain, are covered with perpetual snow.
During the summer months the snow-line gradually recedes up the
sides of the mountain, and from it flow considerable streams of water,
that are finally lost in the plains below. The winds coming from the
prairies take up this moisture, and, ascending the mountain, reach the
frozen regions above. At about eleven o'clock each day, black clouds
begin to gather about the tops of the mountain, and soon thereafter
pour down floods of rain. Flashes of lightning are almost incessant,
with peals of thunder that seem to shake the mountains. I am in-
formed that we have nothing in Eastern States that can compare with
the terrific violence of these storms.

Here, certainly, is no friction, but condensation on a large scale ;
and it is attended with the same electrical effects that were observed in
the condensation of steam from the steam-boiler.

Volcanoes sometimes emit great volumes of steam and smoke, and
these are usually attended with flashes of lightning in every direction.
Were the electricity due to friction, it would be found at the mouth of
the crater, where the steam issues; but, instead of that, it is found on
the sides of the column, where the steam meets with colder air, and is
condensed to water. The effects are analogous in every respect to
those of steam from the steam-boiler.

In thunder-storms we have no friction, but condensation, and we
need not go beyond the usual effects of condensation to explain all the
electrical phenomena.

694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

CONSCIOUSNESS UNDER CHLOEOFOEM.

By HEEBEET SPENCEE.

A UNIVERSITY graduate, whose studies in psychology and phi-
losophy have made him an observer able to see the meanings of
his experiences, has furnished me with the following account of the
feelings and ideas that arose in him during loss of consciousness and
during return to consciousness. My correspondent, describing himself
as extremely susceptible to female beauty, explains that " the girl "
named in the course of the description was an unknown young lady in
the railway-carriage which brought him up to town to the dentist's.
He says his system resisted the influence of chloroform to such a de-
gree that it took twenty minutes to produce insensibility : the result
being that for a much longer time than usual he underwent partial
hyperesthesia instead of anaesthesia. After specifying some dreadful
sensations which soon arose he goes on to say :".... I began to be
terrified to such a wonderful extent as I would never before have
guessed possible. I made an involuntary effort to get out of the chair,
and then — suddenly became aware that I was looking at nothing:
while taken up by the confusion in my lungs, the outward things in
the room had gone, and I was ' alone in the dark.' I felt a force on
my arm (which did not strike me as the surgeon's ' hand,' but merely
as an external restraint) keeping me down, and this was the last straw
which made me give in, the last definite thing (smell, sound, sight, or
touch) I remembered outside my own body. Instantly I was seized
and overwhelmed by the panic inside. I could feel every air-cell strug-
gling spasmodically against an awful pressure. In their struggle they
seemed to tear away from one another in all directions, and there was
universal racking torture, while meantime the common foe, in the shape
of this iron pressure, kept settling down with more and more irresisti-
ble might into every nook and crevice of the scene. My consciousness
was now about this : I was not aware of anything but an isolated
scene of torture, pervaded by a hitherto unknown sense of terror (and
by what I have since learned is called ' the unity of consciousness : '
this never deserted the scene, even down to the very last inaudible
heart-beat). Yet I call it a ' scene,' because I recognized some differ-
ent parts of my body, and felt that the pain in one part was not the
same as that in another. Meanwhile, along with the increased inten-
sity of convulsion in my lungs, an element of noise had sprung up. A
chaotic roaring ran through my brain, innumerable drums began to
beat far inside my ear, till the confusion presently came to a monstrous
thudding, every thud of which wounded me like a club falling repeat-
edly on the same spot. . . .

" From this stage my lungs ceased to occupy me, and I forget how

CONSCIOUSNESS UNDER CHLOROFORM. 695

the struggle finished. There was a sense of comparative relief that, at
any rate, one force was victorious, and the distraction over ; the strange,
large fright that had seized me so entirely when I felt myself ensnared
into dark suffocation was now gone also, and there was only left the
huge thudding at my ears, and the terribly impetuous stroke of my
heart. The thudding gradually got less acutely painful, and less loud ;
I remember a recognition of satisfaction that one more fearful disturb-
ance was gone. But, while the thunder in my ear was thus growing
duller, all of a sudden my heart sprang out with a more vivid flash of
sensation than any of those previous ones. The force of an express-
engine was straining there, and like a burning ball it leaped from side
to side, faster and faster, hitting me with such a superhuman earnest-
ness that I felt each time as if the iron had entered my soul, and it
was all over with me forever. (Not that ' I ' was now any more than
this burning-hot heart and the walled space in which it was making its
strokes : the rest of 'me' had gone unobserved out of focus.) Every
stroke produced exquisite pain on the flesh against which it beat glow-
ing, and there was a radiation, as from a molten lump of metal be-
tween inclosures. Presently the unbearable heat got less, and there
was nothing remaining except a pendulous movement, slackening
speed, and not painful. Of nothing beyond was I conscious but this
warm body vibrating : not a single other part of me was left, and
there was not a single other movement of any sort to attract my at-
tention. A fading sense of infinite leisure at last, in a dreamy, inau-
dible air ; then all was hushed out of notice.

" . . . . There was the breaking of a silence that might have been
going on forever in the utterly dark air. An undisturbed, empty quiet
was everywhere, except that a stupid presence lay like a heavy intru-
sion somewhere — a blotch on the calm. This blotch became more in-
harmonious, more distinctly leaden ; it was a heavier pressure — it is
actually intruding farther — and, before almost there was time to won-
der feebly how disagreeable was this interruption of untroubled quiet,
it had loomed out as something unspeakably cruel and woful. For a
bit there was nothing more than this profoundly cruel presence, and
my recognition 1 of it. It seemed unutterably monstrous in its nature,
and I felt it like some superhuman injustice; but so entire had been
the still rest all round before its shadow troubled me, that I had no
notion of making the faintest remonstrance. ... It got worse. . . .
Just as the cruelty and injustice became so unbearable that I hardly
could take it in, suddenly it came out a massive, pulsating painy and I
was all over one tender wound, with this dense pain probing me to
my deepest depths. I felt one sympathetic body of atoms, and at each
probe of the pain every single atom was forced by a tremendous press-
ure into all the rest, while every one of them was acutely tender, and

1 If there were a noun belonging to the verb " To be aware of," like " recognition "
to " recognize," it would be the one to use here.

696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shrank from the wound — only there was nowhere to shrink. A little
before, I had merely felt the cruel element in helpless passivity ; now,
a still more crushing probe came ; for an instant it forced all my atoms
into one solid steel-mass of intense agony — then, when things couldn't
go much farther, and all must be over, a sense of reaction emerged;
there was a loosening, and I was urged into relief by uttering from my
very depths what seemed not so much (at first) a piteous remonstrance
as a piteous ' expression ' (like an imitation) of the pain : in fact, the
sense of woe had got also outside, and I heard it, a very low, infinitely
genuine, moan. . . . The next second there was a change : hitherto it
had been pain partout — now there came a quick concentration, the
pain all ran together (like quicksilver), and I suddenly was aware that
it was (localized) up on the right; while, simultaneously with this
recognition of locality, a feeling of incipient resistance began to be in
other parts (not that I felt them except just as other parts) of me from
which the pain had receded. The pain itself was no less intense, rather
more vivid, only I seemed to take it in a more lively manner : my ut-
tering of a moan was no longer a mere faithful representation out into
the air of what was inside me, but I had a slight sense of making an
appeal for sympathy : to whom or to what I did not know, for there
was no one or anything there. I was just going to utter a yet louder
moan — as a fresh, fearful imposition of force plunged into me — when,
there in front of me, to the left of my pain, was that girl, with those
lovely ankles, and the graceful, Zingari brown stockings. ... I felt,
as distinctly as if some one had told me aloud, that I would not make
any cry, that it was not the thing.

. " Now came an agonizing, cold wrench, and two or three more suc-
cessively, in such a hideously rough fashion, that the girl went, and
everything was tortured out of me but the darkness and the gigantic
racking, swaying torture which was excruciating my right side. An
iron force, like a million-horse power, had hold of me, and I was being
pulled upward and out of where I was, while I myself seemed another
million-horse power which would not be pulled : the pain was some-
thing to be remembered. But up I came, the darkness got denser (I
went so fast) ; it was vibrating, the dense agony vibrated faster ; I
was quivering, struggling, kicking out ; everything was a convulsion of
torture, my head seemed to come to the surface, a glimpse of light and
air broke on the darkness, voices came through to me, and words ; I
recognized that a ' tooth ' was being slowly twisted out of my jaw, then
I groaned imploringly, in true earthly style, as if this was too much,
and I ought to be let alone now I Avas getting my head out ; then I
swallowed in air, made an exertion with my 'chest,' found my 'arms '
were pressing something hard, grasped the ' chair,' and pushed myself
up out in bewildered light, just as the dentist threw away the second
right molar from the upper jaw."

Concerning this account it may be remarked, on the one hand, that

CONSCIOUSNESS UNDER CHLOROFORM. 697

the higher consciousness seems not to have been wholly abolished ;
since there remained certain emotions and certain most general ideas
of relation to objective agents. On the other hand, it is to be doubted
whether the partial consciousness which the narrator had during anaes-
thesia is not, in the description, eked out in some measure by the
ideas of his recovered consciousness carried back to them. Be this as
it may, however, it is clear that certain components of consciousness
disappeared and others became extremely vague, while a remainder
continued tolerably distinct. And there is much significance in the re-
lations among them : 1. There ceased earliest the sensations derived
from the special senses ; then the impression of force acting on the body
from without ; and, simultaneously, there ceased the consciousness of
external space-relations. 2. There remained a vague sense of relative
position within the body ; which, gradually fading, left at last only a
sense of those space-relations implied by consciousness of the heart's
pulsations. 3. And this cluster of related sensations produced by the
heart's action finally constituted the only remaining distinct portion
of the ego. 4. In the returning consciousness we note first a sense
of pressure somewhere / there was no consciousness of space-relations
within the body. 5. The consciousness of this was not a cognition
proper. In an accompanying letter my correspondent says of it : " ' Rec-
ognition' seems to imply installation in some previously-formed con-
cept (talking in the Kantian way), and this is just what was not the
case : " that is, consciousness was reduced to a state in which there
was not that classing of states whioh constitutes thought. 6. The
pain into which the pressure was transformed was similarly universal
instead of local. 7. When the pain became localized, its position in
space was vague : it was " up on the right." 8. Concerning the ap-
parition of "the girl," which, as my correspondent remarks, seems to
have occurred somewhat out of the probable order, he says, in a let-
ter : " I did not recognize her ' under any concept ' — what I saw seemed
to be almost unassisted intuition in the Kantian sense." 9. The local-
ization of the pain was at first the least possible — the consciousness
was of that part versus all other parts unlocalized.

These experiences furnish remarkable verifications of certain doc-
trines set forth in the " Principles of Psychology." This degradation
of consciousness by chloroform, abolishing first the higher faculties and
descending gradually to the lowest, may be considered as reversing
that ascending genesis of consciousness which has taken place in the
course of evolution ; and the stages of descent may be taken as showing,
in opposite order, the stages of ascent. It is significant, therefore, that
impressions from the special senses ceasing early, leave behind, as the
last impression derived from without, the sense of outer force con-
ceived as opposed by inner resistance ; for this we have seen to be the
primordial element of consciousness. Again, the fact that the conscious-
ness of external space disappeared simultaneously with the conscious-

698 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ness of external force, answers to the conclusion drawn that space-
ideas are built out of experiences of resistant positions, the relations
among which are measured by sensations of muscular effort. Further,
there is meaning in the fact that a vague sense of relative position with-
in the body survived ; since we concluded that by mutual exploration
there is gained that knowledge of the relations among the parts of the
body which gives measures through which the developed knowledge
'of surrounding space is reached. Once more we get evidence that
the ego admits of being progressively shorn of its higher components,
until finally the sensations produced by the beating of the heart re-
main alone to constitute the conscious self: showing, in the first place,
that the conscious self, at any moment, is really compounded of all the
states of consciousness, presentative and representative, then existing,
and showing, in the second place, that it admits of being simplified
so far as to lose most of the elements composing the consciousness
of corporeal existence. Whence it is inferable that self-conscious-
ness begins as a mere rudiment consisting of present sensations,
without past or future. Lastly, we have the striking testimony that
there exists a form of consciousness lower than that which the lowest
kind of thought shows us. The simplest intellectual act implies the
knowing something as such or such — implies the consciousness of it as
like something previously experienced, or, otherwise, as belonging to
a certain class of experiences. But we here get evidence of a stage so
low that a received impression remains in consciousness unclassed :
there is a passive reception of it, and an absence of the activity re-
quired to know it as such or such.

-♦*♦-

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES.

By Dr. HENEY MAUDSLEY

BY hallucination is meant, in scientific phraseology, such a false
perception of one or other of the senses as a person has when he
sees, hears, or otherwise perceives as real what has no outward exist-
ence— that is to say, has no existence outside his own mind, is entirely
subjective. The subject is one which has special medical interest ; but
it will be seen to have also a large general interest, when it is remem-
bered how momentous a part hallucinations have played sometimes at
critical periods of human history. Take, for example, the mighty work
which was done in the deliverance of France from English dominion by
a peasant-girl of eighteen — Joan of Arc, the famous Maid of Orleans,
who was inspired to her mission by the vision which she saw, and the
commands which she heard, of St. Michael and other holy persons.
Now, as there are few persons nowadays who believe that St. Michael

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 699

really appeared to this enraptured maiden, and as few, if any, will
doubt that she herself sincerely believed that he did, one must needs
suppose that her visions were hallucinations generated by the enthusi-
asm of a mind which was in a singularly exalted strain of religious and
patriotic feeling.

The special medical interest of the subject lies in this — that there
are a great many persons in the world who, suffering under some form
or other of nervous disorder, habitually see figures or faces, hear threat-
ening or insulting voices, even feel blows and taste poisons, which
have no existence outside their own minds ; and neither argument
nor demonstration of the impossibility of what they allege they per-
ceive will shake their convictions in the least. " You assure me,"
they will say, " that I am mistaken ; that there are no such persons as
I see, no such voices as I hear ; but I protest to you that I see and
hear them as distinctly as I see and hear you at this moment, and that
they are just as real to me." What are we to reply ? I have replied
sometimes, that " as you are alone on one side in your opinion, and all
the world is on the other side, I must needs think, either that you are
an extraordinary genius, far in advance of the rest of the world, or that
you are a madman a long way behind it ; and, as I don't think you to
be a genius, I am bound to conclude that your senses are disordered."
But the argument does not produce the least effect.

Let me give an example or two of the character of these hallucina-
tions, and of their persistence in minds that might be thought sane
enough to correct them. The first shall be that of an old gentleman
who was much distressed because of an extremely offensive smell which
he imagined to proceed from all parts of his body : there was not the
least ground, in fact, for this imagination. He was scrupulously clean
in person, extremely courteous in manner, thoroughly rational in his
conversation on every other subject, a shrewd and clever man of busi-
ness ; no one talking with him would for a moment have suspected him
of entertaining such extraordinary fancies. Nevertheless, his life was
made miserable by them ; he would not go into society, but took soli-
tary rambles in the country, where he might meet as few persons as
possible ; in his own house he slept for the first part of the night on
the ground- floor, mounting up higher at a later period of the night ;
and this he did to prevent the bad odors from becoming too concen-
trated in one room. He believed that the people in the next house
were irritated and offended by the emanations, for he often heard them
moving about and coughing ; and, when he passed a cab-stand in the
street, he noticed that even the horses became restless and fidgeted.
He used to hang his clothes out of the window at night that they might
get pure, until his housekeeper put a stop to the practice by telling
him that the exhibition of them would excite the notice and comment
of his neighbors. All the while he was conducting his business with
propriety and success ; his own partners had no suspicion of his concli.

7oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion. Knowing this, I asked him how it was that no one of the many
persons whom he met daily in business had ever complained of any bad
smell, and the answer he made was that they were all too polite to do
so, but he could see that they were affected nevertheless, as they some-
times put their handkerchiefs to their noses — no doubt for a quite
innocent purpose.

Another gentleman was the victim of a very common hallucination :
he was much afflicted by voices, which were continually speaking to
him at all times and all places — in the quietude of his room and in the
crowded streets, by night and by day. He had come to the conclusion
that they must be the voices of evil spirits in the air which tormented
him. They knew his thoughts, and replied to them before he had him-
self conceived them ; the remarks which they made were always an-
noying, often threatening and abusive, and sometimes most offensive
and distressing, and they disturbed him so much at night that he got
very little sleep. He had been driven to the expedient of buying a
musical-box, which he placed under his pillow when he went to bed.
The noise of the music drowned the noise of the tormenting voices,
and enabled him to get to sleep ; but, as he said, the measure was not
entirely satisfactory, because when the box had played out its tunes, it
stopped, and he was obliged to wind it up again. It was impossible to
persuade this gentleman, sensible as he seemed in other respects, that
the voices had no real existence, and that they were due to the dis-
ordered state of his nervous system. After listening attentively to my
arguments, he went away sorrowful, feeling that I had no help for him.
I may remark, by-the-way, that auditory hallucinations of this kind are
apt to occur in prisoners who are subjected to long periods of solitary
confinement in their cells : thev have no mental resources to fall back
upon, and their brooding thoughts, not being distracted by the con-
versation of others, nor having their usual outlet in their own con-
versation, become audible by them as actual voices.

I might relate many more examples, but these will suffice. Each
sense may of course be affected, and sight stands next to hearing in its
liability to suffer. In delirium tremens, hallucinations of sight are
characteristic features ; the patient commonly sees reptiles and vermin
in his room, serpents crawling over the floor, rats and mice running
over his bed, and pushes them away in a state of restless agitation. In
some forms of insanity, the sufferer mistakes persons, believing entire
strangers to be near friends or relations ; or, again, he may see a per-
son, whom he imagines to be his persecutor, escape from the house,
when there was really no such person, and buy a revolver, to be ready
for him when next he comes prowling about ; and in one form of the
deepest melancholy, which is known as melancholia attonita, he has
sometimes terrible hallucinations — sees, probably, a deep abyss of roar-
ing flames or a vast sea of blood immediately in front of him, and will
not make the least movement, lest he should be precipitated headlong

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 701

into it. There can be no doubt of the mental disorder of persons who
suffer in this way, but it must not be supposed that hallucinations of
sight do not occur to persons who are free from mental disorder. I
cannot help thinking that they furnish the explanation of the firm be-
lief in ghosts and apparitions which has prevailed among all nations
and in all times. A belief so universal must have some deep foundation
in the facts of Nature or in the constitution of man. One may freely
admit that persons have seen apparitions and have heard voices which
they thought to be supernatural ; but, inasmuch as seeing is one thing,
and the interpretation thereof quite another thing, it may be right to
conclude that they were nothing more than hallucinations, and that the
reason why no ghosts are seen now, when people pass through church-
yards on dark nights, as our forefathers saw them, is that ghosts are
not believed in nowadays, while we have gained a knowledge of the
nature of hallucinations, and of the frequency of their occurrence,
which our forefathers had not.

One does not fail to notice, when proper attention is given to the
subject, a fact which is full of meaning, viz., that the apparitions which
have been seen at different ages were in harmony with the dominant
ideas or beliefs of the age. It is not probable that any one could be
found at the present day to affirm that he had seen an old woman riding
through the air on a broomstick to a witches' meeting, because the belief
in witchcraft is happily wellnigh extinct ; but two or three hundred
years ago, when it would have been thought something like blasphemy
to doubt the being and doings of witches, persons of character and
veracity might have been found to avouch it solemnly. In like manner,
apparitions of Satan were not very uncommon in the middle ages to
persons who, like Luther, were in earnest spiritual conflict with him ;
but there is no instance on record, so far as I know, of such an appari-
tion having ever been seen by an ancient Greek or Roman. The Satan
of the middle ages who gave Luther so much trouble had not then been
invented. Spirits, ghosts, then, and all apparitions of the same kind,
I was prepared to have pronounced unhesitatingly to have been hallu-
cinations, which would be found on examination to reflect pretty fairly
the prevailing ideas of the time concerning the supernatural ; but it
occurred to me that it might be prudent, before doing that, to consult
the article on apparitions in the latest edition of the " Encyclopaedia
Britannica," lest perchance I should be outrunning current authority ;
and I have there discovered, to my no small surprise, that it is still an
open question whether invisible inhabitants of the unknown world did
not take human or other shapes and become visible to men. The writer
of the article plainly inclines to the opinion that they do, and that
there is more in the matter than science has yet dreamed of. So also
think the spiritualists.

I now go on to consider the mode of production of hallucinations.
At the first blush there might seem to be a great gap between such

702 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

false perceptions of the senses as I have given examples of and the
faithfully-serving senses of a person who is in good health of mind and
body. But here, as elsewhere, in Nature we find, when we look closely
into the matter, that there is no break ; we may be pretty sure, per-
haps, that, when we say of any phenomenon, however strange, that it
is singular and quite unlike anything else in the world, we are mis-
taken, and that we shall not fail to discover other things like it if we
search intelligently. Certainly we can trace gradational states between
the most extreme hallucinations and such temporary disorders of the
senses as healthy persons often have. Let any one stoop down with
his head hanging low for a minute, and when he raises it he will have,
besides a feeling of giddiness, a sound of singing or of ringing in his
ears, and may see a flash or two of light before his eyes ; and there are
some persons who, under such circumstances, see actual figures for the
moment. These sensations are hallucinations ; there is no light, nor
sound, nor figure, outside to cause them ; they are owing to the stimu-
lation of their respective nerve-centres by a congestion of blood in the
brain, which has been produced by the hanging down of the head.
Here, then, we have hallucinations that are consistent with the best
health ; they are due to temporary causes of disturbance of the circula-
tion, and disappear as they disappear. Going a step further, we may
watch at the beginning of a fever how gradually the hallucinations take
hold of the mind, until their true nature is not recognized. At first
the fever-patient is quite aware of his actual surroundings, knowing
the persons and objects about him, and when strange faces seem to ap-
pear among the familiar faces, as they do, he knows that they are not
real, and will talk of them as visions ; perhaps they occur at first only
when his eyes are shut, or when the room is dark, and vanish directly
he opens his eyes or the room is lit up. After a while they come more
often, and whether his eyes are shut or not ; he becomes uncertain
whether they are real or not, assenting when he is told that they are
phantoms, but falling back immediately into doubt and uncertainty.
At last they get entire mastery of him, he cannot distinguish in the
least between them and real figures, discourses with them as if they
were real — is wildly delirious.

If the nature of the process by which we perceive and know an
external object be considered, it will be seen that it is much easier to
have a false perception than might appear at first sight. When we
look at any familiar object — say a cat or a dog — we seem to see at
once its shape, its size, its smoothness of coat, and the other qualities
by which we know it to be a cat or a dog, but we don't actually see
anything of the kind. The proof is that, if a person blind from his
birth, who knew the cat and dog perfectly well by touch, were to ob-
tain sight by means of a surgical operation when he was thirty years
old, he would not know by sight alone either cat or dog, or be able to
tell which was which. But, if he were permitted to touch the animals,

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 703

ne would recognize them instantly, and ever afterward the impression
which they produce on sight would be associated with the impression
which they produce on touch, and he would know them when he saw
them. That is the way in which the perception of a particular object
is formed — by the association of all the sensations which it is adapted
to excite in our different senses, their combination in what we call an
idea. For example, in the idea of an orange are combined the sensa-
tions which we get by tasting it, by touching it, by smelling it, by
looking at it, by handling it, each sensation having been acquired by
its particular sense in the course of an education which has been going
on ever since we were born ; when we have got them in that way, they
combine to form the idea of the orange ; and it is by virtue of this idea,
which has been formed and registered in the mind, that we are able to
think of an orange, that is, to form a mental image of it, when it is not
present to any sense, and to recognize it instantly when it is. It is
plain, then, how large a part, by virtue of its past experience, the mind
contributes to each perception ; when we look at an orange it tacitly
supplies to the impression which it makes on sight all the information
about it which we have got at different times by our other senses, and
which sight does not in the least give us ; the visual impression is no
more in truth than a sign to which experience has taught us to give its
proper meaning, just as the written or spoken word in any language is
a sign which is meaningless until we have been taught what to mean
by it. So true it is that the eye only sees what it brings the faculty of
seeing, and that many persons have eyes, yet see not.

This being so, it is clear that the idea in the mind will very much
affect the perception, and that if any one goes to look at something,
or to taste something, or to feel something, with a strongly-precon-
ceived idea of what it is, he will be likely, if it is not what he thinks
it, to have a mistaken perception — to see, or feel, or touch, what he
thinks it is, not what it really is. This is, indeed, one of the most
common causes of erroneous observation, and one which the scientific
observer knows well he must always vigilantly guard against. If a
man has a foregone conclusion of what he will see, it is not safe to
trust his observation implicitly, either in science or in common life.
We witness the most striking examples of this dominion of the idea
over sense in persons who have been put into the so-called mesmeric
state. The operator gives them simple water to taste, telling them at
the same time that it is some nauseating and bitter mixture, and they
spit it out with grimaces of disgust when they attempt to drink it ;
when he tells them what he offers them is sweet and pleasant, though
it is as bitter as wormwood, they smack their lips as if they had tasted
something remarkably good ; if assured that a swarm of bees is buzz-
ing about them, they are in the greatest trepidation, and go through
violent antics to beat them off. Their senses are dominated by the
idea suggested, and they are very much in the position of an insane

704 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

person who believes that he tastes poison in his food when he imaoines
that some one wishes to poison him, or sees an enemy lurking about
his premises when he believes himself to be the victim of perse-
cution.

Here, then, we are brought to one efficient cause of hallucinations
— namely, a vividly -conceived idea which is so intense that it appears
to be an actual perception, a mental image so vivid that it becomes a
visual image. Everybody knows that the idea or imagination of a
sensation will sometimes cause a person to feel the sensation ; the
mention or the sight of certain little insects which inhabit the bodies
of uncleanly persons seldom fails to make the skin itch uncomfortably.
John Hunter said of himself, " I am confident that I can fix my atten-
tion to any part until I have a sensation in that part." Sir Isaac
Newton could call up a spectrum of the sun when he was in the dark,
by intense direction of his mind to the idea of it, " as when a man
looks earnestly to see a thing which is difficult to be seen." Dickens
used to allege that he sometimes heard the characters of his novels
actually speak to him ; and a great French novelist declared that, when
he wrote the description of the poisoning of one of his characters, he
had the taste of arsenic so distinctly in his mouth that he was himself
poisoned, had a severe attack of indigestion, and vomited all his din-
ner— a most pregnant proof of the power of imagination over sense,
because arsenic has scarcely an appreciable taste beyond being sweet-
ish ! Artists sometimes have, in an intense form, the faculty of such
vivid mental representation as to become mental presentation. It was
very notable in that extraordinary genius, William Blake, poet and
painter, who used constantly to see his conceptions as actual images or
visions. " You have only," he said, " to work up imagination to the
state of vision, and the thing is done." The power is, without doubt,
consistent with perfect sanity of mind, although it may be doubtful
whether a person who thought it right for himself and his wife to imi-
tate the naked innocence of paradise in the back-garden of a Lambeth
house, as Blake did, was quite sane ; but too frequent exercise of the
power is full of peril to the mind's stability. A person may call up
images in this way, and they will come, but he may not be able to dis-
miss them, and they may haunt him when he would gladly be rid of
them. He is like the sorcerer who has called spirits from the vasty
deep, and has forgotten the spell by which to lay them again. Dr.
Wigan tells of a skillful painter whom he knew, who assured him that
he had once painted three hundred portraits in one year. The secret
of his rapidity and success was, that he required but one sitting and
painted with wonderful facility. " When a sitter came," he said, " I
looked at him attentively for half an hour, sketching from time to time
on the canvas. I wanted no more ; I put away my canvas and took
another sitter. When I wished to resume my first portrait, I took the
man and set him in the chair, where I saw him as distinctly as if he had

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 705

been before me in his own proper person — I may almost say more viv-
idly. I looked from time to time at the imaginary figure, then worked
with my pencil, then referred to the countenance, and so on, just as I
should have done had the sitter been there. When I looked at the
chair I saw the man. . . .. Gradually I began to lose the distinction
between the imaginary figure and the real person, and sometimes dis-
puted with sitters that they had been with me the day before. At last
I was sure of it, and then — and then — all is confusion. I suppose
they took the alarm. I recollect nothing more. I lost my senses —
was thirty years in an asylum. The whole period, except the last six
months of my confinement, is a dead blank in my memory."

Or, if the person does not go out of his mind, he may be so dis-
tressed by the persistence of the apparition which he has created as to
fall into melancholy and despair, and even to commit suicide.

" I knew," says the same author, " a very intelligent and amiable
man, who had the power of thus placing before his own eyes himself,
and often laughed heartily at his double, who always seemed to laugh
in turn. This was long a subject of amusement and joke ; but the
ultimate result was lamentable. He became gradually convinced that
he was haunted by himself. This other self would argue with him
pertinaciously, and, to his great mortification, sometimes refute him,
which, as he was very proud of his logical powers, humiliated him
exceedingly. He was eccentric, but was never placed in confinement,
or subjected to the slightest restraint. At length, worn out by the
annoyance, he deliberately resolved not to enter on another year of
existence — paid all his debts, wrapped up in separate papers the
amount of the weekly demands, waited, pistol in hand, the night of
the 31st of December, and as the clock struck twelve fired it into his
mouth."

Were illustrations needed of the production of hallucination by the
intensity of the conception, I might take them from Shakespeare, who
has given many instances of these " coinages of the brain " which, he
says truly, ecstasy is very cunning in. Hamlet, perturbed by the ap-
parition of his father's ghost, whose commands he was. neglecting,
bends his eyes on vacancy and holds discourse with the incorporeal
air. A dagger, sensible to sight but not to feeling, points Macbeth
the way to the bed where lay Duncan whom he was about treacherously
to stab; he attempts to clutch it, exclaiming justly when he grasps

nothing :

" . . . . There^s no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes.1'

In the well-known passage in which he compares the imaginations of
the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Shakespeare sets forth the very
manner of the production of hallucinations, and illustrates the grada-
tions of the process :
vol. xni. — 45

7o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

" The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold ;
That is the madman : the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt :
The poet's eye, in a tine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name."

Or I might adduce the case of the great Protestant Reformer, Luther,
who is said — I know not how truly — to have thrown his inkstand at
the devil on one occasion ; at any rate the mark of the ink is still
shown on the wall of the chamber which Luther occupied. True or
not, there is nothing improbable in the story ; for Luther, though en-
dowed with great sagacity and extraordinary intellectual energy, enter-
tained the common notions of the personality and the doings of the
devil which were current among the people of his age. He pictured
him very much as a Saxon peasant pictured him. It was the devil,
he believed, who caused a great storm, and he declared that idiots,
the blind, the lame, and the dumb, were persons in -whom devils had
established themselves, and that physicians who tried to cure their
infirmities as though they proceeded from natural causes were igno-
rant blockheads who knew nothing of the power of the demon. He
speaks of the devil coming into his cell and making a great noise
behind the stove, and of his hearing him walking in the cloister above
his cell in the night ; " but as I knew it was the devil," he says, " I
paid no attention to him, and went to sleep."

This, then, is one way in which hallucination is produced — by the
downward action of idea upon sense. My illustrations of this mode
of production have been taken from sane minds, but the hallucina-
tions of the insane are oftentimes generated in the same way. A
person of shy, suspicious, and reserved nature, who imagines that
people are thinking or speaking ill of him or going out of their way
to do him harm, nurses his habit of moody suspicion until it grows to
be a delusion that he is the victim of a conspiracy ; he then sees evi-
dence of it in the innocent gestures and words of friends with whom
he holds intercourse, of servants who wait upon him, and of persons
who pass him in the streets ; these he misinterprets entirely, seeing in
them secret signs, mysterious threats, criminal accusations. It may
be pointed out to him that the words and gestures were perfectly
natural and innocent, and that no one but himself can perceive the
least offense in them ; his belief is not touched by the demonstration,
for his senses are enslaved by the dominant idea, and work only in its
service. Sometimes an insane patient, who tastes poison in his food

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 707

and refuses it when it is given to him by one attendant whom he sus-
pects of poisoning him, will take the same food from another attend-
ant, of whom he has no suspicion, without tasting any poison — a proof
how much the morbid idea perverts his taste. There is a form of in-
sanity, known as general paralysis, which is marked by an extraordi-
nary feeling of elation and by the most extravagant delusions of wealth
or grandeur, and the patient who labors under it often picks up peb-
bles, pieces of broken glass, and the like, which he hoards as priceless
jewels : there is another form of insanity known as melancholia, which
is marked by an opposite feeling of profound mental depression and
corresponding gloomy delusions, and the patient who labors under its
worst form sometimes sees devils in those who minister to him, hears
jeers in their consoling words, and imagines torments in their anxious
attentions. In each case the hallucinations reflect the dominant mor-
bid feelings and ideas.

A second way in which hallucinations appear to originate is di-
rectly in the organ of sense or in its sensory ganglion, which for pres-
ent purposes I may consider as one. Stimulation of the organ or of its
ganglion will undoubtedly give rise to hallucination : a blow on the
eye makes a person see sparks of fire or flashes of light, a blow on the
ear makes his ears ring ; in fact, any organ of sense, when irritated
either by a direct stimulus to its nerve-centre, or by a perverted state
of the blood which circulates through it, will have the same sensation
aroused in it, no matter what the stimulus, as is produced by its natural
stimulus. We can irritate the sensory ganglion directly by introducing
certain poisonous substances into the blood, and so occasion hallucina-
tions : for example, when a person is poisoned with belladonna (deadly
nightshade) he smiles and stares and grasps at imaginary objects which
he sees before him, and is delirious. Other drugs will produce similar
effects. A French physiologist has made a great many experiments in
poisoning dogs with alcohol by injecting it into their veins, and he has
found that he can arouse in them very vivid hallucinations : the dog
will start up, perhaps, with savage glare, stare at the blank wall, bark
furiously, and seem to rush into a furious fight with an imaginary dog ;
after a time it ceases to fight, looks in the direction of its imaginary
adversary, growling once or twice, and settles down quietly.

The hallucinations which occur in fevers and in some other bodily
diseases evidently proceed directly from disorder of the sensory cen-
tres, and not from the action of morbid idea upon sense ; for we have
seen that before they are fixed the intellect struggles against them suc-
cessfully and holds them in check. A well-known and instructive in-
stance of hallucinations, due to bodily causes, and which did not affect
the judgment, is that of Nicolai, a bookseller of Berlin, who, being a
person of great intelligence, observed his state carefully and has given
an interesting account of it. He had been exposed to a succession of
severe trials which had greatly affected him, when, after an incident

7o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which particularly agitated and distressed him, he suddenly saw at the
distance often paces a figure — the standing figure of a deceased per-
son. He asked his wife if she could not see it, but she, as she saw
nothing, was alarmed and sent for a physician. When he went into
another room it followed him. After troubling him for a day it dis-
appeared, but was followed by several other distinct figures ; some of
them the figures of persons he knew, but most of them of persons he
did not know. " After I had recovered," he says, " from the first im-
pression of terror, I never felt myself particularly agitated by these
apparitions, as I considered them to be what they really were — the ex-
traordinary consequences of indisposition ; on the contrary, I endeav-
ored as much as possible to preserve my composure of mind, that I
might remain distinctly conscious of what passed within me." He could
trace no connection between the figures and his thoughts, nor could he
call up at his own pleasure the phantoms of acquaintances which he
tried to call up by vivid imagination of them ; however accurately and
intensely he pictured their figures to his mind, he never once succeeded
in his desire to see them externally, although the figures of these very
persons would often present themselves involuntarily. He saw the
figures when alone and in company, in the daytime and in the night ;
when he shut his eyes they sometimes disappeared, sometimes not ;
they were as distinct as if they were real beings, but he had no trouble
in distinguishing them from real figures. After four weeks they began
to speak, sometimes to one another, but most often to him : their
speeches were short and not disagreeable. Being recommended to lose
some blood, he consented. During the operation the room swarmed
with human figures, but a few hours afterward they moved more slowly,
became gradually paler, and finally vanished. This example proves
very clearly that a person may be haunted with apparitions, and yet
observe them and reason about their nature as sanely as any indifferent
outsider could do. It illustrates very well, too, the second mode of
origin ; for it is reasonable to suppose that they were produced by con-
gestion of blood in the brain acting upon the sensory centres, and that
they were dissipated by the removal of the congestion by bloodletting,
This is the more probable, as cases have been recorded in which the
suppression of an habitual discharge of blood from the body has been
followed by hallucinations, and others again in which hallucinations
have been cured by the abstraction of blood.

Exhaustion of the nerve-centres themselves by excessive fatigue,
mental and bodily, or by starvation, or by disease, will cause a person
to see visions sometimes. I may call to mind the well-known case of
Brutus, who, as he sat alone at night in his tent before the decisive
battle of Philippi, rapt in meditation, saw on raising his eyes a mon-
strous and horrible spectre standing silently by his side. " Who art
thou?" he asked. The spectre answered: "I am thy evil genius,
Brutus. Thou wilt see me at Philippi." He replied, " I will meet thee

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. -09

there." The religious ascetic who withdrew himself from the society
of men to some solitary place in the desert or to some cave in the hills,
there passing his lonely life in prayer and meditation, and mortifying
his body with long fastings and frequent scourgings, brought himself
to such a state of irritable exhaustion that he commonly saw, according
to his mood of feeling, either visions of angels and saints who consoled
him in his sufferings, or visions of devils who tempted and tormented
him.1 The shipwrecked sailor, when delirious from the exhaustion pro-
duced by want of food and drink, sometimes has attractive visions of
green fields and pleasant streams, and cannot be prevented from throw-
ing himself overboard in the mad desire to reach them. The dying
person, in the last stage of exhaustion from a wasting disease, has had
his deathbed visions of joy or of horror ; the good man, whose mind
was at rest, has been comforted by visions of heaven ; the wicked man,
whose troubled conscience would not let him die in peace, has been
terrified with spectres of horror — the murderer, perhaps, by the accusing-
apparition of his victim. These were thought at one time to be super-
natural visitations ; they are known now to be for the most part hallu-
cinations, such as occur in the last stage of flickering life, when, to use
Shakespeare's words —

" His brain doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality." a

1 This is a Mohammedan receipt for summoning spirits :

"Fast seven days in a lonely place, and take incense with you, such as benzoin, aloes-
wood, mastic, and odoriferous wood from Soudan, and read the chapter 1001 times (from
the Koran) in the seven days — a certain number of readings, namely, for every one of
the five daily prayers. That is the secret, and you will see indescribable wonders ; drums
will be beaten beside you, and flags hoisted over your head, and you will see spirits full
of light and of beautiful and benign aspect." — " Upper Egypt ; its People and Products,"
by Dr. Klunzinger, p. 386.

An acquaintance of his, who had undergone the course of self-mortification, said that
he really saw all kinds of horrible forms in his magic circle, but he saw them also when his
eyes were shut. At last he got quite terrified and left the place.

2 In the second part of " Henry VI.," Shakespeare gives an instance of a fearful
death-bed hallucination, when Cardinal Beaufort is at the point of death:

" King. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.

Cardinal. If thou be'st death, Til give thee England's treasure,
Enough to purchase such another island,
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.

King. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
Where death's approach is seen so terrible 1

Warwick. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.

Car. Bring me unto the trial when you will.
Died he not in his bed? where should he die ?
Can I make men live, whether they will or no?
Oh, torture me no more ! I will confess.
Alive again ? then show me where he is:
I'll give a thousand pounds to look upon him.
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.
Comb down his hair; look, look, it stands upright,
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged *oul.
Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary
Bring the strong poison that I bought of him."

7io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

I cannot, of course, enumerate all the bodily conditions in which
hallucinations appear, but there is one more which I shall mention par-
ticularly, because it has been the foundation of a prophetic or apostolic
mission. It is not at all uncommon for a vivid hallucination of one or
other of the senses, of hearing, of sight, of smell, of touch, of muscular
sensibility, to precede immediately the unconsciousness of an epileptic
fit. It may be a command or threat uttered in a distinct voice, or the
figure of a person clearly seen, or a feeling of sinking into the ground
or of rising into the air ; and a common visual hallucination on such
occasions is a flash, a halo, or a flood of bright or colored light, which
makes a strong impression before the person falls unconscious. When
he comes to himself he remembers it vividly, and believes, perhaps, that
it was a vision of an angel of light or of the Holy Ghost. There can
be no doubt that angelic apparitions and heavenly visions have some-
times had this origin. Proceeding from the sensory centre, not from
the higher centres of thought, they are calculated to produce the strong-
er impression of their miraculous nature ; for, if the person knows that
he was not thinking of anything of the kind when the vision occurred,
he will naturally be the more startled and affected by it. I might give
many striking examples in proof of what I say, but I will content
myself with an ordinary and comparatively recent one. Two or three
years ago a laborer in the Chatham dock-yard, who was epileptic, and
had once been in an asylum for insanity, suddenly split the skull of a
fellow-laborer near him with an adze. There was no apparent motive
for the deed, for the men were not on bad terms. He was, of course,
tried for murder, but was acquitted by the jury on the ground of insan-
ity, in accordance with the medical evidence, but directly in the teeth
of a strong charge of the judge, and much to the disappointment of
certain newspapers, w7hose editorial feelings are sadly harrowed when-
ever an insane person escapes from the gallows. He is now in the
criminal asylum at Broadmoor, and he has told the medical officers there
— what was not known at the trial — that some years before the mur-
der he had received the Holy Ghost ; that it came to him like a flash
of light, and that his own eyes had been taken out, and other eyes, like
balls of fire, substituted for them. A characteristic epileptic halluci-
nation ! Let us suppose that this man had undertaken some prophetic
mission, as epileptics have done, and had put into it all the energy of
his epileptic temperament, he would have declared with perfect sin-
cerity, so far as he was concerned, that the Holy Ghost appeared to
him in a vision as an exceeding bright light, and, behold ! his own eyes
were taken out and balls of fire were in their places.

Some persons maintain that the earliest visions of Mohammed, who,
like Caesar, was epileptic, were of this kind, and that his change of
character and the assumption of his prophetic mission followed an epi-
leptic vision. Tradition tells us that he was walking in solitude in the
lonely defiles and valleys near Mecca, when every stone and tree greeted

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 711

him with the words, " Hail to thee, 0 messenger of God ! " He looked
round to the right and to the left,* but discovered nothing but stones
and trees. Soon after this the angel Gabriel appeared to him in a
vision on the mountain Hira, and announced to him the message of
God. The origin of the hallucination seems to have been in this wise:
While walking in the valley meditating in solitude on the degrading
idolatry of the people, and girding himself to the resolution to under-
take a great work of reform which might well seem beyond his strength,
and make him pause, the intense thoughts of his mental agony were
suddenly heard by him as a real voice, where there was no voice ; and
the vision which he saw when he next fell into an epileptic trance was
deemed to be the apparition of the angel Gabriel.

If this be so, and much more if all the apparitions and visions which
mankind have seen at different times were really hallucinations, it is
startling to reflect what a mighty influence illusions have had on the
course of human history. One is almost driven to ask in despair
whether all in the world is not illusion, whether " all that we see and
seem is not a dream within a dream." But there are countervailing
considerations which may abate alarm. If a great work in the world
has been done in consequence of a vision which was not, as it. was
believed to be, a supernatural revelation, but an hallucination produced
in accordance with natural laws, the work done, were it good or bad,
was none the less real. And inasmuch as the hallucination, whatever
its character, is in accordance with the habit of thought and feeling of
the person to whom it occurs, and is interpreted, if it be not actually
generated, by his manner of thinking, we may put it out of sight as a
thing of secondary importance, as an incidental expression, so to speak,
of the earnest belief, and fix our minds on this belief as the primary
and real agent in the production of the effect. Had Mohammed never
seen the angel Gabriel, it is probable that the great mission which he
accomplished — the overthrow of idolatry and polytheism and the weld-
ing of scattered tribes into a powerful nation — would have been accom-
plished either by him or by some other prophet, who would have risen
up to do what the world had at heart at that time. Had any one else
who had not Mohammed's great powers of mind, and who had not pre-
pared himself, as he had done, by many silent hours of meditation and
prayer, to take up the reformer's cross, seen the angel Gabriel or any
number of angels, he would not have done the mighty work. Who
can doubt that the mission of Mohammed was the message of God to
the people at that time, as who can doubt that the thunder of the Rus-
sian cannon has been the awful message of God to the Mohammedan
Turks of this time?

So much, then, for the nature of hallucinations and their principal
modes of origin. Although they sometimes originate primarily in
the sensory centres, and sometimes primarily in the higher centres of
thought, it is very probable that, in many instances, they have a

7i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mixed origin. It can hardly be otherwise, seeing how intimate is the
structural and functional connection between the nerve-centres of
thought and sense, and how likely so closely' connected nerve-cen-
tres are to sympathize in suffering when the one or the other is dis-
ordered.

No one pretends that a person who, laboring under hallucinations,
knows their true nature, as Nicolai did, is insane ; but it is often said
that he has passed the limits of sanity and must be accounted insane
when he does not recognize their real nature, and believes in them and
acts upon them. But the examples which I have given prove this to
be too absolute a statement. I should be very loath to say that either
Mohammed or Luther was mad. When the hallucination is the consist-
ent expression of an earnest and coherent belief, which is not itself the
product of insanity, it is no proof of insanity, although it may indicate
a somewhat unstable state of the brain, and warn a prudent man to
temper the ardor of his belief. When, however, a person has hallu-
cinations that are utterly inconsistent with the observation and com-
mon-sense of the rest of mankind; when he cannot correct the mistakes
of one sense by the evidence of another, although every opportunity is
afforded him to do so ; when he believes in them in spite of confuting
evidence, and when he suffers them to govern his conduct, then he must
certainly be accounted insane : he is so much out of harmony of thought
and feeling with his kind that we cannot divine his motives or reckon
upon his conduct, and are compelled to put him under restraint. Per-
sons of this class are apt to be troublesome and even dangerous ; be-
lieving that they are pursued by a conspiracy, hearing the threatening
voices of their persecutors wherever they go, seeing proofs everywhere
of their evil machinations, smelling poisonous fumes, feeling the torture
inflicted by concealed galvanic wires, they endeavor to protect them-
selves by all sorts of devices — appeal to the magistrates and the police
for assistance, become public nuisances in courts of justice, are, per-
haps, driven at last, either from despair of getting redress, or by the
fury of the moment, to attack some one whom they believe to be an
agent in the persecution which they are undergoing. Some of them
hear voices commanding them peremptorily to do some act or other — it
may be to kill themselves or others — and they are not unlikely in the
end to obey the mysterious commands which they receive.

Having said so much concerning the causation and character of hal-
lucinations, I ought, perhaps, before concluding, to say something
about the means of getting rid of them. Unfortunately, it is very
little that I can say, for, when once they have taken firm hold of a
person, they are seldom got rid of. When they occur during an acute
case of insanity, where there is much mental excitement, they cer-
tainly often disappear as the excitement passes off, or soon afterward,
just as they disappear when the delirium of fever subsides ; but, when
they have become chronic, they hold their ground in defiance of every

HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 713

kind of assault upon them. Over and over again the experiment has
been tried of proving to the hallucinated patient in every possible way,
and by every imaginable device, that his perceptions are false, but in

vain :

" . . . . You may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
As or by oath or counsel shake
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation is
Piled upon his faith, and will continue
The standing of his body."

There is more to be done to prevent hallucinations, I think, than to
cure them ; that is to say, by prudent care of the body and wise culture
of the mind. Looking to their mode of origin, it is obviously of the
first importance, trite maxim as it may seem, to keep the body in good
health ; for not only will bodily disorder directly occasion hallucinations
by disturbance of the sensory centres, but by its depressing influence
on the entire nervous system it hinders sound, and predisposes to un-
sound, thought and feeling. Every one knows how hard a matter it is
to perceive accurately, to feel calmly, and to think clearly, when the
liver is out of order ; there is then a good foundation for hallucination.
It has so long been the habit to exalt the mind as the noble, spiritual,
and immortal part of man, at the expense of the body, as the vile, ma-
terial, and mortal part, that, while it is not thought at all strange that
every possible care and attention should be given to mental cultiva-
tion, a person who should give the same sort of careful attention to his
body would be thought somewhat meanly of. And yet I am sure that
a wise man, who would ease best the burden of life, cannot do better
than watchfully to keep undefiled and holy — that is, healthy — the noble
temple of his body. Is it not a glaring inconsistency that men should
pretend to fall into ecstasies of admiration of the temples which they
have built with their own hands, and to claim reverence for their ruins,
and, at the same time, should have no reverence for, or should actually
speak contemptuously of, that most complex, ingenious, and admirable
structure which the human body is ? However, if they really neglect
it, it is secure of its revenge ; no one will come to much by his most
strenuous mental exercises, except upon the basis of a good organiza-
tion— for a sound body is assuredly the foundation of a sound mind.

In respect of the mental cultivation to be adopted, in order to
guard against hallucination, I can now only briefly and vaguely enforce
one important principle — namely, the closest, most exact, and sincere
converse with nature, physical and human. Habitual contact with
realities in thought and deed is a strong defense against illusions of all
sorts. We must strive to make our observation of men and things so
exact and true, must so inform our minds with true perceptions, that
there shall be no room for false perceptions. Calling to mind what has
been said concerning the nature of perception — how the most complete

7 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and accurate perception of an object is gained by bringing it into all
its possible relations with our different senses, and so receiving into the
idea of it all the impressions which it was fitted to produce upon them
— it will appear plainly how necessary to true perception, and to sound
thought, which is founded on true perception, and to wise conduct,
which is founded on sound thought, are thoroughness and sincerity of
observation. So to observe Nature as to learn her laws and to obey
them, is to observe the commandments of the Lord to do them. Spec-
ulative meditations and solitary broodings are the fruitful nurse of
delusions and illusions. By faithfully intending the mind to the reali-
ties of Nature, as Bacon has it, and by living and working among men
in a healthy, sympathetic way, exaggeration of a particular line cf
thought or feeling is prevented, and the balance of the faculties best
preserved. Notably the best rules for the conduct of life are the fruits
of the best observations of men and things ; the achievements of
science are no more than the organized gains — orderly and methodi-
cally arranged — of an exact and systematic observation of the various
departments of Nature ; the noblest products of the arts are Nature
ennobled through human means, the art itself being Nature. There
are not two worlds — a world of Nature and a world of human nature —
standing over against one another in a sort of antagonism, but one
world of Nature, in the orderly evolution of which human nature has
its subordinate part. Delusions and hallucinations may be described
as discordant notes in the grand harmony. It should, then, be every
man's steadfast aim, as a part of Nature, his patient work, to cultivate
such entire sincerity of relations with it, so to think, feel, and act,
always in intimate unison with it, to be so completely one with it in
life, that when the summons comes to surrender his mortal part to ab-
sorption into it, he does so, not fearfully, as to an enemy who has van-
quished him, but trustfully, as to a mother who, when the day's task is
done, bids him lie down to sleep. — Fortniglitly Heview.

YELLOW FEYER

By EOGEE S. TRACY, M . D .

AN attack of yellow fever is generally quite sudden, though in
some cases there are slight premonitory symptoms, such as loss
of appetite, general uneasiness, headache, or costiveness. It is com-
monly ushered in by chilliness, alternating with flushes of heat, or the
person may be overcome with languor and extreme debility, while at
his usual occupation. These feelings are soon followed by fever, and
the bodily temperature rises rapidly, often reaching 102^° Fahr. in a
few hours, the normal temperature being 98.4°. The fever is accom-

YELLOW FEVER. 715

panied by headache, generally located immediately over the eyes, or
shooting through from temple to temple, and often very severe. But
the headache is frequently trivial in comparison with the frightful pains
in the loins, which make the patient writhe in agony. The pulse is
generally full, strong, and rapid, beating from ninety to a hundred and
twenty times a minute. The skin is hot and dry, the face flushed, the
eyes bloodshot, brilliant, and watery, and the tongue covered with a
creamy white fur, but with red, clean tip and edges. There is usually
some uneasiness of the stomach from the first, and in from twelve to
twenty-four hours this develops into nausea and a persistent sensitive-
ness, which will not allow anything to be retained. The pit of the
stomach is very tender on pressure, and vomiting is almost incessant.
With all this there is intense thirst, and iced drinks are exceedingly
grateful to the patient. The bowels are at first generally costive, and
sometimes obstinately so, but, as the disease progresses, they become
loose. The patient is usually very much debilitated, but is uneasy and
tosses about in bed, and occasionally will try to rise and walk about the
room. In most cases there is some confusion of intellect, not amount-
ing to delirium, and the face expresses the greatest anxiety and dis-
tress. The fever continues for two or three days, being most severe in
the evening, the temperature often reaching 104° or 105°, and, accord-
ing to La Roche, in malignant cases, even 110°. Then the fever sub-
sides, never to return, and the temperature within twelve hours may
become nearly normal. The other symptoms mostly disappear, and the
organs resume their natural functions. At this time, i. e., on the third

O 7 7

or fourth day, the yellow discoloration of the skin appears upon the
face and thence extends over the body. If the attack is mild, recovery
is now rapid. In the vast majority of cases, however, this lull in the
symptoms is deceitful, and lasts only from a few hours to a day, when
the gravest stage of the disease sets in. The pulse soon becomes small
and thready, beating only thirty or forty to the minute, and the heart
often works vigorously after the pulse can no longer be felt at the
wrist. The nausea and vomiting return and become constant, the res-
piration is often embarrassed, the tongue becomes dry and brown, the
skin is cool and dry, there is often a distressing hiccough, and the thirst
is insatiable. The mind is often clear, but singularly apathetic, or there
may be delirium or stupor. The disorganization of the blood and the
tissues has now gone so far that the small vessels of the mucous mem-
branes no longer retain their contents, and blood oozes into the stomach.
This produces intense nausea, and the blood is vomited up, changed in
color by the acids with which it is mingled. This forms the dreadful
" black-vomit," and varies in hue from brown to almost jet black, gen-
erally appearing like coffee-grounds floating in a thin, watery fluid.
The urine, which becomes scanty early in the disease, may now be en-
tirely suppressed, or, if excreted at all, is black and bloody. The dis-
coloration of the skin increases, until the body is of a dusky brown,

7i 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

livid or mahogany color, and there are frequent haemorrhages from the
mouth, nose, eyes, cr even under the skin, forming livid spots and
blotches. The body now exhales a cadaverous odor, the tendons of the
wrist twitch convulsively, hiccough is constant, the features are jrinched
and ghastly, cold sweats come on, and the patient passes awav in con-
vulsions or coma, though occasionally he retains his intellectual facul-
ties unimpaired to the last.

Patients may recover in either of the three stages above described.
A favorable termination is indicated by a gradual amelioration of all
the symptoms, or sometimes by profuse perspiration, sudden cessation
of nausea, rapid return of the pulse to its natural fullness and strength,
or other marked event, which seems to indicate a crisis in the dis-
ease.

The symptoms of yellow fever vary exceedingly at different times,
in different localities, and in different persons. Sometimes a person is
smitten with the disease as with apoplexy, falls into a profound col-
lapse, and dies in a few hours. Others walk about the room, or even
out in the street, and insist that they are perfectly well ; or, if they
acknowledge that anything is the matter with them, complain merely
of weariness or debility. They often betray no symptom of the dis-
ease to the casual observer ; but the physician will see an expression
of dullness or listlessness in the face, and a wateriness of the eye, and
will find the pulse feeble or even absent. The patient may even be talk-
ing, smoking, or reading, when black-vomit comes on, and he is speedily
a corpse. To a non-professional person the exceeding variability of
the symptoms cannot, perhaps, be better shown than by quoting a line
or two from the work of La Loche, of 1,400 pages, on " Yellow Fever: "
" The skin is hot, dry, harsh, and pungent, or it may be dry, unctuous,
or perspiring, flabby, and cold. . . . The pulse becomes rapid, irregu-
lar, and depressed ; or, more generally, it is natural in frequency, or even
slower than in health." And this, of the post-mortem appearances, is a
gem in its way : " The liver is usually of a light-yellow, nankeen, fresh-
butter, straw, coffee-and-milk, gum-yellow, buff, gamboge, light-orange,
or pistachio color ; or it may be dark-yellow, brown, red, purple, bluish,
slate, chocolate, or livid." Even the characteristic symptoms of yellow
skin and black-vomit may occur in other diseases, and they may both
be absent in yellow fever. These differences in the disease are largely
due, in all probability, to individual idiosyncrasies, and to the simulta-
neous presence of other morbid processes. Thus, the present terrible
epidemic at the South, from all we can learn, seems to be decidedly
modified by the malarial atmosphere of that region, and presents so
many of the features of the pernicious malarial fevers that some physi-
cians (whether competent or not I do not know) decline to report their
cases as yellow fever.

The disease lasts from three to nine days, and in severe cases re-
covery is apt to be very slow. Relapses are not common. The black-

YELLOW FEVER. 7i7

vomit, indicating-, as it does, a profound disorganization of the blood,
is, in most cases, a fatal sign. Alvarenga states that, in the epidemic
of 1857, at Lisbon, out of one hundred and seventy-eight cases of black
vomit, forty recovered, but this is an isolated experience, and in this
country, at least, such recoveries are rare. The mortality varies be-
tween five and seventy-five per cent, of those attacked.

The disease develops in from one to fourteen days after exposure.
Those most liable to it are strangers or recent comers. Old residents
enjoy a certain immunity, excepting in severe epidemics, and, even if
they are attacked, the disease is generally mild. "Women and children,
old persons, and those of delicate constitutions, are visually less liable
to it than robust, healthy men. This year the children are said to have
suffered most. The negro natives are generally exempt, though it has
been noticed that negroes who have left the South for the North, and
have returned during an epidemic, do not possess this immunity. In
the present epidemic, even the negroes seem to succumb in great num-
bers. It is a singular fact that persons exposed to offensive effluvia
when working at their trade, as tanners, butchers, soap-boilers, and
scavengers, are almost exempt from the disease, while those whose
trade exposes them to great variations of temperature, as bakers and
cooks, are extremely prone to it. Like small-pox, it may occur more
than once in the same person, but, as a rule, those who have had it
once are never attacked again.

All methods of treatment agree in the principal points. The bowels
must be cleared at the start, and the patient kept perfectly quiet. The
temperature is kept down by applications of cold water, and ice is
applied to the head if symptoms of congestion of the brain appear.
The excessive thirst is relieved by swallowing lumps of ice, and the
nausea controlled to some extent by iced lemonade or champagne. In
the West Indies, lemon-juice plays an important part in the treatment,
and the old negro nurses rub it over the surface of the bod}7. When
the appetite revives, great caution has to be exercised, as a premature
return to solid food may result fatally.

The first fully recorded outbreak of the disease was in the West
Indies in 1647, and since then it has recurred at irregular intervals, and
has gradually extended its range. Epidemics have occurred as far
north as Quebec and as far south as Montevideo, as far west as
Mexico and as far east as Algiers. It is endemic in the West Indies,
Venezuela, New Granada, and Mexico, on the easterly coast of the
United States as far north as Charleston, South Carolina, and on the
northerly coast of Africa. To become epidemic, it requires a mean
temperature of at least 72°, and Griesinger holds that the temperature
must be as high as 80° for a considerable time before it can acquire a
foothold, though West Indian physicians have seen the temperature
fall suddenly just before an outbreak. If the temperature falls during
an epidemic its severity abates, and at 32° it disappears entirely. It

7i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rarely occurs inland, but follows water-courses and lines of ocean-travel,
and so usually appears in commercial cities, and begins its march at
the wharves. It is uncommon in elevated regions, and 2,500 feet is
commonly regarded as its altitudinal limit, but it has been known to
occur at Newcastle, Jamaica, at a height of 4,000 feet, and if the belief
be true that ancient Mexico was visited by it under the name of matla-
zahuatl, then it has been epidemic at a height of between 7,000 and
8,000 feet above the sea.

There has been no severe epidemic of this disease in New York
since 1822, but it breaks out on our Gulf and South Atlantic coasts at
intervals, with no appearance of periodicity. It first appeared in New
Orleans in 1796, and has often been epidemic there since. The most
fatal epidemic was that of 1853, when the deaths were variously stated
at from 8,000 to 10,000, or about eight times as many as have occurred
there during the present summer, though the population was only half
as large. It is the common impression that New Orleans was saved
from the disease during its occupation by Federal troops in 1862-'65,
because the city was put in such excellent sanitary condition ; but Dr.
Nott calls attention to the fact that there are often periods of exemp-
tion from the disease in all places visited by it, and that in New Or-
leans in 1859 there were only 91 deaths from yellow fever, in I860
only fifteen, and in 1861 not a single one ; while in 1863 Dr. Harris
says there were nearly 100 cases of the disease, with two officially
recorded deaths, and in 1864 more than 200, with 57 deaths.

Yellow fever occupies a singular position between the contagious
and non-contagious diseases. The poison is not, like that of small-pox,
directly communicable from a sick person to a well one ; but, although
the emanations of the sick are connected with the spread of the dis-
ease, they seem to require an appropriate nidus in which to germinate
and develop. This nidus must be warm and moist, and there the
germs, whatever they are, lie and grow, or, in some way develop until
they are able to migrate. The germs are portable, and may be con-
veyed in baggage or merchandise (fomites) for hundreds or thousands
of miles. If not so conveyed, its progress is very slow. In 1822 in
New York, when it gained a foothold in Rector Street, it appeared to
travel about forty feet a day until killed by the frost. It often leaves
a house or a block intact, going around it and attacking those beyond,
with no assignable reason. A thin board partition seems to have
stopped it on Governor's Island in 1856, and an instance is related
where it attacked the sailors in all the berths on one side of a ship
before crossing to the other. Such apparent vagaries are, in the pres-
ent state of our knowledge, inexplicable.

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH0/ 7i9

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH?

By HENKY 0. FOEBES.

TO most people it may appear not only easy enough to distinguish,
but even a matter of some difficulty not to be able to identify, a
bird from a reptile or from any other animal whatsoever. No one
would hesitate for a moment to assign to the bird tribe, on seeing
them even for the first time, forms differing from each other so much
as the " wingless " apteryx of New Zealand and the strong-pinioned
albatross ; the marvelously tinted humming-bird and the raw-necked
vulture ; or the fleet ostrich and the stolid hornbill ; for in each indi-
vidual the eye at once perceives one character at least common to the
whole assemblage which is wanting in all other groups. Yet the ques-
tion to be discussed in this paper of bird or not-bird, and in particular
of bird or reptile, is, as we shall see below, one not without serious dif-
ficulty.

In order to a more easy comprehension of the question, let us
shortly, and with as few technicalities of expression as possible, pass
in review the chief characters of the groups we have placed in appo-
sition.

Birds may be characterized generally as feathered bipeds, whose
mouth is modified into a longer or shorter beak incased in a horny
sheath, sometimes serrated along the margin, but never presenting true
teeth ; whose fore-limbs assume the form of wings more or less devel-
oped, and having the hind-limbs supported on, at most, four toes, the
innermost, however, in many birds being so imperfectly developed as
not to reach the ground.

Every one who has handled a living bird knows that it is warm-
blooded ; and whoever, while not neglecting the " main chance," when
dining on partridge or fowl, has nevertheless not been too absorbed to
mark the prominent points that distinguished the skeletal remains of
his feast from those of a hare, for instance, is aware that along the cen-
tre of the breastbone there runs a high crest for the attachment of the
wing-muscles ; that the collar-bones unite to form the bone of destiny
with which he has been familiar from his youth as the "merry-
thought ; " that the haunch-bone, which incloses the bowels and gives
attachment to the hind-limbs, differs from a higher quadruped's in
being composed, not of two bones (each of which is in reality made
up of three bones ossified together), one on each side articulating with
yet separate from the spine, and touching each other in the median line
beneath, but of these elements and several vertebras in addition, con-
solidated into one, having the margins free and separated by a consid-
erable space from each other below ; and that instead of a tail, com-
monly so called, the rear of the spinal column is brought up by what is

72o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

known as the "ploughshare " bone formed by the union of several of
its segments into a terminal mass for the support of the rudder-quills
and of the oil-gland. Several very marked characteristics are to be
seen in the hind-limb, to which, without entering deeply into osteologi-
cal details, we may draw attention. Opening into the hollow shafts
of the stronger bones — a character common to those of the wing and
parts of the spine — there are to be found small pores, the air-passages
by which the air-sacs, themselves extensions of the air-tubes of the
lungs, are prolonged into the bones. In the skull also we find numer-
ous air-cavities; these, however, are filled, not from the lung air-sys-
tem, but from the nasal and ear chambers. No one who has examined
the leg-bone, often called the "drumstick" (technically known as the
tibia), of a common fowl, can have failed to observe the great ridge,
or prominent crest, on the front of its upper extremity, or how easily
the pulley-shaped articular surface of its lower end separates off from
the shaft in the young bird, especially if the bone has been boiled or
macerated for some time in water. This peculiarity vanishes when the
fowl attains to its full growth ; but till then the separation remains, as
if to assert the right of the extremity to be considered, what in reality
it is, a separate and distinct bone, the sole representative of a colony
of ossicles (corresponding to the bones of the heel in the human foot)
once existing in its grandsires at this spct, which for reasons of expe-
diency has here coalesced with its long neighbor. On its outer side
the leg-bone is always accompanied by a very slender bone, known as
the fibula, attached only at its upper end, tapering gradually to a point
about the middle of its fellow. Lastly, to the leg-bone immediately
succeeds the hock-bone, the beautiful conformation of whose lower end
into the resemblance of a triple pulley, for the articulation of the toes,
is a mark by which we can unhesitatingly say that it belonged to a bird.
Bearing in mind these peculiarities, for whose detection no very
deep scrutiny is required, which are but a few, yet sufficient for our
present purpose, of the more striking characteristics to which the mem-
bers of the Avian family more or less closely conform, we shall now for
a little turn our attention to that other division of the animal kingdom
with which we have in the title of this article contrasted the bird.

The reptiles are a wonderfully interesting group on account not only
of the marvelous variety of their habits and modes of life, but also of
their manifold diversity of form. Our country, in common with the
rest of Northern Europe, can claim to be the habitat of but few exam-
ples of this tribe, whose home is under warmer latitudes ; and conse-
quently only limited opportunities present themselves to the European
student for becoming acquainted with their habits and animated forms,
unless he happens to live within reach of the menageries of the Zoologi-
cal Societies of London, Berlin, Paris, or Amsterdam ; those who are
unfortunately distant from such interesting educational centres must

BIRD OR REPTILE — WHICH f 721

make their acquaintance in a mummified or skeletonized form in mu-
seums. It cannot but strike the visitor to any zoological collection
where the vertebrated section is well represented that the cases de-
voted to the reptilian group contain forms so divergent as the tortoise
and the lizard, the snake and the alligator. If, however, the eye be
permitted to pass to the sections on either hand — on the one side, to
the amphibious animals, such as the frogs and newts, and on the other,
to the birds — it is impossible not to perceive that the contrast is very
great. A careless or inexperienced classifier might, perchance, be
tempted to relegate the lizard to a place among the amphibia, near to
the newts, or vice versa; but the most unobservant of men could never
locate a snake among the birds, nor set a turtle or a crocodile on the
same shelf with the swallow or the golden-crested wren.

The first and lowest link of the reptilian segment in the great chain
of animal existences commences just above the highest of the am-
phibian assemblage, and is constituted by the river and mud loving
tortoises and the turtles of the warmer seas ; while the highest now
living embraced the Crocodilian family, in whose membership are in-
cluded the alligators and jacars of the New World, the crocodiles of
the Ganges and the gavials of Northern Africa. The gap between
these extremes is filled up by various intermediate gradations. To the
tortoises succeeds, according to our best classifiers, a powerful race of
long-necked ancient mariners — the plesiosaurs — which hunted their prey
by the sea-coasts of the geological middle ages, where they left their
bones, the sole testimony to the existence of their race, which became
extinct before the chalk-cliffs of England were completed, however long
ago that may be. After them comes the large group of the true lizards,
comprising, along with several extinct orders, the chameleons, the liz-
ards, and the geckos, both the latter being familiar enough to Conti-
nental travelers on sunny spots in Southern Europe ; the geckos, espe-
cially, attracting attention by their habit of running on ceilings and
perpendicular walls, by their sucker-formed toes. The next cohort em-
braces the serpents — the pythons and boas, endued with a power of
crushing almost unsurpassed in the animal kingdom ; and the rattle-
snakes and cobras, carrying swift and certain death in the lightning
stroke of their head. The next place is assigned to the great fish-
lizards, or ichthyosaurs, which frequented the deeper waters of the
same seas as the plesiosaurs, of whose existence also all knowledge
would have perished forever, since they died out leaving no representa-
tive to continue their line, had not the kindly mud of the bottom pre-
served for us fragments of their history in their disjointed bones.
Advancing from these "dragons of the prime" we again reach the
crocodiles, the most specialized of modern reptiles.

Although between the highest and the lowest of these forms there
is nothing like the close bond of union which connects the most dis-
tantly related of the birds, yet these diverse families have many charac-
\oh. xiii. — 46

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ters in common, separating them from the other divisions of the animal
world. Their bodies are protected by modifications of the skin into
scales, enormous rugosities of almost impenetrable horny plates or flat
shields of various forms. No reptile ever has feathers, for, on account
of a peculiarity of the circulation of the blood by which the aerated and
unaerated portions mingle together, they are cold-blooded, and there-
fore do not require so heat-conserving a covering for the body. Most
reptiles possess two pairs of legs, of which the fore limb conforms much
more closely to the hind in structure than is the case between the an-
terior and posterior extremities of the bird. On these they crawl rather
than walk, their bellies, which are dragged along the ground, assisting
in the support of the body ; some have both pairs adapted for aquatic
life, while others are entirely devoid of progressional appendages. No
member of the class can be called a true volant, notwithstanding that a
few, such as the flying dragons of the Philippine Islands, are able, by
means of membranous expansions of the skin, to sustain themselves in
the air while passing from one tree or support to another. With the
exception of the tortoises, the majority are carnivorous and possess
powerful jaws set with strong, sharp teeth.

So much lies on the surface.

From an examination of the chief points of their internal frame-
work we learn that the " collar-bones " do not unite to form a " merry-
thought ; " nor does the breastbone develop a median keel. In gen-
eral the tail is more or less elongated, but its terminal segments do not
unite to form a " ploughshare " bone. The leg-bone of the reptile dif-
fers from the bird's in having a well-developed fibula lying parallel to
it throughout its whole length ; it does not present a strongly-marked
crest at its upper end, nor is the articular surface of the narrow lower
extremity formed by the coalescence with the shaft of a separate bone
into a pulley-shaped termination. The coalescence never takes place at
all ; but each retains a separate existence throughout life. In the situa-
tion of the hock in the bird the reptile has at least four distinct bones to
which are articulated as many toes ; and, lastly, the haunch-bone, instead
of being a consolidated mass, is composed of twro halves, one on each
side, articulating with, but not united by, bony tissue to the spine, and
meeting each other below — a character in which the struthious birds,
such as the ostriches, agree. It may be remarked, also, that in their
keelless breastbone, as well as in the disunion of their collar-bones,
these birds present other similitudes to the reptiles.

Every student of osteology is well aware that all bones in their
embryonic condition are composed of cartilage, wherein, as the animal
grows older, bony spots or " centres " appear, whence the ossification
spreads till the whole structure is converted into bone. Among the
higher animals these centres are seen only during the earlier years of
life, while with increasing age their outlines, becoming gradually
fainter, are at length entirely lost. But among the reptiles many of

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH? 723

the bones either continue throughout life with their component parts
unsolidified together, or else indicate by clear marks their lines of union,
so that it is always easy to tell the number and configuration of which
each is composed.

Thus far the characters which separate a reptile from a bird stand
so widely apart — the interval between the highest living crocodile and
the nearest living bird (represented by such forms as the New Zealand
kiwis, the mooruk of Australia, the cassowary of the Moluccas, and the
rheas or ostriches of South America) is of such enormous magnitude —
that it would seem needless to entertain any fear of mistaking a mem-
ber of the former group for one of the latter. Meanwhile let us with-
hold any decided opinion.

On November 29, 1871, a letter to Prof. Dana, dated from San
Francisco, written by Prof. O. C. Marsh, of Yale College, New Haven,
Connecticut, announced the discovery of a portion of a large headless
skeleton in the upper chalk formation of Western Kansas, consisting of
the nearly entire posterior limbs, portions of the haunch-bones, several
segments from the neck and tail of the spinal column, and numerous ribs
all in excellent preservation. The long leg-bone exhibited on the front
aspect of its upper extremity the large crest which, as we have already
pointed out, is a remarkably Avian character ; along its shaft lay a
fibula developed as among the diving birds of the present day, to whose
thigh-bone also that of the fossil bore considerable resemblance. The
"hock-bone," in presenting a trifid pulley-shaped lower end, was bird-
like ; while in the oblique arrangement of these divisions it again
claimed affinities with the divers, whose toes are articulated in this
manner to facilitate the forward stroke of their feet through the water,
The external division, however, which projects beyond the other two,
and is twice the size of either, is developed in a way unknown in any
recent or fossil bird, and the bones of the toe supported by it are pecul-
iarly articulated to produce rigidity and prevent flexion, except in one
direction, in order by the interlocking of the bones to increase the
strength of the joints during the act of swimming ; for the whole limb
is unquestionably adapted for rapid motion through water. The haunch-
bone presents some resemblance to what is seen among the reptiles,
in the permanence as separate bones of some of the portions of which
it is composed, and in its not being firmly joined to the spine by bony
union as in ordinary birds.

The examination so far of these interesting remains proved that the
skeleton was certainly a bird's. On comparing its various bones with
the corresponding ones in existing representatives, its affinities, notwith-
standing considerable divergences from all known recent or ancient
species and genera, were evidently with the swimming-birds, of which
it is the largest knowm exponent, and of these it most resembled the
great northern diver, near which, for a time, it received a niche with
the appellation of Royal Bird-of-the-Dawn {HesperorniB regalis).

7 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

On September 26, 1872, Silliman's American Journal of Science
announced the disinterment of another skeleton from the chalk of
Kansas, " one of the most interesting of recent discoveries in paleon-
tology." The remains included, among other bones, a number of bi-
concave vertebrae, that is, having the bodies, or solid central piece of
the spinal segments, cup-shaped at both ends, a configuration which
obtains, as every one has observed, in the divisions of the backbone of
the common cod. This characteristic of the spine is frequent enough
among reptiles ; but it never occurs among birds met with nowadays.
If among them there be any tendency that way, as there is in a few
birds, the concavity is invariably found in the posterior end, the rarest
form of vertebras among reptiles. " The neck, back, and tail vertebra?
preserved, all show this character, the ends of their bodies (centra)
resembling those in the plesiosaurs ; " notwithstanding the strongly
non-Avian description of the spine, all the other bones — the promi-
nently keeled breastbone, the collar-bone united to form a " merry-
thought," as well as the leg- and long wing-bones — exhibit those marks
which we have found to be most typical of the bird tribe. The wings
were large in proportion to the posterior extremities ; and the lower
end of the leg-bones is incurved as in swimming-birds. Prof. Marsh,
therefore, judging from their relative proportion, concludes that the
bones belonged to a bird about the size of a pigeon, in many respects
resembling the aquatic birds. He has christened it Ichthyornis dis-
par.

In October of the same year this indefatigable geologist once more
announced through the pages of Silliman a new " find " from his
favorite and fruitful mine in Upper Kansas. This time it was " a new
reptile from the cretaceous ... a very small saurian, which differs widely
from any hitherto discovered." The only remains found on this occa-
sion were two lower jaws, nearly perfect, and with many of the teeth
in good preservation. The jaws resemble in general form those of an
extinct family of marine reptiles whose remains were first found in the
chalk formation near Maestricht ; but apart from their very diminutive
size they present several features which no species of that group has
been observed to possess. Noticeably, the teeth are implanted in dis-
tinct sockets, and are directed obliquely backward. There are appar-
ently twenty in each jaw, all compressed, with very acute summits.
Then there is no distinct groove on the inner surface of the jaws as in
all known Mososauroids — as the family of Maestricht reptiles is named.
" Clearly," says Prof. Marsh, " the specimen indicates a new genus."

A more careful removal of the surrounding shale brought to light a
fact that enormously enhanced the importance and value of this " most
interesting of recent discoveries in paleontology." The jaws, which
had been accredited to " a new genus " of reptiles, belonged most un-
doubtedly, from the position in which they were found with reference
to the other bones, to the Ichthyornis dispar, which owned the spine

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH f 725

with double cup-shaped segments. Here was a dilemma ! The ichthy-
ornis had on what seemed reliable data been adjudged a bird ; but not
only was no bird ever known to have teeth set in sockets, but no bird
had ever yet differed so far from its fellows as to affect teeth at all, not to
mention the fact of its having resuscitated the fashion of a by-gone day
in having its spinal vertebrae cupped at both ends. When it lived, was
this creature, in which the types have become so strangely mixed, a
reptile, or after all a bird ? was a question that for a time made the
brows of the philosophers anxious even in the midst of their happiness
at the new discovery. They finally declared for the latter. There was,
therefore, no resource left but to extend the boundaries which had hith-
erto confined the avian territory, and institute a new sub-class for its
reception, whereat the ornithologists were greatly pleased and cordially
welcomed the toothbills among their feathered friends.

Among the treasures which on December 7, 1872, Prof. Marsh and
his Yale College explorers brought back to New Haven, as the results
of their autumn reaping among the Rocky Mountains, was the nearly
entire skeleton, containing all the missing bones, of the royal hesper-
ornis and of another bi-concave vertebrated bird.

The breastbone of the gigantic diver of the chalk is thin and weak,
and entirely without a keel ; in front it resembles the ostrich's or that
of the apteryx of New Zealand — a group of birds presenting the great-
est range in time and also the widest geographical distribution over the
globe — but in some respects it approaches to the penguin's also. The
wing-bones are diminutive, and the wings are rudimentary and useless
as organs of flight. The bones that girdle the thigh clearly exhibit a
resemblance to the corresponding bones of a cassowary ; yet, although
avian in type, they are peculiar and present some well-marked reptilian
proclivities.

Furnished with these bones alone, and judging from his experience
of bird architecture, in plan hitherto undeviated from, no ornithologist
would have hesitated to relegate the remains to a place among the
birds ; and, had he been asked to restore the missing portions, he would
in all probability have devised some cross between the corresponding
parts of the divers, of the dabchicks (for their knee-cap resembles that
of the hesperornis), and of the ostrich-like birds, adding thereto a tail
somewhat after the model of the penguin's. Certain it is, however, he
would never have approached the features presented by the actual
bones. This primeval bird possessed a skull in its general form like
that of the great northern diver, but with a less pointed beak. The
jawbones, however, though they were originally covered with a horny
bill as in ordinary birds, are widely different. They are massive and
have throughout their length a deep groove which was thickly set with
sharp-pointed teeth — evidence of carnivorous habits — their crowns cov-
ered with enamel and supported on stout fangs. In form of crown and
base they most resemble the teeth of the reptiles found in the Maes-

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tricht beds, to which we have referred above, as well as in the method
of replacement, for some of the teeth preserved have the crowns of their
successors implanted in cavities in their fangs. This peculiarity in the
manner of teeth-shedding is characteristic of some reptiles, each of
whose teeth is merely a hollow cone tilled in the interior with a soft
pulp which supplies the material for the external bony layer. When
the tooth becomes worn and useless, a new one is formed beneath the
shell of the first by the pulp in the interior, which gradually ousts the
old from its socket. In addition to these, the hesperornis possessed
other reptilian characters. While the formation of the spinal column
in the neck and back is of the true avian type, the structure of the
tail, where there have been discovered no fewer than twelve segments,
is very peculiar, and differs entirely from anything hitherto seen
in birds. The bones of its middle and posterior portions have very
long and horizontally flattened processes which prevent all motion in a
lateral direction : a peculiarity from which we may certainly infer that,
like the beaver's, this appendage was moved vertically, and doubtless
was an efficient aid in diving, perhaps compensating for want of wings,
which the penguins use with such wonderful dexterity in swimming
under water. The last three or four bones are firmly united together,
forming a flat terminal mass analogous to, but quite unlike, the
" ploughshare " bone of modern birds.

Here, again, is another form half doubtful whether to assume the
reptilian or the avian garb, a protestant against the hard and fast
lines within which the various groups of the animal kingdom have
hitherto been confined. The hesperornis certainly approaches the ich-
thyornis so far as to come under the new sub-class instituted for the
reception of that bird ; but, inasmuch as it differs in having its teeth
not in sockets but set in a groove, and since, rejecting the conservative
bi-concavity in the matter of spinal segments, it has adopted a newer
and more high-class " cut," it has been necessary to give to each the
honor of heading a separate section.

Though no living bird has so long a tail as this bird-of-the-dawn,
yet there was in 1862 disinterred from the lithographic slates of Solen-
hofen part of the skeleton of a feathered biped — the archasopteryx (the
existence of which was foreshadowed by the discovery of a feather the
year before), exhibiting in most of the bones preserved the marks of a
true bird. In the length of its tail, however, it is peculiar. This ap-
pendage contains the enormous number of twenty distinct bones grad-
ually decreasing in size to the last, and each supporting a pair of quill-
feathers. To the skeleton no head is attached ; but a portion of a
small separate jaw on the same slab has been the subject of much con-
troversy as to whether it belongs to the accompanying bones or not.
Hermann von Meyer, the illustrious anatomist and paleontologist, holds
that there can be little doubt but that they are parts of one and the same
skeleton. If this be so, these remains belonged to a toothed bird ; and

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH? 7z7

Prof. Marsh thinks that probably it possessed bi-concave segments in
its backbone, indicating, therefore, some alliance with the ichthyornis.
The structure of its wings, Prof. Huxley points out, differs in some
very remarkable respects from that which they present in a true bird.
In the archaeopteryx the upper arm-bone is like that of a bird, and the
two bones of the forearm are more or less like those of a bird ; but
the fingers, which in all modern avian representatives are fused
together into one mass, are not bound together — they are free. What
the number may have been is uncertain, but several, if not all, of them
were terminated by a strong-curved claw ; so that in the archaeopteryx
we have an animal which to a certain extent occupies a midway place
between a bird and a reptile. It is a bird in so far as its foot and sun-
dry other parts of its skeleton are concerned; it is essentially and
thoroughly a bird by its feathers : but it is much more properly a rep-
tile in the fact that the region which represents the hand has separate
bones with claws resembling those which terminate the fore-limb of a
reptile. Teeth and a long tail, moreover, have certainly been considered
hitherto non-avian characteristics.

More recently in our own country there has been brought to light
from the London clay, in the island of Sheppey, a skull with the mar-
gins of the jawbones armed with larger alternating with smaller den-
ticulations. It has been submitted to the examination of Prof. Owen,
facile princeps among the restorers of osteological remains, who con-
cludes that it belonged "to a warm-blooded feathered biped with
wings " — to a bird, in fact — " and further, that it was web-footed and
a fish-eater, and that in the catching of its slippery prey it was assisted
by the peculiar armature of its jaws." Many living birds, such as the
mergansers or saw-bills, have denticulatiocs on the borders of the
horny covering of the bill ; but no modern bird has ever the underly-
ing bone elevated into ridges or denticulations like those seen in the
London-clay fossil. On the palate, however, of the rare Phytotome, a
South American perching bird belonging to the group of the Leafcut-
ters, which bears in its structure many " marks of ancientness," we
find two rows of bony denticulations, the remains of what are appar-
ently but recently lost teeth, if we calculate time by the geological
horologe, and which may be faint memorials of the dental arrangement
seen in the chameleon. Certainly, " they are not the less of interest,
seeing that as yet we have nothing else intervening between them and
the teeth of the Sheppey fossil." How far this fossil may have resem-
bled any of the avian remains which we have described above, we
must wait to know. To conjecture would be dangerous, considering
how wide of the mark would have been, in all likelihood, the restora-
tion, had any been attempted, of the hesperornis, whose true structure
when revealed so greatly surprised the most experienced naturalists.
All that can at present be said is, that the owner of the solitary skull
could not have claimed a place within the old avian province. It is

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

interesting, however, in affording a suggestion as to the possible steps
by which the toothbills, as regards the armature of their jaws, may
have passed into modern toothless birds.

The Stonesfield slates have yielded up an almost entire skeleton of
a wonderful extinct form, unique as yet, described under the name of
Compsognathus, which possesses a singularly long neck supporting a
head whose structure is light, and, except in the possession of teeth,
birdlike. Its anterior limbs are small, while the leg-bone of its very
long hind-limb exhibits the prominent crest of which we have so often
spoken, a ridge on its outer side for the fibula, and the pulley-shaped
articular surface of its lower end identical in conformation with that
seen in the bird. This skeleton diverges from the bird type, however,
in the absence of a " merry-thought," and in having the single hock-
bone of the bird replaced by three distinct bones, fitting immovably
together, of which the trifid extremity of a fowl's, for example, indi-
cates the coalescence. The haunch-bone, moreover, indicates relation-
ship with the reptiles, in its form and in the manner in which it unites
below with its fellow of the opposite side — a feature in which it agrees
with the arrangement of the corresponding bone in the crocodiles and
in the rheas. This strange creature, bird or reptile, " must, without
doubt," Prof. Huxley remarks, " have hopped or walked on its hind
limbs after the manner of a bird, to which its long neck, slight head,
and small anterior limbs, must have given it an extraordinary resem-
blance." There is reason for believing that it was possessed of a long
tail, which must have greatly helped to support it in the erect position.

The extinct group to which this singular Stonesfield fossil has been
assigned contains some of the largest known terrestrial animals, such
as the carnivorous giant-lizard (Megalosaurns), thirty feet in length,
whose structure in many points resembles that of the bird, especially
in the form of its hip-girdle and hind-limbs, on which, in the late Prof.
Phillips's opinion, it moved with free steps, sometimes, if not habitually,
claiming a curious analogy, if not some degree of affinity, with the
ostrich. Another example is the still more gigantic herb-eating iguano-
don, from beds in Sussex, taller than an elephant and vaster in size,
wherein, also, are mingled avian and reptilian characters. In the form
of its vertebra, which, except in the neck, are double-cup-shaped, it is
reptilian — in the absence of collar-bones it is non-avian ; but in the
formation of its three-toed hind limbs, which are larger than the fore,
as well as of the supporting haunch-bone, it is distinctly birdlike.
Again, it is unbirdlike in regard to its teeth, whose general form and
crenated edges are somewhat like the iguanas', which now frequent the
tropical woods of America and of the West Indies ; but they differ
from them in having a flat surface on the crown of the tooth, worn
down evidently by the process of mastication, whereas the herbivorous
reptiles of the present day clip and gnaw off, but do not chew, the vege-
table productions on which they feed.

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH ? 729

On the same sands at Hastings there have been found large impres-
sions of the three-toed foot of some biped, the length of whose stride
was so great that it is impossible not to conclude that they were made
by the hind-feet of one or other of the seventy monsters whose bones
have been found scattered about within the narrow area of what was
once the banks and delta of a great Wealden river, and which, like the
giant-lizards, probably walked occasionally, if not always, on their hind-
limbs with their fore-feet elevated in front. The question again arises,
nor is it easy to answer, whether these forms should be called reptilian
birds or avian reptiles.

In the northern gallery of the British Museum there is a very in-
structive specimen of a reptile, the frilled lizard of Australia, caught
near Port Nelson while perching on the stem of a tree. Its long tail
recalls at once the same appendage in the kangaroos, inasmuch as by
its position in the stuffed specimen the creature would seem to use it as
a support to its body. Its fore feet are much smaller than its hind, and
an Australian resident, to whom the specimen was shown in presence of
Dr. Gunther and himself — so Dr. Woodward tells in a paper read before
the Geological Society — remarked that it not merely sits up occasion-
ally, but habitually runs on the ground on its hind-legs without allow-
ing its fore-paws to touch the earth. The edges of its jawbones are
elevated into enamel-tipped denticulations, which remind us of those in
the jawbone of the Sheppey fossil. In the same slates which have
given us the long-tailed reptilian bird and the long-necked, birdlike liz-
ard, there has been found a three-toed bipedal track which "reminded
me," said Dr. Woodward, "at once of what the frilled lizard or the
compsognathus might produce under favorable conditions. The slab
presents a median track formed by the tail drawn along on the ground ;
the two hind-feet with outspread toes leave their mark, while the fore-
paws just touch the ground, leaving a dot-like impression on either
side of the median line. The median track is alternately stronger and
fainter. Since the tail of the archseopteryx is bordered all the way by
feathers, it will at once be seen that it could not leave behind a clean,
simple furrow, but a broad smudge composed of many lines, while the
tail of a lizard, progressing by hops and supporting itself on its hind-
limbs and tail, would produce just such an impression.

There is yet another interesting group of extinct forms to which we
would refer shortly, termed " winged reptiles, or flying dragons." In
the Woodwardian Museum, at Cambridge, there is a large collection of
these bones, belonging to many species, from the soft marl in the
neighborhood of that town, about which there have been entertained
the most diverse opinions by the most eminent naturalists. They have
been variously held to belong to bats, to forms between birds and mam-
mals, to reptiles, and even to dolphins. Prof. Huxley finds in them
great resemblances to birds; Prof. Owen thinks that they are reptilian
remains ; while Prof. Seeley, judging from the form of the cranium, is

73o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of opinion that these flying dragons " had a brain indistinguishable from
a bird's."

They are all remarkable for their great proportionate length of head
and neck, for in some the lizard-like and in others the birdlike length
of tail, and for the large size of the fore-limb, which, quite unlike the
same extremity in a bird, was terminated by four digits, whereof three
were clawed, while the clawless fourth or little finger was enormously
elongated to support the outer edge of an expansion of the integument
like the wing of a bat. The bones of the hind-limb and of the haunch
differ widely from the bird type ; nevertheless, air-passages, such as
characterize no other kind of skeleton, are met with in the bones of the
head, of the spine, and of the fore and hind limbs, often coinciding
identically in situation with those in birds, and indicate, according to
Prof. Seeley, a system of air-circulation from the lungs similar to what
is found in birds. From this he argues the existence in these gigantic
volants of warm blood, and of a heart similar to the bird's in construc-
tion. They have the breastbone broad, strongly keeled, and unlike
that of other reptiles ; there is evidence also that the jaws were in-
cased in a horny sheath. On these considerations, therefore, it is held
that, as far as the skeleton indicates, their differences from birds are
much less than the differences between the several orders of mammals
or reptiles. The same paleontologist has made careful casts of the in-
terior of the skull, and, from the position of certain lobes whose dis-
tance or proximity distinguishes the brains of modern birds and rep-
tiles, he says in an interesting paper on the subject in the Linnaean
Society's "Transactions" for 1876: "The resemblance of form and
arrangement of parts between this fossil animal's brain and the brain
of a bird amounts, as far as the evidence goes, to absolute identity ; no
more perfect specimen could add to the force of the conclusion that its
brain is an avian brain of a typical structure. Since brain and lungs
are organs of incomparably greater value in questions of organization
than fore and hind limbs — organs in which, according to Prof. Huxley,
they depart most widely from the bird type — the flying dragons on the
whole are very reptilian birds rather than very avian reptiles."

The Solenhofen stone preserves not only bones and hard parts, but
even the cutaneous characters of its old inhabitants. It shows casts of
the down and feathers, impressions of the fine foldings or wrinkles of
thin expansions of naked skin, as well as of delicate tendons. Prof.
Owen, therefore, thinks that if the flying dragons had possessed any
plumose clothing it would in all probability have been preserved, and,
as no such indications (but contrariwise, several genera undoubtedly
had their body-covering hardened into bony scales, sometimes pro-
duced into prodigious spines) have been discovered, though the Oolitic
mud has entombed the greatest number and variety of these beings, he
concludes that they were cold-blooded, as other reptiles are ; whereas,
if they had been warm-blooded, they would have possessed feathers, as

BIRD OR REPTILE— WHICH ? 73i

their contemporary the archseopteryx did ; for the constant correlative
structure with hot-bloodedness is a non-conducting covering for the
body. Prof. Huxley, on the other hand, differing from this anatomist,
thinks that, judging from the air-passages in their bones, they were
warm-blooded, but that, nevertheless, they were reptiles with special
modifications for special purposes.

It would, therefore, appear that we are again face to face with a
group which the most eminent authorities are far from agreed whether
to regard as reptiles or as birds.

We have now passed in review various remarkable forms — living
birds and living reptiles, separated by an immeasurable distance from
each other, and forms which have so mingled the characters of both as
to present great difficulties to their being included among the members
of either group. Starting from the groveling crocodile, we have seen
that there existed gigantic crocodile-like forms, such as the giant-lizard
and the iguanodon, that walked, sometimes at least, oil their hind-
limbs ; others, like the long-necked, long-tailed compsognathus from
the Solenhofen slates, that hopped on the ground after the manner of
a bird ; then " flying dragons," with birdlike brain and bones that
cleft the air with their twenty-feet expanse of wing ; next, undoubted
birds, with toothed bills, the one with reptilian vertebra?, the other with
a beaver-like tail ; while last of all, omitting the imperfectly known
Sheppey fossil, the feathered archasopteryx whose twenty caudal seg-
ments bar its entrance to every existing family of birds.

Without by any means asserting — what is not only far from being
ascertained fact, but is indeed very improbable ; for we are not in a
position to state that they appeared on the earth intennediately be-
tween the two groups — that these forms are the direct terms in the
series of progressions from reptiles to birds, we can, in their intelligent
contemplation, without overstraining the imagination or violating our
reason, picture still more modified forms wherein the reptilian and the
avian types would so harmoniously blend that we should find it im-
possible to say, " At this point the line between reptiles and birds must
be drawn." There can be no reasonable doubt but that the remains,
which only through the circumstance of a happy burial have been pre-
served to us from the second great era of the world's history till now,
are no more than a very few examples with many a blank between of
the fauna which has lived and died, whose tombs no man knoweth.
Moreover, it seems easy enough to believe, after studying these forms,
that, could any human eye have followed from that day to this the wax-
ing and waning of the various animal groups, he could have constructed
for us a marvelous chain of existences between reptiles and birds, the
conformation of whose unknown links we can almost fabricate in our
minds, between which no abrupt transitions harshly jarring would oc-
cur, no stepping-stones too wide to stride across ; and, handing on to
us, besides, the traditions of a still earlier time, he could have pictured

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to us the whole of living Nature, each varied offshoot fitly joined to-
gether, sloping gently back along the vast converging lines of ordinary
generation to one grand starting-point, wherein till the fullness of time
every living thing, from the microscopic diatom to the giant sequoia,
and from the shapeless amoeba to the stateliest of bipeds —

" Lay hidden, as the music of the moon
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale."

— Belgravia.

-♦♦♦-

THE PLANET VULCAN.

By Professor DANIEL KIEKWOOD.

THE discovery of an intra-Mercurial planet during the total eclipse
of July 29, 1878, has given new importance to any previous
speculations on the question of its existence. A brief historical re-
view of the subject will not be without interest.

In an article by the writer, " On the Probable Existence of Undis-
covered Planets," written immediately after the discovery of Neptune,
and published in the Literary Record and Journal of the Linncean
Association of Pennsylvania College,1 the question was thus consid-
ered :

" The distance from the centre of Jupiter to the nearest satellite is about
three times the equatorial diameter of the primary. If, therefore, we suppose
the distance of the nearest primary planet to have the same ratio to the diam-
eter of the sun, the orbit of such planet will be somewhat less than 3,000,000
miles from the sun's centre. Consequently, in the interval of 37,000,000 miles
there may be four planets, the orbit of the nearest having the dimensions above
stated, and their respective distances increasing in the ratio of Mercury's dis-
tance to that of Venus. Such bodies, however, in consequence of their near-
ness to the sun, could hardly be detected except in transiting the solar disk."

It is well known that the disturbing influence of the other planets
causes an advance in the position of Mercury's perihelion. In a cen-
tury this change amounts to 10' 43," which, according to Leverrier, is
38" more than can be accounted for by the influence of the known
planets. This great astronomer inferred, therefore, that a planet, or
possibly a zone of extremely small asteroids, must exist within the
orbit of Mercury.

The conclusions of Leverrier were communicated to the French
Academy in the autumn of 1859. Soon after their publication Dr.
Lescarbault, an amateur astronomer as well as a medical practitioner
of Orgeres, some forty miles southwest of Paris, announced that, on
March 26, 1859, he had observed the passage of a dark circular spot across

^ol. iii., April, 1S47, p. 131.

THE PLANET VULCAN. 733

the sun's disk, which he thought might have been the transit of an intra-
Mercurial planet. He stated further that he had delayed the publica-
tion of the fact in the hope of obtaining confirmatory observations.
On the appearance of this statement Leverrier at once determined to
seek an interview with the observer, in order to test the truth of his
discovery. With the details of this interview the public is familiar.
After a thorough examination of Lescarbault's original memoranda, as
well as of his instruments and methods of observation, Leverrier was
satisfied that the amateur astronomer of Orgeres had really observed
the transit of an intra-Mercurial planet. From the notes furnished by
Lescarbault, the director of the Paris Observatory estimated the period
of the planet at nineteen days seventeen hours ; its mean distance
from the sun, 13,000,000 miles ; the inclination of its orbit, 12° 10' ;
and the greatest elongation of the body from the sun, 8°. The appar-
ent magnitude of the solar disk, as seen from Vulcan's estimated dis-
tance, is fifty times greater than as seen from the earth.

The sun was again watched during the last days of March in 1860
and 1861, in the hope of reobserving the new member of the system.
The search, however, was unsuccessful until March 20, 1862, when
Mr. Lummis, of Manchester, England, between eight and nine o'clock
a. m., observed a perfectly round spot moving across the sun. Having
satisfied himself of the spot's rapid motion, he called a friend, who also
noticed its planetary appearance. From these imperfect observations
two French astronomers, MM. Valz and Radau, computed elements of
the planet : the former assigning it a period of seventeen days thir-
teen hours ; the latter, one of nineteen days twenty -two hours. From
1862 to 1878 the planet was not seen, or at least no observation was
well authenticated. The transit of Mercury, however, on May 6, 1878,
afforded new evidence of the truth of Leverrier's theory that Mercury's
motion is disturbed either by a planet or a zone of planetary matter
within his orbit.

We must now refer to a very unpleasant incident in the history of
this interesting discovery. This is nothing less than the charge, by an
eminent astronomer, that the observations and measurements claimed
by Dr. Lescarbault were a pure fabrication. M. Liais, a French astron-
omer employed at Rio Janeiro by the Brazilian Government, claimed to
have been engaged in a,n examination of the sun's surface with a tele-
scope of twice the power of Dr. Lescarbault's, at the very time of the
latter's alleged discovery of the planet. M. Liais says, therefore, that
" he is in a condition to deny, in the most positive manner, the passage
of a planet over the sun at the time indicated." The weight of this
negative testimony has, perhaps, been over-estimated ; and Lescarbault,
who for eighteen years has quietly submitted to the charge of falsehood
and dishonesty, may perhaps yet retort that, if M. Liais was examining
the sun at the time referred to, his merit as an observer cannot be
highly rated.

734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But the astronomer of Brazil did not stop with denying the truth of
Lescarbault's observations. He boldly called in question the conclusion
derived by Leverrier himself from a laborious discussion of the observed
transits of Mercury. It now appears, however, that in this case also
his position was most unfortunately taken.

It has been frequently said that if an intra-Mercurial planet exist,
of any considerable magnitude, it ought to be visible during total
eclipses of the sun. But who has not remarked the difficulty of finding
a small or faint object when we know not where to look for it, and how
easily it may be found when its position has been once pointed out ?
Mitchel's detection of the companion of Antares and Clark's discovery
of that of Sirius are cases in point. Fortunately, however, neither
argument nor explanation is any longer necessary. The new planet
was undoubtedly seen during the total eclipse of July 29, 1878, by two
astronomers, Prof. James C. "Watson, director of the Ann Arbor Obser-
vatory, and Mr. Lewis Swift, of Rochester, New York. The former is
the discoverer of more than twenty asteroids ; the latter is an amateur,
who has detected several new comets. Prof. "Watson was stationed at
Separation, Wyoming Territory. The planet was not found by him till
half the time of totality was past. It was about 2^° southwest of the
sun, and appeared about as bright as a 4|- magnitude star. Mr. Swift,
who selected a position near Denver, Colorado, took with him his ex-
cellent comet-seeker for the special purpose of searching for intra-
Mercurial planets. Two stars were seen by him at the estimated dis-
tance of 3° southwest of the sun. They were of the same magnitude —
about the fifth — and at a distance apart of six or seven minutes. A
straight line drawn through them pointed very nearly to the sun's
centre. Mr. Swift supposed one of the stars to be Theta Cancri. The
other was doubtless the planet observed by Prof. Watson, although
the estimated distance from the sun was somewhat greater. Both
observers describe it as a red star. According to Prof. Watson, " it
shone with an intensely ruddy light, and it certainly had a disk larger
than the spurious disk of a star." Its appearance in the telescope indi-
cated that it was approaching its superior conjunction, or, in other
words, was situated beyond the sun.

The distance of Vulcan from the centre of the system, though still
uncertain, is supposed to be about one-seventh that of the earth. If
this estimate be nearly correct, the solar light and heat at its surface
must be about fifty times greater than at the surface of the earth. The
corresponding period is nearly twenty days. In other words, Vulcan's
year is believed to be less than three weeks in length. The sun' is
twenty-five days in completing its axial rotation ; so that in the new
planet we have probably another instance in which, as in the case of
the inner satellite of Mars, a planetary body performs its orbital revo-
lution in less time than is occupied by the central orb in completing
its rotation. Again, as seen from the sun's surface, all the old planets

GENESIS OF DISINTERESTED BENEVOLENCE. 735

rise in the east and set in the west. But this is reversed in the case of
Vulcan. It rises in the west, and, after having been fifty-seven days
above the horizon of any point in which the plane of its orbit intersects
the sun's surface, must set in the east.

But it is useless to speculate in regard to the elements of this
planet's orbit, its magnitude, physical constitution, etc. It ought cer-
tainly to be found near its greatest elongation by some of the powerful
telescopes now in use. When so detected a few observations will fur-
nish data for the complete determination of its period and distance,
together with the form and inclination of its orbit.

The interesting observations of Prof. Watson and Mr. Swift will
not only stimulate astronomers to renewed search for the planet so
fortunately detected, but must lead also to a more thorough examina-
tion of the space within Mercury's orbit. It is not improbable that the
detection of Vulcan may be merely the first in a series of similar dis-
coveries.1 The solar disk will doubtless be closely watched about Feb-
ruary llth-17th, March 19th-27th, and October lst-14th, as it has
been claimed that at these epochs small round spots have been seen
passing across the sun. In short, the prospect of planetary discoveries
in this part of the system is at present more hopeful than in the space
beyond the orbit of Neptune.

--♦•-*-

THE GENESIS OF DISINTERESTED BENEVOLENCE.

By PAUL FEIEDMANN.

DISINTERESTED benevolence, about the genesis of which so
much has been written, is a name for two distinguishable things.
It is in some cases meant to designate that feeling which prompts us in
a special instance to do good to some individual object. In other cases,
the same name is applied to the quality of the mind which predisposes
to all special benevolent impulses. But these two are of course not
the same thing, and when I inquire into their origin I shall have to
consider them separately. This, however, I shall do in an order the
reverse of that commonly adopted, beginning with the special senti-
ment, and then inquiring into the general quality of the mind.

Benevolence, in the first sense, may be defined as the wish that the
object of this feeling may be well — as the wish for the welfare of
something. In so far as, with a certain class of beings, welfare is ac-
companied by pleasure or happiness, benevolence is a wish for the

1 It has frequently been noticed that astronomical discoveries occur in clusters, sepa-
rated by intervals comparatively fruitless in great results or important observations. Thus,
from the epoch of Cassini's discoveries to that of Sir William Herschel's — nearly a cen-
tury— no new planets, primary or secondary, were added to our system.

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pleasure or happiness of the object. But I should think it a great mis-
take to define it in this latter way. It would reduce the field of be-
nevolence by excluding all inanimate beings, and make the definition
far too narrow. Benevolence, I assert, can be felt quite as well toward
inanimate, non-sentient beings as toward sentient organisms. It can
be felt toward any being of which it is believed that its welfare or per-
fection can be procured. As the parent toward his child, the master
toward his dog, so the sculptor feels benevolence toward his statue,
the author toward his book. The perfection of it makes him happy,
its imperfection or destruction causes him pain. Whether the object
is a living being or not, whether it is real or imaginary, the sentiment
of benevolence is the same in all cases.

Disinterested I shall call such benevolence, if its origin cannot be
traced directly to some egoistical motive or to some other moral or
aesthetic feeling. Gratitude, which is dictated by a feeling of equity,
admiration, which takes its origin in an aesthetic judgment, or the aver-
sion to inflict pain, which is the result of our habits, I shall not call dis-
interested benevolence, and in this short essay I do not inquire into
their origin.

To explain the growth of the special sentiment of disinterested
benevolence I must assume a certain number of qualities of the mind,
the existence of which, however, has generally been admitted. Whether
these qualities are native or acquired is here of no importance ; all I
require is that they be found in man very soon after his birth. These
qualities are, first, the impulse toward self-preservation and self-aug-
mentation inherent to every living organism, and without which it
could not exist and develop itself ; the wish to be and to be more and
more, in a word, to grow. The second quality of mind which I have to
assume is the consciousness of existing, not only as a passive sentient
being, but as an active being too. And these two qualities once ad-
mitted, there follows from them a third, which is the wish to exist as
an active being either actually or potentially, to be either acting or
capable of acting — the wish for power. The fourth quality is that
known under the name of capacity of associating ideas, and the fifth
the capacity and tendency of the mind to fuse or confuse such asso-
ciated ideas, so as not to distinguish them any longer from one another.
The first four qualities just enumerated have long ago been generally
admitted and amply illustrated. The fifth, that of confusing ideas, has
likewise been admitted ; it has even been most admirably illustrated
in the works of many a philosopher of great repute, but I am not aware
that its importance for morals has ever been sufficiently insisted upon.

The specimen case of confusion is that between the ego and the
body. All men in early life confuse the two notions of self and body,
and most men continue to do so forever. Here already the confusion
produces a kind of disinterested benevolence; we feel well inclined
toward our boclj7 irrespective of any advantage to ourself.

GENESIS OF DISINTERESTED BENEVOLENCE. 737

But it is not from this simplest form of the mental quality that
moral benevolence takes its rise. Besides the confusion just spoken
of, there is another, the outflow and consequence of that between body
and mind, nearly as common among children and uneducated men. It
is the confusion between the acts of ourself, of our mind, and those of
our body ; between intended effects and willed acts.

This confusion is to be found in the laws of all rude and semi-bar-
barous nations. Their criminal codes punish the result of an act irre-
spective of the intention of the agent ; they make, for instance, no dif-
ference between murder and manslaughter. In more civilized countries,
where generations of lawgivers have for centuries developed the theory
of criminal responsibility, the law is even now far from perfect. The
result of an act, even when not intended, continues to be taken into
account for punishment. A man who would be let off with a small fine
for an illegal act producing no direct harm would be fined more heavily,
or even imprisoned, if by such an act some harm were unintentionally
done. Even if the legislator wished to correct this irrational state of
the law, the general opinion of the uneducated majority would prevent
him from doing so. It will be long ere the theory of criminal responsi-
bility is generally understood.

But if in criminal law, which it is the interest of so many persons
to clear up, the confusion still exists, how much the more will it con-
tinue in those matters where no great interest is at stake! If a man
kills another man, fear of punishment, fear of his own conscience, will
prompt him to consider whether the death was intended or not, whether
he is guilty of murder or of simple manslaughter. But, if a man by
mere chance does some good to another man, there is nothing which
incites him to a similar mental effort, while on the contrary the agree-
able sense of power which the consciousness of the effect produces, the
gratitude of the benefited individual and the approbation of society,
will make the idea that he is the author of the benefit pleasant to him
and prevent him from too closely analyzing his motives. He will easily
assume that he is the author of the benefit, and so it happens that, when
an act of his body has produced a beneficial result upon some one else,
an average man thinks that he himself has done good to that indi-
vidual.

From this confusion real disinterested benevolence will take its
origin. The agreeable sense of power, produced by the unintended
beneficial effect, will continue as long as the agent can remember that
effect. This, however, will only be the case if the benefit persists for
some time, so that it may hereafter be remembered, and it will be all
the more the case if that benefit continues for a long time so as to be
actually perceived. There is, then, an inducement so to act that it may
persist. This inducement is of course very weak at first, and will pro-
duce no action if there is not a considerable spontaneous energy. But
there is already a germ of benevolence, the wish that a benefit con-
vol. xiii, — 47

73 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ferred upon some individual may subsist. And if this sentiment under
favorable circumstances produces further action, this time intentional,
it will become stronger thereby ; far more power is felt to be exerted,
and more interest is consequently felt in the effect. The wish to main-
tain the effect increases in proportion to the exertions already made,
and it may finally become strong enough to overcome counteracting
influences of considerable moment.

But this is not all. As it is a condition of the persistence of the
beneficial effect, that the being upon whom it has been produced con-
tinues to exist, a secondary wish, very slight at first, will be generated,
that the whole individual may continue to be. At the same time that
the wish for the persistence of the beneficial effect becomes stronger,
this secondary feeling augments and may produce action tending to the
conservation and the welfare of the individual benefited. But, as soon
as the fact is realized that good has been done to the whole individual,
this new secondary benefit will become the starting-point of a growing
disinterested benevolence, directed no longer toward a single quality
but toward the whole being. The secondary feeling may now grow
much quicker than the primary one, which may in due time be entirely
forgotten, and nothing will remain but true disinterested benevolence
toward the individual. A benefit conferred by mere chance has pro-
duced true devotion.

To illustrate my meaning, which otherwise might remain obscure,
let me adduce an example : A man had to throw away some water,
and, stepping out of his house, threw it upon a heap of rubbish, where
some faded plants were nearly dying. At that moment he paid no
attention to them, took no interest in their pitiable state. The next
day, having again some water to throw away, the man stepped out at
the same place, when he remarked that the plants had raised their stems
and regained some life. He understood that this was the result of his
act of the day before, his interest was awakened, and, as he held a jar
with water in his hand, he again threw its contents over the plants.
On the following day the same took place ; the benevolent feeling, the
interest in the recovery and welfare of the plants augmented, and the
man tended the plants with increasing care. When he found one day
that the rubbish and plants had been carted away, he felt a real annoy-
ance. The feeling of the man in this case was real disinterested benev-
olence. The plant's were neither fine nor useful, and the place where
they stood was ugly and out of the way, so the man had no advantage
from their growth. Nor had the man a general wish to rear plants, for
there were a number of other plants sorely in want of care, but to
which the man did not transfer his affection. He had loved those indi-
vidual plants ; the benevolence toward the effect he had at first pro-
duced had by confusion become benevolence toward the plant itself,
and the first feeling had been entirely forgotten.

In this case there was a complete confusion between the effect and

GENESIS OF DISINTERESTED BENEVOLENCE. 739

the recipient of it, rendered easy by the fact that, by continuing the
special benefit, the whole welfare of the plant was assured. But such
is not always the case. If the benefits have all been of one and the
same kind, if the benefactor has been prevented from extending the
sphere of his beneficial action, the feeling of benevolence will remain
in its primitive state, directed toward one quality of the individual.
However strong it may become, it will never extend to the whole
being.

Cases of this kind are by no means rare, but they are generally mis-
understood. We assume that A feels benevolence toward B, and that,
if he lays so much stress on a single quality of the latter, this arises
from an error of judgment as to what is good for B. In reality the
error of judgment is ours, and the man whose folly we condemn is in-
tellectually quite in the right. Having never learned to love B, but
only to love one of his qualities, A favors this latter even to the detri-
ment of the holder.

In the first example adduced by me, benevolence took its origin in
a chance act, no effect at all having at first been intended. This is not
necessarily the case. A benefit may be intended in a limited degree,
for instance, as an . equivalent for a benefit received. The spring of
action here is gratitude, based on equity. But, while this benefit is
conferred, a benevolent feeling, first, toward the special quality fur-
thered, and, finally, toward the whole individual, may arise in exactly
the same manner in which it arose from a chance act. Gratitude will
be forgotten, and disinterested benevolence felt instead. One moral
feeling has here given rise to another ; equity to disinterested benevo-
lence. In our social system this latter genesis will be most common ;
it is only where social relations are rare that benevolence will com-
monly be produced as a consequence of a chance act. But, in all cases
it will be a necessary condition to the perfection of the feeling, that it
be extended to the whole individual, as else it may often tend rather to
injure than to favor this latter.

My meaning, I hope, is now sufficiently explained. It remains to
be seen how far my theory is in accordance with the known facts about
benevolence. For this I hold to be the indispensable test of every psy-
chological theory — that it will offer an easy explanation of the facts
known from experience ; and this test I shall now apply.

The strongest feeling of benevolence on record is probably the love
a mother bears to her infant child. The strong feeling that she has
given it life, that the child is her creation, explains the energy of the
affection. This is further strengthened by the consciousness, that by
nourishing and tending her child she confers constantly new benefits,
indispensable to its welfare. But, as the child grows up, this benevo-
lent feeling may, with mentally undeveloped persons, lose much of its
power. When the child becomes independent, when it is no longer in
want of the maternal care, the maternal affection will cool down or turn

740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

toward a younger child still in need of its mother's help. This is al-
ready apparent in the lower races of mankind, but much more so among
the higher animals. Among these latter a mother will risk her life to
defend her young, but, when they are grown up, she does not care for
them in the least.

Among uneducated people paternal affection is seldom very strong
toward an infant. Some culture of mind is necessary to realize all the
indirect benefits the father at first confers. But, when the direct influ-
ence becomes considerable, the paternal affection augments and may
assume a very great energy. Among animals paternal affection, I think,
exists only in those species in which the father assists the mother in
rearing and feeding the little ones, as, for instance, among birds.

During the proscriptions of Marius and Sulla, there' were many sons
who out of fear gave up their father, but it was never known that a
father had denounced his son ; a fact that somewhat startled the Ro-
man moralists, who were unable to explain it. Upon my theory the ex-
planation is easy enough. In Roman society the son could confer no
benefit upon his father, and the mere feeling of gratitude for the bene-
fits received from the parent was not sufficient to counterbalance the
fear of the bloody edict. Filial affection can indeed become very
strong, but, whenever it does, it is easy to perceive that the parent has
in some way become dependent on the child — has received benefits
from him.

The relations between man and wife are such that the two are called
upon to complete one another — that they have a fair opportunity of
conferring great benefits without a corresponding sacrifice or exertion.
The facilitv renders the feat all the more attractive, and strong affec-
tion follows upon it.

That friendship is based upon numerous mutual benefits is a fact
daily seen. Prevent a friend from doing you good, impress him with
the idea that he is of no use to you, and his affection will cool. But
ask a man for little services he is ready to render, let him know and
keep in his mind that he has conferred a benefit upon you, and he will
like you all the more for it, become interested in your welfare, and
finally feel real devotion for you. I have never known the experiment
to fail.

In public life those who receive the greatest benefits from the com-
munity are not the men most ready to make any sacrifice for the gen-
eral good. Patriotism, I think, is not exactly rampant in workhouses,
though the inmates owe everything they enjoy to the munificence of
the public. The pauper who has done no good to his country, who, on
the contrary, is a continual burden to it, feels no benevolence toward it.

On the other hand, a man in the higher ranks often enters the
public service, either to earn in an easy way a sufficient income or out
of ambition, and in order to gain fame. If such a man by his energy
or by some distinctive talent becomes useful to the state, in most cases

GENESIS OF DISINTERESTED BENEVOLENCE. 741

he will become a really patriotic citizen. The official will devote more
than the strictly due time and energy to the fulfillment of his task, the
statesman will give up his personal ambition, and often risk what must
be dear to him, popularity and power, in order to carry the measures
he thinks necessary to the welfare of his country.

And when some extraordinary man has made a discovery, has in-
troduced a measure or proclaimed a truth beneficial to the whole world,
the sentiment that he has been useful to so many millions of peoj:>le
gives a distinctive character to his benevolent impulses. Such a man,
the benefactor of humanity, will refuse his sympathy to no part of it ;
he will at once feel benevolence toward any man with whom he comes
into contact. He knows that he has done him some good, and is well
inclined toward him.

I hope I have now shown that my theory agrees with the facts
known by experience, that it can bear the crucial test. That being
so, I think myself entitled to hold that the genesis of every single
benevolent sentiment is that some good is done to an individual, either
unintentionally or from another motive than that of disinterested benevo-
lence, as from gratitude, sense of equity, religious feeling, or hope of
advantage, and that, the benefit itself being loved by its author, this
love or disinterested benevolence is by confusion extended to the in-
dividual upon whom the benefit has been conferred and maintained.
It now remains for me to explain how, from single benevolent feelings,
there arises a general benevolent disposition, how the benevolent char-
acter is formed.

I think we shall again have to trace back the origin of the benevo-
lent disposition to confusion. After having felt benevolence toward a
number of individuals of a class, we come to confuse them with one
another, and to transfer part of our feeling to the whole class. When
any member of it presents itself, benevolence is at once excited.

That such is the case will appear more clearly if we remember how1
often we are favorably disposed toward a perfect stranger, simply
because in his outward appearance, his manner, his voice, or any other
characteristic, he is like some other person we love. We have a con-
fused but strong benevolent feeling toward a cluster of attributes be-
lono-ino- to the friend we have learned to cherish. Some of these attri-
butes are suddenly and strikingly presented to us, and we feel well
inclined toward them. We confuse the attributes with the present
possessor of them, and benevolence is felt toward the stranger. In
this case the genesis is so clear, the confusion so glaring, that they
cannot, be overlooked. In other cases they will not be so apparent,
but the process will be the same. The cluster of attributes — man,
Englishman, or man of a certain type — is liked, because a number of
persons dear to us possess these attributes. Men of another type or
nation are often not liked at all, even by such people as are generally
considered benevolent. The difference in this case is stronger than the

742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

likeness, and no confusion is made. What holds good of men holds
good equally of all other beings. I have observed this genesis in my-
self ; formerly rather hostile to dogs, now that I have a dog myself, I
feel well inclined toward the whole canine species, but most to that
part of it which has some characteristic feature in common with my
favorite. This, then, is the genesis of the benevolent disposition, that,
after having by confusion become well inclined toward certain things,
we feel the same benevolence toward each of their attributes ; when
we find these attributes in other things, we feel equally well inclined
toward them, and by confusion extend this benevolence to the indi-
vidual possessing the attribute. Hence it follows that the greater the
diversity among the individuals toward whom we acquire a benevolent
feeling when young, the wider the range of our sympathies, of the
benevolence we feel at once toward those with whom we come in con-
tact— a fact of some importance in educational science.

I do not know whether I shall have convinced my reader of the
soundness of my theory. Limited space and an inadequate power over
the language may have prevented me from attaining this end. But
the question is so important that even the mere suggestion of a possi-
ble theory might be accepted as of some use toward the final solution of
the problem, and as such I offer the foregoing pages. — Mind.

■♦»»■

SKETCH OF CLAUDE BERNARD.

CLAUDE BERNARD died at Paris, in February, 1878, in the sixty-
fifth year of his age. The nineteenth century produced Magendie,
Flourens, Johannes Midler, Charles Bell, Marshall Hall, and others,
who made great discoveries in human physiology ; but none of these
great men did more for the advancement of knowledge in this direction
than the subject of our sketch. Bernard was a pure physiologist ; and,
in his day, he was recognized as the great exponent of the experimental
school. His name is connected with important discoveries in nearly
every department of human physiology, and the influence of his method
has borne fruit wherever this science is studied.

The career of Claude Bernard is a most interesting and instruc-
tive chapter in the history of the progress of physiology for the past
thirty-five years. The accounts of his life which have appeared in the
French journals give little information with regard to his early life.
It is simply stated that he was born in the village of Saint-Julien, near
Villefranche (Rhone), on the 12th of July, 1813, where he studied phar-
macy. When about twenty-one years of age, he went to Paris with
the manuscript of a tragedy. He had written a vaudeville, which had
been represented at Lyons ; it is not said with what success, but prob-

SKETCH OF CLAUDE BERNARD. 743

ably he had been encouraged sufficiently to lead him to seek for fame
as a playwright. Upon his arrival at Paris, he formed the acquaintance
of Prof. Saint-Marc Girardin, who induced him to give up his purely
literary aspirations, and to enter upon the study of medicine. In 1839
he became an interne in the Paris hospitals, where his remarkable tal-
ents were soon recognized. Very early in his career he published a
large and superbly illustrated work upon " Operative Surgery," in con-
nection with M. Huette. This work was translated into many foreign
languages, and met with great success ; but his distinguished reputa-
tion as a physiologist, which dates from about 1848, afterward became
so extended that his writings upon surgery have almost been forgotten.

In 1843 he discovered the nerve which gives the sense of taste to
the anterior portion of the tongue.

In 1844 he made important advances in the knowledge of digestion
by the stomach, following the discovery of the properties of the gastric
juice in 1833, by Dr. Beaumont, an American physician.

In 1848 he discovered the production of sugar by the liver, which
had not before been even suspected. At about the same time he dis-
covered the digestion of fats by the pancreas, a fact of great physio-
logical importance.

In 1844 he discovered the nerve which presides exclusively over the
voice.

In 1847 he fully described, for the first time, the digestive proper-
ties of the secretions of the different salivary glands.

About 1853 he devised an accurate method of estimating the gases
of the blood, and he did more than any of his predecessors to advance
our positive knowledge of the process of interchange of gases in respira-
tion.

His researches in the physiology of the nervous system were most
extensive. He did more than any one before to illustrate the mechan-
ism of secretion and excretion, and the influence of the nervous system
over the action of glands. He was the first to fully and accurately
describe the properties of the woorara poison, which is now so largely
used in physiological research. It would be impossible, within the
limits of this sketch, to give a comprehensive and intelligent account
of Bernard's original investigations. Within the last twenty-three
years he has published fifteen volumes upon subjects connected with
physiology, embodying the results of his original work. He constantly
and powerfully advocated the experimental method, and his dexterity
in vivisection was truly marvelous. While he was at the zenith of his
fame, nearly all physicians who visited Paris attended his lectures or
witnessed the experiments in his laboratory. To all he was uniformly
courteous and communicative ; and the success of the demonstrations
with which his lectures were profusely illustrated created the greatest
enthusiasm. Between the years 1859 and 1865 he published very
little, being in feeble health. During this time his thoughts must have

744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

been directed more toward general physiology than before ; and the
first volume of lectures, published after his health had become partially
restored, was more philosophical in its scope than his earlier writings.
Still, his tendency was always toward original investigation, and, in
his reasoning, he closely followed the deductive method.

It is difficult for one who has not followed closely the progress of
physiology for the past quarter of a century to appreciate the full merit
of the original work accomplished by Bernard, and the immense influ-
ence which he and his followers have exerted by the impulse they have
given to the experimental and deductive method. His studies in the
nervous system resulted not only in a number of important discoveries,
but in the adoption of many entirely novel methods of experimentation.
His discovery of the production of sugar by the liver gave the first
definite idea of the possible function of a ductless gland. The dis-
covery of the digestion of fats by the pancreas gave to physiologists
the first positive fact with regard to intestinal digestion. The dis-
covery of the influence of the sympathetic system of nerves over animal
heat, made in 1851, opened the subject of the relations of the nervous
system to nutrition and the action of the vaso-motor nerves ; and
examples of this kind might be largely extended in number.

The importance of the labors of Bernard was fully recognized in
France, where he long held the highest professorial positions, and was
the recipient of many honors from his government. He was assistant
and prosector to Magendie from 1841 to the time of the death of Ma-
gendie in 1855, and acted as his substitute at the College of France
from 1847 to 1855. In 1843 he took his medical degree. In 1853 he
took the degree of Doctor of Sciences, and was appointed to the chair
of General Physiology which was created for him at the Faculty of
Sciences. In 1855 he succeeded Magendie as Professor of Medicine at
the College of France. In 1868 he was appointed professor at the
Museum of Natural History. He was elected a member of the Acad-
emy of Medicine in 1861, perpetual President of the Society of Biology
in 1867, and a member of the Institute of France in 1869. In 1867
he was appointed commander in the Legion of Honor, and Senator of
France in 1869. At the time of his death he was a member of most of
the learned societies of Europe, and of several in America. In the
French Chamber of Deputies, when his death was announced, his mem-
ory received the unusual honor of a unanimous vote decreeing that his
funeral be conducted at the expense of the state.

Such, in brief, was the career of one who was the greatest physi-
ologist of the nineteenth century. His labors extended over a period
of thirty-five years. They were untiring and most fruitful in practical
results. It may be truly said that he ended his work only with his life,
and he corrected the last proofs of a series of lectures, published after
his death, upon the bed of sickness from which he never arose.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

745

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATIONS.

THE American and British Associa-
tions for the Advancement of Sci-
ence have again assembled in their cus-
tomary annual meetings, the former in
St. Louis, and the latter in Dublin.
The American meeting was not large,
its location being unfavorable to draw
people from remote distances in the
heat of August. But a fair amount of
work seems to have been done, as those
who came were interested aud active
men in their several departments of
science. The chief event of the session
seems to have been, as it undoubtedly
should be, the delivery of the presiden-
tial address. President Newcomb wise-
ly chose a topic of general interest, and,
moreover, did not hesitate to enter
boldly upon the discussion of questions
of a high philosophical character, and
concerning which the mind of the age
has by no means settled down into the
repose of unanimity. He considers the
scientific method of thinking, as con-
trasted with the theological method,
and pictures the progress of scientific
thought in clearing away the old theo-
logical interpretations of Nature, and
giving us a new and truer view of the
realities and method of the universe.
The doctrine of teleology, of final causes,
or ends to be secured in the economy
of Nature is instructively discussed, and
the influence of science in doing away
with this mode of viewing the course
of things is well pointed out. The ad-
dresses given before the sub-sections
of the Association were meritorious on
their several topics, and we are glad to
see that Prof. Grote, in his address on
" Education as a Succession of Expe-
riences," went into the grounds of sci-
entific education, and made a forcible
appeal to the body to take a deeper in-

terest in the work of diffusing science
and bringing its influence to bear more
directly upon the schools of the coun-
try in respect of their scientific teach-
ing. He says :

" The demand has come up from teachers
throughout the country that they should be
better informed as to the manner in which
the sciences may be introduced into the
schools, and the matter to be taught. It is
the duty of this Association to furnish such
information. If we have not sympathized
with this inquiry in the past, let us assist it
in the future. It is quite evident that the
sooner it commits itself, as a matter of prin-
ciple, to the furtherance of' science among
the people, the more following it will have
and the greater influence. The Association
must be prepared to demand moi-e time for
scientific studies from the public school au-
thorities, and it must show that education
in this aspect of it is a matter that not only
falls properly under its cognizance, but which
it is also prepared to take hold of."

These are wise and weighty words, and
we hope they will be heeded in con-
ducting the future operations of this
body.

The British Association had a large
and successful meeting in Dublin, to
one feature of which we desire to call
attention, as worthy of imitation by the
American society. The British Asso-
ciation admits members each year called
"associates," which may consist of
strangers, citizens, ladies, or anybody
who wishes to join without any re-
gard to scientific qualifications. They,
of course, take no part in the business,
and merely enter into social relations
with the body for the time being, but
they pay the same fees as regular mem-
bers. Five hundred associates joined
in Dublin, which not only gave fullness
to the attendance, and increasing in-
terest to the proceedings, but secured
$2,500 to the treasury to aid in the va-

746

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rious projects of the search which it is
one of the aims of the organization to
carry out. President Spottiswoode's
address was an elaborate and excellent
performance, treating first of the his-
tory, influence, and policy, of the As-
sociation with which he has long been
connected as treasurer, and then taking
up the subject of mathematics, which
is the specialty he cultivates. His treat-
ment of this subject is highly instruc-
tive, and at the present time most op-
portune. He not only presents very
forcibly the general interest and claims
of the subject, but he takes up certain
curious aspects of it that have recently
excited much curiosity and attention,
and among these the perplexing topic
of the fourth dimension of space. His
address in full, together with that of
Prof. Newcomb, will appear in the next
issue of The Popular Science Monthly
Supplement.

TEE STUDY OF PROTOPLASM.

We print this month the third and
last installment of an introductory es-
say on the nature and properties of
protoplasm, by Dr. Montgomery. The
author has made this subject a matter
of observation, experiment, and pro-
found reflection, for many years ; and his
views cannot fail to receive the critical
attention of philosophical biologists.
Dr. Montgomery is deeply impressed
with the immense scientific importance
of this comparatively new field of ex-
ploration, and we think he does not in
the least exaggerate the serious interest
of the questions opened by this line of
study. Protoplasm is the physical ba-
sis of life, and its problems are the ini-
tial problems of life. Protoplasm is a
living substance endowed with capaci-
ties of vital movement, and the ques-
tion of the origin of life is narrowly
and sharply a question of the origin
and production of protoplasm. It may
never be answered, and many think it

would be a dreadful thing if it should
be answered. All other mysteries of
Nature, they hold, may be properly ex-
plored, but to explore and explain this
is nothing short of stealing a divine se-
cret. Yet if the mystery can never be
cleared up, as they assure us, then sure-
ly there is no harm in probing it ;
while, if it can, the fact itself is proof
that it ought to be done, and that no
harm will result.

But, whatever may be the final event,
Dr." Montgomery has at any rate put
the issue in a nice little nutshell. There
is a gulf between the organic and the
inorganic worlds which we are impres-
sively assured is broader than the Pa-
cific, and can never be fathomed ; Dr.
Montgomery says that, by the chemical
substitution of an atom of hydrogen
for an atom of oxygen, it will disap-
pear. He remarks :

" Is not protoplasm a chemical compound
like other substances, merely varying from
them in its degree of molecular complexity ?
Its most characteristic manifestation, its dis-
tinguishing mode of motion, its peculiar
force — the one specific activity constituting
its most vital difference — is better known to
us than any quality which forms the distin-
guishing feature between other substances.
Do we greatly concern ourselves about the
origin of MgO,S03 + 7H20, or any other min-
eral substance ? Why, then, should the ori-
gin of some combination of C, H, N, 0, be
made a question of the life and death of our
principal philosophies ? Has it actually come
to this, that the scientific foundation of our
creed rests on the decision whether COO is
or was once changed into CHO by natural or
supernatural means ; and this when there is
plenty of H about in our world? Yes, it is
even so, however incredible, however little
flattering to our intellectual pretensions.
The contending claims of naturalism and su-
pernaturalism, the fate of the most momen-
tous question touching the guidance of our
life, turn actually, in the field of science,
upon the paltry issue of the synthesis of
ternary carbon-compounds, whether this bo
chemically or whether it be super-chemical-
ly effected. COO is undisputably an inor-
ganic compound. CHO is indisputably an
organic compound. This designates accu-
rately the actual depth of the gulf existing
between organic and inorganic Nature."

EDITOR'S TABLE.

7\7

YELLOW FEVER, AND WHAT TO DO
ABOUT IT.

The rapid spread and appalling mor-
tality of the yellow-fever plague in the
towns of the Lower Mississippi have
profoundly moved the sympathy of the
country, and very naturally raised the
urgent question as to what shall be
done in so fearful an emergency. Gov-
ernor Bishop, of Ohio, has made a proc-
lamation, calling upon all the Christian
people of his State to assemble in their
houses of worship at a given date, and
offer their united prayers to Almigh-
ty God, imploring him to interfere and
stop the pestilence. It seems to us an
entirely proper thing to appeal to re-
ligious feelings on such an occasion as
this ; but it should be done in such a
way as not to evade the lessons they
teach, and we trust it will not be
thought ungracious if we point out
Governor Bishop's presentation of the
case as seriously at fault. Moreover,
he brings science into the case in a way
that is open to objection.

There are different views in regard
to the expediency of such public action
as Governor Bishop has taken. Many
think it does more harm than good, but
that depends entirely upon the way it
influences human conduct. If reliance
upon Divine help, which, it is supposed,
can be especially secured by conspicu-
ous demonstrations of public prayer,
has the least effect in checking human
effort, such action as that of Governor
Bishop is injurious. Only when pray-
er quickens human exertion in such in-
stances as this is it beneficial ; if sub-
stituted for it, it is ill-judged and detri-
mental.

This is simply the dictate of common-
sense, which enlightened rulers have
already acted upon. It is well known
that when the Scotch Presbyterians
petitioned Lord Palmerston to appoint
a day of national prayer, to induce the
Almighty to stretch forth his hand
and stop an epidemic, his lordship de-
clined to do it, on the rational ground

that, until the people had done every-
thing in their power to prevent it, it
would be impertinent to call upon
Providence to interfere ; in other words,
they had no warrant to ask him to pro-
tect them from the consequences of
their own neglect.

The Ohio governor does not pro-
ceed upon the sensible view of the
British premier. He assumes the in-
competency of science and the insuffi-
ciency of human effort, both of which
he declares to be " unavailing " to arrest
the plague ; and, these agencies having
failed, he proposes, as a last resort, to
utilize "the intervention of Almighty
God."

But it is not true that human sci-
ence and human effort have proved
unavailing. They have indeed not
stopped the yellow fever, but does Gov-
ernor Bishop assume that they have
been thoroughly tried, and accomplished
every thing that is humanly possible?
But they have proved availing and great-
ly efficient in checking the pestilence
and diminishing its fatality ; and to de-
ny this is to convict the whole nation
of folly in the exertions it has put forth
to limit the ravages and mitigate the
sufferings of the plague-smitten dis-
tricts. Yellow fever may not now be
wholly preventable, but nobody denies
that it is partially so; and nobody knows
the degree to which it may be repressed
and escaped until far more vigilant, ef-
ficient, and comprehensive measures of
precaution are resorted to than have
yet been undertaken.

But, besides basing his action upon
a wrong theory, which is to invoke
miraculous intervention, to obtain that
which can only be procured by natural
means, Governor Bishop's view is, be-
sides, not in the highest sense rever-
ential and religious. He instructs the
pious peoplo of his State to ask the Al-
mighty to stop the devastating progress
of the plague, as if that progress was
not in perfect accordance with provi-
dential intentions. To ask the Deity
to interfere in this way is to counsel

748

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

him to reverse his own plans, and aban-
don that method of governing the
world through the operation of inflex-
ible laws which all truly religious peo-
ple must regard as the Divine method.
Ohio wisdom suggests to Divine Wis-
dom such a change of policy as, if car-
ried out, would simply turn order into
chaos. There may be many things
about the providential government of
the world that we cannot explain, but
it is not difficult to see the large benig-
nity of severe and inexorable punish-
ment for violated laws. In nothing is
the sacredness of these ordinances so
attested as in the death-penalties that
follow their transgression.

Governor Bishop arraigns human
science and human effort as having
failed to stop the progress of this
scourge, and says that now the only
hope is God's promise to answer prayer.
But has not prayer — fervent, agonizing,
soul-rending prayer — been already re-
sorted to day and night in the private
closet, and at the family altar, as well
as in the places of public devotion, and
that, too, all over the land? Yet the
epidemic has not been stayed. "Why did
the governor not rank all this impas-
sioned supplication with the other fail-
ures which he offers as reasons for his
oini intervention. And, if he has faith in
the efficacy of a State-appointed appeal
to Heaven, why did he postpone the
demonstration for a week, when hun-
dreds are dying daily ?

"We are far, as has been already
said, from condemning the appeal to
religious considerations and influences
in an extremity like this, but it should
be put on enlightened grounds, and be-
come a means of incitement to nobler
action. Prayer is efficacious just in
proportion as it reacts upon the suppli-
cant to inspire a higher activity, and
in this way it may become a potent
agency for moving men in great emer-
gencies. This being the true point of
view, in place of the proclamation is-
sued by Governor Bishop, we should
have preferred to see something like

the following : " Whereas, a plague is
desolating various Southern cities,
wliich all means hitherto adopted have
failed to arrest, let the devout people
of Ohio gather in their several places
of worship Avithout delay, and, rever-
ently recognizing the Divine wisdom in
this fearful dispensation of suffering,
humbly confess their sins of neglect
and omission, their ignorance, careless-
ness, and culpable apathy in regard to
all sanitary matters, and their want of
quickened sympathy with the afflicted
communities, and register solemn vows
to Heaven that they will at once en-
large their measures of help to the dev-
astated towns, and will in future be
more vigilant and faithful in discharg-
ing the religious duty of guarding and
promoting private and public health."

COOKERY AND EDUCATION.

"We are getting familiar with the
closer collocation of these hitherto wide-
ly-separated ideas, and their permanent
unification in our common thought will
constitute an important step of prog-
ress in domestic improvement and so-
cial amelioration. It will be slow work
to connect cookery and education in
this country, and attempts to bring
about its practical accomplishment will
meet with many impediments. Mean-
time we hail with satisfaction every
indication that this desirable result is
being attained anywhere. If our Eng-
lish friends are to be the pioneers in
this most useful movement, let them
have the honor of it. "We notice that
the following paragraph is going the
rounds of the papers :

" Regular instruction in practical cook-
ery is a part of the new system in the public
schools of London. In every girls' school
in which domestic economy forms part of
the school course, one of the teachers is re-
quired to give lessons on food and its prep-
aration ; and for advanced classes twenty-
one kitchens are to be established in differ-
ent parts of London, each of them fitted
with suitable appliances, and to be presided

LITERARY NOTICES.

749

over by a practical teacher of cookery. This
is a comparatively recent innovation, and
has only been adopted after a sharp strug-
gle."

Of course no such measure could be
adopted except after severe struggle.
The time in schools and the ground in
education are all occupied, and new
subjects are resisted instinctively by
those in control of existing schools.
The London advocates of the cooking-
schools made a strong point by repre-
senting that, while the school board was
spending a great deal of money for or-
namental studies, the knowledge of the
arts and interests of common life was
dying out among young people. This
does not imply that these practical arts
have ever had a fair chance in the
schools, but that absorption in other
subjects stifles even the ordinary inter-
est that would be felt in more useful
studies. The difficulty in linking cook-
ing-schools on to the common schools
is, that the practice of cookery is not
regarded as education, and this is but
a part of the old notion that nothing
practical or manipulatory is properly
education. There was once the same
objection to considering practice in the
chemical laboratory as truly educational
work. That prejudice has been gotten
over now; but what is a kitchen but a
chemical and physical laboratory where
intelligence ought to be developed in
connection with practical processes ?
Culinary changes go according to law
as well as transformations of matter
anywhere else, and they just as much
require cultivated thought to guide
them. No doubt a brainless automaton
in a kitchen may by long practice and
mere imitation acquire a certain suc-
cessful facility in work, but this has
always been the case in all the arts.
Mind has come in play and the ad-
vancement of other arts to such an ex-
tent that to go back now to mere blind,
imitative practice would be almost to
abolish them. The art of preparing
food is still in the empirical condition,
and, what is worse, is generally aban-

doned to a specially ignorant class. "We
have no sanguine hopes about the ren-
ovation of the kitchen by the better
teaching of the culinary art, but the
work is nevertheless thoroughly begun,
and is certainly to go steadily, though
perhaps slowly, onward.

LITERARY NOTICES.

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES,
No. XXIV.

A History of the Growth of the Steam-
Engine. By Robert H. Thurston, A. M.,
C. E., Professor of Mechanical Engineer-
ing in the Stevens Institute of Technol-
ogy. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 490. Price, $2.50.

In the preparation of this work Prof.
Thurston has made an important contribu-
tion, alike to the excellent series of works
of which it will form a part, and to the his-
torical literature of the arts and sciences.
There was a niche for such a book, which
ought to have been filled before. We have
had many works on the steam-engine, from
elementary catechisms to ponderous trea-
tises, all of which have given more or less
attention to its origin ; but there was still
wanting a volume that should tell the enter-
taining story of the growth of this wonderful
machine in a way to interest the popular
mind without impairing the dignity or di-
minishing the instructiveness of the narra-
tive. Prof. Thurston may be congratulated
on having executed his task in a manner
not unworthy the remarkable interest of
the subject.

And this, it must be confessed, is saying
a good deal, for the steam-engine is unique
and incomparable both in its present posi-
tion of commanding influence, and in the
romantic elements of its historical develop-
ment. It is now the most powerful agency
the world possesses for the improvement
and extension of civilization, and its noble
efficiency in this respect is but a measure
of the immense intellectual labor that has
been expended in producing it. It was not
struck out by the creative genius of any one
man, nor constructed by the combined in-
ventive effort of any one age, but it is a
product of centuries of mental exertion ;
and, looking back to its crude beginnings

75°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and tracing the slow stages of its progress,
we may take its condition at any time as
indicating the progress in man's knowledge
of the laws of Nature. It has grown with
the growth of science and the advance of
the human mind.

It was known thousands of years ago
that, when fire is applied to water, vapor
is formed that is capable of producing me-
chanical effects, and centuries before the
Christian era attempts had been made to
use this force in impelling a machine. The
revolving.<Eolipyleof Hero, the Alexandrian,
was a toy for a thousand years. During
the middle ages many a mechanical genius
played with it, but in vain, for there was no
knowledge, and consequently there were
no valuable results and no progress.

With the modern awakening of inquiry
the subject was pursued by many ingenious
experimenters, in different countries and at
different times, until at the beginning of the
eighteenth century so much had been found
out about the properties of heat, water, and
air, and so many devices had been hit upon
to apply them, that it became possible to
combine the different elements into a steam-
machine that could perform work. Newco-
men's engine of 1705 embodied the ideas
and artifices that had been previously
gained, and, though very imperfect, was still
available for useful mechanical effects. The
steam-engine then first became a fact and a
success.

From this time onward, to the patenting
of Watt's double-acting engine in 1769, was
a period of great activity in improving and
developing the machine. Scientific research
led the way in working out chemical and
physical principles, and inventors were busy
in perfecting and combining contrivances
which were crowned by James Watt, who,
by introducing the principles of separate
condensation and double-action, gave to the
steam-engine it's modern form and made it
available for innumerable applications.

After Watt's great success we have a
hundred years of still further improvements
and refinements in the mechanism, and an
enormous extension of its uses. From a
contrivance supposed to be mainly valuable
for pumping water, it became a universal
motor equally valuable for manufacture and
for locomotion on sea and land.

But, though it has been greatly per-

fected, the steam-engine is confessedly still
imperfect. It has been undergoing steady
improvement in recent years, and its theory
is now so well understood, through the re-
fined elucidations of physical research, that
the pathway of future improvement is clear-
ly discerned by sagacious engineers.

The history of the growth of this remark-
able mechanism, that has now become so
potent in the operations of human society,
has an epic interest of grander meaning than
can be found in any history of those de-
structive spasms in society that are sung
and celebrated as war. The steam-engine
is a triumph of peace, a victory of the pa-
cific and constructive agencies of civiliza-
tion, a conquest of Nature through the pur-
suits of science, and a symbol of the rise of
modern industrialism and its successful con-
flict with the malign military spirit by which
the world has been scourged through all the
past.

Prof. Thurston has therefore chosen a
theme of great interest in writing the his-
tory of the steam-engine, and it has not
suffered in his hands. He has done admi-
rable justice to its large and varied ele-
ments. The principles involved in the
mechanism at all its successive stages are
analyzed and stated with clearness, and the
numerous contrivances and constructions by
means of which the steam-engine has been
built up and adapted to various ends are
plainly, perspicuously, and fully described.
The characters, circumstances, and labors,
of the great men who have had a share
in producing it are pleasantly sketched,
and the narrative is enriched by anecdotes
and personal episodes that relieve and en-
liven the more serious discussions of the
book. Solidly instructive throughout, it is
at the same time most agreeable reading,
while many of the narrative parts are spir-
ited and exciting.

Nothing further needs to be said to the
readers of The Popular Science Monthly
respecting the merits of Prof. Thurston's
work, as they are already acquainted with
them through portions of it which have ap-
peared in these pages during the past year.
One feature of the book, however, deserves
especial recognition, and that is the elegance
and profusion of its illustrations. In this
respect no popular work upon the subject
has ever appeared that can at all compare

LITERARY NOTICES.

751

with it. The woodcuts arc in the most fin-
ished style of the engraver's art, and have
been prepared at a lavish expense. Besides
the array of fine woodcuts, illustrating the
steam-engine in all its phases, there is a
collection of elegant portraits interspersed
through the work of all the principal men
whose names are associated with its prog-
ress. These excellent likenesses cannot fail
to heighten the interest that will be felt in
the biographical features of the volume.

The Journal op Physiology. Edited by
Dr. Michael Foster, of Cambridge, with
the cooperation in England of Professors
Gamgee, Rutherford, and Burdon-San-
derson, and in the United States of Pro-
fessors Bowditch, Martin, and Wood.
London and New York: Macmillan & Co.
$5.25 per year.

This new project in scientific journalism,
though under the responsible control of the
eminent English physiologist, Dr. Michael
Foster, has nevertheless so international a
make-up as to give it a strong claim to lib-
eral American support. Dr. Foster's corps
of assistant editors are all very able men ;
and when we say that the American co-
operating editors are Prof. H. P. Bowditch,
of Boston, Prof. H. M. Martin, of Baltimore,
and Prof. H. C. Wood, of Philadelphia, it
will be seen that American science is well
represented, so that there will be no excuse
if the physiological work of this country
is not fairly chronicled. We are glad to
see these indications of a growing scientific
unity and practical co-working between the
two countries. The politicians will continue
to nurse antagonisms and alienations in the
interest of what they deem patriotism ; it
remains for Science to undo their work as
far as it may by cultivating a policy of har-
mony and mutual helpfulness.

The Journal of Physiology is to be a
record of original research and progress in
this branch of science ; but its editors give
a wide and rational construction to the term
" progress " as applied to physiology. While
experimental manipulation will remain the
fundamental means of getting at facts, it
will still be recognized as legitimate to think
about the facts and find out their meanings.
The editors say in their announcement :

" The physiologist works not only by experi-
ment, but also by observation, and indeed by

what is often depreciatingly spoken of as spec-
ulation. The conductors of the Journal would
be the last to wish that its pages should be oc-
cupied by idle writing and the exposition of
baseless views ; but they would be equally un-
willing to refuse a paper because it threw light
on a subject by rearranging old facts rather than
by bringing forward new ones."

The relations which the periodical will
sustain to the medical profession, from which
it ought to derive a strong support, are thus
indicated :

" No branch of study during recent years has
been more fruitful in physiological truths than
the investigations into the action on living or-
ganisms and tissues of the various chemical
bodies known as poisons and drugs. Between
such investigations and those into the action of
medicines no logical separation is possible, and
the physiologist who does not welcome the phys-
iological truths gained by medical practice as
warmly as those coming from the laboratory is
unworthy of the name. So also a little reflec-
tion teaches us that the phenomena of disease
are in reality the deeper and more hidden events
of the body thrust up to the surface by some dis-
location of the economy. Hence all communi-
cations, in which the results of pathological ob-
servation or experiments are discussed with the
view of elucidating their causatiou rather than
in the interests of clinical science, may fairly
find a place in a journal devoted to physiology."

As The Journal of Physiology will be
occupied with substantial original work, and
as the supply of this kind of matter is not
steady and regular, the issue of its succes-
sive parts and the amount of material they
contain will be subject to the discretion of
the managers. Instead of appearing at
strictly regular intervals, the numbers will
be issued at periods varying from two to
three months, while from four to six num-
bers will form the annual volume of about
five hundred pages. The Germans are fall-
ing into this mode of publication, which
seems sensible for a periodical of this kind.
One of its obvious advantages is, as the
editors say :

"That it prevents a discovery made by one
man from being forestalled by another, whose
observations, although really made later in point
of time, might sometimes obtaiu priority under
the ordinary method of publication."

Of the importance of the science of phys-
iology, nothing needs here to be said. A
great body of physiological truth has been
established which is of such moment to
the welfare both of individuals and of the

752

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

community at large that the subject ought
to have great prominence in education and
to be taught to every child at school. But
while many physiological principles and facts
are so well established that they require
to be understood for practical ends, yet the
subject is still undergoing rapid develop-
ment, and new results are being constant-
ly reached which throw further light upon
the operations of the vital economy, and
are often immediately useful. The Journal
of Physiology, therefore, has a valid claim
upon the attention of many outside of sci-
entific and medical circles. It is such a
work as every teacher of physiology, es-
pecially in our higher schools, should have
at hand, to illustrate the exact state of pres-
ent knowledge upon numberless questions
in relation to which current text-books may
be insufficient or behind the times. Where
teaching has not become purely mechanical
and perfunctory, and all care and conscience
have not died out, the teacher of physiology
might give freshness and authority to his
instructions by subscribing to this new
magazine, and making himself familiar with
its contents.

American Journal or .Mathematics, Real
and Applied. Editor-in-Chief J. J. Syl-
vester, LL. D., F. R. S. Published un-
der the auspices of the Johns Hopkins
University. Second notice.

The second number of the American
Journal of Mat hematics reaches us. It is
very handsomely printed in quarto, and the
formulas look as inviting as formulas can.
It undoubtedly belongs to the highest class
of mathematical periodicals. We will not
presume to pass judgment upon the utility
of all those speculations concerning space
of four dimensions, the exact movements of
the moon, the abstrusities of pure algebra,
the phyllotactic numbers, etc. There cer-
tainly is such a thing as economy in re-
search ; and, fully admitting that each prin-
ciple of pure mathematics is likely some
day to find an application, it is a question
to be considered whether it is worth while
to spend time upon a theorem a thousand
years before it will probably be needed.
The principles of compound interest apply
as much to brains as to money. If, instead
of expending a certain portion of energy
upon the resolution of a distantly useful

problem, I devote it to something which has
immediate applications, an advantage will
have been gained which w ill have its effect
through all future time. Here is a little
question which we may leave to the mathe-
maticians to solve, if anything so simple
can interest them : Suppose that a certain
mathematical study is destined to find an
application as important as the conic sec-
tions have found, but only after a thousand
years. What, upon the principles of com-
pound interest, is the present worth of it as
compared with that of an equal expenditure
of energy in any immediately practical
way?

When we call to mind what an army of
intellects have devoted themselves to such
subjects as, say, the resolution of cubic
equations, we can hardly help suspecting
that such researches, though of a higher
order of activity than chess-playing, are
chiefly of value for the amusement they
afford. What is really useful is not the so-
lution of this or that problem, but the exist-
ence of the mathematician himself. The
civilization of our time has been more pro-
moted by engineers, inventors, and popular
writers on science, than by almost any other
classes of men. But these persons are led
by scientific men. The scientific men are
certainly led by the physicists, and these
in turn by the mathematicians. Thus, not-
withstanding the smallness of the class who
read mathematics, the influence of the great
geometers spreads in concentric circles, un-
til there is no one, not even the common
day-laborer, who is not better off for it. It
is not necessary that the problems in which
the mathematicians most delight should be
particularly useful. It is not necessary that
the most profound minds, whose real value
to civilization is the greatest of all, should
ever concern themselves with the applica-
tions of mathematics. Their business is es-
pecially to work out fruitful conceptions, and
to impress them upon other minds ; and this
they do not only by their writings, but also
by their personal conversation.

The truth is, that productive industry
only builds the substructure upon which
civilization rests. The fairy palace itself is
due to the pursuit of pleasure, to luxury, to
the doing of useless things. Every amuse-
ment tends toward corruption, but every
one tends also toward culture. An amuse-

LITERARY NOTICES.

753

raent is more or less beneficial according as
one or other effect predominates in it.

Mathematics may be loved by a syba-
rite, but it will never be his occupation.
Yet it is a most gentlemanly amusement,
pursued far from vulgar passions and ap-
plause, in the calm of a library, nothing
sordid mingling with it. Those harsh and
crabbed formulas which fill us outsiders
with such dismay, and from which we flee in
terror, doubtless become, after a while, to
the devotee as musical as is Apollo's lute, and
are regarded by him as affectionately as a
chess-player regards his finely-carved queens
and castles.

Everybody, of course, knows that the
practical utility, not to say necessity, even
of the highest mathematics, is immense.
But we have preferred to consider it in re-
lation to the purely theoretical or very re-
motely practical departments which will no
doubt occupy a large portion of the Ameri-
can Journal of Mathematics. Even so con-
sidered, the present mathematical revival
which the coming of Mr. Sylvester has occa-
sioned, and the establishment of this journal,
may be characterized as important events for
the highest welfare of the country — impor-
tant even for its material welfare. It is not
to be expected that the actual readers of such
a journal should be very numerous, and,
though subscriptions will be drawn from Eu-
rope, yet the success of it must depend upon
its finding subscribers who do not read it, but
who appreciate its value. Whether a suffi-
cient class exists in America which under-
stands the importance of intellectual activity
of the profoundest kind to enable such ac-
tivity to exist here, is a vital question for
our destiny.

Not to close this notice without a bit of
criticism, we may mention that one of the
editors of the Journal has by means of a
" Crelle's Table " found in a few minutes
that the number 191,071 is either a prime
or else divisible by a factor less than 137.
This is pronounced by another of the editors
to be " a real stroke of genius." We should
like to have the glory of it a little further
elucidated. We have put Crelle's Table in-
to the hands of a computer, and requested
him to find the divisors of the number in
question. Having no pretensions to genius,
he did not stop at 137, but, proceeding in the
ordinary humdrum way, announced abso-
vol. xni. — 48

lutely, in a quarter of an hour, that the num-
ber was prime. We confidently look for an
article in the coming number setting out
and explaining the wonderful stroke of gen-
ius in question, the marvel of which does
not seem to have lain in its reaching a very
speedy or complete solution of the problem
undertaken.

Democracy in Europe : A History. By Sir
Thomas Erskine May. New York:
W. J. Widdleton. 1878. 2 vols.

In an appropriate introductory essay
to this work the author sets forth the
principles that constitute its foundation. It
can scarcely be said that he offers anything
new here; he, however, points out truths
that can never be too sedulously insisted
upon. After stating that by democracy he
understands " the political power or influ-
ence of the people under all forms of gov-
ernment," that " it denotes a principle or
force and not simply an institution," he
discusses the moral, social, and physical
causes of freedom, supporting his asser-
tions, the while, with historical instances.
He next shows that, as the constant de-
velopment of popular power is the result
of the intellectual and material progress
of a nation, it must be accepted as a nat-
ural law ; and that, instead of striving to
breast the current, statesmen should en-
deavor to urge it forward in the most ad-
visable channels. As a matter of course,
the author has not avoided the opportunity
of commenting upon the excesses of demo-
cratic ideas, and of breaking lances with
devotees of eommunism and socialism.

Sir Erskine May enters the historical
field with a gloomy portraiture of the con-
stitutions of the old Eastern nations, and,
in order to show that freedom is a growth
wholly peculiar to European soil, he en-
deavors to prove that in all times — even the
present — the main characteristics of Eastern
society have been immutability and immo-
bility. He begins with an examination of
the constitution of India, and claims that
the Hindoos have never known freedom ;
that their ignorance has been opposed to
it ; that their enslavement has fostered their
ignorance ; and concludes that" England has
already given more ' liberty ' to India than
ever she aspired to under her former rulers."
In the histories of Persia, China, Japan,

754

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Phoenicia, Carthage, and Egypt, the author 1
likewise fails to discover germs of demo-
cratic ideas. It will not be amiss for us
to state that Von Schlegel, Ferrari, and the
more distinguished modern critics, have
agreed that the East, too, has been always
progressing, steadily if slowly, in the path
of civilization, and that at no period was
democracy entirely unknown in Eastern
countries; the village communities of In-
dia, old as the nation itself, bear witness to
this assertion.

Chapters II.-VI. are devoted to Greece
and Rome. An attempt to go over the
whole of his ground with the author would
be a trespass upon the limits of this no-
tice. We can only refer the reader to the
work itself, where, among many absurd
theories and startling declarations, he may
nevertheless find many good ideas.

We cannot, we are sorry to say, so rec-
ommend that portion of the work which
treats of the fortunes of democracy during
the middle ages. Like the older writers
who had not comprehended the philosophy
of history, Sir Erskine May persists in call-
ing this epoch by the now exploded title of
"the dark ages," and seems to see in it
nothing beyond vandalism and ruins. In
love with " the old world," he has failed to
realize its shortcomings, and accordingly
the necessity of demolishing it in order to
rebuild with the old materials one more
in keeping with democratic ideas. He is
forced, however, later on, to acknowledge
that " this general prostration of the people
of Europe was gradually lessened by the
operation of several causes, which contrib-
uted to the ultimate regeneration of society
and the advancement of freedom. These
causes are to be sought in the ' free ' insti-
tutions of the conquerors themselves, in the
traditional laws and customs of Rome, in
the influence of Christianity and the Catho-
lic Church, and in the increasing enlight-
enment and general expansion of mediaeval
society." Here he presents the Church as
the protector of the people's rights, and as
counteracting the absolutism of kings and
barons, and therefore as a democratic in-
stitution ; afterward he notices the Church
as directly antagonistic to freedom, and in
the end hits upon the truth by saying :
" Any pretensions of the Church which im-
paired the absolutism of rulers were so far

favorable to liberty ; but the pope was con-
tending for ecclesiastical domination, not
for civil freedom ; and, if the latter cause
sometimes profited by his intervention, it
was because kings were weakened — not be-
cause the Church was the apostle of liber-
ty." As he proceeds, our author shows
how the cause of democracy was gradually
helped along by the growing refinement of
the barons, by minstrelsy, chivalry, and the
crusades; which, "by weakening the aris-
tocracy, increased on one side the power of
the monarchs and on the other the freedom
of the people," and led to the enfranchise-
ment of the rising communes, to the revival
of towns and the growth of municipal lib-
erties ; how all this brought about a revival
of learning, an impulse of new life in the
universities, to which was due the develop-
ment later on of the liberty of thought and
the Reformation.

Resuming his way backward, Sir Er-
skine May devotes the seventh chapter to the
Italian republics, and, in presenting their
history, shows how several causes, foremost
among them being the earlier intellectual
revival, operated to bring about an early de-
velopment of municipal liberties in Italy.
He explains how feudalism never firmly took
root in Italy ; how, after Charlemagne, the
weakness of its kings favored the political
power of the cities ; how the fusion of the
sturdy northern races with the Italians
similarly assisted the assertion of popular
rights ; how a comparatively equal distribu-
tion of lands contributed toward social and
political equality ; how from all these varying
causes no less than two hundred free muni-
cipalities or republics arose in this fair land,
in which, in short, democracy attained to
an unprecedented development. But here,
we are afraid, the author has over-estimated
this "freedom" of the Italian republics,
each of which aimed at liberty only for it-
self— each party in every city determin-
ing upon the exclusion of its rivals from
the enjoyment of all franchises. He con-
cludes with a comparison of the Italian re-
publics with one another, and with the old
republics of Greece, and surveys, briefly and
accurately, the causes that led to Italy's en-
slavement and its regeneration in our own
day.

Next follows a review of the history of
Switzerland, which offers one of the most

LITERARY NOTICES.

755

interesting examples of the purest and sim-
plest democracy and of well- contrived and
enduring republican institutions to be found
in the annals of Europe. The two chapters
on this country are, perhaps, the most
praiseworthy in the whole book ; Calvin is
judged without fanaticism, if we overlook
the too great importance attributed to his
reforms in connection with the freedom and
democracy of the country.

The progress of democracy in the Neth-
erlands is followed up in the first two chap-
ters of the second volume. " Two aspects
of democracy," says the author, " are here
illustrated, the growth and political power
of municipal institutions and the assertion
of civil and religious liberty." He deline-
ates the first of these aspects by recounting
the civil history of the Netherlands up to
the reign of Charles V. ; the second aspect
is developed in the description of the bloody
measures adopted by Charles V. and Philip
II. of Spain to crush out the growing spirit
of the Reformation, and in the subsequent
struggles of these countries for political
independence. The career of William of
Orange, the shrewdness and bravery he op-
posed to craftiness and revolting barbarity,
the fruitless attempts of the persecutors to
corrupt him, and the finally successful at-
tempt to assassinate this apostle of civil and
religious liberty — these are necessarily in-
terwoven into the story of the struggle for
the rights of conscience — the first and
most memorable of the kind in the world's
history. After dwelling at length on the
share of freedom afterward enjoyed by the
Low Countries, and the subsequent decline
of their fortunes, he closes with a short no-
tice of ultramontanism in Belgium and of
the contemporary prosperity of that country
and Holland.

Report on Forestry. By F. B. Hough.
Washington : Government Printing-Of-
fice. Pp. 650. Economic Tree-Plant-
ing. By B. G. Northrop. From " Re-
port of the Secretary of the Connecticut
State Board of Agriculture." Pp. 29.

Dr. Hough's industry in collecting the
materials of this " Report " is worthy of all
praise ; not less so is the intelligent use
which he makes of them. The volume is
indeed a storehouse of facts relating to for-
estry, and the information which it contains

is of very great practical importance. The
destruction of forests brings about great
climatal changes, and the history of Spain
and other countries shows how regions that
once were fruitful have been changed into
barren deserts by the reckless clearing of
woodland. The time has come for taking
concerted action toward " reforestation " in
the United States. Dr. Hough considers in
detail many of the problems which present
themselves for solution — as the compara-
tive advantages of sowing and planting, the
proper number of trees to an acre, the
adaptedness of different species to different
localities, etc. ; and Mr. Northrop goes over
much of the same ground, though of course
less fully, and with especial reference to the
needs of the State of Connecticut. On these
and sundry other points Dr. Hough quotes
the experience of practical and scientific
men, giving in full many documents of the
highest value. Then follow statistical ta-
bles showing the consumption of wood in
different industries, for household uses, rail-
roads, etc. The relations between forests
and climate are discussed in extenso, and
Becquerel's " Memoir " on that subject is
given in full. A sketch of the " Schools of
Forestry " in various European countries is
given, with a view to suggest hints for the
guidance of forest-conservators in the Unit-
ed States. We recommend both of these
publications to the earnest attention of our
readers.

A New Cyclopedia of Chemistry, Theo-
retical, Practical, and Analytical, as ap-
plied to the Arts and Manufactures. By
Writers of Eminence, on the Basis of the
Late Dr. Muspratt's Work. Illustrated
with numerous Woodcuts and Steel-
Plate Engravings. Philadelphia: Lip-
pincott & Co. 50 cts. per number.

This comprehensive and valuable work,
which is announced to consist of forty parts,
has now reached the thirty-fifth part, and its
completion may therefore be soon expected.
The work has been executed with care and
ability, and we have found it useful and sat-
isfactory for habitual reference on the ex-
tensive and important subjects of chemical
manufacture. Its illustrations are numer-
ous and elaborate, the text clear and at-
tractive, and the treatment of subjects full,
copious, and trustworthy.

7S6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Pnysics of the Infectious Diseases. Com-
prehending a Discussion of Certain Phys-
ical Phenomena in Connection with the
Acute Infectious Diseases. By C. A.
Logan, M. D. Chicago : Jansen, McClurg
& Co. Pp. 212. Price, $1.50.

The author of this work spent four years
on the west coast of South America, a re-
gion remarkable for two things : 1. Certain
peculiar physical features and aspects ; and,
2. A marked exemption from infectious dis-
eases. He assumes a connection between
these two facts, and has aimed to trace it out,
and to derive important medical conclusions
from the results. The problem of the influ-
ence of physical conditions upon health and
disease is fundamental but at present ob-
scure, and, while its investigation is of the
greatest moment, advanced conclusions built
upon it must be received with caution. The
volume is instructive, and opens a special
inquiry, which will no doubt be followed up
by medical observers.

A Science Primer; on the Nature of
Things. By John G. MacVickar, D. D.
Edinburgh : Blackwood & Sons. Pp. 112.

This little book may claim the position
of distinguished preeminence in absurdity
among the mass of absurd publications with
which we have been lately deluged, under
the title of " Science Primers." We by no
means intimate that those little books are
without merit, but as rudimentary treatises,
as books for beginners, as primers, they are
with hardly an exception ridiculous. He
who writes a primer of science should know
two things — the subject he deals with, and
the state of mind to which such a book is
addressed. It matters nothing how sound
and careful and accurate and trustworthy
the writer's statement may be in itself; if it
is not adapted to the mental condition of
those ignorant of the subject, it will be a
senseless and stupid failure. Our science
primers are nearly all of this kind. They
are written by men who seem to have not
the slightest notion of what is needed for
the minds of the young, and are in fact ad-
dressed to adult minds, and for these they
are generally instructive and valuable.

Dr. MacVickar's " Science Primer on the
Nature of Things," we might almost sup-
pose, had been written as a burlesque on
this class of books. It deals throughout

with the most profound and abstract sub-
jects, with remote and contested questions
of cosmical science, with knotty problems
of theology, and with speculations on chem-
ism, ethers, and the geometrical constitution
of molecules. The writer seems, indeed, to
be not unconscious of the absurd misappro-
priateness of his work, and excuses it on
the plea that all science is a good deal of a
humbug. He says in his preface : " It may,
indeed, be alleged that these primers pre-
sent to their readers merely a smattering
of science. But may it not with truth be
replied, in similar terms, that the actual sci-
ence of the day, in all its details, when
viewed in reference to a satisfactory view
of Nature and its economy, is itself merely
a smattering ? "

Putnam's Art Hand-Books. Edited by
Susan M. Carter, Superintendent of the
Woman's Art School, Cooper Union. I.
The Art of Sketching from Nature. By
Thomas Rowbotham. 27 Illustrations.
Pp. 74. Price, 50 cents. II. The Art
of Landscape-Painting in Oil-Colors. By
W. Williams. Pp. 74. Price, 50 cents.

These neat little hand-books, which have
gone through many editions in England, are
now reprinted for the use of American art-
students, and are to be soon followed by
others on " Flower-Painting," " Figure-
Drawing," and " An Artistic Treatise on the
Human Figure." They seem to be prepared
by experienced artists, and the name of the
editor is a guarantee that they will prove
useful to the cultivators of practical art in
this country.

The Principles of Light and Color. In-
cluding among other Things the Har-
monic Laws of the Universe, the Etherio-
Atomic Philosophy of Force, Chromo-
Chemistry, Chromo - Therapeutics, and
the General Philosophy of the Fine
Forces, together with Numerous Discov-
eries and Practical Applications. Illus-
trated by 204 Exquisite Photo-Engrav-
ings, besides Four Superb Colored Plates
printed on Seven Plates each. By Ed-
win D. Babbitt. Science Hall, New
York : Babbitt & Co. Pp. 560. Price,
$4.

This is an elaborate and elegantly illus-
trated volume which we have not yet had
time to read. The writer is a bold specu-
lator, and seems to differ very widely and

LITERARY NOTICES.

7S7

profoundly from the accredited expositors
of physical, chemical, biological, and psy-
chological science. He has a new philoso-
phy of molecules and ethers, and the inner
nature of things, interprets the large phe-
nomena of the universe in his own way and
includes magnetism, clairvoyance, psychic
force, odic force, chromo-mentalism, chro-
mo-therapeutics, and many other curious
things, in his conception of Nature, and
claims to educe their laws from " the ethe-
rio-atomic philosophy of force." The writ-
er has bestowed a vast amount of labor
upon his work, and, whatever amount of
truth it will be ultimately found to contain,
it will meet the wants of many, and be read
with satisfaction by those interested in its
peculiar topics and its author's independent
treatment of them.

The Native Flowers and Ferns op the
United States. By Thomas Meehan.
Parts III., IV., V. Boston : Prang & Co.

The interest of this work is well sus-
tained in its recent numbers. The colored
illustrations are beautifully life-like, and
the accompanying text interesting, and pre-
pared with excellent judgment as to what a
popular work requires. We cordially renew
the commendation passed upon this worthy
enterprise upon the appearance of its earlier
numbers.

Science Lectures at South Kensington.
New York : Macmillan & Co. Vol. I.
Pp. 290. Price, $1.75.

This is the first installment of a valuable
series of expositions upon chemical and
physical subjects, on the whole popular, and
all thorough and trustworthy. It contains
lectures by Captain Abney on " Photogra-
phy ; " by Prof. Stokes on " The Absorp-
tion of Light and the Colors of Natural
Bodies," and on " Fluorescence ; " by Prof.
Kennedy on " The Kinematics of Machin-
ery ; " by F. J. Bramwell on the " Steam-
Engine; " by Prof. Forbes on "Radiation;"
by H. C. Sorby on " Microscopes ; " by J.
T. Bottomly on "Electrometers;" by S. H.
Vines on the " Apparatus relating to Veg-
etable Physiology," and by Prof Carey
Foster on " Electrical Measurements." The
subjects are interesting, the authorities are
good, and the lectures valuable.

How to take Care of Our Eyes. With
Advice to Parents and Teachers in re-
gard to the Management of the Eyes of
Children. By Henry C. Angell, M. D.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. Pp. 10.
Price, 50 cents.

The neglect, exposure, and abuse of the
eyes in recent times, from many causes and
in many ways, have become so great an evil
as to call forth many books on the care of
vision and the hygiene of the eye. Dr. An-
gell's contribution to the subject has the
merit of being very clear in style, with but a
sparing use of technical terms, while it is
also condensed, and furnished at a low price.
It is full of useful suggestions, which, if fol-
lowed, would prevent a great deal of the
annoyance and sutfering that arise from
misuse of the eyes.

Short Studies of Great Lawyers. By Ir-
ving Brown. Published by the Albany
Law Journal. Pp. 382. Price, $2.

This volume contains upward of twenty
sketches of the most eminent English and
American lawyers from Coke to Choate.
The notices originally appeared in the Al-
bany Law Journal, where they attracted so
much attention that the author has been
induced to issue them in a collected and
separate form. They are not designed as
biographies so much as estimates of charac-
ter and career, yet they contain a good deal
of personal incident and delineation, which
make the sketches anything but dull read-
ing. As lawyers are always interesting ob-
jects to contemplate, good lives of lawyers
are always interesting books.

The Dance of Death. By William Her-
man. New York : American News Com-
pany. Pp. 131.

A vehement denunciation of the immo-
rality of waltzing.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Elements of Sidereal Astronomy. Bv Jacob
Ennis. Philadelphia: Collins print, 705 Jayne
Street. 1878. Pp.7.

American College Directory and Universal
Catalogue. Vol. II. (1878). St. Louis : C. H.
Evans & Co. Pp. 110. Sent free on receipt of
10 cents postage.

Iowa Weather Report for 1S77. By Dr. Gus-
tavus Hinrichs. Iowa City, Iowa. Pp. 70.

Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting

758

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the Free Religious Association. Boston :
1878. Pp. 90. 40 cents.

Report of the New Jersey State Commission
on a Plan for the Encouragement of Manufact-
ures of Ornamental and Textile Fabrics. Tren-
ton : Naar, Day & Naar print. 1878. Pp. 90.

Proportional Representation. By John H.
Ward. Louisville : Courier-Journal, printers.
1878. Pp. 26.

Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States " By Thomas Heehan. Boston : Prang &
Co. Parts 6, 7 and 8. 1878. 50 cents each.

Some Common Errors respecting the North
American Indians. By Garrick Mallory. Phila-
delphia : Collins print, 705 Jayne Street. 1878.
Pp. 6.

Former and Present Number of our Indians.
By Garrick Mallory. Reprint from Proceedings
of Nashville Meeting of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, August,
1877. Pp.27.

Researches into the Early History of Man-
kind and the Development of Civilization. By
Edward B. Tylor, D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S. New
York : Henry Holt & Co. 1878. Pp. 388. $3.50.

The Palmetto Literary Compendium. Vol. I.,
No. I. (August, 1878). Lexington, S. C. : Daley
& Harmon. Monthly. Pp.36. $2 per year.

Report of Committee to collect Information
relative to the Meteor of December 24, 1873.
Read April 7, 1877. Bulletin of the Philosoph-
ical Society of Washington. Pp. 21, with Map.

Address on Man's Age in the 'World. By
James C. Southall, A.M., LL.D., at the Opening
of the Lewis Brooks Museum, University of
Virginia, June 27, 1878. Pp. 60.

The Unknown God. Lecture by J. W. Still-
man. New York : For sale by D. M. Bennett,
141 Eighth Street. Pp. 34.

Erupted Rocks of Colorado, pp. 73, and Cata-
logue of Minerals found in Colorado, pp. 25.
By F. M. Eudlich. Washington : Government
Printing-Office. 1878.

New Method of detecting Overstrain in Iron
and other Metals. Bv R. H. Thurston. C. E.
From Transactions of American Society of Civil
Engineers. Pp. 7.

A Conspectus of the Different Forms of
Phthisis. ByRoswell Park, A.M., M.D. Re-
print from Chicago Medical Journal for Septem-
her 1878. Pp. 19.

Preliminary Studies on the North American
Pvrolidfe. I. Illustrated. By A. R. Grote.
Washington. 1878. Pp. 36.

How to keep Plump. By T. C. Duncan, M. D.
Chicago : Duncan Brothers. 1878. Pp. 60. 50
cents.

The Therapeutic Forces. By Thomas J.
Mays, M. D. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakis-
ton. 1878. Pp. 143. $1.25.

Annals of the Harvard Astronomical Obser-
vatory Vol. IX. Photometric Researches. By
C. S. Peirce. Leipsic : W. Engelmann. Pp.
181, with Plates.

Principles of Lieht and Color. Bv E. D. Bab-
bitt. New York : Babbitt & Co. Pp. 560, with
Colored Plates. $i.

Monthly Record of Scientific Literature.
Nos. 51-74. New York : Van Nostrand. 25
cents per year.

Goethe's Fanst. Erster Theil. Edited by J.
M.Hart. New York : Putnams. Pp.257. $1.25.

Stricture of the Male Urethra. By Dr. F. N.
Otis. Same publishers. Pp.352. $3

Report of the Chief Signal-Officer (1877).
Washington : Government Printing-Office. Pp.
570.

The Commonwealth reconstructed. By
Charles C. P. Clark, M.D. New York: A. S.
Barnes & Co. 1S78. Pp. 216. $1.50.

First Annual Report of the United States
Entomological Commission for the Year 1877.
Relating to the Rocky Mountain Locust. With
Maps and Illustrations. Washinsrtou : Govern-
ment Printing-Office. 1878. Pp. 771.

Lessons in Elementary Chemistry. By H.
E. Roscoe, F. R. S. New edition. London and
New York: Macmillan & Co. 1878. Pp. 416.
$1.50.

Geographical Surveying. By Frank de Yeaux
Carpenter, C. E. New York : D. Van Nostrand.
1878. Pp.176. 50 cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Systematic Promotion of Research. —

Prof. R. H. Thurston, Vice-President of the
American Association, chose as the subject
of his address to Section A, " The Science
of the Advancement of Science." Having
asked, " Why is the advancement of science
to-day so apparently difficult and irregular
and toilsome ? " he attributed this state of
things to the lack of systematic encourage-
ment of scientific studies. The right men,
he said, in substance, have never been
sought out, and trained for this work.
Men of science themselves have chosen
rather to pursue their own favorite lines of
research instead of investigating in the di-
rections which would yield the best results.
The endowment of research has not been
urged with sufficient persistence. The ma-
terials and the apparatus placed in the hands
of men of science for the prosecution of
their labors have been too incomplete to
permit the most effective application of their
efforts. For these and other reasons we are
not to-day, as we have not been in the past,
prepared to do all that we should in the ad-
vancement of science and of the arts. By
what practical measures, then, is scientific
research to be promoted ? The " science
of the advancement of science" dictates
that we shall seek :

1. To determine what are the most
promising and most important directions of
exploration in the great universe of the
knowable.

2. That we shall endeavor to find young
men fitted to become successful observers,
discoverers, and philosophers ; aid them to
gain positions in which their talents may
have full scope, and assist to make useful the
results of their labor.

3. That we make it a part of our work
to obtain for these investigators the means

POPULAR MISCELLANY

759

of research and the material aid which are
necessitated by the rapid and ever-acceler-
ating advances of knowledge for which we
are indebted to them ; to secure the endow-
ment of new schools of science, the more
complete organization of older schools, and
liberal provision of apparatus and material
for every investigator.

4. That we seek to improve our methods
of instruction in science, to introduce into
our educational systems a better scientific
curriculum and far more extended courses,
both of pure and of applied science, and to
make the position of a teacher of science,
viewed from the world's standpoint, a far
more desirable one than it has yet become.

5. To make the organization and the
operation of our academies of science, and
of our societies for the advancement of sci-
ence, far more thoroughly effective.

6. To endeavor to exhibit to both classes
the fact that there exists between the man
of science and the man of business a com-
munity of interests ; the fact that he who
accumulates wealth is largely indebted for
his success to him who is unselfishly reveal-
ing to him the laws by which wealth is in-
creased and business prosperity secured.

Proposed Silk -School Farm. — Certain
capitalists in Philadelphia have signified
their approval of plans of a silk-school, farm,
and village, proposed by Mr. Samuel Cham-
berlain, and a company is to be formed for
the purpose of putting the project into exe-
cution at an early day. In a communica-
tion to the Polytechnic Review, Mr. Cham-
berlain writes that the plans provide for
legal interest on the investment, indepen-
dently of the silk produced. They provide
for a return of the capital by means of im-
proved real estate, and for a profit beyond
legal interest by retaining intermediate sec-
tions of the land, which, it is expected, will
later be sold at a great advance, in conse-
quence of the improvements. They provide
growers of trees, silk-worm eggs, and silk, in
addition to those to be produced by the
school, namely, the renters of forty cottages,
each surrounded by an acre of mulberry-
trees. They provide cottage culturers, and
in a few years teachers of cottage culture,
who will show by precept and example how
silk may be raised in the midst of family

duties. The danger of strikes is obviated
by the fact that the renter of a cottage may
in the end be an owner, and thus become
directly interested in the uninterrupted prog-
ress of the work. In the school young per-
sons will be trained to those habits of care,
patience, and watchful attention, which are
necessary for the successful raising and reel-
ing of silk. The work is light and easy,
and, when skill is acquired early, is highly
profitable. It is peculiarly suitable for the
deaf and dumb, whose misfortune cuts them
off from so many occupations. When one
such school shall have shown the way, like
establishments will arise in many places ;
and in this way it is hoped to help in turn-
ing back into the country the tide of popu-
lation now flowing into our cities. The fail-
ure to introduce silk-culture in 1840 was
chiefly due to want of perseverance. The
three years of actual trial were not enough
to carry it on to success. But a school,
farm, and village, whose continuance will be
maintained sixteen to twenty years, will se-
cure a permanent source of knowledge, ex-
ample, and instruction, from which the cult-
ure will extend year by year.

Water for Domestic Uses.— The question
of pure water-supply has been taken up
for discussion by the London Society of
Arts, and circulars have been sent out to
civil engineers, sanitary officers, and other
persons whose callings would appear to
make them familiar with the conditions of
the problem, inviting from them suggestions
and plans for insuring to the whole popula-
tion of England a sufficiency of pure water
for domestic uses. A " Congress," too, has
met in London, at which a number of pa-
pers, prepared by some of the most compe-
tent engineers and sanitarians, were read.
In one of these papers, written by Mr.
Samuel C. Homersham, the qualities of wa-
ter fit for domestic uses are stated as fol-
lows : 1. Such water should be wholesome,
free from animalcules or other organisms,
animal or vegetable, either living or dead,
and at no time or season of the year, or in
periods of epidemics, liable to propagate
disease or cause the death of those who
drink it. 2. It should be soft and pleasant
to use with soap both for washing the person
and clothes, for baths and other detergent

j6o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

purposes, and of a quality such as would not
dissolve lead, or form a deposit when boiled.
3. It should be clear and bright, agreeable
to the eye, and refreshing to the taste. 4. It
should be well aerated, of a nearly uniform
normal temperature, and not like river or
surface water, unduly warm in summer and
unduly cold in winter. All that is needed,
in the opinion of Mr. Homersham, and most
of the other authors of papers, to insure
abundance of such pure water, is that pub-
lic opinion be educated to insist upon it.
Works adequate to provide a regular supply
of wholesome water, whether for towns or
for small groups of dwellings in the country,
might be constructed at moderate expense.

How Teleologieal Ideas are acquired. —

In the course of his able address on " Edu-
cation a Succession of Experiences," Prof.
Grote, Vice-President of the Natural His-
tory Section of the American Association,
remarks as follows upon the futility of teleo-
logical arguments : " From the imperfection
and limitation of our senses comes not only
a succession of experiences which are in-
complete, but a general concept with regard
to external matters, which must be of neces-
sity misleading. We are here but a short
time, and see little of the outcome of pass-
ing events, and can know nothing of the
outcome of the world itself. Thus it has
come to pass that what we have not fully
observed we have assigned to an unknown
cause. We have fitted Nature into our own
measure, directly led thereto by the imper-
fection of our knowledge, and we have ar-
rived at the concept that design exists in
the world about us as it is displayed in our
own handiwork and the work of animals,
which, with ourselves, exhibit design in their
operations. But in reality what we see in
the details of the structure of animals and
plants is not design, but adaptation. Sup-
pose we leave a coat in a closet, and while
it is there it is visited by a female clothes-
moth, which deposits thereon numerous
eggs. The little worms hatched from the
eggs would at once commence to make free
with the nap, and eat holes in the coat with
a good appetite. If they ever thought about
the matter, would they not conclude that
the coat was hung there for their special
benefit ? They would do so merely because

the coat was there. The fact that they
adapted it to their own use would be con-
strued by them into a belief that it was de-
signed for their benefit. They would inevi-
tably regard the owner of the coat, could
they arrive at this conception, as their bene-
factor and the preserver of the whole race
of maggots. They would kuow nothing of
the thousands of clothes-worm eggs that
perish because they never get anything to
eat. The fact that life is sacrificed by the
wholesale in Nature tells against the argu-
ment of design. And Nature is as careless
of the species as of the individual. In the
crust of the earth are contained the remains
of millions of types of form of which Nature
has not been careful, but has crushed them
out, because they could not adapt them-
selves to the changing conditions which sur-
rounded them."

Is the Evolution Theory atheistic? —

Prof. Simon Newcomb's address, on his re-
tiring from the annual presidency of the
American Association, is a singularly lucid
exposition of the state of the case as be-
tween the ideological and the mechanical ex-
planations of the operations of Nature. The
drift of his argument is best seen in the
summary with which the address concludes,
and which is in substance as follows : First,
when men study the operations of the world
arcund them, they find some of these plain-
ly determined by law, while others appear
to be purely arbitrary. This latter class of
operations men attribute to the direct action
of supernatural beings, gods ; and they fur-
ther ascribe to these gods aims, designs, to
be attained through these interventions in
the course of Nature. Further, men believe
themselves able to discern these designs,
and thus to explain these arbitrary opera-
tions. But, as knowledge advances, one after
another of these operations is found to be
really determined by law. Final causes hav-
ing thus, one by one, disappeared from every
thicket which has been fully explored, the
question arises whether they now have or
ever had any existence at all. On the one
hand it may be claimed that it is unphilo-
sophical to believe in them when they have
been sought in vain in every corner into
which light can penetrate. On the other
hand, we have the difficulty of accounting

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

761

for those very laws by which we find the
course of Nature to be determined. Take
the law of hereditary descent : how did such'
a law, or rather, how did such a process,
first commence ? If this is not as legitimate
a subject for inquiry as the question how
came the hand, the eye, or the first germ,
into existence, it is only because it seems
more difficult to investigate. When the
doctrine of the universality of natural law
is carried so far as to include the genesis of
living beings and the adaptations to exter-
nal circumstances which we see in their
organs and their structure, it is often pro-
nounced to be atheistic. Whether this
judgment is or is not correct, Prof. New-
comb would not undertake to decide, but
said that it is very easy to propound the
test question by which its correctness is to
be determined : " Is the general doctrine of
causes acting in apparently blind obedience
to invariable law in itself atheistic ? " If it
is, then the whole progress of our knowl-
edge of Nature has been in this direction,
for it has consisted in reducing the opera-
tions of Nature to such blind obedience. If
the doctrine is not atheistic, then there is
nothing atheistic in any phase of the theory
of evolution, for this consists solely in ac-
counting for certain processes by natural
laws.

A New Calculating-Machine. — Mention is
made, in the presidential address of Mr.
Spottiswoode to the British Association, of a
calculating-machine, devised by Prof. James
Thomson, which for simplicity of construc-
tion compares favorably even with Edison's
phonograph. The description given of this
ingenious instrument is extremely meagre
and insufficient, and does not give any no-
tion of its modus operandi. " By means of
the mere friction of a disk, a cylinder, and a
ball," says Mr. Spottiswoode, " this machine
is capable of effecting a variety of com-
plicated calculations which occur in the
highest application of mathematics to physi-
cal problems. By its aid it seems that an
unskilled laborer may, in a given time, per-
, form the work of ten skilled arithmeticians."
It is applicable to the calculation of all sorts
of periodic phenomena — as those of the
tides, and of magnetic and meteorological
variations. It will solve differential equa-

tions of the second, and perhaps even of
higher orders. And through the same inven-
tion the problem of finding the free motions
of any number of mutually-attracting parti-
cles, unrestricted by any of the approximate
suppositions required in the treatment of
the lunar and planetary theories, is reduced
to the simple process of turning a crank.

Grass and Straw as Domestic Fnel. — The

Mennonites, who, for a few years past, have
been immigrating to our Western and North-
western States and Territories from the Rus-
sian Empire, have introduced into their new
homes the "grass-burner stove," by means
of which their houses are warmed in winter,
and all their cooking done throughout the
year. The grass-burner is destined to be
generally adopted by settlers in regions des-
titute of coal or timber, since by its use
straw and dried prairie-grass are made to
serve as perfectly satisfactory fuel. A de-
scription of this peculiar stove, with illus-
trations, is given by Prof. J. D. Butler, in
the Gardeners Monthly, from which we
copy the following notes on its construction
and performance : The material is unim-
portant ; some use brick, others stone, while
still others prefer a mixture of sand and
clay. The size is considerable, not unfre-
quently five feet in length, six in height, and
two and one-half in width. The stove is
erected as centrally as may be in a dwell-
ing, so as to heat all the rooms as far as
possible. The structure may be said to
have six stories, viz., first, the ash-box ; sec-
ond, fire-box ; third, cooking-oven ; fourth,
smoke-passage; fifth, hot-air chamber; sixth,
smoke-passage to chimney or to a drum in
an upper room. The fuel box is about four
feet long, and in width and height a foot
and one-half. The grass or straw is thrust
in with a fork. The author says that, in
the house of Bishop Peters, the grass or
straw is pitched into the fire-box of the
stove for about twenty minutes twice or at
most three times in twenty-four hours ; that
amount of firing-up suffices amply for cook-
ing and heating in the climate of Nebraska..
It now remains for American ingenuity to
improve on this Russian contrivance — to
make it simpler, smaller, cheaper, of better
materials, of more elegant design, aiid of
more economical combustion.

762

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

IIow Monntains are made. — In a paper
by Prof. Joseph Le Conte, read before the
National Academy of Sciences in April, and
since published in the American Journal
of Scie?ice, the formation of mountains is
explained by tbe action of horizontal press-
ure resulting from interior contraction of
the earth. The author considers all the
principal types of mountain-structure, and
appears to account for them very satisfac-
torily by this theory of horizontal pressure.
It would be impossible, within the limits of
a Miscellany article, to give an intelligible
outline of the entire argument, and we must
content ourselves with a synopsis of the au-
thor's remarks on the formation of moun-
tains of a single anticlinal fold — the sim-
plest conceivable mountain-structure. Here

Fig. 1.— Ideal Section of Simple Anticlinal
Fold (unsysimetrical).

the deeper strata are thickened and swelled
upward by the horizontal pressure, while
the upper strata are raised into a vault with
little or no thickening, or may even be
thinned and broken by tension. The vault
is nearly always unsymmetrical, the yielding
being greater on one side than on the other.
In such cases a great fissure and slip is apt
to occur on the steeper side, as shown in
Fig. 2. Perhaps the best illustration of a

Fig. 2.— The same, with the strata Assured and
faulted.

range of mountains of this simple type is the
Uintah Mountains. A cross-section of this
range shows a prodigious fault of 20,000 feet
on the northern or steeper side of the origi-
nal fold. If the crust of the uprising region
be extremely rigid, the vault, instead of being
forty or fifty miles across, as in the Uintah
Mountains, may be one hundred or several
hundred miles across ; we have then a. great
plateau. And since an arch of such span,

whether filled or not beneath with fused or
semi-fused matter, cannot sustain itself,
such elevated plateaus are peculiarly liable
to fissure by breaking down of the arch,
and to slips by gravitative adjustment of
the broken parts. The result is conspicu-
ous escarpments or conspicuous mountain-
ridges in the general direction of the axis
of the plateau. Such, according to the au-
thor, is the origin of the north and south
escarpments of the plateau-region of the
Colorado, described by Powell, and of the
north and south monoclinal ridges in the
Basin-region, described by Gilbert and How-
ell. Again, a monoclinal fold may be mod-
ified by inetamorphism. This, says the au-
thor, is especially apt to be the case if the
strata be very thick and the fold narrow
and high ; that is, if the compression in a
given space, and therefore the heat of com-
pression, be very great. If, now, such a
sharp fold, metamorphosed in its deeper
strata along the line of greatest compres-
sion, be subjected to profound erosion, it
forms a common type of mountain, viz., one
consisting of a highly-metamorpliic axis,
flanked on either side by tilted strata cor-
responding to each other.

The Differences between Atlantic and
Pacific Forests. — The differences between
the Atlantic and Pacific forests of the United
States are very striking in many respects.
Prof. Asa Gray, in a recent lecture, presents
a long list of Atlantic forest-trees that are
either not at all or but feebly represented
on the Pacific slope. For instance, the Pa-
cific forest has no magnolias, no tulip-tree,
no papaw, no linden or basswood, and is
very poor in maples ; no locust-trees, nor
any leguminous tree; no cherry-tree large
enough for a timber- tree; no gum-trees,
nor sorrel-tree, nor kalmia ; no persimmon ;
not a holly ; only one ash that may be
called a timber-tree; no catalpa, or sassa-
fras ; not a single elm nor hackberry ; not
a mulberry, nor planer-tree, nor maclura ;
not a hickory nor a beech, nor a true chest-
nut nor a hornbeam ; barely one birch-tree,
and that only far north, where the differ-
ences are less striking. As to coniferous
trees, however, the only missing type is our
bald cypress, the so-called cypress of our
Southern swamps. " But as to our ordinary

P OP ULAB MIS CELL ANY.

763

trees," writes the author, " if you ask what
takes the place in Oregon and California of
all these missing kinds which are familiar
on our side of the continent, I must answer,
nothing or nearly nothing. There is the
madrofia (arbutus) instead of our kalmia
(both really trees in some places) ; and
there is the California laurel instead of our
Southern red bay-tree. Nor in any of the
genera common to the two does the Pacific
forest equal the Atlantic in species. It has
not half as many maples, nor ashes, nor pop-
lars, nor walnuts, nor birches, and those it
has are of smaller size and inferior quality ;
it has not one-half as many oaks ; and these
and the ashes are of so inferior economical
value that (as we are told) a passable wagon-
wheel cannot be made of California wood,
nor a really good one in Oregon." He then
states that, whereas the Atlantic forests con-
tain sixty-six genera and one hundred and
fifty-five species, the Pacific has only thirty-
one genera and seventy-eight species.

Artificial Cold in the Treatment of Yellow
Fever. — Dr. Bushrod W. James proposes, in
the Philadelphia Ledger, a method of treat-
ing yellow-fever patients by artificial cold.
He would have in every quarantine-station
a ward or room capable of holding several
patients, and so arranged that ventilation
can be effected solely through ventilators
and by means of small anterooms with
spring-doors. There must be no entrance
or exit to the ward save through the ante-
room. The anteroom should be kept at
the same low temperature as, or even lower
than that in the ward, so that the tempera-
ture in the latter may not be raised by the
opening and closing of doors by the attend-
ants, nor any of the disease - producing
germs escape before they are thoroughly
subjected to the low temperature and de-
stroyed. The ward and anteroom must be
kept at a temperature not higher than
25° Fahr., the patients being made comfort-
able by a sufficient amount of bedclothing ;
and everything that goes from the room,
such as clothing, excretions, all emanations,
etc., must be exposed a sufficient length of
time to the cold. This will kill the poison-
ous germs, or reproducing cause, and pre-
vent, as far as the cases under treatment
are concerned, any risk of the disease

spreading. If patients cannot bear so
much cold during treatment, an adjoining
warmer room can be made, with no mode
of access or ventilation except through the
cold room, and everything going out of the
warmer room must be allowed to remain a
sufficient length of time to get rid of the
contagion. If no attendant occupies the
anteroom, the degree of cold can be kept
near zero, in order the more quickly to de-
stroy all the disease-producing agencies.

A Dronght-Proof Fodder-Plant.— In a

paper on the progress of agriculture in Natal,
South Africa, Dr. P. M. Sutherland, survey-
or-general of that colony, speaks of the ad-
vantages possessed by the Caucasian prickly
comfrey (Symphytum asperri?num) as a fod-
der-plant, in regions characterized by annu-
ally-recurring seasons of drought. His re-
marks will doubtless be of interest to farm-
ers settled in some of our States and Terri-
tories where like meteorological conditions
exist. The plant named is allied to the
borage, is a native of the mountainous re-
gions of Circassia, and has long been used
as forage both in that country and in Rus-
sia. Its original home is at a height of
4,000 feet above the sea, but it thrives well
in a great diversity of climates, and bears
hot and dry seasons with impunity, on ac-
count of the depth to which its strong root
penetrates into the ground. There are two
varieties of the plant, one with a hollow
and the other with a solid stem. The lat-
ter is an excellent food for stock of all
kinds ; especially does it increase the quan-
tity and improve the quality of cows' milk.
It grows with marvelous rapidity and lux-
uriance. Land which yields eight tons of
grass per acre gives from sixty to a hundred
and fifty tons of comfrey. The plant is
four or five feet high when near flowering,
and the leaves attain a length of three feet.
The flowers abound in honey. The solid
stem is like a succulent root, and the plant
is easily propagated by cuttings from this
stem, containing a couple of eyes each.
When once well rooted it will go on pro-
ducing from fifteen to twenty years. The
fodder may be cut six or even eight times a
year ; and if the leaves are stacked green,
or partially dried, with a little salt between
the layers, they keep well through the winter.

764

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

The Coat of the Rocky Mount a in Sheep.

— Western huntsmen who have chased the
Rocky Mountain sheep, or big-horn (Ovis
montana), generally believe that the animal
wears only a coating of hair, never wool ;
but, in a communication to the American
Naturalist, Dr. F. M. Endlich shows that
this is an error, and that the big-horn varies
in the nature of its covering according to
the seasons, being clothed with hair in sum-
mer, and with wool in winter. On July 1*7,
1877, Dr. Endlich, while engaged in work
connected with the survey of the Territories,
found himself among the Wind River Moun-
tains, at an elevation of 12,000 feet above
sea-level, and amid large fields of snow.
While contemplating the scenery around,
he heard the sound of tramping feet, and,
looking up, saw four mountain-sheep ap-
proaching, though at first he scarcely rec-
ognized the species. They were of a totally
different color from any he had seen before,
and seemed to have a very rough skin.
Eight days later Dr. Endlich ascended a
high peak in the same range, and, as he
reached the timber-line, he saw a band of
over a hundred big-horns. Some of these he
shot and killed. The "hair" was shorter
than usual. It was apparently growing
rapidly, and pushing before it a layer of
very fine wool, about half an inch in thick-
ness. In other words, the sheep were shed-
ding their wool, which is exceedingly fine,
and of a light-gray color. Some portions
of the body were already clear of it. This
explained the peculiar color and appearance
of the sheep seen a week previously.

New Method of annealing Glass.— A new

method of annealing glass is proposed by
Messrs. Albert and Weyer, of Paris. It
consists in burying the articles to be an-
nealed in powdered stone, plaster, lime, etc.,
or in grease, oil, melted nitrates of potash
and soda, in short, in any liquid or solid capa-
ble of receiving the required heat, and re-
maining in a condition suitable for the pro-
cess. By imbedding the articles in powder,
they can be annealed at a very high tempera-
ture— a thing impossible unless some means
are provided for supporting the objects and
maintaining their shape when reduced to the
softened state necessary to secure perfect
annealing. By the new process the articles

are filled with the powdered stone or other
substance, and are then placed in crucibles
and completely surrounded with the pul-
verized substance employed. They are then
subjected to a heat gradually increasing to
200° Cent., or even 1,000° C. from four to
six hours, and are then slowly cooled. When
there is little danger of spoiling the shape
of the articles, they can be annealed by the
use of liquids and at less cost. In this case
two boilers are employed, so placed that the
liquid can be run from the upper into the
lower. If nitrate of soda is employed, the
temperature will be over 260° C. before the
salt is melted, and the articles are then im-
mersed in the cold state, and the tempera-
ture raised to 800° C. Then they are al-
lowed to cool slowly, and when the tem-
perature has fallen to nearly 260° C. — the
solidification point — the nitrate is run off
into the lower boiler, and a small fire is
maintained beneath the upper boiler to pre-
vent the too rapid cooling of the glass.

Influence of Chemical Research on Char-
acter.— Prof. Maxwell Simpson, President
of Section B of the British Association, in
his address makes some very judicious re-
marks on the influence of chemistry upon
the intellectual habits and moral character
of its cultivators. He first notes how the
study of chemistry, or rather original chem-
ical work, promotes accuracy, thoroughness,
and circumspection. An organic analysis
requires six weighings ; if any one of these
is inaccurate, the results are worthless.
Unless the analyst is sure of every step in
his research, his results are doubtful, and
therefore of no value. Again, the original
worker must be ever on his guard against
error, and laboratory-work teaches us to
use our senses aright, sharpens our powers
of observation, and prevents us from rea-
soning rashly from appearances. Then, as
regards the effect of original work on the
character, in developing the virtues of cour-
age, resolution, truthfulness, and patience :
the chemist is often obliged to perform ex-
periments which are attended with great
danger, and no man can hope to fight long
with the elements without carrying away
many a scar. Sometimes fatal accidents
oecur. But the chemist must not be dis-
couraged by fear of accident, neither must

P OP ULAR MIS CELLA.L Y.

765

he be disheartened by the temporary fail-
ure of his experiments, nor at the slowness
of his processes. " Buusen was obliged to
evaporate forty-four tons of the waters of
tlie Diircheim springs in order to obtain two
hundred grains of his new metal, caesium.
It took Betthelot several months to form,
by a series of synthetical operations, an ap-
preciable quantity of alcohol from water
and carbon, derived from carbonate of
baryta. Many years ago, in the laboratory
of Wurtz, a poor student was carrying from
one room to another a glass globe which
contained the product of a month's contin-
uous labor, when the bottom of the globe
fell out, and the contents were lost. Noth-
ing daunted, he recommenced his month's
work, and brought his research to a suc-
cessful issue. Above all things, the chemist
must be true. He must not allow his wishes
to bias his judgment or prevent him from
seeing his researches in their true light. He
must not be satisfied that his results appear
true, but he must believe them to be true ;
and, having faithfully performed his experi-
ments, he must record them faithfully. He
may often be obliged to chronicle his own
failures and describe operations that tell
against his own theories, but this hard test
of his truthfulness he must not shrink
from."

A Now Form of Galvanic Cell. — When
rods of zinc and copper are placed in mer-
cury, and connected with an electrometer,
no change is observed ; and, whether the
zinc and copper are in contact outside the
mercury or not, the amalgamation of the
zinc appears to proceed at the same rate.
According to a communication to the Lon-
don Royal Society, from Profs. Ayrtou and
Perry, of the Tokio Engineering College, the
impurities and great conductivity of the zinc,
with the great liquidity of the amalgam, and
the close proximity of foreign particles to
pure metal, cause the amalgamation to be
produced by local action alone, so that the
supply of available chemical energy for the
production of a current from the zinc to the
copper is exceedingly small: at low tem-
peratures, when the amalgam loses its liquid-
ity, such an arrangement would, the authors
conjectured, become a simple voltaic cell.
To test this they substituted, for zinc, mag-

nesium, whose amalgam is nearly solid at
ordinary temperatures. Strips of platinum
and magnesium, metallically attached to the
electrodes of the electrometer, were dropped
into mercury which had been washed with
distilled water and then well dried. There
was a sudden large deflection, afterward
fluctuating very much, but keeping always
on the same side of zero. On successive
reversals of the electrometer key, the de-
flections to the right and left of zero were
found to be nearly equal to one another.
To determine the electro-motive force of the
arrangement, strips of platinum and mag-
nesium, scraped very clean, were dipped into
pure mercury. The maximum electromotric
force obtained was 1.56 volts — equal to one
and a half time the electromotrive force of
a Daniell cell. The authors remark that,
by mechanical or other means, or by using
another metal than magnesium, it may be
possible to give constancy to this arrange-
ment ; and as its internal resistance is ex-
tremely small, the cell may be of great
practical use for the production of power
ful currents. As an amalgam may be easily
separated into its components by distilla-
tion, such a cell might be kept in action
' for an indefinite time.

An Interesting Geological Question.—

Though the Triassic rocks of New Jersey
and the Connecticut Valley are commonly
regarded by geologists as intrusive igneous
rocks, the direct proof of their intrusive na-
ture is not readily accessible. Indeed, some
geologists have supposed that, so far from
being intrusive, they were formed contem-
poraneously with the shales and sandstones
amid which they occur, as a bed of igneous
rock at the bottom of a shallow sea in which
the stratified rocks were being deposited.
But Mr. I. C. Russell shows, in the Ameri-
can Journal of Science, that these trap-rocks
were forced out in a fused state among the
sedimentary strata after the consolidation
of the latter, and hence that they are more
recent than either the rocks above or below
them. The evidence of this he finds in a ra-
vine on the western slope of the First New-
ark Mountain, directly west of Westfield,
New Jersey. Here the trap-rock which ap-
pears in the bed of a little brook presents
its usual characteristics of a hard, bluish,

766

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

crystalline rock, with a conchoidal fracture.
In other places it swells up into bosses and
rounded masses which are thrust up into
the overlying rocks. The outside of these
masses presents a scoriaceous or slag-like
appearance ; in the interior the cavities are
filled with infiltrated minerals. For the
first two or three feet above the trap the
shales which rest directly on these igneous
rocks have been intensely metamorphosed,
and are scarcely to be distinguished from
the trap itself. At a distance of six or eight
feet above the trap the shales are still very
much altered and filled with a great num-
ber of small spherical masses of a dark-
green mineral, resembling epidote. Midway
up the sides of the ravine, which is about
thirty feet deep, the shales present some-
what of their usual reddish appearance, but
are traversed by a great number of irregu-
lar cavities formed by the expansion of va-
por while the rocks were in a semi-plastic
condition. At a distance of twenty-five or
thirty feet above the trap, the shales and
sandstones are changed but slight!)', if at
all, from their normal condition. A bed of
limestone from two to three feet in thick-
ness, which is here interstra titled with the
shales and sandstones where it approaches
the trap, is considerably altered and forms a
mass of semi-crystallized carbonate of lime.
All this furnishes indisputable evidence that
the igneous rocks composing the First New-
ark Mountain were intruded in the molten
state between the layers of the stratified
rocks subsequent to the consolidation of
the latter; and by analogy we are justified
in extending this conclusion to all the trap
ridges which traverse the Triassic regions
of New Jersey.

Agricnltnral aiid Mineral Resources of
Alaska. — The following notes on the min-
eral and agricultural wealth of Alaska we
take from a communication published in
the Chronicle of San Francisco. The Ter-
ritory is as yet virtually unexplored, yet
gold, silver, copper, graphite, lead, iron,
sulphur, and coal, have already been found
in sufficient quantity to pay for working the
deposits. " Eight well-defined ledges of
gold-bearing quartz have been prospected
on Baronoff Island, close to the town of
Sitka; their owners owe their discovery
and partial development to the enterprise

and energy of one Haley, who was formerly
a soldier of the garrison that was stationed
here. Haley began to utilize his gold dis-
coveries about three years ago by quarrying
out rock and crushing it in a common hand-
mortar. By this primitive process he ob-
tained money enough to support his family
and pay the cost of a visit to Portland and
San Francisco in search of capital to de-
velop his mines. Little is known of that
section of Alaska which lies back of the
coast between Cross Sound — where the Al-
exander Archipelago, with its 1,100 islands,
ends — and Prince William's Sound. On
Prince William's Sound are several Indian
villages, and several tracts of prairie-land
which may be easily cultivated. Beyond
this large inlet lies Kodiac and Cook's In-
let. As a fishing and agricultural district
this is undoubtedly the best section of the
whole Territory of Alaska. The climate is
milder, the winters less severe, and the
rainfall less, than in the southern counties
of Scotland. Both on Kodiac and the
shores of Cook's Inlet are large tracts of
prairie-land, which now afford excellent past-
ure for cattle and sheep, and which can be
easily cultivated for all the hardy vegeta-
bles, barley, and oats. Timber is abundant
and easily accessible from the water. A
large deposit of coal has been prospected,
the quality of which is declared by Prof.
Newberry to be fully equal to any coals
found on the Pacific coast, not excepting
those of Vancouver Island and Bellingham
Bay. The Indians who come- down to the
head of the inlet report large deposits of
native copper a short distance inland, and
exhibit ornaments and utensils of the same.
Lead of sufficient purity to be moulded into
bullets is also found there. The waters
literally swarm with fish ; and it is safe to
say that there is no district of country on
the whole Pacific coast which offers so
many advantages for the profitable estab-
lishment of fish-canning and fish-curing
works. With a comparatively moderate in-
vestment of capital, exports of fish to the
value of several millions of dollars annually
may be sent from Cook's Inlet, which would
pay a large profit to the owners of the
works, and would support many thousand
fishermen, laborers, and mechanics. Noth-
ing but the power of monopoly has hin-
dered Alaska's growth thus far."

NOTES.

767

A New Theory of the Flow of Sap.—

In a new theory of the ascent of sap in
trees, proposed by Joseph Bbhm, the elas-
ticity of the plant-cells plays an important
part. When the superficial cells have lost
through evaporation a portion of their water,
they partly collapse under the action of the
air-pressure ; but, like elastic bladders, they
tend to resume their original form. This
they can do only by drawing in either air
or water from without. But since moist
membranes are but little permeable by air,
the cells draw from the cells farther toward
the centre a portion of their liquid contents ;
these in turn draw on the cells farther down,
and so on down to the roots. The author
illustrates his theory by an apparatus which
represents a chain of cells. A funnel closed
by a bladder represents the evaporating
leaf; to it are connected below several glass
tubes about two inches wide, closed at one
end with a bladder, and joined together in
series by means of thick caoutchouc tubes.
As evaporation goes on, the membrane which
closes the funnel-mouth is bent inward, and,
when it has reached a certain tension, water
is sucked into the funnel out of the cell
next below, which covers its loss in the
same way. Manometers connected with cer-
tain cells of the apparatus indicate the
amount of suction at different heights.

NOTES.

Complaint is made in the newspapers
that fish and fowl are dying by millions in
different parts of the country, poisoned, it
is supposed, by Paris-green. In the valley
of the Connecticut Paris-green is freely used
to destroy the potato-beetle, and the recent
heavy rains have washed it into the rivers,
together with untold millions of poisoned
beetles. It may be doubtful whether the
Paris-green suspended in the stream could
destroy many fish, but there is little doubt
that eating the poisoned beetles would prove
fatal both to fish and fowl. " There is no
reason advanced," says the Hartford Cou-
rant, " to explain the wide-spread destruc-
tion of fish more plausible than this, and it
is a singular fact that sportsmen on land
have complained of a fatality among birds,
the same as fishermen do of the fatal effects
upon fish. Quail have been found dead in
various parts of the State, and there is no
doubt that the death of the birds is due to
agricultural poisoning."

According to a Pittsburg newspaper,
Messrs. Gemill and Wampler, of McKees-
port, at 10 p. m. of July 11th, while ob-
serving the planet Jupiter with a five-inch
telescope, noticed on the eastern limb a
dark round spot, just above the northern
belt of the planet. Soon it moved rapidly
westward, just touching the belt and pass-
ing off the face of the planet at 1.24 a. m.
of the 12th. It had the appearance of a
perfect sphere much larger than any of Jupi-
ter's satellites, sharply defined, and intensely
black. It could not have been a spot on
the disk of Jupiter, for it passed over the
face of the planet in three hours and nine-
teen minutes, while a spot would have taken
five hours. Neither was it a satellite, or the
shadow of one, for all the four Jovian satel-
lites were in full view the whole time.

Dr. Hermann J. Klein, of Cologne, has
discovered a new crater on the moon's sur-
face, situated in the Mare Vaporum, a little
to the northwest of the crater Hyginus. The
new crater is nearly as large as Hyginus,
and is a conspicuous object. Klein, though
he had previously again and again observed
the same region, had never seen this crater;
neither had it been noticed by other sele-
nographers. The inference would appear to
be that volcanic action is still going on in
the moon.

During a session of an educational com-
mittee, the Bishop of Gloucester in the chair,
one of the members lamented the very im-
perfect education given to girls under the
present system. "The fact cannot be de-
nied, I fear," said the chairman, " but there
is one consolation — the boys will never find
it out."

A numerously- attended meeting, of per-
sons of both sexes, was recently held in In-
dianapolis, Indiana, for the purpose of form-
ing a cremation society. A committee was
appointed to draft a constitution and by-
laws.

It is a pleasing picture that Sir David
Wedderburn draws of the social usages of
the people of Japan — " a country where men
never lose their temper, where women and
children are always treated with gentleness,
where common laborers bow and beg pardon
of each other if they happen to jostle acci-
dentally, where popular sports do not inflict
suffering on the lower animals, and where
cleanliness takes such a high rank among
social virtues as to be carried almost to a
ludicrous excess;" and their courtesy is
" singularly free from servile or mercenary
considerations."

Some twenty-five years ago the British

Association for the Advancement of Science

met in a certain cathedral town, and in the

Geological Section a rather warm debate

i arose about the truth of the Mosaic account

768

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the Deluge. The clean of the cathedral
stoutly defended Moses, but he was badly
defeated by the geologists. The next Sun-
day he preached a sermon on the Deluge,
and proved, to his own satisfaction at least,
the absolute accuracy of the story in " Gen-
esis." He thus had the last word, for, as
he remarked afterward, " none of those fel-
lows could answer him there ! "

According to Mr. A. C. Ranyard, of the
British Astronomical Society, maxima of
sun-spots, though their average periods are
11.11 years, occasionally occur at intervals
of 13 or 14 years. In one instance, in com-
paratively recent times, viz., 1788.1 and
1804.2 — 16.1 years elapsed, while between
the maxima years 1829.9 and 1837.2 there
was an interval of only 7.3 years. An ex-
amination of the records of sun-spots proves
the irregularity in their appearance to be so
great that only vague prognostications can
be made as to the time of an approaching
maximum ; and what is true of periods of
maxima is also true of periods of minima.
M. Faye, too, in a communication to the
Paris Academy of Sciences, shows that the
two phenomena of sun-spots and magnetism
are not related, as they have not the same
period. According to Wolf, the sun-spot
period is 11.11 years, while the declination
period of the magnetic needle is, according
to Lamont and others, 10.45 years.

While exploring the desert region east
of the Lob-No r, the Russian traveler, Colonel
Prejevalsky, made inquiries of the natives
concerning the existence of wild camels in
that country, and learned from them that
those animals were still to be found in the
Kum-Tag Desert, which extends over three
degrees of longitude from east to west (91°
-94° east), and is bounded north and south
by latitude 39° and 40° north. The wild
camels in summer seek the upper valleys of
the Altyn-Tag, a mountain-chain on the
southern edge of the Kum-Tag, and retire
into the most inaccessible deserts in winter.
Their sight, hearing, and smell, are exceed-
ingly quick, in striking contrast to the do-
mesticated camel, in which these senses are
very dull. Colonel Prejevalsky employed
hunters to procure the skins of these ani-
mals, and three skins were brought to
him, representing a male, a female, and a
colt.

In Germany, according to the Polytech-
nic Review, sawdust is employed in the pro-
duction of sundry articles both useful and
ornamental. A plastic mass is prepared,
composed two-thirds of hard-wood sawdust
and one-third glue, resin, or other binding
material. This is compressed in brass moulds,
and the moisture driven out by heat. The
articles made are bass-reliefs, piano-keys,
door-knobs, brush handles and backs, etc.

The excessive " militancy " of the people
of Montenegro is well illustrated by their
estimate of the comparative values of male
and female infants. If a man has a daughter
born to him, he regards the event almost as
a misfortune — at least as a sore disappoint-
ment ; he goes and sits on his threshold
with downcast eyes, as though begging par-
don of his neighbors and friends ! But if
several daughters are born in unbroken suc-
cession, the mother must call in seven priests,
who bless oil and sprinkle it about the house,
remove the old threshold and put in a new
one, thus purifying the house which was be-
witched on the wedding-day. On the other
hand, if a boy is born, the entire household
is almost crazy with joy ; a feast is spread,
and friends and acquaintances come throng-
ing in to offer their congratulations and to
express the wish — so characteristic of the
national spirit — that the new-born babe may
never die abed !

Workmen employed innail-manufactories
are liable to contract a grave lung-disease
known as " nailers' consumption," caused by
the deposit of iron particles in the cells of the
lungs. The best preventive of nailers' con-
sumption is no doubt the use of a respirator,
such as that contrived by Prof. Tyndall for
the use of firemen. The respirator would ex-
clude from the respiratory organs the mi-
nutest particles of solid matter; it is far more
effectual than any of the other devices which
have been proposed, such as moist sponges
or false mustaches.

The exorbitant price demanded by the
patentees of the Bell telephone for their in-
struments causes no little discontent in
England, where that form of the telephone
has the field to itself, so far as the law is
concerned. It does seem rather extortion-
ate to levy from twenty-five to thirty-five
pounds sterling on the purchase of an in-
strument that could be sold with a profit for
half as many shillings. The result is, that
the patent is boldly infringed : the separate
parts of the telephone are for sale every-
where at a low price, and so people are en-
abled to make telephones for themselves.
It is not probable that the decrees of courts
which seek to uphold so odious a monopoly
can be enforced.

William Laidlaw rativeof Congo, now
a freedman living in the island of Dominica,
was born with six fingers on each hand. He
is the father of four children, two boys and
two girls, each born with six fingers on the
hands, one of the girls having also six toes
on each foot. One of the sons is the father
of two boys who have six fingers on each
hand ; and the five children of the other
son were born with the same peculiarity.
This family well illustrates the wonderful
persistence of sedigitism.

IN D E X

PA«E

Age of Gymnastics 129

Alaska, Agricultural and Mineral Resources of 766

Allbutt, T. C, Brain-Forcing 217

Allen, G., Origin of Fruits 597

American Influence on Civilization 495

Amphlett, J., Genealogy 583

Ant, The Agricultural 123

Anthropology, Progress of 668

Ants, how they distinguish each other 638

Appleton, George S. 497

Ararat, Mount, Ascent of , 381

Archaeological Researches in the Great American Bottom 506

Archaeology, North American. , 510

Armadillos, Gigantic Extinct. (Illustrated.) 139

Artificial Precious Stones 539

Associations, The Scientific 745

Astronomical History of Worlds „ 571

Aurora Borealis. , 508

Bain, A., Education as a Science 302, 660

Bald Mountain 635

Barnett, S., Metric Reform 82

Bathing as a Cause of Ear-Disease. 634

Baumhauer, E. H. von, The Teredo and its Depredations 400, 545

Beard, G. M., The Scientific Study of Human Testimony 53, 173, 328

Bird-eating Trout , 124

Birds' Eggs and Birds' Nests , 124

Black, J. R., Night Air in Cities. 105

Books noticed :

" Treatise on Chemistry " (Roscoe and Schorlemmer) 112

" Diseases of the Eye " (Carter). . . . 113

" History of England in the Eighteenth Century " (Lecky) 113

" Natural Law " (Simcox) 114

" Dictionary of Music and Musicians " (Grove) 114

" Proteus, or Unity in Nature " (Radcliff) 114

" Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution " (Beecher) 115

" Vital Magnetism " (Parson) 115

" Myths and Marvels of Astronomy " (Proctor) 116

" Creed of Christendom " (Greg) 116

" Aneroid Barometer " 116

vol. xm. — 49

77o INDEX.

Books noticed : PA<5E

Princeton Review 117

" Creed and Deed " (Adler) 117

" Determination of Minerals " (Frazer) 117

" Mound-making Ants " (McCook) 117

" Mechanics of Ventilation " (Rafter) 118

" Engineering Construction " (Shields) 118

" Foundations " (Gaudard) 118

" Star-gazing " (Lockyer) 244

" Spectrum Analysis " (Lockyer) 244

" Epoch of the Mammoth " (Southall) 245

" Essays, Chemical and Geological " (Hunt) 247

" Pottery " (Nichols) 248

" Primitive Property " (Laveleye) 249

" Syllabus of Lectures on Anatomy " (Stowell) 249

" Synoptical Flora of North America " (Gray) 371

American Journal of Mathematics 372, < 52

" Tropical Nature and other Essays " (Wallace) 373

" The Sugar-Beet in North Carolina " (Le Doux) 375

" Doctrine of a Future Life " (Alger) 375

" Insanity in Ancient and Modern Life " (Tuke) 376

" Boy Engineers " (Lukin) 376

" Intercultural Tillage " (Sturtevant) 376

Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 376

" Chemical Experimentation " (Sadtler) 376

" At the Court of King Edwin " (Leighton) 376

" Adamites and Preadamites " (Winchell) 498

" Principles of Teaching " (Johonnot) 501

" Psycho-Physiological Sciences " 502

" Flowers and Ferns of the United States " (Meehan) 502

" Experimental Science Series " (Mayer) 503

" Matter and Motion " (Maxwell) 503

" Comparative Psychology " (Bascom) ■ 504

" Wisconsin Geological Survey " (Chamberlin) 504

" State Regulation of Vice" (Powell) 504

" Mineralogy " (Collins) 504

" Wheeler's Surveys" 504

" Sanitary Science " (Richardson) ■ 505

" Cerebral Hyperemia (Hammond) • 505

" Agriculture " (Tanner) 505

" Music and Musicians " (Grove) ■ 505

" Lessons in Cookery " 625

" Annual Record of Science and Industry " (Baird) 628

" Ethics of Positivism " (Barzellotti) 629

" Elements of Dynamic " (Clifford) 630

" Physical Technics " (Frick) 63°

" Current Discussions." II 631

" Ferns of Kentucky " (Williamson) 631

" Survey of the Territories " 631

" Manual of the Apiary " (Cook) ■ 631

" Vertebrates of the Northern States " (Jordan) 631

" Twenty-five-Cent Dinners " (Corson) ■ 632

INDEX.

771

Books noticed : page

" Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences " 632

" History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine (Thurston) 749

Journal of Physiology 751

" Democracy in Europe " (May) 753

" Report on Forestry " (Hough) , 755

" New Oyclopaadia of Chemistry " 755

" Physics of the Infectious Diseases " (Logan) 756

" On the Nature of Things " (MacVickar) 756

" Art Hand-Books " (Carter) 756

" Principles of Light and Color " (Babbitt) 756

" Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States " (Meehan) 757

" Kensington Science-Lectures " 757

" Care of our Eyes " (Angell) 757

" Short Studies of Great Lawyers " (Brown) 757

" The Dance of Death " (Herman) 757

Botanical Science, Development of 119

Brain, Study of the 237

Brain-forcing 217

Brick Walls, Discoloration of 379

Brownell, T. F., Curious Systems of Notation 420

Cactus as a Lava-Breaker 511

Calculating-Machine, A New 761

Cardiff Giant and other Frauds 197

Carpet-Beetle 634

Catholicism and Eternal Punishment 368

Ceremonial Government, Evolution of , 25, 146, 292

Chahoon, G., Water-Supply of Rivers 288

Character, Influence of Chemical Research on 764

Chinese Loess 242

Civilization and Science 257, 385, 529

Clarke, F. W., Scientific Courses of Study 187

Classics, The, in Germany 623

Clearing Land with Dynamite 120

College of the City of New York , 106

Color-Blindness 120

Composite Portraits. (Illustrated.) 460

Conscience in Evolution 513

Consciousness under Chloroform 694

Contagious Diseases, Prevention of 381

Cooke, J. P., Jr., The Radiometer and its Lessons 1

Cookery and Education 620, 748

Copying by Photography 251

Copyright, International 618

Creosote as a Timber-Preserver 382

Curious Systems of Notation 420

Davis, W. M., Formation of Nebulaa , 339

Davis, William Monroe 625

Death of a Generation 122

Development of Botanical Science 119

772 INDEX.

PAGE

Devil, The, and the Oaks 507

Discoloration of Brick Walls , , 379

Discolored Sea-Water 253

Disinfection of Streets and Sewers 250

Distribution of Prairie and Forest 122

Dread and Dislike of Science 410

Drowning, Pain in 93

Du Bois-Reymond, Civilization and Science 257, 385, 529

Du Bois-Reymond, Sketch of. (Portrait.) 360

Dynamite, clearing Land with 120

Earthquake in North Carolina 635

Efccles, R. G., Radical Fallacy of Materialism 354

Eclipse, Solar, of 1878 633

Edison, T. A., Sketch of. (Portrait.) 487

Education as a Science 302, 660

Education, Liberty of Science and 107

Electricity in Thunder-Storms 689

Electric Light ....,-. 380, 634

Embryo Life, Studies of 382

English Schools, Science in 558

Eternal Punishment, Catholicism and 368

Evolution of Ceremonial Government 25, 146, 292

Evolution, The Place of Conscience in 513

Evolution Theory, is it atheistic ? 760

Eyes of Deep-Sea Animals 382

Facts about the Rain-Tree. 119

Finite and Infinite 73

Fish-Worm, A Big 508

Fodder-Plant, A Drought-Proof. 763

Fog-Signals. (Illustrated.) 275

Fog-Signals, Recent Experiments on 380

Foote, Elisha, Electricity in Thunder-Storms , 689

" Forest-Beds " of Ohio, Age of 507

Forests, Atlantic and Pacific, Differences between 762

Fossil Mammal from the Jurassic of the Rocky Mountains 377

Fowle, T. W., Conscience in Evolution 513

Fruits, Origin of 597

Fuel, Domestic, Grass and Straw as 761

Galton, F., Composite Portraits 460

Galvanic Cell, A New Form of. 765

Gases, Liquefaction of the. (Illustrated.) 78

Gates, N. J., The Relation of the Finite to the Infinite 73

Genealogy 583

Geological History of New York Island and Harbor. (Illustrated.) 641

Geological Question, An Interesting 765

Gigantic Extinct Armadillos. (Illustrated.) 139

Glass, A New Method of annealing 764

INDEX. 773

PAGE

Grape-Culture 254

Grinnell, G. B., Sketch of Prof. Marsh 612

Grote, A. R., Man and his Structural Affinities 429

Growth of Photography 119

Growth of the Steam-Engine 64

Gymnastics, The Age of 129

Hallucinations of the Senses 698

Hanging, The Question of Pain in 349

Harpy Eagle '. 250

Hartt, 0. F., Sketch of. (Portrait.) 231

Hasheesh 482

Health-Lift, Disadvantages of the 254

Henry, Joseph : 365

How New York got a College 106

How Sound and Words are produced. (Illustrated.) 43

Huxley's Address at the Harvey Tricentenary 396

Huxley, Progress of Anthropology 668

Illustrations of the Logic of Science 203, 470

Infant's, An, Progress in Language 587

Journalism, Progress of 241

Lake-Dwellers, how they lived 639

Land, clearing of, with Dynamite 120

Land-Slides, Remarkable 121

Language, An Infant's Progress in 587

Le Conte, J., Science and Mental Improvement 96

Lewes, G. H., The Dread and Dislike of Science 410

Liberty of Science and Education.. . 107

Life, Monera and the Problem of 455

Lightning-Rods 509

Liquefaction of the Gases. (Illustrated.) 78

Lockyer, J. N., Water-Waves and Sound-Waves 166

Locomotive-Whistles 126

Logic of Probabilities 236

Logio of Science 203, 470

Magnets, Floating, An Experiment with 380

Man and his Structural Affinities. (Illustrated.) \ 429

Mars, its Inner Moon 383

Marsh, O. C, Sketch of. (Portrait.) 612

Materialism, The Radical Fallacy of 354

Maudsley, Dr., Hallucinations of the Senses 698

Medico-Psychological Rubbish 507

Meteorological Notes 125, 636

Metric Reform 82

Monera and the Problem of Life 455, 563, 677

Monkeys, their Dislike for Snakes 379

Montgomery, E., Monera and the Problem of Life 455, 563, 677

774 INDEX.

PAGE

Moquis, their Sun-Worship ,,.,,......, ■ . 378

Morse, E. S., Sketch of. (Portrait.) 102

Motion, Voluntary 444

Mountains, how made 762

Miiller, Max, on the " Origin of Reason" ... Ill

Muslin Glass .., 251

Natural History, New Fact in 510

Nebula?, The Formation of ...... . 339

Nebulae, Variability of 251

Newberry, J. S., Geological History of New York Island and Harbor. . . . 641

New York, how it got a College. 106

Night- Air in Cities , 105

Nitrification 638

Notation, Curious System of *■ ■ 420

Notes 127, 255, 383, 511, 640, 767

Organ-Piano 378

Origin of Fruits 597

Origin of Reason HI

Oswald, F. L., The Age of Gymnastics 129

Oustalet, E., Pygmy Monkey 184

Pain in Drowning , . 93

Pain in Hanging 349

Peirce, C. S., Logic of Science , • • • 203, 470

Pennsylvania Oil-Regions 252

Personal Reminiscences of some Deceased Savants. 20

Photographic Process, A New. (Illustrated.) 441

Photography, copying Designs by 251

Photography, Growth of 119

Plant and Animal Life, Analogies of. 508

Poisons of the Intelligence 482

Pollock, F., An Infant's Progress in Language 587

Prairie and Forest, Distribution of. . , 122

Probabilities, Logic of 23<i

Protoplasm, The Study of • 746

Pygmy Monkey. (Illustrated.) 184

Radiometer, The, and its Lessons 1

" Rain-Tree," Facts about the ■ • n9

Reason, Origin of ■ HI

Relation of the Finite to the Infinite 73

Religion and Science at Vanderbilt University 492

Reminiscences, Personal, of some Deceased Savants 20

Research, Systematic Promotion of "58

Richet, C, Hasheesh • 483

Russia in Europe "35

Ryder, J. A., Gigantic Extinct Armadillos 139

Salt Lake 253

INDEX. 775

PAGE

Sap, New Theory of the Flow of. 767

Science and Education, Liberty of. 107

Science and Mental Improvement 96

Science in the English Schools 558

Science in Eelation to Teaching 631

Science, the Dread and Dislike of 410

Scientific Courses of Study 187

Scientific Study of Human Testimony 53, 173, 328

Sea-side Studies. (Illustrated.) 312

Sedgwick on " Vestiges of Creation " 242

Senses, Hallucinations of the 698

Septic Organism, A New 511

Setting Tires with Hot Water 122

Sewer-Building 121

Shaw, G. M., Sound and Words 43

Silk-School Farm 759

Snake- Affection 126

Sound and Words. (Illustrated.) 43

Sound, Magnifying 367

Sparrow, The English 637

Spider, A Magnetized 126

Spence, P., Voluntary Motion 444

Spencer, H., Ceremonial Government 25, 146, 292

Spencer, H., Consciousness under Chloroform 694

Steam-Engine, Growth of the 64

Sterne, Cams, Artificial Precious Stones 539

Stockwell, G. A., The Cardiff Giant and other Frauds 197

Streets and Sewers, Disinfection of. 250

Studies of Embryo Life 382

Study of the Brain 237

Subterranean Water-Courses 124

Sun-Worship among the Moquis 378

Teleological Ideas, how acquired 760

Tenney, S., Sea-side Studies 312

Teredo, The, and its Depredations. (Illustrated.) 400, 545

Testimony, Scientific Study of 53, 173, 328

Thurston, P. H., The Growth of the Steam-Engine 64

Timber preserved by Creosote , • 382

Timber, Rapid Decay of. • - • 639

Tires, setting, with Hot Water 122

Tissandier, G., Liquefaction of the Gases 78

Tracy, R. S., Pain in Drowning 93

Tracy, R. S., Pain in Hanging 349

Tracy, R. S., Yellow Fever 714

Trout, Bird-eating 124

Tyndall, J., Recent Experiments on Fog-Signals 275

Variability of the Nebulae 251

Vaughan, D., Astronomical History of Worlds 571

Vestiges of Creation, Sedgwick on 242

776 INDEX.

PAGE

Vesuvius, Threatened Outbreak of 378

Vision, Peculiarities of 510

Vogt, Carl, Personal Reminiscences of some Deceased Savants 20

Voluntary Motion 444

Water-Courses, Subterranean 124

Water for Domestic Uses 759

Water-Supply of Rivers 288

Water- Waves and Sound-Waves. (Illustrated.) 166

West, Charles, Logic of Probabilities 236

•

Yellow Fever 714

Yellow Fever, and what to do about it 747

Yellow Fever, Artificial Cold in the Treatment of 763

END OP VOL. XIII.

MBL/WHOI LIBRARY

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